the irony of our being killed by someone else before Drac could find us, and bent to open the bag of contraband at my feet.
My hand closed on a small, dark sphere about the same time that the first of the blurs reached Louis-Cesare. I took aim at the circle of shadows that were closing in, and the sphere landed in the middle of a group of them, exploding as soon as it touched the tarmac. A silver flash later, and three of the figures were on the ground. They did not much resemble humans, but considering that they’d just been hit by a dislocator bomb, that wasn’t surprising.
One of them had had his head magically reattached to his thigh, and an arm now grew out of his forehead. Since the arm was the wrong color to match the rest of his skin, I assumed it had recently belonged to the figure at his side, who had acquired a new set of ears on his left cheek but lost his nose. Unlike these two, who were kicking up the kind of fuss you’d expect under the circumstances, the third shape lay still. I realized why as I approached, my remaining dislocator in hand. A large number of once-internal organs were now attached to his outside, and the heart, I saw at a glance, was no longer beating. He was the lucky one; the spell was not reversible, which meant that the other two faced an interesting future.
I ran past them toward where at least six other blurs had reached the ramp and were climbing over a body that partially blocked the way. I hadn’t seen what happened, but Louis-Cesare must have killed his attacker, thrown him down the stairs and dragged the jet’s crew members back inside. Being Senate property, the plane was, of course, designed to resist certain forms of magical attack, but I doubted its defenses would hold for long against that many mages. Besides, how had the crew been injured unless a way had already been found inside?
I stopped well short of the shapes surging up the ramp and tossed my other bomb. Only half of them managed to get shields up in time. The other three rolled down the ramp to land at my feet, puddles of displaced flesh that in two cases couldn’t even scream: they no longer had all the requisite parts in their proper places.
One of the remaining mages, who was either really focused or completely oblivious, kept going for the jet’s door, but the other two turned to face me. I didn’t wait to find out what the closest one had planned, but rolled another little surprise up the ramp. It, too, wasn’t on the approved-magical-devices list, but unlike the dislocators, it was an old invention that I was hoping she wouldn’t have seen before or know how to defend against. Either I was right or her reflexes were slow, because the little red marble came to rest beside her booted foot. She instinctively pulled back, but not fast enough.
A curl of crimson smoke engulfed her leg and quickly climbed up her body. An instant later, where a relatively young woman had stood, a wizened old crone remained, her life sucked into the smoke that was now returning to its container. She clutched a withered hand to her breast and sank to her knees as I bounded up the ramp, scooping up my now bright yellow marble as I went. I didn’t need the life it contained, but someone else would pay a high price for it, possibly enough to let me recoup my losses on this rescue. Dislocators aren’t cheap.
The other mage, the one with leathery skin and a face like a fortyish prizefighter, yelled something. An instant later, what felt like a giant fist slammed into my face, picking me up and throwing me a dozen yards from the plane. I hit the tarmac with a thud, after doing a few disorienting flips midair. The impact resounded all through me, causing me to bite my lip hard enough to taste blood. I looked up at the mage, who was vaulting over the banister toward me like some action-movie hero, and grinned. I never really got into a fight until there was a little pain.
“Sopor!” the mage yelled, long before getting anywhere near me. I hadn’t known the other word he’d used, but this one was another story. I felt a surge of lethargy start to creep up my spine, threatening