CITY OF GLASS

At first glance the walkway looked empty. There were no streetlights along the canal; the main illumination here came from the windows of nearby houses. Isabelle moved forward cautiously, her electrum whip coiled at her side. She had owned the whip for so long—it had been a twelfth birthday present from her father—that it felt like part of her now, like a fluid extension of her right arm.

The shadows thickened as she moved away from the house and toward Oldcastle Bridge, which arched over the Princewater canal at an odd angle to the walkway. The shadows at its base were clustered as thickly as black flies—and then, as Isabelle stared, something moved within the shadows, something white and darting.

Isabelle ran, crashing through a low border of hedges at the end of someone’s garden and hopping down onto the narrow brick causeway that ran below the bridge. Her whip had begun to glow with a harsh silvery light, and in its faint illumination she could see Aline lying limply at the edge of the canal. A massive scaled demon was sprawled on top of her, pressing her down with the weight of its thick lizardlike body, its face buried in her neck—

But it couldn’t be a demon. There had never been demons in Alicante. Never. As Isabelle stared in shock, the thing raised its head and sniffed the air, as if sensing her there. It was blind, she saw, a thick line of serrated teeth running like a zipper across its forehead where eyes should be. It had another mouth on the lower half of its face as well, fanged with dripping tusks. The sides of its narrow tail glittered as it whipped back and forth, and Isabelle saw, drawing closer, that the tail was edged with razor-sharp lines of bone.

Aline twitched and made a noise, a gasping whimper. Relief spilled over Isabelle—she’d been half-sure Aline was dead—but it was short-lived. As Aline moved, Isabelle saw that her blouse had been sliced open down the front. There were claw marks on her chest, and the thing had another claw hooked into the waistband of her jeans.

A wave of nausea rolled over Isabelle. The demon wasn’t trying to kill Aline—not yet. Isabelle’s whip came alive in her hand like the flaming sword of an avenging angel; she launched herself forward, her whip slashing down across the demon’s back.

The demon screeched and rolled off Aline. It advanced on Isabelle, its two mouths gaping, talons slashing toward her face. Dancing backward, she threw the whip forward again; it slashed across the demon’s face, its chest, its legs. A myriad of crisscrossing lash marks sprang up across the demon’s scaled skin, dripping blood and ichor. A long forked tongue shot from its upper mouth, probing for Isabelle’s face. There was a bulb on the end of it, she saw, a sort of stinger, like a scorpion’s. She flicked her wrist to the side and the whip curled around the demon’s tongue, roping it with bands of flexible electrum. The demon screamed and screamed as she pulled the knot tight and jerked. The demon’s tongue fell with a wet, sickening thump to the bricks of the causeway.

Isabelle jerked the whip back. The demon turned and fled, moving with quick, darting motions like a snake. Isabelle darted after it. The demon was halfway to the path that led up from the causeway when a dark shape rose up in front of it. Something flashed in the darkness, and the demon fell twitching to the ground.

Isabelle came to an abrupt stop. Aline stood over the fallen demon, a slender dagger in her hand—she must have been wearing it on her belt. The runes on the blade shone like flashing lightning as she drove the dagger down, plunging it over and over into the demon’s twitching body until the thing stopped moving entirely and vanished.

Aline looked up. Her face was blank. She made no move to hold her blouse closed, despite its torn buttons. Blood oozed from the deep scratch marks on her chest.

Isabelle let out a low whistle. “Aline—are you all right?”

Aline let the dagger fall to the ground with a clatter. Without another word she turned and ran, disappearing into the darkness under the bridge.

Caught by surprise, Isabelle swore and dashed after Aline. She wished she’d worn something more practical than a velvet dress tonight, although at least she’d put her boots on. She doubted she could have caught up to Aline wearing heels.

There were metal stairs on the other side of the causeway, leading back up to Princewater Street. Aline was a blur at the top of the stairway. Hiking up the heavy hem of her dress, Isabelle followed, her boots clattering on the steps. When she reached the top, she looked around for Aline.