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And then his arm tightened around my waist, his body tensed and he jumped. I don’t know what he used for leverage, because the only thing available was the fence, and that probably would have ripped it the rest of the way off the car. But we nonetheless shot up at least a half story, all the way back to the rear door of the SUV.
Which would have worked better if it had been open.
My head hit the door hard enough to stun me, so I didn’t see how we got back inside. But judging from the fact that the next time I looked, the SUV didn’t have a back door, I thought it might have had something to do with vampire strength and extreme motivation. Either way, a moment later we were sprawled on the dented inside of the roof, our butts in the air and our stomachs—at least mine—roiling.
I clutched a dangling seat belt for a moment and concentrated on trying not to lose my dinner. And people wondered why I lived on antacids. The pizza and beer and milk shake were doing some really unpleasant alchemy in my stomach, which was even truer when I saw what glided up alongside the window.
My first thought was that it was beautiful, all sleek, powerful
lines that blended almost seamlessly with the night. A river of ebony scales flowed down a heavily muscled form, from a huge head to a vast rib cage to great, talon-edged claws to a long, barbed tail. They were hard and dagger edged, like shards of obsidian, and shared its color, too. Deepest midnight, they seemed to pull all light into them, reflecting nothing of the fire or the moonlight or the far-off, flickering neon. Only the eyes glowed, like living jewels, gold shading to green to pale chartreuse around catlike, elongated pupils.
I got a good look at them when the great head slowly turned my way.
I stared back at it, knowing what I was seeing. But my mind simply refused to name it. A few minutes ago, I’d been standing on a cracked sidewalk outside a greasy diner, arguing with the usual suspects. It was a little hard to make the transition to being pursued through the air above Vegas by something out of a fairy tale.
Something that was now dropping to come underneath us.
“Fred?” I said calmly.
“What?”
“Move!”
He didn’t ask questions this time. He scrambled under the backseat and I scrambled under him, which was lucky, because a second later, there was no backseat. It had been ripped out as easily as if the SUV was made of paper, crushed in the massive jaws of the thing behind us, along with most of the rear end of the vehicle.
Including the fender.
I twisted around, clutching the middle seat, and stared down at Pritkin, who was still dangling from the fence. A fence that was now hanging from the mouth of something out of a nightmare. He was two-thirds of the way up, which put him close enough that I could see his expression. And the stark panic on his face as he stared up at me wasn’t reassuring.
And then the creature shook its head violently, sending its mouthful of SUV spinning away into the night. I didn’t scream, because Pritkin didn’t go with it. Instead, he slung around in a large arc and then came trailing after us just like before, only this time without any sort of visible support.
“I didn’t know mages could levitate without a platform,” Fred said, his voice preternaturally calm.
“They can’t!”
“Then how’s he—Oh, I see.”
“See what?” I asked, heart in my throat. I couldn’t see anything—except the creature coming up fast, ponderous wings beating the air, great maw gaping for another bite. And then veering off at the last moment for no obvious reason.
“He’s using his shields like a rope.” Fred pointed up at the chewed-off floor, to where a faint glimmer of blue was wrapped around the drive train. “He must’ve slung it up here when he got close enough.”
I stared from the flimsy lifeline to Pritkin and back again, paralyzed by a fear that made my previous panic seem like nothing. Because no mage could project more than one shield at a time. And if Pritkin was using his like a rope, he wasn’t using it to protect himself.
The thought broke my panic fast enough to leave me dizzy. “Keys!” I screamed, grabbing Fred.
“What keys?”
“Our keys!”
“Car keys?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, I don’t know where those—” Fred said, before I threw him aside and lunged for the steering wheel.
The keys were still in the ignition. I ducked under the driver’s seat, forcing myself not to panic, but I was shaking so much, it took two hands to turn them. I mashed my hand to the overhead gas pedal, but for a long second, nothing happened, not even the ominous clicking of a dead battery or a flooded engine. Goddamnit, please—
And then it caught.
