26

Hiding behind the edge of the curtains at the tail end of the backstage, I took off my pack and lay it down before me. From it, I retrieved a bottle of water, which I used to soak the cloth mask I’d been wearing, a trick to keep out smoke that I’d learned long ago while fighting a serial arsonist. I slipped the mask back on and double-checked my belt and jacket. I’d filled my pockets and pouches as best I could, so I tucked the backpack behind me on the floor. It would only restrict my motion during the coming fight, and if I survived I could always come back for it.

When I survived. No need to be morbid.

I stared at the assembled thugs, trying to burn the surroundings into my memory. The crates. The ropes. The barrels. The location of the hatch, the placement of the two lanterns. I’d need to know where to go instinctively if I was to make it. My gadgets would only serve as a hindrance if I wasn’t prepared.

I fingered the knife at my belt. I’d brought it for a reason, and the Captain wouldn’t blink if I told her I’d been forced to end someone’s life to save Steele. And yet...barring the occasional filleting of a fish or whittling exercise, I’d barely ever used one. I’d probably be as liable to cut myself as someone else.

I reached into my jacket and withdrew Daisy, which I slipped into a belt loop at my right hip. She was bent, battered, and dented, a dull implement of pain best suited to guys with two word vocabularies, not senior homicide detectives, but I knew her. Her weight, her heft, her balance. I’d been blasting thugs in the cranium with her for over a decade. I knew how she danced, and I wasn’t sure I could learn a new set of steps on the fly. I’d have to roll with her and hope for the best.

From the safety of my hiding spot, I took one last look at the assembled gangbangers, trying to craft the order I’d take them in. The dwarves I’d deal with first. They were small, but squat. Their kind had wrecked havoc on me before. Best to incapacitate them. Then maybe the orc. Being a human myself, I knew how to handle the men. And the ogre? Well, if I got that far, I’d bring whatever I had left.

I closed my eyes and thought of Shay. Here goes, babe. Wish me luck.

My eyes snapped open and I reached into my utility belt, pulling a couple of sealed glass bottles filled with white powder. The fire mage I’d secured them from, the subject of Shay’s and my first murder investigation, said all I’d need to do was throw them hard to make sure the glass broke and they’d start smoking like a fire full of wet leaves, no ignition required—or rather, they’d ignite themselves, which sounded like a useful bit of fire magic if ever there was one. The old mage had countered, saying it was chemistry, not magic, though the magic certainly helped in getting the chemicals into the bottles in the first place.

All I cared about was them working. I burst from behind the curtain and darted toward the thugs, hurling the first bottle toward the feet of the dwarves sixty feet in front of me. I had the second bottle airborne, headed toward the orc, and a third in hand before anyone noticed me.

One of the men pointed a finger and shouted “Hey!” as the first bottle hit the ground. I heard a crystalline crunch and a crackle, followed by an unexpected puff. White smoke shot out in a cloud, sending bits of broken glass flying with the force of its expansion. I threw the third bottle at the quartet of human thugs as the second bottle broke and sent more smoke flying, then dove into the first cloud.

White smoke hung thick in the air, creating a screen far more dense than I could’ve imagined, and I was immediately thankful for the mask. My eyes itched the moment I stepped inside the cloud, and I could hear the two dwarven skull-crackers hacking and coughing from somewhere within the smoke.

Even having surveyed the storage room from above, I’m not sure I would’ve found them without their barking. I slipped a syringe from a custom made wooden block tied into my belt loop and sprung toward the first source of hacking coughs, barely spotting his doubled over form before I crashed into him. With all the grace of a first year medical student, I plunged the needle into the side of his neck and slammed on the plunger.

One.

The dwarf grunted, spun, and took a swing at me, but I’d already danced back into the smoke. I heard him gurgle as I turned to the next source of coughing. I counted the seconds in my head as I searched for the next cougher. One. Two. Three. Thump. Cairny had said it would take about five seconds for the sedatives to take effect, but dwarves didn’t carry as much mass as us full-sized folk.

The second dwarf saw me coming a half-second too late. He brought up a hatchet handle to ward off the blow he assumed was coming, but it didn’t do anything to block my downward needle chop. I plunged the syringe into his shoulder and moved on.

Two.

I burst from the cloud of white smoke, my eyes watering. An eerie yellow lantern glow suffused the cloud to my right, shouts and coughs emanating from within. I heard another bellow behind me, as well as heavy feet and curses.

I hopped over a crate and sprinted toward the third cloud, the spot where I’d last seen the orc. He stumbled out from the smoke as I arrived.

I slammed into him hard, driving the last of my syringes into his chest as we tumbled to the ground.

Three.

