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.