It lumbered closer, and its mouth fell open, revealing a set of short, triangular teeth. Streaks of rust smeared the cavern of its mouth and dribbled down over its chest. Gobbets of flesh were wedged between its teeth. It had eaten recently. A dark wet patch on the ground a few feet away told her that if she didn’t pass whatever test was coming, she’d be dessert.
The gargoyle snuffled over her body, its eyes gleaming red in the torchlight. Its breath was hot and smelled of rotten meat. The beast shifted its attention to Scooter. It started grunting in excitement, or maybe anger. She shifted her burden away, putting as much of herself as possible between the rock beast and Scooter. Its grunting grew high-pitched, and it raked a claw at her. Fast. The damned thing sure didn’t move like a statue. Max twisted aside before it could make contact.
It made a harsh barking sound and lunged. She leaped back, the angel feather embedded in her hand making her glide lightly up into the air. She landed on the top of the iron fence, balancing precariously. The gargoyle slammed against the fence, clutching the metal and shaking it fiercely. Max tilted sideways and leaped. She soared over a building and tangled in a net. She clutched it, hanging by one hand, the other grappling Scooter, who had begun to slip from her shoulder.
Both gargoyles began to bay with deep, bellowing noises that sounded like foghorns. Who were they summoning? She wasn’t going to wait around to find out.
Below her, the top of the building was flat, with a variety of pots and benches arranged in a pretty garden setting. She let go of the net and landed in the middle of a raised bed of fragrant greenery. Instantly, she ran to the edge of the roof and peered over. Below, the street was teeming with people drawn to the noise. She pulled back out of sight. Across the way was a taller building anchored on four corners with needle-sharp minarets. In the middle was a glass dome. Between the towers ran a small stone ledge.
Without pausing to think about the stupidity of her plan, Max made a running jump and flung herself across the gap between the buildings. She crashed into one of the minarets and clung to it as she found footing on the narrow ledge. Scooter made a sighing sound and tried to push himself away from her.
“Hold still,” she hissed, then eased around the spire to the ledge on the other side. She trotted down to the next tower and jumped to the street below. She crossed to the other side and ducked into a recessed doorway before setting Scooter on his feet. He swayed, and she steadied him. The hood fell from his face. He looked bad. His scales had grayed, losing their luster.
Max brushed a lock of lank hair from his face, more worried than she cared to admit. When it came down to it, Scooter had treated her fairly, and that was saying a lot, given how desperate he was. She respected him. “What happened to you back there?”
He rubbed his chest. As he did, the robe fell open, and Max saw that the bruise had returned full force, staining a spot the size of a watermelon.
“They went after your heart again, didn’t they?” she asked, her teeth grinding together with fury and disgust.
He nodded. “So it seems.”
“All right. We have a shitty hand. So let’s play it carefully. First things first: where can we go? If I can put you someplace safe, I can go hunt for your heart. They can’t bleed it if they don’t have it. It might buy enough time for me to find your horn and silk.”
He put out his hand, fumbling for hers holding the sword. “You should know—if you go into the abyss, they can only follow you if you take one of the established roads. Very few can travel through the abyss without a road the way we can, and it’s impossible to track anyone across it. Remember that if you have to run.”
“Is there some reason I need to know that now, Scooter?” she asked, her voice sharpening dangerously.
“There is little hope now for me.”
“Fuck that. You’re alive, and that’s all the hope we need. Plus, I’m pretty good at this sort of business. So shut up and tell me where to go before our new gargoyle friends find us.” The baying had grown closer, though it didn’t sound like the beasts had found their trail yet.
Obediently, Scooter closed his eyes and tilted his head as if listening closely to a sound Max couldn’t hear. He turned, searching. At last, he pointed. “There.”
“Got any idea how far?”
“Not close.”
“Then we should get moving.”
She was about to step out when the flapping of wings made her duck back into the doorway. She glanced up. Mother of fuck. Approaching was a giant gondola, the passenger basket the size of a Greyhound bus. It was buoyed by a gold hard-sided balloon three times as big and pointed on both ends. All around it buzzed a horde of rainbow fireflies. The bottom was shallow, with swans rising on either end, their wings upswept and curving back along the sides of the carrier. Long streamers attached to the underside of the ship gave the impression of a long, feathery tail.
