you get it?"
Ex looked at me, fear and pain in his eyes, and I knew he thought it was true. He had walked away from me, and I had gone and gotten myself possessed by a rider, and it was his fault for not protecting me. Months of living in close quarters made every nuance of his expression legible as a book, and I felt a surge of desperate impatience with him.
"Ex, you need to get out of here right now," I said. "Karen lied to us. She's possessed. She has been from the beginning. It's called Carrefour, and it's the exiled rider. The thing in Sabine never left New Orleans."
"But the girl's possessed," Ex said. "I know she is."
"Yeah, that's true. But it's not as bad as you think."
"Move aside, Ex," Karen said. "She used to be Jayn茅, but she's the enemy now."
"I can save her," Ex said. "I got the thing out of Aubrey, I can get it out of her too."
He believed her. He thought I had a rider. Karen chambered a round, and Sabine screamed. I tried to step around Ex, but he shifted, staying between me and the gun. Some flying insect found its way into the furnace flame of the lamps and popped as it died.
"You can't kill her," Ex said.
"Oh," Mfume said from the doorway, "I think she can. The beast within her is quite capable of murder."
Karen turned, her face going pale as bone. Mfume didn't flinch when the shotgun pointed at him; he raised his chin in defiance. I had never been so glad to see someone ignore my instructions.
"You can fight it, Karen," he said. "I believe in you. I know that you can fight it."
The blast of the shotgun was deafening. One of the halogen lamps burst in long, streaming flames. The doorway where Mfume had been was empty, and I couldn't tell if he'd dodged the blast or been knocked back by it.
Karen screamed, a sound filled with rage and violence and joy. And like I had turned a switch, my body moved into action. I pushed Ex out of the way gently as lowering a baby into a crib, then hammered out one leg into the shotgun. Karen staggered back, trying to turn the gun toward me, and I kicked it again. I felt the mechanism buckle under my foot, and Karen slammed into the wall like a cannon shot, the wall actually cracking like something out of a cartoon.
Surprise widened her eyes, but only for a moment. Karen launched herself off the wall, swinging for me. I spun back as Ex tried again to put himself between us. Karen's open hand drove into my side, and I felt the snap of my weakened rib even before I felt the pain. I landed hard on my ass at Sabine's side. Ex was yelling something about being reasonable; Sabine was shouting desperately for Legba. Karen and I might almost have been alone in the room.
Her eyes were hard as marble, the little smile at the corner of her mouth ticked up a degree. Pale hair framed her face and made her beautiful. I knew that beside her, I must look like a drowned rat-fogsoaked shirt and jeans, black hair sticking to me like ivy on bricks. I had a hand pressed to my broken ribs. Every breath hurt like a bitch.
"You can't have them," I said, not knowing quite what I meant by it, but absolutely clear on my sincerity.
Karen snarled and brought her foot down hard. She was aiming for my knee, but only scraped along my shin as I rolled. Another blow landed on my shoulder, shaking my balance but not badly enough to keep me from regaining my feet. I was going to lose. I was hurt and comparatively weak, and Karen had years of training and a supernatural serial killer. I faced across the narrow space, and I knew that I had no chance standing against her alone.
I also knew there were thirty plus people just outside the shed. I hadn't managed to talk Ex out to safety. I hadn't managed to get Sabine free.
But I had gotten Karen's undivided attention, and that was going to be enough. I bolted for the door.
The air outside was cool, the fog thicker than when I'd gone in. The house glowed, twenty feet away, and distant as a vision of elfland. I ducked by instinct and something whizzed past my head to thud against the wall. I