Claimed by Shadow Page 0,126
The flames turned the area around the speakers into a leaping bonfire that quickly spread to the nearby piano.
Before I could scream, Deino's grizzled head popped up over the burning mass. She didn't appear to be so much as singed, but she looked plenty pissed. A second later, I got to see what the loopiest Graeae's special talent was. Deino didn't change shape or make Pritkin shoot himself as I'd half expected. She just turned those sightless eyes on him and he stopped dead, as if he'd run into an invisible wall. He dropped the gun he'd pulled, presumably for me, and stood gazing blankly around the room. He didn't appear to be harmed; it was as if he simply didn't know where, or even who, he was. The burning piano top collapsed in a musical' crash behind him, but he didn't so much as flinch.
Deino kicked the blazing statues out of her way and crossed to me. A mage threw a fireball at her from the closest segment of the fight, and she turned it back on him with a rude gesture. She tapped Pritkin on the shoulder and, when he turned around, she decked him. From this close, I could see that those hollow folds of skin were not as empty as I'd thought. They held a dark, roiling mist that in no way looked like eyes, but somehow gave the impression of sight.
"That must work really well in battle," I said, awed. It would be hard to throw a spell when you couldn't remember it, or even why you were fighting. Deino preened. "Will it wear off?”
She shrugged noncommittally, gave me a kiss on the cheek and mumbled "Birt' Day" in my ear before wandering off to join her sisters. The mages had shredded the zombies, whose twitching body parts littered the ground around the door, and were holding their own against the vamps. But I had a feeling that was about to change.
I intended to follow Marlowe's example, but Pritkin suddenly came back to life. I looked from his icy green eyes to the gun he'd retrieved. "There's one advantage to my blood," he hissed. "Mind games don't work.”
I decided not to bother trying to open a dialogue. I lashed out with my foot and caught him square on the knee. It probably wouldn't have done anything but piss him off under normal circumstances, but the surprise of it combined with the river of blood and slick entrails on the floor to send him sprawling. He slid into the piled-up tables, tumbling them like a bowling ball crashing into a bunch of pins. Heavy glass tabletops tumbled down everywhere, some rolling off to the side but a few landing on him.
The flaming orange spells were flying thick and fast now, with the last one slamming into the top of the stage, setting the overhanging canopy of silk leaves ablaze. It was the last straw for the stage's bamboo frame, which collapsed like a giant game of pickup sticks. I avoided being squashed only because I dove for cover under one of the last remaining upright tables. I was afraid the glass top wouldn't hold, but none of the bigger columns hit it, and the others merely rattled off.
When I looked back up, Pritkin had disappeared. I thought I saw Françoise's bright green dress for an instant, near the main entrance, but then it was lost to the black smoke boiling through the ruined nightclub. I did catch sight of another familiar face, though. "Billy!”
The almost transparent shape of a cowboy had appeared by the main doors. He saw me at almost the same moment, and a look of profound relief flooded his features. He zoomed straight at me. I was about to ask him where he'd been, but he slipped inside my skin without so much as a hello. All I got instead was some hysterical gibbering. Then I got a glimpse of the main fight and forgot about him.
Casanova threw the mage he'd been throttling into two others, then caught sight of me and shouted. I couldn't hear him over the din, but I didn't really need to-it was obvious what the problem was. The Graeae had left the building.
I did a quick mental survey and realized that, until a few minutes ago, Deino was the only one who had not saved my life. Enyo had held off the mages at Casanova's, Pemphredo had helped me in the kitchen afterwards and Deino had just made