while my body took on the fight. I closed my eyes, the raw spiritual energy of my qi bringing my ears, my nose, my skin to a terrible sensitivity. The shadows brushed against me like small, dry hands. I could smell something sweet and fatty, like burning pork.
"You are mine, little girl," the rider said. Its voice was inhuman; feminine and raw and powerful. My head shifted a degree, homing in on the sound. "I will taste your soul. Your blood will spill from my mouth. Fear me!"
Something washed over me. Its will, its power. The greatest magic a human being can summon is nothing compared to what riders command, and at its word, the quiet, observing part of me started bouncing around the interior of my skull, screeching like a monkey. My body remained still as stone.
It shifted its weight, and I jumped. The flesh I slammed into wasn't like Aubrey's. It was thin as a starving woman but solid. My shoulder took it in the belly, and we both fell down. Skeletal hands wrapped around my throat, but I shifted, pushed, and got on top of the writhing, killing thing.
"Who are you?" it shrieked. My fist buried itself deep in the gristle of its throat.
It's also Aubrey, I thought. It's his body. I can't kill it.
The momentary hesitation was all it needed. With a shout, it arched, throwing me into the air. In the black, I didn't know where the wall was until I hit it. My head rang and brightness filled my peripheral vision. I fell to the floor. My feet slipped under me as I tried to stand. Something-fists, foot, club- hit me in the right kidney, and I went down again.
Red light flooded the hallway. The double doors had opened, and naked men and women were running silently into the hallway toward us. I saw Amelie Glapion-Legba-limping in the middle of the crowd, her paralyzed face lit with rage. I turned to what had been Aubrey.
His flesh had been turned to the rider's will. His shirt had ripped in the fight, exposing a shrunken chest, ribs black and red as a burn victim. Small, flaccid breasts hung, black nipples pointing to the ground. The face was still partly his. The angle of its jaw was familiar, the shape of the eyes. It was also a woman's death's-head grin. The rider shifted its gaze to the coming cultists, and rose an inch, as if preparing for an attack from them too.
With a shout, I brought up both fists under its chin. It felt like punching cinderblock, but the thing's head snapped back, and it fell like a marionette with its strings cut. I rolled to my feet.
The cultists came forward. Their naked bodies had no sense of vulnerability. At least two of the men had huge erections. At least one of the women had a machete. I stood up. None of them spoke. The first of them stopped no more than thirty feet from me. Another half dozen came out from the doors, their shadows stretching ahead of them. One of them was Sabine. There were too many.
And Karen flew past me like a wind.
She stood between me and the oncoming mob, knives in both hands.
"Go!" she yelled over her shoulder.
My throat felt stiff. The words had to fight their way out of me.
"Can't leave Aubrey."
"Take him and go!" Karen said and turned back to the cultists. At my feet, the body was turning back into the familiar shape, the face filling out, and the burns fading. I scooped the unconscious Aubrey up like he was a child and ran. The shrieks of battle sounded behind me.
Without Karen to lead me, the hospital was a labyrinth. Doors splintered by water damage refused to open. Hallways seemed to lead in circles. After the first couple of turns, I had to stop, fumble with the LED flashlight, and then stumble on. The smell of mold and death nauseated me. As the adrenaline faded, Aubrey grew heavier. I wasn't looking for the way we'd come. Any way out would do.
It seemed like forever before I hauled Aubrey into a room with an ancient couch decomposing against the wall, and a window wide enough to crawl through. A thin network of rusted wire held the remains of the safety glass in place. I put Aubrey on the couch while I kicked the dead wire free.
Somewhere in my flight, I'd started crying. Small, slow tears that didn't mean sorrow or fear.