The Golem's Eye

fell down into the road. Kitty vaulted through the newly opened space, snagging her hand on a piece of jagged glass. She landed on her feet in the inner room.
    Outside came a snarling and the scrape of claws on cobblestones.
    Ahead of Kitty, in an otherwise naked room, a narrow flight of stairs rose in the darkness. She ran for them, pressing her wounded hand against her jacket to dull the fresh pain of the cut.
    On the first step, she turned, faced the window.
    A wolf leaped through the opening, jaws agape. The sphere hit it mid-muzzle.
    Water exploded through the room, knocking Kitty off her feet against the bottom steps, momentarily blinding her. When she could open her eyes, a floodtide was draining away around her feet, filling the air with little gushing, sucking noises. The wolf was gone.
    Kitty pelted up the stairs.
    The upper room had several open windows: silver moonlight lay unrolled across the floor. Something in the street below howled. Kitty immediately scanned for exits, found none, cursed wildly. Worse, she could not secure her back: the steps had opened directly onto the upper floor—there was no trapdoor or other means of shutting off the route. From downstairs came the sound of something heavy splashing into shallow water.
    Backing away from the opening, Kitty approached the nearest window. It was old and rotten, the wood around the pane hung slewed in its frame. Kitty kicked at it with a shoe. Wood and glass fell away into space. Almost before it shattered on the road, she was in the gap, silver light spilling across her face, craning her neck upward, looking for a handhold.
    Down in the road below, a dark form wheeled and snapped, heavy feet crunching on glass fragments. She sensed it gazing up at her, willing her to fall.
    Something bounded up the stairs with such prodigious strength that it almost careered into the opposite wall. Kitty caught sight of a roughened lintel a foot above the window. She tossed a sphere across the room, reached out and swung herself upward, shoes scrabbling on the window rim, muscles cracking, all the time feeling the stinging pain from the cut in her palm.
    An explosion below her. Yellow-green plumes of fire jetted out the window beneath her flailing shoes, and for an instant the road was lit as if by a sickly sun.
     
    The magical light died. Kitty hung on to the wall, searching for another handhold. She spied one, tested it, found it secure. She began to climb. A little way above was a parapet; beyond that, perhaps, a flat roof: this was her objective.
    Lack of food and sleep had sapped her energy; her arms and legs seemed filled with water. After a couple of minutes, she paused for breath.
    A scratching and scrabbling below her; a slavering, curiously near. Cautiously, fingers digging into the soft bricks, Kitty looked over her shoulder, down along the length of her body toward the distant moonlit road. Halfway between her and the pavement was a rapidly ascending form. For the purposes of its climb, it had reverted a little from its full wolf guise: paws had molded into long clawed fingers; animal forelegs had reacquired human elbows, clambering muscles had snapped back into position around the bones. But the face was unchanged: mouth agape, teeth shining in the silver light, tongue lolling and frothing to the side. Its yellow eyes were on her.
    This sight almost caused Kitty to lose her grip and tumble away into the void. Instead, she pressed herself close to the bricks, supported her weight with one hand and eased the other into her satchel. She took hold of the first thing she found—a sphere of some kind—and, taking rapid aim, dropped it toward her pursuer.
    Glinting as it spun, the sphere missed the brindled back by inches; a moment later, it hit the pavement, sending out brief jets of flame.
    The wolf made a gurgling noise deep in its throat. It came on.
    Biting her lip, Kitty flung herself back into her climb. Ignoring the protests of her body, she clambered frantically upward, fearing at any moment the clasp of claws around her leg. She could hear the beast's scratching at her heels.
    The parapet... With a cry, she pulled herself up onto it, stumbled and fell. The satchel was twisted under her; she could not get access to her missiles.
    She twisted around onto her back. Even as she did so, the wolf's head slowly rose above the edge of the parapet, snuffling avidly at a trace of blood smeared from her hand. Its yellow eyes flicked up, looked straight