She squirms visibly. “No.”
“Now who’s unprepared?”
She sighs, exasperated. “There’s a kitchen on the first floor, behind the central stairs. I don’t think the shockwave from myweapon reached it. Maybe it’s reasonably intact and we can find something to eat there. I did fix myself a snack earlier, but you idiots showed up sooner than I expected and I barely got a chance to eat anything.”
“What sort of snack?”
“Sausage and cheese.”
“Mmm.” I tilt my head back, my mouth watering. “Any hot mustard?”
“Are you going to use that grenade or not?”
“Keep your corset on, I was just asking. Oh, that’s right—you don’t wear a corset, do you, sweetheart?”
She flushes pink, and I allow myself a grin before I press the button and toss the pin-bomb onto the table at the side of the room.
“Why did you throw it there?” Devilry hisses.
I shrug. “It’s glowing. Looks like magical crap. Should cause some fireworks.”
Her sigh of exasperation disappears into the sound of the pin-bomb ticking loudly. The monster leaps up and stalks toward the noise, reaching the table just as the grenade explodes.
I expected the table to be scorched and the flash powder inside the pin-bomb to fizz and sparkle and pop, messing with the creature’s senses. But instead, there’s a violent crack, and a sheet of green flame soars up from the table, searing the creature’s snout. Crystals shatter, raining pink and purple shrapnel, and yellow fireworks explode in the air.
“Go, go!” I yell.
Devilry is already moving, leaping down through the rafters. She drops to the floor and sprints for the exit. I’m several steps behind her, but I make up the distance with longer strides.
The monster is screaming, whirling this way and that, its fan organ spasming, its nostrils scorched and smoking. The table has broken in half, and it’s leaking black ichor and rivulets of greenand pink liquid, as if the crystals themselves are bleeding. I don’t know what kind of magic it held, and I’ve got no time to gawk at it.
Devilry and I are pelting down the stairs when we hear the beast’s voices babbling and roaring behind us. It recovered far too quickly and it’s already pursuing us.
“Faster, faster,” I urge Devilry, but then I realize she’s whimpering as she runs, and when she misses a step, she vents a little scream of pain. She’s hurting worse than I realized.
I dash past her, grab her arms, and swing her onto my shoulders in a sideways carry. She fusses, but her protest disappears in the cacophony of the monster’s tormented voices.
The effort of carrying Devilry, on top of my own exhaustion, is almost too much for my body to take. My lungs feel huge and tight, ready to explode out of my chest. My heart is roaring, thundering, and every muscle I possess is bellowing at me to stop, to rest. But I leap down the stairs, fast as I dare, until I come to the broken part of the first-floor steps and the hole beneath. The sentient ooze is gone, thank the gods, but I’ll have to cross a big gap between the last intact step and the only strip of floor that’s clear of rubble.
“I can’t jump with you on my back,” I gasp out, and Devilry swings down from my shoulders instantly. The moments of rest I gave her must have helped, because she manages the awkward leap from the banister to the intact part of the hallway, to the left of the stairs. I follow her, but I’m unsteady, swaying and nearly toppling into the hole.
That moment of hesitation costs me. The beast’s forepaw rakes my right shoulder, and then I feel one of its prehensile tails wrapping around my wrist. I yell, convinced I’m about to be eaten, that my final cry is going to join the terrible voices emanating from its throat.
But Devilry screams at the monster, slashing off the end of the tail with her dagger, and the beast withdraws, bawling in agony.
I race into the kitchen with Devilry, and we slam the door.
“Furniture,” she rasps. “Pile things against the door. Quick.”
Together we drag over a table and chairs, slamming them into place. I wrench a cabinet from the wall and add that, too. The monster throws its weight against the door twice while we’re working, but the wood doesn’t give.
Once we’ve completed our fortifications, we withdraw to the other side of the room, watching the door like a pair of foxes in a trap. Oddly enough, the beast seems to lose interest now that it can’t hear us, see us, or smell our blood. Maybe, despite its ability to hold onto its victims’ voices, it has a short memory.
We listen to the sound of its great feet padding away down the hall.
“It might be back,” Devilry says. “It likes to prowl.”
I nod. “If we hear it again, we’ll stay quiet so we don’t attract its attention.”