He looked at me with a mixture of confusion and anger, trying to grab me by the coat as I scrambled to my feet. His shout turned into a gurgle as I pulled Daisy from my belt loop and ran back to the last of the clouds—which, as I now saw, were coalescing into a single large cloud. Were the bombs still smoking? I hadn’t considered the full implication of using them indoors. No matter. My throat felt only a minor tickle thanks to the moist rag covering my mouth and nose, and the room had high ceilings. The smoke would rise. Hopefully I’d sneak away through the sewer before it got too thick.

I heard another angry bellow in the smoke behind me as I plunged into the eerie yellow glow. Though the smoke continued to expand, it did seem to be thinning ever so slightly. I saw the first thug from almost three feet away.

He growled and swung his spiked club in an overhand smash, but I stepped into him, planting a fist square in his gut. He grunted but didn’t go down, instead latching onto my jacket, but thankfully not my arm. I let him yank on the leather, pulling my left arm from my sleeve as I tucked and spun, planting a hard elbow into his ear. He stumbled back, clutching his head as I slipped back into the sleeve and whipped Daisy toward him at high speed, catching him in the jaw. Bone cracked, and he went down in a heap.

Four.

That’s when someone leapt onto me from behind, wrapping his arms around my neck and chest. Maybe the sounds of fighting had given me away. Either way, I got lucky. My attacker came at me too high.

We stumbled forward, but feeling his weight pressing on my shoulders, I tucked into a roll, flipping my attacker over me and onto his back. He landed with a thud. I aimed a heavy foot as his face, but he rolled out of the way, grabbing my exposed boot in the process. He yanked, and I fell, but I refused to let my gravitational energy go to waste. I landed on top of him, driving an elbow into his midsection. He heaved and groaned, trying as best he could to roll away, but I was ready. Scrambling to my knees, I slapped him across the temples with Daisy, one, two, three times. His eyes rolled back into his head. Somewhere in the background I heard another angry bellow.

Five.

“There he is! Get the bastard!”

The last two of the human thugs came at me together, materializing out of the smoke several feet in front of me. One of them walked in a half crouch, holding a long knife, balanced carefully like he knew how to use it, and the other one, a big musclebound bruiser, held a piece of lead pipe about a foot longer than Daisy.

Topples and Biggie had already shown me what two gangbangers working together were capable of, and based on first impressions, Topple’s knife skills paled in comparison to Crouchy’s.

I turned tail and ran.

“Hey! Get him!”

I leapfrogged a stray crate, darted around a stack of boxes, and spun around a massive spool of rope, weaving this way and that, barely knowing where I was going. I tried to access the mental picture I’d taken of the storage room, but whether because of a lack of landmarks, a failure to memorize the room’s assorted junk, or the adrenaline shooting through my veins, it came back as a blur. The smoke didn’t help. Though it had diffused a bit, it still permeated the space, scratching at my eyes, obscuring every turn.

Again I heard the bellow, followed by a decidedly angry roar. “He’s over here.”

I turned back the way I’d come. A figure dove out of the smoke at me, pipe whistling as it swung through the air. I couldn’t get out of the way in time. All I could do was turn.

Pain lanced across my back and the upper portion of my left arm as the pipe thwacked into muscle. I tried to ignore it and drove forward, throwing my bruised shoulder into my attacker.

It didn’t do much damage, but it knocked him off balance enough for me to run past him. At least I was prepared for the moment his buddy tried to knife me.

I swung Daisy, trying to knock free the knife from my attacker’s hand, but Crouchy was too quick. He danced back, pulling his knife out of harm’s way. He lunged in for a quick jab. I slapped him away with Daisy, catching him with a glancing blow.

We lunged and swiped and parried a few more times, me managing to get a decent whack on the guy’s free elbow and Crouchy managing to slice my jacket open at the bicep, but not doing much real damage. We danced backward, toward the flickering yellow glow of one of the lanterns, each of us growing more wary with each strike. Neither one of us could get the upper hand.

Then Pipehands lunged out of the smoke, I tangled my foot in a coil of rope, and everything went to shit.

I toppled backwards and fell, crashing into the crate that held the lantern. Wood shattered underneath me. Daisy flew from my hands, clattering across the floor and disappearing into the smoke. The lantern toppled to the floor, the flame dimming as oil spilled from its reservoir. I rolled away from the wreckage, expecting an attack from above, but a tug at my leg kept me tethered. The damn rope had looped itself around me.

Before I could move, Crouchy and Pipehands were on me. I curled up, trying to protect myself from the rain of blows. Ribs, back, hips, and arms all blossomed with pain as pipe blows, kicks, and punches rained down on me.

I tried to banish the pain by thinking of Shay. I couldn’t give up. Not now.

I kicked out, trying to get someone in the legs, but it was no use. I was too far away. Too exposed.

