Lucky was watching her, as I was, and he reached again into his pocket and withdrew something that sparked when it hit the air. He threw it hard, a baseball pitcher’s fastball. It smacked into the ghillie suit and stuck. Flames licked up, burning, even in the wet cloth.
The creature stepped forward and backhanded Lucky. The witch spun through the air and cracked into the pool table, bending in ways no human body was intended to. His ribs splintered with brittle snaps. The table was no longer on fire, and Lucky gripped the scorched felt, curling his fingers into it to stay upright. But I heard the bubbling wheeze when he tried to inhale. He had lung damage. He grunted and his face went white.
Margaud’s ghillie suit roared up in flame, and she screamed. The swamp thing walked to her. It wrapped her in its arms and the flames sizzled out, smothered in mud and swamp water. I could hear Margaud gasping and the stink of her terror was clear and sharp, even over the reek of burning homemade ghillie suit.
The demon turned from her and it seemed to have found its way. It stepped forward and struck at Clermont, its claws gouging deep into the vamp’s belly, sending him flying too. Edmund danced out of the way. The other vamp, the one who was down on the stage, groaned, catching the demon’s attention. The creature fisted its hands and raised them high. I tried to fire the M4, but it clicked. Empty. The mud thing brought its fisted hands down on the unconscious form. Bones splintered and cracked.
I reloaded the M4 with regular shot, my movements efficient and spare, Beast fast, but still too slow. I raised the shotgun and aimed at the thing. Then shifted my aim for Margaud. I had never killed a human except in defense of my life or in defense of another. I hesitated, uncertainty filling me. What if Margaud wasn’t actually directing the thing? What if I had it all wrong? I fired. The round hit the ghillie suit and spread. But nothing penetrated. The shot stopped, hot and smoking. And fell to the floor with pings. Her ward, which had seemed so weak, was more than it had appeared. Much more.
From the doorway came a crash and a deep rumble. A blackened claw bigger than the opening busted through, burned wood snapping and splintering. A yellow arm pushed the claw through. No. Not a claw. A shovel, with steel teeth along the bottom. What the drivers of heavy machinery called a bucket. It was the front-end loader that had been parked in the street. Jerking the bucket side to side, the loader ripped out the old entrance. The ceiling above shuddered, the weakened second floor trying to drop through. The creature and Margaud turned to the heavy vehicle. Edmund backed away from the mechanical claw, laughing with delight, his head thrown back with joy. Dang vamp. He was having fun.
For the first time in the fight, I could also see Margaud’s face clearly. She was perhaps the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, even in the silver gray of Beast sight, even with her face twisted in hate. The ugly expression was darker than the hell the swamp demon had been called from, foul, dreadful, seeking only pain and death.
The huge bucket with its steel claws jerked and tore as it worked its way forward, the tractor tires gripping on the damaged wood floor. The yellow machine was forcing its way inside like in some child’s film about sentient machines. The loader rolled inside, revealing Eli sitting in the glassed-in cage, his face like stone, his hands working the controls. The demon attacked the loader, throwing itself against the clawed bucket, Margaud’s body a mirror image, fighting an invisible menace. The bucket jerked forward and up, picking up the demon, the steel claws catching it at its middle and tilting, lifting. The swamp demon roared, its voice matching the sound of the huge engine. Eli carried the demon, rushing to the wall beside the stage. He slammed the bucket into the wall, the claws ripping through the demon and cutting into the plaster on the far side. Black blood sprayed.
The demon shuddered and screamed. Lucky hit with one of his dissipate spells. And the demon melted into a puddle of mud. Clermont whirled to Margaud. But she was gone. He clutched his middle, which was bleeding, and caught himself on a chair, holding himself upright, amazingly still whole, in the middle of the ruined blood bar.
Clermont gripped his side and belly, holding in what passed for guts in vampires, and made his way across the wrecked floor to the vamp on the stage. He rolled the unconscious, broken vamp over and tilted back the bloodsucker’s head, as if opening an airway. But . . . vamps don’t need to breathe. I understood when Clermont’s fangs snapped down and he bit his own wrist, holding it to the vamp’s mouth. The blood flowed fast for several seconds before the vamp’s eyes snapped open and he swallowed. He gripped his master’s arm and pulled it tight to his lips, sucking.