Chapter Nineteen

Toni stood rooted to thespot as a giant's form took shape out of the shadows of the barred tunnel, the black-haired man having to duck to accommodate a height of well over seven feet. Her chin sagged down to her chest. Had her brain been capable of rational thought just then, she might've considered the man's body to be a medical miracle, more like boulders stacked together into human form rather than muscle and flesh. His face likewise resembled stone, or stone age, like something Paleolithic, with its huge, hinged jaws and wide, barbaric forehead. His right temple was marked with a saber-toothed tattoo, some of the black "teeth" stabbing into his eye socket. Saber-toothed tattoo …. Dear God.

The giant was dressed like the head subjugator in a Medieval torture chamber: black leather pants with spiked kneepads, a shirt of see-through black mesh interwoven with metal links, and steel-toed boots with rings of knives surrounding the calves. Spiked bracers covered his wrists and forearms, and two more large knives were jammed into his belt – knives which he was even now drawing as his black eyes locked onto her with ruthless satisfaction. Her belly went gelatinous.

With what seemed like no more than a casual flick of his wrists, he sent the blades whizzing at Jacken and … her?

Jacken dove out of the path of the weapon, hitting the ground and rolling.

Dev surged to his feet and pushed her out of the way just as the knife hit his upper back with a meaty thunch. He yelled in pain, staggering forward a step.

She blinked at him in horror, catching a glimpse of the hilt: intertwining black saber-teeth with an undulating red crystal on it. Then – sch-plop! Part of Dev's shoulder exploded into her face, warm blood hitting her cheeks and spraying onto the front of her sweater. Dev dropped like a scarecrow that had lost its stuffing.

"No!" She fell down onto her knees beside him, alarm nearly blinding her with a dizzying rush of adrenaline. She jammed both hands over his wound, pressing hard to staunch the flow of blood.

"R-run," Dev croaked at her.

Blood was oozing steadily through her fingers. "We have to get you to the hospital!"

"You're in … danger," Dev gasped painfully. "L-Lorke can get past the key code box."

What? She whipped her eyes up.

The giant had just come to the blockade of steel bars and, without missing a beat, he wrapped one enormous hand around the code box protecting the door and ripped it off its bolts. Sparks flew out from the gnarled metal wreckage, showering over the giant, and a high-pitched siren started to wail.

Toni lurched to a standing position, the earth sloping beneath her feet like a carnival tilt-a-whirl ride. In defiance of every law of physics and science she'd ever learned, all the rules of nature she believed in with every fiber of her being, that giant was enduring what had to be a fatal electrical charge. And grinning at her.

His pupils glowed a bright, unnatural red as he flung the gate wide and came at her, his body looking bigger and taller with each step he took.

"Run, damnit!" Jacken was racing to her rescue from over near The Shank Tooth, his legs pumping like a couple of pistons, his boots tearing up the ground. He had two knives already half-drawn ….

But Nilan and his friends, who obviously agreed that, yes, running was the best course of action, did just that. As the panicked mob turned and scattered, they bowled Jacken down and heaped on top of him.

She herself tried to run, she really did. Her neurons were firing all of the necessary fight-or-flight messages, with flight taking huge precedence, but panic had paralyzed her. She could do no more than stand and stare as the giant drew up right in front of her.

Dizzied by his looming presence and the scorching heat coming off his body, she swayed backward. He reached out a hand, but not to steady her. No. He twisted a large paw into the front of her bloody sweater, then balled his other hand into a huge iron mallet and delivered her an unbelievable hammer of an uppercut. The blow snapped her chin back so hard it felt like her head came ripping partially off her neck.

She hurtled backward through the air, her sweater ripping out of the giant's hold, and crashed to the cave floor onto her shoulder blades, flipping a backward somersault and sprawling facedown. A choked sob escaped her as agony blasted through her jawbones and ricocheted around in her skull. A strange buzzing noise shut down her ears and her eyeballs rolled into the back of her head.

The feel of a hand tangling in her hair jolted her back from her momentary slip into unconsciousness. The giant yanked her to her feet, and she cried out at the burning pain in her scalp. More black dots danced before her vision, making it seem like she was hallucinating when she saw Thomal, Nyko, and Arc stampeding toward her from various directions of the cave. Not close enough ….

