Chapter 27: EYES OF THE NEMESIS.
Back in the present, Johnquis stared at the magazine that exact one. Now perfectly restored and neatly displayed in the corner of a newly rendered bookstore.
It was open to the same page:
SEASIDE MALL—Where Magic Meets Memories! Ride the carousel, dance on the ice, and taste a rainbow!
A warm drop hit his knuckles.
Blood.
He snapped back to reality. The Runner lay beside him, trembling.
Its breathing was ragged, sharp wheezes pulling in air through its torn lungs. One arm was completely gone ripped off from the shoulder down. The other was mangled, barely responsive. Its legs were worse. The explosion had torn them apart, tendons flaring open like shredded rope. Black blood pooled around it, staining the carpet of the fake casino.
It couldn’t move.
Not anymore.
Johnquis knelt beside it, gripping the edge of the roulette table for balance. His own body was stable now. The pulsing in his throat was fading, though it still throbbed from where Rex’s blade had kissed. But the Eater blood inside him had sealed it in.
The Runner, though...