So they were trying to take him out first.
Half of the opposing team jumped him, most of them having already found weapons consisting of whatever the fire had spared. Kitchen knives, heavy pieces of furniture, and what appeared to be part of a solid steel girder all came at us at the same time. Causing my ride to do a 360 flip in midair, coming off the wall and going straight up, amazingly fast and balletic for someone his size.
Leaving the would-be attackers to crash into the wall below.
“All right,” I breathed, grinning in shock and relief as we righted again, on a broken ledge another story up. “All right! Yeah!”
Which, in retrospect, wasn’t the best idea. Because troll hearing works a lot better than troll eyesight, and Big Blue realized he had a hitchhiker. And flicked me off his shoulder like an annoying insect, one headed straight at the opposite wall, which was about to serve as a flyswatter.
But I wasn’t a fly, and I grabbed one of the hanging ropes in passing, somehow getting my knees up and my feet out. And managed to push off from the wall instead of splatting onto it. And ended up—
Right back in the thick of things.
The next few seconds were a kaleidoscope of impressions more than thoughts, because I didn’t have time for thoughts. Bodies were tumbling, bricks were flying, blood was spurting—green, oh good. And I was getting smacked around by both sides, because I couldn’t see well enough to find a way out.
But not because of a lack of light. The battleground had started off gloomy, with a little moonlight above and some scattered torches below, but it hadn’t stayed that way. As soon as the fun began, the flashlights turned on—masses of them. And started waving around everywhere like a thousand tiny spotlights, because everyone seemed to have one. It reminded me of people holding up lighters at a concert, only these lighters were extra powerful and were glinting off everything: ruined metal and broken glass and tiny, angry troll eyes, whose owners were probably pissed that they had to fight half-blind.
Which was why they were going on movement, Dory!
I finally realized why I was drawing so much attention swinging around on my little rope, probably looking like a flying fist even as I tried to avoid them—and the bottles and bricks and unidentifiable junk the crowd was pelting us with.
Until I got smart and jumped for a piece of somebody’s living room, draped with fallen shag carpeting that gave me a decent handhold. At least, it did until I pulled an ancient TV off the edge. It was built in a cabinet like a piece of furniture and would have taken me out or at least down, only a nearby troll grabbed it first. And flung it at an opponent’s head, catching my rope in the process, and sending me hurtling across the gap—
Straight at a bunch of humans crowding somebody’s bathtub.
Oh, thank God, I thought, reaching for them gratefully.
Only to have them shove me right back out again, waving beer bottles and cheering.
“Assholes!” I yelled, but nobody heard.
On the bright side, the shove sent me spinning across the void toward another possible perch: a broken piece of hallway that nobody had claimed, maybe because it was no longer connected to anything on either side. But I wasn’t coming from the side; I was coming head-on, and I managed to catch it.
With my stomach.
It hurt like a bitch, but so am I, and I snarled and clambered on top. And then just lay there, breathing hard, because it felt like I’d broken a rib. It still did when I rolled over a moment later and peered past the edge, trying to take stock.
It wasn’t easy.
The fight had already spread out, with two fallen colossi in the now-mostly-vacated lobby, and two more battling it out on the floor around them, throwing up huge drifts of soot in the process. Everybody else was tearing through the various stories, raining down bricks and dust and debris, which, with the strobe lighting from the damned flashlights, made it hard to see anything. But I nonetheless managed to glimpse a smear of pink, far below.
And then Louis-Cesare, on one side of the lobby. He had a torch in one hand and a piece of rebar in the other, and was holding off an even dozen vamps while still draped in three grinning sidekicks. Because it looked like Bitch Girl hadn’t come alone.
It also looked like her backup was a little worried about the bears. Like why Louis-Cesare hadn’t felt it necessary to set them down. Or maybe they’d heard rumors of the crazy swordsman with the old-world manners who would apologize if he stepped on your foot in a fight right before he gutted you. But it was more likely going to be the other way around this time, because he was distracted, his eyes flickering constantly upward.
Looking for me, I realized.
“I’m okay!” I yelled, waving both arms, and saw a brief flash of teeth.
Right before he was swamped by the whole crew at once, who weren’t politely waiting to duel him one at a time, like in the movies.
They never do.
Crap.
I started looking for a landing spot that my rope might reach, only to realize that it wasn’t a rope. I’d grabbed for one, but in the darkness I’d found something else. Something that spit and sizzled, like a downed electric cable.
Maybe because it was a downed electric cable.
“Shit!”
And then Purple Hair popped up over the side of my impossible-to-reach perch, like freaking Spider-Man.
I blinked at her.
“How the hell did you get up here?” I demanded.
“Miss me?” She flashed some fang.
“No,” I said, and stuck the cable to her chest.
Okay, that worked better than expected, I thought, watching her slam back into the void, like she’d been hit by a giant fist.
And then get smashed between two of them, when she sailed straight into the middle of a troll fight.
I winced.
That had to hurt.
And then the cable suddenly coiled around and hissed at me, like some huge black snake. An image that was only reinforced when it started striking down, sparking off brick and plaster and part of a twisted girder, as I ducked and dodged and cursed vampire master powers, the fun stuff they get with advanced age but which I’d managed to miss out on.
At least I know how she managed that throw, I thought, wrestling with the damned thing. And finally managing to loop it around a girder. And tie it off in half a dozen knots until it just stayed there, flailing helplessly.
Like me, when a roundhouse kick came out of nowhere and sent me sailing.
Son of a bitch!
I landed in a rug-burn-inducing slide in a soot-covered apartment somewhere below. One stuffed to the gills with ogres who didn’t appreciate the intrusion. Between the pots and pans and somebody’s floor lamp they started pelting me with, it took me a second to notice that my assailant’s hair was now blond and short, and that she seemed to have changed sexes.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked, staring up at the new guy.
“A dead man,” he told me, which was accurate considering the fangs, but weird.
Or maybe not, I thought, as he suddenly staggered backward into the abyss, and I realized that he hadn’t been the one speaking.
“Competition?” I guessed, as Purple Hair grinned at me some more.
“Competition,” she agreed.
And then she lunged.
But I’d expected it, and got a frying pan up in time, slamming it into her pretty face. It didn’t cave it in, exactly, but I had the impression that her features might be a lot flatter once it came off. I decided not to find out and kicked her over the edge.
For anyone else, that would have been it, but anyone else would have already been dead from electrocution. So it wasn’t entirely a surprise to see some purple-tipped talons grasp the edge of the floor a couple seconds later, although how their owner managed that I didn’t know unless she jackknifed in space. But at least she was looking a little worse for the wear, with her hair a crackling nimbus around her perfectly made-up and now-blood-smeared face.