“Aaa--” Screaming, Mal quickly realized, was a bad idea, and he grabbed his side in pain, struggling to stay upright. The kitten -- he really needed to find a name for the little thing -- squeaked in protest at the noise, but didn’t disentangle its little claws. Thank fuck for little miracles, Mal thought. He wasn’t in the mood to feel guilty about the kitten escaping, nor was he in shape to chase it.

“Are you alright, gweilo?” The Dragon, glittering gold, moved up and closer to Mal. While he wasn’t screaming anymore, he was still very terrified of the hundred-foot-long dragon. The accent threw him off, though, which was what was primarily keeping him from trying his hand at a different expression of blind panic.

“Wha-- Whi-- gweilo?” His indignation had taken precedence. A golden dragon, on top of a pagoda? The Dragon didn’t seem to understand and cocked its head. “Don’t you think that’s… derivative?” Mal said, talking as much to himself as to the mythical serpent. The dragon nodded, and then shrugged.

“People expect the theatrics, man. I’m advertising.” On closer inspection, the Dragon’s gold shine was painted on. “Snakeskins gotta eat too, don’tcha know. Can’t get people in if I call them deckers, can I?” Mal nodded as if that had all made sense. He frowned and tried to put his thoughts in order. 

“Where am I?” he asked, looking around. He’d never seen a place like this. It was like he was standing on a city block that hovered over another city block, and then another below that. It went the same way up, massive buildings in layers, in every direction. 

“Floor fifty-five bro,” the Dragon said with a little flourish, like it was proud. “Best food this side of thirty, man.” It seemed to try and flash Mal a smile, which wasn’t very effective at making him feel comfortable at all. 

“I mean, like…” Mal paused. He wasn’t going to get any information in that direction that was likely to be immediately useful. His ribs thumped, and he didn’t know what to do or where to go, but he probably needed to see a doctor. “You know anyone that can help me with this?” He motioned to the arm clutched to his chest. He was having trouble breathing. 

“Sure thing, dude. Fifty and I’ll call you a cab.” Mal blinked a few times. He didn’t even know what the currency was, let alone have any on him. He realized that his wallet was in his jacket, back at Ellis and Tee’s home. Maybe it had gotten pulled into the vortex, but even then it was a mystery where it might have ended up. 

“I don’t have an--” 

“Too bad, bro, good luck!” the Dragon said, and turned back to its pagoda, and curled up on the roof, striking a pose. It very distinctly avoided Mal’s eye contact, and slowly, the pagoda hovered out of view. That had been an experience. He looked around. He was on the roof of what appeared to be an apartment building, with a lowered roof terrace in the middle. It had doors, and some metal stairs leading to it. Alright, step one: finding a doctor. He wasn’t going to do that up here. 

Mal slowly made his way down, and after trying a few doors, he found one that led to a stairwell-elevator combo. He sighed in relief, because he was not in the mood to walk down several dozen stairs. The elevator took a minute to get up to the roof, and he took a moment to try and comfort the cat. The little tyke was remarkably chill, all things considered, and looked up at him with big eyes. He softly scratched it behind the ears, and it purred gently. 

The elevator arrived with a ding, and revealed its unpleasant contents. It looked like, well, an elevator in an unpleasant neighbourhood. Three stains of indeterminate origin. There was something in the corner that was either a rat or a piece of a person. The graffiti on the walls was omnipresent, and he got the feeling that the spray-on-paint of who knew how many generations of wannabe artists was at least half an inch deep. But the most surface-level ones were somewhat revealing. Some words that were either gang names or slurs, several slogans he couldn’t read, and couldn’t tell if they were illegible because they were a different language or because the artist’s canmanship left something to be desired. 

There was also a little glowing orb hovering in the back top right corner that had graffiti all around it pointing at it, urging onlookers to either touch it or not to. Mal was smart enough to keep his hands to himself. He wanted to make contact with as little of this elevator as possible. Besides, he was too preoccupied with the elevator’s current occupant: the smell. It smelled like someone had died, fallen into a chemical plant, been used as a urinal, and then died again. It was rancid. Mal took a step back, took a deep breath, and stepped inside. 

On the way down, he realized that the elevator was too slow for him to keep holding his breath, so he tried to mostly breathe through his mouth. He couldn’t avoid reading the graffiti all around. There was a recurring symbol, a kind of seven-pointed star made from three lines intersecting with a fourth sprouting from the middle, that was scribbled all over. He wondered about its significance. Probably a gang symbol, he mused to himself, although maybe it’s religious? Mal chewed his lip, petting the kitten, which was sneezing up a storm.

