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I load another shot and aim for the manticore’s head. I fire and it screams, outraged more than hurt, hissing and spitting. It swipes out with its colossal paw—a jagged, curved claw rushes down towards my body.

And Leo steps in front of me.

He screams. Claws rip across his cheek.

Flaps of flesh fly in the wind as he buckles, screaming as he lands, fingers trying to touch his face.

I scream too. I scream so sharply there is blood in my throat, and my heart is wailing; I shriek, “Leo! No, God, please!” and the only thing that matters in this moment, is him; more than anything I want Leo to live.

I shoot until I’m out of bullets and clicking uselessly. I throw Thaddeus’ gun down and yank out the other one I stole and shoot again. It’s all desperation. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to kill it.

Victoria throws her gun down and dives for Silas’ dropped sword. I run to Leo and put him on his back. He’s kicking and howling—I can see his teeth gnashing through the hole in his cheek. Blood is pouring into his mouth and down his face, blood, so much of it.

And if he dies, a part of me dies too.

“Leo, Leo, just breathe, you have to—”

Leo’s eyes widen. “Cass, darling,” he says, and he grins with blood-stained teeth. “Move, would you?"

I duck.

Leo shoots three shots at the manticore before his gun starts clicking empty too. Victoria runs into my periphery, but then her scream fills the air.

One meaty arm flies out and meets Victoria’s sternum with a crack. Her cry of pain comes out a broken wheeze as she is thrown; her back meets a tree with another crack and she’s out.

“Go,” Leo whispers.

I leave Leo and run towards her. The manticore spins, colossal body twisting around, kicking up snow in another dusty wave. Its tail thuds three times into the snow. I hear screaming—Fred?—and an unhappy noise from the beast. It lurches around again and kicks off the ground, wings beating in the air. I am knocked onto my back by the sheer force of the gust it produces. I hit my head on a birch tree, not enough to knock me out, but enough that I can’t—really see anything—not clearly. Stunned and dizzy I stare up at the beast. It hovers in the air above me and seems to make some decision. I wait for it to take me. I wait for hot blood to pour out of my stomach. But it dives down for one of the unconscious bodies, its taloned feet grabbing hold. It raises the body to its mouth and opens that too-human face.

And then it tears the head off.

29

LESSON TWENTY-NINE

The scream that goes out is haunting. It is raw and it is broken, and it is Victoria screaming for Bellamy all over again, only it’s not her. It’s Fred. Fred in the snow, hands buried, mouth open, screaming.

Even before my vision clears, I know Silas is dead.

“Get up,” I say—to myself, or to the others, I don’t know. I have to use the birch tree for balance. I only have my sparker. Victoria is still unconscious. I run to her whilst the manticore feasts and pull the sword from the snow.

I think I see her breathing. I can’t be sure. Because the manticore grows bored of Silas’ flesh and drops the lower half of his body from its mouth. He is one arm, half a torso, both his legs. Fred howls again, picks up her axe, and runs forward.

“Fred!” I scream, stumbling in a chase after her.

The manticore is so focused on how she’s hacking away that I’m able to skid in the snow. I raise the blade near my face and slide. Snow kicks up around me. I’m so close to the manticore I can smell it, I can see the gore tainting its fur, the metallic stench of death, the rot on its breath. And the speed with which I’m moving means the sword catches on flesh and tears. I open up part of the manticore’s belly. Guts, blood, putrid liquid pours out over my face. I gag on it, on the smell and the thickness. The beast screams, rears up, and slams down. It is pure luck that I’m not underneath it when it lands. But I hear a wet crunch all the same, and Fred’s scream turns shrill and then abruptly cuts off.

I roll onto my stomach, still gagging, and drag myself out from the beast. It’s wounded, but still alive. I hear it wheezing. Its tail starts clicking and I scrabble up in time to watch it blindly thumping into snow, desperate to kill its attacker. It wheezes and stands, tries weakly to fly. Something vital plummets out of its belly and it howls and drops down after the bloody flesh.

I glance over. I see Fred in the snow. Blood pools around her. I can’t see—I can’t move—I don’t know if she’s dead. If it crushed her.

Then, suddenly, there’s shooting. I press myself into the bloody snow, squinting against the orange light of the flames. Leo is awake. Pale, and bleeding, mouth exposed through his right cheek, tongue pulsing against hot blood, but alive. He shoots his empty gun in fear.

And then I realise the manticore isn’t what has scared him.

There is something else in the dark.

I think about running to Leo. About getting up, and moving. Checking on Fred. But I am terrified. I am terrified because something colossal and twisted slouches from the shadows. I see—something.