we make it to the guard post?” she asked, her attention shifting to him. Killian leaned against the wall, a streak of blood smeared across one cheek. The right shoulder of his coat was torn open, revealing ragged flesh, and his arm hung uselessly as droplets of blood rained onto the cobbles.
The decision was stolen from them as the deimos exploded out the front door of the house, the tablecloth wound around one wing. Its eyes fixed on them, and then it shrieked and broke into a gallop.
“Run!”
Lydia dashed after him, barely feeling the stones beneath her battered feet.
Ahead, the wall and the gates came into view, but her heart sank at the sight of the portcullis barring the opening.
The guards stood frozen, gaping at the monster careening toward them. They were safe, locked between bars of heavy steel and thick blocks of stone, showing no intention of allowing her and Killian in.
Lydia slammed against the metal bars. “Help us,” she pleaded. “Open the gate. Let us in.” The words came out in a garbled mix of languages. “Please!” She reached through a gap toward one of the old men, but he shrank away.
“Sorry, miss,” he said. “We’ve got our orders.”
“The Seventh take you!” Killian snarled, slamming the hilt of his sword against the bars, the motion splattering droplets of blood across the ground.
Scrape.
Lydia shrank into the corner of the gateway. The deimos stood a few dozen paces away from them, teeth bared.
Scrape. Its hoof pawed across the cobbles.
A hand closed around her forearm, drawing her up. “I’ll distract it,” Killian said. “You’ll run.”
Her legs felt too stiff to move, knees locked into place. “Where? Who will let me in?”
“On my mark, you’ll go left,” he said. “Keep to the shadows of the wall so the others don’t see you, then take your first right. Third house down with the blue door. They’ll let you in. Not everyone in this blasted city is a coward.”
His voice was as steady as though he were giving her directions to a party. “What about you?” she asked.
He smiled and pulled a knife out of his sleeve. “Run.”
In the second it took her to react, the blade flashed through the air, embedding itself in the deimos’s shoulder. She stood frozen, watching as Killian stepped away from the shadow of the wall even as the creature shrieked, jaws clamping down on the knife, jerking it free.
“Run, girl!” Hands shoved at her from between the bars, but Lydia held her ground, watching the young man approach the deimos, sword raised.
She knew how this would end.
Whirling around, she reached through the bars. “Give me a weapon,” she shouted. “Something. Anything.”
The guards stared at her, the flicker of their torches illuminating the fear in their eyes.
Fire.
“Give me your torch!” she screamed.
When one of them finally moved, it seemed at a snail’s pace. The butt end of a torch slipped through the bars, flames flaring bright in the darkness. “The gods be with you, miss,” the guard said, but Lydia only jerked the torch out of his grip and stepped away from the gate.
She walked toward the deimos, waving the torch from side to side. Its attention veered from Killian to her, and it snorted and retreated, wings flapping in an attempt to dislodge the tablecloth.
“Run, you idiot,” Killian snapped, moving to cut her off. She dodged him, driving the creature back as she brandished the torch. It recoiled several paces, then jerked its wings tight and charged.
Every instinct screamed, Run.
Lydia held her ground.
She waited until it was almost upon her, then lunged sideways, shoving the torch into the tangled folds of the tablecloth. For a heartbeat, she thought her plan had failed, but then the liquor-soaked cloth burst into flame.
The deimos shrieked and reared, hooves lashing out at her head, trying to kill her even as it burned.
“Move!” Killian slammed into her, pulling them both into a roll that didn’t stop until they hit the side of a building. Extracting herself from his grip, Lydia watched the deimos run down a side street, wings burning like paper until it collapsed in a shuddering heap.
Except it wasn’t dead. Not yet.
Shaking, Lydia climbed to her feet and retrieved Killian’s sword from where he’d dropped it, the hilt still warm from his grip. Knees bent like springs ready to launch her back, she approached, sourness filling her mouth as she noted the labored rise and fall of its flank. The way its pulse throbbed in its throat. Before she could lose