It was also something else.
I thought about all the senior masters, sitting on their hands or taking a few potshots here and there, and refusing to join in the fight. I thought about how much more power they had than a small, chubby, low-level little guy who was nonetheless willing to put his neck on the line. And then I thought that maybe the Senate’s method of choosing new members was screwed.
“I guess maybe you are Batman,” I told him roughly. “Come on.”
Chapter Forty-four
We’d reached the bend in the stairwell when Ray suddenly grasped my arm, his grip tight enough to bruise. “Wait.”
I froze, looking around for a danger I didn’t see. Just bare marble walls, with what sounded like an epic battle raging on the other side. “What?”
“Just…hold on.…” He was fumbling around in his coat with his free hand, and finally pulled out his wallet. And from that he took—
“What’s this?” I asked, staring blankly at the mushed-up granola bar he gave me.
“Just eat it.”
“Why?”
“Did you have dinner?”
“Dinner?”
“Yes, dinner, dinner! Did you eat?” He waved a hand. “No, don’t bother to answer that. I already know. You never eat.”
“The food at my house was drugged!”
“Yeah, you always got an excuse. But then you end up bottomed out of energy and we almost die.” He pointed a slightly shaking hand at the bar. “Eat it!”
I ate it.
It was good.
I held up sticky fingers. “Happy?”
“Not for longer than I can remember,” Ray said fervently, and gave me a little push. “Let’s go.”
We went.
And found portals opening everywhere when we hit the great hall, and I do mean everywhere. One appeared in the floor almost under our feet, even before we managed to exit the stairwell, swallowing up the last few steps and almost swallowing us. We leapt across as creatures started crawling out, clearing them by inches, only to hit the ice rink the floor had become and slide into the thick of the fight.
Which, ironically, was the only thing that saved us.
Marlowe’s boys had been fighting back-to-back against a mob of the bird-type things that had attacked Anthony. They were losing, which I couldn’t understand since they seemed to outnumber the creatures. Until one of the guards turned my way.
I froze, partway to my feet, staring into the face of a vamp wearing the shoulders of a golden breastplate. It was all he had left after what looked like giant talons had ripped away the rest, and most of the flesh underneath. His heart was gone, his chest just a raw cavern of broken ribs and shredded lungs, his throat savaged.
Yet he was on his feet.
But not due to his own power.
“Dory!” Ray cried, and jerked me back. But Ray couldn’t get any traction, and I still had the damned heels on because I’d been afraid my feet would freeze to the floor otherwise. So instead of getting away, we hit the ground again, just as the zombie lunged—
And had a thrashing mass of Weres fall on his head.
Judging by their expressions, I don’t think they’d expected their portal to open over a sixteen-foot drop. And startled Weres have exactly one reaction. They demonstrated it by attacking everything in sight, giving our guys a moment to regroup and us a chance to scramble out of the way. And duck into a dark alcove, because there was nowhere else to go.
Busts and statues were cracking and falling in huge chunks. Lights were bursting and raining down glittering glass. Bullets were whizzing around thick and fast, and creating an impossible-to-navigate obstacle course down the whole length of the corridor. And then there were the portals, which worried me more than the rest, since there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to them, no way to predict where the next one would show up.