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Rath’s hand dove for the pistol.
Evan drew, the magnetic buttons parting so the shirt flapped wide, his barrel coming level. He shot Rath through the gut.
Rath’s muzzle hadn’t even cleared leather.
Evan felt the fabric ripple inward around him, and then the buttons found their mates with a metallic clink, his shirt zipping up around him as if nothing had ever happened. A curl of powdered smoke twisted up before him, and Evan thought that even if he didn’t want tobean archetype, he sure as hell didn’t mind acting like one from time to time.
Rath was gripping the glittering mess beneath his ribs. He managed to clench the gun weakly and lift it just enough for it to tumble out of the holster onto the floor, and then Evan kicked it.
It skittered across the marble, spinning.
Rath dropped to his knees, stopped there a moment, then fell onto his face with a pained grunt.
Evan said quietly, “Now, please.”
That tough feminine voice came over his radio. “Your wish is my command.”
Joey cut the Lutron light switches, and Tartarus fell to darkness.
59
An Infinity of X’s
Rath started dragging himself elbow over elbow across the foyer in the direction of his gun, emitting pained slaughterhouse grunts.
The others fired in the darkness, a stupidity that Evan had assumed would have been trained out of them.
But panic was running high.
Boots stomping this way and that, Gordo’s labored breathing, the stink of Dapper Dan’s cologne in the air. From the second floor, Tenpenny was shouting instructions that made little tactical sense, his voice ratcheted squeaky-high with excitement. “Gordo, Sandman—deploy! Dan, get to Devine. I’ll run command in the surveillance room.”
A cacophony of voices answered: “—power’s cut, you pussy, thereisno surveillance—”
“—the hell is he?”
“Rath? Jesus, Rath, you okay?”
“No cross fire! Hang on, no cross fire!”
Another two pops telegraphed Dan’s location over by the waterfall.
Night vision was coming on, shadows within shadows, the men sprinting around. A woman screamed somewhere deep in the house, a side door swinging open as the staff fled. Outdoor light filtering through several doorways managed to spill into the foyer, enough to cast elongated shadows across the marble.
There was no sign of Evan.
Gordo had circled through the kitchen, Santos was nowhere to be seen, and Tenpenny seemed to be hiding somewhere above, perhaps in the scarlet room. Rath grunted and groaned, hauling himself inch by inch with his forearms, leaving a snail trail of crimson.
Dan moved slowly across the face of the waterfall, setting down his feet with care though the soporific rush covered the sound of his boots. He had a firm two-handed grip on his pistol, arms directly in line with the barrel of the firearm, elbows slightly bent, a perfect balance of tension and flexibility.
It was tactically sound and looked good. Both were of equal consequence to Dan.
In fact, he paused a moment in the dimness to admire his shadowy mirror image in the wall of water to his side.
And then something bizarre happened.
The cheek of his reflection disappeared, a neat streak of darkness opening up beneath it.
He blinked twice as a floating eye appeared in the blackness behind the waterfall, right where his own reflected eye should have been. The gears of his mind turned and turned and finally clicked: A blade had been jabbed through the water and turned on its side to open up the strip beneath.
