A Perfect Blood

hard time with that from jail.”

“I could do it from jail.” His voice was introspective, casual. “I’d rather do it myself, though. The pleasure. You know.”

“Rache!” Jenks shouted, and I rolled, invoking a circle as the shot echoed in the tunnel. The gold of my aura glowed in the dark. Smut crawled over it like a living patina, dimpled where the bullet had ricocheted off. Through the haze, I saw Eloy by the faint light of my circle. He was crouched with his gun pointed at me, a young man overflowing with fear, hate, and misplaced zeal. The smell of gunpowder hit me. Behind him, Jenks was white faced and struggling, stuck to the floor.

“Son of a bastard,” I breathed, scared for Jenks. Arms out, I shifted the angle of my gun and pulled the trigger. I rolled as the pellet hit my circle and broke the amber wash. My heart pounded in the new darkness, but I heard only a disgusted grunt.

“Noli me tangere, bitch,” Eloy said, and my teeth clenched. Don’t touch me? Had I missed? “Anticharm gear. You think I’d do this without it? Your magic is useless.”

“You know some Latin,” I said, my eyes searching for the barest hint of a glow, a glint. Anticharm gear wouldn’t stand up to repeated abuse. “I’m surprised they teach you that in the bunkers.”

Eloy chuckled, and I shifted my aim higher. If I hit his face or hands, he’d go down for sure. “I didn’t grow up in a camp,” he said, and I adjusted my grip on my gun, beginning to sweat. “I’m from a very well-respected family. Most of us are. I went to the best schools, better than you. That’s why you’re going to fail. We’re smarter than you. You can’t help it.”

His shoes scuffed, and I shot at the sound, rolling as his gun popped again. Little bits of concrete peppered me, and I clenched my teeth, not wanting to set a circle and light the tunnel again. Jenks was still down and vulnerable. Where the hell was everyone? Weren’t they looking for Eloy? Fingers moving, I reached to turn the radio back on to call for help. There was nothing. It was dead, and I thought of the two men running the radio. Had they been beaters or receivers? Had they left Glenn now that Eloy was on the run, planning on acquiring him themselves? They weren’t HAPA, were they? Damn it back to the Turn, it would explain a lot.

“We are everywhere, at every level,” Eloy gloated, cementing the idea in my head.

“You know what they say. Book smart, street stupid,” I said, one hand letting go of the gun, my fingers reaching inside my boot for the charm to paralyze someone. “How’s your elven?”

“Jenks! Light him up!” I yelled, then put the butt of the pin between my teeth.

It was a huge risk, but Jenks dusted, and in the faint glow, I found Eloy’s eyes. “Look at me, you bastard!” I said between my clenched teeth—then yanked the amulet to pull the pin.

I was still connected to the line, and I sucked in my breath as something alien reached through me, pulling the line like a wind-whipped ribbon over my synapses with the sound of wicked, chiming laughter. It coated me in fear, and I fixed on Eloy’s eyes, hoping, praying, that Trent had done this right and I hadn’t just given Jenks’s location away.

Eloy blinked, his expression going slack. And then he slowly collapsed, falling facedown on the cold cement.

It worked! Adrenaline washed through me, and I waited, hardly breathing, my gun pointed at him, afraid to look away to see how Jenks was. Hot damn, it had worked, and he was down!

I took a tense step forward, intentionally scuffing my shoes. Eloy didn’t move, slumped on the floor with his arm twisted at an awkward angle half under him. “Jenks?”

“I’m okay! He’s down,” he said in disgust, and I flicked my gaze to him then back to Eloy. “His aura went passive. God-blessed mother moss wipe of a pixy. Flew right into it. It’s not sticky silk, Rache. It’s worse. I’m stuck to the floor like a troll booger on the underside of a bridge.”

Gun pointed at Eloy, I edged closer, bending to reach for a zip strip from my boot. “You need some help?”

“I need half a fairy farting brain!” he snarled. “No. You’ll rip my wings off. I’ve almost got it. Zip-strip him before he wakes up, will you?”

