I strode toward her. “I don’t think so,” I said, pulling a classic bully move—ankle behind the calf, hard shove that took her to the ground. Except I hung my arm out there a little too long. It gave her time to grab hold, pull me off balance, and flip me over onto my back. Remembering how lethal her hand-to-hand fighting skills had shown themselves to be during the yacht massacre, I quickly rolled to my feet. The wound had slowed her some. She’d only just made it to vertical herself.
I moved in fast, aiming multiple kicks at that bleeding midsection, hoping to weaken her more. She blocked every one.
Having seen her style, I expected a counterattack of such blinding speed that all thought would be suspended in the simple act of survival. But the wound had taken its toll on her aggression as well. She came at me with one arm down, guarding her stomach. The other snaked out, stabbing at my throat.
I dodged the blow, landing one of my own in the middle of her chest, which staggered her. Closing in, I tried to take her down again, but she backed me up with a series of low kicks, a couple of which landed square enough to leave my shins black-and-blue for days.
I faked a kick to her abdomen and she dropped her arm, leaving her head wide open. So I pulled the kick and powered it upward, landing it just above her right eye.
She dropped to her knees.
Vayl came to my side. “She’s all yours,” I said.
“Actually, I think Bergman has taken care of her,” he replied.
I peered down at her. The skin had begun to peel off her hands, neck, and face in thin, curling strips. Heat built inside her quickly after that, so fast I could feel it blasting from her, as if I was standing too close to a bonfire.
We backed off as steam rose from her body. It soon became a torrent of smoke that bubbled and blackened along with her skin. Her hair and clothes finally caught fire, and I heard a couple of kids say, “Hey, check that out!”
Vayl caught them before they’d stepped more than a foot off the path. “Go home,” he said grimly. They turned tail and went.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
As we hurried away from Pengfei’s smoking remains I said, “Cole?”
His voice boomed in my ear, loud, low, and excited. “Just got off the phone with Jericho. The evacuation has started. He said the bomb squad may be able to contain the blast some, but it’ll still be big.”
“Okay. Tell them we’re going to put a great big mark on the camper that’s wired. They won’t be able to find the bomb. Tell them not to waste time trying; it’s magically concealed. But at least they’ll know its location.” Who knew, maybe they’d be able to blanket the place with some sort of retardant. As I recalled, it wasn’t that big. At least if it was the one we’d inspected earlier. And I knew it was. What a crock of crap. We’d looked all over the thing without once realizing we were staring straight at the bomb. A thought occurred to me. “Uh, would you move the RV again? If that sucker gets damaged Pete will be twitching well into the next decade.”
“Sure.”
Vayl touched my arm. Even now, with everything behind us and all we were about to go through, that light stroke of fingers on skin fired my attention. “Yes?” I said, working to keep my voice level.
“Our time is limited. I will go mark the camper. You find Lung.”
Without even a “See ya later, alligator” he was gone. As I strode toward the main path I thought,This is going to be harder now. Lung’s in the crowd that’s being herded toward the building exits. He knows they’ve been compromised. What am I supposed to tell him? What would he believe?
I’d reached the Acrobats’ Arena. Wide-eyed people came pouring out of the main entrance, clutching each other and their children, talking in high voices, many of them crying. But nobody was screaming. Nobody had broken into a run. Credit the off-duty SWAT guys who flanked the exit and the path and who I could hear inside the building, speaking in calm, authoritative voices.
I tried to sense Lung among that mass of humanity. He shouldn’t be that hard to pick out. I recalled the scene in our tent, just before it burned. What was his scent like again? Wait, I was still wearing the medallion. Then I realized it didn’t matter.
“This is bad,” I muttered.
Vayl, hearing me through his earpiece, asked, “Is the crowd out of control?”
“They’re okay. I’m not. It’s Lung. Vayl, I never scented him. Not once. It was always Pengfei or the other vamps around him, but never him. The armor covers it up. I haven’t seen him yet, and if I can’t pick him out of this crowd, I have no way to find him. Wait a second. Something’s happening around back.”
I ran behind the building, led by the sound of a woman shouting and crying. I rushed forward when I recognized Xia Ge struggling in her husband’s arms. “Ge!” I said. “What’s wrong?”
She took one wide-eyed look at me, screamed, and passed out. That was when I remembered I still looked like Pengfei.
I leaned in close to Shao. “Dude, it’s me, Lucille Robinson. What happened?”
Poor Shao looked half dead himself, but he managed to say, “Chien-Lung is kidnap Lai.”
“How?”
“Lai strap in stroller. Ge sitting in front row, watching show. When evacuation begin she going out acrobats’ exit. That where Chien-Lung strike her down and take Lai away.”
“Where’d he go?”
Shao pointed back toward the marina.
I squeezed Shao’s arm. “I’m going after him, Shao.” I wished I could promise to bring his baby back. But both of us knew we didn’t live in that kind of world.
I took off after Lung. “Cole, I want you out looking too,” I said. “Not confronting, just looking.”
“I’m on it!” he replied.
Vayl said, “I am inside the camper trying to find something to mark it with, but I will be with you shortly.”
“Try mustard,” I suggested.
“Ahh.”
“It shouldn’t be that hard to find the guy,” I told them. “How many Chinese men wearing gold robes pushing baby strollers do you see on a daily basis?”
“None,” Cole replied. “But people are starting to trickle into the parking lot where I’m standing. I’ve got a pretty good view down the path behind them too, and the thing is, I’m not seeing any now either.”
What the hell? He should be sticking out like Santa Claus on a nude beach!
“Maybe he has the chameleon’s ability to blend in,” suggested Vayl.
Bergman’s voice came tight and shaking over our earpieces. “Listen, when we put the armor on certain animals theywere able to blend in with their surroundings. And these were mammals whose coats did not typically change colors with the seasons. It could be that he’s ditched the robes and the armor itself has become his disguise.”
Shit. Part of me just wanted to sit down on that dirty path along with the discarded candy wrappers, soda straws, bits of popcorn, and wads of tasteless gum and give the hell up. You think you’re almost to the top of that bastard of a mountain. You’ve killed the Empress of Doom. Saved the innocents. Staved off world war. And then some psycho dragon wannabe makes off with the second most adorable infant on earth,and he might as well be invisible. What the hell iswith that?
But I kept moving, kept studying faces, kept following the path. Then I heard it. Not clearly, but not distant either.
I couldn’t run. Not unless I wanted to start a stampede. But I picked up the pace big-time. Took that path nearly to the marina and then stopped again to listen. Above the babble of scared voices, crying children, and stern cop voices shouting directions, a baby screamed.
I said, “Guys, I spent enough time with E.J. to know the kid I hear crying right now is not hungry, wet, or tired. That is a freaked-out baby who wants his mommy.”