The giant tossed her onto his shoulder. Somehow she managed to act through her swimming senses and drive the sharp point of her elbow into the median nerve of her captor's neck. His grip loosened and she threw herself off his shoulder, hitting the rock floor with jarring impact. More birdies did laps around her head, singing her a lullaby, luring her back toward unconsciousness.

The giant locked a fist around her throat and hauled her to her feet. She heard a whoosh, and then the giant grunted, the hilt of a dagger suddenly appearing out of his shoulder. He spun in his attacker's direction.

Jacken!

Straight-arming her into immobility, the giant cocked back another knife. Jacken was much closer now, an easy target … no! Her vision blurred and narrowed, blackness coalescing over the surface of her eyes. She wrapped a feeble hand around the giant's wrist, the muscles in her neck straining as she fought to pull any amount of oxygen into her lungs.

The giant threw his knife.

Jacken twisted out of the path of the blade, spinning a full 360. The knife screamed harmlessly past, but the attack had done its job. Jacken was diverted long enough for the giant to sling her over his shoulder again and take off for the tunnels. Within seconds, he was passing through the still-smoking gate.

The need to vomit broke over her flesh in a cold sweat. Instinctively, she now knew those passageways weren't the way out, but the way into some –

Whirr, then clunch-clunch. Two knife handles were sticking out of the giant's back, protruding on either side of her waist. Her captor roared and flung her to the ground, adding bruised ribs to her rapidly growing list of injuries. He turned and rushed Jacken.

Half-blinded by sweat and tears, she watched from a fetal position on the ground as the two men went at each other with unmatched brutality, fists slamming into flesh in one bone-crushing punch after another, the relentless pounding of their blows echoing off the cave walls like thunder.

She'd never seen such violence in her life. Soon both men's chests were heaving with exertion, their faces awash with sweat and blood. Jacken's left eye was rapidly swelling shut, and the giant's nose was smashed out of alignment. The battle seemed to go on forever, although it probably only lasted the twenty seconds it took for Thomal, Nyko, and Arc to pound onto the scene. The three men arrived just as the giant seized Jacken by the throat and hiked him off his feet. With veins bulging on his forehead, Jacken still managed to kick the giant in the stomach. The creature flung Jacken at Nyko.

The two men collided, hit the ground, and rolled across Thomal's path. With a shout, Thomal leapt over the two warriors, barely clearing them. Jacken was back on his feet in an instant, blasting toward the tunnel.

But the giant had already disappeared.

"Shit!" Boots planted wide, his lungs working furiously, Jacken stood at the mouth of the tunnel and glared into it. "Fuck!" he shouted into the echoing chamber, frustration and anger apparent in every unyielding line of his body.

Toni pushed onto her hands and knees, coughing weakly, her breath rushing painfully along her tender throat. Her jaw felt as if someone had taken a baseball bat to it. She tried to rise, but couldn't. Her legs had no more substance than overcooked spaghetti.

"Oh, Jesus, Toni." Thomal hunkered down in front of her and took her by the shoulders, his expression clouding with concern. "You're covered in blood." He pressed his lips together as if hiding something in his mouth.

"I-It's not my blood," she stammered. "D-Dev, it's …. Is he …?"

"Nyko's heading over to him now," Thomal said softly. "He'll be all right."

She nodded her head, the movement stabbing pain into the backs of her eyeballs. She couldn't seem to stop crying. Maybe this was what hysteria felt like. She turned and looked for Jacken.

He was standing several feet away, his bloody face a rigid, unreadable mask, his dark eyes devoid of emotion. "Jacken …." Her lips trembled and then her whole body began to shake. "Don't –" She reached out a hand to him, feeling suddenly like he was the only one who could keep all of the monsters of the world under the bed where they belonged. Don't leave me.

He stood wooden and unmoving, making no effort to approach her.

You know, for someone who's probably real smart about most things in life, you seem to have your head particularly far up your ass about staying away from me.

She let her hand fall.

Arc placed a palm on Thomal's shoulder. "Let's get Toni to Dr. Jess."

A final tear slipped from her eye. She tilted sideways, and the last thing her conscious mind registered was that it was Thomal who caught her when she fainted dead away.