broken pallets and snow-covered cardboard. Cloud opened a metal door. Beyond it was a dingy corridor, another door, and then space.
The building had been a shopping center, three or four levels connected by escalators, ramps, glass elevators; aisles and balconies lined with bookshops, record stores, fashion and shoe and jewelry stores. All the retail spaces were dark and empty 7, deserted or smashed in, with a litter of broken-heeled shoes and split-spined books here and there in passing. Snow filtered through broken skylights, down the open spaces between floors, and the greenery in the balcony planters had been overtaken by coarse wild vines with leaves like lizard scales.
Patrise was leading McCain and Stagger Lee across a stretch of mildewed carpet. More of his people were following at a distance. Doc and Cloud closed with them.
Stagger was holding a box of some heavy gray metal, perhaps lead, that had copper-colored rods protruding from each face. It was making a soft, high-pitched squealing that shifted tone as he twiddled and slid the rods.
'There,' Stagger said, and there was a burst of red light from overhead. Voices, elf and human, screeched, and halt'a do/en pco pie came running from one of the second-level shopfronts. Two were Silverlords in padded gray leather, jacket and jeans, jacket and zippered skirt; the rest were humans of one sort or other.
McCain raised his Colts, fired from both hands. A human-a Loop Garou, Doc guessed-was hit in mid-leap and fell hard; the other shot brought the male elf down in a heap nearby. The Sil-verlord woman vaulted the railing, landed fifteen feet below in a snap roll, came up holding two long blades. McCain took aim.
There was a flicker of light behind the glass of one of the storefronts. Then the doors blew out.
Lieutenant Linn stepped through, light streaking out behind him. Lt. Rico came after, in a heavy dark-blue jacket with web straps and pouch pockets. It said POLICE in big reflective letters. She carried what looked like a midget Gatling gun in black metal.
The Silverlord spun to face them, leveling her blades.
Rico's gun coughed and spat a burst of vapor, and a six-inch metal arrow stuck in the floor between the Blood's shoes. The multiple barrels rotated with a click.
'Everybody,' Rico said, 'coolit'
Patrise said aloud, 'It's a big stadium, plenty of room for everyone to play,' and quietly to the people near him, 'Diffuse. Stay in touch, but spread out. Hallow, stick to Cloudhunter.'
Rico said, 'I don't think you're receiving me, Little Caesar. Nobody is doing any more playing.'
One of the Silverlords' people above popped up with an automatic rifle; he sprayed half a dozen rounds in the general direction of everybody else alive. People scattered; Lt. Rico went for cover behind a counter and leveled her weapon. Lt. Linn moved his hands in a complex pattern that hissed and sparked with red light. The shooter screamed and folded over the railing; his arms were wrapped in metal and wood, bits of brass and powder spilling to the floor below. Linn had apparently turned the gun inside out around its owner.
Everybody was moving then, Patrise's people, Rico and Linn, the Silverlords and Vamps.
'This way,' Cloud said, and Doc followed him around a sharp corner into a broad, dim corridor with dead stores on both sides. It was lit by a string of glass tubes, the pale cold light of half-dead magic. They got ten yards along, twenty, and Cloud kept going. Doc said, 'Shouldn't we-'
'There's a focus ahead,' Cloud said in Ellytha. The word the books translated as focus literally meant 'seam of destiny': it could mean a concentration of magic, a battlefield, a sacred place. Doc had also heard Cloudhunter use it to speak of Patrise.
Cloud stopped.
Light from the corridor slanted into a broad, wide-open shop-front. It had been a clothing store, though there wasn't a rag of fabric left. The mannequins-all female that Doc could see-had been torn apart, hacked, savaged: here and there a blade was still stuck in the plastic, and a yard of cycle chain wrapped a headless throat. Slogans had been painted on the dismantled dolls and the store walls: Elvish obscenities, symbols.
'Did the gangs do this?' Doc said.
'Before gangs,' Cloud said. 'From the first days of Return. That sign means 'Give Mortals Their Destiny' That one, 'Leave None Whole.'
Something white sailed out of the darkness. Cloud's sword reached out and intercepted it; it hit the floor with a crack.
It was a skull.
'Get back,' Cloud said, low and hot, and Doc took a step backward. Smoke boiled out of the far corridor. Cloud gave the skull a vicious kick to the side; he threw out a hand, and a handful of throwing stars flashed through the haze.
A shape came out of the smoke: a bulky black cloak, no face. no form, with a long thin sword extending from beneath it.
Cloud said, in Elvish, 'I am somewhat amused. Whisper Who Dares.' He inclined his head to the black thing. Then his hand moved again, and another spot of light crossed the space separating them. This time the throwing star came bouncing back out of the smoke, and spattered elf blood on the floor.
Another black figure, identical to the first, emerged from the smoke; as it passed, the first shape crumbled into air.
The cloak was thrown back. Whisper Who Dares the Word of Words in Darkness wore heavy boots, a thigh- length black coat of wool and leather set with steel rings. Bones hung from the rings on thin leather thongs; small ones, carpals and phalanges. A human radius swung from his waist.
Whisper's milk-white face was flattened and scarred. Something dangled from his earlobe that coiled and twisted.
Whisper and Cloud spoke to each other in Elvish, too low and quick for Doc to follow. They crossed swords. The air sang.
Doc realized they were paying no attention to him. He had no more part of this than in the war between wind and mountains.
Cloudhunter cut, and cut, and cut, and some of Whisper's bones clattered to the floor. Whisper didn't seem to have touched Cloud. Doc took a step away, wanting to go for someone else, McCain, Patrise, Rico and Linn, any kind of backup, yet not wanting to leave Cloud. He took another step back, and collided with something rubbery and cold and wet. His guts turned over. He turned.
There was nothing there: just air like gelatin. It distorted the hallway; somewhere down there were Patrise and the others.
Steel scraped. 'Doc!' Cloud shouted. Doc turned. Whisper and Cloud stood a little apart, swords leveled. W r hisper had a hand to his throat, as if he had been wounded there. Then his arm snapped straight toward Doc. Doc tried to dodge, but the gluey air held him.
Cloud moved. His sword swept down. The creature that had been at W 7 hisper's ear struck the floor in two scratching and writhing pieces.
Whisper lunged at Cloud's back. Cloud stepped aside easily, swung again, severing Whisper's sword in the middle of the blade.
The swordhilt vanished into Whisper's cloak. Whisper took a step to the side, toward Doc. Cloud blocked him. Step, block. Step, block. Whisper snarled something in Elvish; Doc caught the word 'dishonor,' but he knew that the word had infinite shadings; it could not be understood out of context.
Cloudhunter cut again. The long bone on Whisper's clothing leaped and clubbed it aside. Whisper spun a butterfly knife into his hand, sliced at Cloud's arm, connecting. Cloud spat a few words, swept an arm, and knocked the knife away. He forced Whisper back with his sword. Whisper said something with 'death' in it.
Cloud replied; 'dishonor' was in it twice.
Whisper folded his cloak about himself, seemed to lose a foot of height. He backed away rapidly. Cloudhunter stood his ground. When Whisper was a dozen yards away, Cloud turned. 'Doc,' he said, 'tell the others-'
Whisper had drawn a shotgun from beneath his cloak. Before Doc could speak, he fired. The blast ripped into Cloud's flank. He turned around. Whisper fired again, into Cloud's chest, and again.
Cloudhunter stayed on his feet. He raised his sword, pointed it at Whisper Who Dares, spoke a phrase in something that wasn't Ellytha; whatever the words meant, the voice pulled and tore like a dull razor over the skin.
Whisper fled.
