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Then one of the heavy chrome bar stools slammed into his shoulders and head like a cannonball.
It knocked him sideways with swift and hard and decisive force. The grin was still on his mug as he hit the inside wall and slithered down, stunned.
The stool clattered metallically on the hall floor, and the door closed again.
I scrambled over to get his gun, but he was in no shape to notice.
My panic-driven strength fled, leaving behind a terrible and mounting exhaustion. I pulled more damned splinters from my skin. Daggers, hell, they were like hot needles, or maybe it was the damned bullet holes that tore another breathless scream from me.
But the instant I dragged a finger-long shard clear, that comforting gray nothingness swept me into a soft, painless haven.
It takes only a moment to heal, and then I’m all right.
Physically.
The rest of it, the recovery that may or may not come when you have to face the ghastly fact that another two-legged predator has tried to remove you from life, takes longer. Much longer. You wonder what’s worse, someone murdering you in the heat of rage or coldly blotting you out simply because it makes things easier for his own nonstop and futile strivings to continue.
And I was no better; I had murdered as well. My reasons seemed good enough at the time, but it is a certainty none of them would have convinced my victims.
Maybe it’s the ones who don’t have a reason that sickens you the most. They carry a darkness that no one can understand. You ask why and get a shrug, and it is the truth. They don’t know themselves.
Desanctis, though, knew exactly what he was doing.
Bastards like him leave behind damage that can’t be stitched up by a doctor or even a supernatural edge. Parts of my soul were still in tatters from my murder two years ago.
But I can forget that when I’m like this, a ghost but not a ghost.
It is so good to be free of a solid body, free of gravity, free of outraged nerve endings, responsibilities, homicidal lunatics, dames in distress, and all the other insane annoyances associated with the farce of living. One of these nights I would vanish and never come back.
But not tonight. I had to get help for Foxtrot. The men who came with Desanctis might be in on things with him. Emma had to be taken somewhere safe. . . .
Solid again and on my feet, I started for the door, but it was yanked open, and by great good fortune for us both, I did not blow a hole in Shamus Riordan’s head.
He gaped and pulled back, startled by something other than the gun I’d taken, probably the look on my face. It could not have been reassuring.
Thankfully he was at the wrong angle to see the mirrors, though he did finally become aware of Desanctis and Foxtrot.
“What a riot you’ve had, Jacky-lad. Where’d they get you?”
“It’s not my blood.” I could hear the fast pounding of his heart. I shouldn’t be noticing things like that, but hunger sharpened my already excellent senses. Lingering adrenaline would keep me going for a little while, but I’d have to replace what the bullets had taken, and soon. Tunnel vision would come next, then— “What’d you say?”
“Are they dead?” Riordan asked, his voice louder.
“Not yet.”
“Where’s that girl?”
“Emma’s gone?” I asked stupidly.
“She’s with me mates. I meant the other girl.”
My brain began working. I was in a mood to accept the uncanny. “You didn’t throw that bar stool, did you?”
“Now why would I bother when I’ve a perfectly good shooter?”
True. He held a pipsqueak .22 semiauto, the kind that requires good aim and doesn’t make a lot of noise.
“You saw a girl?”
