I arrived at the dockyard destination with ten minutes to spare. I’d rushed as fast as I could, changing back a couple of blocks from home in the pit of a construction site. I’d stashed everything except my phone. It was around six, and the sky was beginning to burn orange.

  I wasn’t sure how far the delivery point was from the rendezvous, so I flew low and quietly. I skimmed just over rooftops, twisting, winding, angling sharply to follow the contours of the city. I pushed my airborne agility to its limits—at times, I had maybe a foot of clearance on either side of my wings.

  It was exhilarating.

  I’d relayed my weight restrictions to Coil, who, in turn, had provided a meeting location: the top of a four-story office building that was still just a concrete shell.

  Four men waited for me. Each was kitted out in full tactical assault gear and looked ready for a war zone—gray, blue, and black digital urban camo, black webbing, multiple firearms, spare mags, grenades, radios, helmets, and full ballistic protection. The gear looked heavy, but they looked like they could carry it just fine.

  One stepped forward.

  “Apex. Chess team here. I’m Bishop.” He gestured to the others in turn. “Knight, Pawn, Rook.”

  He tapped a gray-on-black patch on his left breast, mirrored on his right arm.

  I dipped my head. “Nice to meet you, Chess team.”

  Bishop flipped open a flap on his vest, pulled out a folded map, and set it on the ground. A few pieces of gravel held the corners in place. The other three operators dropped into a crouch, and I joined them around it.

  Bishop pressed a button on one of the many tactical attachments on his rifle. Without unslinging the weapon, he used a pressure switch to activate a green laser, guiding it over the map.

  “We’re here,” he said, circling a rooftop with the beam. “Bay’s here. Objective buildings here.” He pointed toward the target’s real-world direction for orientation. We were about three blocks out. I nodded.

  “This op is mission-critical—part of a multi-phase push tonight.” He glanced at Rook. “Blueprints.”

  Rook laid a set of blueprints directly over the aerial photo. “Six floors above grade, two sublevels. Eight total. Primary elevator shafts here and here.” He circled them with the laser.

  “Is this aligned to the map?” I asked. Rook adjusted the blueprint, rotating it ninety degrees before placing it back.

  “Right,” I murmured. “Two shafts. Four stairwells. What’s the resistance like?”

  “High,” Bishop replied. “Expect contact on every level. Heavy foot traffic, high concentration of hostiles. Most, if not all, armed.”

  My jaw tightened as I scanned the paper. This wasn’t sounding like a smash-and-grab.

  “How many, roughly? And what are they carrying?”

  Bishop gave me a look. It was hard to read through his gear, but his eyes narrowed.

  “Boss told us to give you a quick brief. Didn’t know you were walking in cold.” A short pause. “Mostly small arms. Some crew-served stuff is possible. ABB’s been bringing in crates for months—we don’t have an exact inventory.”

  “I was at a BBQ, about to have some hot dogs and burgers.” I sighed. “Some life, huh?”

  That got a chuckle out of the squad. “It’s why we get paid the big bucks,” said Knight.

  Bishop rubbed his chin through his cloth face covering. “We don’t have exact numbers. We’ve only been running overwatch for a couple of days. Fifty to sixty, minimum. Possibly more than double that.”

  Give me your absolute worst, huh? What’s the worst they’ve got? Lung? Boxing his lights out? No, idiot—try a hundred guys with automatics, maybe explosives, dug into a concrete bunker. Good job, Morgan.

  “There are four assault squads on standby to move in once you clear the way,” Bishop continued. “They’ll mop up anything you can’t finish. You’re getting paid per floor cleared, far as I know.”

  At least I can tap out early. Suppose that’s something.

  I cleared my throat with a rasping hack. “Alright. What’s the objective?”

  “Clear as many floors as you can. Minimize structural damage. Seize weapons and materials if possible. Destroy only if necessary.”

  “Anything else I should know about the layout or the people inside?”

  Pawn chimed in: “There’s probably a cache of explosives somewhere in the building. Smart money says basement level. And the structure’s reinforced concrete.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “It’ll tank detonations better. That’s the upside. The downside is they’ll fight harder. Might have fallback points, kill zones, maybe even defenses prepped.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Explain it to me simply. I know some stuff, but not all the lingo.”

  Knight took that one. “Mines. Booby traps. Improvised bombs. Places designed to make you bleed if you take the wrong step.”

  My voice came out as dry as my mouth felt after hearing all that. “Right. Mines and explosives. I love those.”

  Bishop glanced at me. “Are you up for this? The boss seems to have confidence in you, but this isn’t some walk in the park.”

  I rolled my tongue across my teeth, steeled myself, and lied through them. “Are you kidding? I live for this shit. Piece of cake.”

