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“You know who her mother was! There’s no telling what she’s capable—”
“Face facts! The council would rather see you dead than risk their precious necks! They won’t call off their guards until they’ve killed me—and anyone with me.”
Pritkin’s eyes focused on me with that last sentence, and I shook my head. Because I knew him. “No. No! I’m not leav—”
Which was as far as I got before he grabbed me and threw me off the rug—and into Caleb’s arms.
“Pritkin! Damn it—”
“Listen to me! I need you to find Casanova. Tell him to have his men—”
But I didn’t hear whatever he wanted Casanova to do. Because two very scary things happened at once. The crowd below gave a huge roar, like their favorite team had just scored a touchdown, and an almost solid sheet of scimitars came slicing through the air from the other side of the street.
I didn’t even have time to scream before I was eating carpet, with Caleb’s hand on my neck, holding me down. I saw Rosier pull a red-sheened blade out of his side, felt our carpet buck hard beneath me, heard Pritkin curse as he was jumped by the two guards who had just used us as a springboard. And then we were moving.
But not very fast. It looked like the spell was having problems, maybe because the Allû had practically hacked to pieces the platform it was trying to use. But despite the poor treatment, it didn’t look like they wanted it going anywhere.
We, on the other hand, were another matter.
Something smashed into my side, and for the second time in less than thirty seconds, I felt myself flying.
And Caleb couldn’t catch me this time.
Because he was right there with me.
But a second later, something did catch us, something I promptly fell off because it was the size of a smallish dish towel.
No, not a dish towel, I thought, as Caleb came rolling after me. I yelped and tried to make room for him on a carpet fragment the size of a single stair, only to fall again—onto another one. I looked up, and saw Pritkin hanging off the side of his carpet, Rosier and the Allû battling all around him, his hand outstretched and an intense frown of concentration on his face—
As he formed a staircase out of woolen fragments, in some case all of a foot wide.
And then Caleb fell into me again and we were rolling and bouncing and falling down four “flights,” with pieces of rug managing to catch us every time I was convinced we were about to run out.
And then I hit something with my face that was a lot harder than wool. And looked up to find Casanova staring down at me. And then snatching me up and flinging me to the side.
Right before an Allû crashed into the space where I’d been lying.
“Take it apart!” Casanova screamed, practically hysterical. And his men didn’t waste any time. But they were hotel security, not soldiers. They didn’t carry grenades or percussion bombs, and while somebody had thought to break out the handguns, they weren’t too useful against something with no internal organs.
I scrambled up and grabbed Casanova’s arm. “Pritkin wanted me to tell you something—”
Casanova swore. “I’d like to tell him something—”
“No, listen. I think it was about how to fight these things! And he ought to know. He used to have a golem once—remember? And they’re not that different!”
“Well, what is it?”
“That’s just it; I don’t know! We have to get somebody back up there—”
Casanova said something that looked pretty profane, but I couldn’t hear it. Because the crowd was really getting into it now. They screamed in mock terror as bullets riddled the fallen warrior, then yelled approval when it got back up, the neon glow from a nearby storefront streaming through the hundred or so holes in its body.
They were also pushing against the line of vamps Casanova had strung across the street, which would have been okay. Since there was no way they were breaking through that. But then the warrior sent a group of security who tried to rush him crashing back into their buddies, and opened up gaps that the crowd started to surge through.
“Push them back, push them back, push them ba—” Casanova was yelling, before he got backhanded, too.
I saw his men stare at him fearfully, unable to help and control the crowd at the same time. I saw him sail through the air and hit a wall. I grabbed a gun off a nearby vamp and scrambled after him, because I didn’t see the Allû—
Until I was suddenly on my back again, with a blank bronze face staring into mine.
