Open. The. Door.
The wheel looked impossibly large now and I knew somewhere deep in the core of my being that if I touched it, horrible things would happen.
Open the door.
Curran would’ve begun moving his people in by now. He was en route. If I didn’t open the door, my father wouldn’t leave for Mishmar.
I grabbed the wheel and spun it. Metal squeaked and clanged, invisible gears turned, and the bar slid aside.
I exhaled and pulled the door open.
Darkness.
I stood in the doorway, letting my eyes adjust. A dark stone foyer, cavernous, its roof supported by two rows of columns. Probably used to belong to some hotel or bank. There had to be an exit that would lead deeper into Mishmar, because we had crossed this lobby the last time I was here, but I couldn’t see it.
I moved to the side, away from the sunset light, and waited with my back against the wall.
The vampires stayed away. They had to have heard the bar slide aside and the creak of the gate. They should’ve come running, but instead their minds hovered above me and to the sides. That meant only one thing. Something lived in this foyer, something so dangerous that the awareness of it penetrated even the bloodthirsty, crazed minds of the bloodsuckers.
I waited, breathing quiet and slow. There was a trick to staying invisible: stop thinking. I cleared my head and simply waited, one with the darkness and the cold wall of stone touching my back.
Moments ticked by. I watched the foot-wide line of daylight cross the stones of the floor as the sunshine slipped through the gap between the two halves of the door. The chamber was roughly rectangular, the columns running along the two longer sides. Most of them had survived, but at least three had fallen, breaking into pieces. The walls weren’t perfectly smooth. A shelflike decorative molding ran along the perimeter of the lobby at about twenty feet high. Above it, at even intervals, large reliefs interrupted the stone, depicting modern buildings and people. The floor was polished marble, now dusted with dirt and grime, but still slick. I would have to be careful running.
I stayed completely still.
The attack came from above, fast and silent. I felt it a fraction of a second before the javelin hit, and I dodged right. The short spear clattered on the floor. I jumped back—two shurikens whistled through the space where I was a moment ago—and leapt left behind a column. The column was four feet across and left me two choices: left or right. Not much of a cover.
Open lobby to my left, sliced in half by the narrow light streaming through the gap in the door, a wall to my right. Down wasn’t an option; up wasn’t either. The vampires squirming above me were too far. Concentrating on drawing them close would split my attention too much.
A shuriken clattered against the column from the left. Judging by the angle, the attacker had to be either twenty feet tall or above ground.
Shuriken were nuisance weapons, meant to distract and panic. Even if dipped in poison, they rarely killed. The attacker was trying to herd me toward the wall.
I lunged right, but instead of running to the wall, I dashed around the column and sprinted into the open space in the center of the chamber.
Shurikens hurtled at me from the darkness, from the spot in front of me and slightly to the left, coming from above. I dodged the first one, drew Sarrat in a single fast move, and knocked the second aside.
The darkness waited. So did I.
Done? Let’s see what else you’ve got.
The beam of light coming through the door painted the floor behind me, not really illuminating the gloom, but diluting it enough to see movement. The angle of the shurikens pointed to a spot on the wall near the column. If someone had jumped up and perched on the molding, it would be about right. The twilight was too thick to see clearly, and the wall didn’t look any different.
All was quiet. Nothing moved in the direction from which the shurikens came.
I breathed in even deep breaths, Sarrat raised. If the attacker used magic, I couldn’t sense it.
Come closer. You know you want to. Come see me. Say hello. I’m friendly.
The texture of the wall by the column changed in a single sharp moment. Something was there, then disappeared.
I spun on pure instinct, swinging. Sarrat connected with the blade of a long knife aimed at my ribs, batting it aside, left to right. For half a second, the attacker was wide open, a tall figure in a gray cloak, his right arm thrown to his left by the force of my blow. I lunged into the opening and grabbed the cloak, yanking him toward me.
The fabric came free with no resistance, light and silk-thin under my fingers. The attacker vanished.
Movement, right side.
I jumped back. The knife sliced the air two inches from my throat. The attacker lunged, slashing at my neck with insane speed. “He” had breasts. A woman. I thrust Sarrat’s blade up, blocking the dagger. She reversed the strike, and stabbed at my ribs. I danced out of the way.
Stab. Dodge.
Stab. Dodge. She had crazy reach.
Stab. Dodge. Her blade fanned my face.
I let it slice way too close for comfort, stepped in, and hammered a punch to her right ear.
She stumbled and somersaulted backward, putting a full thirty feet between us and landing in a half crouch.
She wore a skintight black catsuit. Black wrist guards and shin guards shielded her limbs, made of durable synthetic fabric, probably with steel or plastic inserts, hard enough to stop a blade and prevent a cut. Some band-like pattern over her torso. Soft black boots, almost slipper-like, a sole with some fabric to hold it to the foot. Swirls of gray camo decorated her skin. The cloak had hidden her hair, but now it was out in the open, so pale blond it was nearly white and pulled back into a short high ponytail. Thin long arms, thin long legs, long neck—room for a good cut if I could get close enough. Long legs were normally an asset for a woman, but not for her. Their length and shape put them past the point of attractive and straight into creepy. There was something deeply disturbing about her silhouette. Inhuman, almost alien. Adora had said there was one other fae among the sahanu. I’d bet my arm that she was standing in front of me, holding a foot-long Teflon-gray tactical knife.
“Sloppy, Irene.” I turned toward her and flicked imaginary blood from my sword. “Do better.”
She smiled, showing a mouth full of human-sized but sharp teeth, each pure white and pointed, like someone had studded her gums with thirty-two narrow canines.
I had a handful of iron powder in both pockets.
Not much exposed skin. If I used the powder, it would have to be on her face. Right now she didn’t know I had it and once the element of surprise was lost, thrown powder was easy enough to avoid. I had to use it when I had a sure shot.
“Today,” I told her. “I have things to do.”