Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [307]
“Grab her, Isaac,” he called.
As the slake-moth clutched her thin body to its thorax, Isaac felt his fingers close around Lin’s wrist. He clenched hard, tried to pull her free. He wept and swore.
Yagharek hurled the lit oil-lamp against the back of the slake-moth’s head. The glass broke open and a little spray of incandescent oil spattered over the smooth skin. A burst of blue flame crawled across the dome of the skull.
The slake-moth squealed. A flurry of limbs whipped up to batter out the little fire as the slake-moth jerked its head back momentarily in pain. Instantly, Yagharek snapped his whip with a savage stroke. It smacked loud and dramatic against the dark skin. Coils of the thick leather wound almost instantly around the slake-moth’s neck.
Yagharek pulled hard and fast, with all his wiry strength. He drew the whip absolutely tight and braced himself.
The small fire kept stinging, burning tenaciously. The whip cut off the slake-moth’s throat. It could not swallow or breathe.
Its head lurched on its long neck. It emitted strangulated little cries. Its tongue swelled and it lashed it out of Lin’s mouth. The spurts of consciousness it had tried to drink clogged up in its throat. The moth clawed at the whip, frantic and terrified. It flailed and shook and spun.
Isaac hung on to Lin’s shrunken wrist, tugging at her as the moth twirled in a hideous dance. Its twitching limbs flew away from her, clutching vainly at the thong that choked it. Isaac pulled her clear, dropped to the floor and scrabbled away from the rampaging creature.
As it turned in its panic, its wings folded and it turned away from the door. Instantly, its hold on Motley was broken. Motley’s composite body stumbled forward and collapsed on the floor as his mind crawled back together. His men pushed over him, picking their way past a tangle of his legs into the room.
In a hideous drumming of feet the slake-moth spun. The whip was wrenched from Yagharek’s hands, tearing his skin. He staggered back, towards Derkhan, out of range of the slake-moth’s razored, spinning limbs.
Motley was standing. He stamped quickly away from the beast, passing back into the corridor.
“Kill the damn thing!” he shrieked.
The moth danced in a frenzy into the centre of the room. The five Remade stood in a little clutch around the door. They aimed through their mirrors.
Three jets of burning gas burst from the flamethrowers, scorching the vast creature’s skin. It tried to shriek as its wings and chitin roared and split and crisped, but the whip prevented it. A great gob of acid sprayed the twisting moth square in the face. It denatured the proteins and compounds of its hide in seconds, melting the moth’s exoskeleton.
The acid and the flame ate swiftly through the whip. Its remnants flew away from the spinning moth, which could finally breathe, and scream.
It shrieked in agony as fresh gouts of fire and acid caught it. It hurled itself blindly in the direction of its attackers.
Bolts of dark energy from the fifth man’s gun burst into it, dissipating across its surface area, numbing and scorching it without heat. It screeched again, but hurtled on, a sightless storm of flame, spitting acid and flailing ragged bone.
The five Remade moved back as it stumbled madly for them, following Motley into the corridor. The intense moving pyre slammed into the walls, igniting them, fumbling for the doorway.
From the little hallway, the sounds of fire, spewing acid and quarrels of elyctro-thaumaturgy continued.
For long seconds, Derkhan and Yagharek and Isaac stared up dumbfounded at the doorway. The moth still shrieked just out of sight, the corridor beyond was radiant with flickering light and heat.
Then Isaac blinked and stared down at Lin, who slumped in his embrace.
He hissed at her, shook her.
“Lin,” he whispered. “Lin . . . We’re leaving.”
Yagharek strode quickly over to the window and peered out over the street five floors below. Next to the window, a little jutting column of brick extended out from the wall, becoming a chimney.