A Maze of Glass, Chapter Thirteen, Pt. 3
Zoe crept across the slaughterhouse floor, the spell still hastening her, her eyes roving across every detail as she moved. She gripped her pistol in her hands. Muffled by structure and distance, she heard Sung-ho fire several rounds elsewhere in the building.
“Constructs present,” Sung-ho whispered in her earbud.
Pursing her lips, she came to the next intersection. The wire-fenced window gave sight lines from the monster’s shed to the upramp leading inside. Zoe figured the Summoner had taken his shots from there. Approaching the spot where the two hallways yawned into each other, she pressed her back against the wall and listened.
Something scraped against the floor around the corner. It didn’t sound human.
She spun around the corner gun-first.
A rust-toothed bear trap gaped in front of her—even with the magic, she didn’t notice it soon enough to stop her momentum. But, thanks to the magic, she noticed it soon enough to jump over it.
She landed two feet from another of the Summoner’s monstrous Constructs. A pig’s head stared at her vacantly as two curved blades flickered toward her. She threw up her arm and the honed edges carved through the leather and dug into the armor beneath. Parrying the creature’s attack, she fired four rounds into its center mass, a barrel of mixed rotten and rancid meats all pulped together. The construct stumbled backward noiselessly and reoriented itself.
Another bear trap waited five feet behind it.
Zoe charged. The creature brought one of its bladed appendages down as she crashed into it. It sliced through her jacket and armor and bit the skin between her shoulder and neck. The cut didn’t drive deep, but it drew blood. Stopping all-at-once, Zoe pulled back from the tackle and opened fire again. Two more bullets blew through a body of vatted mystery meat. The construct tipped over and fell.
The trap snapped rusted teeth into one of the monster’s slashing appendages.
Zoe stomped on the pig head. The construct lashed the air with a curved blade. She stomped again. The magic making the thing alive gave up—her boot crushed the melty, long-dead skull and splattered vile across the floor. Even with the mask, she gagged from the rush of scent. But she didn’t puke.
Somewhere in the distance, Sung-ho fired four more rounds.
A rifle returned fire. Zoe ran.
“I can’t—I can’t do this,” Omar suddenly crackled in her ear.
“Not right now,” she panted back.
He sounded breathless, panicked. “I can’t just leave it here. I can’t. People could die.”
“Leave it!” she shouted, dodging two more bear traps she barely noticed in time.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’tknowIdon’t—”
“Get a hold of yourself and get out!”
“Please—”
“Fucking leave it!” she muted the relay, finding another room she couldn’t figure out the use of, a vast chamber with a series of offices compartmentalized in the corner. Trying to catch her breath, regretting her loudness, she searched her surroundings for a threat. None emerged. Good. But which way to go?
Another exchange of bullets echoed through the walls, louder.
She spun toward the sound and sprinted.
A living scarecrow lunged out of the darkness toward her. She threw her shoulder into it as it came and they rebounded from each other. The scarecrow pinwheeled from the momentum and jerky-stilted rushed back toward her. She emptied the rest of her mag, shredding stuffing. The incendiary rounds smoldered and sizzled in the scarecrow’s body. It slashed at her with one clawed hand, raking leather and armor away from her body. Then it fell to its knees and collapsed.
Something inside of it caught fire but Zoe couldn’t stop to do anything about it. The invocation seething through her musculature had started wearing off. She had to use the speed while it remained available.
She slapped in her last spare mag and—
Her last spare mag. Which meant—
“Drop the gun!” someone shouted in the distance. Someone not Sung-ho. “Now! Now!”
She ran as quickly as she could. The smoking caught up to her, the earlier exertion, the enhanced metabolism and burning-too-hot demands all the invocation put on her body—it all caught up. A cramp sliced up her thigh and along her side. She limped, slowing. Pressed on even as the invocation began to collapse.
“I said put down the fucking gun!” The voice sounded meters away, through one wall.
She searched for a way through. She couldn’t keep running. Her body ached and the movement made too much noise. She slowed, willing herself to stay upright. The cramp twisted, tightening. Her gait warped around it. She clutched her side with her left hand, limping along the wall, searching for a door.
A dead construct rotted and dissipated on the floor ahead.
Zoe went for it.
On the other side of the wall: “Three! Two!—”
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