  There was a beat of silence. Then Pawn snickered.

  Bishop checked his watch. “Five minutes. Any last questions?”

  “Yeah. What are you four doing, exactly? Sounds like you won’t be going in with me.”

  Rook nodded. “We’re containment. If anyone bolts, we handle it. We’ll also be cutting the power, keeping reinforcements from getting called in. And this—” He pulled out a foot-and-a-half-long device that looked like a chunk of PVC pipe bristling with antennas and switches. “Broad-spectrum area jammer. If the hostages have bomb implants, this should block the signal.”

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Oh, thank god. That’s huge.”

  I looked over toward the target building again. It loomed over the surrounding warehouses, all sharp edges and reinforced concrete.

  “I’ll do everything I can to avoid casualties,” I said. I wasn’t sure if it was for them or me.

  “Okay. I need a minute to limber up and prep, and I should be good.”

  I set into some stretches, earning a few deep pops and crunches. While I was doing that, I was trying my best to stay level and not panic. I needed… weapons. Things to try and divide and conquer, to dictate the terms of the engagement. I needed every advantage I could get.

  I warmed up my power and thought about what it was I was trying for.

  Those whips I had before—tentacle whips. Something that could neutralize enemies without killing them. Maybe knockout darts I could fire. Some kind of protection for my ears and head against loud sounds and shockwaves. Oh, and a smokescreen. Definitely a smokescreen.

  I sank into my power and let it flow.

  The changes were mostly centered on my lower arms. The left one swelled, bulging into a kind of pod across the back of my forearm. The right one became studded with dozens of hard nodules, each tipped with a forward-facing opening. I glanced down. Thin quills peeked out from within each.

  Some of my tentacles merged into my helmet, wrapping more tightly around my head, while the rest stuck out the back in a punky spray. Something shifted deep in my ears—I could still hear, I was pretty sure. My lungs burned briefly with a squirming heat, and my back itched just above the point where it had opened yesterday in the ocean.

  And that was it. My head bristled with new eyes—I wasn’t sure how many. A tingling jolt zipped down the thirty-odd feet of my spine, from skull to tail tip.

  “I’m ready.” I paused. “Say something. Quietly?”

  Pawn whispered: “Mic check.”

  I nodded.

  Oh! Wait—

  “Bishop?” He turned, mid-packing, as the team gathered their gear. I held out my phone to him with a long tentacle. “Hang onto this for me. It’s waterproof and durable, but I don’t think it’s bombproof.”

  He took it and tucked it into a pouch on his chest.

  “Good luck, Apex. We’ll get into position. I’ll signal you with a light—three red flashes, aimed up here. Once you see it, you’re clear to go. We’ll cut the power as soon as they engage you.”

  I gave him a ludicrously huge thumbs-up.

  Stepping over by the stairwell, I gave the smoke a little test. Just a tiny amount, nothing major. My power responded, and I coughed lightly.

  But the smoke didn’t come out of the slot in my helmet—it came out of my back.

  Six small balls of inky-black vapor puffed into the air, each one like sooty India ink. They floated for a moment… then pushed outward and expanded. Rapidly. Way too rapidly.

  Shit.

  I flapped my wings with a quick snap, sending the cloud tumbling away on the breeze. It dispersed almost instantly.

  Note to self: Don’t test weapons on rooftops like a dumbass.

  I slunk forward on all fours to the edge of the roof, facing the target building. A low wall gave me some cover, and I slowly lifted part of my face just high enough to see.

  Minutes passed. Too many. The wait gnawed at me. Then, finally, I saw the signal: a dim red light, blinking three times in a steady rhythm.

  Here goes nothing.

  I backpedaled to the far side of the roof and broke into a run, like I was going to do a street-jump as Phoenix Strike.

  Key differences?

  Three blocks, not one street.

  Way faster.

  Wings. Big ones.

  I didn’t want to flap them more than I had to—I was going for a stealthy glide, not a dramatic swoop. So I needed a perfect launch.

  I got it.

  My wings snapped into position as I hit the ledge and leapt into the open air. The initial burst of speed let me climb slightly. I crested… then dropped into a smooth, silent glide.

  Three blocks out.

  Two.

  One.

  I was low now, bleeding off speed. Spotlights snapped on, shouts echoed ahead.

  The rattle of automatic fire erupted from three rooftop positions. Then a quiet pop—the lights died all at once. I felt a few impacts, but nothing hurt. Just noise and pressure.

  I was fine.

  And I had made a decision.

  Fuck subtlety.

  I wasn’t going through a window or climbing some fire escape.

  I was going to crash through the front goddamn door.

  I’m a multi-ton tank, bitch. Try and stop me.

