"Don't let go," Jaimi told her brother, who hung by her arm, whose legs floated atop a three hundred yard drop. His legs dangled and he swerved as Jaimi brought him in closer. The beast, the lion, fell past them. It swooshed, then landed, then splattered. It looked like a black ink drop, from the height above that they stood from. The bird, right below Jaimi's feet, balancing her atop its back. The wings, flapping and eventually gliding to a lower floor. The creature mawed at the glass and it shattered, Jaimi threw her brother in. Kacey rolled on the floor, some glass digging into his skin as he struck a column and stopped.

"That was close." She said. The bird retracted into black mist and it returned to her eye. "If I waited a little longer I think he would have gotten us."

She turned around, outside the black sand fell in small streams from the floor above. It looked like rain. "Are you okay?"

He stood, fumbling. He braced himself against a concrete pillar and put his forehead against the surface. He had one hand against his eye.

"I can't see." He said. "From my left eye, it's all black and white spots."

"You overused it again." She said. Then brought a finger to her lips. "Let's whisper when we talk, he’ll hear us." In a hushed tone.

"What happened?" He asked. "I didn't see much, then you grabbed me and threw me out, and I was dangling in the air." He whispered, he put his back against the column and lowered it until he touched the ground. Beyond him, a slew of roulette boards, some of them spun. There were balls scattered across the floor and little pieces of red and black plastic with numbers all along the ruined tables. Most of them were, at least. Workable roulette tables had plastic sheets over themselves.

"He shot out a tsunami. That's what it looked like, I guess." She said. "Just black sand and it rushed at us."

"Is he chasing us?" He asked.

"No." Her bird hovered behind her, flapping wildly in the open sky. "Lucy hasn't spotted anything."

"I don't think I can use Harold anymore." Harold, of course, was the very human name to that very inhuman monstrosity he had for a summon. "It'll take a few days for me to even see again."

"I've got a few more minutes in me." She drew her hand back, towards the bird and extended her palm. The creature materialized into ash and returned to her.

"I've got the other one, still." He said. "She's hungry. Much hungrier than Harold."

"I have-"

"Don't," Kacey said. "We don't need that right now, and you know what happened last time, right?"

"Yeah." Her head sunk. "I can control it a bit better now."

"Why risk it though?" He asked.

"Because we'll die if I don't try."

"Don't think like that. I think he’s worse than us right now-" The ceiling above him rattled. It was like a small quake that moved the tile and granite and shook the foundations. Grit and dirt fell from the roof, it landed in little spots around the two. Jaimi helped Kacey up. He brushed the dust off his shoulders.

"Let's move." He said. They ran, with as gentle steps as they could as they made their way to the exit. "We'll fight on better grounds." He said.

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"And where's that?" She asked.

"Somewhere open. Where we can run as much as we want."

He grabbed her hand. His cold palms gripped her hard, he jerked her arm as they went down the stairs. And they made it only two floors down.

"Alright," Kacey said. "We’ll fight him at the entrance, and we'll lead him out the front."

"Where all the dead soldiers are at?" Jaimi asked. Her eyes narrowed. Her brother looked stone-faced, unmoved even. Each word as natural as the violence he committed.

"Yeah, we'll stake him out there. There's a lot of light. There's a lot of room and cover -"

Sand fell on his head. Her eyes opened wide. He noticed, a second late. He swerved, pushing her down the stairs. She fell, with her vision jumbled and messy as she rolled down. A spike came down from the stairs above. Ritcher's figure appeared upon the edge of the guard rail.

The spike had landed on Kacey. His arm plopped off. Kacey threw himself into twin doors, where it read emergency entrance. The rest of him flew into the twentieth floor, near what seemed to be a sport gambling bar and concession stand. Around him, potted plants and picture frames. All shattered on the floor. His blood mixed with the dry soil, his body, rolled around the carpet. That's all she saw, briefly, before her head thumped against the wall behind her.

She was a whole floor down.

"Kacey!" She screamed.

"I'm alright." A hoarse voice. He breathed in quick repetitions as if hyperventilating.

"Meet me down there!" He screamed. She stood herself up, took one step forward. A spike came down, striking the floor next to her foot.

"And don’t die on me!” Kacey screamed from above.

She grit her teeth, she looked up and down and up once more, Ritcher was still above, his silhouette obscure in the darkness of a ten-floor distance. But he was there. Green eyes reminded her that. The spikes assured her of it. So she looked down and went at it. Her body tired and aching with each fumbling step down the floors. The spikes falling on her like glaciers, then dispersing into puffs of black sand behind her. She called out her bird. It squawked once. She grabbed it by its shoulders and aimed it down the center of the spiral staircase, and she came down a blur. Her hair fast behind her, the air cutting around her. Spikes came down each direction around her, slicing her cheeks and arms. The bird spun. It maneuvered, as well as anything could in about ten feet of wingspan.

Flying down. Fast. Her cheeks were pushed in.

Floor five. She saw the image briefly in her vision, it was a big neon light on the elevator shaft.

Behind her. She heard the noise. What looked like a spear, black and following her. It was spilling sand with each meter of air distance it covered, but it did not dissolve. It followed her. She pulled on the bird, raised it up. Then turned it around. The spear struck the bird straight in the head, a clean decapitation. Jaimi fell to the floor, the corpse of her beast below her. Her body aching, the soft belly of her creature crushed below her knees. It was flattened to the shape of her person. It dissolved, immediately. Her eye bled, immediately. Then she jumped away. With as tired and exasperated as she was, she dragged her ruined body through two big doors. The spears fell behind her, into a whole graveyard of the skewers.

He was still throwing them like he was hunting out at sea.

They sounded like arrows, and this is what she imagined the Spartans faced. The sound of breaking wind, the urgent feeling each step of her thin feet brought her. This was death. This was the arena like she remembered it.

She went through the twin doors, she collapsed on them, rather. Then closed them and put her body against the door. The black sand stabbed through the doors, four times, right above her head. The sand stuck through the ground and dissolved. She ran away from the stream about to fall on her head, she didn't want to even touch it. Not even see it.

She crawled away, down a few steps, onto the undulating floor below.

Her breathing finally caught up to her, her back against a guard rail. She spat her black curly hair out of her mouth. Bronze skin was reddened, cut up, bruised. Red, green, purple spots contaminated the even tone of her flesh. She was dry. Her lips, her elbow, her hands. Skin flaked off from her. It didn't matter, not as much as each stinging breath.

She closed her eyes and took in the air. Blood trickled down her left eye.

Then she opened them up once more, to see the rest of the hall.

The corpses of a dozen soldiers lay in front of her, their guns and knives and gear and body parts, all pointed to the sky. They were dead. Long since dead. Their bodies drained of all fluid. A mummified war-zone.

And she curled up and brought her knees close to her breast. She put her hands underneath her legs, and she made a face - not fear, a face of anger.

Her right eye was beginning to glow orange. As if begging for a chance.