He subsided into half-heard swearing as the glow from his fitfully moving wings lit the slumped shape of Eloy, his back rising and falling as he breathed. Trent’s charm had worked.

In the distance, I could hear voices echoing in the dark. They could be thirty feet, or three hundred with the way sound traveled. “We’re over here!” I shouted and, gun pointed, I wedged a foot under Eloy to roll him over.

“Rache! No!” Jenks shouted, still stuck to the floor.

His eyes were open. The spell had played itself out that fast.

“Crap!” I exclaimed, pulling the trigger, but he was faster, and his foot swung out, connecting with my ankle. I fell, my foot going numb. My arms flailed, and my head hit the side of the cement tube as he shoved me.

Stars were born and died underground, and I felt myself falling, my side scraping on the rough walls of the tunnel. Idiot! I should have double-tapped him!

“You are one tough bitch,” Eloy was saying as he stood over me, and I groaned when he kicked my middle, my air huffing out as I clenched in pain. “Anyone else I’d kill right now, but I’ll be back for you in about a week. Count on it.” Crouching, he pulled my head up by my hair. “A lifetime of rest and relaxation wait for you, madam cow. Your blood is going to wipe the scourge from the world and make it clean again.”

“You bastard . . .” I gasped, still clenched over my middle. “This is our world, too.”

“And the monkeys and the donkeys, but we don’t let them live in penthouse suites.” He dropped my head, and my face hit the cement. My head throbbed, and my ankle felt like it was on fire as he yanked my arms behind my back and zip-stripped me with my own zip strip. The line energy I had stored washed out of me and my connection to it died. I was on my own.

“Cute,” he said as he picked up my splat gun. I clenched my eyes shut, expecting him to shoot me, but they flashed open when I heard him run for the air shaft instead. Wiggling, I rolled over, finally getting a good breath of air. Voices echoed in my head, real or imagined, I couldn’t tell.

“You chickenshit fairy flop!” Jenks shouted, his wings going like mad as he tried to unstick himself from the floor, finally taking his boot off and darting almost to the ceiling before dropping back down and trying to free his sword. “You’re the one who’s going to get the lobotomy. I’ll find you. I swear I’ll find you!”

By the light of Jenks’s dust, I blearily watched Eloy standing under the upper air shaft, shooting up into it with that can of spray. It looked like silly string, spreading out to make a thick net falling out of the ceiling. Tucking the can in his back pocket, he quickly gathered the strands into a thicker rope. The smell of propellant drifted to me, and I hoped I wouldn’t sneeze. My head hurt, and I was afraid I was going to vomit.

My fingers pushed against the cold floor and, panting, I levered my upper body up. “Eloy!” I croaked, but he didn’t even look as he reached over his head and started climbing. His feet swung wildly until finding the walls, and he was gone, my splat gun shoved at the small of his back.

“This is exactly why I don’t like weapons,” I whispered, licking my lip to find it swollen. “They can always be used against you.” Pissed, I sat, my back to the wall, cursing myself as I felt my ribs, and Eloy’s noise diminished.

“Rache. You okay?”

“Yes.” I went to rise, but my ankle gave way and I fell back, my breath hissing out. “No.”

“Maybe we’re getting too old for this,” he said, and I leaned forward so he could reach the zip strip.

“Just break it, will you?” There was a thump from the tunnel, and I grimaced.

“So call Glenn already,” he said, and I felt a light pressure on my wrists as he wedged his sword into the fastening clamp. “No shame in asking for help.”

“Radio is dead,” I said, and Jenks swore.

“Those mother moss wipes with the fancy equipment are not working for the FIB,” he said, then swore again, blaming Tink, the sun, and the stars all in one long breath.

My hands were suddenly free, and I pulled my arms to my front. I reached for a line, relishing the scintillating energy as it ran like a chattering stream through my neural network, washing away my slight headache. “Oh, that feels good. Thanks, Jenks.”

“I broke my Tink-blasted sword!” he said in disgust, and I realized why the elaborate swearing as he came around front. “Look at it! Snapped it clean through.”