I wasn’t planning to break his nose, either, but my senses were screwy, and my aim was off.
“Sorry!” I said insanely, and heard it echo in the distortion of the slo-mo, while his head kicked back, allowing me to get a leg around him and bring him down. I was also fumbling for the wrist of the hand he was raising to curse me with, but I didn’t get it. Not because he was too fast—human reflexes in slo-mo are ridiculously sluggish—but because I was seeing double or maybe triple, and couldn’t figure out which one it was.
But the next second he went limp anyway, which had my heart hammering until I noticed Rufus standing over him, syringe in hand. I lay back against the carpet, panting and thanking Cthulhu. And wondering where all the vamps had gone, because nobody else seemed to be attacking me.
“Louis-Cesare,” Ray said, when I asked.
His voice was distorted and echoey, because I couldn’t seem to snap out of slo-mo. Like I couldn’t seem to stand up properly, even when Ray levered James off me. I smacked the side of my head a couple times, but it hurt so I stopped. And looked around for Louis-Cesare, but didn’t see him.
“Where is he?” I asked Ray. He was covered in blood, but I got the impression that it was mostly other people’s.
“Don’t know.” He tried to put an arm around me for some reason, but I batted him away. “He showed up, cleared the balcony, then ran off chasing some vamps. Now let’s get out of here!”
“We can’t get out. We only did half the job.”
I’d been on the way to my feet, but they got confused and I abruptly sat down again.
Ow.
Ray crouched down in front of me, while Rufus rigged up one of those floating stretchers for James. The guy really had thought of everything. I watched him sloooowly roll his son’s body onto it, until Ray turned my cheek back to face him.
“Listen to me. We got what we got, okay? We’re not gonna find the rest of those weapons, not in this. And you’re not at your best—”
“I’m fine—”
“You just took a hit that woulda leveled a troll. You are not fine!”
I scowled at him. And then tried to push his finger out of my face, although I couldn’t seem to catch it. “Stop moving.”
“I’m not moving. And you’re done.”
“You don’t get to tell me that!”
“Well, somebody needs to!”
I scowled at him. “You’re supposed to be what? My Second?”
He looked surprised for what seemed like a long moment, but was probably just a flash across his face. Maybe because a Second was a master’s leading servant, and kind of a big deal. But since the only vamps I had were Ray’s, it seemed appropriate.
But I guess he hadn’t stopped to think about it before.
“Yeah,” he told me. “I guess so.”
“Well, a vampire’s Second does what he’s told!”
Ray snorted. “You must not have known many Seconds.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that they do a lot of different jobs, depending on what the family needs. But their main one is to tell the master what he don’t want to hear.”
“To be a pain in the ass, in other words.”
“A useful pain in the ass.”
“Then you’re perfect for the job.”
“Thank you,” Ray said, and pulled me back up again.
I grabbed the railing, not that I needed it, and looked around. Olga must have realized what I’d flung at her, because it looked like the battle was evening out. But that could change, really fast, and I hated the idea of just abandoning her. Plus, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something.
I had the weirdest impression that, not only were the rest of the weapons here, but I was staring right at them. It was maddening. And if Marlowe came into this mess with no clue where they were . . .
Ding!
I started at the sound and looked around. But it hadn’t come from another weird magical device, or from the drowning slots, which had been spazzing out this whole time. But from something behind me.
And, for once, it was something benign.
It looked like nobody had turned off whatever system controlled the fights, because the doorway behind us had just lit up, announcing a new one. A ring of little green crabs decorated the stone all around the opening, like the orange squid had on the other door. I guess they meant something to the regulars, maybe some clue to the venue or the type of combatants? I wondered if Cthulhu’s door had red octopuses. . . .
“Dory? We’re ready.”
It was Ray, but I barely heard him over the ding, ding, ding, only this time, it wasn’t the door chiming.
It was my head.
“Dory? You up to taking point, or you wanna bring up the rear?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I turned around and stared at all the porthole-looking doorways, each of which had a different symbol around it. Only there was so much smoke and potion residue drifting around that I couldn’t make most of them out. But if I could have . . .
“Dory.” A touch on my shoulder. “You okay?”
Yeah, I thought. Yeah! I whirled around, got dizzy, straightened up, and grabbed Rufus. “Can you do a reveal spell?”
“What?”
“Can you?”
“Y-yes, of course.” He blinked at me. “On what?”
“On them.” I gestured outward. “Can you make the little symbols on the doorways light up?”
Rufus looked like he was about to ask why, then seemed to decide it would be quicker just to oblige. And, all of a sudden, every door in the place was ringed in a circle of brilliant symbols, glowing brightly against all that white: blue swordfish, pink hammerheads, teal mermen, some weird black snakelike things— “What are you doing?” Ray demanded.
—gray whales, yellow sea lions, and some purple three-tailed creature that ought to be on a coffee cup— “Dory!”
“I’m looking for fish!”
“What? Why?”
“Because fish, tracks, door!”
Ray looked at me worriedly. “You do know you’re not making sense, right?”
“There!” And there they were, aqua-colored fish tracking around a door on the fourth balcony up, all the way in the corner. “That’s it! Ray, I think that’s it!”
“That’s what? What are you—”
He broke off abruptly. I was still staring at the door, so it took me a second to wonder why. And then I turned around.
And didn’t have to wonder.
Ray was still standing there, but I wasn’t sure how. Because somebody had just punched all the way through his middle, leaving me looking at a gory fist and Ray’s shocked eyes. And then the fist was jerked back out again— Along with his spine.
But that wasn’t what had me frozen in shock.
No, that was because of who had done it.
“Louis-Cesare,” I said blankly.
And then Dorina threw us over the railing.
* * *
—
The vampire was fast—I’d give him that. As I sailed into space I felt his fingertips brush me, warm against the skin of my arm. And then I was gone, grabbing one of the camera balls that had been speeding past and reaching for my phone to alert the one they call Marlowe.
And having it knocked from my fingers.
Because Louis-Cesare was already there, a split second behind me, dangling by one hand from the camera James had been using, leaving him plenty of options for attack. But there was something different this time, between Dory and me. Because she was still awake, leaving us with more options, too.
I took the offense, slipping my foot under the handgrip for the camera, because these things were designed to be used more than one way. And grabbed the controller a reporter tossed me as I passed, using it to somersault under the vampire, grab a club from a troll, come up behind him, and bash him in the back of the head. It felt like hitting a brick wall and did no observable damage.
Of course, I wasn’t done yet.
But we went spinning away before I could try again, because Dory had the controller and was screaming at me: “Don’t kill him!”
Same head, I reminded her shortly, because he was already coming back this way. Don’t yell.
Then answer me!