World After

28

EVEN IN this dangerous situation, my heart twists at seeing Raffe’s beautiful wings on the demon Beliel.

The last time I saw Beliel, he was limping with an injured wing. Someone must have sewn the wing back into place on him after Raffe ripped the stitches. Must be nice to have evil doctors on hand. Beliel’s limp is noticeable but not nearly as bad as it was when Raffe chased him at the airport.

He also has fresh bandages wrapped around his stomach where Raffe sliced him with his sword the first time I met him. It’s good to see more evidence that angel sword wounds don’t speed-heal like other wounds, just like Raffe said.

The scorpions fly leisurely, swinging back and forth, dipping low enough to look into the windows. One smashes a window—probably the last intact window on the pier.

The shattering noise is immediately followed by a panicked shriek. A family with kids darts out of the shop’s door and joins the group running from the monsters.

There’s something about the way the scorpions are moving that raises red flags in my head. They’re not chasing to catch.

They’re flushing out prey.

Before my mind can form the word “trap,” lights blaze on and a fishing net drops from the sky.

That’s when the screams start.

One, two, five fishing nets, as big as house tents, fall from the dark sky.

Darker shadows dive down from above. They land on all fours, scuttling along the ground like real scorpions before standing up on human-shaped legs.

Two of them actually slam into the broken dock face-first, as if they haven’t quite got the hang of landing yet. One of them shrieks its fury at the trapped people, showing a mouth full of lion’s teeth. It viciously yanks the edge of the net, making it whip into people’s ankles.

There are dozens of humans trapped under the nets, clawing and squirming, trying to find the edge of their snare so they can escape. A few jabs of the scorpion stingers cause people to crowd together in the middle of their traps. They cry and scream, all their previous silence gone.

Gunshots ring out from one of the trapped groups. A nearby scorpion goes down, screeching.

As if a dinner bell rang, a bunch of scorpions dive onto the netted group where the shot came from. Stingers lash up and down, repeatedly stinging until blood drips from the tips. Their monster heads latch onto the victims to suck on them.

The screams and thrashing quiet after a minute, leaving only a pile of shriveled bodies twitching beneath a shroud of mesh.

I don’t know if anyone else has a gun, but after that, no one dares to shoot.

A boy of about eight was separated from his father. They reach for each other under different nets. The kid is crying for his dad but it’s the father who looks ashen and utterly terrified at being separated.

The scorpions corral them, half-dragging their nets, half-keeping them moving by threatening with their stingers.

We crouch down farther into the shadows, hardly daring to breathe.

The monsters march the captives to a metal shipping container—the kind that trucks, trains, and ships carry. It’s not far from us but with all the debris strewn around, I hadn’t even noticed it.

They open the container door. A metal-lattice rollup gate is behind that.

And behind the gate, people cluster together as far from the entrance as they can get.

Half the container is already crammed full of men, women, and even a few children. They’re terrified and huddling together like the helpless victims that they are.

The scorpions roll up the metal gate, lifting up the nets. The new captives scurry away from the monsters and into the container.