Heartless(92)

“Jack! Come back here, you knave!”

But he was gone, lost in the chaos.

Locking her jaw, Catherine rolled onto her back, trying not to disturb her ankle. The sharp pain had turned to agony, but she didn’t see any blood.

With stars sparking in the corners of her eyes, she dared to look up. Jest had his scepter hooked around the Jabberwock’s neck and Raven’s talons had left a series of claw marks between the beast’s leathery wings.

Cath curled her fingers into her gown and thought of the stories she’d heard as a child. Fairy tales in which the beast was slain, its monstrous head cut clean from its shoulders like a gruesome trophy.

“Off with its head,” she whispered to herself, tossing her gaze wildly around the lobby. There had to be a weapon—something sharper than Jest’s polished-wood scepter. “We have to chop off its head.”

She had spoken so quietly she could barely hear her own words in the turmoil, yet at that moment, Raven landed on the stair’s railing and cocked his head, his fathomless eyes peering into her.

Jest grunted, his face contorted with the effort to control the Jabberwock. The beast suddenly hurled itself upward. Jest lost his grip and slipped back, struck by the monster’s whipping tail.

He flipped in the air, landing on his feet with only a slight stumble.

The Jabberwock beat its great wings. All around the lobby, candle flames flickered and blew out.

But one of the monster’s wings was off-kilter.

It was wounded.

Raven tore his focus from Catherine and soared upward, targeting the monster’s remaining eye. With a snap of its jaws, the Jabberwock caught a tail feather in its mouth. Raven retreated with a cry.

The Jabberwock warbled in the air. It reached for a chandelier but missed and crumpled back toward the lobby’s floor. What was left of the crowd scattered. The tiles cracked under the impact. The walls quaked.

The creature panted and gurgled. One burning eye darted around the destruction. A curl of steam spiraled from its nostrils.

It fixed its eye on Catherine again, like a predator singling out the weakest from the herd. Its tongue lolled as it shuddered itself up onto all four legs.

Cath pushed back, her palms slipping on her gown’s fabric. She was tangled and trapped and the very idea of putting weight on her ankle brought hysteria clawing up her throat.

The beast lumbered toward her, great globs of saliva dripping from its teeth.

“No!” Jest yelled. “You’re fighting me, you great smelly beast! Leave her alone!”

He launched himself off the mezzanine and swung down from a chandelier. The candles were still swinging, splattering wax on the floor, when he landed between the beast’s wings. His brow was beaded with sweat, lines of kohl running down his cheeks, yet he managed to make it look like a choreographed dance.

It was like being at the circus. Cath could see it all in her pain-filled delirium. For our next act, please welcome Jest and the Jubilant Jabberwock, best acrobatic team in all of Hearts!

She started to laugh hysterically.

Raven puffed his wings, still watching her.

Raging and twisting, the Jabberwock tried to shake off the Joker again, but Jest latched on to the soft tissue where its wings met its back, his scepter raised to strike. Catherine didn’t believe he could kill it with a wooden stick. Take out another eye, perhaps. Wound and maim, no doubt. But soon the Jabberwock’s teeth would find Jest and end this act.

Feathered wings beat at her hair. She screamed and ducked away, but it was only Raven. He dropped to the ground beside her, his chest fluttering with quick breaths. He had Jest’s hat in his talons, the bells silenced against the broken ground.

He fixed his eyes on her and nudged the hat forward.

Cath grabbed it. The fabric was worn and soft. It felt like an ancient thing, not a recent addition to a joker’s motley. The bells twinkled as she thrust her arm inside.

No fabric lining, no worn seams. The inside of the hat was a void, deep and endless. She pressed her arm in up to her shoulder, her fingers reaching and stretching until they wrapped around something cool and hard.

She pulled her arm back and gasped.

She was gripping the handle of a sword.

No—the Vorpal Sword. She knew it to her bones. Its blade shone silver in the theater’s warm light, its hilt encrusted with the teeth and bones of the creatures it had slain before.

She thought of the stories. The brave king who had sought the Jabberwock in the forest and slain it with the righteous Vorpal Sword.

She looked up. Jest was still clinging to the monster’s back. He spotted her and his eyes widened. “Catherine—!”

The Jabberwock bucked. This time Jest was flung at the ground, landing on his side with a groan. His scepter skittered into the crowd, the few who were stuck by the theater doors, too afraid to make a run for the exit. They stood huddled in terrified groups, some fleeing back into the theater, others hunching into what safety the staircase could afford them.

The Jabberwock rounded on Catherine again, as if Jest had been nothing but a pestering gnat and she was the true target. Its next meal.

The beast saw the sword in her hand and froze.

The weapon warmed in her hand as if it, too, sensed its prey.

Catherine gulped and allowed herself one whimper of denial. One panicked moment of refusal in which she absolutely, positively, was not going to stand on her broken ankle and face this monster with an ancient, mythical weapon.