Page 37 of Tracking Snow

My big guy swings at my head. I drop my weight under his arm, hook two fingers around his wrist and use his momentum against him to send him face-first into the bar rail.

The blood elf catches my move, brows lifting, recognizing my copycat version of her move.

I grin at her.

My hands are still humming with it, the shape of her pivot settling in my muscles like I've practiced it for years.

The second big one shoves through screaming patrons toward Rap, and across the room Mailbox Jaw has reached Carolee.

Ryder didn’t give Rap a chance to respond, but she doesn’t miss a beat this time. She picks up one of the chairs and smashes it on the guy’s head. He wobbles on his feet before dropping to his butt, eyes dazed.

Meanwhile, I’m already charging to help Carolee before he gets to her.

Carolee remains on her stool. One hand curled around her drink, heels hooked on the rung, watching him come like he's a mildly interesting commercial.

"Look at this one," he sneers, leaning into her space. "All dressed up to party with freaks. You their little human mascot, sweetheart?"

"Oh, honey." Carolee sets her drink down and pats the bar twice. "You picked the wrong girl to mess with."

Soft little spheres, gold and lilac and seafoam green, a dozen of them rising off her shoulders and drifting around his head, slow and gentle as soap bubbles.

His pupils swallow his eyes. His jaw goes slack, and his whole face smooths out, twenty years of mean draining off it in about two seconds.

"There we go," Carolee says, sweet as anything, the little spots of light painting her face in rotating pastels. "Now. You're going to walk out those front doors. You're going to sit on the curb. And you're going to think, really think, about what an asshole you are. Every door you've kicked in. Every person you've made afraid. You're going to sit with all of it until the cops come to throw you in jail, and then you’ll think some more."

He turns and walks toward the doors. Steady. Obedient. A man with a to-do list.

Whoa. I had no idea Carolee had Will O’ The Wisp powers. I’d thought she’d been like me. Envy wars with pride at her ability to kick ass without having to lift a high-heeled foot.

"And tip your bartenders!" she calls after him. "Thirty percent! Forever!"

The wiry one sees his buddy march himself out and makes a run for the same exit. One of the wisps of light detaches from Carolee's little constellation, floats lazily across the room, and bops him on the back of the neck. He stops at the threshold, then lowers himself onto the curb outside next to his friend, hands folded in his lap like a kid in time-out.

Carolee picks her drink up again and takes a sip.

I look at her. She looks at me.

"What?" she says, then shoots me a wink. "Can I get another one of these?" She points at her now empty glass.

Ryder marches the preacher past us toward the exit, arm still held behind him, and Rap follows close with her phone out, snapping a photo of the man's face. "For the wall," she says. "We frame our banned ones."

The second big guy is on the floor by the stage with Geanie sitting on him, our emcee waving cheerfully at the crowd. "Folks, give it up for tonight's interactive entertainment!"

The crowd roars. Geanie starts the music up again, and the whole room surges like a held breath letting go, drinks lifting, the pixie table cackling, the horned guy getting his back slapped by three strangers.

I turn to the bar, and the pink-skinned elf is right there, braid across her shoulder, retrieving her cloak off the floor. Up close, her eyes are green. She scans the room, the exits, the windows, the curb outside where two grown men sit contemplating their sins.

"This is just the beginning," she says to Rap, and her voice is low and even, a report instead of a conversation. "Five men, no weapons, front door, maximum witnesses. It’s just a warning, but they’ll be back. And they won’t be as nice next time. They mean to run you out. Shut this place down."

Rap’s jaw clenches as the woman pulls the cloak over her shoulders.

The hood starts to come up, and my mouth gets there before my brain does.

"Your moves were absolute badass."

Green eyes slide to me. Down to the dagger still in my hand and up again. "You seemed to enjoy trying them on for size."

"I pick things up fast," I say with a shrug.