out of the mud and launched me at the bitch causing all of this.
I didn’t make it all the way there, as I had to let go when the tentacle started to head back up. But I hit a mostly solid piece of ground and was up and throwing myself at her a second later. And I wasn’t in the mood to be gentle.
She went down and then out when I belted her upside the jaw, possibly hard enough to break it. I threw some magical cuffs on her and kicked her into my purse, because I couldn’t carry her through all this otherwise. Then I took off, running and leaping and occasionally falling through the chaos, heading for the side of the ring and the shadow of a now deserted broadcasting booth.
The two announcers had long since fled, although the nearby Jumbotron was still running with images. I didn’t try to figure them out; I was far too close. And the same was true when I turned back to the fight, which was so high above my head that I couldn’t see anything.
But nobody had turned off the second Jumbotron across the park, which gave me a perfect view of Louis-Cesare stabbing his sword hilt-deep into a giant squid eye. And unlike the side of its head, which the creature hadn’t seem to give a shit about, it was Not Happy with this latest attack. Probably because a blind animal is very soon a dead animal.
It sent out another of those skull-piercing shrieks, echoing off the buildings and pulling a collective groan from the remaining crowd. It also thrashed wildly, trying to find this dangerous new threat—and in the process dropped the old one. Tomas went tumbling out of the beast’s mouth, Louis-Cesare reached for him and missed, and the now tiny looking body plummeted straight for the ground—
Before a slashing tentacle smacked him my way.
I started slightly as he hit the Jumbotron, causing all of the colors and images to scatter wildly for a moment. And then to stabilize, when he peeled off and fell limply to the ground, face first. He just lay there, as if dead, but he wasn’t dead. He was a first level master and while that probably hadn’t done him any good, he’d recover.
I glanced around.
Nobody was in the area, unless you counted the fight going on overhead, which looked like it was winding down. The thrashing had caused the tentacle around the devil’s arm to loosen, and he’d seized his chance. He’d grabbed the squid thing, trying to rip it apart, and giving Louis-Cesare a chance to escape.
And me a chance to assemble my crew.
I ran over to the not-moving vamp, crawled inside my purse for a second, and came up with another Spider’s Bite. I threw it on the bastard, watched it web him up, and dragged him inside. Fucker.
Then I moved over to the bottom of the now wrecked cage that the devil had been in, with its huge door hanging off its hinges and the metal bars twisted or broken. Another slumped figure lay beside it, having been tossed there at some point in the fight. I checked his meaty neck for a pulse, and it beat strong and steady. He might not be smart, but he was tough. He was also starting to come around.
I threw a couple of pairs of cuffs on the bruiser, hands and feet, then added a third to connect them in back and hogtie him, just to be safe. Then into the purse he went. Okay; that was three.
Where was number four?
Surprisingly, four was still in it, spraying both of the creatures above him with bullets, apparently not realizing that his friend was no longer in need of rescue. That was good. It kept his attention elsewhere.
And in all this, it wasn’t like he could hear me sneaking up on him, was it?
A moment later, number four was secured, leaving only one.
But the dark mage was wilier, and very much aware of what had just happened. He had simply been too far away to stop it. But now he was running at me, both hands consumed by black, oily-looking clouds, which based on what had happened to the squid, were intended to drain me of magic and/or life as soon as they touched me.
Great.
To make matters worse, Louis-Cesare, who should have been down by now, had become stuck—literally. The blue gel that the squid’s body had thrown out was apparently harmless, but very