Audrey exhaled slowly through her nose. A familiar calm settled over her. She forced herself to relax muscle by muscle until she simply stood next to Kaldar, as if the two of them were on a date, watching the beautiful mountain view.
The Hand’s agent turned, raising his arms, holding curved narrow knives in each fist. The flesh along his sides, right over his ribs, split.
The disgusting magic smoldered around her, threatening to burn her.
The skin over the man’s ribs rose in two flaps, like fins on a fish. Spongy red tissue lay underneath, moist and veined with blood vessels.
Jesus Christ.
The magic slammed into her like an avalanche, overwhelming her senses. It slid against her skin, scraping it like the edge of a sharp blade, burning, hotter and hotter. Nausea came. Her stomach twisted. Acid washed her throat.
Breathe easy. Audrey held completely still, concentrating on inhaling and exhaling. Her heart slowed down.
The man turned left, then right, slowly. The red flesh on the man’s sides fluttered like a fish’s gills. He was smelling the air, Audrey realized. She glanced at Kaldar. The bastard was smiling, watching the Hand’s monster like he was the biggest lollypop in a candy store.
All these people were crazy. The Hand, the Mirror, all of them.
The man took a step closer. Another.
Another.
They were face-to-face now, less than two feet from each other. She saw every detail of his face: wide overdeveloped jaw, large nose, and eyes so dark they were nearly black. Like staring into the beady button eyes of a shark: nothing but cold, merciless hunger.
The agent sucked the air into his lungs, his nostrils fluttering. He raised his foot. If he took another step, he would run right into them.
A pissed-off growl almost made her jerk. Audrey turned her head a fraction of an inch. To the right, two feet above them, Ling bared her small fangs on a tree branch.
The Hand’s freak stared at the raccoon with his dead eyes.
Ling coughed and snarled, biting off sharp chitters. Stupid, stupid raccoon.
The man turned and took a step toward Ling. If he touched her raccoon, she would charge right into him.
Kaldar gripped her hand tighter.
She couldn’t let him get Ling.
A long, piercing cry came from the right, behind the mountain.
The Hand’s agent spun toward it, the raccoon forgotten.
Kaldar jerked a black gun from inside his sweatshirt. The spell around them tore like wrapping paper. Kaldar stepped behind the freak and squeezed the trigger. The gun spat thunder. Blood and chunks of bone sprayed, splattering her with tiny drops of human gore.
Her brain refused to process it, as if it were happening to someone else.
The agent spun around, his eyes wide, somehow still alive. Kaldar fired again, straight into his face. The freak stumbled, veering toward her, a gaping red hole where his forehead used to be. As if on autopilot, Audrey leaned back and kicked him in the chest. The Hand’s agent tumbled over the edge and fell to the valley below. Her stomach lurched, and Audrey vomited into the grass and forced herself back upright. No time to waste.
The revolting magic still burned her. The Hand’s agent was dead, but his magic ate at her, fracturing into a thousand tiny jaws that gnawed on her skin, trying to chew their way inside. She rubbed her arms, trying to wipe them off, and failed.
Wild ululating howls rocked the forest. The Hand was coming.
The gunshot had been too loud. “They know where we are.”
Kaldar shook his head and glanced over the edge of the cliff. “It doesn’t matter.”
Audrey looked down, following his gaze, and every hair on the back of her neck stood on end. An enormous blue dragon circled the mountain, coming toward them, its massive wings held rigid as it glided. Huge, larger than a semi, it surfed the aerial current, majestic and unreal. A wicker cabin rested on its back. As she watched, its roof split in half. The two sides rose and opened, like the petals of an unfolding flower.
It was a wyvern, she realized. She’d only seen them twice, soaring high above in the clouds, on the rare excursions she’d made into the Weird.
There was no way it could land. There was no space . . .
Oh no. Kaldar expected them to jump.
The Hand’s magic had gotten inside her somehow and begun mincing her insides into mush. She could actually see it in her head, her heart and lungs turning to wet clumps of red sludge. I must be going insane . . .
The wyvern was coming in too low. They would have a drop of at least twenty feet. Audrey glanced down. The treetops below were so far, the haze that clung to them looked blue from here. If they missed, they would fall for several seconds. She would know she was about to die.
Kaldar gripped her shoulders. “Audrey! Look at me. We can make it!”
The howls sounded closer. Another moment, and the dragon would be right under them. They had mere seconds.
“Ling!” she yelled.
The raccoon launched herself into the air. Audrey caught her and hugged Ling to her chest. She yanked a hair band out of her hair. “I bet you this hair band we can’t land safely on the wyvern. Bet me.”
Kaldar grinned an insane grin.
The first of the Hand’s people broke into the open. She was tall with a long ponytail of blond hair and piercing light eyes that seemed to glow. Behind her, a dark-haired man charged out, broad, powerful, muscled like a bull. Black tattoos twisted around his throat.
Kaldar swiped the hair band from her fingers and gripped her hand. “It’s a bet!”
Dear God, please don’t let us die.
“Jump!” Kaldar barked.
Audrey sailed off the cliff, gripping his hand as tightly as she could. They plummeted through the air, weightless, then, suddenly, the cabin was there, and Audrey crashed down onto a pile of wicker boxes, Ling still clutched to her chest with her other arm. Kaldar fell next to her and rolled to his feet.
Up above, the blond woman thrust her hands out. A phantom wind stirred her hair, lifting her ponytail.
“Dive!” Kaldar screamed. “Dive now!”
The wyvern dropped, and Audrey’s stomach dropped with it.