The shriek made me flinch.
And the damned compact tumbled out of my hands. A clatter as it hit the bathroom floor. No sound of breaking glass, though.
I stayed crouched where I was. Eyes held tightly shut. I listened to my breath whistling out of my nostrils and my heart whamming in my ears for a bit.
Worst soundtrack ever, let me tell you.
I pictured the bright yellow Post-It that had been on the compact. Kept repeating it to myself as I got to my feet, moving at a pace that I think a glacier might have envied.
“One use only,” I recited. “One use only. Can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
I opened my eyes. The bathroom looked just the same. The compact lay at my feet, mirror open, undamaged, and completely ordinary looking.
Then I turned around. Let out a gasp.
Let’s just say that Rodin would’ve been impressed with the quality of statues that we moderns were putting out.
Raphael stood in the bathroom doorway, his gray flesh and red armor turned to a fine grade of blue-veined marble. He had one arm held high over his head, as if drawing back in shock or surprise. And the dismayed expression on his face simply underlined those emotions.
I had just stopped War in his tracks. Pretty sweet, if you ask me.
Yeah, pardon the pun, therapy buddy, but I just rocked his world.
I shouldn’t have jinxed myself right then and there, but I did.
Just as I smiled a self-congratulatory grin, a POP! echoed in the confined of the bathroom.
A hairline crack appeared over Raphael’s left eyebrow. A horrifying wriggle of flesh. A crackle, not unlike the unwrapping of the toaster pastry. A flake of white marble the size of my pinkie nail tumbled to the floor.
Another POP!, and a second flake fell from the man’s upraised arm.
A feeling close to despair washed over me. If hitting a guy with Medusa’s last friggin’ glare didn’t stop him in his tracks, then it wasn’t exactly wise to hang around and gloat.
And from the looks of it, I didn’t have much time.
I grabbed the last item that I’d gotten from Circe, the silver tube, and squeezed past Raphael’s bulk. A quick glance out the window confirmed that Raphael’s demonic henchmen were still dutifully on guard. No easy way out there.
A louder, more sustained crunch came from the bathroom door. Like something flexing its muscles, trying to shed a thick layer of stone. My mouth went bone dry as I listened. I had even less time than I originally thought.
I shoved the parchment holder into a jacket pocket. Yes, it was metal, but it was only five inches long. Maybe I could use it to deck one of the demons out there. You know, if I could get him to bend down in front of me.
In a near-panic, I grabbed my suitcase, tossed it on the bed, and threw it open. Clothes and toiletries spilled out in a heap. I grabbed a small pair of scissors I had in my nail kit, considered, and threw it aside. Just because it would get me thrown off an airplane didn’t mean it was going to be useful in this case.
I pulled out a small rectangular lump from a side compartment. My old digital camera, suitable for still photos but not much else. Mom had gotten it for me about year before she died, and to humor her, I’d kept it.
I switched the camera on and checked the power level. A single green bar out of four lit up on the screen. A thought struck me. Still enough to work the flash.
But was it worth a try?
A heavy grunt from the statuesque form behind me. Little tics now, of pebbles and chunks of marble hitting the bathroom tile.
Looked like it was, whether I liked it or not.
Camera in hand, I went to the room’s front door. Grabbed the knob. The metal felt cold, slick under my palm. It might have been the night air, but I knew better. Knew that it was my sweat.
Freeze Frame.
Okay, I think everyone’s seen the part that’s coming up in their favorite popcorn flick. The part where our hero (or heroine, thank you very much) has the odds stacked so far against them, that they have to do something. Anything. And, preferably, it has to be big. And audience-pleasing.
I don’t think you’ll approve what I did next. At all. You might think it was rash. Stupid. Suicidal.
But I can tell you this: when your back is up against the wall, when your ship is sinking and the shark is coming for you, or the bomb’s going to blow, or your brother-in-law is going to go Biblical in his rage when he gets free…you’re open to dumb ideas.
So I flung the door open and charged out into the parking lot. Legs pumping, heart following suit. And screaming my head off. The dumb idea I had was: if I could get Rafael’s demon bodyguard to look at me, I could hit them with the flashbulb, blind them for a few seconds while I got into my car and peeled rubber out the parking lot.
Look, I said it was a dumb idea.
So the action scene started as I blazed out of the room. Starring Cassie the Blonde, in the last Charge of the Light-Haired Brigade. The plan worked up to this point: all the mazikkim in the front lot turned to look at the madwoman bearing down on them.
I pressed the flash button.
And each of the vaunted ‘demons of harm’ dissolved into greasy black smoke.
I looked back down at the cheap digital camera with renewed respect. A cry of alarm, like a crow’s call, and another half-dozen of the demons appeared along the motel’s roof. Two more appeared from out of the bushes by the manager’s office and headed for me, loping across the parking lot.
That’s about when I lost it.
“Come on, then!” I shouted, as I ran for my car. I used the camera like I was spraying bullets from a machine gun. A flash forward, then to each side, one behind me as I reached the driver’s side and flung the door open.
Thanks to some miracle, the ignition key slipped into place just right, and I gunned the car’s motor. From inside my motel room came the sound of an explosion. Not of gunpowder or dynamite going off. More like ice as it calved off from a glacier.
By now, all the noise had finally woken some of the motel guests from their early-morning slumber. Faces appeared in newly lit windows. Screams of horror as still more war demons came swarming over and around the sides of the motel.
Camera still clutched in one palm, I clumsily wrenched the steering wheel around to the right. The low-slung Porsche went over the sidewalk curb with horrific jolt that slammed my head against the cabin roof.