“Joe!” exclaimed Petey.
Then Joe was up again, and he was roaring with rage. He flung himself at his diminutive assailant. There was so little room in the alley that there was simply no way she could dodge a man that big. He charged toward her, his shoulder dropped to slam into her.
It was almost as if the Asian woman burst under his bulk. Streamers and strands of black material erupted from the point of impact, spreading out and then fading away completely. Joe kept barreling forward until he collided with the wall, hitting it so hard that he bounced off it a little.
Petey, at this point, actually held tighter to the woman splayed out underneath him.
“What the fuck?” he whispered. “What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck is going on? What is that?”
“That’s my colleague,” the woman he was lying across said pleasantly, and then she initiated a wrestling maneuver referred to by some as “the dump truck.” From beneath him, she crooked one arm around his neck and the other around his torso, then she arched her whole body high, rolled him up and over her head, and dumped his arse firmly on the ground before snapping to her feet.
Joe, meanwhile, had been so absorbed by the Curious Incident of the Sporadically Vaporous Asian Woman in the Alleyway that he’d missed his friend’s discommoding behind him. Before his eyes, the air in the center of the alley roiled, and the aforementioned Asian woman suddenly reappeared. However, she didn’t seem in the least bit interested in him.
“Felicity, did you need me for anything else?” she asked in a thick Birmingham accent.
“Nah, I’m fine, thanks,” said the other woman. His heart thundering with anger and bewilderment, Joe reached into his pocket and drew out a knife, which he flicked open. His hands low, he lunged forward again, but the short woman was already evaporating away with an unimpressed look on her face. He turned around and saw Petey getting painfully to his feet. The blond bitch was tying her hair back from her face. She gave him a look that said he had gotten himself into this situation and really had only himself to blame.
“You — you...” Words failed him. This was not how it was supposed to go.
“Hey, I’m right here,” she said, and the complete lack of concern in her voice ignited something in him. He barreled toward her, his knife clutched in his fist, shoving past Petey. She swayed to the side, then turned, stepped back against his chest, and caught his knife arm. Before he could think, she had flipped him over her shoulder. He went down on the ground, the knife clattering from his hand, and seemed disinclined to get back up.
Petey came a little more cautiously, but as he moved toward her, she snapped into swift, dizzying motion. She swung her leg with mechanical precision and kicked out at the side of his knee. Under the combined force of her strength and her complete lack of hesitation or mercy, his leg simply crumpled. He fell into the mud and the rubbish, shouting and clutching at his leg. She stepped carefully over the trash and delivered a meticulous kick to the jaw that left him facedown and unconscious in the remnants of a pizza that someone hadn’t wanted anymore. The alley was quiet except for the sound of Pawn Cheng condensing out of the air.
“Well, that was nicely done,” said Pawn Cheng. “You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” said Felicity sourly. She dusted off her clothing, which did not make an appreciable difference to its appearance.
“Honestly, I can’t believe you needed me to step in to help you with two chavs.”
“Give me a break, Andrea,” said Felicity. “I just spent three and a bit hours squatting against a wall. Plus, I’m wearing these ridiculous leper shoes.” She looked down at the men on the ground. At any other time it would have given her profound satisfaction to break every bone in their bodies, or at least to put the boot in a couple of times. But there was the danger here that she might attract unwanted attention, not least from the house she’d been observing.
However... she mused.
“What the hell are you doing?” asked Andrea. “Are you robbing them?”
“I’m not going to keep it,” said Felicity reasonably. “But I think that losing their mobile phones and their wallets will teach them a valuable lesson about... um... you know... respecting the homeless.”
“You don’t think they learned that by having the crap beaten out of them by a homeless woman?” asked Andrea. “To say nothing of a chick who can turn into oxygen?”
“You know what would make this lesson extra-special?” said Felicity after a moment. “We should take their shoes as well.”
The Asian Pawn shook her head disapprovingly, then shrugged.
“Yeah, all right.”
Two minutes later, Felicity was humming cheerfully as she sauntered out of the alley.
God, I love this job.
2
“Wake up and get out of the bathtub. If you’re late for this cocktail party, the British will take us all out to the parking lot and shoot us in the back of the head. Plus, we need to get the slime out of the tub before the hotel maids come in for the turndown service.”
The voice came thundering into Odette Leliefeld’s sleeping brain by way of the waterproof headphones that were clamped to her sleeping ears. She was jolted awake, and opened her eyes. The light at the bottom of the bathtub was dim and lavender, and it really was tempting just to snuggle down in the warmth and return to a nice therapeutic stasis. But then Alessio’s voice came back into her ears. “Room service will be here in seven minutes, so hurry up.”
Odette grimaced and set about speeding up her heart rate from its restful one-beat-every-three-hours tempo. She pushed herself up out of the depths of the ridiculously large tub. The designers of the bathroom had apparently thought the hotel guests would be either engaging in group bathing or traveling with their exotic pets, because there seemed to be enough room in the tub for a party of six good friends, seven extremely good friends, or fifteen pedigree jellyfish. Instead of a bijou orgy or some purebred Olindias formosa, however, it currently contained Odette and about fourteen hundred liters of thick, viscous slime.
She surfaced with a little difficulty, the sludge holding on to her, and sat up, taking her first breath in five hours.
“I hate sleeping in a swimsuit,” she remarked weakly to the world as she wiped the gunk out of her eyes.
“If I have to come wake you up all the time,” said her younger brother, “then you are not sleeping naked in the tub.” She felt the headphones get plucked off her head as he bustled by, presumably tidying up the clothes that were still scattered on the floor.
“Did you order coffee?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, his voice cracking a little. “Although you’re not supposed to have hot beverages or caffeine until all your new organs have settled.”
“You know what? Don’t lecture me until your larynx has settled,” she retorted.
“Oh, would you like me to cancel the coffee?” asked Alessio.
“No, I’m sorry,” said Odette hurriedly.
“Don’t step on the floor yet,” he instructed. “Otherwise you’ll just get it everywhere. Here’s the strigil.” He handed her a curved rubber blade and then hurried out to the sitting room. She smiled at the retreating back of her thirteen-year-old brother as he closed the door behind him, then stood up and looked around.
“If any British government official is watching me,” she said out loud, “I really don’t care if you see me naked, but it’s very tacky on your part.”
No answer was forthcoming.