“Still waiting on my friend,” I told her. “Actually, maybe I’ll go check on her, make sure she hasn’t fallen in.” The waitress smiled at my pathetic joke as she left, for which she would be tipped at least 15 percent.
I tried to stand, didn’t get the chair pushed back far enough, and knocked the table with my thigh. Biting back a curse as my tea wobbled, I put both hands on the table to steady it. But Desmond’s coffee cup tipped precariously. He caught it before it could crash, however, saving himself from a lap full of hot caffeine.
At the same time the toddlers were inspiring their moms to quick action, I saw Cassandra through the window. She rushed toward me, pointing at Desmond, shaking her head so hard her braids whipped across her face.
I looked at him again, almost sure now that I’d seen his hands blur as they’d moved to grab the coffee cup. That underneath those long, pinkish white fingers I’d caught the hint of claws.
“Don’t let him touch you!” screamed Cassandra as she burst through the cafe door.
I pulled my hands back, but too late. He caught them, pinned them to the table by sinking his fingernails (
The babies wound it up a notch, and as soon as their moms saw my situation they joined right in. We were making a regular ruckus in the heart of the city. I’d heard so much about Texas SWAT, all of it good. Where were they in my time of need?
“What are you doing to me?” I yelled. I tried to pull my hands free. They might as well have been nailed to the table. Hell, maybe they were.
Desmond fixed me with those gleeful alien eyes and said, “You killed my best student, you little bitch. He had a real gift for reaving. Now I have only one left.” He cocked his head to one side, as if tuning to his own personal radio station. “Stop whining, all right? I’m getting to that.”
I fought panic as the schizoid reaver held me down, and one of the moms yelled into her cell phone, “Police! Woman being attacked! Sustenance on East Leopard!” I was glad to know the cavalry was on its way. But at the rate blood flowed from my hands, I’d be dead long before then. I was positioned so awkwardly I couldn’t have delivered an effective kick if I’d strapped on six-inch heels. So I went with my last resort.
Gathering all my breath, all my power, every last iota of energy in my aching body, I focused it all on that wrinkled piece of parchment between Desmond’s eyebrows. I imagined that spot highlighted with a big, black X, and slammed my head right into it.
The old reaver staggered backward, looking as stunned as if he’d been shot. Cassandra used that lull to drag the moms and their kids off the street and into the relative safety of the cafe.
The thought of pulling Grief never entered my mind. And I didn’t care if Desmond looked like somebody’s kindly Martian grandpa. I’d forgotten every lesson Vayl had tried to teach me about keeping a reasonable distance and decided to kick this reaver’s ass up close and personal.
I started with his torso.
I hadn’t seen his shield, not once, until now. Maybe my attack had distracted Yale enough that he’d allowed it to show. Maybe I’d hurt him. But if so, no gaps appeared in the thick black outline that danced around him like a live wire, so I doubted I’d done much damage. However, I figured if I beat on him long enough a weak spot would eventually appear. Then I’d finish him. For now I kicked him again. Twice to the shoulder and once to the head to make sure he hit the ground.
But he hadn’t come to the game without a few tricks of his own. As he fell, he swept one leg around and caught me behind the knees, bringing me down. I rolled with the fall, taking the brunt of the impact on my butt.
Something came flying at me as I began to rise and I hit the deck again. Metal clattered against metal as it hit. Knife? Throwing star? Whatever, I figured it for lethal, and part of a set.
I rolled to my feet and lunged to my right as another missile flew past my head, the high-pitched whir of its spin making my ears throb. I watched it whirl into the street. It was a knife. An ancient one by the look of the black rune-covered hilt, with a curved blade that punctured the first minivan tire that hit it.
I upended a table and dove behind it just as Desmond pitched another close one. It sliced right through the metal and stopped just inches from my eye.
I wrestled Grief out of its holster, not an easy task with mummy hands. I nearly dropped it, and accidentally pushed the magic button as I recovered, which meant I suddenly held a crossbow rather than a pistol. At this point I didn’t even care. Anything that could fly through the air and hit the son of a bitch worked for me.
Sirens wailed somewhere close at hand.
Another knife thudded into the table, ripping sleeve but missing skin. I bobbed up and took a quick shot. It hit Desmond’s shield, knocking him backward. But it didn’t even penetrate to his body. In full defensive mode now, he spun three more knives at me as he backed out of the seating area. When I rose to return the volley, all I could see was his back receding into the distance. The professor in Cassandra’s
I considered chasing him. Okay, not really. The cops sounded interested, at least that’s how I interpreted those sirens. Which meant they’d want to get in on the fun. Plus I felt like hell.