  I hit the ground running, maybe a bit over a hundred yards out, barreling straight down the street at them. My wings were tucked back tight. The muzzle flashes from weapons fire lit up four floors.

  Fifty yards out. Thirty.

  There was a fwoomp from above—and then the ground a few feet to my right exploded, pavement bursting up in a spray of debris. The concussive blast slammed into my side.

  It felt like getting kicked when you’re braced and ready. Not pleasant, but I was fine.

  I bulldozed through the front of the building, smashing through a makeshift sandbag barricade. There were at least a dozen people in the corridors to my left and right, and another eight to ten ahead of me, clustered around the first elevator bank. The lights were out, with only scattered emergency floods offering uneven, flickering illumination. Poor visibility. Shadows everywhere.

  Some of them had gun-mounted lights. They were screaming, opening fire wildly. The thunder of the gunfire filled the hall, deafening and chaotic.

  I could feel the bullets striking me all over—but not a single one hurt.

  Where they hit my armored plates, they went plink or ping —like ball bearings on a bell. Shallow hits screeched as they ricocheted. The softer impacts on my soft armor sounded like pop-pop-pop, or thwap, like heavy rain on a tarp. Even through the racket, the spent shells bouncing on the tile floor had a musical, almost windchime-like clatter. Just… not good windchimes.

  I took a deep breath.

  Then coughed out six jets of dark dust that exploded outward in thick clouds. From within it, my eyes picked out the bright glow of hot guns, the humanoid heat-signatures of panicking people.

  I dropped to all fours and started working.

  The dart launcher was incredible. I held out my right arm, gave it a twitch, and fwip, a four or five-inch barbed quill launched out with a faint hiss. The little tuft at the end barely fluttered.

  One stuck in a man’s side: he clutched at it, swayed, and crumpled, twitching but limp. Another hit a woman in the shoulder. Same result. No blood. No screaming. Just... silence.

  The whip wasn’t much use in tight quarters like this, but I didn’t need it. The darts were doing the job beautifully.

  I cleared the first floor in minutes. Two dozen bodies, maybe a bit more. Limp, breathing, out cold.

  God, I hope the rest of the building isn’t this packed.

  I turned for the stairwell. The subfloors were next. I didn’t want anyone escaping down there, especially if bombs were involved. Or worse: accidents near bombs.

  The smoke I’d been coughing out kept working in my favor. Every minute or so, another chuff coated the halls with more of the black dust. It was drifting everywhere. Without my heat vision, I’d have been completely blind.

  I descended to the first sublevel. Open layout. Fifteen hostiles, tops. Easier to handle. And the crates. Stacks of them.

  Weapons. Ammunition. Enough to arm an entire battalion.

  That so-called “big bust” I’d made back in March? Drop in the fucking bucket. This place was an arms depot. Maybe literally.

  I slinked toward the next stairwell.

  The moment I pushed the door open to the lowest floor, all hell broke loose.

  A mounted gun on a tripod opened fire from the center of the room. Heavy. Loud. The whole stairwell shook with the force of it.

  I wasn’t sure how they were seeing me, but the bullets from that thing fucking hurt. They didn’t ping or pop —they clanged off my hard armor like a sledge on a manhole cover.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  The gun fired slower than the others, but in the ten or so rounds that slammed into my chest, about half hit my soft armor, each one blooming into a fiery, burning hell. I ducked back out of the doorway and looked down.

  Sure enough. Six finger-sized slugs were sticking out of my skin.

  I gritted my teeth, sank the claws of my lower left hand into one, and pulled.

  It didn’t want to come out.

  When I finally wrenched it free, I saw why. The head had split into petals like a goddamn metal flower and buried itself deep into my layers of flesh. Inside the petals was a fat, pancaked core—deformed but brutal.

  I yanked out two more and took a moment to breathe. Thick, syrupy black ichor oozed from the wounds. Not gushing, but bleeding steadily. It was already clotting, congealing like tar.

  I brought my face to the side of the door and roared :

  “HEY! FUCK YOU! THAT HURT! ”

  The reply was immediate: another THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK burst that shredded the doorframe, then sawed through both walls left to right. One round clipped me in the ass, and another slammed into my face.

  I ran up the stairs.

  Gritting my teeth, I tore out two more rounds from my torso. The one that hit my face had exploded on impact—shrapnel embedded in and pierced through the lens over my eye. It was leaking, and it hurt.

  Focus. Losing one eye won’t kill you. The longer you wait, the worse this gets.

  I moved silently along the floor above, estimating the gun’s position.

  Here goes nothing.

  I dropped to all fours, backed up, then drove my tail down into the floor. The claws snapped into a drill-like point and punched through the concrete. I splayed them into a crude club and swung blindly beneath me.

