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The only ansas terrifying chaos as the behes and trinkets raining aroundto the bed like a monkey on a ladder At least the bed was bolted to the floor Above iant leg pulled free fros with a shudder I felt in ine what sort of power it took toor what the prince--or whoever was controlling the elephant--thought he was doing But I wasn’t about to be kidnapped in a giant robot It was finally time to test the indestructibility of a Blud broke free and leaped off the bed, dashing for the ladder set against the round interior of the elephant’s stoht here for an assignation and had assuazebo topside, since you couldn’t really see it fro that the elephant’s head and belly were occupied and that the grinding gears were co the pilot, or at least the engine, was so a man or a machine, I was ready to throrench into the works

I tripped ona concussion, thanks to an ornate urn that was tu in frustration, I made it to my knees and untied round before taking off again onaardly between the bed and the wall, I s The elephant was really ht fall with each heavy footfall I pushed doave of nausea Seasick and about to barf blood fro in a runaway steaet?

The hatch at the top of the ladder was loose, and it only took a few turns before I was able to lift it Hot, oily air spanked ine roared with such a thunderous ruure seated on a captain’s chair didn’t hear me or turn around I clirateful that I’d dropped the huge skirts, even if itoffthe way, I selected a weighty-looking wrench from a bolted-down box of tools and held it aloft Whoever the dude was, he was going down

Just behind his on the brass of his posh pilot’s goggles He’d taken off his tuxedo jacket and had his white sleeves rolled up as he pulled levers and pushed buttons and twisted dials The elephant wasin tande rhyth on the cobblestones and conveyances rattling away down side alleys on theels A throng of gendar a catapult, and I knew that whatever Sang had for defense, I wanted the elephant to stopbefore I suffered for the driver’s insanity

As soon as the pilot chuckled darkly and reached for a lever that looked too er, I kneas time to act I whipped the wrench down and cracked hirab the wrench froain, harder and at the temple It wasn’t as easy to put a man out as it looked on TV

He slue levers forward as he fell

And the elephant fell with hiht into the windshield The glass cracked beneath ave just a little as the entire raceful fall forward I reached wildly aroundsolid to hold on to as, bit by bit, the glass behind my back caved outward When the unconscious driver crashed into entleht on top of me

I wanted to pass out, but I didn’t It hurt like hell, a hundred times worse than my fall from the catwalk at Paradis And it didn’t help that I was covered in broken glass and twisted metal and the hot, heavy body of my kidnapper Luckily, I’d fallen out of theseconds before the entire elephant collapsed, so the cockpit had basically fallen arounda protective, air-filled bubble Still, I was completely trapped in the pitch-black dark, and no one kneas here, except for the dead guy on top of me

Wait

No, he wasn’t dead yet

As the fear ebbed away, his smell replaced it, forced into my nose and mouth by his closeness I was pinned, with no way to rid ht I tried to shove him away, but he was li the ainst my mouth

Screw it Dude tries to kill a to woo hi him any sort of cos in like traditional va a little until the blood really started to flow The sustenance was hing me down I’d never felt more like an animal, a creature with no e, just an appetite

Only at the very last moment did I come to myself and remember that you couldn’t question dead people If there was any hope of finding out this guy’s motives, he had to be alive when they found hi to jail or facing whatever grisly fate Sang used in place of jail, the driver needed to be undrained I stopped drinking and heldThere wasn’twas shallow, and his heart was still beating, so there was soigantic beast settled, but it was quiet enough to hear voices in the sht up to his ear and sed back

"Who do you work for?"

No answer