Read Online Public Enemies by Ann Aguirre - Free Book Online

more solid hits and—
    â€œGet the bag.” That eerie whisper belonged to the Harbinger, but he was nowhere nearby. I shouldn’t be surprised that he could throw his voice since he had all kinds of other illusions at his command. Yet if I could figure out how to get past the thing, I’d already be doing it.
    A flash of light to my left drew my eye. Peering closer, I saw divots in the rock that could be used by a desperate girl as handholds. Holy shit, I was so limiting the way I considered my escape routes. I was focused on 2-D, only forward and back. But I can totally go up. My skirt wasn’t long enough to hinder my movements, so I twisted around in the niche and set my feet in the outcropping. For a few seconds, I feared that my upper body strength wouldn’t let me do this—while the monster smashed ever closer—but I strained with all my strength and went up a couple of feet. Two more, and two again, until I was out of its reach.
    Fifteen feet up, I found the tiniest of ledges, imperceptible in the gloom. Like a tightrope walker I crept around the edge of the pit, searching for the bag. It took the beast a little longer to realize I wasn’t trapped anymore, then it snarled with rage. The ground trembled as it wheeled. The thing sniffed the air in my direction, suggesting it couldn’t see too well. There’s the bag. But now I was up too high to reach it easily. Climbing down would be too slow.
    I have to jump. Before it spots me.
    Crouching, I dropped. Somehow I held on to the flail, but the impact hurt my ankles and I fell over when one of them twisted with a painful crack. Broken? I had no idea; I hadn’t been the type of kid to play outside and injure myself. But now I couldn’t even run, and my back was still bleeding. I grabbed the bag and used the handle of my weapon to shove to my feet. With frantic hands, I dug through, finding blades and bottles, but I had no idea what item held the key to stopping this creature.
    Just before the beast trampled me, the whisper came again, exasperated. “Red vial.”
    It was dark enough that it took me critical seconds to figure out which one that was. Distracted, I took another talon slash, this one across my shoulder. The pain made me drop my weapon. Now that I was bleeding in two places, the monster’s sounds grew … voracious. Long skeins of drool drizzled from the goat’s jaws, and when it opened its mouth to bite, the thing had fangs, not the flat teeth of an herbivore. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the red vial, but there was no time to think. Impulse made me chuck the glass into the open maw lunging at me. My aim wasn’t good enough to make a basket at normal distance but since it was on top of me, the vial skimmed right into its mouth.
    Reflex made it bite down. I stumbled away as it growled and spat slivers of glass. A few seconds later, it tumbled forward and hit the ground. And with a distinct edge, the Harbinger proclaimed me the winner. When the moth-men came for me, I almost passed out from the pain in my back and shoulder. Somehow I held on until they set me on the edge of the pit. Then the pain flourished into three-point agony. My ankle would barely hold my weight, but against the odds, I was standing in the ballroom again.
    â€œWe must have a serious chat,” the Harbinger said, clamping my arm with steely fingers.
    Kian shoved to the front of the crowd pressing around us and pulled me away. “Another time. We’re done here.”
    The intended victim was still cowering; he stared up at me as I quietly offered a hand. But I didn’t have the strength to pull him up. Kian saw what I was trying to do while the monsters around us got increasingly restless, probably sensing the Harbinger’s discontent, and he hauled the kid to his feet.
    Then he knelt, his voice more commanding than I’d ever heard. “Get on.”
    Before the rioting started, we