Shadow's Bane (Dorina Basarab 4)

“What?” Curly grabbed the guard, too, before the man could move, and whirled on his partner. “Are you crazy?”

“She’s a danger—”

“So is killing a senator under my roof! You have any idea how much hell that would rain down on me? And I need her—”

“She’s on the task force designed to shut you down!”

“So was Geminus! And she’s willing to deal. I have it on good authority—”

“She lied! I’ve dealt with this bitch before.” He turned to the guard. “Kill her! Take everyone you have—”

“Remember who pays your salary,” Curly snapped.

“If you need protection, you come to me,” the taller man said, bending over Curly menacingly. “We have a deal—”

“No!” The little fat man had clearly had enough. “I had a deal with Geminus. One I stupidly agreed to continue with that albino bastard, because he said he was in charge after the big guy’s death. But he kept screwing with the deal, and now you—who the hell are you?”

“The one in charge.”

“Not here! This is my place, and I don’t need you anymore. I made a deal for a new protector, and one better connected than you! I don’t need any—”

The tall man’s arm moved, as quick as a vampire’s, and the next second Curly was hitting the wall on the other side of the room, unconscious or worse.

The guards just stood there, their eyes huge.

“I said kill her!” the man hissed. “Or you’re next!”

They ran.

Chapter Twenty-five

I woke up to find myself in Olga’s box, wrestling a Mormon for his bicycle.

I wrenched the thing away from a pleasant-looking older man with a kindly, concerned face and angry little troll eyes that glittered at me from behind the mask. Then swung it toward the stage like a puppet on a string, with no intention of doing any such thing. But I couldn’t seem to control my actions, like I couldn’t seem to see properly. The theatre slurred along with me, a wash of brilliant reds, gleaming golds, and glittering jewel tones from the women’s clothes, interspersed with more somber smears of the men’s.

Somber smears that were suddenly running for the exits, climbing over people, and elbowing others out of the way, chivalry be damned, because spell fire and gunfire had just erupted from below.

People started screaming, which didn’t help my head, and neither did the bullets strafing the box. Everyone ducked, including me, although I hadn’t told myself to do so. But I hit the floor anyway, cursing silently because I also couldn’t seem to speak!

Dorina, I thought furiously. What are you doing?

No response.

Give me my body back!

The lack-of-response thing continued, and I remained flopped on the ground, unable to move. But I could hear: people screaming, glass shattering, bullets firing in the distance, or striking like hammer blows against the wooden front of the box. And I could smell: spilled alcohol from someone’s glass, acrid gunpowder as the trolls began firing back, and buttery popcorn that had been trampled underfoot.

I could even see a little better, down in the gloom, and realized that my eyesight problems were from double vision: I was seeing both here in the box and wherever Dorina was, some dim room with strange, underwater light crawling up the walls. That other room kept throwing shadows over this one, distorting it, but it couldn’t cast shadows on the dark. And then somebody shot out a sconce by the door, which made things even better.

Enough that I could see Olga’s jewelry jump off her neck and onto a guard’s face, like something out of Alien, sending him staggering back—

Into a dozen more, headed through the door.

Curly’s boys were mages, and a few even seemed to be pretty good ones. But the fey have a partial resistance to human magic, and the guards didn’t look like their hearts were in the fight. Especially after a few Hulk smashes around the box by some of the larger trolls. Had it been just them, they’d have run in seconds.

But it wasn’t just them.

“The fuck?” Ray yelled, as a vampire leapt over the front of his box and tried to wrench his head off.