“It’s why I’m still alive.”

Mosquitoes buzzed around her as she waded through cattails and algae slime. Together, they grabbed the floating mass. Clouds of flies rose up again, a choking tornado.

Mouse caught Mahlia’s eye. “On three, right?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

“One. Two. Three!”

They hauled, straining and grunting, dragging with all their strength. The thing moved sluggishly.

“Come on!”

Mahlia set her feet and pulled. Her feet scrabbled in the mud, heaving, pulling—

The thing ripped apart.

Unbalanced, Mahlia and Mouse toppled back into the water. Mahlia came up sputtering, expecting to find herself in a sea of guts and blood. Instead, one half of the dead thing had rolled up, revealing a face, scarred and terrible.

“Kali-Mary Mother of God!” Mahlia gave a startled yelp and scrambled back.

“Damn!” Mouse crowed. “I should’ve seen it before! Should’ve known!”

It wasn’t one creature, but two. Monsters intertwined. A big king of an alligator, and another creature—a thing that Mahlia hadn’t seen since the cease-fire died and the last of the peacekeepers cleared out, all of them running for the docks as the Drowned Cities returned to war.

A half-man. A war creature that only the richest corporations, the Chinese peacekeepers, and the armies in the North could afford to grow and use.

“A dog-face!” Mouse was practically hooting with excitement. “Must’ve been epic ring!” He splashed over for a closer look. “Must’ve killed each other! Dog-face killed the gator, gator killed the dog-face.”

He shook his head with admiration as he ran a hand down the monster’s flank. “Check out those teeth marks. Gator practically tore its shoulder off. Had to be epic ring.”

“Mouse…”

“What?” He looked up from his inspection of the battle wounds. “Ain’t gonna bite. We’ll take the gator. Good eating, for sure. Even old Mahfouz likes gator.”

Mouse was right. The monsters were dead. She was being stupid.

After the initial shock of the half-man’s face, Mahlia could think through her reaction. It had just seemed too human, that was all. One minute it had been a beast; the next, a person.

“You coming?” Mouse asked. He was looking at her like she was some kind of baby war maggot who’d never rolled a dead body.

“You didn’t see its face,” she said.

It was submerged again, but it had been terrifying—beast and human welded together in an unholy mix. Her skin crawled at the memory of that visage.

“If you got no spine…”

“Go grind, Mouse. I ain’t afraid of the dead.”

Still, Mahlia avoided the floating half-man and went straight for the alligator, ignoring the boy’s smirk. Together, they grabbed hold of the massive reptile and started hauling it toward shore.