And they look nothing like tea trays. Fierce gusts rip through our hair. I choke on a puff of blowing sand. Jeb pushes me behind him the instant a bat swoops down. Sleek as crimson leather, the mutant creature lifts off, carrying Jeb into the sky with its talons. An eagle-faced goon opens the glass window on his helmet and laughs from his seat atop the bat’s back. “Easy as catching sunning snails.” “You fool. It’s the girl Manti wants!” another one shouts from his winged perch. “And remember, she’s to be kept intact!” “Then I’d say we got here in the nick of time,” blurts a chicken-beaked goon crudely. His compatriots howl with laughter before turning their airborne mounts toward me. “Jeb!” I scream. “Get to the lighthouse!” he yells from up high as he wrestles the claws curled around him. No way.
