“It looks like a damned invasion force! But who cuts a two-way portal into their staging area?”
“Somebody who made a mistake,” I said, thinking of the other problem portals we’d seen.
“That’s what you get for allying with idiots,” Ray said, stripping the nearest dark mage. And passing me a bunch of potions I didn’t know what to do with, and a gun and bandolier that I did.
“Well, it’s a mistake that’s gonna cost them,” Zheng said viciously. “We—”
“Cost them how?” I asked, draping myself in lead. “Even if we could get a group together, we’d just die there instead of here. There’s no way we have the people to—”
“Then we’ll die on the offensive!”
“Like that’s an improvement?”
“Given the alternative! I’m not staying here and being slaughtered like—”
“Help us and you won’t have to! Marlowe wanted me and Ray to check on the guys he sent to get the shield back up, but we can’t get down the damned—”
Zheng cursed. “You and Ray?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You’re barely able to stand and Ray’s…Ray! Where the hell are Marlowe’s boys?”
I gestured around. “Busy?”
“The ones he sent!”
“He doesn’t know,” Ray said softly. “He can’t
contact them.”
“And we know what that means, don’t we?” Zheng asked viciously.
“We won’t know until we find them,” I snapped, panic eroding my already tenuous patience. “Maybe they fell into a portal; maybe they’re too injured to respond—”
“Maybe they’re dead! Face it—if Marlowe’s boys couldn’t get the damned shield back up, when they know every inch this place, we’re not going to. And if we waste time trying, the fey will be through—”
“You aren’t listening. They’re coming through whenever the hell they want! Did you see—damn.”
That last was in response to a group of pissed-off things, mostly Weres, that had started our way.
And equally quickly regretted it.
“Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta,” Ray muttered, watching Zheng let out some frustration.
“You’re a smuggler.”
“Close enough.”
But good as Zheng was, the odds weren’t great. And they were about to get worse as the smell of fresh meat got the attention of more of the Were-things. A large group down the hall had just finished savaging something on the floor, and now they turned hound-like heads toward us, red-stained maws wet and dripping.
“Call for backup!” I yelled, trying to lay down some cover fire as they charged, but they were too fast and there were too many of them. Plus, bullets didn’t do much more damage to them than to Zheng.
“There is no backup,” Zheng growled. “Marlowe’s fucked in there as it is.”
“And what’s your assessment of us out here?” I demanded, as they surrounded us in a space with no portals.
“Been better,” he said, shoving me behind him, because vampire bodies handled damage a lot better than mine did.