He hunkered forward, and even in that position he looked bigger than Captain Cly, heavier than three or four men put together. He was covered in hair the color of tobacco and cherry pits; his hands were long enough to play two octaves at a stretch on the piano in Maynard’s. As the creature ate, his body quivered and the ratty, clumped locks of his fur trembled and swayed.
Houjin was seated against the same building that Rector held for support. He did not look hurt, but his arms were curled around his knees and he panted, trying to catch his breath inside his mask. Zeke was between Houjin and the sasquatch, his fireman’s ax held up in warning. The weapon shook in his hands, too heavy by half, but he planted his feet and dared the creature to take a step toward his friend.
The sasquatch didn’t care. Yet.
Rector kept his voice as calm as he could, and said, “Fellas, come on. While he’s eating. Let’s go. Zeke, put that thing down. Huey?”
Houjin turned his head to see Rector, but he didn’t otherwise move.
“I’ll … I’ll help you,” he said, in case Huey was too scared to move, or in case he was hurt and Rector couldn’t see it. “I’m coming,” he added. Still clinging to the wall’s edge—purely because he believed it was stronger than the long-armed brute before him—he followed it to the stunned or injured boy and bent down to reach him.
Neither of them looked away from the sasquatch.
But Rector whispered down, “You all right?”
“Yes,” Huey whispered back. “Zeke? Zeke, let him go. He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t want me. He just wanted the fish.”
“And he’s almost out of fish,” Rector warned.
Zeke seemed glad for the excuse to lower the ax. It swung from his hands like a clock pendulum, until it knocked against the ground. “I don’t want to hurt him, anyhow.”
“I know you don’t,” Rector said, still afraid that one loud word would shatter the fragile moment. “Let’s go, us three. Let’s go back to the jail, and find Angeline. Let’s leave while that thing’ll let us.”
But now Zeke hesitated. “Look at him. He’s in real bad shape, same as the fox was.”
“We’re none of us in tip-top condition, kid. Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait,” the younger boy said plaintively.
Houjin climbed to his feet, using the wall to brace his back as he scooted to an upright position. Rector held out a hand to him, and Huey took it—and it was only then that Rector saw that his shirt was torn, and his chest was covered in long scratches where the creature had seized and absconded with him. If they didn’t hurt now, they’d hurt later. The Blight would see to that.
Rector pulled Houjin over, helping him step across a fallen slab of brick and drawing him back, farther away from Zeke … who still hadn’t moved.
Huey found his voice. “Zeke, let him alone. We’ll find Angeline and come back.”
“You two go without me.”
“Nothing doing,” Rector said. “We’re all three leaving.”
“Be patient. Just be patient,” he urged. “He didn’t hurt Huey. Not bad, and not on purpose if he did. He could’ve hurt him, and he didn’t.”
The sasquatch had eaten the innards and had moved on to the fins, picking them apart and gnawing the chewy, tough flesh as if he’d consume every part of the fish—even the parts that should not be eaten. The fins were tougher than they looked, but he scraped them between his teeth, nabbing every stray sliver of nutrition.
And then he was finished. His hands were empty—licked clean, even—and there was nothing else to distract him. He turned his attention to Zeke, who was standing closest. The ax was still head down on the street, threatening no one and nothing.
The sasquatch lifted his massive head and grunted.
Zeke swallowed hard. “Your eyes,” he said to the sasquatch. “They’re going gold, like the crows.”
“Maybe his eyes have always been gold. Zeke, I swear and be damned…” Rector complained.
Zeke ignored him. “We want to help you,” he said to the creature. “We want to help you feel better, and go outside where your lady friend is waiting for you. You want to go back outside, don’t you?”
“He don’t understand you!”
“He understands what I mean. He knows I’m not—”
Whatever else Zeke planned to say, it was lost to a moment of terror when the sasquatch jumped smoothly to his feet. He leaped and squatted like an oversized ape, his legs shorter than its arms and his posture far top-heavier than a man’s.
Zeke let out a squeak and dropped the ax handle.
It clattered to the ground.
The sasquatch put one foot forward, then another. With every step, he gained confidence and speed. Rector thought about throwing the pickax; he thought about turning and running; he thought about finding another weapon, maybe grabbing Zeke’s ax and giving it a toss. But there was only time for thinking, and no time for doing.
