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A creature emerged into the sunlight, shaking with its own effort. Qi Ren was in there somewhere. Juliette could see it in the tired slouch of the monster’s shoulders and the constant squinting, as if the old man’s eyesight had transferred into this other f
orm. But that was where the resemblance ended. For the monster’s eyes had turned wholly opaque with a sheen of silver, slimy with the same texture as seaweed. From head to toe, it was built of wiry, blue-green muscle, hosting scales along the chest and suction-cup circles along the arms.
With a pitiful hiss from its loose, gray lips, the monster emitted a noise that could have been one of pain. It pressed a webbed hand to its stomach and doubled over, gasping for breath. The triangular horns studded along its spine shook vigorously. Seconds later, they all disappeared, receding into the monster and leaving diamond-shaped holes in their wake.
Juliette felt Roma grab her hand. He gave her a sharp tug, trying to pull her back.
“No,” Juliette said, her voice hardly audible. “No, it only releases in the river. It hasn’t released its insects outside the river before.”
Right?
Paul snorted. He had heard her hesitance.
“The thing is, Juliette”—Paul straightened his sleeve cuffs—“it’s rather irritating that Qi Ren has to transform back as soon as all the insects come out. So I did some fiddling around. I made some… alterations, so to speak.”
The second syringe.
An insect dropped out from the monster’s spine. Then another. They came slowly, like the trickle of a single bead of water, creeping down a slope of dry asphalt.
“Run free!” Paul commanded. He threw open the sliding doors to the mini balcony, letting in a burst of wind and a burst of sound, and without wasting a beat, the monster charged for the balcony, crashing through so fiercely that it chipped off a chunk of the drywall and shattered every potted plant placed outside.
And as it hovered on the edge of the balcony, poised to jump, the insects started to pour.
“No!” Juliette yelled, lunging forward.
It was too late. The monster leaped from the balcony and crashed upon the street below, insects pouring and pouring, landing on the ground and dispersing outward. An infection like this would be colossal. If the monster ran through the city, ran through the crowds—the riots—at this time of day, the casualties would be devastating.
Juliette aimed her gun and fired—again and again and again in hopes that it could kill the monster or, at the very least, slow it down—but the bullets bounced off its back like she had shot at steel. The monster began to move, began to lumber down the street, its speed steadily increasing.
“There’s no use, Juliette.”
With a scream, Juliette spun around and fired into the apartment. Her aim went wide in her anger; Paul swerved and jerked out of the way. Her bullet merely grazed his arm, but he winced, backing up against the wall with his fingers pressed to the wound.
“How do we stop it?” Roma demanded. He crossed the length of the room in two strides, grabbing Paul by the collar and giving him a shake. “How do we stop it?”
“You can’t,” Paul rasped, grinning. “You can’t stop the monster. And you can’t stop me.” In a flash, he gripped Roma’s arm too, twisting until Roma let go with a startled breath. Paul ducked, and though Juliette aimed again in an attempt to shoot, he was too fast.
Three bullets embedded into the wall along a straight line. Paul Dexter swooped his briefcase from the water, hugged it to his chest, and fled out the door of the apartment.
“Dammit, dammit,” Roma muttered. “I’m going after him.”
“No!” Juliette searched the view from the balcony again, her breath coming fast. “The monster—it’s heading due east. I think it’s going back to the Huangpu River.”
If the monster was going to the river, then it had to cut through the whole French Concession first. Juliette could hardly swallow past the lump in her throat, a sourness building behind her nose, her eyes. The monster had to pass all the open storefronts, all the little kids that ate their red bean buns on the steps of the shops. It had to merge into the city central, into the clusters of students walking out of their classrooms to protest, into the elderly doing their regular afternoon strolls.
Juliette grabbed the balcony curtain, tearing it right off its rod. “Go, Roma,” she exclaimed. “Get to the river before it does. Clear the people out.”
“And you?”
Juliette twisted the curtain until it was a solid rope, until it was a swath of fabric thick enough to hold her weight. The riots tearing through the city were on the move, dispersed across different areas regardless of which country owned the sidewalks they marched on. They would not know the monster was coming until the insects were crawling deep into their skulls.
“I need to warn everyone on its route to get the hell inside,” Juliette breathed. She stepped onto the balcony, her shoes crunching down on the broken potted plants. She glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll meet you at the Bund.”
Roma nodded. It seemed he wanted to say more, but time was of the essence, so he simply settled for a look that felt to Juliette like a soft embrace. Then he pivoted on his heel, sprinting out of the apartment.
Juliette gritted her teeth. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this.”
Her eyes landed upon the pipe running down the exterior wall, right by the edge of the balcony. She pulled herself up on the railing and leaned against the wall for balance, her gaze darting down to the street every few seconds to keep track of the monster ambling for the east. It would disappear down the long street in mere seconds. She had to hurry.
