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while a long, reptilian tail reaches to the floor. It has scales that shimmer black and purple, like an oil slick, and when it turns to us, its eyes burn with a deep, fiery glow of power.
                “Run,” Jack says softly, as though hoping that keeping calm will be enough to keep it from attacking. It isn’t. The creature’s eyes fix on us, and it seems almost to smile before it crouches to lunge at us. “Run, Celes!”
                I leap back as the creature pounces, barely making it through the door to the reading room. Jack is already there, and I know that without the kind of speed we both possess, we’d be dead right now. Not that it isn’t still an option. Jack fires two shots through the gap of the door, the noise of them deafening after the silence of the library. They don’t do anything except buy us a second in which to close the reading room doors.
                Which start to glow with power…
                “Keep running, Celes!” Jack insists. “It’s coming through.”
                We sprint along the rows of books, but when there’s a crash behind me, I can’t help looking back for a second. The creature is there, standing in the ruins of the doors it has just destroyed, staring at us. At me. When it runs, it runs with the speed of something that isn’t built like a human, and its roar of anger has nothing to do with a human throat.
                I push over the nearest bookcases, hoping to slow it down, then sprint for the door using every ounce of extra speed I have. Jack and I skid out of the door, pausing to close it even though the last one didn’t slow the creature for long. Even a few seconds is something. Right now, we need all the time we can get.
                “The car,” Jack says. “Run for the car, Celes.”
                I don’t need him to tell me that again. I sprint for the car, leaping in at the passenger side while Jack takes the driver’s seat. He works the key we took from the car lot’s office, trying to get the car to start, the engine coughs, not revving yet. Werevving
                Behind us, the doors to the library glow with power. They won’t last for long. They don’t last for long. They burn to ash in seconds, falling away from the hinges that hold them like powder to reveal the creature behind them. It steps out into the street, blinking in the light, looking around for us until its eyes fix on us in the car.
                Finally, Jack gets the car to start.
                The creature lets out another inhuman sound and runs at the car in loping strides, but Jack hits the gas, and even with the layer of ash on the road, he manages to speed away. The creature hits the ground where the car was, clawed hands digging into the road like it’s butter.
                Jack pushes the car to its limit in the next few seconds, so that there’s a brief point when I’m sure I see the speed reach ninety. I glance back and see the creature watching, not chasing, obviously having decided that catching us would be too much of an effort.
                “It’s okay, Jack,” I say. “You can slow down.”
                Jack glances back and slows a little, though he’s still doing more than the speed limit would be on a street like this. He doesn’t stop until we’re well clear of the library. Almost all the way to the freeway.
                “That was close,” he says. “Too close. Shooting that thing didn’t even seem to slow it down.”
                That obviously bothers him. I don’t think Jack likes the idea of an enemy he doesn’t know how to kill if he needs to. I know I don’t like the idea of an enemy Jack can’t kill. If that creature had managed to get hold of us, how long would we have lasted? I don’t think it would have been able to burn us, but it still had claws and