carried over the rain.
“I will always choose her,” he said.
The thing that used to be Koszmar sneered.
“Your brother is dead,” he said.
Lukasz’s face hardened. Leather scraped, and he drew his chipped sword. “Would you like to join him?”
“Charming.” The evil in Koszmar smiled. His teeth were long and pointed looking. “But I already died once, Lukasz. I’m not interested in doing it again.”
Then Koszmar stretched out his arms, palms to the sky. Before any of them could react, his claws twitched into fists.
And they came.
Beyond the golden trees, the edge of the Mountain shifted. The air was filled with a low mewling cry. It was angry, whining. Ren drew the glass sword. Dozens of feathery beasts gathered. Bald heads and hanks of red fur. They lined the Mountain’s edge in every direction. They parted through the trees like a scaly river. They squalled and growled and paced.
Strzygi.
They were hungry.
They were always so hungry.
Lukasz spoke over his shoulder, addressing the queen.
“Where’s your goddamned Dragon?”
“I don’t know,” stammered the queen. Her collected facade had cracked. “I don’t know—”
Koszmar flicked his new fingers a second time. The strzygi lurched. Then, as Ren’s heart slammed into her throat, they clambered, unsteadily, to their feet.
Some were burned beyond recognition, others had whole limbs hacked off. Some had parts of their skulls cleaved away, bits of gray brain and viscous blood spattering their shoulders. Their faces, frozen, still stretched into the tooth-baring, agonized grimaces of death.
With every twitch of Koszmar’s fingers, the strzygi jerked and unbent. Elbows flung out. Heads swiveled and cracked. Jaws dislocated, relocated. Teeth gnashed. Knees jerked in the wrong directions. Spines bent at unnatural angles.
All these strzygi had already been killed once.
One lurched toward Lukasz, and his sword flashed out. The strzygon fell, but Koszmar flicked his wrist, and then the same creature, now lacking a top half, lurched back to its feet. Gray-brown entrails spilled over the glass.
Lukasz swore.
“We don’t have a demon’s chance in a church,” he growled. “Damn. We are gonna die up here after all.”
Both of Koszmar’s new hands danced as he manipulated the strzygi. So what if he was a monster?
“No,” said Ren. “He’s mine.”
She was one, too.
“Ren—” started Lukasz.
She smiled. Licked her lips.
I am human. I am animal. I am monster.
There it was. The rain was pounding, the strzygi were closing in, and fury burned her veins and tore through her blood. Power welled up in her legs, and strength seized in her jaws, and sound rained like music down on her ears. Her blood burned.
She leapt.
The glass gown exploded as she transformed midair. The sword crashed to the ground. Broken glass and Faustian fur cascaded over them. Ren collided with Koszmar, and he buckled. They hit the ground. A bone snapped, and Koszmar howled.
Their eyes met.
Her teeth grazed his shoulder, and she felt fabric tear. Then his clawed hands were around her throat. They thrashed, rolled over. Koszmar was on top of her, pinning her with his knees. He still had one of the old revolvers and struggled to load it while Ren twisted. He gave up, smacked her once with the unloaded gun. Ren hissed as pain splintered through her skull. Her vision blurred, stars dancing. She lunged up, blindly flinging out a paw. Koszmar yelped and she heard the gun skitter across glass. He jerked back, and at the same time, his knee slipped out from under him. Ren saw her chance.
She swiped, claws extended. Koszmar howled.
Five cuts blazed over his face.
He fell into the ground, writhing. Blood poured through his fingers. It was everywhere: spilled over the glass, smearing across his face. He crawled back onto his knees, then to his feet. When he turned back to her, one of his eyes was gone. The other hung from its socket, its animal pupil swiveling, constricting and dilating.
Ren circled, growling.
He hissed. Half his tongue was gone. He was madness. He was terror. He was nightmare. Whatever he was, he was not Koszmar. Not anymore.
Ren fell back, dug her claws into the glass. Then, with a strength she’d never had before, she leapt.
That was when she remembered: Koszmar had two guns.
Koszmar pulled the second revolver from his belt. For a moment, iron glittered. Fire flashed. Thunder cracked and her chest splintered. Ren heard, rather than felt, herself hit the glass. Pain. Unimaginable, blistering pain. People were shouting. And then—
Silence.
55
LUKASZ WAS FROZEN.
Ren didn’t change back. She stayed what she was: a wet, battered lynx. Blood spread under her body and diverged in red rivers along