  We call this fishing for assholes.

  I struck something soft. Screams. Then something solid and heavy. Bingo. I fed more of my tail down, repositioned, and brought it down hard.

  Please don’t be a bomb.

  Something crunched. Something big.

  If only I could see what the hell I was doing—

  Wait. My power stirred.

  … I’m an idiot.

  A surge rushed through me, and an eye opened at the tip of my tail. Holy shit—I could see. Heat signatures lit the room: a few slumped bodies, a few still moving. The tripod gun was bent and broken.

  I slithered down the staircase, cleaned them out with darts, and made my way back up.

  Second floor.

  It was part barracks, part squatter’s den. Hammocks, cots, and camp stoves. It reeked with filth. But it was also empty. Not sure if that was a relief or a trap.

  I switched staircases and crept up to the third floor. Smarter this time. I peeked around the corner with my tail’s eye.

  Bingo.

  The missing second-floor occupants were all here. Sandbags. Overturned tables. Old machinery turned into cover. A lot of people.

  I was going to have my work cut out for me.

  Still. I wanted to at least try diplomacy.

  From the halfway landing, I yelled:

  “I’ve cleared a third of the building! Drop your guns and surrender! No one else needs to get hurt!”

  There was a moment of silence.

  Then someone screamed, “ Die, mazoku! ”

  And about three seconds later, five grenades clinked and bounced through the doorway, rolling down the stairs right toward me.

  Best I could tell, one grenade bounced down the stairwell and exploded below. One was smoke, which didn’t do much. Two went off right near me and splattered metal across my flank.

  The last one made a pop-bang, not a real explosion. For a half second, I thought it was a dud.

  Then the pain hit.

  A flash of blinding white seared across my vision, overloading my senses. I jerked my head away so hard I smashed it into the stairwell wall.

  Something white-hot sprayed across my left side. It stuck.

  I had just enough time to wonder why it was sticking. Then I learned a new kind of pain.

  It stuck because it was burning through me.

  I roared and smashed through the second-floor doorway wall, hurling myself onto the concrete floor, rolling hard. Trying to put the fire out.

  It didn’t go out.

  Hissing jets of steam and sickly-smelling smoke poured from my side, where it melted through my soft armor. My hard plates were holding, but not for long. Two of my left wings were on fire. I flopped onto my back and slammed them into the floor until the flames sputtered out.

  I was still burning. Still rolling. Still not out.

  That’s when I heard them. Voices—shouting—coming through another stairwell.

  Six of them, all with guns, spilled into the room halfway down the floor.

  I had other things to worry about currently, like being incinerated.

  Ignoring them was another mistake.

  Gunfire erupted. Bullets raked across my side and back, not stopped by soft armor this time. Like a hundred bee stings, all at once.

  I twisted, planted all fours, and turned to face them.

  Six firing. Two more came through the stairwell behind them.

  Rocket launchers.

  Oh for fuck’s–

  Two booms, less than a second apart. I didn’t think, I reacted. Claws dug into the floor as I whipped my tail around. I caught the first rocket with the curve of my tail and smashed it aside. Thankfully, it didn’t detonate.

  The second hit dead center.

  It was like a truck barreling into my chest at highway speed. I was launched backward, smashed through windows and part of the wall, and slammed down on the pavement outside.

  Flat on my back. Gasping. Wheezing. Everything ached.

  I frantically patted myself down with my lower arms.

  Broken bones in my left arm. My chest plates were cracked and glowing. Black ichor oozed out from the deeper breaks. Parts of my soft armor were scorched black.

  I was alive. And I was pissed.

  I rolled onto all fours and did a quick self-assessment.

  I was bleeding all over. Still smoking, still burning on the inside—but it felt like it was winding down.

  If my usual appearance was frightening, my current look was a full-on horror show. Trails of black tar oozed from my skin, dripping in ropes. Smoke hissed from the holes burned through my left side. One eye ruptured. Armor plates cracked and glowing. A third of my wings were in charred tatters.

  Fuck the mission objectives. Fuck profit motive. Coil isn’t hurting for money.

  I’m done fucking around.

  I coiled low, like a terrible spring, and launched myself up the side of the building. Wings flared wide—painfully—but they worked well enough. I crested the sixth floor and slammed down onto the rooftop.

  There were half a dozen people up there. They didn’t even scream at first—just stared, stunned, as I burst into view like a jack-in-the-box straight out of hell.

  Four of them were within reach. They scrambled for weapons.

  Too late.

  I swept my wings wide. The stiff leading edges clotheslined three of them mid-chest and sent them crashing to the rooftop. The fourth ducked low but still caught a blow to the head, and went down in a heap.

