Jane grunted. The sound was weirdly cat-like, and I got the nervous feeling I probably should have shut up about fifteen words earlier. Instead, I rushed on, answering her question. “Witches, yeah. Shamans, obviously. Sorcerers. The occasional demon. Gods of various sizes.”
“Gods?”
I wet my lips. “I take it you don’t truck with them. That’s probably just as well. Probably that means whatever’s down there,” I said with a nod toward the frothing light of doom, “is coming from something that meets us in the middle. Witches. Shamans.” Except I didn’t have vampires, which probably meant we were already in over my head. I didn’t see the need to mention that just yet.
Jane jerked her head in a way that might have meant “Probably” or it might have meant “Stop wasting time, let’s get a move on.” The latter interpretation was buoyed by her turning on her heel and leading the way forward again. “Come on, Dorothy. Let’s see what Big Bad Uglies this world has to offer us.”
I let her take point again. This was her city more than mine, assuming it was anybody’s city at all, tonight. She did the head-jerk thing again, pointing left. “That used to be a jewelry store. Yesterday. And that was an art gallery, not a restaurant. Not my world, not anymore.”
Her words sent more creepies down my spine. Around us, party-goers, some in feathered masks, danced, screamed, showed their breasts in return for a twenty-five-cent strand of beads, drank, vomited on the sidewalks, and swayed into and out of danger of collision like zombies. I took a moment to make sure they weren’t zombies, and came away satisfied they were just stoned. The smell of marijuana was ripe on the air, and mixed with the other scents it was both heady and rank.
Not as rank, though, as a rotted-meat stench that didn’t so much waft as thunder down the street. I automatically held my breath, and somehow the smell got worse, burning my eyes with its power. I coughed, wiped my eyes, and glanced over peoples’ heads in search of the smell’s source.
Sadly, it wasn’t all that hard to find. Something taller than we were was coming up on our right, and I say something, not someone, because it had horns. I knew at least one guy with horns, and he was a someone, but this fellow also had gills. And scales. And a spreading hood, like velociraptors had. A demon velociraptor. Great. I’d gotten yanked into another world where vampires were real and demon velociraptors stalked the streets. Not just demon velociraptors, but demon velociraptors who hadn’t had a fashion update since the 1980s, because the thing’s flared hood was streaked in vibrant neon shades of red, green, blue, and yellow.
It saw us at the same time we saw it.
The smell was coming from it. Whatever it was. It stank of brimstone, rotten meat and the worst body odor I’d ever encountered. Yet the partying crowd didn’t seem to notice, just opened a space in front of him. It. And closed behind, never noticing the stench or the creature bearing it. I drew an eighteen inch vamp-killer with my left hand and pulled the M4 with my right. It was loaded for vamp with silver fléchette rounds, but if I got in a neck shot, it would kill most anything. If I could do that without collateral damage. Killing civilians was not in my contract or my moral code.
Joanne glanced my way, then glanced again, eyes popping. “Jesus Christ, you got a carry and conceal for that thing? You can’t start shooting here, we’re in the middle of Mardi Gras, for God’s sake!”
There was a big ugly monster coming our way and she was worried about me shooting people. Really worried, apparently, because the gold in her eyes started blazing, and even more bizarrely, her hands started to glow. Gunpowder blue, that silver-steely blue color that looks a little dangerous just by itself, nevermind with a pissed-off magic user standing behind it. “You got a better idea?”
“Yes. Just . . .” She eyed my M4 again. “Just don’t do anything rash.” Then she muttered, “I hate doing this around people,” and raised her steel-blue hands into the air.
Magic rippled out from her, visible shields that slithered between people and pushed them to the side, clearing a path between me and the big bad ugly. People did notice that, grunting and swearing and cooing as they got shoved up against one another, and some of the more-stoned ones started ooohing and aaahing at the light show.
For about half a second it looked like a great idea. I had a clear shot, no civilians were going to get hurt.
Then the stench-ridden monster realized he had a clear path to us. His legs bent and he leaped right at us.
