The man spins on his heels, dashing for the curtained window. Just as his hands are reaching for the drapes to yank them open, the albino girl brings up the dagger, clipping it by the tip, and hurls it with a whip-like throw. The blade zips between the two men to strike the third low in the back at the kidney.

Talk about embarrassing. I throw a sword and it whacks a guy with the flat of the spine and falls off harmlessly, but this girl has just buried her dagger halfway up to the hilt from a seated throw.

The traitor flings his arms out wide when he's struck in the lower back. As he reaches behind him to pull out the dagger—a useless move—I spin, whipping my tail across his neck and throat to slam him to the floor. The fall on his back plunges the dagger all the way up to the crossguard, which ironically breaks his fall. I headbutt him, slamming my beak into his forehead, and he's out cold.

The albino girl walks up to the prone traitor and raises her frosty eyebrows. I stand confused until I realize she needs my help rolling him over. Seizing his shoulder with my snout, I flip him over like a steak on the grill. The girl seizes the handle of the dagger in his kidney and pulls, but to no avail. She is then forced to place one sandaled foot on the guy's back, kicking off as she yanks the dagger free. She performs the same whipping motion to shake off the blood onto the wood floor.

Now the four of us meet at the center of the room.

“How do we know Jared was a traitor?” the leader asks, stroking his beard and looking down at the albino girl.

I move closer to the girl to protect her if need be. “We saw him bolt for the window. If you think about it, retrace events, I'm certain the picture will become clear.”

The albino girl turns in a full circle as though staring through the walls. “We're surrounded.”

“The traitor no doubt informed them when and where you'd meet.” I move to the window and peer out from the edge of the curtain. Geckos have excellent night vision, even in color, so I see the soldiers lurking in the alley and the doorways. I even spot several undercover agents dressed in civilian robes, but they're hard-looking men, unlike the soft men gathered here tonight.

We're screwed, and “screwed” is not my first choice of words. The soldiers have surrounded us, but the message has got to get out that I've arrived, and that the followers of Lord Riyel, who have been forced underground must arm themselves and rally to take control of the city when the king falls and I destroy his army, although I haven't worked out exactly how I'm going to do that yet.

“We have no choice but to surrender,” the leader says, with beads of sweat quivering on his forehead.

“Not so fast,” I tell him. “They don't know we're onto their spy, who's dead on the floor, so that will buy us some time, and they don't know that I'm here, either. I've got a plan, but we've got to move before the whole army is outside.”

* * *

I vault from the rooftop, pushing off as hard as I can in the direction of the next rooftop, but the albino girl is riding on my back, holding onto my neck, which weighs me down. We are sailing above the soldiers below us on the street, crouched down with their swords drawn as they creep up on the carriage shop. We're nearing the other rooftop, but we're dropping too fast, and I panic. Yes, the gecko of God is not immune to panic.

We hit the other wall, high up. The impact of my landing throws the girl into my back, knocking me into the brick wall. I quickly scramble over the edge of the roof and we are on the rooftop, and I'm winding between chimneys. Liana is clinging fiercely to my neck, so I'm confident she's secure. I vault again from this rooftop, and barely catch the lip of the next roof, where I am forced to scramble up again.

“I'll drop you off here and give you time to get clear of me,” I tell the girl, who still has her dagger. “Now you know the story of Lord Riyel, and can share it with everyone you know. Prepare them to rise up. Baal the false god will fall.”

She nods. “I know that.” She runs for the fire escape and disappears from view as she descends the side of the building.

One more running leap, and I am on the roof of a theater and alehouse, which has now closed. “Tuk-urr! Tuk-urr!” I croak at the top of my lungs, a bellowing call that rings through the still air. “Tuk-urr!”

There are shouts, and whistles sounding the alarm. Footsteps converge on this building, as well as several whistles rattling and shrieking. Galloping horses draw near, all of them converging on me.

In the distance I hear the sound of a carriage racing down the street, followed by a second, and a third. One of those carriages is a decoy, while the other two hold the remaining two leaders of the Riyelans in the city.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

That's my cue. I race across the roof upright with that odd reptilian gait, swinging my hips forward, first one side then the other. I reach the end of the roof and am ready to launch myself into the air when I catch the tell-tale glint of steel on the next rooftop, and I spy soldiers with spears anchored into the roof. Once I'm airborne I can't redirect myself, and would end up impaling myself on their spears. I try to stop, but I'm going too fast, and end up hitting the lip of the roof and tumbling over the edge.

Slowly cartwheeling through the air as I fall, I strike the sidewalk with my back, which knocks the wind out of me. I lie stunned on the walkway as the soldiers surround me and throw a net over me. I struggle, but my arms are nearly useless under the best of conditions. My fingers are great for holding anything in a death grip, but worthless at extricating me out of something, like a net. I'm hauled up onto a flat bed wagon, like the victim in the witch trial, surrounded by soldiers on foot and on horseback, taunting me and jabbing me with their spears.

