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Valentine pointed the gun at Gail's head. She squeaked.
The Reapers spread out, but came no closer.
"keep calm, brother," the leader said in the breathy voice that always brought Valentine back to the terrors of the night Gabriella Cho died, "no one need die tonight, be warned: hurt her and we will peel off your skin and leave you raw and screaming."
He switched the sights of the pistol to the Reaper's yellow gimlet eye.
Valentine tried to still his hand.
"You believe you can stop me with that?"
"Not me," Valentine said.
And shot.
He aimed at an egg, shot, switched targets, and shot again, as quickly as he could pull the hair trigger. The gun felt like a cap pistol in his hand.
But the bullets had an effect.
They struck the eggs and tore through them, sending fluid flying, splattering the Reapers. The egg chamber suddenly smelled like old milk. He stifled a gag.
Evidently Reapers didn't get nauseated, or had poor noses- they just wiped at the fluid in disgust.
All around, legworm digits twitched like fluttering eyelashes.
Valentine dropped the empty gun as he ran, pulling Gail along behind. Tons of legworm righted itself and he threw her under it, dove, rolled, felt its legs on his back as he made it to the other side. Snapping noises like garden shears came from the egg area.
Valentine drew his legworm goad, buried it in the back of one as it began to roll, and pulled Gail tight to him as they ended up on its back.
The earthen bowl writhed with searching legworms.
Valentine anchored one of his cargo hooks in the loose skin atop the legworm, and looped a chain around Gail. Her white fingers gripped it while the legworm's back rose and fell as it negotiated the lip of the crater.
A Reaper flew through the air. Well, half of one. Its waist and legs were still on the ground.
Another jumped atop the back of a moving legworm and ran toward them like the hero of a Western on top of a train, arms out and reaching.
Two legworm muzzles rose from either side, one catching it by the head and arms, the other by its waist.
"Make a wish," Valentine said. Gail shifted position so that she wasn't resting on her belly, and gasped at the scene behind her.
The Reaper parted messily.
More legworms carefully stabbed down with their muzzles, lifted them covered with black goo and shreds of black cloth, then stabbed down again.
"Help!" Gail screamed.
A bony, blue-veined Reaper hand gripped her leg, pulling her off the legworm.
She clutched at Valentine and the securing chain. He shifted his grip on his legworm goad. He brought down the crowbarlike shovel edge on the Reaper's head. Skin peeled back, revealing a black, goo-smeared skull.
The Reaper made a sideways climb, more like a spider than a man, still pulling at Gail so hard that Valentine feared both she and the baby would be divided between the antagonists in Solomonic fashion.
Valentine crossed the shimmying legworm back, jumping as the Reaper swung its free arm. He buried the goad in the forearm holding Gail, and the Reaper released its grip.
Stars-a ringing sound-pain.
The Reaper had struck him backhand across the jaw. Something felt horribly loose on the left side of his head; bone held only by skin sagged at the side of his face. Valentine blindly swung with the goad as he backpedaled, then lost his balance. This time Gail screamed as he clutched at her to keep from falling off.
