The Penitent took one more step back, setting himself up for an attack, and his foot came down on the barrel of a fallen musket. Sothe’s eyes snapped open, and she bulled forward, accepting a long cut across her back to drive both her knives toward the young man’s face. He stepped backward, and the musket shifted underneath him—not much, but enough to put him off-balance, and he stumbled backward into Winter, who wrapped her arms around his midsection.

Not getting away this time. She held him tight, as though in an embrace, and slipped Infernivore’s leash. The demon surged out of her and into the Penitent, furious with frustrated appetite. There was a moment of conflict as the two creatures warred, but only a moment. Then Infernivore was rushing back into her, fattened by its kill. Winter felt the young man sag against her. His face was a mask of blood, streams of it running from his eyes like tears. When she let him go, he fell limply to the floor.

That left the giant. He’d pried Bobby’s hands free of his ankle, and one of her arms dangled obscenely, bent backward at the elbow. He raised her into the air, gripping her by the shoulders, and though she landed blows from her good arm with all her supernatural strength behind it, his grip didn’t falter. Winter thought for a moment that Bobby would be torn in half, like a sheet of paper, and she didn’t think even Feor’s naath would let her recover from that—

Then the giant dropped her, spinning as best he could with one leg crippled. The brown satchel Andy had been carrying hung from his back, pinned there by a saber that Andy had driven into his flesh for half its length. The young ranker was backing away, a pistol already in her hand, as the giant spun in place, trying to reach the weapon that impaled him.

“Everybody down!” Andy screamed.

Bobby, one arm dangling, threw herself away from the giant. Winter and Sothe dove for the floor, and Joanna covered Barely with her body. Andy fired, and Winter heard the ting of metal on metal as the ball struck the sack she’d attached to the huge priest. Then there was a thump, a sound so loud it reverberated in her breastbone and behind her eyes, and a wash of heat that frizzled her eyebrows.

Slowly, Winter unfolded herself and looked around. The giant was still standing, but his right arm and shoulder were simply gone, and ribs emerged from the bloody, smoking mass of his flesh like dead plants from winter soil. His black face mask had been shredded, as had the skin underneath, and both hung from his skull in torn rags.