For something so huge, it was ungodly fast, maybe because it didn’t bother with little things like hallways. It just tore through the walls, as easily as if they were cardboard, judging by the sounds coming from behind us and the huge cracks running ahead of us. I glanced behind once to see doors flying through a storm of drywall, and then I was yanked through a door and into an office.
And a dead end.
I stared around frantically, but there was nowhere to run or even to hide, not that that was likely to work, anyway. No windows, no closets, not even a bathroom cubicle. Just a fake wood desk, a sickly plant and gray industrial carpet tiles, several of which needed a change.
They’re about to get one, I thought blankly, and then Pritkin grabbed me by the shoulders. “We have to split up!” he yelled over the sound of the building imploding.
“What?”
“I hit it with a spell to blind it. I doubt it took entirely, but its vision should be blurry. If we can get it off our tail, I can lead it away—”
“First of all, no. And second of all, hell no!”
“This isn’t a discussion!”
“The hell it—”
I cut off when he flung something against the floor and then flung us against the wall, his battered shields taking another blow as an explosion blasted a chunk out of the floor. And then we were sliding through the new exit into the office below, which, apparently, took up the entire story. There were no halls here, just a ton of cubicles with plants and family portraits that I really hoped nobody was all that attached to, because a second later, something tore through the ceiling after us.
And suddenly, there was nowhere left to go. The space was huge and the creature was in between us and the stairs. The only other door was impossibly far away, and I doubted we’d have made it even if there hadn’t been a maze of tasteful gray partitions in the way. We couldn’t punch through to the next floor with it right on our ass, and judging by the desperation on Pritkin’s face, I didn’t think his shields were going to hold up to another firestorm.
It really is game over, I thought, and then he threw us out the window.
We burst back into the night along with a storm of paper and a suicidal watercooler. It kamikazied someone’s car below, caving in the roof like a body would, just as Pritkin’s makeshift glider caught us. And then it caught a draft, wafting up the side of the building just as a swell of fire burst out below, incinerating the mass of fluttering paper midair.
The creature paused on the window ledge, looking even more impossible when framed by modern glass and steel. And then it threw back its head and gave another screeching cry, loud as a foghorn, loud enough that I thought my eardrums might burst in my head. Loud enough to shiver the mirrored side of the building across the street, making its reflection shudder.
I watched it ripple like a stone thrown in water as we rode a circular air current a few stories above the creature’s head. Pritkin wasn’t even trying to move away from the building, and I didn’t have to wonder why. If we couldn’t outrun that thing on land, we sure as hell couldn’t in the air. Not in something that had little steering and no propulsion.
Seconds ticked by as it peered around, its firelit eyes searching for us in the darkness, the nauseating smell of half-cooked flesh mixing with the ozone taste of its magic. I held my breath until I was dizzy, while my heart tried its best to beat through my chest. Because all it had to do was crane its head; all it had to do was look—
And then it spotted us, and I didn’t even have time to draw a breath before it launched itself into the sky, huge wings carving the air with deadly precision. It’s still strangely beautiful, I thought dizzily. Streamlined and elegant, a magnificent instrument of death, even in its ruined state.
Right up until it crashed into the opposite building.
And our reflection.
It hit like a bullet before exploding like a grenade, pieces of the once-powerful body flying off in all directions. I saw what remained smack down amid a waterfall of glass, saw it flatten a car like a pancake, saw the spatter fly up three stories high. And then I didn’t see anything else, because we were falling, too.
Pritkin’s overtaxed shield gave out a few seconds too soon, sending us tumbling through the air, with me desperately trying to shift, even knowing it wouldn’t work. And all I could think in those last few, furious seconds was that we’d won, against all odds we’d won, damn it, and it still wasn’t—
And then we were jerked up, so hard I thought my bones might separate.
I just hung there for a moment, bouncing on air, too dazed to feel much of anything except some blood slipping ticklishly down my spine. Then I noticed Caleb overhead, leaning dangerously far over the side of the convertible, something close to terror on his habitually calm face. And his hand outflung in an odd gesture.
I thought that might have something to do with the faint golden glimmer wrapped around Pritkin and me like—well, like a lasso. Nice catch, I didn’t say, because my mouth didn’t seem to work. Until Pritkin slumped against me, his face slack, his body a deadweight in my arms, and I got a good look at his back.
And screamed.
Chapter Twenty-six
“What happened?” Caleb demanded, as two mages carefully hauled us over the side of the car. Caleb had hold of me, but I threw him off and pushed through to where they were laying Pritkin facedown on the backseat. “Cassie!”
“It was that last blast,” I said numbly, staring at him. God, it looked worse from this angle. Red and black and white all mixed up together, blood and burnt leather and bone—
“This wasn’t caused by fire,” someone said.
I didn’t even look up to see who it was. I was watching them carefully pull away the remains of his coat. It was spelled to repair itself, but I didn’t think that would be happening this time. A few filaments were gamely trying to knit themselves back together, but there wasn’t enough left to work with. Despite the armor spells woven into it, almost the entire back of the coat was simply gone, eaten away in huge, bloody holes with little more than leather “lace” between them. And the body underneath—
“My God,” someone said as the remains of the coat were peeled back, taking some of his flesh along with it. The stars spun dizzyingly around me.
“Dragon blood,” Caleb spat, and somebody cursed.
I looked up. “But that can’t . . . we were nowhere near—”
“It must have spat it at you before you escaped,” he said roughly. “Get us to Central. Now!” he ordered the driver.
“He’s not going to last that long,” one of the other mages argued. “We have medical staff on the scene. They just arrived—”
“And you think they’re going to be able to handle this?”
“If they don’t, he’s gone. I’m telling you, we can’t—”
“Get out,” I said softly, my eyes on the ruined map of Pritkin’s back.
“And if we try the emergency unit and they can’t do anything?” Caleb demanded. “We’ll have lost any chance of—”
“There’s no time for anything else!”
“I said, get out!” I snarled, pushing at the nearest mage. “All of you, except for Caleb!”
“What?” the mage who’d been arguing with the boss, a young Hispanic guy, turned to look at me. “What are you—”
“If you want him to live, get the hell out of here!”
“Do it,” Caleb rasped, watching my face. I don’t know what it looked like. I didn’t care.
“Drive,” I told him.
The mages bailed over the side, taking a protesting Fred along for the ride. Caleb climbed into the front seat and I bent over Pritkin. The stench of burnt leather mingled with the metallic tang of blood was bad enough, but there was something else there, too, something dark, something wrong.