“Not good,” said Cove.

"We have to help them," Essie said as she turned from the windows.

He took her hand, turning his niece to face him. "How? There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of creatures hatching out there. They line the streets and sidewalks of the city."

She yanked her hand free, stalked through the gore, and pulled her dagger out of the dead ravenger's eye. "People are dying."

"Yes, but—"

"Little kids with their moms and dads who don't have the skills we have—"

"Essie, stop and think!"

"We—"

"I am a Professor of Biophysics, and you are a twelve-year-old girl with amazing martial arts skills."

"We are more. You are THE Stoneshaper—"

"I am not some sort of god—"

"And we are Heroes!"

"Essie!"

"It is our JOB to save the world from those things!"

Cove's eyes bored into Essie's as he stalked forward, "How? Are you going to hit them with your stick? We only have seventeen of the STDs left—"

"I grabbed the other five boxes," said Gath as he continued to study the battle outside the building. "Essie, your uncle's right, we can't help here, but Professor, what she said is also true."

Essie growled. It was almost cute, like the fierce pretensions of an infant raptor.

Cove almost laughed, but his niece was painted with the blood and gore of her foes. He did not want to be her enemy. "We need our armor before we can help."

"Those people need our help now," Essie said as she splashed towards the exit.

Gath left the windows and hurried after her. "Ess, there were eggs everywhere in the building. Hells, there were five on every stair landing! It’s ten floors up or forty down, with a fight either way.”

Cove squinted, examining Gath like a strange new specimen. “Son, you may not have noticed, but fifty floors is a lot. This is the tallest building outside of the capital.”

“I hope it's enough,” said Gath as he peeked out the door to the landing.

“For what? Falling several meters can kill you, but 270? They will need a spade and a pickaxe to recover enough to bury.”

Gath pushed him back, motioning for Cove to be quiet. He closed the door, turned to Essie, and made several hand signs straight out of a video adventure.

Essie sheathed her blade and tied it to her bikini bottom.

“That is not going to work,” Cove said.

“I merged my swimsuit with the armor liner,” Essie whispered. “The ties are just for show.”

“How…”

“I asked it too. Gath says there are two more frogs and some flying snakes outside. We’ll get the snakes.”

“Flying what?”

“Snakes.”

“Is it Veneday?”

“No,” said Grettaluna, “the beastie is called a zephyrlisk. Pesky things when they’re young, but if you can catch one, the adults are tasty.”

Essie whispered, “People eat these things?”

“Sure,” said Grettaluna, “if they don’t eat you first.”

Cove asked, “Is it poisonous?”

“No,” said Greta, “it’s an avian boine, a non-venomous constrictor.” She snickered. “Don’t let it hug you.”

"Right," sighed Cove, "everyone, please avoid hugging the flying snakes. So, we have two ravagers and four zephyrlisks per floor: eighty frogs and one-hundred and sixty snakes on the way out."

"No," said Gath as he peeked out the door, his bō ready. "I think the second frog thing came from another floor, and there's only ten frogs and forty snakes between us and the roof."

"Essie, please explain to your friend that there is no way off the roof."

The glare from his niece was fit for a two-year-old with a messy diaper, not a favorite uncle. She slipped out the door behind Gath. Cove stared. The door began to close, softening the hiss and croaks, thumps, and other battle noises.

Gods above and below, those two are going to get me killed. He shook his head, took two STDs from his pocket, opened the door, and joined the chaos.

Two hours later, Cove followed Gath, Essie, and two dozen people they’d rescued along their path as they stumbled through the roof access door. Mater and Elystria glowed through the haze rising from Porto. Burning wood and flesh seasoned the smoke billowing from the building's ventilation. The scent of the city was worse.

“I need a bath,” Essie said. She scratched in a dozen spots in a line from shoulder to hip, revealing her swimsuit, clear armor liner, and purple splotches.

Cove peered at her waist, leaning forward for a better look in the dim light. “Are those bruises?”

“Maybe,” Essie said as she pushed past Cove and joined a line at an open locker door. “We can worry about it later.” She retrieved three packs, handed one to Gath, shoved one at Cove, and began fiddling with her straps.

Cove peered across the roof. One by one, people strapped belts around themselves and one or two others, usually a smaller person or a child or two. Cove gaped as a woman with a pack on her back and two small children strapped to her chest spread out a large fabric arc on the roof. With a flick of her wrists, the canopy popped into the air, forming a bright orange wing. She sprinted across the roof and through a gap in the parapet wall. Essie and Dax seized his wrists as he started forward, desperate to stop a man with a woman strapped to his harness from running through the same gap. He twisted free, sprinted, slammed chest first against the half-wall, and gaped.

“Stop, Uncle Cove! Don’t jump without a—"

“Paraglide,” Cove said, his eyes wide with fascination and an enchanted gaping smile splitting his face. Below, on every fifteenth floor, people were running off balconies and drifting across the city. “I have always wanted to try this! If you had told me—”

“Everybody knows… Um… Uncle Cove, have you ever been in a skyscraper before today?”

“Why would I? The tallest building on the university campus is ten floors.”

Essie giggled behind her hand. “Come on, you’re teasing me! You’re what, five times older than me?”

“Hey! I’m not that old.”

“You have wrinkles.”

“Me? Wrinkles? Where?!?” The overeager scientist dropped to his knees. “So, how does it work?” He snatched at his pack, pulling at the clasps and cords like a four-year-old opening Name Day gifts. “Do I just strap it on and jump?”

