Convincing Mark Hawkins, aka Ranger, to allow Lilly to take part in this fight wasn’t easy. In years, she’s just six, but like an animal, she has aged more quickly and is now a young woman. Maybe mid-twenties in human years. But to Hawkins, she’s still a kid, and he’s spent the last year protecting her. To make matters worse, she’s a mother. With five baby cat-people, who are currently under the care of Grandpappy Goodtracks and Joliet. But when I told him what I could do for them—how I could keep Lilly and her children safe, he relinquished.
“Too big?” I ask her.
“He’s not nearly as scary as Kaiju.”
I’m confused for a moment. Of course he’s not more frightening than a 300-foot-tall monster. But then I remember Hawkins’s story of how he found Lilly, at a place he calls ‘Island 731.’ Her mother, a monstrous chimera composed of both human and predatory animal parts, had been named Kaiju. If Gordon is a walk in the park compared to dear old mom, I think I might need to reclassify my own childhood issues as mild. That Lilly isn’t the monster she appears to be is a strong reflection on her character, and Hawkins’s influence.
Gordon screams in anger as he climbs to his feet. He lashes out at the tree that broke his fall, slamming his fist into the solid wood. The tree shakes as splinters fly.
“Strong,” Lilly says, sounding impressed.
“Can you handle this?” I ask.
She nods. “He can’t hurt what he can’t catch.”
Lilly springs into action, charging toward Gordon on all fours. I nearly cheer when I see the look of confusion on Gordon’s face. He has no idea who he’s up against, where she came from or what she can do. But he’s about to find out. Lilly leaps onto Gordon’s chest, her claws sinking in deep. He closes his arms to crush her, but the limbs close only on air. Lilly is gone again. Ten feet above him, clinging to the tree trunk, upside down.
Gordon glances down at his chest. Streams of brown blood leak from his charcoal skin. He screams and punches the tree again, this time shattering the trunk. As the tree falls, Lilly leaps easily away. She turns back, muscles tense, waiting for the chase to begin.
But Gordon isn’t all monster. Not yet anyway. He’s a soldier with a mission. Gordon turns toward me. The look in his eyes reveals he’s done playing. The second he catches me, I’m dead. He takes two steps, but doesn’t make it any further. Lilly rushes by behind him, clawing at the back of his legs. Gordon winces with pain and swings, but Lilly is already gone. He takes one last look at me and then focuses all his attention on Lilly, knowing that his mission won’t move forward until the cat-woman defending me is dead.
As I hobble up the portico stairs, my phone rings. I glance at the screen—it’s Endo—and answer the call. “Beck is in trouble,” he says.
“What? How do you—”
“Dunne,” he says. “Focus on Beck.”
It takes just a moment to slip out of my mind and into Beck’s. It’s unnervingly easy. Suddenly, I’m seeing through his eyes and feeling his emotions, which are still brave and more concerned about doing the right thing than preserving his own life. He’s dragging a bloodied Dunne down an East Wing hallway while Drakon hacks away at the building, trying to reach them.
When I come back to myself a moment later, ready to charge into the White House, I pause. The ground is shaking, and not just from the battle waging around me. It’s a familiar jarring rattle.
I turn west just as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building explodes outward, kicked by a mammoth, black-skinned, tan-clawed foot. My eyes turn upward, taking in the gigantic form of Nemesis. And perhaps for the first time since Nemesis emerged in Maine, I cheer at her appearance. This was the part of my master plan that I took on faith, believing that Nemesis wouldn’t be far and that she would respond to me being in danger.
She roars loudly. So loudly it hurts. The sounds of battle pause for a moment, as all eyes turn in her direction. Drakon’s head pulls out of the East Wing and peers around the White House’s ruined south side. There’s a flash of surprise in her one good eye, but then it squints, and she sneers. Drakon lets out a warbling roar, stepping out onto the South Lawn. Then she charges, moving very quickly, commencing an oversized version of Lilly’s fight against the much larger Gordon. A real David and Goliath battle. Except this time, Goliath isn’t a dude, and I’m rooting for him...her.
Before Drakon reaches Nemesis, my phone rings. Woodstock. I answer it. “What?”
“They’re moving really fast now.” It’s Collins. “Jon, they’re going to reach you in five minutes. When do you want us to—”
“Not yet,” I say, rushing up the stairs. “I’m not ready yet. And neither is Maigo.”
A shriek pulls my attention west again. Drakon has leapt in the air, its double jaws open wide, heading for Nemesis’s neck. I’m sure the attack is instinctive and typically a killer blow in the animal kingdom. But this is Nemesis. Her neck is lined with orange membranes, all primed and ready to blow.
My shoulders sag.
“Oh damn.”
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