Immobility shattered. My eyes flicked open. I drew in a deep breath spiced with hellbreed corruption, the copper stink of blood, and a sudden colorless fume of rage.
I moved.
The door slammed open, hitting a wide-load Trader—chunky-thick, plaid shirt, bare feet misshapen and horned with calluses—with a sound like an axe sinking into good, dry cordwood. I twisted in midair, gun roaring, and the second Trader—slim, dark, head exploding in a mess of bone and brain—folded down. A head shot, and a good one, but how I was going to deal with Perry was a whole ’nother ball of wax. I landed, whirling as Perry made a sound like a frozen mountainside calving, chunks of overstressed icy stone groaning and tearing free.
The room was small, a brass drain hole glinting in the middle of the shallow-sloped concrete floor. Soaked in the neon glow, my foot flicked out, catching the third Trader—blonde, female, modded out with claws and blood-glowing compound eyes—just under the chin with a jolt and a sound of bone breaking, like glass hammers shattering in a burlap bag. Should really have boots for this sort of work. The thought was there and gone in a flash, because I dropped, instinct taking over as a pale smear bulleted past me. It was Perry, snarling, his hands outstretched, and if I hadn’t shed momentum and hit the ground he would’ve crashed right into me. As it was, he hit the wall with a crack that might’ve been funny if he hadn’t still been making that huge rock-crushing noise.
The man they’d been holding up slumped, his body heading shapelessly for the floor. I grabbed him and flung us both backward toward the door as Perry slid down the wall. Spiderweb cracks radiated out from the crater he’d put in the dark-smeared wood paneling, and a pair of chains hanging on the opposite wall jangled musically, little spots of white gleaming on their thin surfaces.
Orichalc-tainted titanium chains. I had no time to think about what they would do to whatever they would chain down in here.
Time to go to work, Jillybean.
The glass tangles lighting the room swayed, shadows dipping crazily. My sneakers slipped, and I felt, of all things, a brief burst of silver-sharp irritation. Would never happen in boots, why couldn’t they bury me with my boots on? The gem on my right wrist turned scorching, a tide of wine-red strength flooding up the bones and veins, jolting in my shoulder and roaring through the rest of me.
I was hoping it wasn’t Perry’s force I was drawing off. Whose else could it be? It didn’t matter. Deal with the devil and dance another day.
Nice to know some things hadn’t changed.
Neon tubing smashed with a tinkle as I ran right into the wall across the hall, the man’s bulk surprisingly heavy. I had one hand wrapped in his skein of dark hair, the other tangled in the shredded remains of his T-shirt, and he was bleeding. The blood was red, no trace of black at its fringes, and I hauled him up. My back burned, glass slivers digging in, and warmth trickled down from broken skin.
His head tipped back, a lean dark face horribly bruised and swelling, and a heatless shock of recognition went through me.
Wait. Not Saul. “Theron!” I yelled, and pitched aside. We went down in a heap, rolling, and another part of my aching head lit up under klieg-light memory. Theron. Werepanther. Works at Mickey’s out on Mayfair. Good backup. “Get up! Let’s move!”
Which brought up a problem: I had no weapons except the gun, not even any silver-coated ammo, and another consideration surfaced, one I had no time to indulge because a massive sound rose from the room we’d just vacated.
Perry was not going to be happy. Just guess how I knew that.
What would’ve happened if I’d eaten something? A chill walked down my bloody back, but Theron was up. He shook his head, stared up at me like he didn’t quite credit what he was seeing.
“Move!” I yelled, and shoved him toward the end of the hall that gave out into the Monde’s interior. No exit the other way, and legions of the damned between us and the outside.
Fun times, Jill! Never a boring moment! Get your ass moving!
Theron took off, a graceful unerring lope much faster than I thought he’d be able to move. I skip-shuffled back just as the Trader I’d hit with the door was propelled out into the hall, wide shoulders slumped and his face a mask of black-tinged blood from his mashed nose. Somehow it had splattered everywhere, and a fresh gout stained his flapping Hawaiian shirt as he saw me and snarled, hunching like a demonic football player. His modified feet twisted so the toes splayed and great horny toenail-claws dug into the flooring.
Don’t worry about him. Worry about Perry, who’s due out any sec—
The doorway evaporated. A wash of crackling-blue hellfire burst out, unholy flames blooming with a hiss I could hear even over the pounding throb of music through the walls. The glare swallowed the crouching Trader whole, and he went up like a fatty candle.
I drove backward, legs pumping, hoping I wouldn’t tangle with the Were as we both flung ourselves for the door that would lead out into the Monde. Trigger-finger cramping, lungs burning, had to remember to breathe, steps jolting up through my hips and shoulders as my sneaker-clad feet stamped hard, I threw myself back just as Perry rounded the corner, wreathed in pale-blue livid hellfire and his bland face suddenly sharply starving-handsome again.
I didn’t hit the door because Theron had, busting it clear off its hinges with a short bark of effort, a cat’s coughing cry. So I sailed back, crashing into a knot of dance-writhing Traders, scrabbling to get up get up get UP just as the flames belled out again, little tiny fingers sinking into the wall on either side of the hole. Perry was suddenly there, filling up the space.
And he looked pissed.