Metal. Sections of ventilation duct, or dumpster. I couldn’t tell. It burned too, and edges had turned molten.
I grabbed it, and I slid it over toward the others.
Peter shouted, “It’s breathing again!”
One working arm, one leg, one screaming, flailing mermaid clutching me. Maybe being burned by me, or burning me.
I made it two feet, pushed at the metal, kicked at the ground, trying to haul myself and Green Eyes closer.
The maenad reached me, leaning forward, to grip me at the shoulders, fingers hooking at sections of wood.
Peter was there too, a little more ginger in how he reached forward.
The metal served as a brief barrier to the flames on the ground, and when I was pulled, it was akin to a sled, something I could be dragged on. Not part of the plan, but I wasn’t complaining. It took all the focus I had to simply hold on to Green Eyes, in hopes that she might be dragged with me.
The fire rushed past. A spray, a glob, like mucus or paint, covering every surface that wasn’t covered already. Where there was already fire, it flared, spreading, growing taller.
Much as I’d seen the Dragon looming directly above me, my perceptions skewed, I saw Tiff, the faceless woman, and Peter all standing above me, talking.
“There,” I managed to make out what the maenad was saying. “Grab it!”
A moment passed.
“Extinguish rune isn’t working…” Tiff said.
“Shit. What the fuck did you drag us into?” Peter. “What the fuck? Where is it?”
“…I didn’t think it would, but I don’t know what else I could do.”
A male voice further away. “It moved. Keep an eye on rooftops!”
“Blake,” Evan said. “Blakeblakeblake, look. No going into the light! Or the dark, or wherever you’re supposed to go! Blake!”
The satyr appeared, and passed a shovel to the maenad. Not a snow shovel, but a dirt shovel. The rusty head was shaped like a spade, connecting to a four or five foot long wood shaft, that was connected to a padded grip, in turn.
The maenad, standing, touched the shovel’s tip to my shoulder.
She stomped on it, hard.
“Damn it. Tough wood,” she said. “Move the sweatshirt.”
“Don’t get burned!” Tiff said. “Dragonstuff is potent. I don’t think that fire ever goes out!”
Someone moved my sweatshirt at one shoulder. The point of the shovel was repositioned.
She stomped again. Driving metal into and past wood, into the joint of the shoulder.
Leverage applied, the point scraping against bone, deep inside, finding the notch where the socket met the shoulder joint.
Another stomp, to sever. She tore the cloth of my sweatshirt with her hands, and then kicked the still-burning arm and section of shoulder off to the side of the alley.
“Leg next,” she said.
“Green Eyes,” I said.
She glanced over her shoulder.
She was gritting her teeth as she moved around to my leg.
I saw the faceless woman turn around. Her back was to me, cigarette held high in one hand, the other in a pocket. Watching Green Eyes burn?
Tiff was talking, “Um, melted plastic isn’t burning quite as well, so it’s not spreading as much here, but-”
“It’s airborne, somewhere not too far away,” the satyr was saying, eyes skyward. “The dragon is.”
The maenad placed the shovel at my thigh.
I moved my leg, and the shovel slid off, biting pavement between my legs.
She stared down at me, an angry expression on her face.
“Help Green Eyes,” I said. “Help her now, or I’ll fight you every step of-”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” she cut me off. “Or I’ll leave you to burn with her.”
I set my teeth.
She replaced the shovel’s blade, then struck it with her heel. One kick served to break the wood and bone. It also broke the shovel’s end from the shaft. The metal had torn, no doubt already fatigued and rusted.
“Mm,” she said. “Don’t move.”
She bent down over me.
“My-” I started. I wasn’t even sure how to finish. How was I even supposed to describe Green Eyes? My friend? My mermaid? I gripped the maenad’s wrist, but my hand had splintered, and had no strength to it. “Damn it, help her!”
“You might be able to summon her again,” she said, ignoring my grip as she tore a section of burning wood off the side of my chest. “Bogeymen go back to the abyss when they die. They can resurface.”
Tiff spoke my thoughts, “That’s not a guarantee, especially for a weaker bogeymen. When we summoned her in the bathtub-”
“Uh huh,” the maenad said.
“There’s no guarantee the fire will go out if she passes on. With dragon’s breath, it could burn her spirit, even.”
The maenad ignored Tiff. “Let go of me, wooden man, or I’ll break this hand off too.”
I released her wrist.
“Don’t let him see,” she said, as she picked up the shovel’s head. I could see a gleam in her eyes that wasn’t so different from the one I’d seen on the High Priest’s face.
I suddenly wished I hadn’t released her.
I saw flame licking Green Eyes, the tail moving this way and that as she continued to thrash, weaker than before, one hand raised, as if she wanted to clutch her face and couldn’t.
The Satyr stepped between me and Green Eyes.
He didn’t manage to stop me from seeing the maenad put the tip of the shovel against the center of Green Eyes’ forehead. There was no handle to go with it. It was only a rigid bit of metal, now.
“Little girl. Take this. Hold it steady. You fuck this up, you only make more hurt, understand?. And don’t let her touch you.”
“What?” Roxanne asked.
“Hold. It. Steady.”
“Green Eyes,” I said, staring at the Satyr’s hoofed feet, as he impeded my view.
“Blake,” was the reply, from Green Eyes.
With Roxanne holding the shovel’s handle-less end in place, the maenad drove it down with one sharp kick. I saw the tail move suddenly, flip this way and that, until the maenad moved and stepped on it, to stop the thrashing. One bit of fin and some hair was still ignited.
The maenad stooped down, and cut the hair and fin away, as if to be safe. It didn’t matter. The tail wasn’t moving.
“Aw,” Evan said. “Awww, and eww, but mostly aww. Crumbs.”
“We need to go,” the satyr said. “It’s stalking us.”
“Someone should pick up the wooden man,” the maenad said, “and it won’t be me. Not after what he did to my sister. Even if I’ve had my pound of flesh, I don’t trust myself around him, and I don’t trust him.”
Mute, I did what I could to try and rise.
I had only one fully intact limb. My chest was fairly ruined, too.
I had strength, but no structural integrity, and limited movement.
Still, I crawled over to Green Eyes.
Evan had perched on her tail. The faceless woman still stood over her.
“Ow,” Green Eyes murmured, as she saw me. “Oh wow, ow.”
My eyes widened a bit.
She had to twist her head around to see me. The shovel’s blade had scraped off half her face, the eyeball with it. Bone was exposed, where there wasn’t ragged meat.