The Heart of a Monster: The Complete Series

Chapter 30

Quinn

Agasp caught in the back of my mouth. Then a laugh of relief jolted out of me.

The beast was down—one of them anyway. I didn”t know what the continuing effects of my gamble might be, but I had no regrets about making it right now. Even if I felt so drained I needed to lean into Crag”s grip to keep myself upright.

Rollick shook himself with a ragged exhale and contracted into his human-like form. Of course—out here in the relative open, who knew what mortals might see him? He stepped over beside Crag to grasp my arm as he stared past me at the immense smoking corpse. Tendrils of his own essence seeped from the smaller scratches he’d carved into his face, but they were already shrinking.

”Nice work, reluctant sorcerer,” he said with a bit of a rasp in his voice that provoked a flutter of concern. The behemoth”s influence over him had ended with the beast’s death, but he didn”t sound totally recovered yet mentally either. The hint of emotion I caught from him was full of turmoil.

Lance appeared beside us. ”The beasties are going haywire. Most of them are running away—or around in circles like they don”t know where to go.” He chuckled.

”They were probably all under the behemoth”s sway,” Rollick said. ”Since he was the one who came. I’d imagine that he bolstered his control over them before sending them at Quinn to make it harder for her to shake his hold.” His smile down at me might have been a bit tight, but I felt the warmth in it all the same.

”Halfway there,” I said, smiling back at him. ”Should we go to the apartment? I”m sure you”d say we deserve to celebrate.” My gaze flicked back to the sagging beast. ”Or do we have to do something about the corpse?”

The demon shook his head. ”I can keep any unwanted intruders off the property until the essence totally dissipates. I definitely think this warrants breaking out the?—”

He froze, his gaze darting to a spot in the near distance. I tried to follow it, but I couldn”t see anything there except the dusk-shadowed side of a nearby building.

Rollick swore under his breath. He motioned to Crag. ”Get her out of here.”

My pulse skittered. ”Why? What”s happening?”

Crag didn”t wait around for the demon to answer. He hauled me up toward the sky despite the dim evening light still wavering over us. But from that height, I got my answer.

A serpentine form as tall as the factory wavered into being as it smashed through the outer wall. Bricks crumbled and beams toppled. The monstrous, finned snake I knew had to be the leviathan reared back and plunged its head into the depths of the building, heedless of the shrieks that rang out from nearby bystanders who couldn’t miss that terrifying form.

”What is it doing?” I cried out as Crag hefted me higher.

”Whatever it”s doing, we don”t want you anywhere near it,” the gargoyle growled.

He was right. I couldn”t summon more than a faint crackle of magical energy at the base of my throat. I”d hurled everything I had at the other half of the villainous duo just minutes ago.

It shouldn”t have mattered. I”d already known we still had the second ancient monster to tackle. But as the roof collapsed around the huge serpent, I abruptly understood.

The leviathan had lowered his head right to the behemoth”s body—and was tearing it apart. Swallowing down every shred of its smoking corpse.

My heart plummeted, my blood turning to ice. He”d been waiting nearby, not helping his partner while I got control over the behemoth, while the beast had died, and then he”d leapt in to reap his own benefits.

He didn”t care that his ally was dead. Maybe he”d always wanted to rule whatever world he meant to create on his own.

And now he was absorbing every bit of sorcery the other monster had possessed, the sorcery that I”d already struggled to deflect, to make himself twice as strong.

I blinked hard as Crag whirled me away, but I couldn”t stop the rush of hopelessness from flooding me.

Oh, fuck. There was nothing to celebrate now.

We were so, so screwed.