The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,74

of the streetcar station. Once he reached the screaming party, he stepped up to the side of the bridge and threw the coil out as far as he could.

He hit his mark and the crowd gave nervous cheers. Down in the water, gripped to the side of a swaying telegraph pole, was a grim-faced Kobold with determined eyes. One of his rat-like arms was wrapped around the post while the other clutched a screaming child from some other family, a furry little thing with hooked claws and pointed teeth.

The Kobold let go of the telegraph pole to reach for the line. As his hand splashed desperately over the rope, the current sucked him underwater, along with the child.

“PULL!” screamed the Ogre through dripping whiskers, and the surrounding men and women broke from their cheering to take up the rope as he fed it through his fists.

The trailing rope slid beneath the surface at a terrifying speed. The Ogre pulled the cable back to the screaming crowd in desperate heaves, and every hand pulled the line past them as soon as they received it. By the time the rope reached the back of the group, it was stained pink from hurried, bleeding hands.

The haggard fist of the Kobold broke the surface just as he was about to pass beneath the bridge. The crowd pulled him up with so much vigor that he rose as fast as the water had been carrying him. Somehow, he still had the child in his arms. The toddler’s screaming had been replaced by the painful expulsion of filthy water from its lungs. As the Kobold’s feet cleared the water, the telegraph pole he’d been clinging to came loose and passed beneath him, spinning like a wayward ceiling fan.

Both recovered figures were hoisted up on to the rare piece of dry land and came coughing and crying into the proud arms of their rescuers. I didn’t wait around for the celebration. There were plenty more people who needed help; I just had no idea how to bring it.

On the far bank of the growing river, a group of connected tents came loose from their pegs and floated out into the flood. Each new home had been built upon the flimsy walls of the one beside it till every street in the slums was one long, connected corridor. This avenue was stretched out and spiraling in on itself. Hidden among the tangled ropes and cracking posts were concealed bodies trying to make their way through the sinking neighborhood before the rip sucked it underwater.

I landed on the other side of the bridge, boots sinking inches into the mud, and saw someone in uniform following me.

It was the police. Great. Together we could—

Oh shit.

Simms.

The scarf that was usually wrapped around her reptilian mouth was wet and loose about her neck. Her hat had been blown off somewhere behind her, revealing a cracked and reddened scalp that made me forgive the sharper points of her personality.

Simms rushed up to help a young Gnome couple who came stumbling out of the tents.

“How many in there?” she asked them, but they just collapsed in tears. Instead, she turned to me. “You saw more people?”

“Yeah. At least two or three.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

She charged into the broken maze of rope, cloth and cracking wood and I followed fast behind. My second step went straight through the floor and into the slurping throat of the river. My elbows smashed into the log foundations that must have been the last thing holding the whole set of houses to the shore. The water, up to my waist, rushed against my legs and attempted to suck me under but Simms turned back and pulled the scruff of my shirt like an impatient headmistress.

I crawled on to my knees and waited for the words of contempt that didn’t come. Just a –

“You good?”

“Yeah.”

“Step along the logs. They’re the only solid footing left.”

We moved in a line, fingers tentatively touching the falling structures for support. Nervous yelps came from around the next bend, where the horned head of a Satyr bobbed in and out of the water between the debris. He’d been washed underneath the structure and was trapped below the sinking pieces of the slum.

I pulled apart the boards that blocked his way and Simms took out her dagger. She swiftly cut the tangled ropes that were twisted around the old Satyr’s arms and neck. The creature never screamed. His eyes bounced back and forth with