Dead Waters - Anton Strout [93]
Prone, my legs dangled over the edges of two of the desks and a skeleton head rose up over the crest of my left knee. I kicked my leg straight out as if a doctor had been testing my reflexes, sending the pirate figure up into the air above me. I flashed my bat out at it and it exploded into dust and fragments of wire.
Jumping up to my feet, I was feeling pretty good with the way things were going. I grabbed another one on my leg, swinging it by its head until there was an audible popping sound and its body separated, sailing off with a distant crash.
My moment of triumph was cut short when I looked down at the center of the circle. Two of my pirate attackers had been smart enough to stay clear of me, and had instead taken position by the bound student’s head. Their swords were poised over the frantic movement of his widening eyes.
“No!” I shouted, diving for them, but they were already lowering their blades. I wasn’t going to make it. I hit the floor hard, skidding into the student with a harsh “oof” as I drove into him.
Connor’s feet shot past my head, one landing on the floor next to the student’s own head and the other lashing out at the two skeletons. They shattered as his foot connected, their pieces raining down on the student’s tightly shut eyes.
“Jesus, Simon,” Connor said, “I thought you were trying to save him, not add to his injuries.”
I scrambled up to my knees and began untying the poor kid. “What happened to the Harpies?” I asked Connor.
Connor lifted up his hand, displaying a fistful of tornoff Harpy wings.
“Nice,” I said. “Remind me never to buy you a bird as a gift.”
Connor tossed them to the floor. “As long as it’s not an evil bird,” he said.
“Where’s Darryl?” I asked.
Connor looked away. “He might have escaped.”
“Might have?”
Connor got testy. “It was a little hard keeping track of everyone, what with the chaos of fighting Harpies and rescuing you.”
“You weren’t rescuing me,” I said.
“On, no?” he said, haughtiness in his voice. “So you could have lived with yourself watching the kid here get his eyes gouged out, then?”
I didn’t bother responding and continued untying the student. I undid the final knots, before a thought hit me. “Where’s the Inspectre?”
We both looked around but we couldn’t see the Inspectre anywhere. “Crap,” I said, but Connor held a finger up to silence me.
Off near where we had come in came the sounds of struggle, even though we couldn’t see much from where we stood. We hurried our way through the maze of stored stuff while the student finished untangling himself from the coil of ropes encasing him.
Following the sounds, we came across the Inspectre, flat on his back on the floor. He was still clutching his sword cane, but every other inch of him was wrapped up in a writhing sea of movie snakes and sea serpent models, including a mutant octopus-looking thing that had full control of him from the waist down. Muffled cries for help came from behind either a tentacle or snake section that ran across his face. I couldn’t tell which.
Without wasting a second, Connor and I made quick work liberating the Inspectre from his monstrous little captors. I pulled the tentacle from around his head, ripping it in two before throwing it off into the surrounding darkness.
“Are you all right, sir?” I asked.
The moment he was free, the Inspectre scrabbled around on the floor until he could get up on his knees.
“What, what?” he said, somewhat flustered. “Yes, yes, of course I’m all right.” He found his sword and sheathed it back into the hollow of his cane, and then used it to help himself up. I moved to help him, but he brushed me away.
“It would appear,” he continued, “that my fencing skills were a bit lacking, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t get it,” I said, shaking my head. “You routinely