The ger shrieked, flesh bubbling as the acid ate through the skin into the flesh beh.

  I didn’t wait to watch, reag for another vial.

  The acid wouldn’t work for long. Oh, it would eat through flesh till there was nothi, then nd on the roof below him, but Hawkins could grow more eyes.

  I uncorked another vial, p the foul-smelling substao where his struggling body met the ey. Adhesive.

  The acid was still eating, but flesh swelled even more in response. Damn, damn, damn! Did he have an endless reserve of flesh?

  I leaped down, hooves g against roofing tiles as Tommy put another bullet into Hawkins's writhing form.

  “That might hold him for a bit,” I said, tossing the empty vial aside. “At least unless he disect parts of-”

  Hawkins roared, then pushed himself past, his head a half-melted mush. Slits opened on his neck, pale red reptiliaaring down at us as he pushed past the ey. The bone-swords on his hands split into three, extending and curving while limbs pushed out of his torso, segmented like spider legs.

  Well, wasn’t that pleasant?

  "We should get running,” I said inanely, but Tommy and Amna were already running.

  Pull out the focus, child. While it is still trying to pull itself out of the ey!

  Instead, my hooves hit the roof tiles again as I followed them. Gregory was halfway between us and the other ey, mouth agape as more Hawkins tinued ing out of the ey.

  “We perhaps should have brought more people,” I admitted as the ey began to shudder, bricks being forced out of position.

  Half of Hawkins had goo the roof, half-melted head ref and ging into something else. Bone cws cut into the roof, slig through tile into the floor beh as growths pushed out of the side of his widening head.

  Tommy and Amna both fired again, bullets impag the f mass to no real effect.

  “Immuo the paralytic, able to bypass the adhesive,” I muttered. “The acid works but it’s not enough. Where the hells is it grabbing so much mass? There has to be a limit.”

  “What the fuck is mass?” Tommy said, looking fused.

  “Is that really the most important thing right now?” Gregory asked.

  “No, but the damn thing is-” The entire ey exploded.

  Bricks flew out across the roof as Hawkins's swelling body broke free, sending a barrage of them our way. I dropped down with the others, letting them pass overhead.

  Hawkins reared up, more tipede than anything, oh arms that cwed through the ceiling. ks of it fell through, and tile, wood, and pster all fell down. I heard yells of pani respohe ballroom. We were above the ballroom.

  “Do ohing for me?” I asked Gregory as Hawkins stared down at us, pincers as long as a human was tall g together. I tossed my saber to Amna, who barely mao catch it. “Two things, I suppose. Get to the other ey, the ready to purify anything that happens from what I do. I mean it.”

  Gregory paused, sidering. “What do you have pnned?”

  “Not really time. Trust me?”

  He nodded, and then he, Amna, and Tommy fled across the roof towards the other ey aive safety.

  I grabbed my focus out, gripping it tightly in my hand as I faced Hawkins. He’d fully freed himself out of the ey now, giving up on humanoid form entirely. Instead, a tube of pale segmented flesh easily as tall as I was was above the rooftop, supported by dozens of spindly i legs, topped off by an oversized tipede head with gnashing pincers, and the two sets of bone cws digging through the ceiling. Liquid and flesh gushed out around the ioid legs, strips of meat along with red gore and some strange viscous white liquid. Was that what it's blood actually was?

  I stood in front, waiting as the head reared back, then paused, simply staring down at me with a few dozen eyes of multiple colors opened up all across that white tube of flesh.

  I cocked my head to the side, smiling.

  "e on,” I called up to him. “Scared of catg a bad case of Hellfire or the Rot again? I thought you made of tougher stuff, and that’s before you decided to turn yourself into whatever this is.”

  A fp of skin opened underh the tipede head, and human-like teeth were visible through the gap. More leaking fluids, milk pale and viscous dripping from the mouth as dozens of eyes stared.

  “You have marred me for the st time, i,” Hawkins said, tone versational but the volume loud enough it sounded like the voice-proje spell from the marchs. “And I see you’ve bee aloo face me.”

  “ this point, I figure I take you out myself. Also, you’re calling me an i?” I asked, gesturing at him. He’d stopped growing, now the size of the Drake statue only with no wings and cws of bones.

  I g that iral. The spirit was gone. Dealing with another ger?

  “You have a very obnoxious sting,” Hawkins rasped. “Ohat someone should have plucked out of you long before now.”

  “People keep trying,” I replied. “A long, long time . And maybe if you don’t want to get stung, don’t irritate the i. Frankly, don’t irritate a whole lot of is.”

  One of the cws came up, settling down only a few feet away from me as the head leaned closer, almost as if taking an i.

