by Karen Chance
There was also a sultry dragon lady in scarlet sitting under an awning, puffing on a foot-long cigarette holder and occasionally breathing out fire along with the smoke. And a throng of cuties in harem attire who kept trying to get him to belly dance with them. Not to mention a trio in mini-skirted cheongsams who were loudly singing karaoke. There were even a few scattered male figures, like the guards and—possibly—a giant, fluffy panda. But as in the human world, magical Hong Kong seemed to prefer to advertise with women. It was what had given John the idea for their disguises, although they were only half of the equation.
They still needed transport.
And somewhere to hide, he thought, his head coming up at the sound of hundreds of running feet.
“Damn,” Zheng muttered, while the little dancer yelled something in Cantonese.
John suddenly found himself in the middle of a full-blown street carnival. The two guards broke out torches that they set on fire, before starting to juggle them back and forth between them. Zheng was grabbed by the panda and lovingly enfolded in its arms, almost disappearing inside the fluffy fur. And John himself was practically smothered by the throng of belly dancers, who crowded close, shimmering and shaking and doing their thing.
Meanwhile, a dark tide boiled straight at them down one of the larger alleys, six abreast and numerous enough to fill the whole street. John suddenly recalled all the methods that vamps had for detecting their favorite prey—including the ability to sense the heat that a human body gave off. Zheng was behind the jugglers and practically buried in folds of panda fat, so whatever minimal heat a vampire emitted was likely pretty well camouflaged. But John . . .
Was right out in the open.
Until the dragon lady stepped in front of him, cigarette holder in hand, and blew out a plume worthy of a flamethrower. The tide suddenly broke and split, surging down either side of the small company, close enough that John could see the light reflected in hundreds of staring eyes. It was like facing a horde of stampeding cats.
He felt his spine liquify as the last of them blew by, the wind they stirred up strong enough to ruffle his wet hair. But the little dancer didn’t give him time to recover. She snapped her fingers and half the crowd took off like people on a mission, John didn’t know why.
But he knew one thing.
He grabbed her arm. “Even if this works, walking across the city will take too long!”
She rolled gold painted eyes at him. “Who say we walk?”
“What other choice is there?” He hadn’t seen so much as an abandoned bicycle anywhere, the locals having left nothing behind for them to use—
Except for that, he realized, as twenty or so glowing advertisements came back into view, dragging something.
It looked like part of an old pirate ship, although it couldn’t have sailed for years, as evidenced by the large holes in its sides. In fact, John doubted that it ever had. For one, it was too small for the type of ship it was aping, being maybe twenty feet from stem to stern, although it boasted a full-sized and full-busted figurehead on the prow. For another, there were no sails, nor even masts to support them, although there were a few moldy old ores sticking out of the hull here and there. There was an obviously fake cannon on one side, festoons of dingy silk draped along the gunwale, and bunches of fake flowers affixed to the aft. It looked like the pirate version of a party barge.
“What the devil is that?” John demanded.
The little dancer crossed her arms and regarded it proudly. “That our ride.”
She looked at him expectantly.
John looked back. “What?”
“Make it go.”
“Make it go?” He looked from her to the weird little ship again. It was not on wheels nor did it have any form of propulsion that he could see. Not to mention that they weren’t currently anywhere near the water! “And how would you suggest I do that?”
But the dancer had clearly had enough of his crap for one night. She stamped a stilettoed foot and glared at him. “You mage. You make it go!”
John felt like grabbing his head and pressing until it popped. “This is your plan? This? Is that thing really the best you could do?”
But that only seemed to enrage her. She grabbed the front of John’s sari, pushing one coconut higher than the other, and shook him. “I not do everything! You leave me in scary dark alley all night—”
“It’s not night, and I had things to—”
“You shut up! You push me downhill—”
“Are you still going on about that?”
“—drag me into some crazy chase where I almost blow up—”
“Can you even die?”