“Son of a bitch,” said Crouchy. “I’m going to cut his damn nose off.”

Pipehands dove on me, smothering me, and I caught a glimpse of Crouchy coming toward me, knife drawn with a wicked sneer stretching his face.

Pipehands had me pinned at the shoulders. I couldn’t get any leverage. But I could still reach my belt.

I slipped a vial into my free hand and mumbled a veiled threat.

Crouchy’s face loomed large. “What was that, asshole?”

The guys from the SWAT team had said to throw the bottle from a distance. Not like I had any choice. I held my breath, shut my eyes tight, and whipped the glass vial into Crouchy’s face.

The broken glass bit into my hand as the vial shattered, then I heard a growl of anger followed shortly by an inhuman shriek. “Ahh! AAAAAHHHH! Get it off me!”

I heard Pipehands’ voice next. “Dude, what the—? Ah! Oh, it burns!”

With my eyes and lips still shut tight, I shoved with all my might. Pipehands grunted and cursed as he fell off me, all while Crouchy continued to shriek incessantly.

“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!”

I opened my eyes, hoping the pepper extract I’d smashed into Crouchy’s face hadn’t gotten onto my own.

Instantly they started to burn and water.

Crouchy clawed at his face. “Ahh! I’ll kill you!”

Half blind, he lunged at me, knife still in hand.

I fought back with the only thing in reach. I grabbed the lantern and cast it at Crouchy’s face. The glass shattered, sending shards and oil flying. Then a fireball ripped through the air, engulfing the entire side of Crouchy’s head in flames. He cut loose with a bloodcurdling scream and fell to the ground, rolling and slapping weakly at the inferno.

I hadn’t known the pepper concoction was flammable. Still…six?

Pipehands growled and launched himself at me. I should’ve seen it coming, but with my eyes watering, I couldn’t see much of anything.

He slammed into me, and we fell to the floor. With both of us having lost our weapons and the light of the flames dying, Pipehands and I resorted to good old fashioned wrestling. He pushed. I pulled. He tried to get on top of me. I twisted. He grappled. I rolled.

Thanks to my police training, I had the better technique, but Pipehands had me on strength and size, and gosh darn it, I was getting tired. Sweat poured off my face and soaked my shirt. My breath came in ragged gasps through the wet mask, and my throat burned.

I tried to slip free, to break away, to give myself a fresh angle of attack, but Pipehands was too tenacious. He grabbed me around the thigh, lifted, and drove me backward, through a makeshift curtain of hanging ropes. Pain shot through my spine as he slammed me into one of the panels of levers. The things cracked and shuddered, or maybe it was my ribs.

Pipehands jabbed an arm into my neck and grappled at my face, trying to gouge my eyes. He was dumb enough to leave his thumb hanging there for the taking, though.

I chomped down on it, feeling the hot, metallic taste of his blood flow into my mouth. Pipehands cried out and recoiled, stumbling into the hanging ropes.

Ropes…

I feinted to the left and darted to the right as Pipehands dove for me. It only gave me a small window, but I took advantage, slinging one of the hanging ropes around his neck and jumping on his back.

Pipehands tried to buck me, as I’d done to my attacker earlier, but the rope wouldn’t let him. It tightened as he struggled against it, attached as it was up in the rafters. I pulled on my end of it, adding more pressure to Pipehands’ neck.

I’ll give credit where credit is due. I thought I finally had him, but Pipehands didn’t panic. He drove me backwards, slamming me into the panel of levers. Bruises sprouted upon my bruises, pain streaking through my battered body, but I held on anyway.

He slammed me again, and I cried out. My grip slipped. The lever panel shuddered and shook. The rope around Pipehands’ neck, now taught, vibrated, and despite the pain, an idea sprouted.

Pipehands readied another backward slam, but before he could shatter my spine, I hopped off, raking my arm across the levers. They responded with a series of clunks and a whirr. Pipehands grunted as he was lifted off the ground, clutching the rope as it whisked him into the rafters.

I may not know much about theater, but I know enough about physics to know that what comes up must come down. I danced out of the way as a half-dozen sand-filled canvas bags thudded to the floor in front of me, most of them followed by whizzing sections of rope that had slipped their pulleys and undulated down to the ground atop the pile.

I bent over, pulling my mask off as I sucked smoky air in through my mouth. Gods. Seven. I did it.

I would’ve jumped if not for the flicker of light that gave him away.

A nebulous shadow loomed behind me, and I heard the menacing voice from before. “Got you. Now you’re going to pay.”

I glanced back to see the ogre from before setting the second lantern down at his feet. He cracked his knuckles and hunched into a fighting stance, beckoning with his fingers.

Right. There’d been eight.