Page 22 of A Heist for Filthy Rivals (Mythic Holidays #3)

He shrugs. “Maybe I’ve got a kink for dirty girls.”

Picking up my knife and flipping it on my palm, I back away a few paces, ostensibly to grab my pack, but also because I want to put distance between us. “So what now? We battle for dominance over this room?”

“We could do that—or we could join forces.”

“What?” I stare at him blankly.

He shrugs. “You don’t have a team. My crew has a vacancy or two. Join us. I’ll bet you already know where Drosselmeyer’s treasure is. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it? We’ll go get it together. There’s more than enough to share.”

What he doesn’t know is that my crew will be back in another fifteen hours—or is it thirteen? I haven’t counted in a while, and I’m not about to pull out the wishing stone in front of him to check how much time I have left.

Maybe I could use Ravager and his one remaining companion to get past that monster in the basement. And then, when my people reappear, we can kill both Grisly and Ravager, and we can take all the loot for ourselves.

It would be a magnificent double-cross. I can’t resist the temptation to try it, if only to see the look on Ravager’s face when he realizes I’ve played him. Maybe then I’ll feel less idiotic for letting him finger me.

Once he’s dead, no one will ever know about that.

“So we would be allies,” I say, feigning reluctance.

“Temporarily, yes. Of course, if you want to see me again after all this is over, I won’t say no. We can get together, have some drinks, some laughs—”

“Keep dreaming, dipshit.” I sheathe my knife. “You’re right, I do know where Drosselmeyer’s collection is. But you’re not going to like it.”

While we drag Slaughter’s body over to the side of the room, I briefly explain to Ravager how the surveillance system works, and I tell him about the beast in the basement.

“I caught a glimpse of it,” he says. “Are you sure it’s still down below? We did blow a huge hole in the first floor. It could have climbed out. It could be anywhere by now.”

“You blew a hole in the floor,” I say.

“Fine, I blew a couple holes in a couple places, and I destroyed part of the stairs. And you obliterated half the rooms on the first floor, plus a few on the second.”

I wince. “It’s not a contest.”

“It might be a contest. A race to get out of here before the Stewards return.”

The idea of the Stewards chills my blood. I imagine them as tall, somber Fae with merciless eyes and lethal magic.

“I don’t ever want to meet them,” I admit.

“On that, we can agree.” He lifts a sphere and sets it atop a pedestal. “Does this one go here?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Let’s see if we can catch a glimpse of that beast, or of Grisly.”

“Your last companion,” I say smugly. “Let’s hope he isn’t fixated on torturing me and cutting off my clit.”

Ravager casts me a sly look. “At least you got to enjoy it one more time.”

My fingers twitch near the hilt of my knife. “Shut up.”

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed about your sexual needs, Devilry. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone what you let me do to you. Just a few of my mates in the Puzzled Coin, and the entire staff of the Night Goose, and my landlord, and maybe my tailor—”

“Shut up,” I say again, urgently. I slink toward the open door, head cocked, listening.

He’s instantly alert, all humor gone. “What is it?”

“Something on the stairs.”

I press my back to the wall by the door. I start to lean out and look, but Ravager exclaims, “Wait! If it’s Grisly, he’ll shoot you with his crossbow. Let me check.”

He braces his back against the wall on the opposite side of the door.

Both of us have our daggers again—the ones we stole from each other.

They’re a link between us, one I’d rather not share.

I’m uncomfortable with our mirrored pose, too.

It makes us feel like allies, when in reality I’m only pretending to be on his side.

He tried to kill me after he made me come. He’s certainly not someone I can trust.

Ravager peers around the door frame, his gaze pointed at the stairs. Something is definitely coming up—I can hear it. But it sounds wrong. Not like a man’s footsteps.

“Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me,” a voice wails, and then a second voice bawls, “I don’t want to die like this! I don’t want to be eaten!”

Every bit of courage drains out of my body at the sound. Ravager’s skin goes a shade paler, too.

A step creaks beneath the creature’s ponderous weight as Ravager and I slowly back away from the door. Ravager points up at the intricate web of rafters above our heads.

He’s right. With no other way out of this tower chamber, our only chance for a surprise attack, concealment, or escape is to go up. We have to climb.

Quietly as I can, I sheathe my knife and race back to the map table. I plant one foot on it and jump, grabbing the beam above me and pulling myself up. Balancing on the rafter, I reach up and haul my body to a higher one, then another.

