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Back Fractured Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. DEDICATION PAGE
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  42. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Knowing that if I had been caught there, I’d have some serious explaining to do, we stuck to the alleys until we were several blocks away and then turned toward downtown. We had survived, and we had eliminated several Mazikin, without being arrested or taken. It sent a message to the Mazikin—we could take a lot of them out, even if there were only a few of us. It should have felt like victory, but to me, it felt like the opposite. If the Mazikin numbers kept growing, if they kept coming at us like this, it was only a matter of time before our lucky streak snapped. We were running out of time to root them out. They were winning.

I glanced over at Malachi, who was walking with a slight limp. His hands were in the pocket of his hoodie. And his faraway, sorrowful expression told me he was probably thinking along similar lines, especially because he felt responsible for some of it. Defeat did not sit well with him.

My phone buzzed. I pulled it out and looked at the screen. A text. From Henry.

Pick up at Eddy and Bay. Prisoner to deliver.

I held up my phone so that Malachi could see. “Looks like Henry got out in time. And our evening is far from over.”

It was the first time I’d seen Malachi smile in a long time.

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-SEVEN

THE MAZIKIN STARED AT me from across the mat, with his teeth bared, revealing filed, nasty little points. It was Clarence. His skinny thighs sported identical crossbow wounds, small round holes that oozed blood through the fabric of his filthy pants. I had tied his arms and calves to the heavy chair while Jim and Malachi held him down, but as we watched our enemy strain against the ropes, none of us let down our guard.

Henry had handed Clarence off to us in the alley and then disappeared into the darkness again, saying he hoped the thing would tell us where the nest was, because he hadn’t been able to track any of them back to it yet. He’d told me enough to confirm my suspicions that the street kid had played us. The Mazikin had recruited human allies, which filled me with dread. It would be so much easier to get to us that way. We wouldn’t be able to see them coming. We wouldn’t be able to trust anyone.

Malachi walked over to the side table. Not thirty minutes before, he’d refused to summon Raphael to heal him, saying it would take too long. So I’d explained who our prisoner was while I tweezed slivers of glass from the palms of both his hands and bandaged them, leaving his fingers free. Now he was running them over the array of knives in front of him. “That was a nasty little ambush at the warehouse, Clarence.”