And Nate hit it from the side with a length of broken plywood.
The board cracked across the side of its head with a splintering crack. Not enough to stop it, but enough to knock it off line. The monster hit the ground beside me instead of on top of me, claws scraping furrows into the stone where my chest had been a second earlier.
"Nate—"
He didn't answer.
He hit it again.
The plywood had come from a collapsed storefront nearby, one end splintered to a jagged edge. Nate swung it two-handed like an axe, panic and desperation giving him strength he probably didn't know he had. The wood slammed into the monster's temple, then across its snout. The creature snarled and reeled backward, shaking its head hard enough to spray spit and dark blood.
For a second, one tiny, stupid second, it looked like Nate might actually drive it off.
Then the monster recovered.
It lunged low and fast.
Nate barely got the board down in time. The creature's jaws snapped shut on the wood with a crack loud enough to turn my stomach. Splinters exploded outward. Nate shouted, jerking backward as the monster wrenched its head violently side to side, nearly dragging him off his feet with the ruined board still in its mouth.
That was when the fog in my head began to thin.
Not all at once.
Just enough.
Enough to see what was happening.
Enough to see that Nate was actually fighting this thing for me. That he was losing. That if I stayed on the ground one second longer, it was going to tear him open the same way—
No.
I rolled hard onto one elbow, forcing air back into my lungs. My vision swam, then steadied enough for me to see the debris scattered across the street.
Broken brick.
Shards of glass.
A bent lantern frame.
And near the gutter, half-hidden under plaster dust…
A piece of metal pipe.
About a foot long.
Jagged on one end where it had broken loose.
I lunged for it.
My fingers closed around cold iron slick with dust and grime. It was heavier than I expected, solid and brutally simple.
When I looked up, Nate had lost the board.
The monster had torn it free and was driving him backward. He stumbled over loose rubble and nearly fell. Its claws raked across his sleeve and left three dark lines in the fabric. He shouted and kicked at its chest, more to keep it away than to do damage.
I got to my feet and ran.
This time there was no scream. No mindless rage.
Only focus sharpened by terror.
The monster had turned side-on to me, body coiled, head low, all its attention on Nate. Its skull dipped and rose as it snapped at him, trying to get a grip.
I could hear Nate's breathing, high, ragged, terrified.
I could hear my own feet pounding.
The distance closed in a blur.
Five steps.
Four.
Three.
The monster started to turn.
Too late.
I drove the pipe upward with both hands, putting everything I had behind it.
The jagged end punched into the soft flesh beneath its jaw.
There was resistance first, hide, muscle, cartilage… and then a horrible yielding give as the metal tore through.
The creature convulsed.
Its eyes flared wide.
I kept pushing.
Warm, stinking blood burst over my hands.
The pipe slid higher through the bottom of its head, grinding against bone, then punching up into whatever passed for its brain. I felt the moment it broke through the top of the skull—a sickening, cracking pop followed by sudden release as the metal burst out through the crown in a spray of black-red blood and gray matter.
The monster jerked once so violently it nearly ripped the pipe from my grip.
Then its body went rigid.
Its jaws snapped empty air inches from Nate's face.
A strangled sound came out of it, wet, bubbling, almost confused.
Then it collapsed.
The full weight of it slammed into the road, dragging me partly down with it. I ripped my hands free and stumbled backward as the creature twitched, claws scraping weakly against stone. Blood pumped once around the pipe lodged through its head, then slowed, then stopped.
It lay still.
Completely still.
For a second neither of us moved.
Then the silence broke all at once.
My breathing came in huge, ragged pulls that tore at my throat. Nate bent over with his hands on his knees, coughing and trying to get air. I stared at the corpse in front of us—the pipe jutting grotesquely from its skull, the pool of dark blood spreading beneath it, and I couldn't quite believe it had stopped moving.
We had killed it.
We had actually killed it.
My legs gave out and I dropped to the ground hard, catching myself on one palm. Everything in me shook now that the adrenaline was burning off. My arms, my chest, my hands. I could feel my heartbeat all the way into my teeth.
Beside me, Nate sank down too, not gracefully, just folding onto the road like his body had finally remembered how tired it was.
For a few seconds all either of us did was breathe.
Then I let out something between a sigh and a laugh.
"We did it," I said.
My voice sounded wrecked.
Nate looked over at me, face pale and streaked with dirt and sweat. For a moment he almost smiled.
I swallowed hard and pushed myself a little more upright. "I won't do any more stupid things."
That got the faintest, exhausted snort out of him.
"We should just get back to the evacuation point," I said.
As soon as I finished speaking, a cold, ugly feeling slid into my gut.
No reason.
No warning.
Just instinct.
The street had gone too quiet.
No wind.
No scrape of shifting rubble.
No distant crack.
Just silence, pressing in from every side.
Then I heard it.
A gasp.
Wet. Sharp. Wrong.
And a choking sound right after it.
I turned so fast pain lanced through my ribs.
At first my mind didn't understand what I was seeing.
Nate was no longer where he had been sitting.
Or rather, he was… but not on the ground anymore.
He was lifted.
Held.
Pinned.
A claw the size of a sword blade jutted out through his chest.
For half a second the image made no sense. It looked unreal, like a nightmare laid over the street. The claw had punched clean through his back and out the front of him in a spray of blood, dark and slick and far too much of it. His body hung there trembling around it, one hand twitching uselessly at the air.
Then I saw what held him.
The three-headed lion-like monster stood behind him.
I don't know when it had arrived. I hadn't heard it. Hadn't felt it. It was simply there now, massive and impossible, towering over the wrecked street like something dragged up from the bottom of every fear I had ever had.
Its body was the size of a carriage, all brutal muscle and scar-crossed hide the color of old smoke and dried blood. Its paws were enormous, each tipped with black claws long enough to pierce straight through a human body as if it were wet cloth. A mane of dark, filthy fur bristled around all three necks, tangled with old blood and scraps of something pale I didn't want to identify.
Three heads.
The middle one held Nate in its claw, golden eyes fixed on me with a terrible, calm intelligence.
The head to the left was broader, its muzzle split by old scars, one ear torn down the middle. Blood dripped slowly from its teeth.
The head to the right was leaner, more angular, with pale, almost colorless eyes that never blinked.
All three of them were looking at me.
Nate choked.
Blood spilled from his mouth in a thick red sheet down his chin and onto the claw pinning him. His eyes were wide, too wide, with pain and shock.
"Nate—"
The word died in my throat.
He tried to breathe.
Failed.
Tried again.
His lips moved once before any sound came out. Then, with blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth, he dragged in a wet, broken breath and forced out two words.
"Mark…" He coughed, body jerking around the claw in his chest. More blood spilled down his shirt. "Run."