Time did that little slow-down phenomenon it does when everything is going into the crapper. The thing was in the air. Coming straight down at us. Bellowing.
The BBU didn’t even look at my gun. Didn’t even look at me. He was focused on Joanne and the pretty sparklies she was drawing up from . . . wherever. Witch/shaman crap. His hood did this weird thing where it just rippled. Hard. Like a canvas sail in the wind. He dropped, his bellow going up in pitch, a scream of victory as he fell.
Joanne turned a shade of pale girls with our complexions shouldn’t be able to achieve, and ducked sideways. Her shields wavered, party-goers pressing against them. I caught a glimpse of indecision on her face. Then the shields failed and half of New Orleans started closing in on us again.
My heart stuttered. I dropped and rolled, elbow and knee hitting the pavement hard, letting gravity and momentum pull me under the thing. I adjusted the M4, the stock against the pavement. Aimed at his underbelly and his privates, if he had any under the Speedo he was wearing, and fired. The M4 slammed back into me. Boom, boom, boom. Six shots, so fast the concussive reports became only three. And the silver fléchettes punched holes into him. His scream went from victory to agony. And rage. Which couldn’t be good.
I continued the roll. He landed. Just in front of me, between Joanne and me. I felt more than heard Joanne and him doing something. Fighting. Blue light exploded out. I came to my knee, one foot and hand braced.
Humans were running, screaming. The scent of panic filled the air, overriding even Stinky’s stench. There was blood on the pavement. From the reek, it was his, not Joanne’s, but I couldn’t see her. I slammed the Benelli back into its harness across my back. Pulled the nine mil and my favorite vamp killer, the carved elkhorn handle secure in my grip.
A little flash of silver landed between Stinky’s feet. Huge cloven hooves, like a Pan-god or a bull gone totally wrong. I stared at them, and at the silver falling between them, for maybe half a breath. My ears were ruined by the shotgun and the roar of humans everywhere. But I knew what a fléchette looked like, even after it had been blunted and damaged by being fired into something hard. Really hard. Dozens of others followed. The thing was healing itself in fast forward. Stinky wasn’t allergic to silver. This was so not gonna be good.
I finally got a glimpse of Joanne again, scrambling to her feet behind Stinky. She had a four foot long rapier in one hand and an expression of total dismay on her face. Then her lip curled and she flung her other hand out. A net, a freaking steel blue net of magic, flew out and wrapped around Stinky’s head. She yanked, maybe trying to pull him off-balance. It didn’t, but it did get his attention. Stinky spun around and Joanne took off as fast as her combat boots could carry her. Stinky followed. I could feel his feet hitting the earth beneath my knee. I shoved upright, into a dead run, pulling on Beast-speed.
Jo raced onto Dumaine Street at Royal, and the small white house with gray shutters that had been there in my world, was gone. Instead there was new construction, a three-story, half-finished place, narrow but deep. I caught the old sour stink of fire, and understood instantly that the quaint house had burned, and maybe other buildings beside. Jo spun toward the new building. Another net spat out, this one tinged red to my human sight and gray to Beast’s. It hit the door with an almost audible spat. A hard pull, and the door flew outward. Joanne ducked and the door sailed over her head to catch Stinky in the teeth. He wrenched his head back. Blood flew and maybe a tooth.
It only slowed him down for a second. Long enough for me to see that the space where the door had been was now a doorway blacker than the entrance to hell. And Jo, still armed with the sword—where had she gotten a sword?—raced inside. I watched Stinky shake off the effects of the door even while his blood still splattered onto the pavement. Spitting splinters, he dove through the doorway into the dark. Swallowed up by the night within.
Empty, Beast murmured into my back-brain. No humans here now.
I looked around at the suddenly-empty street. Not liking this one bit, flying by the seat of my pants again, I followed. One step into the dark and pain hit me like a bus. I stumbled to my knees, agony ripping through my bones. Gray light, brighter than the dark around me shot out. “Oh, crap . . .”
