Firefight

Exhausted, water streaming from my clothing, I flung an arm over the edge of the rooftop. Blessedly, Obliteration had moved on. I lifted a leg over the side, hauling myself up. Why would he drop me, then—

A flash of light beside me. Obliteration. He knelt down, something metal in his hands. A manacle? With a chain attached to it?

A ball and chain, like from the old days—the type prisoners would wear. Sparks! What kind of person had one of those handy, ready to go grab? He clasped it onto my ankle.

“You have a shield to protect you from my heat,” Obliteration said. “So you are prepared for that. But not for this, I suspect.”

He kicked the iron ball over the side of the roof.

I grunted as the ball fell, the weight wrenching my leg in its socket, threatening to tow me off the rooftop. I clung to the stonework ledge. How to escape? No rifle, no bomb. I had Megan’s pistol in my thigh holster, but if I let go of the rooftop to grab it, that iron ball would pull me into the water. I panicked, grunting, fingers slipping on the stonework of the roof.

Obliteration bent down, close to my face. “And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven,” he whispered, “having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain.…”

At that he brought his hands up and shoved my shoulders, prying me off the rooftop. My fingernails tore and my skin scraped on the bricks as I fell. I splashed down again, this time with a great weight towing on my leg—like the dark waters were actively seeking to engulf me.

I flailed as I sank, searching for anything to stop my descent, and caught hold of a submerged window ledge.

Darkness all around me.

> > [...]

My fingers slipped.

Something splashed into the water beside me. I felt something brush me—fingers on my leg.

The weight vanished.

Page 98 Chapter 13

“What sense would that make?” I asked. “After you saved me from drowning the other day, and then saved me again tonight when Newton was tailing me? Thanks for both, by the way.”

Page 172 Chapter 22 Firefight