Chapter 199: That Was Not on the Dinner Menu

The thing in the channel snapped at the grate again, scraping hard plates against the metal. Dove backed into the shop and caught the door before the wind could slam it. It was a fish, or close enough to one that she had no better word, but the stiff fins pressing against the concrete were holding more of its body out of the water than she liked.

"Please don’t tell me those are legs," she said.

Thorne stepped between her and the opening. "Stay behind the door."

For once, she had no complaint about that suggestion. Edrik was already moving toward the solid strip beside the channel, keeping his boots clear of the flowing water. Ash sent the nearest maintenance worker toward the restaurant to warn people away from the rear passage.

The fish lunged when a floating piece of wood bumped it. Its mouth closed around the edge, and the wood split. Dove decided she had seen enough to be against whatever this was.

"It looks like the ones in Nolan’s video," she told her husbands. "The plates along its back, anyway. His were dead, which I strongly preferred."

Dove asked Sprout privately whether it could identify the animal from Nolan’s report.

"Similar plates don’t confirm the cause. I can’t tell you it’s safe to touch."

"Wonderful. Can you at least keep the rewards out of my face while I deal with the giant biting problem?"

"Routine alerts paused."

"See, we can work together when you try."

The display cleared. She moved the light to the shelf beside the rear door, where it shone along the workers’ escape path without needing her hand. There were people to watch, and she wasn’t going to miss somebody falling because she’d been arguing with a menu.

The fish wriggled sideways, forcing its head through a gap where the grate had lifted. Edrik couldn’t safely reach the metal while its teeth were there. Thorne pressed his hand to the dry end of the same grate. Under his shaping power, the bent bars curled inward and narrowed the opening before the body could follow. He stopped short of closing it on Edrik’s approach.

That trapped it, but it also made it thrash. Water slapped against the shed wall, and one of the workers stumbled back into a stack of empty crates.

"Move toward the restaurant, not the water," Dove called. "There’s room beside the wall. Keep going."

She held the door open only far enough to see the clear route. The man found his balance and followed it. Ash shifted the fallen crates out of his way, then helped another worker bring a heavy metal cover from beside the drain. He waited for Edrik’s signal before lowering it onto the channel behind the trapped fish.

Edrik planted his free palm on the cover and reinforced it while the trapped fish struck beneath the edge. It couldn’t back into deeper water now. Keeping that contact, he used his machete when its struggling exposed the softer part beneath its head. Dove made herself watch the workers instead of the blade. She wanted to shut the door and hide against Thorne, but the frightened man by the crates was still looking to her for a way out. The movement stopped soon after, leaving the grate bent around a body much larger than any fish she’d expected behind a restaurant.

Thorne stayed where he was until Edrik confirmed it wasn’t moving. Then he backed away from the water and looked directly at her.

"I’m inside," she said before he could ask. "All my fingers are still attached, and I hate fishing now."

His expression eased for half a second. The maintenance workers moved to block the rear passage while Ash warned the people gathering at the street end to stay back.

A man carrying a bucket asked whether they should keep it for meat. Dove looked at him, then at the fish, then back at him.

"There is chicken in the restaurant and rice on our shelf. Could we be normal about lunch for five minutes?"

The restaurant owner took the bucket away and sent the man back inside. Dove hoped he was going to eat chicken instead of finding a bigger bucket.

They left the body for the district workers to examine and kept people away from the channel. Dove had no idea whether the plates meant illness, a new ability, or something else. Nolan’s recording showed a lake, and this channel still connected to the creek. That was enough reason to tell the freight office what they had seen, without pretending she understood how it had happened.

Ash offered to carry the report there while the workers kept the passage closed. She gave him Nolan’s name and the fact that Iris had the recording. She directed him to Iris for the recording rather than offering anything from her private belongings.

"Tell them it was alive and bit through wood. Then go with the workers, Ash. We’re going inside."

Ash stayed while she checked the passage again. Edrik moved beside her, his cleaned blade still in his hand, and the dragon’s eyes dropped to it.

"She told you where to go," Edrik said.

Dove didn’t turn around to make it nicer. She wanted her husband washed and fed. Ash could survive being ignored for the length of a walk to the office.

He left with one of the workers, taking the route around the street instead of through her shop. Edrik cleaned and put away his blade outside before coming near her. Thorne checked his hands, then his own, and Dove watched closely enough to annoy them both.

"Nobody’s hiding a bite from me because it would ruin the mood," she said.

"The mood was ruined when the drain tried to eat someone," Edrik replied.

She almost laughed. Then she saw the dark smear of blood on the wet concrete, and the sound caught behind her ribs. It wasn’t the fish alone. It was Ben behind the broken door, her window giving way, and the sudden thought of that mouth closing around Thorne’s hand.

Edrik saw her stop. He didn’t reach for her with dirty hands or ask why she was upset when everything was over.

"Come on, sweetheart. Let me get clean before you start checking me for holes."

She nodded, grateful he had made the next few minutes small enough to manage.

The radio in the restaurant crackled while they crossed the yard. A worker turned it up. Crews were closing the creek-side service road after spotting movement beneath a second grate. Drivers were being sent through the northern entrance while guards cleared the channel-side footpath.

Then the voice added that another animal had climbed out of the channel, and it was heading toward the occupied buildings.