Page 32 of Crown of Tides and Fury

It was satisfying—the sound of all those blades being pulled from their sheaths. A mob of my favorite people braced for attack, weapons filling all hands. I put the whistle between my teeth and blew until I was deaf. When the first of them emerged a block away, I spit out the whistle.

With my skean duh in my left hand and my new sword in my right, I started forward, controlling my speed, conserving my energy for the fight…

13

They Like To Chat

In my present state of mind, I didn’t bother sorting through my training. Instead, I turned myself loose and assumed all those lessons were ingrained now. I could sense my friends watching, could almost smell their fear, worried I would fail in my first confrontation.

I wanted to do well, but my fear default had been reprogrammed to revenge.

As the distance evaporated, I crouched low, my gaze fixed on the grotesque mockery of the Egyptian god. I’d heard the beasts described enough times that I was completely prepared—though my sense of seven feet was a bit lacking.

My grip tightened, but I kept my joints loose, my breathing steady. My pounding heart was on its own. Seven feet of hideous musculature towered over me, its claws as long as my forearm, its fangs ready to sink into me.

It laughed, a harsh grating sound that echoed off the warehouses. “More fools,” it said. “Shall I give you a sporting chance? Allow you to run?”

“It’s you who should have run,” I said, and swung my new sword in an arc, to get its attention.”

Calm hate pulsed through my veins, cool and hypnotic. I watched for the beast to shift its weight and telegraph its intentions. With its first thrust, when my body wasn’t where it had expected it to be, its unchecked momentum left it stumbling forward…into my waiting blade.

There was an initial pop, when the tip of my sword broke through its flesh. The slide of my sharp weapon through its body, however, was terribly unsatisfying. But thankfully, when it pulled back, I was gratified to see the surprise on its face.

“Another fool,” I said, and jumped to the side, avoiding its feeble attempt to take me with it. But when the air rent open, I wondered if following it was precisely what I wanted! If that was the realm where all those twins had been taken…if they were waiting for rescue…

My breath whooshed from my lungs, forced out by a rock-hard arm around my middle as Wickham pulled me back.

“Let me go!”

He yanked me harder, forcing out what little breath I had left. “We dinnae ken what’s out there,” he hissed. “Ye could have ended yerself!”

I pushed on his arm until he let me go, then took a deep breath before I faced him. “But the twins! How else will we find them unless we look?”

Wickham’s scowl eased and he blinked. “We’ll ask.” He searched and found Urban. “We need one alive.”

Urban nodded, sheathed his two blades at his belt, and pulled his longsword from his hip. It was more than half as tall as he was and looked like liquid lightning when he swung it in circles, first on one side, then on his other. Like an over-sized Samurai warming up his muscles.

There was no need to find the whistle—half a dozen of Orion’s dogs were closing fast. One noted the size of Urban’s weapon and changed his mind, turned, and ran. Two others stopped to reconsider, then opened a door in the universe and disappeared into it.

Kitch pulled something from his belt and threw it at the fleeing one’s legs. It wrapped around its ankles and brought it down in the middle of a brown-red puddle, probably left by a bloodsucker at some point of the siege on Muirsglen.

Two of the remaining three took on Persi together and fell at the same time. The last monster standing soon lay at Everly’s feet.

Kitch hurried to the creature he’d caught, then watched as Urban moved in and pinned one of its hands to the red, sticky ground, his longsword planted in the center of it. Kitch moved behind it and pressed a silver blade against its throat, and it stilled.

After a quick word with Wickham, Everly moved closer and squatted just beyond their captive’s reach. The hate in its eyes made its thoughts clear—it was weighing its own life against the chance to attack her. The tip of Urban’s boot pressed on the wrist of its pinned hand and twisted. The beast snarled in pain. Apparently, Urban had read the same thing in its eyes, and now that hateful glare was redirected at him.

“Interesting door,” Everly said. “Does it lead straight to hell, or does it just collect garbage?”

It hissed, never taking its eyes off Urban.

She waited patiently while it suffered. The old me might have felt pity, but pity was no longer in my repertoire. Besides, I had to keep an eye out for more monsters. My first kill was like Chinese food—I was already hungry for another.

Persi turned her back to the interrogation and monitored the east, behind us. I watched the buildings and windows on the west. Brian faced north, Alwyn and Flann on the south. For the time being, it seemed we’d lured all the beasts within earshot.

Everly had said they liked to chat, and from what I’d seen, they were far too cocky to sit back in some building and watch us from the windows. If they knew we were there, they’d come out to slaughter us.

“Uh, I don’t think this one can speak,” Everly said. “Maybe it’s merely a beast after all.”

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