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I didn’t expect it to flame into the visible spectrum. It did, a sparkling crackling bolt of blue-green lanced up from my outflung right hand and arrowed for the clouds above. It would disperse over the city, but not before it was remarked. If Lucas was near, he’d come find out what the fuss was.
With that done, I ran for the abandoned apartment building. No smoke drifted from its broken windows, and it stood in the middle of a tumbled wilderness of concrete blocks next to an impressive crater hosting a few twisted scrub trees that had managed to grow amid the wreck.
In other words, a good defensible position. If I had to retreat from it, I’d have plenty of cover. Of course, anyone sneaking up on the building would have plenty of cover, too, but life couldn’t be perfect.
I’d settle for just living through the night, really.
I heard the whine of antigrav before long, and the sleek black hover came back just as I shi
Trash littered the bottom floor of the building, and a gigantic hole had been blasted through several floors. I could glimpse the sky as I gathered myself to leap, claws sinking solidly into crumbling concrete, every nerve alive, twist and throw the body upward again, landing cat-soft in my boots. Then I ducked and ran, blurring through the debris littering the third floor. I finally reached the side where I could see the hover and peered out through a broken window, sheltering myself behind a crumbling wall.
The hover yawed, strings tangling down from its underbelly. Had people bailed out on jumpcords? I’d missed something. The sleek black shape slid to the side as if something was terribly wrong, but there was no hint of what. It was oddly, eerily silent except for the whine of its hovercells and the stabilizers giving out a ratcheting overloaded squeal.
I looked below and saw dark humanoid shapes flitting through the broken cover. Some moved like humans.
Others did not.
They had to have been in the neighborhood, or came down the jumpcords from that hover. Did they see me coming in here? I thought this over, biting at my lower lip. The hover heeled alarmingly again, and a puff of bright green light showed from inside its tinted windows; quickly seen and just as quickly snuffed.
What the hell is going on here?
I decided a bit more altitude would be a good thing and retreated to the hole blown in the building, trying not to feel like I’d trapped myself. At least now I knew they were after me, and I was fairly sure I could fight my way out if I had enough cover to hide behind while I got close enough to conduct a little guerilla action. A few more leaps and I was on the sixth floor, levering myself in and rolling away just as I heard a shuddering boom.
I made it to the window just in time to see the hover grounding itself, throwing up chunks of dirt and stone, its plasteel sides ripped open as it smashed into the bridge I’d hidden under. The ground shook, the building swaying under my feet. I wished for a slicboard—I could get out of here fast with one. Instead, I skirted the gaping hole on owl-soft feet, fleeing for the more broken-down area of the building. It was dangerous since I was denser and heavier than a human, but I could also handle a higher fall.
So a hover had been downed, but not with a plasbolt. A reaction fire would bring this whole damn building down and burn a scar into the city to boot. It had been downed quietly, all things considered, which probably meant some kind of EMP pulse, probably fairly unremarked since we were out of the main hover lanes. That meant, possibly, two groups of enemies tangling with each other.
Good for me.
Fight or flee? I heard Jado’s voice yet again, calm and considering.
I found a blind corner and waited. I’d be able to see anything that moved on my floor, I’d be able to shoot anything that came up through the hole. It looked as if this place had been bombed, maybe even in the aftermath of the Seventy Days War or a local brushfire action. If I had to, I could drop out of the building and tear my way through a search ring or two, make enough time to lose myself in New Prague. I’d have the benefit of knowing who was after me and what resources they could scramble on short notice.
The air pressure changed, heaviness sliding against my skin. The cuff tightened, squeezing. I bit back a gasp and folded up inside myself, trying to stay as small and still as possible. The air turned hard and hot, and my throat stopped as I held my breath, unconsciously.
Below, I felt the arrival of something with an aura full of twisting diamond flame. The smell of heavy oranges and bloody musk filled the air.
Another demon. I trembled like a rabbit.
I hadn’t felt this since the first time Japhrimel showed up at my door. The black, twisting diamond flames of demon Power warped through the building’s physical space. I gauged the distance between me and the window.
Fight, or flee? There was no way I could take on a demon. But if it managed to trap me, I would have to see what I could come up with.
The soft, chilling voice echoed up from below. “Right Hand,” it said in Merican, the words making the building quiver like a plucked string. “Kinslayer. I wish to speak to you. Come and face me.”
What the hell? That answered a question—he wasn’t babbling in Czechi, whoever he was. Speaking Merican meant he was probably after me.
The answer to a question like that is almost worse than having to ask that question in the first place. I had to swallow a wild braying laugh. Why did I always feel the urge to laugh at times like this? I had to breathe; took in a shallow, soft sip of air. Smelled the oranges and musk again, a heady scent.
I stayed where I was, waiting.
“I know you are here,” the voice continued. Too deep to be female, full of an awful welter of bone-chilling, nerve-twisting Power. Japhrimel’s voice had never been this uncomfortable. He had occasionally sounded furiously cold or threatening but never so… inhuman. “I can smell you.”
Good for you. I’d give you a prize but I don’t think you’d like it.
My right hand tensed around my swordhilt. If a demon comes for me, I want it to be on my terms. I was pretty sanguine about my chances against humans or even werecain, but I didn’t know enough about this terrain to be comfortable facing something bigger. Now I knew there was at least one demon in New Prague, and that he was most likely looking for me.
And that he could smell me, mistaking me for Japh.
My mouth gaped, my breathing soundless. I gathered myself, centimeter by centimeter. Like a coiled spring. Japhrimel had taught me how to do it, conserve my body’s need for motion, then explode into demon-swift action.
Don’t think about him—think about getting out of here. Quickly. Now that you know what you’re facing, get the fuck out of here.
Movement below. If it was easy for me to haul my carcass up here, it would be even easier for a demon. Especially one of the Greater Flight.
Stillness, a killing silence like radiation-burn. Demon down there, and what else? What else is waiting to make my life miserable?
The cuff tightened on my wrist again. Its glow had dampened, as if it didn’t want to give away my location. I went so still I could imagine my molecules slowing down their frenetic dance. I could imagine the flashes between my nerves slowing down too. I could imagine too goddamn much, as a matter of fact.
“Show yourself.” The voice mouthed along the dark well of the hole slicing through the building. “I come to speak of—”