We couldn’t outrun them. Asuras materialized in front of us, some from the sky, some from the shade of the other streets. Chamundeshwari thrust Pip and me behind her, but they were all around us, all kinds of demon hybrids: bison, hawk, wolf, panther, creatures who were a mixture of different beasts, monsters who growled and snorted as they pressed in closer.

Chamundeshwari drew her sword and attacked. She moved like fire, fast and merciless and crackling with heat. Her sword flashed in a wide arc and three Asuras burst into smoke.

“Duck!” she shouted, and Pip and I dove for the ground as she pulled a shiny, viciously sharp steel disc out of her belt and threw it with one hand while keeping an enormous bison demon at bay with her sword.

The shiny disc, a chakra, spun in a circle. Everywhere it went, demons were destroyed in clouds of smoke.

Infuriated, the rest of the Asuras snarled and leaped at her. She was swarmed at once, but she was Chamundeshwari. They were nothing compared to her. They just kept coming, dozens of them, and the screech of steel was all I could hear, but she never faltered. She stood in front of us like a shield, the bravest warrior goddess in any world. They were no match for her.

Suddenly, I felt Pip torn away from me. I cried out as an enormous beaked Asura snatched him between its clawed feet and leaped into the air.

“Pip! Pip!”

“Kiki!”

I snatched at his foot, but it was whisked away as the Asura flapped its wings and went up, up, up. Chamundeshwari shouted at me, but I couldn’t hear her over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears as I watched Pip get smaller and smaller.

And then a pair of enormous, powerful arms seized me around the waist. I screamed and struggled, but I was so small compared to the creature, little more than a doll shaken ruthlessly in the beast’s grip.

Chamundeshwari spun around to reach for me, but she was too late. The Asura snatched me off the ground and flew into the sky.

18

There’d been a time when I would have thought that no experience in the world could be more incredible than soaring above my colorful city in the bluest of blue skies.

But, as a matter of fact, it was not at all fun.

This was possibly because I had my eyes squeezed shut and was screaming at the top of my voice.

Or, more likely, it was because I had been captured by a demon.

The most annoying thing about it was that, thanks to Ashwini, I knew exactly how to jab the Asura in the armpit to force her to let me go, but that skill was of absolutely no use to me right now. I was, frankly, safer in the painful grip of a monster than I would be plummeting out of the sky.