“—and then abase me in an alley—”
“What did you do to her in an alley?” Zheng asked, coming over.
“Nothing. I think she meant abandon—”
“You shut up!” she screamed, loudly enough that John and Zheng both stopped to stare at her.
She furled her fan again and, for a moment, John was fairly certain he was about to be assaulted with it. But instead she used it to point at the “ship.” “You make it float. We make it go.”
“Who is we?”
And then two of the strangest creatures from this very strange day came forward, all glittery, iridescent wings and waving antennas, but with human faces and bodies in skin tight purple leotards. Were they supposed to be some sort of fey? John wondered. Because the fey did not look like that, except in little girls’ picture books and strange men’s dreams.
And whimsical advertisements, he realized, as one of them took off into the air like an oversized Tinkerbell, causing him to crane his neck.
Zheng looked at him.
John looked back.
“It could work,” the world’s ugliest geisha observed.
It could not work, John thought, sizing up the weight of the barge. Yes, technically, he might be able to get it to levitate, possibly even whilst carrying all of them, since the ads didn’t appear to weigh that much. But even so, they had a lot of ground to cover and quickly.
How fast could that thing possibly go?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
A ugggghhhhhh!”
John couldn’t tell if that was him or Zheng, but he rather thought it was the vampire. His cheeks were flapping back against his skull too much to allow for speech, rain laced wind was pouring down his throat, and his eyes were watering to the point that everything was just a big blur. A big, light filled, insanely fragrant blur, he thought, as he was hit in the face with an oversized powderpuff.
“Now you pretty,” the makeup girl told him, right before their ride tilted to the side, to slide through a narrow gap between buildings.
Very narrow.
John choked on powder and fell into Zheng, their cries blending into one as they cleared the gap with maybe a millimeter to spare.
The ship abruptly flipped back the other way, causing both men to crash into the panda, who courteously set them on their feet again as the ride evened out.
Just so they could almost be decapitated by a bridge.
“Shit!” John yelled, ducking barely in time, whilst the big vampire cursed in Cantonese or Mandarin or whatever language he was currently using. John didn’t know and didn’t care because they’d just hit one of the main thoroughfares of the city, and there were goddamned bridges everywhere!
Not to mention speeding vehicles—of every possible description.
He had assumed that his group would be the weirdest thing in the skies, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. In between the flashing neon signs, the tall columns of skyscrapers, and the multitude of windblown debris, were a crazy collection of vehicles best described as anything that could move. Absolutely anything.
And nobody was worrying about traffic lanes anymore.
In short order, John had to duck to avoid a flying bus, which was dropping luggage off the back like leather bombs. And then again to miss a guy dangling from two drones and threatening to kick him in
the head. Only to be grabbed by something and jerked off his feet.
Something that appeared to be a giant-sized, prehistoric talon.
John stared at it for a second, but before he could figure out what the hell, he landed back on the ship, sprawling on the wet boards and staring up at . . .
He had no bloody idea.
A man in a saddle leaned over the side of a great white bird as it beat huge wings against the gale. It looked like an albino pigeon, only sized up about twenty times, including the massive claws—one of which was decorated with John’s blood. The man had goggles on, but was otherwise dressed like he was going on safari, complete with jaunty pith helmet and properly tucked riding crop.
“I say, are you all right?” he asked John, looking concerned.
John just stared some more. He knew that the bird—and probably the glowing rider, too, who looked suspiciously like the mascot of a popular brand of gin—was just another ad let loose by the chaos. But still.
Magical Hong Kong was fucking with his head.
The typhoon caught the strange duo a second later, and they swerved off into the insanity. And promptly collided with someone else, because the storm was throwing the fleeing inhabitants into each other, making the problematic driving even worse than it usually was. Not to mention bringing dozens of unprotected fan blades too damned close for comfort!
