Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels

It didn’t even faze her.
    Ascanio and my arrows weren’t doing enough damage. Neither would machetes. We could hack at her all day, and we’d do no good.
    The behemoth chased Ascanio. The boy jumped back and forth, dashing like some mad rabbit. He couldn’t keep this up forever.
    If only we had something, some weapon, something…
    The monster swung her tail, right over the heavy jackhammer laying abandoned on the glass. It was still attached to the tank by the hose that pumped enchanted water into it. The hose was way too short to reach the beast.
    I spun to Felipe. “Will it work without the hose?”
    It took him a second. “Yes!” He jerked his hand up, fingers spread. “Five minutes.”
    I threw down my bow and sprinted to the jackhammer. My paws slipped on the glass, slick with beast blood. I slid, jumped, landed by the jackhammer, and heaved it off the ground. A heavy bastard.
    A tree-trunk-sized monster leg loomed in front of me. I leaped and clawed my way up the beast to the top, hauling the jackhammer with me. The freaking thing must’ve weighed three hundred pounds, and I had to drag it one-handed. My right arm felt like it would wrench out of the socket. I pulled myself up, digging into the monster’s hide with my left hand and my hind claws.
    The creature moved, chasing Ascanio. Her muscles bulged under me. I clung to her, like a flea, and scrambled up.
    I made it over the shoulder and ran toward her head. She roared again and I planted the jackhammer right at the base of her neck, the only spot unprotected by the carapace.
    I flipped the jackhammer’s ON switch.
    Nothing.
    Below people were yelling something. I flicked my ears.
    “Chant! Chant it to start!”
    Aaaargh.
I chanted, praying it would start faster than our cars did.
    Ascanio dashed around the work site, buying me time. Below, the smaller monsters attacked the line of workers.
    Work,
I willed, chanting.
Work, you blasted stupid tool.
    Work.
    Work.
    The jackhammer shuddered in my hands. I dug my foot claws into the beast’s back and plunged the jackhammer deep into the behemoth’s flesh. The chisel pounded into the creature’s muscle. Hot blood drenched my feet.
    The beast howled in agony, deafening me with the sound of her torture. The jackhammer ate its way down, into her body, and I clung to it, sinking in.
    The behemoth shook like a wet dog. I gripped the jackhammer and drove it deeper and deeper. It pulled me in. My arms sank into wet flesh. I took a deep breath and then my nose and my face connected with bloody mush. Pressure ground me. I heard a dull rhythmic sound and realized it was the beast’s heart beating next to me.
    Suddenly the full weight of the jackhammer hit my arms. I fell.
    The jackhammer hit the ground, dead, and I landed on top of it, its handle conveniently impacting with my rib cage.
    Ow. That’s a cracked rib for sure.
    Above me the beast stumbled, a red hole in her chest dripping blood and liquefied flesh.
    I sprinted away, running for my life.
    The creature teetered, blocking out the sun, and crashed down with a deafening thud. The glass floor of the clearing shattered from the impact. Fractures raced from her body up into the translucent glass icebergs. For a fraction of a second nothing moved, and then giant chunks of glass slid from the walls and plummeted down, exploding into razor-sharp shrapnel.
    I threw myself behind the enchanted water tank.
    All around me glass fell with thunderous blasts, as if I were crouched in the middle of an artillery salvo. Shards slashed at my hide, stinging me like a swarm of bees. I smelled my own blood. The ground shook.
    Gradually the bursts slowed. Silence claimed the clearing. I straightened.
    Where is the boy?
    The tent lay in shambles, crushed beneath a chunk of amber glass the size of an SUV. A man was crying, his leg sliced open. People were slowly rising from hiding. I scannedthe survivors. Felipe was hugging a young man. At least his son had survived.
    No Ascanio.
    Please be alive.
    A loud hyena cackle rang through the clearing. I turned. He stood on top of the beast. Blood drenched his fur. His monster-mouth split in a happy, psychotic grin.
    I exhaled.
    Gradually it sank in. The Mother Beast was dead. I had killed her. The taste of her blood burned in my mouth. Behind her, a deep black hole bore into the ground beneath the remnants of the railroad car. It must’ve been her underground lair. She had raised her brood there, safe and far away from