do that?” the hooded figure said, with a touch of amusement. “Let’s get straight to why I came here—to see the goods. Strip, Miss Frost, and let’s see what you’ve got that I can add to my collection.”
Oh, God. Exactly as I’d feared: the robed monk was the tattoo killer.
“You’re the third person to tell me to strip in as many days,” I said, shaking. “Go to hell.”
The killer snorted. “Strip, or we start with the stray—”
“No, no, she’s right,” Transomnia said, tossing Cinnamon aside like an old gym bag. “There’s no need for you to do that, Dakota. After all, it’s something I’d prefer to do myself.”
The table and vat flew aside as Transomnia leapt on me with blinding speed, and then threw a punch straight into my face.
39. ROUND THREE
When I was a child I used to play on an old squad car my dad kept in the back yard. I think he meant to fix it up and get it running again, but my dad was always more interested in police work than puttering, and so the car just sat there and rusted—until the day, when playing atop it with Savannah and Jinx, I tripped over the light bar and fell backwards off the car.
I thudded solidly on my back, vision erupting in a bright flash of light, all the air whooshing out of my lungs at once. I never lost consciousness, but scrambled immediately to my feet, gasping, unable to speak, unable to breathe, while my mother screamed at my father “Get that damn rust-trap out of here!” When I was older I realized I had bruised my diaphragm, but at the time all I could think of was the pain and being unable to breathe.
That’s what it felt like when Transomnia threw me through the door into Hell.
There was the same thudding impact, accented by the sound of splintering wood. The same flash of light accented by a tremendous vertigo. And the same whoosh of air out of my lungs, accented by a dizzying pain spreading over my back. I stumbled away from the door, gasping, away from Transomnia, until I hit the rail around the sunken the dance floor and pitched over. I fell flat on my back again, gasping uselessly like a beached fish for air, but no air came.
Transomnia stepped up to the rail and looked down at me, elegant and cruel in his long black coat. “Oh, come now, Dakota,” he said, hopping up onto the rail. “After your performance outside I’d hoped you’d have more fight left in you.”
I rolled aside as he dropped, stumbling to my feet, stumbling away—but he whipped round me, vampire fast, grabbed my pitch-covered wrist, and pulled it up behind my back.
“Now, now,” he breathed into my ear, wrenching my arm painfully, “see how much trouble little girls get into when they don’t do as they’re told?”
“F-k,” I gasped, “F-k hyu.”
“Now, now,” he said, even more patronizingly. “We both know I’m not supposed to do that—but if I were, I’d need to get rid of this, wouldn’t I?”
And he hooked one clawlike finger into the back of my sportsbra.
“Shine, solar radiance!” cried a triumphant voice, and white-hot light burned across the dancefloor of Hell. Transomnia cringed and screamed, dropping me, and I fell back to see Jinx, guided by Alex, standing at the entrance of Hell. He carried a sword dipped in fire, and she held her spirit cane raised high in the air, its tip blazing with the brilliance of a miniature sun.
Transomnia scuttled sideways onto the handicapped ramp and sprinted up towards them, ducking low to use its wall as a shield from Jinx’s light. Alex whipped his fire sword round and sent a bolt of multicolored flame down the ramp. Transomnia dodged, leaping up into the upper VIP section in a crash of tables and chairs.
Alex advanced towards him, swinging the sword to bathe Transomnia in flames, but the vampire picked a table up like a shield and the wave of flame boiled away into the air. Alex struck again, but Transomnia rushed him through the fire, tackling him with the table and knocking him past Jinx, all the way back down the stairs onto the dance floor.
Jinx stood there frozen, head canted, listening. I croaked and tried to warn her—but Transomnia just grinned back at me, and advanced.
Jinx abruptly swung her cane backwards in a full arc, sweeping into the table with a crack of thunder. The table burst asunder into