  I lashed my tail out and snatched the fifth by the leg, lifting her off the ground. She screamed bloody murder, kicking and flailing as I dangled her upside-down over the edge of the roof.

  Good.

  I roared, deep and guttural. Let the others think I was dismembering people up here.

  The sixth tried to run. I hit him in the neck with a quill.

  Then I tagged the four I’d put down with my wings. The screaming woman got one last panicked cry out before I stuck her too. I laid her gently beside the others and tossed a nearby sandbag off the roof.

  Let them wonder.

  Then I took the express route down.

  Which is to say, I punched a hole through the rooftop, crawled down through the ceiling, and skittered along it like a monster in a horror movie.

  Inverted, silent, and swift. I darted back and forth, claws digging into concrete, tail lashing out at random to knock people sprawling. I was quick, brutal, and precise—firing quills in a blur of motion, sweeping through rooms with my claws, tentacles, and wings. Every few minutes, I let out another jet of ink-dust, flooding the floor with opaque smoke.

  Morale was breaking.

  I could hear it in their screams, their panicked orders, the sound of gear hitting the floor. Some were hiding. Some were trying to run. A few held their ground—but they were rattled.

  Good.

  I crashed out through the side of the building, dropped into the lot, and then vaulted right back up again.

  Through a window. Through another wall.

  Back onto the third floor.

  The team that had fucked me up was there, still near where I remembered.

  One of them was on the phone. A couple more were frantically reloading their weapons from open crates.

  I didn’t give them the chance.

  I dropped low, spun hard, and swept the floor with a twenty-foot leg. Like a monster ballerina with claws. They toppled like bowling pins.

  I was on them instantly. Quilling some, terrorizing the rest to keep them from mounting another response. I ripped the rocket launcher out of one’s hands and crushed it in my claws. My jaw unhinged, and I roared into two of their faces at close range.

  This crew was clearly trained. One shielded their face. The other pulled a pistol and fired wildly.

  A few rounds hit my head and screeched off. One ricocheted and struck one of the others in the arm. Several went straight into my open mouth.

  That hurt, but compared to the searing, clinging burn throughout my flank, it was barely a nuisance.

  I snapped my jaws shut on the pistol. The gun crunched between my teeth like brittle plastic.

  I darted the rest of them before they could recover.

  One floor left.

  I jabbed my tail down through the ceiling and scoped the level below. Not many. Six, maybe eight. I caught one within reach and smacked him into a wall, straight to dreamland.

  I made my way to the elevator shaft, tore off the doors, and climbed up like an insect. I pulled myself out onto the fourth floor.

  Almost there.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  The last person was hiding, crouched behind a mess of crates in the far corner.

  “Give up,” I growled. My voice echoed through the ink-clouded dark. “You’re the last one left alive in here.”

  I padded closer, soft and nearly silent on all fours. They peeked over the boxes, barely visible in the dark. I didn’t want to shoot them in the face—not if I could help it. I shifted to the side, looking for a clean angle.

  There was junk scattered all over the floor. Broken glass everywhere, probably from the rocket explosion below. I scanned the floor ahead. Clutter. Packing material. Some spilled crates. A strange oblong object, perched on stubby little legs. Maybe the size of a paperback novel, but curved.

  I stepped forward.

  Glass crunched underfoot.

  The person jerked. Then—

  Clack.

  Something slammed into my head like a hammer. Consciousness blinked out. A split second—maybe less—but I hit the floor hard.

  I got back to all fours, gave my head a quick shake.

  Chunks of debris were still falling around me. Bits of wall and ceiling. Light fixtures. Concrete.

  I wasn’t sure what just hit me. But it had teeth.

  I shook myself again. I needed to deal with the person before any more surprises hit me.

  I quit smoking and jumped the distance to pounce just in front of the person.

  They were sprawled on the floor, out cold. I stepped over them, crunched the still-warm plastic box they’d been holding under one foot, and checked them over.

  Hot blood dribbled from her ears. Pulse was good. She was breathing. I shot her with a quill in the thigh, scooped her up with my right lower arm, and headed for the nearest window. Window frame. Holding her tight to my scarred chest, I hopped out the window and flapped my wings to soften the landing.

  Two wings were incinerated. More partially tore on the way down, but I landed somewhat gracefully. Chess team was approaching on foot, as was a convoy of big moving-style box trucks.

  I swept glass and debris off the pavement with my tail and set the lady down carefully on her back.

  I hurt basically all over. My head was a touch fuzzy, but my thoughts were as sharp as ever. My wings that weren’t burned to a crisp were torn in places and looked like Swiss cheese everywhere else. My vision was down significantly. I think I had maybe four functional eyes left, if that. More than half were some mix of shattered or missing entirely. I was lightly oozing from triple-digit minuscule holes on my right side, steaming from far fewer, but way worse holes on my left side. A number of my tentacles had been blown off or were dangling by connective tissue.

