evident by a single look at the back of the truck, which was getting boarded on all sides now. The new road was wider, allowing us to be flanked more easily, although Zheng’s guys were doing amazingly well—he had obviously brought his A-Team. But the best they could manage was hold their own.
And they wouldn’t be doing that for long, as we were almost out of ammo.
Bertha had a single necklace left, which somebody grabbed almost before I’d finished the thought. I should have been able to resupply everyone, having a damned arsenal with me, but most of my stash was magical and the rest had been taken by my team. I didn’t know what we were supposed to do when we ran out.
But someone else did.
Jinxes are outlawed because they cause bad luck—really bad, in the case of talented ones. Which I assumed that Sarah was, or she wouldn’t be able to target her gift. And she could absolutely target it, judging by the lightning that flashed overhead, and then speared down, straight at our enemies.
It burned through a couple dozen riders, turning them into blackened shells of themselves, which started to dust away even as they rode. But it wasn’t done yet. It also leapt from them to those around them, hopping along rows until maybe thirty or forty had been sidelined. It gave us a short breather, mostly because the riders behind them had to navigate past the tumbled bikes and burnt bodies.
Which they did pretty damned fast.
It wasn’t enough, but it gave me an idea.
I bent down and grabbed Zheng’s shoulder through the window. “Floor it.”
“It’s already floored!”
“Through there!” I pointed ahead, to where a large building with double doors was looming at the far end of the street.
He stared back at me, his expression a cross between outrage and disbelief. “Have you seen this truck? It’s not going to fit!”
“No, it isn’t. That’s the point.”
“Have you lost it? ‘Cause you need to tell me if—”
“Zheng! These things got distracted a minute ago and forgot about us—”
“So?”
I held up the second little disk I’d taken from my munition’s stores. “So, we need them to forget again.”
“Shit,” he said. And then he was yelling a bunch of other stuff in Cantonese that I guessed was informing the guys or maybe cursing; it was hard to tell.
“Sarah!” I yelled.
She looked back.
“Can you do another lightning blast?”
“When?”
“Now!”
She nodded. “Thirty seconds!”
“Get ready,” I told Zheng, and passed down my last two smoke bombs.
“What are you talking about?” Louis-Cesare asked. And then, when I pulled the bracelet for my one-person shield out of my purse, he grabbed it.
“What the—give it back!” I demanded.
“Not until you tell me what it’s for.”
I would have argued, but we didn’t have time. “When the rooster attacked the dragon, it got the rest of the bogies off our back,” I said quickly. “They got into a fight with each other and stopped pursuing us.”
The blue eyes narrowed. “You want to start a fight?”
“No. I want them to believe that there’s nothing left to fight.” I grabbed for the cuff, but he was too fast. Damn it!
I glanced at the upcoming building, and there was no time to argue. It had to be now. And then lightning cleared a path around us, bright enough and powerful enough to cause all the hairs to stand up on my arms. I crawled into the cab and pushed at Zheng’s huge shoulder. “Go!”
“They’ll see us leave!
“What the hell did I give you smoke bombs for?”
He cursed.
“Just make sure everyone gets clear!” I said, dropping into the driver’s seat as he scooched over.
“They’ll get clear.” He grabbed my arm, his eyes serious. “Don’t die.”
“She won’t.” Someone said, as Zheng threw the bombs and bailed. Billowing white boiled up all around us, covering our team’s flight. But, of course, one vamp hadn’t bailed, and the damned building was coming up fast.
“Give me the cuff,” I demanded.
“Give me the explosive.” It was Louis-Cesare’s implacable voice, and God, I was so sick of this shit! It felt like I had to fight him and our enemies, too!
“You can’t do this!” I snapped. “You weigh ninety pounds more than me, and it was calibrated to my weight!”
“I will risk it.”
“You’ll be dead!”
“Better me than you.” It was obdurate. And so stupid that it made me want to kiss him and kill him, at the same time.
So, I kissed him, tenderly, for a second, my hands sliding over his body, my tongue twining around his. Then