Part 28 (1/2)

Eyes watering, he scrawled a very quick go home and threw it.

Blue sparks on impact.

Blue sparks, purple blotches. It's like demonic Lucky Charms.

A sound like wet sneaker tread dragged against tile. A giant wet sneaker tread.

”What have you done?”

”I told it to go home!” He grabbed Leah's hand and dragged her with him as he rose to his feet.

”It didn't work!”

”I know!” Rapid blinking brought the street into partial focus. The demon still looked a little blurry around the edges, but Tony had a bad feeling that wasn't his eyes.

”I told you it wouldn't work!”

”You're not helping! Just stay behind me and...” He squinted. ”I must've done some damage, it's...” Running seemed as close a description as he was going to get. ”... running away.”

Leah grabbed for his sleeve as he started moving. ”Where are you going?”

”After it. To stop it from killing people who aren't you,” he added when she didn't seem to understand. ”Come on. It's not going that fast.” Mostly because bits of it seemed to be moving in opposite directions.

Her fingers tightened to the edge of pain. ”What part of 'if I die the world ends' are you still missing?”

”The part where it's not after you.” When attempting to jerk free only proved that Leah was stronger than she looked, he waved his free hand toward the demon. ”h.e.l.lo! You're here, it's there!”

She frowned. ”Right.” And let go. And smiled. Well, showed teeth. ”Come on!”

They were no more than three meters behind it as they rounded the corner onto the section of Alexandra that curved to meet up with Alderbridge Way. The demon turned an eyestalk toward then, put on a surprising burst of speed, and crashed through a poster-covered door into the only lit building on that end of the street.

Ginger Joe's. ”Raise your hand everyone who's surprised by this,” Tony grunted as they ran after it.

”According to Chekhov,” Leah panted, ”you should never hang a coffee shop on the wall unless you plan on using it.”

”Chekhov? The navigator with the bad wig on cla.s.sic Trek?”

Leah took a moment to sneer. ”Read a book.” She paused as they reached Ginger Joe's. ”Didn't this used to be the Cafe Cats Escape?”

”How would I know?” Tony asked her. ”For that matter, how do you know?”

Inside the coffee shop, cymbals crashed and someone screamed.

”Never mind.”

They jumped the debris of the door together and skidded to a stop. The demon had gotten tangled in a drum kit left on the small stage when the night's live music had ended and lay half sprawled across two tables-although since it still had two legs on the floor, it wasn't exactly lying. Just past the wreckage a young man crouched, leather-kilted b.u.t.t in the air, head to the floor, hands over his head, the chrome studs on his heavy leather wristbands gleaming in the dim light. Tony could just barely make out two more pale faces up against the back wall, their terror lending the whole Goth look a certain authenticity.

It took him another agonizingly long moment to find Amy because the demon's bulk blocked his view. A meaty squelch gave her position away just before she danced into sight, black-rimmed eyes locked on the enemy, the hand holding the skull shaped candle holder raised to land another blow.

”Enough staring already!” Leah snapped, racing by him. Seemed that the relief of not being the target was making her a little reckless. ”Make with the runes!”

Tony pulled the papers out of his jacket pocket as Leah went up and over the demon, planting her hands between the spikes and flipping in the air to land on her feet on the coffin shaped bar. Possibly not just coffin shaped...

The first rune formed as Amy smacked the demon again while Leah kicked it in the head.

It roared, lunged at Leah, got tangled in the snare drum stand, and stumbled, allowing her to leap over the clawed tentacle whipped around toward her.

The world rearranged itself in Leah's favor.

Amy wasn't so protected.

As Tony threw the last loop on the second rune, it wrapped a hand-or whatever the h.e.l.l it was on the end of its arm-around Amy's neck and squeezed.

Screw the runes!

One more Powershot probably wouldn't kill him.

As he pulled his right arm back, Amy reached behind her, scrambled amid the debris, grabbed a full cup of coffee, and threw it in the demon's eyes.

It shrieked.

Dropped her.

And charged for the door.One meaty appendage smacked Tony in the chest, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the side wall. He spent a moment really, really hoping the crack was one of the fixtures and not a rib, then spent the moment after that trying not to scream.

He could sort of hear Amy yelling that the demon had broken into the wrong d.a.m.ned coffee shop as he raised his left hand and sucked the two runes he'd finished back into his body. It wasn't exactly hard to find his place in the universe now given how well pain seemed to be defining it.

This is me.

This is everything else.

Everything else doesn't hurt.

I do.

Turned out the crack hadn't come from one of the fixtures.

Breathing shallowly, he focused his attention on the broken ribs, smoothing the jagged halves. Pain exploded into a thousand razor- edged shards.

When he regained consciousness, Leah was kneeling beside him and frowning down into his face. ”When you heal yourself,” she said softly-not kindly, but softly, ”you still experience the same amount of pain you would have had the injury healed normally.”

”I do?”

”Every last bit of it. All at once.”

He supposed he was glad of the explanation. ”That totally sucks.”