Gath spun from checking Essie’s straps, his eyes bulging as he said, “You’re kidding. You’ve never had highrise escape training? Essie! He’s got to be joking. We learned this the last year of primary school.”

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“Young man,” said Cove, “I grew up in Clover. Did you see any skyscrapers when we visited?”

“No, but you had trees this tall.”

“True, but trees grow in forests. If you jumped from a redwood or Goliath pine, you would land on the next tree. If you were lucky, your canopy would catch on a branch, and a kid like me would climb up and tease you while a rescue crew cut you down.”

Essie motioned to Cove. “Come on, Uncle, you can ride tandem with me.”

“What? I don’t get to fly on my own?”

Essie put her hands on her hips, cocked an eye, and asked, “How long did it take you to learn to ride a bike?”

“Fair point well made.”

Several eternal minutes later, after an annoying number of checks and adjustments by Gath, Cove had an awkward seat and forty kilograms of Essie strapped to his back. He faced the canopy spread on the rooftop. Essie snapped her arms, the fabric lept into the air, and she commanded, “Turn into the wind and run!”

More than a meter before the parapet wall, the pair lifted into the sky, and Cove’s stomach stayed behind. Porto spread below, a disjointed ant colony lit by Matar's dim glow. A cacophony of animals sounds like a hungry zoo set free, filled the city, and above all, the howls and screams of terrified human prey.

In the park surrounding the office tower, a gigantic, raptor-like beast with glowing eyes and obsidian claws tore through neighboring building walls and plucked people from their homes, popping them in its mouth like a child selecting sweets. Across the city, mobs flowed in clumps away from packs of creatures. Thornback ravagers hopped beneath glowing swarms of zephyrlisks. They were two among countless other creatures who hunted the city, driving the herds of humans toward the government building, occasionally snatching a person to eat.

Essie guided them in a wide circle, Gath to their left, following a glowing ball of zephyrlisks into a thermal. They rose ten meters in as many heartbeats. The sounds dimmed, and people became pinpricks. "Which way, Uncle Cove?"

"The beach," he said, gesturing toward the bay. He paused. Something was moving down the abandoned highway from the mountains, the path they'd taken several days ago. It slid over the broken road with the precision of a swarm of insects. He reached for it with his mind, trying to connect, hoping it was intelligent enough for conscious thought. He found emotions: darkness, pain, hatred, and a soul-disturbing hunger. "What is that?"

The paragliders veered toward the mountain, following Cove's finger. They swooped down a hundred meters over the buildings, out over the forest, and caught an updraft. With every kilometer, the emotion grew, then separated into three score points with a common thread. Below, a squad of pale soldiers shambled with military precision, silent save their synchronized footsteps, which roared against the broken pavement.

A wingless great mountain raptor limped on a leed line, its tongue tasting the air. The broken beast stopped, its head rising, and empty eyes followed Cove. It squeaked, and every head turned to follow him.

Undead – Walking corpses traveling the same path he and his family had taken. Was it a coincidence, a simple chance?

“Stoneshaper,” growled sixty sacks of rotten meat.

Cove squeezed his fists, his fingernails carving into his palm as he said, “Time to leave!”

“Hold on,” Essie said as she pulled a cord and moved them into an updraft. She released a swear jar full of curses as they shot up the mountainside. Her agile fingers twitched the lines, driving their flying contraption, dodging boulders, and keeping them less than a meter from the treetops. She screamed a minute later when a cold breeze, a crosswind from the north, dragged them south, high over the bay and threatened to lift them over the Maw.

“There,” Cove said as he stabbed his finger, motioning wildly towards the forest-tipped cape where they had hidden their bikes and armor. Fires glowed across the beach and at the forest edge, and columns of smoke rose from the parking area.

“It’s tiny…” The canopy shivered with Essie, and they drifted closer to Gath, almost touching.

“You can do it,” said Cove. His gaze flitted from their target to the flickering lights of gunfire. His gut twisted as random fireballs erupted near the waterline; that had to be Keeva.

“The wind… we’re drifting… it’s too far.”

Cove looked at the waves, noted where the river intersected with the ocean and Maw currents, drew upon the lore and legends of the sea, and commanded, “Drop forty meters and aim south of the point.”

“What?”

“Now!”

A pair of cords shifted, and Cove’s stomach competed for space in his skull. The white lines grew into individual waves while Essie guided them in a long, slow turn. More cords shifted in two heartbeats, and they leveled and straightened.

Cove groaned. “Gods below Essie! I hope Keekee is happy with just one child… Oh…”

Gath waggled his canopy.

Essie sighed before whispering, "Thank you."

Cove said, "What does he want?"

"He wants us to follow him."

"You know where to go."

"These are strange winds. I've never flown down here, plus... He's better at this than I am."

"You are fantastic."

"Gath's better."

The young man slid into a lead position, and Essie followed, mimicking his moves.

"Wow," whispered Cove. How had a twelve-year-old boy - no, young man - gained such skill? Who was he? Hells, who was Essie? She was his niece, the twelve-year-old daughter of his father's brother. They'd lived under the same roof for most of her life. When had she learned the warrior's craft?

Then it clicked. Another piece of the puzzle slid into place. Essie and Gath lived on opposite sides of Oberritterstein. Still, they'd both been conceived in the same Temple of Amekia, attended the same schools, and attended Great – to the gods only know how many times – Grandfather Liebied's martial arts classes...

Green clusters became a forest, then clumps of trees. A treetop flashed between his legs. The beach. Waves. A hard turn that swung them off in a high arc. Broken granite kissed his feet, and he toppled to his knees.

Roar!

Cove looked up. “What in the nine hells is that?”