  Probably preparing to strike. The only reason he hadn’t yet was…why? Waiting for his other panion to make it out of the ey? It was strahey hadn’t shown up yet. But I could hardly protest if he wao buy time. I was doing much the same.

  “Holy, it seems a bit too much of the irritating,” I ented. “I get it, the archives are very nice, but is it worth this much betting into them?”

  Hawkins didn’t react, but I was hardly traio read the body nguage of a flesh tube with pincers.

  “You grasp for meaning your mind could not prehend,” he told me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Ah yes, the meaning of why you could want to repontague’s heir through what must be one of the most voluted route possible. Might I suggest ag csses instead of poison cures that ge one’s personality? Much more effective and much less depe on limited time frames. In all hoy, what do you even want? Because I’m thinking it may have been much easier to attain through methods that weren’t this violent.”

  “You have no idea what we are after,” Hawkins said. “Besides, the ce of it being grao us is minimal.”

  So the goal was an ‘it’. Whatever ‘it’ was. Not that helpful.

  “Oh, I think Lord Montague isirely unreasonable,” I said. “Oh, he’d quite the shitty person and as prejudiced as they e in regards to me, but not incapable of iation, in my experienow, trying to kill his eldest son? That tends to hurt yotiating position.”

  The flesh tube stared at me, and its movements looked like…hesitation, maybe? It was as if it wao strike, but everything was jerky and not well-plotted. The sileretched on the noises tinued from the manor. Screams, yells, but increasingly smaller amounts of both. The guside the manor had faded pletely.

  “Seriously,” I said. “I emphasize with things going wrong, so there’s a bit of sympathy there. Not much, though. But that moment when you thought everything was going to be alright only to e crashing down suddenly, and you realize yoing to be digging yourself out of a pit for the foreseeable future? How many times has that happeo you this past month.”

  Still nothing to say, but at least all their eyes were affixed o meant they didn’t see some stars dim.

  Not actually going out, as much as the Hells probably wished. Just obscured for a time.

  “Have you seriously run out of things to say already?” I said. “Because I don’t think your friend is making it out of that ey.”

  The skin fp sealed itself up. Well, there weren’t too many ways this was going to go from here.

  Something roared by that chimeny, the sound of someone running through a wall. Was his friend busy fighting the dragon statue ihere? Not really that important as Hawkins eyes fixed on me.

  “I must ask you something important to the both of us before you attempt to eat me,” I said as Hawkin’s head reared back. “Did you know that one el Diabolism through any part of their body?”

  Hawkiated and then tried to turn, but it was too te as the roof groahe rot I’d been eling from my hoof through our entire versation fis work. The floor underh me buckled, then suddenly, the whole se of the ceilih the two of us vanished and we plummeted.

  Not enough time to think as we fell, heading towards the ballroom floor behind the roof. Hawkin’s head shed out, a pincer puncturing through my dress into my side. A hot rod of pain stabbed into my side, as the pincer moved, ripping my skin. Screaming, I sprayed hellfire, onto the side of his head, charring flesh even as we both plummeted.

  I rammed down on the ground and I felt something snap and then….

  Nothing.

  ***

  Voices.

  Pain.

  Why was there so much pain? ht, I’d decided to take a free fall down three stories, trying to knock out a shape-ger.

  I opened my eyes, seeing the night sky framed by the giant hole in the ballroom’s ceiling. Bit of it still fell, pieces crumbling off and falling to smash into the floor, sending ripples of pain through me from the impact.

  People were crowded oairway and the sed floor, looking down at the two of us among the rubble of the roof. Watch, guests, guards, and servants. Only one face I really reized in Malstein. Where were Dawes and Voltar? Where was Lord Montague?

  At least, it seemed they had known to gather up there. Trag instrus telling everyoo get out from on the ceiling underh me in big giaers of Hellfire had actually worked. It was to be a mass murderer.

  Malstein yelled something I could quite make out, and Watch members started moving dowairs.

  I tried to say something, only for somethio spray out of my lips. Oh, hells. Internal injuries. That could not be good.

  I tried to move, only for the pain to ripple through my body again. I turned my head. ht.

  Hawkin’s piill jutted into my side, his motionless body yio me. The damn thing had finally gohrough, four inches jutting out of my stomach. It stuck out he edge, so maybe I’d gotten lucky and it hadn’t pierced an internal an.

  The only lucky part. I could see my hoof pointed up at me, the leg it was attached to was bent the wrong way. I tried to move it and almost passed out as it twitched and pain ripped through me as punishment.

  Brilliant. I had vials, but first I’d o get this damn thing out of me. At least Hawkins was down.

  As if in respohe piwitched, sending slivers of pain through me and spots ay vision.

  Eat or be eaten.

  Hawkin’s eyes opened.