“Me too, buddy,” he said softly. The elevator was taking forever, and breathing wasn’t getting any easier. Coming down from what seemed to be at least ninety floors was taking a while, which was why it was so frustrating when it stopped at thirty. Who else would be stupid -- or wounded -- enough to step into a biohazard like this? The doors slid open, and two questions were answered. 

The first was that nobody else was using the elevator, but apparently him using it hadn’t gone unnoticed. The second was what the seven-pointed star had referred to. Or rather, who. A creature standing on three legs and leaning on what seemed to be four arms, separated by a segmented body, towered over him. Its body was flesh-coloured and seemingly covered in muscle. Before he could say anything, he was yanked out of the elevator and thrown across what seemed to be an atrium. That was as much as he was going to make out before he crashed headfirst into a concrete planter, the tree inside having died ages ago. Everything went black for a moment, and he felt like something cracked when he moved his head. He had to blink several times for his vision to restore. The world took several seconds to fall back into focus, and it was tinted ever so slightly red. He almost rubbed his eyes with the cat, who squeaked in discontent. At least the little one was okay. He wiped some blood out of his eyes and propped himself up against the planter. His head was pounding.

“What are you doing,” the seven-legged creature said as it approached him in what was clearly a threatening manner, “on our turf?” Mal noticed the other figures around. Some of them were human people. Some of them were not. It was hard to make out, and he felt he had other priorities. 

“Imsfrr,” Mal said, and realized that his mouth was having some trouble cooperating. Signals from his brain seemed to be coming in at quite a delay, and he had the feeling the previously imbibed wine was being exacerbated somewhat by the mild-to-severe head trauma. He tried again. “I’m sorry,” he managed. “Didn’t mean t--” 

He was interrupted by the creature lifting him up with one giant hand. Its face was distinctly unpleasant to look at, like someone had crossed a praying mantis with a chimpanzee and then repeatedly hit it in the face with a steel trash can. It was not a nice face. It also had three pairs of eyes which made it hard to figure out where to look. “Sorry ain’t gonna cut down here, friend. Trespassers will be…” the creature looked at his crew, clearly making sure he had their attention, “violated.” There was some cocky laughing from the others. Mal sighed deeply, which hurt both his lungs and his head, and he really wished he was someone else. Although he got the feeling that things could, and were about to, get much worse. He briefly considered assaulting the creature, but he only had the one arm free, the other one still clutching the kitten to his chest, and he doubted he could do much damage with a single swing, especially in his current state. 

“Let the boy go, Hepto,” a voice said. It came from the stairwell, and the creature (apparently named Hepto) turned around with a snarl, dropping Mal to the ground. Stars flashed in his eyes for a second and the wind was knocked out of him. He couldn’t see who was talking but the voice was a hoarse, feminine one, speaking with authority. There was an edge to it that made him feel like whoever was talking was neither young nor particularly bubbly.

“The fuck you doing here?” Hepto asked, but didn’t move forward like he had with Mal. That implied he was scared of the intruder. Slowly, Hepto began to circle left, providing Mal with vision of the newcomer. It was a woman in her mid-to-late fifties, tall and muscular, wearing body armor and a large white scarf that covered part of her upper body and one of her arms. She had what appeared to be a long, rectangular tube on her back, four feet long. It looked heavy as hell, but didn’t seem to bother her. She circled in the opposite direction, her footsteps light as a feather. At least one of Hepto’s associates had slinked away into the shadows, but the others raised their weapons. The woman barely looked at them.

“You finally did it, Hepto. Pissed off MRCo.”

“Liar.”

“Got no reason to lie. You know I would only be here if it was worth it.” Hepto hissed but still continued circling the atrium, the woman mirroring his movements.

“We can talk about this, Tore,” Hepto said, and four of his eyes narrowed. “I can make it worth your while.” The woman, Tore, shook her head. 

“We both know you only got a bronze subscription, Hepto. And you are on your last corpse. If you could afford it, you would have renewed.” More hissing from Hepto. Whatever she was talking about, it had severely ticked the large creature off. Tore had circled close to one of Hepto’s henchmen, and had her back to him. Hepto briefly looked at the henchman, who raised his rifle. Mal was about to say something, a warning of some kind, when the woman spun around. She knocked the rifle sideways right as the man pulled the trigger, and one of the others took the brunt of the salvo. The sound of the gun was deafening, and unlike anything Mal had ever heard before. It sounded like an ice cube cracking in a glass of water while being hit with a hammer. 

