I kicked the door open into his face.
Knoxx’s voice cut off midsentence. I jumped into the room and buried my fist into his stomach, making him drop his gun. I carried Megan’s handgun in my off hand, and brought it down, hoping to smack it against the back of Knoxx’s head.
He managed to throw himself to the side and I missed, but I immediately lunged and grabbed him around the neck. Abraham had taught me a few grappling moves. If I could choke him, make him pass out …
Knoxx vanished.
Right. Transformation powers.
Idiot, I thought as the pigeon fluttered away from me. Fortunately, they weren’t the most agile of birds. While the pigeon tried to get its bearings, I ran for the door that led to the executive office—the one with the window. I slammed that door, trapping the pigeon in our smaller chamber.
It fled down into the stairwell.
“David?” Megan asked in my ear.
“He got away from me,” I said. “But he dropped his gun, and I kept him from getting out of the building. He’s in the stairwell somewhere.”
“Be careful,” she said, tense.
“I will be,” I said, peeking into the stairwell. I couldn’t be certain he was unarmed—lots of men carried two guns, and it seemed any clothing and weapons he had on him vanished when he transformed, reappearing when he became a human again. That was pretty standard for shifters of moderate power.
I thought I heard a flutter of wings, and decided to follow it down the stairs. Unfortunately, this meant I could be running into a trap like the very one I’d just set for him.
“Do you see anything?” I asked.
“Watching …,” Megan said. “Yes! The floor below the top floor has shadows moving in the fruit lights. He’s making a run for it. Want me to send him ducking?”
“Yes please,” I said, pressing my back to the concrete wall.
I heard a few shots over the line. A suppressor, even a modern one, didn’t completely eliminate the sound of gunfire—but they worked marvels nonetheless. Any spark from her shots would be hidden, which was important at night like this, and the gunfire didn’t sound much like gunfire. More like metallic clicks.
There was a cracking of glass from the room nearby. Megan wasn’t trying to hit the Epic; her shots just needed to make him more worried about her than he was about me. I thought I heard a man curse in the next room.
“Going in,” I said. I leaped off a tree trunk and pulled open the swinging door, then ducked down in a crouch, searching for my mark. I heard heavy breathing, but could see nothing. It was a big room, a kind of large office space with broken cubicles and old computers. As I crept forward I passed a few of those cubicles that had been capped by canvas, making little dwellings filled with discarded pots and the occasional other refuse of human habitation. All were abandoned.
Megan had fired in through the large series of windows on the wall opposite me. Dust floated in the air, lit by fruit that dangled from the ceiling like snot from the nose of a toddler who had been snorting glowsticks.
How would I find Knoxx in this room? He could hide practically forever if he turned into a bird. I’d never—
Something launched out of the cubicle beside me, a black form with fur and claws. I yelped, firing out of instinct, but my aim was off. The thing hit me hard, knocking me back, and Megan’s gun thumped against the floor. I struggled, trying to throw the creature off. It wasn’t as big as I was, but those claws! They raked me along the side, which burned something fierce.
I flailed, one hand forcing the beast back, the other reaching for my gun. I didn’t find it, but instead gripped something cold and metal from inside the covered cubicle beside us. I raised it and slammed it into the side of the beast’s head.
A can of spraypaint?
As the beast turned back at me I sprayed it in the face, covering the thing’s snout in glowing blue paint. The light let me pick out that the creature was a dog, though I didn’t know my breeds. It was lean, with short hair and a pointed face.
It scrambled back, then the edges of its form fuzzed and the dog became a man. He stood, wiping paint from his eyes.
“Help!” I shouted. “You have a shot?”
“Maybe,” Megan said. “I thought you wanted him alive, though!”
“I want me alive more,” I said. “Take the shot!”
Knoxx reached the gun I’d dropped.
Something shattered one of the windows, and Knoxx lurched to the side as Megan’s bullet took him in the shoulder. A spray of dark blood painted the wall behind him.
Knoxx slumped down, looking dazed, his face still glowing with blue paint. He groaned and dropped the handgun, then became a pigeon and fluttered away, crookedly.
“Did I get him?” Megan said in my ear.
“Right in the shoulder,” I said, breathing out a tense breath. “Thank you.”