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Which only got worse when an Anubis jumped off a building on top of him.
The man and his ride went skidding into a café, sending the patrons screaming as we tore past. And then was thrown off altogether when he hit a wall. The crash didn’t seem to faze the ancient god, however, who swiftly righted the bike and used it to come after us.
“Give me the gun!” I yelled at Ray, who had shoved it in his pocket.
“What?”
“The gun!”
He gave me the gun.
I sketched something appropriate and pointed it at a wall. But we were going so fast that the pic got a little overstretched. Which resulted in a twelve-foot-long scorpion that . . . yeah. Worked really well, I thought, as I gestured at the god of death coming up fast behind us.
“Kill it!”
The scorpion seemed enthusiastic about this idea, leaping off the wall and tackling the motorcycle riding asshole. At least, I assumed so, judging from all the yelling going on behind us. I would have turned around to see, but another huge assailant had just jumped down and caught hold of the back of our ride.
And Ray—God bless him—made sure that he regretted it.
Ray had the front of the rug in a death grip, and was using it to steer by tugging this way or that—and he’d gotten pretty good at it. Because we slung around corners, sped down avenues, and zipped across cross-streets. And in the process smashed our would-be assailant into beautiful old geometric wood paneling, into plastic mannequins wearing belly dancing costumes, into glassware, copperware, and shelves of obsidian statues—some, ironically, of Anubis himself. We plowed him through displays of carved wooden boxes and dishes with shimmering mother-of-pearl inlay, and a huge brass hookah taller than he was. We slung him into a couple of massive alabaster vases outside an antique shop and then through a spice seller’s baskets of cinnamon, peppercorns, and cardamom.
If there was a shop we missed, I’d be surprised. And when we weren’t crashing into something, we were dragging him over rough-edged cobblestones, scattered café chairs, and a fountain of very hard ceramic tiles. Which I guessed wasn’t fun judging by the sounds he was making.
And all the blood he was shedding.
Strange that Anubis bled like a human I thought, and reached around to grab hold of the elongated snout, which had yet to move despite all the noise.
And pulled.
“Oh, fuck!” Ray said, staring over his shoulder at the long spill of silver hair that flowed out of what was now quite obviously a mask. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Fey,” I agreed, and put a knife in its eye.
But these weren’t ordinary fey, if there was such a thing. I’d met the silver haired bastards before, and while they were taller, stronger and faster than a normal human by an order of magnitude, they weren’t this strong. Or this fast. Or this numerous, because the marketplace was suddenly crawling.
And they didn’t like that I’d just killed their friend.
“Go up, go up!” Ray screamed, as half a dozen fake gods leapt for us.
The rug went up. Unfortunately, our enemies were up there, too. Running across rooftops, jumping from balconies, throwing huge spears like freaking rain and causing our little conveyance to have to dodge here, there, and everywhere along the narrow alley, goddamnit!
“Need some help?”
I felt a familiar, cool presence slip inside my skin, or our skin technically, since my alter ego was back. And just in time. “Is that supposed to be funny?” I yelled, as five jackal-headed thugs dove at us like they were trying to set an Olympic record.
And fell in pieces on the ground a second later, because—
“Where did you get that?” I demanded, looking at the bloody scimitar in my hand.
Dorina gestured vaguely behind us, to where I guessed she’d ripped off a vendor as we flew past, or mugged a fey, before I'd even realized she was back. Which she definitely was. Because instead of gripping the little rug with both knees and at least one hand, I was now standing up on the tiny surface like a surfer on a board, and slashing at jumping fey with a bloody sword.
“Dorina?” Ray guessed, staring up at me.
“What do you think?” I yelled, trying to focus past the panic and find—
Him, I thought, half in joy, half in shock, as we slung around a minaret, above a cobblestone courtyard where I finally spotted Louis-Cesare, fighting alone, and surrounded by what had to be three dozen massive, jackal headed assailants.
My heart seized as Ray circled 'round again, as half a dozen spears flew up at us, and as I scribbled as fast as I could one handed—
