All that took far less time to happen than it did to say, and then a blast hit the suitcase I was clutching hard enough to toss me back like a rag doll. I felt something scrape across my back and something else rip what felt like a chunk out of my scalp, and then I was tumbling end over end into almost pitch-darkness. Until my back hit a wall, hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs, to cost me my grip on my floating life preserver, and to send me tumbling to the floor.
My knees hit gravel and my hands hit steel and blood was cascading into my eyes and I couldn’t breathe. So it took me a second to realize that I’d been tossed back into the tunnel. But that somehow, I was still alive.
I had to be. Death didn’t hurt this much.
But I didn’t understand why until I looked up to see the Spartoi walking toward the next compartment as the train sped off. He didn’t bother to look back, didn’t even wait until I was safely out of sight before turning away. Like he hadn’t bothered to waste power disposing of me.
Blood trickled into my eyes as I sat there, understanding flooding me along with something that made my hands shake and my cheeks burn. Mircea had been a threat, and had been dealt with accordingly. But in the Spartoi’s eyes, I wasn’t worth pursuing. I wasn’t worth killing. I was just some minor nuisance to be taken care of on his way to murdering my mother, and I didn’t think so motherfucker.
I grabbed the suitcase and leaned forward, and the little platform shot ahead like a bat out of hell. Mircea grabbed me around the waist a second later, appearing out of the darkness and vaulting up behind me. He said a really filthy phrase in Romanian that I probably wasn’t supposed to know.
I couldn’t have agreed more.
The train had disappeared around a bend and we leaned left and followed, scooting around the corner at what had to be fifty miles an hour. We didn’t bother discussing a plan, because the plan was simple: find him; kill him. I actually wanted that bastard’s head more than the kidnapper’s, who at least didn’t appear to want my mother dead.
Right after we took out the goddamned Spartoi.
I leaned forward a little more, to the point that I risked tipping over, trying to milk every ounce of speed out of the spell. It should have been insanely frightening, rocketing into a pitch-dark tunnel with seemingly no end in sight, and no way to know if we were about to take a header into a wall. But apparently fear and fury don’t work together, because I didn’t feel anything but hurry, hurry, hurry thrumming through my veins and echoing in my ears, along with the growing rattle of the train up ahead.
And then light flooded the tunnel and we passed a station filled with people staring in the opposite direction, probably wondering why the hell the train had just barreled by without stopping. Or maybe they were wondering about something else. Because a couple of seconds later, we zipped into the tunnel’s mouth and almost ran into three figures streaking along ahead, barely discernable against the gloom.
It looked like the remaining Spartoi had arrived a little late to the party. But they were catching up fast, courtesy of some motor scooters they’d commandeered from somewhere and levitated. Two were on one and one was on another and they were tearing down the tunnel at a rate of speed that left them little more than blurs against the night.
I stared at them, horrified, because I’d just seen what one of these things could do. There was no way we could let three more get to that train. Just no way.
“Mircea—”
“I know. Get me close,” he said, like I had a choice. The damn tunnel was twelve, maybe thirteen feet across, and they were right in the middle of it. Which meant that anywhere I went was going to be close.
“Why?” I asked anyway.
And then we shot in between them, and I found out why.
Mircea savagely kicked the guy on one scooter, sending him crashing headfirst into the wall. And then he leaned over and kept him there, as we and the scooter and the guy shot ahead. Or, at least, most of the guy did. I was thankful that the headlight on the thing was jumping around, so that I didn’t get much more than a glimpse of the black streak left by his head as Mircea ruthlessly ground it into solid cement.
And then kicked him off and jumped on his scooter. The body went flying, tumbling back into darkness, and the scooter ricocheted away from the wall. And straight at the one driven by the other two guys.
It looks like caution is kaput for this round, I thought blankly.
But we’d had the advantage of surprise on the first attack, and we definitely didn’t now. One of the Spartoi jumped onto the front of Mircea’s scooter and then flung himself to the side, trying to tip him over. But Mircea flexed his thighs and stayed seated, which meant that they shot down the tube spinning sideways, over and over, as there was no inertia in midair to stop them.
I couldn’t help because the other Spartoi had spotted me and was right on my tail. I felt a bullet brush past my shoulder and another graze my thigh, leaving a line of searing pain all the way up to my hip. But it could have been worse—and probably would have been, but the suitcase steered like a wounded buffalo and was bouncing around all over the place.
But that wouldn’t help for long, and I didn’t have time to come up with something that might. Other than the definite impression that being the one in front was not a plus here. I pulled back on the suitcase, the Spartoi shot by me, and then I hurled myself ahead, getting right on his tail for a change.
The Spartoi spun, gun in hand, just as I aimed my bracelet at him and two ghostly daggers arrowed in his direction. They looked brighter than usual in the dim light, but had all of their usual enthusiasm for any kind of violence. I flung myself to the side to avoid any more bullets, so I didn’t see them land. But I did see the headlight from the scooter sling wildly around the tunnel, heard it crash into the wall, felt the heat when its engine decided “to hell with this” and exploded in a ball of orange fire.
I slowed down, the case turning in a wide arc as I stared at the flames licking up the side and roof of the tunnel. And felt vaguely sick. I hadn’t had a choice; I knew that. But it didn’t make me feel a hell of a lot better. I could count on one hand the number of lives I’d taken, and I wasn’t thrilled about increasing the number.
Only it looked like I hadn’t yet.
Because someone walked out of the flames, charred and burned and leaving blazing bits of himself behind on the tunnel floor. His clothes were mostly burnt off, his hair was on fire, his skin was cracked and charred and running, and fiery light was gleaming on the blood cascading down his body. But he was on his feet, acting like he didn’t even feel it.
And he was smiling.
Chapter Thirty-seven
I’d like to say that I planned what happened next, but I’d be lying. All I could think about was getting the hell out of there, but the Spartoi went for me at the same time. I started to turn back in the direction of the train, and he leapt in my path and grabbed the suitcase.
Although, in retrospect, that turned out to be okay, because the spell was a strong one and I was leaning forward with everything I had. And instead of stopping me, he was dragged along underneath, his feet making rhythmic bump, bump, bump sounds on the crossties.
At least, they did until a very alive-feeling hand gripped my thigh right over the bullet wound and I almost whitedout in pain. My body jerked and the scarred piece of luggage went shooting into the floor, hitting down hard and then scraping the Spartoi’s entire body across gravel.