The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(66)

We raced past the broken cross and over the fallen bricks. Hudson had spent two more pistols, but he was in his element. He had another gun in his hands already and a pair of rifles strapped to his back, as well as an assortment of sharp knives and hatchets hanging from his belt for the moment his ammunition ran low.

A pair of centaurs vaulted over the broken wall just ahead of us, and I pulled Jackaby aside before their sharp hooves clattered down. The centaurs launched themselves into the battle, swiping with long spears and driving bone-crushing kicks into the monsters. I stumbled over the wall and out into daylight.

There, in the churchyard, was a glorious sight: pixies and spriggans and gnomes and goblins, Nudd shouting commands and cursing colorfully, bird-headed women and woman-headed birds, a man of living fire, and a smiling giant towering over the company. A battery of New Fiddleham police officers, along with Commissioner Marlowe and even Mayor Spade himself, fought with gusto. At the head of the field of uniforms stood Charlie Barker and, floating beside him, Jenny Cavanaugh.

Jenny spotted us, and her face burst into unmasked relief. She swept across the field and met me halfway with a firm embrace. Jenny felt solid. She also felt as cold as ice—but she felt solid, and as I threw my arms around her, I cried with unexpected happiness in the midst of all the horrors around us.

“You brought them? Oh, Jenny! We didn’t even know if you—” I began.

“I thought for sure that you—” she started.

An arrow hit the ground beside us.

“Hurry, come on,” she said, releasing me. She reached for Jackaby’s hand to pull him along, too, but her fingers passed through his like vapor. Her face fell. She tried to hide it as she sallied on. “Come. Out of the line of fire!”

Even as she said it, a hulking gargantuan covered in scales crashed through the wall of the church and bounded out into the open in front of us. His skin was like a crocodile’s, but he ran more like an orangutan, bounding forward using his legs and arms, balancing his weight on his meaty knuckles. He saw the phalanx of police officers and grinned hungrily. Those in the group who didn’t scatter at his approach opened fire, smoke from their pistols rising thick over their heads—but the monster shrugged off the shots like they were pebbles. With a swipe of his gnarled hand, he sent one of the officers flying. The man landed on his back and did not get up. Mayor Spade stumbled backward, tripping over Lieutenant Dupin near the front of the formation and sending them both falling to the ground. Before the scaly colossus could take his next swipe, Chief Nudd screamed out a command, and a goblin swarm leapt onto the monster, scrambling onto its head and jabbing at its eyes.

The scaly monster threw the goblins off one at a time, but the distraction had been enough. In two strides, Mr. Dawl, our giant, was there, his massive hands clutching an enormous lance—a lance that had been the trunk of a nearby pine tree until very recently. He drove it straight through the brute’s thick chest. Unlike Jackaby, the scaly monster did not survive being skewered.

Charlie helped the stunned mayor to his feet. Marlowe began barking commands, and the scattered officers formed into smaller units of five or six, fanning out and taking up positions all around the church.

Monsters large and small poured across the grass, the front line of the war spreading wider with every second. Our gnomes charged into a cluster of their angry hobs. A cloud of pixies met a swarm of brownies midair, tiny corpses dropping as they clashed. The bodies of Nudd’s goblins began littering the ground as well. They had been the most fearless into the breach. From somewhere nearby, an ax whipped through the air and landed only a few feet from the already addled mayor.

“H-how can we even tell which ones are on our side?” Spade stammered, picking up the weapon and holding it out in front of himself with shaking hands.

“Iffin’ they’s tryin’ tae kill ye,” Nudd spat back at him sourly, “probably baddies.”

Lydia Lee emerged from our crowd of allies with a litter. A stocky faun with horns that curled back around the side of his head and legs like a goat jogged over from the ranks behind her to help her maneuver the fallen officer onto it. The policeman did not look like he was breathing.

A bright burst of light and a wave of dry heat hit me from my left. I spun. Shihab had ignited a monstrous woman made of briars and thorns. She hardly seemed to notice that she was aflame as she lashed at the jinn with vines like barbed whips. A screech sounded behind me and I spun again. A gaunt figure with gray skin pulled taut over its angular bones leapt toward us from the melee. “Wendigo!” Jackaby cried out. It sank its yellow teeth into the faun, who dropped his end of the litter. Jackaby ran to help him.

“Behind you!” screamed Spade. I spun in time to watch the mayor hurl his ax at a hob who had trotted up right behind Nudd. The butt of Spade’s weapon smacked the ugly elfin creature in the eye. It stumbled, dazed, and Nudd drove his own little sword into its neck. The hob dropped to the earth, very dead. Nudd and Mayor Spade exchanged a nod of tentative mutual respect.

Jackaby had pulled the wendigo off the bleeding faun. The wretched thing lashed out, and it was all Jackaby could do to hold the snarling creature at arm’s length. It shredded his already tattered coat sleeves, but the skin beneath continued to heal as soon as it was cut. “I could use some assistance,” he grunted.

I stepped up and took a swing at the wendigo’s neck with Morwen’s blade. It was like chopping through dry kindling. The creature collapsed, decapitated. I felt sick and numb watching its head roll to a stop.