“Forward and back,” I muttered. More loudly, I said, “Okay, people. If you want to talk, we’re prepared to talk. And if you want to dance…” Again the sound of metal on metal, from a different direction this time. Well. That answered that. “Okay. Let’s dance.”

Thirteen

“Nothing lasts forever. That’s the tragedy and the miracle of existence—that everything is impermanent. Everything changes. All we can do is make the best of the time we have. And go down shooting, naturally.”

–Enid Healy

Deep beneath the streets of Manhattan, about to be attacked

THERE WAS A PAUSE AFTER MY LAST bravado-fueled comment, long enough that I was starting to feel a little silly standing in a sewer in a defensive posture, my back pressed up against a member of the Covenant of St. George, waiting to be attacked like a coed in a horror movie. I was about to suggest we start moving again when the walls around us bulged, transmuting from flat stone into lumpy, uneven crags. The crags split away from the walls, becoming a group of roughly-humanoid figures in tattered, mismatched clothing.

I gasped. It was a stupid, girly thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been studying cryptids since before I knew my ABCs. I’ve been specializing in the humanoid cryptids since second grade. But these … whatever they were, it was nothing I’d ever seen before. That realization was almost as chilling as the one that accompanied it.

We were trapped.

The figures continued to separate from the walls around us; I counted at least ten, maybe more, since the way their outlines shifted and blended together made it difficult to say for sure. They were hairless, about six feet tall, and covered head to toe in tiny green-and-brown scales. None of them was carrying a gun, thank God, but they all had at least one weapon in their hands, and in close quarters, knives and lead pipes will get you just as dead as bullets. Holes torn in the seats of their pants allowed their long whipcord-thin tails to wave free. Several of them were clutching additional weapons with those tails, waving them with prehensile menace.

“Oh, fuck, killer Sleestaks.” I pressed further back against Dominic. They had us outnumbered, and while they might have fought against humans before, I’d never fought against them. I wanted to watch them move for as long as I could.

“You know what these are?” he demanded, sotto voce. “How do we defeat them?”

“I so don’t have time to explain The Land of the Lost right now.” I shifted my weight onto the balls of my feet, assuming the position I’d use to start a samba. Samba, street fight, it’s all the same once you find the rhythm. Pitching my voice toward the lizard-men, I said, “My name is Verity Price. My companion and I mean you no harm. We’re just passing through, on important business.”

Three more of the lizard-men produced knives from inside their grimy shirts. So much for that tactic.

Time to try another approach. “I work for Dave Smith,” I said. “The local bogeyman community will vouch for me.” They definitely understood that, since their reaction was different this time: two of them hissed balefully, and one produced a nasty-looking hacksaw from inside his vest.

I said “different,” not “better.”

“I don’t think you’re talking us out of this,” said Dominic. Despite the precariousness of our position, he couldn’t quite keep the amusement from his tone.

Great. The man finally gets a sense of humor thirty seconds before we die. “I guess we’re just going to have to go the old-fashioned route.”

The lizard-man with the hacksaw hissed. That must have been a signal. The rest immediately stopped their baleful glaring and began to advance, clawed feet clacking on the sewer floor.

“What’s that?”

“Let’s kick some lizard ass.”

With a wild, ululating cry that was half reptile, half human, and all nightmare-inducing, the creatures charged. I took advantage of the fact that I was still braced against Dominic, leaning into him just long enough to kick the first of the attackers in the chin. Its jaws snapped shut on its serpentine tongue, and it made a wordless sound I assumed was lizard-man for “Ow.” My heel caught him in the forehead as I brought my foot back down. Then Dominic was lunging for a target of his own, momentum carrying him away from me and leaving me to dance my side of the battle solo.

Ten lizard-men, a Covenant trainee, and a Price girl: there’s no way to turn that into even odds. The lizard-man I’d kicked in the head was on his knees, blood running from the sides of his mouth. I kicked him a third time, sending him over backward before jumping up and using his chest as a source of higher ground. Without that extra bit of height, the lizard-men had more than six inches on me.

Six of the lizard-men were engaged in combat with Dominic, their tails whipping around to strike his back and shoulders as he hacked his way grimly forward. My count had been off by two, because even with my new stepstool groaning and motionless beneath me, there were six more closing in on my position. The odds were more than reasonably good that we were screwed.

“I’ve always loved a challenge,” I said—more for effect than because I meant a word of it—and leaped, baton raised, toward the next of the lizard-men.

In the movies, when the hero is surrounded by a gang of ne’er-do-wells who mean to do him (or her) harm, they always offer the courtesy of approaching one at a time, thus letting themselves be mowed down by the hero’s superior fighting skills and devastating repartee. Our lizard-men clearly hadn’t seen that many movies, since they belonged more to the school of “run at the enemy until the enemy stops fighting back.” I could appreciate the tactic—even respect it—but that didn’t mean I appreciated being on the receiving end.

My first lizard-man didn’t move even after I launched myself from his chest. I slammed my baton into the throat of the next one in the line, hearing the distinct breaking-plywood sound of his larynx giving way. He went down immediately, clutching at his throat. With two lizard-men down and five remaining, I was no longer devastatingly outnumbered, just horrifyingly outnumbered, and those were odds I was better-equipped to deal with.

I swung my baton at the next lizard-man, aiming for his kidneys at the last moment. Unfortunately, that was the moment when another of the lizard-men caught me in the back of the thighs with a length of what felt like rebar, sending me staggering for balance. The lizard-man I’d been swinging at whipped his tail around and yanked the baton from my hands, flinging it away into the darkness.