Marsten crept forward, his gaze fixed on the guard, managing to skirt obstacles as if by instinct. His feet rolled from heel to toe, soundless. The guard’s gaze swept a hundred and eighty degrees, and I fell back, but Marsten only froze in place.
The guard took three steps and then peered around another statue. Marsten kept pace less than five feet behind, so close I half expected the guard to feel Marsten’s breath on his neck.
Marsten took one last step, tensed, and sprang. At the last second the guard turned, too late to fire his gun but fast enough to throw Marsten off his trajectory.
Marsten checked his leap at the last second and smacked the guard’s gun arm back hard and fast. The guard let out a hiss—part pain, part rage—and dove for the gun.
Marsten knocked the guard flying. The guard crashed into a vase stuffed with replica scrolls. As he reached up, sparks flew from his fingertips, and I knew his half-demon power. Fire.
The guard’s hand closed around a scroll. Even as my lips parted to shout a warning to Marsten, the paper burst into flame. The guard swung the fiery torch at Marsten, who was already in mid-leap, coming straight at him.
The scroll caught Marsten in the side of the face, and he fell back. The guard dropped the paper, now nearly ash, and dove for Marsten, his good hand going to Marsten’s throat. Marsten drilled his fist into the guard’s stomach. As the guard fell, he grabbed Marsten’s arm, and Marsten yanked away, but I could see the guard’s scorched handprint on his white sleeve.
As the two men launched into a full supernatural power brawl, I finally snapped out of my “mmm, chaos” intoxication, and realized that I too had a weapon—the guard’s gun lying less than twenty feet away.
I crept along the shadows, moving from exhibit to exhibit. Yes, I was worried about the guard spotting me and deciding I made an easier target, but I was even more worried about distracting Marsten.
Whether Marsten could be distracted was another question. He fought with the single-minded purpose of someone who’s done a lot of it. Not what I would have expected. But was I surprised? No. I had seen that look in his eyes, and I hoped never to be on the receiving end of it again.
The gun had slid under a scale model of Pompeii. I managed to get behind the low table. Then I stretched out on my stomach. I reached into the narrow opening until my shoulder jammed against it and swept my hand back and forth, feeling nothing but gum wrappers and dust bunnies.
I peered under the display table. In the dim emergency lighting, I could see the gun still inches from my fingertips. I wriggled and stretched and twisted and finally brushed the barrel. Another wiggle, and I got my index finger into the lip. Not the safest thing to do with a loaded gun, but I managed to tug it forward enough to grab it from a safer angle.
I crouched, steadied the gun, and then jumped up—
Marsten was sitting beside the guard’s prone body, surveying the burn damage to his shirt. He looked over at me, poised Dirty Harry style, gun drawn, hair wild, still drowning in the oversized tux jacket. His lips twitched.
“I, uh, have the gun,” I said.
“So I see.”
“And I see you have the situation, uh, under control. So I’ll just …”
I let the sentence trail off as I lowered the gun and moved from behind a table, ignoring his barely stifled laughter.
“If you can stand guard, I’ll hide this one,” he said as I approached.
As I looked down at the dead guard, I pushed back a stab of regret. This had long passed “just knock him out” solutions. We already had knocked this guard out—and handcuffed him—and he’d still come after us. Still, if I had managed to leap up from behind that table, could I have pulled the trigger?
You’ve been carrying a gun for a year, and you don’t know whether you could have fired it? What did you think it was? A fashion accessory?
“Hope?”
Still crouched beside the body, Marsten touched my leg, gently prodding me back to reality.
“If you are not up to it—” he began.
“Guard duty. Got it.”
ELEVEN
The burning scroll hadn’t triggered any fire alarms, nor had the grunts and punches of combat been loud enough to bring partygoers running. As Marsten stowed the dead guard, I concentrated on both exits, looking, sensing, and listening. I caught a supernatural vibe just as Marsten said, “Footsteps. Supernatural?”
I nodded. “Are they coming—?”
“This way,” he said. “From the direction we did.”
I glanced toward the other doorway but knew without asking that Marsten had no intention of fleeing. When Tristan realized he’d lost both his guards, he wouldn’t walk away. He’d call in reinforcements, presumably the guys watching the main doors.
Marsten turned to track the approaching footsteps. “More than one set. Probably partygoers. Can you tell?”
I concentrated, but my heart was pounding, reminding me with each rib-jangling beat that I didn’t have time to dawdle. My powers caved under the pressure, and I couldn’t even pick up that one vibe anymore.
“It doesn’t matter,” Marsten whispered when I told him. “We’ll see them soon enough.”
The last word was leaving his lips as Tristan came into view, flanked by what could only be two more Cabal men. Marsten let out an oath and propelled me back to our original hiding spot between the stelae.
As they passed, I saw Tristan take his cell phone from his ear and scowl.
“Russell still not answering?” one of the guards said.
Tristan shook his head. “I’ll try Mike. See if he can go look for Russell.”
Marsten and I glanced at one another and then at the spot where Marsten had hidden the body—less than three feet from us. As Tristan finished dialing, Marsten tensed and I tugged the gun from my pocket, waiting for the dead guard’s phone to ring. Then I leaned out to see Tristan as he kept walking, phone to his ear. Seconds ticked past. He stabbed the Disconnect button.
“Set to vibrate,” Marsten whispered.
That made sense. Nothing blows your cover faster than the chords of “Ride of the Valkyries” resounding through a supposedly off-limits hall.
When the three were gone, we headed back the other way, across the main hall and into the biodiversity wing, a.k.a. the stuffed animal gallery. On the other side was the ceramics exhibit. Halfway across the biodiversity room, we caught the strains of a lively monologue coming from the ceramics gallery. The midnight behind-the-scenes tour.
I debated joining them and taking refuge in numbers. The wisdom of that depended on how likely he thought Tristan was to avoid public confrontation. After a moment I shook my head, and Marsten prodded me toward the narrow opening between a pillar and the African savanna diorama.
He backed in first and crouched to sit on a fan box. Then he motioned for me to back onto his lap.
We settled in for what could be a long wait. Or he settled. My brain was racing, struggling to hold back all the regrets and self-recriminations I’d have to deal with later. To distract myself, I indulged instead in replays of the running and fighting—those delicious spurts of chaos that only sent my heart tripping.
Soon other visions crept in: a vulture circling overhead, an ocean of long dry grass whispering as I moved through it, a breeze bringing the heavenly scent of musk, my stomach growling, tail twitching in anticipation—