He had. The metal latch on the gate had been pinched into a mess by his talons. They had scored the metal in sharp notches, like an industrial cutter. Note to self: Don't think steel can stop Grum's fingernails. I checked above and decided to risk climbing the fence and getting through the barbed wire.
I had gotten maybe halfway up the chain-link fence when Murphy limped out of the mist on the other side, her gun pointed right at me.
"Whoa, whoa, Murph," I said. I showed her my hands and promptly fell off the fence. "It's me."
She lowered the gun and let out her breath. "Christ, Harry. What are you doing?"
"Texas cage match. I won." From behind me, the chlorofiend let out another shriek and the shelving groaned as it shifted. I gulped and looked back. "Rematch doesn't look promising, though. Where have you been?"
She rolled her eyes. "Shopping."
"Where's Grum and the ghoul?"
"Don't know. The ghoul's blood trail went out, but someone shot at me when I followed it. Haven't seen the ogre." She blinked at the gate's latch. "Damn. Guess he shut you in here, huh?"
"Pretty much. You get shot?"
"No, why?"
"You're limping."
Murphy grimaced. "Yeah. One of those bastards must have thrown a bunch of marbles on the floor. I slipped on one. It's my knee."
"Oh," I said. "Uh."
Murphy blinked at me. "You did that?"
"Well, it was a plan at the time."
"Harry, that's not a plan, it's a Looney Tune."
"Kill me later. Help me out of here now." I squinted up at the barbed wire. "Maybe if you get a rake, you can push it up for me so that I can slide between it and the fence."
"We're twenty feet from the hardware department, genius," Murphy said. She limped back into the mist, and returned half a minute later carrying a pair of bolt cutters. She cut a slit in the chain link fence and I squeezed through it while the chlorofiend thrashed, still pinned.
"I could kiss you," I said.
Murphy grinned. "You smell like manure, Harry." The smile faded. "What now?"
The trapped monster's thrashing sent several smaller shelves toppling over, and I rubbernecked nervously. "Getting out is still first priority. That thing is down, but it'll be coming before long."
"What is it?"
"Chlorofiend," I said.
"A what?"
"Plant monster."
"Oh, right."
"We need to get out."
Murphy shook her head. "Whoever was covering the exit out front can probably see the other doors too. A silhouette in a doorway is a great target. It's just like a shooting range."
"How the blazes did they see you through the mist?"
"Is that really important right now? They can, and it means we can't go out the front."
"Yeah," I said. "You're right. The main exits are covered, that thing is in the garden center, and ten to one Ogre Grum is watching the back."
"Ogre, check. What's his deal?"
"Bullets bounce off him, and he shakes off magic like a duck does water. He's strong and pretty quick and smarter than he looks."
Murphy let out a soft curse. "You can't blast him like you did the loup-garou?"
I shook my head. "I gave him a hard shot once already. I may as well have been spitting on him."
"Doesn't look like we have much choice for getting out."
"And even if we do, Grum or that plant thing could run us down, so we'll need wheels."
"We have to go through one of them."
"I know," I said, and headed back into the store.
"Where are you going?" Murphy demanded.
"I have a plan."
She limped after me. "Better than the Looney Tune one, I hope."
I grunted in reply. No need to agree with her.
We both realized that if this plan wasn't better than the last one, then, as Porky Pig would say, That's all, folks.
Chapter Twenty-one
Three minutes later Murphy and I went out the back door, and Grum was waiting for us.
He rose up out of the shadows by the large trash bins with a bull elephant's bellow and stomped toward us. Murphy, dragging a leg and wrapped somewhat desperately in a plaid auto blanket, let out a shrill cry and turned to run, but tripped and fell to the ground before the ogre.
I kept my left hand behind my back and lifted my right. Flame danced up from my cupped fingers, and I thundered, "Grum!"
The ogre's beady eyes turned to me, glittering. He let out another rumbling snarl.
"Stand thee from my path!" I called in that same overdramatic voice, "lest I grow weary of thee and bereft thee of thy life!"
The ogre focused wholly on me now, striding forward, past the whimpering form of Murphy. "I do not fear thy power, mortal," he snarled.
I lifted my chin and waved my fire-holding hand around a bit. "This is thy last warning, faerie dog!"
Grum's beady eyes grew angrier. He let out a harsh laugh and did not slow down. "Feeble mortal trickster. Thy spellfire means nothing to me. Do thy worst."
Behind Grum, Murphy threw the auto blanket off of her shoulders, and with one rip of the starting cord fired up her shiny new Coleman chain saw. She engaged the blade with a hissing whirr of air and without preamble swung it in an arc that ended precisely at the back of Grum's thick, hairy knee. The steel blade chewed through the ogre's hide as if it was made of Styrofoam. Blood and bits of meat flew up in a gruesome cloud.
The ogre screamed, his body contorting in agony. The scarlet skin around the injury immediately swelled, darkening to black, and tendrils of infectious-looking darkness spread from the wound up over the ogre's leg and hip within the space of a breath. He swept one huge fist at Murphy, but she was already getting out of his reach. The ogre's weight came down on the injured leg, and Grum fell to earth with a heavy thud.
I started forward to help, but everything was happening fast, and my movements felt nightmarishly slow. The ogre rolled to his belly at once, maddened at the touch of the iron in the chain saw's blade, and started dragging himself toward Murphy faster than I would have believed with just his arms, talons gouging into the concrete. She hurried away from him, limping, but Grum slammed one fist down on the concrete so hard that half a dozen feet away, she was jarred off balance and fell.
Grum got hold of Murphy's foot and started dragging her back toward him. She let out a hollow gasp, then twisted and wriggled. She slipped out of her sneaker and hauled herself away from the ogre, her face gone white and drawn.