Jean-Claude raised his pistol, but he had no good angle to fire, and that carapace looked bulletproof.

Hasdrubal’s voice was a bray. “Surrender.”

Jean-Claude locked eyes with the monster. It must have been he who had knocked Isabelle’s ship from the sky. Rage like he had never known caught fire in Jean-Claude’s heart.

He felt like he was moving through mud, but he reached into his bag and pulled out the chartbone case.

“You want this?” he growled, and even his words sounded underwater. “Fetch!”

Hasdrubal lunged even as Jean-Claude flung the box over the side and dodged in the opposite direction. Hasdrubal crashed into the bulwark, spun and leapt after the box, changing into bird form as he went.

Jean-Claude raced to Hailer Dok’s side. He was still unconscious, but breathing. How long would it take him to wake up? Hopefully less time than it took him to plummet into the Miasma. Jean-Claude grabbed him by the tunic and trousers and tipped him through the turvy hatch.

Yet no sooner had Dok’s feet disappeared than all of him came hurtling back up again, propelled by Hasdrubal, whose birdlike form grew to the size and shape of a bear with a long lizard tail as he rose from the opening with the chartbone box in his beak.

The launch rocked under his sudden weight, the small keel whistling as if in pain. Jean-Claude stumbled away. Long Thom roared and bashed the beast with a pole hook, but the stout wood bounced off Hasdrubal’s scales. Plonta and de Henault piled on with knife and cutlass.

Hasdrubal lashed with his tail, which grew bony, serrated spikes on the fly and sheared Long Thom’s thigh clean through. The big man gasped and fell, spraying blood, unconscious before he hit the deck and dead a heartbeat later. Duval screamed and fled to the back end.

The launch trembled as if it had hit turbulence, and the front end swerved to the left.

Jean-Claude’s hand snaked into his ammo bag and came back with an alchemical glass slug packed with phlogiston wax. He crammed it down his pistol’s muzzle on top of the bullet. Damned thing was likely to blow up in his face—

Hasdrubal whipped his head around and snapped Plonta’s neck like a twig.

“I would have let you live!” Hasdrubal screamed in the shrill voice of a hawk. “Now see what you’ve done.” He leapt for Jean-Claude.

Jean-Claude lunged right, raised his pistol, and squeezed the trigger. A gout of fire lanced into Hasdrubal’s side. Lead might not get through to him, but the wax would keep burning even if he changed shape. The launch tilted sharply.

Hasdrubal’s claws raked Jean-Claude’s face.