A guy came running up as the camera flew out the door. I let go, and watched it shoot skyward when a hundred and ten pounds of dhampir suddenly went missing. And detonate against the bottom of a helicopter, because the regular cops had just arrived.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the guy—the reporter, I guessed—yelled over the whup, whup, whup of the copter’s blades. He was a tall, thin dude with a shock of black hair and bright Asian eyes.
Then he looked behind me and his mouth dropped open, and I didn’t wait to find out why.
I grabbed him and took a flying leap behind a cop car, where a couple of New York’s finest were already hunkered down, staring as the warehouse all but exploded behind us, with sound and fury and lots of sharp flying bits.
The next seconds were a little confused. The guy I’d rescued started yelling at what I guess were more reporters, demanding to know if anybody had a camera that still worked. I got myself turned around to see that the building was still standing, sort of, but had crazy, multicolored sparks shooting out everywhere: through areas of missing tile on the roof, spewing toward the heavens; through the open door, cascading over the broken sidewalk; and—most spectacularly, at least from this angle—through the row of rectangular windows, which had shattered and were vomiting great tongues of fire at us, like the front of a dragon boat on Chinese New Year.
The whole building looked like a huge roman candle.
I realized that maybe it would be a good idea to move back, because the sparks weren’t just for show. They were spells, too, if very weak ones. But there were a lot of them, and they were raining down everywhere.
Including onto a passing garbage scow out on the water, which hadn’t steered away fast enough. And was now a burning garbage scow. Which would have been bad enough, but some levitation charms had been mixed in with the rest of the sparks, so the burning garbage was drifting up into the air and out over the water.
Despite everything, I just watched it for a moment. The blue-black water and the flickering orange-red garbage and the shooting sparks illuminating all the graffiti-covered rocks by the waterside . . . it was strangely beautiful. In a Brooklyn sort of way.
Unlike the huge piece of burning roofing headed straight for us.
I grabbed the reporter and took a leap into a ditch across the road.
“Who are you?” he demanded, staring at me. And I have to give the guy credit. Although for what, I’m not exactly sure, because he yelled the question while the big, jagged piece of metal bisected the cop car.
“Keep your head down!” I told him, while a frantic car alarm informed the fleeing patrolmen that there might be a problem.
“Answer the question,” he told me right back. “And you owe me for my camera!”
I stared at him. “Dick! I just saved your life!”
He frowned. “How did you know my name was Dick?”
“Just a guess,” I snarled, and started to crawl out.
“Wait!” He grabbed my arm. “Where are you going?”
I shook him off. “Out there! You stay here. Unless your shields are way better than most civilians’.”
“So you’re not a civilian?” He looked me over. “You don’t look like a war mage, and even less like a tech. They tend to be easygoing on the dress code, but not to that degree.”
“Dick,” I muttered, and he nodded, and held out a hand.
“Kim.”
“No, Dory.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” But apparently he did mind, and he’d used the ignored hand to grab my arm again.
“Richard Kim,” he clarified. “And you’re Dory—what, exactly?”
“None of your business!”
“Ah, but it is my business. People need to know the truth!”
“The truth is that you’re going to die if you don’t keep your fool head down!” I said, as another piece of detonating warehouse screamed above us.
It was really starting to go up now, which had me worried for Fin. Everybody else around here—including the cops in the copter, who had wisely gotten some air—was shielded or out of range. Even the techs the Corps used went through the same selection process as the tank squad, meaning that they could probably stand inside the building while it burned down and never feel a thing.
I didn’t have their shields, but I’d raced through battlefields tougher than this. I wasn’t worried about me. I was worried about— “Yes! Yes!” I grabbed the reporter and shook him, while he stared confusedly around. I didn’t care. I’d finally spotted the speedboat out on the water, well beyond the risk of the burning barge, and it even looked like they’d rescued Blue— I stopped, blinking.
What were they doing?
“What are they doing?” Dick asked, squinting alongside me.
I had no idea. It looked like they were popping wheelies, or whatever the nautical equivalent was. Blue’s weight in back pulled the front of the boat up so much, I wasn’t sure Fin could see past it. Which might explain why they were just going in circles.
Big circles, over and over, while staring at the land but not the warehouse, which should have freaking drawn the eye.
Unless they were looking for me.
Shit!
I felt around my pockets, but sure enough, no phone. I hadn’t thought to take it out of the duffle before locking it in my trunk—in a car parked on the other side of the building. Shit, shit, shit!
“Do you have a phone?” I asked Dick.
“Why do you want it?”
“To call for pizza!”
“There’s no reason to get sarcastic. It was a reasonable—”
“Aghhh! Just give it to me!”
He gave it to me.
“You have fangs,” he pointed out. “Are you a vampire?”
“Wanna find out?”
He shut up.
I called Fin’s number. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you! What the hell?”
“No! Don’t wait!”
“What?”
“I have the car! I’ll take the car!”
“What?”
The wind was almost blowing his voice away, and must have been doing equal damage to mine. Or maybe it was the half dozen car alarms going off now, or the still-loud helicopter, or the continued explosions. Because he couldn’t hear me.
“I said, I’ll take the car!”
“No, we’re not far! Are you in position?”
“Fin! Just go! Now, now, now!”
“Now? All right, I’m coming!”
“No! Not here! I didn’t mean—”
But, sure enough, here they came, swinging about in a big parabola and then speeding this way. And fuck it, they were going to get caught! Or worse.
“Stay here, and keep down,” I told the reporter.
“Like hell! I’m coming with you!”
I tried snarling in his face again, but I guess the first time had been more surprise than anything else. Because he didn’t scare easy. Which had been more people’s epitaphs than I could count, and how did I end up in these things?
And then James grabbed the reporter and me simultaneously, dragging us out of the ditch and up to a face as thunderous as I’d ever seen it.
Oh, thank god.
Someone to babysit.
I broke his hold and danced backward, and the expression somehow got worse.
“Immunity,” I reminded him, as the warehouse burned merrily behind us, as somebody with a bullhorn told us to drop our weapons, and as red and blue flashing lights announced the arrival of more cops.
And as a speedboat laden with a troll doll, a Hulk, and a tiny madwoman sped by on the water, with everybody onboard yelling at me.
“Watch that one! He’s trying to be a hero!” I told James. And then I took off, dodging through the chaos and getting up a good head of steam before hitting the side of the dock and jumping— Straight onto the middle of the boat.
Damn, that was . . . that was pretty good, I thought, grinning, and grabbing for purchase. Granny grinned back. Fin floored it, sending a huge spray of water at the mages on the dock, who hadn’t been quite fast enough to catch me.
“Okay.” Fin told me breathlessly. “I admit it. You do a pretty good distraction.”
And then we were gone.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Mircea, Venice, 1458
The ship creaked and groaned, the old boards protesting the rough seas. It was raining again, with the skies as angry as the water. But this was a merchant ship, built to travel long journeys to distant ports. Mircea wasn’t worried about sinking.