The Vorfaluka dives into the shadows beyond the tents and vanishes.
Gone.
The ring closes, but it’s too late.
My roar shakes the sky.
“Youfool!”
Calvin hits me like a drunk freight train—more flail than strike—but his hands burn. Wherever he touches, my skin sizzles. The taint of the Vorfaluka pulses through him like battery acid in a flesh pouch.
He claws at the spear.
I slam my forehead into his nose. Bone crunches. He staggers, snarling, but doesn’t fall.
“I was gonnachangethis town,” he spits, blood and bile dripping from his lips. “Gonna make it clean. Efficient. I saw the plans—the monstershowedme!”
“You’re infected,” I growl, raising the spear.
“No. I’mchosen.”
I drive the butt of the weapon into his gut.
Hard.
He flies backward, skidding through the dirt. The crowd gasps. People scatter even faster, screams mixing with the fading music. The ring of fire collapses into flickers. Chaos reigns.
“Calvin!” Olivia’s voice slices through the madness, shrill with betrayal. “You helped it?”
He’s coughing, laughing, coughing again. “You never understood vision, Olivia. You wanted a dusty library and moldy paper. I wanted—more.”
“You gotmonstrous,” she snaps. “And now it’s in you.”
I step forward.
She grabs my arm. “Don’t kill him.”
I snarl. “He cost us the beast.”
“Iknow—but if we kill him, we’ll never know what it told him. He’s tainted, but he’s still…something.”
I pause. Just long enough.
Calvin scuttles backward on broken limbs and bile-slick hands. Then he’s on his feet, staggering, disappearing into the night like the coward he’s always been.
Gone.
“Shit!” Olivia yells.
Then I drop to one knee.
Pain erupts in my side like molten steel lanced through muscle. I press a hand to my ribs. Blood. Hot, thick, sticky. It oozes between my fingers.
Olivia’s eyes go wide. “Kursk—no no no?—”
“I’ve had worse,” I mutter. “I think.”
Footsteps thunder.