Immediately, Tore punched the man in the throat several times, yanked the gun out of his hands and, in a single elegant movement, spun around. There were four distinct shots, each louder than the last, and then the gun dropped out of her hands. A second later, all the remaining bodyguards dropped to the ground too. 

“Before we were so rudely interrupted,” Tore said casually, and she turned back to Hepto. It would have been an effective one-liner if Hepto hadn’t closed the distance between the two of them in a second and barreled down on her. In the blink of an eye, she’d slung the large rectangle from her back, and extended a five-foot-long handle from it, turning the thing into a large, T-shaped hammer. She didn’t have the time to bring it to bear, however, as Hepto crashed into her, throwing her at a nearby wall. The crash was loud, but apparently this wasn’t the first time Tore had been tossed like that, because she landed on her feet and immediately lifted her hammer with a look of determination. Mal scooted himself towards the gun Tore had dropped, but it was a slow process, his entire body hurting and all.

“Come on then, you big bastard,” Mal heard her mumble with none of the intimidating grace she’d had before. Hepto obliged and charged at her again, but this time she had the time to raise her hammer and swing it. A flame erupted from the back of it, propelling the head like a rocket until it connected with Hepto’s chin. When it did, an explosion rang out and Hepto was thrown back like a ragdoll, landing on the edge of the atrium, where a railing separated the floor from the sheer thirty-floor drop down. 

Tore immediately put the hammer down and leaned on it, taking a few deep breaths and showing her age, but then hoisted her hammer on her shoulder to walk closer to the downed creature.

“Just come with me, Hepto. You have got a lot to lose this time. Besides, vermin like you always find a way to get out of whatever hole they throw you in. But the contract does say dead or alive, and I am not in a fucking-around mood.” Hepto didn’t move, and Mal wondered if he was already dead, which meant it was obviously a trap. Tore didn’t seem to notice, though, and walked up, right up until Hepto jumped up, holding two pieces of jagged railing. Immediately, Tore was on the defensive, raising her hammer to deflect blows from the giant creature. She was slowly being pushed back, and Mal saw his chance to grab the rifle. It was fairly light, but its shape was somewhat familiar. Guns were guns, after all. He figured that Hepto wanted him dead, and the woman was clearly the creature’s enemy, so if he helped her, there was at least a chance of him walking out of here. He pushed himself up into a kneeling position and raised the weapon. Tore was in a bad way, every once in a while taking a cut to an arm, unable to do anything but keep the creature from cutting her half.

He aimed for the creature as best he could, his strength almost giving up on him, and the -brrak- from the rifle rang through the atrium like a cannonball through a porcelain shop, throwing his arm backward. But it had hit the creature, and he screamed as several holes were punched into his sides and several of his limbs. He turned around and threw one of the railings at Mal, but it was too late. Tore had her opening and rammed the hammer down on Hepto’s head. He hit the ground like a meteor, and she raised her massive hammer twice more, bringing it down with maybe a little more force than was necessary. Mal could imagine it was cathartic. He sat back down and saw Tore pat the creature down until she pulled a small, glowing gem from her belt, then turned to him. 

“Fuck,” she said, and Mal frowned then fell over. He looked down as he heard her footsteps rush over to him. The large steel railing sticking out of his chest was probably going to make his breathing even more difficult. At least the kitten is fine, he thought, as everything went dark and warm.

Elamimax

Mal isn't very lucky, huh? At least the kitten is fine.

If you like this story, there are 34 chapters already up on my patreon. Subscribers will get access to every single chapter right now. Other than that, I will be posting a chapter (maybe even two) every other day. If you're in the mood to catch up on my other stories, feel free to check them out. Additionally, Horns in the Library 1 is now available as an ebook! 

I also want to point people at the discord server of the ever-prolific QuietValerie (right here) where you can find her wonderful stories, like Ryn of Avonside, Falling Over and The Trouble With Horns, as well as other authors' works, and talk about them with fellow fans, and even the authors themselves! I heartily recommend joining it and reading their works! (Also check out Walls of Anamoor. It's rad as heck.) 

Thanks again for reading, and I'll see you all in the next one. 

<3