No time to do anything but watch, and wait for the next breath and heartbeat. Wait for him to seize Zeke like he’d taken Houjin.
Except Zeke didn’t have anything edible to offer. Nothing except himself.
But by now, Angeline had caught up to them, swung around them, and gotten behind the sasquatch.
When she leaped out of the fog it was a thing of beauty. She flew with her net flung out before her, and landed just behind the sasquatch, just within range to throw the net, and pull it tight.
The sasquatch staggered. He was moving too fast to stop outright, or even turn around; but he tottered and tried to hold his feet steady. He spun like a dancer, and his spine bent and shifted, struggling to hold himself steady.
Angeline reached out with one long leg and kicked as hard as she could. She caught the creature in the soft spot behind his knee, and his knee buckled. The whole beast went down, toppling with a rolling shudder and then a low cry that shook any rooftops left standing.
The princess stood above the creature with her hands straining against the pull of the net.
“Boys!” she cried. “Help me move him! Help me tie him!”
All three lunged toward her, now that the beast was down. They wrestled with the ropes and dodged the grasping fingers and groping hands of the imprisoned thing; and when Angeline told them which way and how far, they began to shove, prod, and manhandle him back toward the jail. The irons there were rusted and the bars were uncertain, but he had to go someplace, and he couldn’t come downstairs. He couldn’t go to the underground, and he couldn’t go to the tower. He had no place of his own, not while he was as sick as the fox but a hundred times its size.
It was an hour of heavy work and terrible labor, for the sasquatch did not agree with his handling, and his four captors were working against the air, and the filters in their mask. They rolled the protesting brute when he couldn’t be compelled to walk or crawl.
But at times, Rector felt that he wasn’t fighting very hard. He was tired and sick. He had just had a meal for the first time in days. He didn’t want to be brutalized into a jail cell, but he didn’t know that that was coming. And he was still strong enough that Rector shuddered to consider how strong he must be when he hadn’t been breathing poisoned air for ages.
Something that size can’t help being strong, he thought. Something that big is dangerous because he outweighs you, not because he outruns you or outthinks you. It was almost funny, now that he looked at it. It stunned him that he’d ever been afraid of him in the first place … at least until a swing of one shoulder knocked him flat onto his back and took the wind right out of his chest.
“Watch yourself,” Angeline said. “He’s stuck, but he’s tough.”
Rector picked himself up. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on top of his thighs. He took a moment to catch his breath and said, “I don’t think he meant that one.”
“I don’t think he did either. Are you hurt?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then come back to the party. We’re almost there, and he’s almost done fighting.”
Houjin said, “That’s good, right?”
“Yes and no. When he’s too tired to fight, he’s too tired to be bullied along. Let’s get him settled before he faints away altogether. I don’t know if we can carry him.”
By the time they reached the old prison on the hill, the sasquatch was barely able to stand. They’d worn him out with the journey, or so Rector hoped—otherwise, he would spring to life the moment their guard was down and kill them all, that was his personal suspicion. He watched the sasquatch exhaustedly as Angeline guided him into the sturdiest-looking cell. There was still a wall loop made to anchor chains and leg irons, and when the princess gave it a hearty yank, it didn’t budge. She affixed the net thereunto, tying it with careful knots.
When she was certain that the sasquatch would not leap up and murder the lot of them, she stood and put her hands on her hips, eyeing the unhappy creature with victory … but also pity.
“Poor thing,” she said. “I hate leaving him all tied up like this, but what can we do?”
Houjin brought forward the glass mask they’d toted all the way from the underground’s bottommost basement. “We can put this on his head, and see what happens.”
“You think he’ll just let us do that?” Rector asked incredulously.
She shook her head. “Not happily, but we need to try it. Here’s what we’ll do: I’ll take one of my knives and cut his head loose from the net, then one of you boys can put the helmet on him and make sure it’s all secure. Watch out for them teeth, though. Some of ’em are as big as my thumb.”
The sasquatch was propped in a halfhearted slouch against the dirty wall.
He flinched and growled when Angeline came toward him with a small blade, so he understood more than you might expect—Rector gave him credit there. But since she didn’t hurt him, he didn’t lash out. Instead, he held very, very still while she trimmed away the lines necessary to fully expose his head, as if he had popped through the neck hole of a sweater.