  Through the hazy soup of pain, though? I felt…

  What the fuck?

  Why do I feel good?

  There was some adrenaline, sure. But it wasn’t just that. I was elated. Buzzing.

  I’d just pulled off a frankly insane feat—and I knew it.

  And I hadn’t killed a single person. Hadn’t even seriously hurt anyone.

  I got the absolute piss beaten out of me, but that’s the job, right?

  That’s what heroes do.

  We save people by putting ourselves at risk.

  Taking this building and everyone in it? That was going to be huge in putting a stop to the chaos choking the city.

  Bishop whispered something into a shoulder radio and approached cautiously. My hearing wasn’t the best at the moment, and I wasn’t entirely paying attention to the details.

  “You… Good Apex?” He asked me. Wary. Maybe a little concerned.

  “Oh yeah, I’m great,” I replied. “Lady here blew herself up when blowing me up. Might need medical attention.” I gestured at her with a tentacle.

  “First floor’s really messy. There are a few people in there, scattered around with some bleeding wounds from shrapnel or ricochets. I don’t think anything was immediately life-threatening, but let people know they need to check them ov-”

  I worked my jaw around. Stinging heat by my mandible. I closed it and flexed the muscle, and I felt–and tasted–a slug pop out of the muscle with a spurt of blood. There were a couple more clinking around down under my tongue, too. I swallowed the blood and scooped the coppery rounds up.

  “Mlehp.” I cracked my jaw open and deposited a tongueful of bullets, lightly coated in spit, at Bishop’s feet.

  “Present for you.”

  The silence that followed was thick.

  “Anyways. Yeah. Check the rest out. Shouldn’t be any casualties.”

  Bishop toed a pistol bullet with the tip of his boot.

  Chess Team went quiet as trucks pulled up to the building with a hiss of air brakes and the clatter of roller doors. Dozens of figures jumped out of the back—armed to the teeth, loaded down with zip-cuffs strapped in loops all over their gear.

  “Seen a lotta shit in this line of work,” Pawn said. He flicked a finger between the bullets and me. “That’s a first.”

  “Verifying you hit every floor?” Bishop asked. I nodded. More radio chatter.

  I looked down, took my lower left wrist in my lower right hand, and gently pulled. The bone crunched a bit and popped into place. Better. I held it against my chest and goosed my power. A few tentacles wriggled out of my hide and looped around the arm, immobilizing it.

  “Hey, you got my phone?” I asked as the thought struck me.

  Bishop pulled it from his chest pouch with the shrip of a hook-and-loop fastener and extended it out. I took it with a few strands of hair. Unlocked it and sent a text.

  Me: All eight packages delivered to the address. Bit roughed up by some locals. Going to wash up.

  Freestyle Logistics: Noted. You’re making quite the impression. Pay with bonuses should be ready in ten minutes.

  “Think I’m good to go. Heading out.”

  I turned to leave—then paused, glancing back.

  “Oh. Uh. There were mines upstairs. Those suck. Be careful.”

  As I started to walk again, I called back: “You all take freelance work?”

  They shared a look.

  Bishop answered: “We’re contractors. In an engagement right now, but yeah. We do.”

  I tongued my cheek. Ow.

  “You all seem like you know your stuff pretty well. Shoot me your contact details?”

  Phrasing.

  He pulled a phone similar to my own out, unlocked it, and flicked a contact card over to my phone wirelessly. My phone buzzed with a receipt.

  “Cool, cool. Be in touch. Have uh… fun?”

  A couple of thumbs-ups and a “Roger Wilco.”

  Ugh. Military people. I should probably get someplace safe and take care of myself.

  I padded down the street on all fours and called Faultline.

  Two rings, and she picked up.

  “Hearing some chatter. We’re going to be heading out for a big deployment soonish. All of us.”

  “Just did a sorta big job myself. Good if I stop in? Need to clean up a bit. Might head out with you all after if I’m up for it.”

  “No need to ask. Armed forces and PRT know we’re moving. Shouldn’t have too many problems traveling. Try and put a hurry on it, though. Time is limited.”

  Shit.

  “Going to be coming on foot as fast as I can, then. Maybe uhhh… five minutes? I’ll come in the back if you can be ready for me.”

  “Confirmed. See you then.” The line went dead. I locked my phone, stuck it in my hair, and crouched down.

  Then I took off. Not full-out sprinting on two legs, but running hard. Straight down the streets. Leaning in corners, tail whipping, and swaying behind me. I had to take a zig-zagging path through the city. Traffic was low; some cars honked or screeched their tires, but I just swerved around them or jumped over them.