A merry spangle of music poured out, a combination of drums, flutes, and guitars. It in no way overwhelmed the loud laughter and voices of the passengers, most of whom were hanging over the edge and watching the street below. They were dressed elaborately in fine clothing and even armor. A few weren’t dressed at all.
Surrounding them was a phalanx of flying creatures and smaller vessels, all joining in the rush to find out who had set off the alarms. They weren’t the only ones. Suddenly, the streets were packed. It was like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There was little room to pass in the tide of oncoming people, and more were flooding in behind.
“Don’t they have something better to do?” Max muttered. “Come on. Hold tight. I want my hands free.”
She made sure that Scooter’s hood covered his face before pulling his taloned hand through the crook of her arm. They eased out into the crowd, staying close to the wall. Max reined in hard on her Prime, trying not to call attention to herself. It was hard. She wanted to clear some walking space with the swords, but she kept them pointed downward and used her shoulder to wedge through the press of bodies.
At the corner, she turned, pulling Scooter with her. She pushed down another three blocks and then crossed, sifting through the wash of bodies, shielding Scooter, who was clutching her like a lifeline. On the other side, they ducked under a broad portico running around a squat building. It was held up by fat pillars carved in the shapes of rotund men and women, all displaying something malicious in their expressions.
Max stopped to look up. Far too many vehicles floated overhead. She had wanted to get back to the roofs so it would be easier to cover their trail, but it would make them too easy to spot from above. Suddenly, the baying of the gargoyles quickened and rose higher. They had found her trail. She had no choice now.
She pulled Scooter around the building, staying beneath the overhang. On the other side, she crossed into a narrow alleyway and found a stairway leading up. At the top was a plain door painted a dirty tan. There was no handle on the outside.
Without hesitation, she tossed Scooter over her shoulder and leaped up onto the roof. The building was topped by a series of dull metal juts surrounding a small garden. Max sprawled into a bed of prickly vines. She stood and set Scooter on his feet. “Are you OK?”
He coughed, holding a hand to his side, deeply grooved lines bracketing his mouth. “I may have broken something.”
She dragged her fingers through her hair. “Dammit.” He couldn’t afford injuries. He was teetering on the edge, and she didn’t need to push him off the cliff. “How bad?”
His lips curved without much humor. “Bad enough. You may be free to go back to Horngate soon.”
She scowled. “I’ll go when I’m good and ready. Now, sit for a minute. I’m going to scout.” She eased him down onto a wood bench and went to look out over the Torchmarch. The thicket of ropes and bridges was thicker there. They’d be handy, but she couldn’t risk dropping Scooter. Which left the ground and the rooftops.
The streets were still packed, and the sky was still crowded, though no one seemed to have noticed them yet. Maybe she could outrun the mob while they were distracted by the baying gargoyles.
She circled the garden. There were a couple of good buildings that offered a flat landing. She returned to Scooter. “Can you handle the rooftop route? I’ll have to sling you over my shoulder again. If you can stand it, we can get a lot further faster.”
He shook his head reluctantly. His breathing was short and shallow. “It’s probably best if we stay on the ground.”
Max touched his cheek. He skin was clammy, and he was starting to shake. “How can I help you?”
“Besides finding what they stole from me? Water would help. Food. A place that’s warm. Sleep.” His breathing sounded wet and thick.
“They have hotels with room service in the Torchmarch?”
“Nowhere that’s safe for us.”
“Yeah, well, I’d risk a lot for an IHOP or a Denny’s right about now,” Max said.
He chuckled. “Chadaré has a wealth of good food, but I admit I wouldn’t turn down a bucket of fried chicken.”
“A deep-fried man? I wouldn’t have guessed that. I’d have thought you’d be more into the kind of thing they serve at the Four Seasons.”
“I wouldn’t turn that down, either.”
“You and me both, Scooter,” Max said as she swung him up into her arms to carry him down the stairs. “You and me both.”