My thighs are covered in shallow wounds from Slaughter’s attacks, and they scream at me while I climb. But my fear is so strong it floods over the pain, muting it under the force of necessity, the imperative of survival.

Ravager climbs up, too, from the other side of the room. His movements are sluggish, and I can see his arms tremble when he uses them to lift his body.

I don’t pause until I’ve climbed as high as I can. I hunch against the inner curve of the dome, my feet braced on a slim rafter. Ravager stands within arm’s reach.

“Comfortable?” he whispers, with a wry twitch of his lips.

I show him my middle finger.

Both of us kept our packs on while we climbed, despite their bulk.

Granted, mine is basically empty at this point.

I’ve used nearly everything I had, and most of what Maven and Scriv had.

I even rigged up Scriv’s blower machine in the west room—it created the gust that blew those feathers all over Slaughter.

Maven and Scriv’s packs are beneath the map table now. Since Slaughter stripped away my secondary weapons, which are now scattered all over the room, I’ve got nothing left except the knife I adopted from Ravager.

Shifting closer to him, I ask a question under my breath. “Should we fight it?”

“Depends on what it looks like,” he replies. “Maybe it will sniff around and go away.”

“I don’t think so. It’s not just a beast. It’s clever. I think it uses those voices to scare its prey.”

“But is it actually clever, or is it just regurgitating the sounds of the people it has swallowed?”

“We’ll have to observe it and make a judgement.” I press my hand over his mouth to stop his response, because a dark bulk has appeared in the doorway.

Now that it’s in the same room with me, the monster is ten times more horrifying than when I observed it through the sphere.

Its bones shift and its lungs heave beneath skin the color of old blood.

Its six armlike limbs lift with an odd, prowling grace, but its paws fall heavily.

I suspect that it could be quiet if it wanted to, but it would rather exaggerate its footsteps to frighten us.

Ravager points to his own eyes, then to the horns that extrude where the monster’s eyes should be.

I shrug. I’m not sure if the absence of eyes means that it’s blind, or if it has eyes hidden somewhere.

Maybe it possesses other organs of perception that we don’t understand, like that fan of fragile, ribbed skin behind its skull.

We can’t make assumptions or take anything for granted.

The creature’s two prehensile tails snake out, probing the area as it paces forward.

Four nostrils near the end of its red snout wrinkle and flare.

It approaches Slaughter’s body and snuffles around for a moment.

Then it opens its three fanged jaws and sends out a long, thick tongue, more like a tentacle.

The tongue coils around the corpse and drags it into the monster’s maw.

Closing its mouth with a satisfied smack, the beast swallows noisily, then raises its head and sniffs again. Like it can smell us.

I’m still covering Ravager’s mouth with one hand, while the other is braced against the domed roof. But when the monster looks up, I realize that I’ve also shrunk closer to my rival, as if I want comfort or protection. I’d be a fool to think he can provide either of those things.

I focus on the twinge of pain between my ribs, the place where he started to stab me. Granted, he did it half-heartedly and didn’t go deep, but the pain still serves as an excellent reminder not to trust him. I renew my grip on his mouth and jaw, hoping the press of my fingers hurts him.

Ravager is holding onto a rafter with his left hand and touching my waist with his right… no, he’s not going for my waist, he’s easing his dagger out of the sheath at my hip.

That dagger is mine since he refused to swap. He can’t just take it, and I definitely don’t want him having both of the weapons while I have none.

I let go of his mouth, knock his fingers away from the knife hilt, then aim a punch at his jaw. He catches my wrist, pulls my hand to his lips, and kisses my knuckles with a wink that’s mockingly penitent.

Fuck. You. I mouth the words at him.

The beast is no longer testing the air. Instead it’s prowling among the pedestals, sniffing at the fallen spheres. It doesn’t open its maw again, which is a relief.

After a few minutes of exploration, it settles down by the door and folds its six limbs beneath its gaunt bulk. Is it going to sleep?

Fuck, Ravager mouths at me, and I nod. As long as the beast is there, we’re stuck in the rafters. Our only options are to wait until it leaves, or fight it—which could be disastrous since we’re both exhausted and injured.

I lean toward Ravager until my lips graze his ear. He shivers when I whisper, “Do you have any medical supplies? Tonics?”

He shakes his head and replies under his breath, “Needle had those. I don’t know where his pack is.”