Patroklos gained on us. The motorcycle could accelerate faster, brake harder, take turns I couldn't touch in this heavy bastard. We were going to run out of road before we ran out of him.
"Vihaan. Tell me you've got something."
Keys clicked. Screens refreshed. "Alley on your right. Cuts through to the parallel street. Too narrow, but—"
"I'll take it."
The alley came up, and I yanked the wheel. We went in sideways. The remaining mirror came off on the brick walls, and sparks shot past the windows. The whole vehicle screamed. I kept my foot down.
We burst out the other side. I corrected and found the road and kept going.
The headlight disappeared.
Rhadamanthys checked where the mirror used to be. "We lose him?"
"No," Jasper said.
He pointed ahead, and my stomach dropped into my boots.
Hijo de puta, he'd come out of nowhere. Patroklos had cut through some alley I'd completely missed and emerged right in our path. The motorcycle headlight pinned us.
"Diego—" Vihaan started.
Patroklos aimed straight at us. He kept coming like he'd made peace with dying as long as he took us with him. I knew that look. I'd worn it.
He hit us doing sixty.
Metal screamed. I slammed forward into the airbag, and white powder exploded in my face. The world spun. Glass shattered everywhere. Something cracked my head hard enough that I tasted colors. We hit a wall and stopped.
Dios mío, everything rang. The noise in my skull drowned out every other sound.
I kicked the door. It stayed shut. I kicked harder. The hinges gave, and I fell out onto the pavement. Blood ran into my left eye, and I wiped it away. I couldn't tell if it was mine or someone else's.
I turned and Jasper was already out with the katana drawn, steady on his feet like the crash had been a minor inconvenience.
Rhadamanthys hauled Nevada out of the wreckage. Mr. Nobody slid out of the back seat, brushed glass from his sleeve, and stood very still with his face tilted up toward the sky. Vihaan crawled out last with his laptops clutched to his chest. "I swear to God, if my screen is cracked, I will sign you up for so much spam mail."
The motorcycle lay on its side twenty feet away, totaled and burning.
Patroklos crawled out from under it.
The crash had destroyed him. Blood covered every inch. His left arm bent the wrong way and his left leg dragged. But he still reached for the sickle on his back.
I pulled my shotgun and walked toward him.
He tried to get up and made it halfway before his leg gave out. Then he lay there and glared up at me, eyes full of nothing but hate.
I pointed both barrels at his face. “Did you touch her?”
Patroklos glared at me.
I shot a round into the dirt next to him. “Did you fucking touch my girl?”
Patroklos opened his mouth. The sound that came up from his throat was thick, gutted, vowels mashed against the stumps of consonants that had nowhere to land. He pushed it louder, and the noise spread but never sharpened. A word sat buried in there somewhere. I couldn't reach it.
Jasper moved to my left. "Net," he said. "He's saying no."
"No what?"