  I may have accidentally taken out a couple of streetlights and signs.

  Blame the vision impairment.

  But god, I was having fun despite the pain. I was laughing out loud.

  I came around a corner as fast as I could take a hard ninety. There was a military cordon ahead. Two big trucks pulled sideways and blocked the street, sawhorses with blinking lights and reflective tape.

  “COMING THROUGH!” I shouted ahead. I held my upper arms up to hopefully indicate this wasn’t an assault. Guns were aimed at me, people squatted down. Ten, maybe fifteen yards out, I dropped to all fours and leapt. Sailing through the air over the trucks by more than double their height. I stuck the landing and carried on my happy way.

  Nobody shot.

  I tore through the last few blocks, starting to slow as the heat in my body became impossible to ignore. Some of those oversized rounds were still stuck in my hide, and they were burning like brands.

  The one in my ass?

  Searing hot.

  I was also quite hot, as I understood it. Two of my wings were out, folded, but out and flapping with a loud buzz. My breath was steaming in the air, and it really wasn’t that cold out. Two-thirds of my wings being fucked was really messing with my ability to regulate my temperature.

  I jogged down the street and around to the back lot of The Palanquin, and the loading dock bay door was open. Faultline was there in battle dress, along with Newter and Gregor. I trotted up and ducked through the door, dropping to all fours in the process.

  “Cold water, please!” I said, adding: “Like a couple buckets?” I was thirsty.

  Newter ran off on all fours, tail waving around. Faultline moved to close the door.

  “Maybe wait on that a minute, I’m pretty toasty,” I offered.

  Gregor approached and held out a hand in my direction, where I was still flapping two wings.

  “You’re putting off heat like an oven, Apex.”

  Faultline flipped the visor of her welding-style helmet up and circled around me. I looked at what she was wearing. Dark, tactical, armored, but also… Sort of unique? There were elements of a dress, she had a skirt on and a cloak, and bony spikes were sticking out of her hair in a mane.

  “You look good like that,” I said, and immediately regretted it.

  She crossed her arms over her chestplate and gave me a scathing look.

  Her voice had more bite than usual. “And you look like shit. What did you do?”

  I grinned, or tried to, and let my tongue loll out of my mouth. My breath–slow, deep, and steady–was still steaming. Wet, juicy plaps and smacks sounded where some of my multitudinous holes had opened back up and were dripping thick black goop on the floor.

  And I just laughed.

  Loud, unfiltered, belly-deep laughter. I sounded beastial.

  Her jaw clenched, and she looked a touch more than mildly pissed.

  “So Coil offered me some work. And you know, with everything we talked about, I was like, damn, I need some money. So I told him, ‘hit me with your worst, bigshot.’”

  I licked at a shallow hole in my neck, drool dripping off my tongue in long strands.

  “So, yeah. I took out what I’m pretty sure was the main ABB arms stash.”

  Excitement crept into my voice. “By myself. Hah! I’m getting a bonus for every floor, and hoo, I hit all eight .”

  Faultline’s voice came back low, level, and dangerous. “Let me get this straight. You, by yourself, took out eight floors of one of their most defended strongholds. Did you fight an army?”

  Newter came back in with two pails, and I held up a finger. Craning my head up, I chugged both down.

  “It’s hot as shit in here.” He muttered while I was finishing.

  I set the buckets down and let out a long, satisfied groan. “You’re a lifesaver. Thanks.”

  Turning back to Faultline: “Anyway. Yeah. Like a hundred. Took ’em all down, knocked ’em out cold with this.”

  I jiggled my lower right arm.

  “Newter kind of gave me the idea—knocking people out with drugs. My power made this thing. It shoots barbed quills loaded with some kind of paralytic or sedative. Drops ’em fast.”

  “ Whoa, shit! Cool! Show me later? Better yet, shoot me with it sometime!” Newter cackled.

  Faultline looked like she was about to detonate.

  Which gave me an idea. A dumb idea. But I was running hot on dumb ideas tonight.

  I reached down with my lower right hand, grabbed the bottom third of a giant bullet embedded in my hip, and slowly, carefully worked it free. It felt warm, but not scalding.

  I flicked off most of the blood, along with a couple of dangling skin strands, then wiped most of the remaining blood off with my thumb and held it out to Faultline.

  She’s a bad bitch. She’s probably into bullets and violence and stuff, right?

  Her jaw flexed. Hard.

  “Here. For you. Took most of the others out already. I think they look like flowers. Kinda pretty.”

  She took it between her gloved fingers, turned it, rolled it, and studied it in the dim light.

  Then closed her eyes and sighed. Loudly.