“Why do you call me Scooter?” he asked, looking blindly up at her.
“It’s a nickname. In place of the fact that you never told me your real name.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means . . . You probably don’t want to know.”
“It’s an insult, then,” Scooter guessed.
She grinned. “Maybe a little.”
“Only a little? You tend to be very focused in your anger, and you don’t like me.”
“I don’t know. You’ve been growing on me.”
“Like a bad rash.”
She eased down the stairs, swiveling her head to watch for attackers. “Now, Scooter, that sounds like something I would say.”
“That doesn’t make it any less true.”
“You were the one bashing me against cliffs in order to get me to find the door into the abyss.”
“That’s also true.”
She stepped off the last stair and set him back on his feet. “Do you have a point?”
“I know that you serve me here in Chadaré because of our bargain.”
Max turned to look at him. “I am helping you because I
want
to.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t want to come here.”
“True. But now that I have some idea of what’s going on, there’s no way in hell that I’m walking away. I’m not letting these assholes butcher you.”
“Too late, I’m afraid. They hacked away the best parts of me long ago.” He pulled up his hood and took a firm hold on her arm as she started to ease back onto the street.
“Not the best parts, and you’re going to get them back.”
“I have better parts? Do tell.”
“Are you fishing for compliments?”
“Just curious about which you think are better.”
“Must be your sparkling personality and the scales—I really go for scales on a man.”
“Do tell,” he said with a faint smile.
“On the other hand, I could be wrong. It’s not like I’ve seen your horn, your heart, or your silk.”
“That’s not entirely accurate,” he said. “Look up there.” He waved upward at the tangled tapestry spreading across the Torchmarch.
“You made those?” Max asked incredulously.
“Not all. Not even most. It has, after all, been thousands of years since I held power in Chadaré. The city has grown a great deal since then.”
“And they lasted all this time? Impressive.”
Max
was
impressed. Awed, even. She’d known Scooter was powerful, but somehow knowing that he’d created so much of the web above the Torchmarch and that it had lasted so very long made what he was more tangible than anything else she’d seen him do. It was like seeing the ruins of the Parthenon or the Aztec pyramids.
“My silk is—”
He broke off, and Max could almost feel his agony over what he’d lost. She knew that pain. There was no relief. It hurt in a place that tainted everything. It was betrayal and bitterness and never being able to catch your breath. It was always as if there were a hand around your throat and a knife forever twisting in your gut.
“I’ll make you whole again,” she said softly, and despite the noise of the people around them, she knew he heard her. “I’ll make you whole or die trying. I promise.”
With her promise, a wash of magic poured out over her, running away on a rippling red tide. Suddenly, they became the center of attention as the surrounding crowd turned to look at them.
“We should hurry,” Max said, and shouldered her way through the thicket of bodies.
“You promised,” Scooter said, and he sounded shocked. “Why would you do that?”
“Some say I’m stupid. That’s probably it.” She knocked an outstretched arm aside and swept the legs from beneath a thin creature covered in bark. Its rootlike feet clung to the ground, and it swayed all the way to the side as Max shoved it over like a weak grass stem. Instantly, it bounced erect with a greedy smile. It reached for her with a mass of branchlike arms. With hardly a pause, she swiped the sword through the reaching limbs, and they sheared away, green ichor spraying from the stubbed ends.
She ducked away from the burning blood, yanking Scooter into a jog. The wounded plant creature screamed like metal tearing apart. The gargoyles would come running to find out what was up. There was no time for hanging out. Max reached down and slung Scooter over her shoulder. He gave a thin moan of pain and then fell silent, his body clenched and trembling.
Max broke into a flat-out run. She leaped over the crowds, up onto roofs, and back to the street. She held Scooter as tightly as she could, trying to absorb some of the shock of her escape.
In minutes, she’d put a couple of miles between them and the scene of her fight, but she didn’t slow. She wanted a much larger margin of safety.
At last, she passed through a little plaza. There were few people here. She slowed and set Scooter on his feet. He straightened slowly, as if he’d aged two hundred years. There was no time to let him recover.