I peer around the curve of the stairs, and there it is. The six-legged crimson beast, the one with the terrible voices.
It’s on the second-floor landing. Waiting for me. Blocking my path.
The monster’s nostrils are scorched black, so I’m guessing its sense of smell is heavily damaged, if not destroyed altogether. But the fan around its neck is raised and vibrating. It can hear my breathing and my footsteps. It knows I’m here.
“Hey ugly,” I tell it. “Come to fetch me for your voice collection?”
The beast’s muzzle separates, three toothy sections widening horrifically until I can see deep into its throat. A violent chill races over my body as I look into that maw, because it’s more than a throat. There’s a vast distance and depth within it, striated by swirls of sickening, gaseous green. This creature’s belly is a gateway to some torturous void.
One of the monster’s tails ends in a bloody stump, thanks to Devilry, but the other is snaking toward me. At the same time, a thick tentacle-tongue shoots out from the beast’s maw, headed straight for my throat.
I hoist the cannon with my right arm, roaring as the wounds in my shoulder tear open. I prop the cannon barrel on my left forearm and wrench the trigger back.
The blast of magic hits the beast directly in the mouth. But it rockets down the monster’s throat, dissipating harmlessly into the creature’s internal void.
“Fuck!” I scream, right before its tongue lashes around my throat. It cinches tight, choking off my breath.
I yank on the trigger again, but nothing happens. Either the cannon is spent, or it’s jammed. I can’t hold the weapon any longer—I have to let it fall.
The tongue flexes so sharply that I’m terrified its next movement will break my neck. The monster’s tail coils aroundmy waist, dragging me toward those razor jaws, which will shred me before I vanish down its gullet.
Years from now, someone else will face this thing, and my voice will emanate from its jaws, saying, “Hey ugly,” and then screaming “Fuck!” It will be the last sound the hapless victim hears beforetheymeet their end, just as I’m going to meet mine.
But as my body is being lifted toward the beast’s jaws, there’s a flash of black and scarlet, a gleam of blades. Devilry has leaped onto the monster’s back, and she has sunk two matching swords deep into its head, right behind its horns.
With a feral cry she presses her thumbs against the hilts of both swords, then lets go of them. Clockwork arms unfold from the crossguards, each bearing a spinning, needle-like spike on the end. There’s a grinding of gears as the swords and needles drill themselves deeper and deeper into the creature’s skull.
“That’s my partner, you vile piece of shit!” Devilry screams, tearing at the monster’s fan with her bare hands. “You will fucking let him go!”
The monster chokes, vomits a few disembodied screams, and relaxes its hold on me. Frantically I shake off the coils of tongue and tail, scrambling backward up the steps as the creature’s body slumps against the stairs. Its tongue flops from its jaws, lying inert.
“What the hell are those swords?” I exclaim.
“Drosselmeyer.” Devilry grabs the hilts and presses her thumbs against the gems on each sword’s pommel. Those gems must be triggers, because at her touch, everything folds back into the weapons’ hilts and crossguards until they look like a normal pair of short swords.
She notices my admiring stare as she shoves the swords back into the sheaths on her back. “No, you can’t have them.”
“Of course not, I wasn’t… oh shit.” I watch Devilry apprehensively as she stalks over the carcass of the beast and marches up the steps toward me. Now that the beast has been conquered, she’s entirely focused on me. And she’s fucking incensed.
“Youidiot,” she says. “Youleftme.”
“I was coming back.” I scoot up a few more steps to put space between us, but my strength is giving out. My skin feels clammy with cold, yet my wounds are burning.
“How do I know you wouldn’t have grabbed some of the loot, used the Doras Àlainn, and abandoned me there?” Devilry asks.
“I knew you’d get free.” I lean against the railing, utterly spent. “I was trying to spare you, to protect you.”
“You were being ridiculous,” she spits. “You’re in far worse shape than I am. We should have done this together.”
“We did,” I point out. “Your timing was perfect.”
“Not because you planned it that way.”
“The best plan is the luck of the gods.” I attempt an ingratiating smile.
“Is that supposed to be a grin?”
“Is it not?”
