There was a trio of Asian ladies speaking what I guessed might be Mandarin, a language I had heard a lot of recently during our trip to China to face the Ancient.
A middle-aged couple, tourists by their butt packs, clothing, and cameras, was spending as much time gawking as eating, and a thirty-something Black man with a tightly trimmed beard and close-cropped hair sat by himself, reading his phone while he ate. Something about him, his bearing and grooming maybe, told me he was either military or ex-military. His scent was wary and alert despite his head being focused on his screen.
Our food came and we both used chopsticks to eat our pad thai. Kristin was clearly unused to them but picked it up rapidly, likely due to werewolf coordination driven by werewolf hunger.
We were halfway through when the first suppressed shot was fired in the kitchen. I was moving before I was fully aware of it, standing and grabbing the edges of our three-foot-diameter table, twisting my torso to throw the whole thing at the rapidly approaching feet I could hear. The military guy was moving also, but it seemed like slow motion to me as he reached under his shirt. My table was already in mid-flight by the time he pushed away from his own table. The flying furniture hit the Asian man with the suppressed Beretta just as he exited the kitchen. I was right behind the table and my right foot clipped the fallen killer’s head as I went past him and intercepted the second assailant coming along behind him. I grabbed the man’s gun hand with both of mine, shoving the weapon back against his belly, then grabbing the frame and rotating it down and back toward me, my greater leverage having as much impact as my strength. I felt the gun go off and even though the muzzle was pointed away from me, I felt a sudden stab of pain on my right side.
Ignoring the wound, I finished pulling the weapon clear, then hit the gunman twice in his face with it. I hit him pretty hard. He flew backward, through the kitchen door, smacking into killer number three. A glance at the gun showed it was jammed, so I just wound up and threw it at Number Three, again following the pistol with myself, this time my fist. Bone crunched and blood spattered as his nose flattened and his eyes rolled back. The punch knocked him onto the body of the fallen cook, his hand opening to let a light gray cylinder roll free, a metal arming spoon flying off. My brain picked up the yellow band and the WP Smoke markings and again I was moving before I knew it.
I swear I heard Deckert’s voice lecturing on the four to five-second burn rate of most modern grenade fuses as I jumped over the downed attackers, kicked the white phosphorus grenade, and grabbed the cook’s limp body.
Then I was backpedaling out of the kitchen, towing the cook and slamming into another body behind me, the scent telling me it was Military Guy.
“Everybody out!” I ordered. “This place is going to burn.”
Kristin, responding to the Alpha tone in my voice, shoved open the door she had been standing next to and grabbed a woman tourist by her sleeve. Back in the kitchen, I heard the whump of the WP grenade going off.
“Take him,” I said to the man I had knocked down. He responded to the command in my voice and took the cook while I grabbed the first gunman by the leg and pulled him out.
The waitress, owner, and the other customers were all outside already. I turned and headed back in. Thick, choking white smoke that baffled my thermal vision filled the kitchen, forcing me to drop low and feel for the other two men. Fierce heat beat on my skin as I found first one and then the other. I threw one bodily through the door and almost into the arms of the military guy, who had followed me back in. Guy number three, the grenadier himself, I dragged by his legs, pulling him free even though I didn’t hear a heartbeat. The burned, raw flesh of his face and head told me he hadn’t survived his own weapon.
Sirens were already sounding as I made it back out onto the street, a crowd of people gathering to help or gawk.
“Holy shit you’re fast…” Military Guy started to say, but then took in my appearance and recognition flooded his features. My spell had failed to survive the brief battle.
A cop car screeched to a halt, followed by a second one, and then the heavy horn of full-sized fire engines sounded, clearing the traffic.
“You’re her… Stacia Reynolds,” the tourist lady said, loudly, which brought me a great deal of attention in a hurry.
“You’re hurt?” Kristin questioned, the young wolf right up by my side. Good instincts.
“She’s been shot!” Tourist Lady yelled out. The military guy put himself between me and her, his eyes going to the splotch of blood on my right side.
I pulled the bloody cloth up and while there was blood on my skin, the wound was already closed and disappearing. Probably just a ricochet.
A huge whump suddenly blew out the restaurant’s windows and flame blasted out and up, forcing everyone to duck and cover.
“Who’s upstairs?” a firefighter asked as the fire fully engulfed the dining area. I hadn’t even looked up at the top of the building, but now I could see it was three stories high and there had to be at least a few apartments up there.
The police moved the onlookers back,
