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A brief burning scent was all the warning I had before something burst out of the flesh on his arm. It shone against the blue darkness like a living ember for a second, still smoking from the blood sizzling on its body. I jumped up, getting a glimpse of fine, fire-lit traceries of wings, a solid golden carapace and black, opaque eyes—before it disintegrated under what remained of my left boot heel.
“Fuck!” I said, breathing heavily as Lawrence struggled to sit up.
“Those were…Varus’s clothes…” he rasped. “But on…a dummy. We were…”
“Shut up,” I told him, checking my cell phone because he was in no shape to call for help himself. And neither was I, thanks to the latest in a long line of busted pieces of crap having drowned along with me.
“Have to…warn the others—”
“I said shut up!” I rasped. He needed his strength if he was going to last until I got back. “I’m going to find a phone and call in. Just stay—”
“Dorina!”
I didn’t need the warning. The look on his face told me it wasn’t good even before a bullet slammed into my shoulder. It was large enough caliber to send me sprawling over Lawrence for half a second, before I was rolling, trying to raise a gun with an arm that no longer worked, and then switching hands and still not getting a slug off because the powder was—
Another bullet tore the gun out of my hand as I scrambled back, trying with my left hand to find a weapon that wasn’t soaked, which would have been easier if I could have reached my damned jacket. But I couldn’t even see it; someone had a light blazing in my eyes, bright as a—
“Dory!”
—searchlight, blinding me as I grabbed Lawrence, trying to drag him into the water because if he was able to disintegrate again he’d have done it already and we needed—
“Take her out!”
—to buy time. But red was blooming on Lawrence’s shirt, two, three, four places, as they concentrated fire on him because they weren’t stupid, no, no, not stupid, just fucking assholes—
“Radu, take her out!”
“I’m trying!”
—and I was out of usable weapons, except for the knife in my boot, which I threw almost blind, just zeroing in on the location of those shots. I heard someone curse—
“Now, Radu!”
—and didn’t hear the sound of another gunshot—too deaf—but I felt when it hit home, shredding my thigh, which hurt less than someone’s boot to my face—
“Radu!”
—and there was no time—
“Dorina!”
—no time—
—“Lawrence—”
Chapter Ten
I ended up back in bed, after all. I woke up sprawled on familiar lumps, pillow gone, sheets gone, quilt wadded into a pillow-like ball that I was hugging instead. It was dark, and for a minute I didn’t know what the hell had happened.
And then I swam back to full consciousness, and I still didn’t.
The sound of water was coming from somewhere nearby…faint, gentle, horrible. I stared around, still half convinced I was being carved to pieces on that bloody wharf. Until I finally realized it was gurgling through the wall behind my head.
I flopped back against the bed, breathing hard.
It was just somebody doing dishes or trying to take a bath. And sounding like they were trying to fill a swimming pool, because it took forever around here for water to heat up. It was a ridiculous waste anytime somebody wanted to get clean, but when this house was built, they hadn’t worried about things like environmental friendliness. When this house was built, they were closer to worrying about Indian attacks and this was Brooklyn.
The Indian attacks had slacked off these days, unless you counted Bawa’s curry at the takeaway place down the road—and having experienced it, I saw no reason why you shouldn’t. But the plumbing remained. Intact and inefficient, it took its own sweet time and probably always would because I lived in a magic house.
