I dropped the shotgun by Idris and snatched up the arm. My pulse galloped like a herd of wild horses as I swung the thing in a slow arc, using it like a Geiger counter. The twitching grew stronger when I pointed it toward the side street. It made sense. The buildings there were less damaged, and two huge downed oak trees blocked passage. No mayhem or emergency crews, so a logical approach avenue for Katashi. Please let me be right about having no more demons, I silently prayed as I took off in a low run away from the valve. I didn’t dare wait for Katashi to come to us. Too much chance that he could reactivate the charges by tossing a sigil at the valve, or some other brilliant and improbable action that would spell our doom.
A line of cars along the edge of the parking lot provided concealment. The twitching increased as I ducked from car to car. I dashed across the sidewalk and edged between two cars parked by the curb. The arm spasmed non-stop in my grasp. Staying low, I peeked out, on the lookout for any movement. Across the street, my favorite café stood dark—Grounds for Arrest, its windows shattered into sparkling fragments on the sidewalk, and its sign in the gutter. A shard of glass bounced against the fallen sign. Damn, I could use a coffee right now. The barista, David, knew exactly how I liked it: Enough cream and sugar to make my pancreas beg for mercy. Hunger tugged at my stomach to go with thoughts of coffee. A chocolate donut would rock. Grounds for Arrest didn’t sell them, but maybe—
Mouth dry, I heaved my thoughts back on track. Aversion. A strong one. I knew the feel of them all too well. As soon as I got myself a coffee I’d figure out what was causing—
Focus! Aversions were tests of will. I’d been through too fucking much in the last year and a half to die because of coffee or donuts. Gritting my teeth, I resisted the hunger and cravings and scrutinized the street. The shard of glass that struck the café sign. Focus on that. It was important. The glass was important. It had been in the street, then bounced to hit the sign. Like someone kicked it while walking.
My fingers dug into the flesh of Katashi’s arm. I had the will, and now I saw what didn’t want to be seen: a ripple of not-right between the sign and me. I couldn’t see details, but I didn’t need them. I knew where he was, and that was enough.
I dug my foot into the asphalt and launched myself forward like an Olympic sprinter, zeroed in on that not-right-don’t-look-at-me and bodyslammed Katashi’s bony ass into the pavement.
He went down with a choked cry of pain and the snap of at least one broken bone. The aversions shattered, and I realized I still gripped the arm. I dropped it and yanked a ziptie from my pocket, then needed my full concentration to subdue and restrain the asshole as he struggled. He was a tough and wiry old fuck, and managed to clock me in the side of the head with the back of his fist. I tightened one loop onto a wrist then had to knee him hard in the guts to stun him long enough to allow me to yank his arms behind him and get the second loop on and tightened.
He wheezed out a pained cough then snarled out a torrent of curses in English and Japanese. His fingers moved as if knitting in the air.
“Oh, fuck no!” I grabbed the index and middle fingers of his right hand and twisted them hard to fracture the bones. He didn’t scream, but he paled and let out a strangled noise. Just in case, I ziptied the fingers of both hands together. “You even wiggle your nose funny, and I’ll—”
A gunshot split the air from close by. I flinched and ducked, then twisted toward a strangled cry of pain and lifted my weapon. Jerry Steiner stood in the street in front of the café. Blood spilled over the hand he pressed to his belly. I didn’t have time to wonder who shot him, not when his other hand held a gun that he lifted toward me. Fuck this piece of shit.
I squeezed my trigger. Click.
My stomach dropped. Misfire. I knew the drill for this, right? Slap, rack, ready. A drill I hadn’t practiced since the Academy. I slapped the magazine to seat it, racked the slide to eject the misfired cartridge. Not fast enough to get a shot off before he took his. No place to take cover. He took a staggering step closer. His eyes met mine over his gun. From this vantage the barrel looked big enough to climb into.
I threw myself down and to the side, bit back a yelp at the gunshot. Steiner’s knee exploded in blood and bone. He let out a hoarse scream and dropped like a felled tree, gun tumbling from his grasp.
Not me. I’m not hit. I scrambled up and put my back against the rear fender of a car. Bryce climbed over a tilted slab of sidewalk and shoved through branches of a fallen oak, face like stone and eyes locked onto Steiner. My hands shook from the excess adrenaline, but I finished clearing my weapon and chambered a fresh round.
Katashi tensed, gaze arrowing toward the valve, though cars blocked his view. Rage suffused his face. I shifted position in case it was a ploy, then risked a tactical peek over the trunk of the car—long enough to see Idris and Pellini on their feet and wearing matching expressions of relief.
A laugh bubbled up. “They dismantled your charges. You lose, you dried up turd.”