saw the people around us. That’s right, you look rude and stupid. Run away while you can.
“Baylor?” a deep voice rumbled.
Oh crap.
Mira scooted off to the side. Behind her Frank Madero lumbered to his feet.
“What are you doing?” Cristal squeaked. “Sit down.” She put her hand on his forearm as if to restrain him and he pushed it off.
“Your sister put me in the hospital.” Madero peered at me, pure rage in his eyes.
I stared him down. Maderos understood strength, nothing else. “You tried to kidnap her.”
“Well, I’ve got just one word to say to you. Rematch!”
He flexed and his suit exploded. His skin turned red, his muscles swelled. He grabbed a table and hurled it at me.
I dodged left, Alessandro dodged right. The table flew between us and froze in mid-air. An older black man next to us turned and fixed Frank with a hard stare. Shelton Woods, Head of House Woods. “That’s enough. Sit down.”
“I didn’t ask you shit, old man!” Frank bellowed, and charged.
The telekinetic swung the table with his magic and smashed it against Frank. The table shattered into splinters. Frank didn’t even slow down. Lilian Woods, Shelton’s wife of nearly fifty years, grabbed her husband and yanked him out of Madero’s way. The pieces of the table and silverware rose in the air and pelted Frank. It didn’t stop him, but he had built up too much speed to turn. He tore past us and crashed into the row of tables.
Yeraz, the Armenian Magus Sagittarius, jumped to her feet, grabbed a knife off the neighboring table, and hurled it at Lilian. The knife stopped, reversed, and sank into the table an inch from Yeraz’s hand.
“Don’t do that again!” Lilian snapped.
Yeraz hissed at her like a snake, grabbed a handful of silverware, and launched it into the air.
Frank rolled to his feet, grabbed two tables like they weighed nothing, and slammed them together, screaming obscenities. Shelton Woods waved his hand. A third table slammed into Frank, slapping him down like a flyswatter coming down on an annoying insect.
Yeraz’s barrage of knives and forks fell harmlessly on the floor. The glass next to Yeraz shot into the air and splashed water into her face.
“Cool off,” Lilian told her.
“Kill the old bitch!” Yeraz howled.
Everything happened at once: Diatheke’s killers zeroed in on Yeraz’s target; the guests realized this was not part of the performance and half of them headed for the exit, while the others stayed to watch or fight; security rushed through the staff entrance and stopped, not sure who to target, and Frank Madero screamed and hurled tables into the air. Magic crackled, furniture flew, and to the left a table burst into flames.
Where the hell was Cristal?
I spun to look behind me. Linus pounded his fist on the table. The silverware flew to his arm, melting, twisting, and snapping together into a barrel. Linus swung his new hand cannon and fired at Frank, who was rampaging in the middle of the floor. Frank’s head jerked as the bullet bounced off his skull. He spun around, roaring. I caught sight of Benedict, his face twisted with rage, standing in the middle of the melee, the dark-haired aegis directly behind him. A stray chair hurtled at Benedict’s head hit the translucent blue screen of magic and bounced off.
Across the Grand Foyer, Cristal ducked into the hallway leading to the bathrooms.
Frank finally saw me. His beady dark eyes lit up. He barreled at me through the crowd, enormous, brick red, and breathing like a charging bull.
Crap.
Alessandro thrust himself into Frank’s path.
“Go!” Alessandro yelled to me. “I’ve got this.”
I ran after Cristal. The last thing I saw before I turned the corner was Alessandro on Frank’s shoulders, choking him with a plastic bag.
The hallway stretched in front of me, empty. I sprinted, checking the doors with my hand as I ran.
Locked, locked, locked, empty, bathroom. Nobody in the stalls.
I kept running. The hallway turned, ending in a big round room. A stack of tables waited at the opposite side, where two other hallways branched off. Next to the tables, Cristal had halted, obviously trying to choose an escape route.
“Cristal,” I sang out, sending my magic her way.
She turned, a panicked look on her face.
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” I said in a cheerful, singsong way.
Her mind fluoresced in my magic’s eye, a pale glowing smudge. She had a lot of power. It burned bright, but her will was weak and she wasn’t a mental mage. My magic wrapped around