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A high-level master was holding Ray’s hands immobilized over his head with one of his own. He’d forced the smaller vamp to his knees with a little smirk, but hadn’t thought to turn him around. Probably assuming that Ray was too weak to bother with such precautions, because most guys at his level would have been.
Ray wasn’t most guys.
He didn’t bother trying to break the hold, which probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. He just popped some fang and went straight for something below the guy’s belt. And a vamp’s bite is kind of like a crocodile’s; getting one to release when he doesn’t want to is no freaking joke.
Which probably explains why the guy turned purple and threw up. And why Ray was able to break his hold, rip his throat open, and then flip him over the balcony. He saw me looking and spread his hands.
“Huh? Huh?”
I didn’t say anything, because I couldn’t, and because somebody on this side was trying to stab me in the eye. Only to find something suddenly sticking out of his own. The mage fell over, a shocked look on what was left of his face, and I stared upward—at Olga, wrenching a long, skinny blade out of his head, in order to whirl around and slash it through the belly of someone else.
Red splattered and she roared, standing over me with a bloodied sword like a modern-day Boudicca. The sound was echoed by the trolls still in the box and the ones in the corridor outside, where a major battle had broken out. And then everybody went running for the door, because our box was temporarily clear.
Everybody except me.
I looked down to see that the bike’s wheels and handlebars had been taken off, along with various other bits. But the strangely thick center piece was still there, now a fat tube bigger than any bike could possibly need for support. And with a little scope that popped up from the base.
Shit. I tried to cry out, to tell someone that something very bad was about to happen, but my tongue refused to form the words. And even if it hadn’t, I doubted I’d have been heard over the screaming, which had reached highest-hill-on-the-roller-coaster levels, and the continued gunfire, and the bam, bam, crunch of a troll smacking somebody against the floor and walls and possibly ceiling outside.
Meanwhile, I was getting back to my feet and moving to a central position in the box. And resting the no-longer-bicycle on my shoulder, aiming for the bright gold crest over top of the stage. And screaming in my head, because I still didn’t know why.
Redundant system. Got a control upstairs as well as down, echoed in my thoughts.
Shit, shit, shit!
The only good thing was that the former bicycle was damned hard to steady, with the whole theatre now in mass-exodus mode, with enough pounding feet below to shake the box up above.
Or maybe that was the shaft of orange light that suddenly speared upward, shattering the boards in front of me and throwing me back against the wall. Along with the remaining chairs, the mountain of debris, and the cute baby chandelier that had been glittering overhead. And was now in pieces raining down everywhere.
I wasn’t in pieces, but I hit hard. Hard enough to force all the breath out of my lungs, and to leave me gasping like a beached fish. Hard enough to ruin Radu’s couture with wooden splinters, some as big as knitting needles, suddenly sticking out of it. Almost hard enough to knock the bazooka from my suddenly numb hands.
Almost.
I snarled and lurched back to my feet, and swung the RPG launcher up at the same time. Louis-Cesare was throwing three more vamps off the balcony and elbowing a mage in the face without even turning around. Because he was looking at me.
He opened his mouth to say something, probably to ask, What the hell?—which yeah. Let me know when you find out, I thought. But then he caught something out of the corner of his eye, and his expression changed.
“Get down!” he yelled. “Get—”
What looked like a bunch of fifty-caliber rounds cut him off, strafing us from a box on the other side of the theatre. They ripped through the old hardwood like it was nothing, tore through the shoulder of a troll in the doorway, sending him staggering back into the hall. And would have torn through me—
Except that Louis-Cesare had just leapt from the neighboring box, taking a whole line of tank-killing rounds while knocking me out of the way.
I hit the floor with him on top, the once-perfect body a mangled piece of red flesh and white bone and—
I tried to scream, horror washing over me along with his blood. But my voice wasn’t under my control any more than my body. My head was already turning back toward the stage, my hands were pulling the bloody weapon out from under him, and my eyes were fixing back on target.
What are you doing? I yelled at Dorina
. What the fuck—
“That.”
I felt my lips form the word, but nobody heard. Including me, because I’d just fired a rocket launcher, and didn’t have hearing protection. The resulting sound was so loud that, for a second, everything went absolutely quiet and almost still.
I could see blood droplets, flaming splinters, and a lone crystal from the chandelier, thrown back into space by the impact of the bullets, lazily turning. I could feel the sparks that edged the shell as it blasted out of the end of the weapon, glittering brightly in the gloom. I could trace the thin trail of smoke as it tore across the room—
Just as a magical grenade was palmed and primed and thrown downstairs, all in one swift gesture by another pair of hands.
