my waist, found the sheathed silver dagger, and pulled it free. The monstrosity tore my forearm apart and howled in my face, its blast- furnace breath blistering my skin.
Mouthing an ancient word for “oblivion,” I rammed the dagger deep into its charred chest, right where its heart ought to be.
The Wutganger exploded. Its molten-lava blood spurted across the left side of my face, down my shirt and pants.
I fell backward, clutching my eye with my right hand.
One moment the sky was the flat condemning white and the next it was open and vast and black. Lightning flashed and sheets of rain pounded down on me, washing away the hideous blood.
I did it, I thought.
Then I heard the freight-train roar. Oh God. The governing circle had called down a tornado.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Pal barked, tugging at my shirt.
I couldn’t see out of my left eye at all, and there was nothing below my left elbow but a few inches of ragged, bleeding stump around jutting fragments of bone. Shards of broken plate glass gleamed in the wound.
I’m going to bleed to death, I thought numbly.
“You’ve got to move!” Pal bit my side.
I lurched to my feet and staggered away from the corpses of Smoky and the Wutganger. Pal clung to my waist.
The tornado roared behind me, loud as an apocalypse. I turned and saw the huge, ropy black funnel descend on High Street. The cloud-bound top was big as a city block, and seemed to fill the entire sky.
The funnel plowed into the Riffe Tower. The skyscraper’s windows exploded into wet glitter and the pink marble façade blew away like a dusting of talcum power. Steel beams screamed as the tornado twisted them, tearing the huge building up by its roots to get at Smoky’s pups.
I turned and ran from the monster storm, blood and God-knew-what-else running down my face, my arm a torch of pain, my heart straining in my chest.
I kept running after my vision went entirely black, kept running until I hit a curb and went sprawling on the sidewalk. The tornado roared nearby, the ground shaking.
I tried to get up, but I’d lost too much blood. Consciousness failed me, and I knew no more.
chapter four
Palimpsest: The Cavalry
I only just barely managed to avoid being crushed when Jessie tumbled onto the pavement; I cannot tell you how much I loathe and despise being put into small animals. You can’t carry anything of any consequence, and people are always accidentally stepping on you. Bad for your dignity, worse for your bones!
But that’s a tangent. I was scrambling for a hold on her wet shirt as she rolled over onto her back. She made a valiant effort to get up, then collapsed. The Wutganger’s blood had burned away half her face; what remained was white as library paste. I could feel her heart slowing like a watch winding down.
The tornado roared through the intersection where the Wutganger and the slain flameservant lay, then sucked back up into the black sky.
I wondered what kind of dubious magic Cooper had been meddling in to bring on the demon. It couldn’t have just been a garden-variety imp, oh no— it had to be a Wutganger. They are one of the worst kinds of demons, created from a strong, Talented soul that has been tormented so terribly and for so long that it breaks. The sane, rational part of the soul projects all its capacity for evil and destruction into the lesser fragment to keep itself from being entirely destroyed.
Wutgangers are spirits of mindless rage, pain, and hate. Usually they possess the bodies of the living— and clearly this Wutganger had tried that in the garage. But for one to pull itself together out of dead flesh and inanimate objects like that.. . sweet Goddess.
I knew I had to try to get help, so I wiggled into Jessie’s pocket, grabbed the antenna of her cell phone with my teeth, and backed out. Have I mentioned how very, very much I hate small-animal bodies? I was starting to wonder which ancient, vengeful god I’d offended to end up in this
Mouthing an ancient word for “oblivion,” I rammed the dagger deep into its charred chest, right where its heart ought to be.
The Wutganger exploded. Its molten-lava blood spurted across the left side of my face, down my shirt and pants.
I fell backward, clutching my eye with my right hand.
One moment the sky was the flat condemning white and the next it was open and vast and black. Lightning flashed and sheets of rain pounded down on me, washing away the hideous blood.
I did it, I thought.
Then I heard the freight-train roar. Oh God. The governing circle had called down a tornado.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Pal barked, tugging at my shirt.
I couldn’t see out of my left eye at all, and there was nothing below my left elbow but a few inches of ragged, bleeding stump around jutting fragments of bone. Shards of broken plate glass gleamed in the wound.
I’m going to bleed to death, I thought numbly.
“You’ve got to move!” Pal bit my side.
I lurched to my feet and staggered away from the corpses of Smoky and the Wutganger. Pal clung to my waist.
The tornado roared behind me, loud as an apocalypse. I turned and saw the huge, ropy black funnel descend on High Street. The cloud-bound top was big as a city block, and seemed to fill the entire sky.
The funnel plowed into the Riffe Tower. The skyscraper’s windows exploded into wet glitter and the pink marble façade blew away like a dusting of talcum power. Steel beams screamed as the tornado twisted them, tearing the huge building up by its roots to get at Smoky’s pups.
I turned and ran from the monster storm, blood and God-knew-what-else running down my face, my arm a torch of pain, my heart straining in my chest.
I kept running after my vision went entirely black, kept running until I hit a curb and went sprawling on the sidewalk. The tornado roared nearby, the ground shaking.
I tried to get up, but I’d lost too much blood. Consciousness failed me, and I knew no more.
chapter four
Palimpsest: The Cavalry
I only just barely managed to avoid being crushed when Jessie tumbled onto the pavement; I cannot tell you how much I loathe and despise being put into small animals. You can’t carry anything of any consequence, and people are always accidentally stepping on you. Bad for your dignity, worse for your bones!
But that’s a tangent. I was scrambling for a hold on her wet shirt as she rolled over onto her back. She made a valiant effort to get up, then collapsed. The Wutganger’s blood had burned away half her face; what remained was white as library paste. I could feel her heart slowing like a watch winding down.
The tornado roared through the intersection where the Wutganger and the slain flameservant lay, then sucked back up into the black sky.
I wondered what kind of dubious magic Cooper had been meddling in to bring on the demon. It couldn’t have just been a garden-variety imp, oh no— it had to be a Wutganger. They are one of the worst kinds of demons, created from a strong, Talented soul that has been tormented so terribly and for so long that it breaks. The sane, rational part of the soul projects all its capacity for evil and destruction into the lesser fragment to keep itself from being entirely destroyed.
Wutgangers are spirits of mindless rage, pain, and hate. Usually they possess the bodies of the living— and clearly this Wutganger had tried that in the garage. But for one to pull itself together out of dead flesh and inanimate objects like that.. . sweet Goddess.
I knew I had to try to get help, so I wiggled into Jessie’s pocket, grabbed the antenna of her cell phone with my teeth, and backed out. Have I mentioned how very, very much I hate small-animal bodies? I was starting to wonder which ancient, vengeful god I’d offended to end up in this
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