Fuck.
In the split second it takes me to realize I’m screwed, I visualize the future scenarios.
I run. It chases me. Acid splash to the back. Into its mouth.
I stand still. It comes for me anyway. Hooked foot to the side. I block. Tossed to the ground. Broken arm. Into its mouth.
The visions falter, sputtering like a car running out of gas on a highway.
Great. I used up all my Nai Nai juice…
The skreet takes a ground-rumbling step forward. I trace the drawings on my forearm up to my elbow. They were designed to make me tougher than Lei for a short time, but could I stand a chance against this beast?
“What’s happening, Jade?” Ace mumbles in my ear.
I look up at the advancing skreet. My heart is pumping at double speed, heightening my senses. I know it’s a long shot, but I have other traps still lying in wait. I can do this.
I will do this.
“Ace, call the cops and stay away.”
“What? Why!”
“I’m gonna have to fight it.”
thirty-six
Skreetpercussions
“YouWHAT?” Ace screams in my ear, making me cringe.
I duck under the skreet overlord’s swipe, hearing the wind whoosh overhead. I stumble forward just before an acid splash hits the ground where I would’ve been.
Maybe I’ve still got some of Grandma’s Spidey-senses in me.
I focus on aligning my breathing with my movements. Balance returns, and I skirt around the outside of the monster’s leg. I take a powerful stance, channeling my qi down my arm and into the rune drawn on my wrist. When I feel my magic flow to my fingers, I strike the skreet’s second leg joint with a firm, open-handed chop. Pain spikes up my forearm to my elbow, and the overlord barely even flinches.
Rhazan’s words come back to me in a taunting lilt:“You infused your weapon with my magic…without me, you would’ve been hurt.”
Am I still too weak to survive this?
No. There are still other traps I can use. I can do this.
I sidestep the hulking creature’s movement, keeping myself closer to its flank than its face. Hopefully it can’t spit acid out of its ass, too.
I project an astral hand out toward the trailhead map and grab hold of the first weapon. It’s dizzying to be walking in my physical body and moving in my astral body, but just like walking and chewing gum, I figure it out. Left brain moves the body, right brain moves the spirit—or something like that.
Qi races through my astral body into the spring-loaded bola trap, activating it. The fishing wire and weighted bobbers fire out of the Chinese lantern and zip toward the skreet. The wire snags on the creature’s first leg, then, by some miracle, wraps around and hooks the second leg. It wraps twice and then tangles in itself.
The skreet lurches forward and trips, then spreads its second legs out for stability. I want to celebrate, but this isn’t victory, not yet. I dash toward my jacket and scoop it off the ground.
I’m gonna hog-tie this bitch.
I loop the jacket around the back left leg and tighten my grip on the sleeves, thenpull. The leg goes out from under it, and the skreet flops to the side.
But then everything goes to shit.
The wings are flapping, kicking up leaves and dirt that get in my eyes and mouth. The legs are squirming like mad, massive things as thick around as me flailing like deadly weapons.
