my face reddening a little. Technically it was a scooter and not a bike, but—”It gets sixty miles to the gallon—”
“Can see why you tuck it though,” Revenance said, hopping on his bike. “It’s not just hazardous. Death by Vespa would be downright embarrassing.”
“Death by Vespa!” Calaphase laughed, hopping on his bike. “Take care, Frost.”
“Yeah, Frost,” Cinnamon said, wrapping her hands around Calaphase nervously.
“No helmet?” I asked. “Is that safe—”
Cinnamon rolled her eyes. “Unless the streets are paved with silver—”
“I get it, I get it,” I said, laughing. Then I looked from her to Savannah, who was standing by Darkrose, arm round her waist, not looking directly at me. “See y’all in two weeks.”
“Yeah,” Savannah said, looking up suddenly. “See you then.”
And with that my ex-girlfriend and her vampire lover departed, blind witch and her newfound seeing-eye Doug in tow. Moments later the werecat and her vampire companions rode off on their Harleys, leaving me alone in the parking lot three blocks from my Vespa for no good reason other than my damn stubbornness.
I’m such an idiot.
I strolled past the edge of the bar and thought about running into Videodrome, but it was late and there wasn’t anything I was really buzzed to watch, so I turned onto Highland and headed home.
“Garlic enema,” I muttered to myself, snorting. I had to admit it, I missed Savannah. She could be a riot when she wanted to. And so, surprisingly, could Revenance. “Death by Vespa,” I said, chuckling. I needed to get home before I pissed myself—
“Hey Dakota!” someone screamed. “Catch!”
I looked up, and a dark figure hurled a white barrel straight at my head.
21. PLAYING CATCH
I raised my hands to defend myself, but I was too slow: with a tremendous CRACK the barrel broke against my face, knocking me backwards and splashing me with white, sticky goop. The impact lifted my feet off the ground, and I was momentarily airborne; then my back slammed into the sidewalk and all the air left my lungs with a WHOOF, leaving me in a red haze, choking for oxygen through a mouthful of sludge.
I coughed and spat and scraped the stinging muck from my eyes, lying back, wheezing for breath. The hull and contents of a splintered five-gallon paint barrel lay splattered around me. Dully I saw marks on the side of the barrel where it had been scored with a razor, and realized it had been meant to burst. Meant to splatter paint—all over me. I held my shaking hands up: the religious symbols and the yin yangs were covered in a thick layer of white paint. In terror I looked up at my assailant.
Transomnia stood over me, eyes twin red coals.
“Let’s see you use your marks now,” he said, and kicked me in the ribs.
I cried out. My body thudded backward against the wall of a nearby car, but before I could get up or roll away he kicked me again—and again, and again. In the ribs, in the face, cracking against the side of my knee. Not savagely, not with vampire strength, but deliberately, methodically, so the pain built, as I scraped and skidded across the pavement and he casually, oh so casually, savaged me.
“Can’t kill you—” CRACK “—can’t drain you—” CRACK “— can’t even rape you—” CRACK! “—but I can make you pay for humiliating me.”
I started to say something. I don’t know what it was. He kicked me in the teeth, and when my hand instinctively went to my face he seized it with immense strength and pinned it to his knee, prying my fingers apart and then crushing the little fingers and thumb underneath his viselike hand so my index and middle fingers waved helplessly in the air.
Then he pulled a pair of pruning clippers from his long black coat.
“Oh, God—”
Transomnia backhanded me casually with the hand holding the clippers, gashing my forehead. “I want some souvenirs,” he said, grabbing my fingers within the V of the clippers and squeezing down so hard I squealed in pain and twisted my head into the pavement, bawling.
“Look at me,” he said. I twisted my head away, and his grip tightened, making my trapped knuckles pop. Then he squeezed again, and I felt the clippers draw blood. “Look at me. Do it, or lose them.”
I looked up, saw my fingers in the curved beak of the pruner, and his unsmiling face. His makeup was gone, making him look older, leaner, meaner. I looked into his cold red eyes—and knew he could