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Black, fuzzy bodies suddenly jumped out everywhere, the size of grizzlies rather than pandas, and Sarah and I started backing up. But that was a nope as well, as the samurai weren’t dead so much as in pieces, a scattering of lethal body parts across the outer room ready to slice and dice as soon as anything got close enough. Or to kick, I thought, as the bottom half of a rider nailed me in the shin.
“Other way!” I gasped at Sarah, who shook her head violently.
“No, no, this way!” And she stepped right in front of the top half of the samurai, who almost took her leg off with a sword swipe.
I pulled her back, just in time, leaving us stuck in the doorway between two kinds of hell.
Pick the way you want to die, I thought, as another panda leapt off the wall, fluffed out from 2-D to 3-D, and immediately lunged at us. And reminded me that they are still bears when its paw tore a chunk out of Tomas, who’d dodged in between. And who was not nearly so pretty with half of his face missing.
Sarah screamed, loudly enough that I distantly heard it, a bright wave of blood spurted, and I threw a potion grenade into the middle of the room.
“What are you doing?” Louis-Cesare yelled, grabbing me. “No magic, remember?”
“I remember!” I yelled back, although I probably didn’t need to, because vamp hearing—especially first-level master vamp hearing—heals itself almost before the gunfire stops. But it was a yelling kind of moment.
“Then what are you doing?”
“That,” I said, as the potion’s vapors boiled around the room.
It was a benign one, a smoke bomb meant for camouflage, but it was powerful, being designed to cover a whole block. Only it didn’t cover this one. Billowing white clouds spread everywhere—and were immediately absorbed by the magic hungry bears.
And, oh, yeah, that made a difference.
That made a real difference, I thought, as they did the same thing that the bird had, only they had a lot more bulk to work with. The bird had mostly grown up, and they did that, too, their big, round heads suddenly hitting the ceiling and forcing them to bend over. But they also expanded the other way—big time.
I’d hoped for them to grow too big to maneuver in the small room, but this was ridiculous. Black, furry butts were suddenly everywhere, and getting larger. It was a sea of chubby cuteness that was already threatening to suffocate us. But at least they weren’t swiping at us anymore, possibly because they appeared as confused as everybody else by what was happening.
And because there wasn’t room.
The bears started fighting each other for space above our heads, but there was still spots of daylight around their chubby legs. Sarah saw her chance and took it. “The door!” she yelled, and lunged for it.
She was going for the one on the opposite side of the room, which looked like it let out into another alley. I dove after her, while I still could, and the guys finally seemed to get the idea, too. But had we left it too late?
Because the chub was taking over. I got halfway across the room, and found my way blocked by two giant, expanding asses. I tried going over, but they grew faster than I could leap, and I found myself bouncing back into Louis-Cesare.
“There!” I dimly heard him yell, and we dodged to the side, while gunfire broke out on the other side of the room.
But we couldn’t help whoever it was. We were having enough trouble squeezing our way under some rapidly expanding stomachs, and even then, Louis-Cesare had to brute-forced us a path to the door, shoving back what looked like a ton of blubber in the process. But through the enveloping love handles, I spotted a trash-strewn alley, littered with puddles from the last rain storm, and smelling like garbage.
Nothing had ever looked better in my life!
I started crawling for it, but before I could get there, here came Tomas.
I decided to start liking him again, because he had a gun-loving team member under each arm, and was fighting the chub for the door. He made it, and then so did I and Louis-Cesare. We hit the concrete outside, which I strongly considered kissing, and then had to immediately run again, because a truly massive rear end had just smashed through the windows and splintered the door.
It headed for a tattoo shop across the alley, and the next moment, a bunch of tiny tats came running out, fleeing the butt-pocalypse. I just stared at them for a moment, a bit overwhelmed in spite of myself. Until a tiny, adorable-looking bunny hopped over and nuzzled my leg.
And then bit the crap out of it.
Blood ran, the rabbit started growing, and Louis-Cesare smashed a foot down, grinding it into the pavement in a way that would normally have been gruesome, but all that came out from under his boot was squiggles.
We ran.
The team gathered at the end of the alley to catch our breaths, crowding under a dull green tarp stretched across some bamboo scaffolding because it had started raining. I was just able to hear the pitter patter of water on the green plastic overhead, which was a good sign. This was hard enough without being completely deaf.
But something was clearly wrong, because Sarah was looking frantic. “Wait. Where’s Ranbir?”
We looked around, and damn it, the mage was missing!
