Anastasia finally released his ear, and he rubbed it resentfully. His mind still felt sluggish and overwhelmed, and every time Emily came up his thoughts went around in circles. He remembered her disintegrating into water in his arms, and then, before he could even begin to register her loss, rising back up from a pool of water in the corner of the room, and he felt strangely sleepy, as if he could slip right back into the fugue he’d been in since. And that, he knew, was the only thing he couldn’t allow himself to do.
“Okay,” Alex said guardedly. “Okay, I’ll do it. But if anything happens to Eerie before I can get to her, then I’m holding you responsible.”
To his surprise, Anastasia looked at him evenly and nodded, then took a compact mirror from somewhere and started dabbing her face with a tiny sponge.
“I really couldn’t care less,” Anastasia said curtly. “Katya should be here any moment. Oh, and Alex? One more thing. None of this,” she said, motioning to take in the scene around her, where her sisters had been, where she had nursed Alex back to consciousness, her own smudged makeup that she had already begun to repair in a handy mirror, “is to be spoken of, ever again. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, nodding. “I’d rather not, honestly.”
Her shoulders stiffened, and he thought for a moment that he had made her angry again. Then Anastasia turned around, smiled, and patted his head as if he were a well-behaved child.
“Good boy,” she said approvingly, turning back to the mirror. “In return, I promise that Eerie won’t find out what you did with Emily. Not from me or mine, that is.”
Anastasia snapped her compact closed and walked off, looking cold and firmly in control again. He felt better with her that way, at least when things were like this. It seemed important that someone knew what was going on. He could only hope that she was on their side.
All of a sudden, Alex understood why so many people decided that whichever side Anastasia chose was the right side.
“Hey, Anastasia,” he said on impulse. “Do we still have a chance?”
Anastasia sauntered back over in her torn slip, the ribbon in her hair out of kilter, her mouth curved into the hint of a smile, her eyes implying that it was at his expense. The effect was only slightly spoiled by how much she had to crane her neck to look up at him.
“Don’t be a fool, boy,” she chided. “This game is hardly over. I haven’t even started to play yet.”
“Alright,” Chris said, apparently finally tiring of the sound of his own voice, or, more likely, his audience. “Martin, put Alice to sleep and call for Tomas, so that we can move her. Leigh, Kim, go ahead and take care of the other two.”
Kim, who Mitsuru figured for a Korean from his features, approached where she was sprawled. He wasn't cautious, so he must have figured Leigh had put her down hard earlier, so much so that he wasn’t worried about her now. She kept her head down as he approached, her hands hidden beneath her body, her guns cocked, a ballistics protocol feeding her information about what she couldn’t see.
“Hey Leigh,” he called out, in accent that that confirmed her suspicions. “Do you know who this one is? Or what it is that she does?”
“No,” Mitsuru heard the girl say, her voice devoid of interest. “Why do you care?”
“Well, I thought it would be better to know, that’s all.”
Mitsuru’s body screamed in protest as she forced it into motion. She rolled and twisted, firing as she rolled. She gave him both guns. She didn’t need to, not in a strictly practical sense. But she found it very gratifying on a personal level. Of course, that meant she couldn’t put one gun on Leigh, who her ballistics protocol had located via acoustic analysis, warning her that she was headed toward her and accelerating rapidly, but she didn’t think that it made much difference. She made it to her feet before Kim hit the ground, and spun toward the vampire girl, hoping to get off a shot or two before they collided…
There was no such time. She was only feet away, and moving so fast that all Mitsuru could hope to do was get her arms in the way of the kick that otherwise might literally take her head off. Then, at the last possible moment, her implant hummed into impossible life, a protocol downloading and activating without any input from her. She watched in amazement as viral command text scrolled down the side of her vision in alien, golden letters.
Leigh’s kick landed. Then it bounced off, without even touching Mitsuru’s already broken arm, sparks trailing the girl’s leg from where it had impacted against the localized barrier that somehow shielded Mitsuru’s arms.
Um, hello, Miss Aoki.
Leigh was looking at her in shock. Mitsuru took the opportunity to open fire. While bullets might not have been able to kill the vampire, they must still have hurt, because she ran, moving for nearby cover. Mitsuru couldn’t place the voice in her head at first.
Eerie?
Yes?
Mitsuru continued firing one pistol while she slid the clip out of the other, pulling another from her belt and loading it against her thigh.
When did you become a telepath?
I’m not. I mean, I didn’t. I’m using the network, Miss Aoki. I’m using your implant as a relay. Sorry I had to take control like that, but, well, I think maybe that girl is trying to kill you.
Leigh rounded the corner faster than she thought possible, weaving and accelerating so that Mitsuru couldn’t get a decent shot off. She threw the guns aside in disgust and reached for her knife.
Never mind that. Can you do it again?
Sure! I wrote the protocol myself, you know. I call it Point-Barrier, and…
Mitsuru saw Leigh’s punch coming and crossed her arms in front of her face, figuring that Eerie was too caught up in describing the wonders of her protocol to activate it, but she was wrong. The vampire’s punch was no more effective than her first strike, glancing off the golden barrier that separated them, trailing sparks in the wake of her arm. Figuring that was about as certain as she could expect to be, Mitsuru leapt for Leigh, knife in hand.
Can you keep defending me long enough for me to put her down?
Well, I can try, but it’s hard, you know, and anyway…
She didn’t have time for the rest of Eerie’s warning. She was already up close. She kicked Leigh in the leg, right in the ankle she was pivoting on, and it wasn’t quite kicking stone, but it was close. It must have hurt on her end, too, because she tripped and fell. Mitsuru followed her down, the knife gripped in both hands, aimed for the upper back, below the shoulder blade. Leigh rolled, but Mitsuru had anticipated that, and made sure that her elbow fell right where Leigh’s face was. Again, Mitsuru wasn’t sure whom it hurt more, but on the other hand, it definitely hurt Leigh. Mitsuru snaked her legs around Leigh’s middle for grip and leverage, and then swung the knife for her throat.
Leigh’s punch was stopped by the point-barrier, but apparently she had gotten tired of that happening, because she allowed the knife to sink into the meat of her shoulder so that she could get a grip on Mitsuru’s shoulder and right arm. Mitsuru tried to shift, tried to lock her legs for better purchase, but the girl was too strong. She peeled Mitsuru off her like gum off the sidewalk and then hurled her, casually, into a wall almost thirty feet away, Mitsuru’s shoulder separating painfully on impact. If it hadn’t been for Eerie’s barrier, Mitsuru suspected the impact might have killed her. Judging from the information her ballistics protocol was feeding her, she had a few seconds before Leigh arrived, and made that a certainty.
Miss Aoki? I don’t think it’s enough… she’s getting stronger or something. Her next shot might actually get through. However, there is… something else I can do.