Page 22 of Veil of Blood and Bone

I duck beneath the swing of the club, air whizzing as wood cuts through the space where my head used to be.

The world is nothing but breath and haste. I have to move. I lurch up to my feet, swiveling, ignoring the rush of heat spreading through my limbs.

Pathways connecting my brain with the rest of me have cut off. I glance to the left, the tent pole rising out of the ashes of the broken vendor space, wares reduced to rubble beneath the thing’s feet.

Is there enough time to make it?

A shout draws the creature’s attentions and like an animal trapped in a snare, it turns toward the sound.

The raven.

The massive, bread-eating raven eyeing the shiny things on our table lands and in the next beat, I immediately wish I hadn’t looked.

Not an animal but a man.

Something inside me twists, desperate to escape, but his distraction gives me the extra precious seconds I need.

Why?

My torso aches where I got a good kick in the stomach for my distraction. In fighting, there is only the target, and what to use to take it down. Years of endless lessons, classes, the only kinds I was allowed to take until I got old enough to make my own money…

But by that point, we were already on to the next town. Why bother applying to college when staying meant the difference between someone else’s starvation or a full-ish belly?

Smart people run.

Instead a wall of sound rips out of me, a terrible sound vibrating my throat as I lift a broken table leg with a ragged, sharp edge from the destroyed tent.

I scream until my throat goes raw and send the piece hurdling through the air until I’m not the only one choking on blood. It spears through the creature’s open mouth with enough force to send it backward, pinning it to the muddied ground.

Blood steams the air.

Now is my chance to get the fuck out of here.

A calling spreads from my heart across my collarbone and in the half a second it takes to wonder if Audra’s okay, my decision solidifies.

My heartbeat grows, louder with each step, an inhuman cadence.

No escape.

Where would I go?

I can’t even think.

Audra will be fine. She knows as well as I do how to protect herself. Doesn’t she? The raven-turned man with flaming strawberry hair steps up to the creature but I won’t falter now.

Shaking my head, I grab the tangled edges of the nearest banner. Welcome to has long since been torn off, and the rest of the banner is muddied by footsteps.

The creature’s nubs of teeth flash and quick as a snake, it thrusts a wide fist up at me.

But something happens. I’m not where I stood. In my next breath, I’m behind it.

I’m in the process of strangling a creature, its nose the size of a skateboard, with said banner.

And the strange thing is, this isn’t the oddest thing I’ve done today.

No. My hands clench tighter in the fabric, keeping it taut until the thing stops moving and sinks low, folding over itself. The strangest thing was dropping the runes onto Esmerelda’s table and bolting into trouble rather than away from it.

This close, the creature reeks. Whatever it is, greenish blood rolls like sap through every cut and abrasion through the holes where two eyes should have been. A moment ago, they’d locked on me, and I’d shaken with the effort of holding my ground.