  When she opened them again, her stare locked onto mine.

  “Do you have any idea what this is ?”

  “A really big bullet?” I guessed.

  “Yes, Apex. From a heavy machine gun.”

  I didn’t get it. Weren’t they all machine guns?

  She took my silence as telling, and said, “This isn’t for shooting people. It’s for shooting aircraft. Trucks. Armored transports.”

  Oh, I get it.

  “Explains why they hurt like hell.” I pulled two more out. That was the last of them, I was pretty sure.

  “Can I have one?” Newter asked. I shrugged and gave him one, too. I let the other one clatter to the floor.

  “You’re not invincible, Apex. And that was stupid of you, to go in alone like that.” Faultline laid into me, not raising her voice. Not needing to.

  “Well,” I licked the eye with the chunk of shrapnel in it. A stinging reminder. I reached up and gently pulled that chunk of metal out, and more ichor spurted out. “I am rather bulletproof.”

  “Dude, gross!” Newter said as a jet of blood squirted out of the eye before it slowed down to a steady drizzle.

  “Oh really?” Her volume raised a smidge. She gestured at my right and left flanks, then my put-out eyes. “What’s all this, then, exactly? Not-bullet-holes?” She flicked her hand to the floor. “Not blood all over my floor?”

  “I’ll clean it up, promise. And, in my defense, I got shot like, a couple hundred, or maybe a couple thousand times before those happened. I was totally fine. Didn’t even leave a scratch.”

  I brought my right hand down and pinched my skin around one of the holes, rolling and squeezing it until a piece of metal stuck out, which I pulled out. It looked like a nail, not a bullet.

  “Not sure what these are, they feel like beestings.” I handed it to Faultline, who took it in her other hand and brought it up to her face.

  “Armor-piercing rounds. You’re lucky these are very difficult to get outside military channels.”

  I nodded slowly. “The crap on my left side? Some kind of incendiary grenade. Looked like a smoke canister. Burned straight through me, kept burning inside. Lit up two of my wings. That was the worst part, honestly. Still hurts like hell.”

  “Great, that’s just great, Apex. Any other fun surprises while you were doing your debut mission?” Her voice could have flash-frozen a lake.

  I sat down with a slow exhale and rolled my neck. “I got blown up by some bombs and mines. There was one that looked like a weird curved brick that really did a number on me. Oh yeah, uh, I got shot in the chest by a rocket launcher too. I slapped the first rocket out of the air, but not the second one. That really wasn’t that bad, though. Cracked some of these.”

  I tapped a sharp claw on one of my unbroken torso plates.

  She squinted and seethed. Then turned around. “Get yourself cleaned up. Newter, Gregor, supplies.”

  She paused at the door and looked back over her shoulder. “If you’re so proud of yourself, you can join us on the big attacks. Multiple teams, mostly capes. We’re intermixing people to avoid accidents. We leave in an hour.”

  “I, um… I don’t think I’ll need much. But I am hungry. Something cheap, bulk calories. Meat would be nice.”

  She gave a nod and waved to Gregor, then left without another word.

  Gregor returned with a little trolley loaded with stuff for me. Big hunks of beef and pork, eight cans of various veggies the size of gallon jugs, a whole sack of rice, a big bag of sugar, another bucket of water.

  I smiled in my own way and thanked him. He nodded and leaned against a support beam while I ate.

  I tossed the meat into my maw first, one or two giant chunks at a time, crunching it up and savoring the flavor and texture. Washed that down with cans of vegetables. The claws on my lower hand actually proved useful for once, slicing the lids open on canned food. I drank about half the bucket of water to make room, then dumped in the rice and sugar, stirred it up some with one hand, then drank the slurry.

  Being honest? It was a great meal. I unsecured my lower left arm and was able to move it carefully to lie down. Drowsiness was setting in, and I was queuing up my power, urging it for a quick nap and repairs.

  “Thank you, Gregor,” I murmured. “That was really quite delicious.”

  He smiled down at me, but there was as much concern present on his face as anything else.

  “She cares about your welfare, Apex,” he said gently. “Both she and I don’t like seeing you like this.”

  I lifted my head off the floor just enough to speak. My jaw moved slower than I expected. “I know. And thank you—both of you—for that. It means a lot. But despite how I look, I don’t actually feel that terrible. It’s not just bravado. Maybe a little bit,” I admitted, “but I think I’m a tougher nut to crack than most.”

  I dropped my head back down with a dull thud. Inside me, I could already feel the gross sensations stirring—wriggling, squirming, shifting, gurgling. My body was going to work.

  I couldn’t close my eyes. But darkness took me anyway.

  Gregor might’ve said something else.

  But I was already gone.