I held that taste in my mouth for a long second that seemed to stretch toward eternity, and then finally swallowed. The blood trickled in warm drops down toward my stomach, and I felt a spurt of energy run through me. Not much, because it wasn’t much blood, but it helped.

I knelt down and stretched out as far as I could; I had to hang at a precarious angle, but I finally got a scoop of the turquoise water into the vial and corked it. Even in the bottle, the liquid looked opaque with whatever was suspended in it. I looped the chain back around my neck and rolled to my feet.

Ahead of me, more turbulence in the next pool. Behind me, the draug were definitely ready to welcome me back.

“The things I do for you, bro,” I said, and ran straight ahead, top speed. The railing flew by in a blur, and as I approached the sharp V-shaped turn that angled across the next pool, also dangerously active, I calculated the distance, propelled myself up and onto the railing, and leaped across. I hit the other catwalk still running, but this time the draug had anticipated me, and the waves were heading toward me, building fast.

They were going to build high enough to swamp the catwalk, and once they were on it, they could pull me off balance and down into the depths.

I snarled, fangs out, and timed it carefully. Wait … wait … I kept running, faster and faster, building up momentum as the wave broke through the catwalk’s grating and raced toward me, and then I slammed both feet down, hard. It was a risk. The catwalk was old, and rusty, and if my feet had broken through I’d have been done, but the hard old bridge held, and I arced up, up and over. The wave reached up for me, and I pulled my knees up in midair.

The draug’s murky liquid form slapped at the soles of my shoes, and then dissolved and fell back into the pool. My jump carried me forward, and I landed hard, rolling with it to shed momentum, then bouncing back to my feet before they could react.

I made it to the end and leaped the railing into the tall winter-scorched weeds.

They didn’t come after me. The waves subsided back into the pool. I stared at them for a second, wondering what the hell it was going to take to really make them come out of their hiding place after me, and finally thought to look back at the other pools.

The one that I’d just crossed was agitating just enough to keep my attention, but the ones on the ends were suspiciously quiet.

Ah. The draug were crawling out from my right and left, silently circling toward me. That was better. As long as they were focused on me, they weren’t going to be going after Claire and Eve and the others …