Chapter 30 The Half-Price Menace

“A salon,” Dessa repeated.

“Three whiskers. Clean trim.”

She looked at the cleaver in her hand.

“I can do ugly.”

“I need to do it.”

“Then hurry. Your customer looks impatient.”

The nearest barbel swept the fountain. Its tip struck the stone basin and coiled around the rim, feeling for the people crouched beneath it.

Jin slashed.

The knife skated across slick skin.

The barbel snapped back, catching his wrist and jerking him onto his stomach.

“Like that?” Dessa asked.

“Bad opening consultation.”

She stepped on his belt and caught the barbel against the basin with the back of her cleaver. Jin twisted his hand free, got the knife beneath the pale cord and cut upward.

The severed end struck his chest.

One.

The tiltjaw recoiled. Its mouth closed, dropping a dozen loose plates onto the quay.

The severed length hovered against Jin's chest for a fraction longer. Then it fell.

He blinked down at it.

Calder caught the cut end in her thick glove, frowned and laid it across the fountain's rim.

“Leave the next ones where I can find them.”

“You're buying hair now?”

“I'm not wasting it.”

Jin wiped the knife against his wet trousers and decided that was a perfectly respectable answer.

Jin stood.

He went five short paces around the fountain to a broad stone beside its base, recording the approach as his feet crossed it. At the endpoint he settled his weight, then ran back behind the basin.

The next pulse caught him just before he reached the first mark.

He threw his arm around the fountain's carved fish.

His feet skidded.

Kessa put an arrow into the fin the adult was using to climb higher. It jerked sideways, dragging the next barbel across the stone.

“Now?” she shouted.

“Now!”

Jin got his foot onto the first mark and selected Braced Waypoint.

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Five strides whipped him around the basin.

He arrived beside the second barbel as it snapped taut across the fountain's edge. His heel settled. He caught the loose end, laid the knife against it and drove his arm down with the pull.

The blade went through.

Two.

The barbel's recoil slapped a wet stripe across his face.

Jin spat.

“We charge extra for washing.”

The brace faded. He caught the basin and pulled himself behind it before the next sweep could take his legs.

The adult thrashed. A stall canopy tore free and vanished between its teeth.

The next swallow brought the world down. Dessa stepped into the exposed flank.

Calder gathered the second severed length from beside the basin and dropped it onto the first.

Dessa's cleaver blazed red. The edge struck beneath a folded fin, leaving a smoking cut.

The tiltjaw hauled itself sideways, trying to bring its mouth toward her.

Its third barbel swept low.

Jin ducked under it, jumped up on the fountain's rim and caught the trailing length against the carved fish.

The barbel tightened around the statue.

Stone creaked beneath his feet.

He couldn't pull it free. He couldn't wait for the skill to recover, either.

So he used both hands on the knife.

The first cut opened the skin. The second bit deeper.

The world tipped toward the teeth.

Jin planted one foot against the statue's tail and sawed through the last tough strip before it could rip him off the rim.

The cut end hit him under the chin.

He sat down hard in the fountain.

Three.

Kessa leaned over the basin.

“Are you finished?”

Jin lifted the dripping severed length.

“Behold,” he shouted, “the Half-Price Menace!”

Dessa barked a laugh.

Jin let the third length fall beside the other two.

He put three into Strength and two into Endurance.

His hands tightened around the fountain's rim. He hauled himself out in one movement, no longer having to drag his chest over the edge first.

“That helped,” he said.

“Did it?” Calder asked.

The tiltjaw's remaining whiskers lashed in three different directions.

Its head followed one, jerked toward another and dragged the feeding cone straight across the square.

The hunters behind the far barricade ducked. A rack of festival lanterns lifted into the air. Half the rack struck the fountain; the rest went spinning toward the mouth.

Jin grabbed Kessa and pulled her down.

Iron rang over their heads.

When he looked up, Dessa had a length of lantern chain wrapped around her cleaver. Calder was hauling one of the hunters behind the barricade by his coat.

“It can't aim properly,” Kessa said.

Jin watched the cone sweep toward the bakery window.

“Apparently it can aim badly at more things.”

The adult's mouth closed.

Its huge hooked fins gripped the edge of the ceremonial dais above the quay.

Wood cracked beneath its belly.

“Don't let it climb!” Dessa shouted.

Two bolts struck the reaching fin. The creature dragged itself forward anyway, lifting its head above the awnings.

Its mouth opened.

The pull struck from overhead.

Jin's feet left the paving.

He hit the underside of a festival beam back-first, lost his breath and caught the edge with both hands.

Across the square, people clung to the undersides of tables, to ropes, to the frames they'd been standing beneath a moment earlier.

Dessa hung from the same beam three paces away.

Jin looked across at her. Her boots kicked uselessly at the paving below.

“I may have overbooked,” he wheezed.

The tiltjaw began to swallow.