“Don't kill him, you moron,” a commander barks at someone who's thrust his spear a little too deeply. He has a purple feather in his hat that flutters in the breeze.

The wagon wheels bounce over the cobblestones, jolting me as we make out way past the Temple of God the Empowerer, now taken over by the followers of Baal. The bronze bull maintains its spot at the top of the steps as if to mock me.

“You're going to fall, you son-of-a-bitch,” I curse with the net draping my snout.

I'm the focus of a sick parade, a witch being led through the city, past the temple, to an old mine in the mountainside, which has since been converted to a prison, or I should say, a dungeon. Raise up a building and you've got a prison, but shut somebody up in a cave, and that's a dungeon right there.

We pass through a wrought iron gate and descend, rolling over the gravel floor of the mine. Torches blaze from sconces in the walls, and I think they're intentionally striving to create a medieval atmosphere. The walls are rough, and the roof is held up by wooden four-by-fours as we roll further into the bowels of the mountain. These dumb bastards still won't let up with the whooping and hollering while waving their swords around.

The wagon stops at another iron gate. Four brawny, shirtless men emerge from the dungeon, carrying clamps on poles. I am pinned by a dozen soldiers, and I hear the clamps snapping shut on both arms and my legs as well. A noose on a pole is draped over my head, and with all four limbs spread eagle, I am hauled out of the wagon and into the torture room, where a brazier full of coals stands, heating up several irons.

I don't know why, but I'm thinking a moth would taste really good right now.

They've got a shirtless guy with a huge gut on him working the bellows to heat up the coals. As the five men holding me up on poles haul me to a shallow niche with manacles embedded into the stone wall, I reflect on how counterproductive it is when you're trying to intimidate a prisoner, only to have some fat guy with an oversize belly working the bellows. That kind of sloppiness just doesn't instill fear.

The henchmen fasten me to the shackles anchored in the stone, while the biggest guy with the noose pole at my neck keeps me jammed against the wall. Soldiers are waiting outside, peering in through the bars of the iron gate, so there's no sense in trying to escape. All four of my limbs are shackled to the wall, and a chain is fastened around my waist. Hands grab my robe at several spots and pull in opposite directions, ripping it off of me so that I am naked. Only now is the noose removed from my neck, and a muzzle is placed over my snout. Good move. I'm disheartened because this is going to keep me from cracking any witty one-liners, but I think their real aim is to keep me from biting or crushing anyone's skull with my jaws.

Mr. Noose Pole—I have to call him that, because it's not like he said, “Hi, I'm Venz, I'll be your torturer this evening”—grabs one of the red-hot irons from the coals and waves it in front of my snout. He is leering, giving me a twisted smile that reveals he's not getting any dental care. The glowing tip of the poker is in the form of a 'B' for “Baal,” although I wonder if Mr. Noose Pole recognizes any letters of the alphabet.

With the characteristic wheezing laugh of a chain smoker, Mr. Noose Pole slowly pushes the red hot poker into my chest, resulting in a sizzling sound and the smell of burnt flesh. Honestly, I had no idea my burnt flesh smelled like that. A word of advice: if you ever find yourself torturing someone who's been in purgatory, you really need to put some effort into it, get creative. One red hot poker to the chest is a day off for me, and as Mr. Noose Pole jabs me in multiple spots with the branding iron, I feel like I'm on vacation.

Fatso works the bellows, huffing and puffing over the glowing coals, laughing the whole time. It would be cliché to say that he's sweating like a pig, but also incredibly accurate. He has a tattoo of a dog on his chest, but he's got man boobs that make the dog look hydrocephalic.

The soldiers outside are cheering, especially when Mr. Noose Pole throws in several knees to my midsection. He's trying to find my testicles, but he's never had a biology class, so he doesn't know that geckos don't have a scrotum and my reproductive organs are inside a ventral slit.

Finally, I'm hauled out of my niche by the shirtless goons. I try to stand, but blood loss from many shallow spear and sword thrusts is taking its toll, and I sag into my captors' greasy arms. I'm dragged over the gravel floor as the soldiers cheer, throwing in a few kicks and punches when they can as I am hauled to a small cell. The door is opened and my hands and feet are shackled into the wall once again. The muzzle is kept in place as the henchmen back out, closing the cell door behind them, and the cheerful soldiers hike back out of the mine.

Letting out a long breath, I sink into my spot on the wall. The residual burning sting in my body is familiar, which is how I usually feel when I return from a long day of roasting in purgatory to haunt the house on 3829 N. Worthington.

“Lord, I pray Juvy and Max are okay and doing well.”

I think about how I'm doing as the gecko of God, His vicar on the earth to defeat the dark gods, and I realize that I'm a total failure.