Dr. Okimba’s round fat face was shimmering, running, changing. Into Tom Weathers.
And Noel was on fire. A quick glance revealed the flames dancing across his tuxedo jacket. He needed to get the fuck out of here, but he didn’t want to transform into Lilith in front of half the world’s media. Ripping off his jacket, he grabbed a glass of bourbon from a man’s hand and tossed it on the flames. They roared up greedily, consuming the alcohol. Noel whipped the coat into the face of an oncoming Leopard Man.
All around him people were shouting and guns were appearing, the muzzles like small dark mouths ready to spit death. Weathers was coming after him. Apparently incinerating Noel was not going to be enough. Weathers wanted his hands on him.
Noel seized a champagne bottle out of an ice bucket. He placed his finger over the top, shook it hard, and sent the resulting fountain of bubbly into Weathers’s face. As the Radical roared and cursed, Noel danced away from him, grabbed Prince Siraj by the back of his tuxedo jacket, and pulled him off his feet, out of the line of fire. Siraj landed hard on his back on the marble floor. The fire alarms were howling, and the sprinklers sprang to life. Water pattered onto Noel’s body. He kicked off his shoes. The force of the fall had driven the breath from Siraj’s lungs. He lay gasping in the center of the floor.
Fortunately, in addition to being hard, the marble was slick. More so now that it was wet. Noel tangled his fingers in Siraj’s collar and dragged the winded leader behind him beneath a banqueting table. “Stay down,” he hissed.
“Fuck!” Tom yelled in pain and anger. His eyes stung from the champagne, and the green insects were all over him. Each sting felt as if a hot needle had been plunged into his flesh.
He wreathed a hand in fire and slapped himself where he felt the insects crawling, then loosed another blast of flame at those buzzing around his head. Wasps fell to the floor like crisp black snowflakes, along with a few hapless bystanders. It didn’t help. The wasps kept coming. Tom went insubstantial, moved from the green cloud of pain. Then he phased back in and flamed them.
He became aware of his Leopard Man detail fighting to keep his back clear. Alicia’s pets had shape-shifted; those who couldn’t scythed bullets from Micro UZI and Beretta 93 machine pistols. Screams erupted from the crowd.
Pivoting widdershins, Tom jetted flame from his left palm. An operator from the home-team Service de Protection des Hautes Personnalites had jammed a hand inside his suit coat. The man shrieked as a plasma burst lit him up. He fell to the shiny floor, dead on the instant. The cartridges in whatever handgun he’d been going for cooked off like a string of fireworks.
Something heavy hit Tom on the back. His chin cracked against the polished concrete floor. White sparks shot through his brain. Pain ripped into his left shoulder, accompanied by rank animal smell and guttural growling. Rough fur rasped his left ear.
Tom got palms on smooth concrete and thrust upward hard. Although whatever the hell was gnawing on him weighed as much as a big man, Tom’s superhuman strength snapped him upright. Reaching back with his right hand he grabbed a handful of coarse fur and muscle like wound steel wire. The jaws clamping his trapezius slackened. The beast squealed as Tom dug fingers in.
He found himself holding a huge black wolf by the scruff like a naughty puppy. It twisted in his grip, snarling, trying to bite. Bloody drool trailed from its jaws. Shreds of Tom’s muscle dangled from its teeth.
“ Fuck you.” Turning quickly, he flung the wolf up and away with all his ace strength. The creature shot up and hit one of the metal braces that made up the pyramidal roof. It howled as head and hindquarters shattered the tough glass-laminate panels on either side of the strut. Limp, the beast plummeted. What hit the floor with a sodden thump was a naked dude.
“Garou!” he heard somebody shout.
“I fucking hate shape-shifters,” Tom said.
SPHP types hustled screaming attendees out the door. Others aimed guns at him. He took flight and laughed as they ripped each other with full-auto bursts. A couple went down. Another staggered backward, screaming into the mouth of a leopard that was biting his face and raking his guts out onto his Armani shoes with black hind legs.
The Radical torched a couple more pigs, then touched down as their buddies booked. Even brave men weren’t eager to tangle with somebody who could fly, toss you like a Frisbee, and set your ass on fire. He swiveled his head, searching chaos for Noel. The sneaky little shit needed badly to be burning.
Bullets flew overhead. A woman screamed in agony, and flames splashed across a stone pillar.
The long drape of the tablecloth hid them. But there was an itch between Noel’s shoulder blades. The flatware and the mahogany table were not going to stop one of Tom Weathers’s plasma blasts.
And indeed a second table, about three feet to their right, blew to pieces. A long splinter flew into Siraj’s leg. The prince shrieked, grabbed his calf. His hands turned red as blood pumped between his fingers.
There was no time for first aid. The room reeked of smoke and blood. Noel was nearly deafened. The screams and shouts that filled the room seemed to be coming through cotton batting. Noel needed Lilith. Needed her now.
He put the fear in a little box and set it aside. He did the same with his thoughts of Niobe. Noel concentrated, and felt his body begin to shift. Then the table was flung over revealing them like bugs under a rock. China, crystal, and flatware ware clattered all around them.
It was one of the Leopard Men, grinning, enjoying the moment. The closest thing to hand was a fish fork. Noel snatched it up, rolled, and came to his feet. Only inches separated them. Noel could feel the man’s breath, warm and liquor-laden, on his face. He drove the small fork deep into the man’s eye, and gave it one final slap that left it lodged in his cerebral cortex.
Never gloat, he thought… and heeding his own advice he finished the transition to Lilith, grabbed the writhing Prince Siraj, and got the hell out of Paris.
The woman with Prince Siraj was pale as ice, with raven hair cascading down her back. Her eyes were silver. Lilith. Hot sweaty nights in Africa flashed through Tom’s memory.
All the time I was fucking her, she was fucking me. Well, now I’m going to fuck her up. Payback’s a bitch, bitch.
But no sooner had he seen her than she was gone, and Siraj with her. Tom roared and loosed a sunburst at the place where they’d been standing. The heat bubbled paint on the walls and made the lights explode. Connections clicked in place in his mind: The golden-eyed man-the silver-eyed woman-they’re both Matthews!
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” a voice said in a German accent you could spread mustard on.
Lohengrin. Tom whirled, and showed him teeth.
And suddenly the big guy was encased in plate armor that glowed a soft white. On his arm a shield, in his hand a broadsword, on his breastplate the Grail. A winged helmet covered his entire head.
“If it isn’t Heinrich Himmler’s wet dream,” said Tom. “Well, you’re broiled bratwurst now.” He raised his hand and gave the German a blast of flame. It hit the shining shield. And splashed.
Even Tom’s faster-than-normal speed wasn’t enough to get him fully clear of the whistling sword stroke as Lohengrin stepped forward. He winced as the glowing blade laid his left cheek open, and came back with a full-power palm-heel shot to the middle of the shield.
The knight flew back, bowling over aces, nat security, and Leopard Men in human and leopard form. Lohengrin hit a wall. The wall lost. He slumped down from a sort of vertical crater. Tom saw a leopard snatched off the floor and into the air by what looked suspiciously like a long, pink tongue. Fucking Buford, he thought. Then something erupted through the floor right beneath his feet, knocking him up and over. He hit hard on his ass, jarring his whole spine. A dark form hovered over Tom. Burrowing Owl. Those were wings, outspread now, though they didn’t flap. The Belgian ace folded them and dove helmet-first at Tom.