"I suppose."
"Then what we will do is this: when the party breaks up, be ready to change and move out. About one o'clock, I should think. Drink lightly."
"All right."
"And now, I think, we need another dance. Find your partner." Patrise bowed. Doc returned it and went back to Ginny.
Before long, he began to notice something different between them tonight. It seemed odd to call it warmth-hadn't they been warm? Her hands were tight in his, and her eyes seemed uncommonly deep.
A clock struck eleven. Doc thought of Cinderella, waiting for midnight, and thought perhaps he knew what the change was: she was feeling his tension, the energy winding up inside him, and reflecting it back, expecting Not expecting him to run away from her at one, to join the monster hunt.
Finally he took her into another room and told her what they were going to do.
"It's all right," Ginny said.
"No, it's not all right. Why should I want to run out and helpkill somebody-"
"That isn't what you're going to do, and you know it. Mr. Patrise and your friends are going out to do something important, to stop something terrible, and you're going because they may need your help. Where is Mr. Patrise?"
"Over in the-"
"Come on."
Patrise was speaking softly and rapidly to Boris Liczyk. He stopped, turned. "Yes, Hallow? Ginevra? Do you wish to leave us for a while?"
"No, sir," Ginny said, politely but firmly. "I wanted to say that, if you should need to leave early, I'd be pleased to help keep the party going." She smiled. "I have some experience there, as you know, sir."
"My very dear." Patrise bowed. "I am pleased more than you know to hear that, but you are a guest tonight. Boris and the staff will have no difficulties. But will you do one thing for me?"
"Of course, sir."
"Give me a dance."
Doc watched them, with just a spark of something he knew was jealousy, though knowing it made him feel sick and absurd. Then Gloss White tapped his arm, and he swallowed hard and danced with her; but of course Gloss could make a sack of turnips look like Fred Astaire, and it did go well, the four of them waltzing to Alvah's music. Then they changed partners, and all evil sparks cooled and died.
At a quarter to one, Doc hugged Ginny, and she pulled him behind an armoire and made it an extremely definite kiss. He left her and the candlelight belowstairs, went to his room to change into something more appropriate for the evening's late entertainment.
Doc drove with Cloudhunter in the Triumph's passenger seat. The cars didn't convoy, so Doc took meaningless turns at Cloud's instructions, until they parked in an empty loading dock, in a spot surrounded by broken pallets and snow-covered cardboard. Cloud opened a metal door. Beyond it was a dingy corridor, another door, and then space.
The building had been a shopping center, three or four levels connected by escalators, ramps, glass elevators; aisles and balconies lined with bookshops, record stores, fashion and shoe and jewelry stores. All the retail spaces were dark and empty 7, deserted or smashed in, with a litter of broken-heeled shoes and split-spined books here and there in passing. Snow filtered through broken skylights, down the open spaces between floors, and the greenery in the balcony planters had been overtaken by coarse wild vines with leaves like lizard scales.
Patrise was leading McCain and Stagger Lee across a stretch of mildewed carpet. More of his people were following at a distance. Doc and Cloud closed with them.
Stagger was holding a box of some heavy gray metal, perhaps lead, that had copper-colored rods protruding from each face. It was making a soft, high-pitched squealing that shifted tone as he twiddled and slid the rods.
"There," Stagger said, and there was a burst of red light from overhead. Voices, elf and human, screeched, and halt'a do/en pco pie came running from one of the second-level shopfronts. Two were Silverlords in padded gray leather, jacket and jeans, jacket and zippered skirt; the rest were humans of one sort or other.
McCain raised his Colts, fired from both hands. A human-a Loop Garou, Doc guessed-was hit in mid-leap and fell hard; the other shot brought the male elf down in a heap nearby. The Sil-verlord woman vaulted the railing, landed fifteen feet below in a snap roll, came up holding two long blades. McCain took aim.
There was a flicker of light behind the glass of one of the storefronts. Then the doors blew out.
Lieutenant Linn stepped through, light streaking out behind him. Lt. Rico came after, in a heavy dark-blue jacket with web straps and pouch pockets. It said POLICE in big reflective letters. She carried what looked like a midget Gatling gun in black metal.
The Silverlord spun to face them, leveling her blades.
Rico's gun coughed and spat a burst of vapor, and a six-inch metal arrow stuck in the floor between the Blood's shoes. The multiple barrels rotated with a click.
"Everybody," Rico said, "coolit\"
Patrise said aloud, "It's a big stadium, plenty of room for everyone to play," and quietly to the people near him, "Diffuse. Stay in touch, but spread out. Hallow, stick to Cloudhunter."
Rico said, "I don't think you're receiving me, Little Caesar. Nobody is doing any more playing."
One of the Silverlords' people above popped up with an automatic rifle; he sprayed half a dozen rounds in the general direction of everybody else alive. People scattered; Lt. Rico went for cover behind a counter and leveled her weapon. Lt. Linn moved his hands in a complex pattern that hissed and sparked with red light. The shooter screamed and folded over the railing; his arms were wrapped in metal and wood, bits of brass and powder spilling to the floor below. Linn had apparently turned the gun inside out around its owner.
Everybody was moving then, Patrise's people, Rico and Linn, the Silverlords and Vamps.
"This way," Cloud said, and Doc followed him around a sharp corner into a broad, dim corridor with dead stores on both sides. It was lit by a string of glass tubes, the pale cold light of half-dead magic. They got ten yards along, twenty, and Cloud kept going. Doc said, "Shouldn't we-"
"There's a focus ahead," Cloud said in Ellytha. The word the books translated as focus literally meant "seam of destiny": it could mean a concentration of magic, a battlefield, a sacred place. Doc had also heard Cloudhunter use it to speak of Patrise.
Cloud stopped.
Light from the corridor slanted into a broad, wide-open shop-front. It had been a clothing store, though there wasn't a rag of fabric left. The mannequins-all female that Doc could see-had been torn apart, hacked, savaged: here and there a blade was still stuck in the plastic, and a yard of cycle chain wrapped a headless throat. Slogans had been painted on the dismantled dolls and the store walls: Elvish obscenities, symbols.
"Did the gangs do this?" Doc said.
"Before gangs," Cloud said. "From the first days of Return. That sign means 'Give Mortals Their Destiny' That one, 'Leave None Whole.'
Something white sailed out of the darkness. Cloud's sword reached out and intercepted it; it hit the floor with a crack.
It was a skull.
"Get back," Cloud said, low and hot, and Doc took a step backward. Smoke boiled out of the far corridor. Cloud gave the skull a vicious kick to the side; he threw out a hand, and a handful of throwing stars flashed through the haze.
A shape came out of the smoke: a bulky black cloak, no face. no form, with a long thin sword extending from beneath it.
Cloud said, in Elvish, "I am somewhat amused. Whisper Who Dares." He inclined his head to the black thing. Then his hand moved again, and another spot of light crossed the space separating them. This time the throwing star came bouncing back out of the smoke, and spattered elf blood on the floor.
Another black figure, identical to the first, emerged from the smoke; as it passed, the first shape crumbled into air.