"Where's Robin?" My knife was at the base of the crate I'd impacted and I moved to retrieve it.
"I think it took him." He was already moving, following spatters of the monster's blood, and I came up hard on his heels. We were silent from that moment on. It would probably hear us coming nonetheless, but we didn't have to make it easy for it … because we would find it. We would get Goodfellow back. This was nothing compared to the shit we'd all gone through together. A big lizard—a pissed-off giant gecko. So what? Hell, Robin would make a belt out of it by the time we caught up.
Boxes and boxes, a labyrinth of them every which way I turned. I clipped several as we ran. We'd left the flashlight behind. It would give us away quicker than my nose would. There was some light now— small emergency lights up in the corner juncture of ceiling and wall. Hank hadn't gotten to these yet, but they were dim enough to do more harm than good. They created impenetrable pits of black shadow that looked as thick and sticky as tar and just as capable of sucking us into suffocating depths. They'd make good places for a serpent to hide and wait for its next meal to wander by.
Or to leave what was left of its last one.
I saw his sword then, lying on the floor half in and half out of the shadow. Robin didn't treat his weapons with the reverence Niko did, but neither did he discard them carelessly like trash. "Niko?" I said grimly.
"I see it." He disappeared into the blackness to investigate, and I kept following the blood. As I passed a stagecoach, fake trees, and a massive stuffed bear, the spatters turned into an unbroken trail.
"Follow the Yellow Brick Road," I muttered as I careened around a corner into the next room, slipped, and nearly fell in a lake of lizard fluid. It stretched almost seven feet across and was still flowing sluggishly from the belly of the serpent. Minute tremors ran under the scaled hide, but it lay on its side with its mouth open and unmoving. The remaining eye stared at nothing as a putrid stench began to seep from the hundreds of slices that bisected the stomach.
There were leaves in the blood, courtesy of the fake trees stored nearby. A bright and artificial green, they floated serenely on the golden surface. It was a bizarrely peaceful and strangely beautiful scene, and I hovered warily on the edge of it. "Robin?" The serpent was still alive…dying, yeah, but there was life in it yet. And it only took an ounce of life to make a ton of murderous purpose capable of impossible vengeance. No one likes to go out alone, not even snakes. "Goodfellow?" He was there somewhere. Had to be. What could possibly kill that smug, vain, irritating son of a bitch? "Robin, where the fuck are—"
"Here."
He slipped out of the night forest of fake trees to my right. Like Niko, he was covered in blood that wasn't his own. It stained his expensive clothes, slicked the equally expensive haircut, and coated the blade he carried. He'd lost the one, but he had others—which was why he'd lived so long and why he was still here right now. "Christ." I scowled instantly, shoving the relief down. "I thought your worthless ass was a footnote. Ancient history."
"From a sirrush?" He sluiced a handful of yellow fluid from his face and slung it to the floor. If that hand shook, he would claim it was from exertion. Considering how many slashes had been needed to take down the lizard, it might even be the truth. "Do you mock me? On my best day, I could take on an entire nest of them and barely work up a sweat. I might even have time to squeeze in a margarita and massage, happy ending of course."
He was still talking, but I'd stopped listening. It wasn't only monster blood after all. There was red mixed in with the gold. Puck red. "Robin?"
Stopping in midsentence, he met my gaze and followed it to the red staining his shirt and pants. "Ah. Yes." His sword dropped from his hand as he swayed slightly. "Not exactly as gentle as a cat with her kitten, was it?"
It had carried him away, either in a clawed grip or in its massive mouth. Definitely not gentle. I didn't carry the first aid supplies Niko did, and I wasn't as good with them either. I took Goodfellow's arm to keep him upright and turned my head to call for my brother. I didn't get the opportunity.
Impossible vengeance, and here it came.