“What are you doing?” Zheng demanded, as John got back to his feet, ducking and dodging and cursing up a storm. “Stay down! If even one enthralled vamp sees you—”
“In this?” John ducked down but gestured at the chaos, staring up at the damned bird, which had somehow gotten its claw stuck in some fishing net trailing off the back of a rickshaw. It went wild, flapping and pulling back, whilst simultaneously trying to swoop around, sending it and the rickshaw slinging through the air like a thrown bola.
Right into the path of a bunch of vamps.
They had been perched on the roof of a club, just a line of dark silhouettes against a huge lighted sign, but at that they looked up. And immediately jumped off the building as if synchronized, some running across the passing vehicles, using them like stones in a pond to cross the road. While others latched onto the vehicles themselves, wrenching them off course and turning them—
Straight at him.
Zheng cursed and pulled out his pretty gun.
John grabbed his arm. “You can’t shoot into traffic. There are too many civilians!”
Zheng looked at him like he was crazy. “Like it matters?”
“It matters! And it won’t help us anyway!”
“Wanna make a bet?” Zheng asked savagely. And emptied a clip into a truck swerving up beside them, which had acquired half a dozen new passengers on the roof.
And just as suddenly unacquired them, as they fell backwards, causing other vehicles to have to abruptly dodge out of the way. And one that wasn’t fast enough to end up with a bleeding body draped across a fancy couple’s laps. It wasn’t moving, even as the rickshaw swerved, the humans screamed, and the unfortunate vamp went flying—
All without making a single twitch.
John spun around and grabbed Zheng’s gun.
Zheng grabbed it back. “Get your own!”
“I don’t have any with vamp killing bullets!”
Zheng pulled something out of the back of his waistband and slapped it in John’s hand. “Now you do.”
And then they were both firing.
John wanted to ask where he’d found the ammo, if there was any more, and why the hell he hadn’t used it earlier, but he didn’t get the chance. Because the whole street had become a shooting range on acid. Their little barge was ducking and rising to avoid bridges and other vehicles, the pursuing vamps were doing the same, and civilians were careening about like drunken sailors, abruptly getting between John and his targets. Meanwhile the rain blew in his face, the colors streamed across his vision, and a bullet scraped his temple.
Because the vamps had guns, too.
But before he could raise a shield, they were all dead, courtesy of the fastest gun in the East. John reminded himself not to make fun of Zheng’s firearm choice ever again, considering that he could hit absolutely anything with it. And whilst barreling down the road at something like eighty miles an hour!
John felt a huge grin split his face as he realized they’d done it. They’d dealt with all of them! He grabbed Zheng’s massive shoulder. “Yes!”
But the big vamp just shook his head. “Wasn’t fast enough.”
“What are you talking about? That was brilliant!”
But Zheng just nodded at something off the back of the barge, and John belatedly realized that the sentries must have lasted long enough to get off a call for help.
Because it had just arrived.
“Punch it!” Zheng yelled, and grabbed the dancer.
She had been leaning over the side of their craft, shouting directions at the makeshift engines, who couldn’t see where they were going with the hull in the way. But at that she looked up. At thousands of shadows leaping from speeding rickshaw to swaying bridge to speeding rickshaw, literally running down the street on top of the wildly fleeing crowd, because even the fastest speeds the little vehicles could do weren’t anything compared to a vamp.
Which was why they were gaining.
The little dancer whirled on Zheng, her eyes wide. “What you do?” she demanded.
“Ask him,” Zheng said, hiking a thumb at John, before hanging over the side of the hull to talk to the glittery engine fairies.
And what kind of a life did he live, John wondered dizzily, where that was a sentence someone would legitimately think?
Probably the same one in which he was assaulted by a pissed off temple dancer.
“What you do?” she demanded, grabbing him, the golden nails sinking deep.
“It doesn’t matter now! Just go faster!”
“We can’t go faster!”
“Then we’re dead!” John snapped, and blasted two vamps leaping at them from the back of a nearby rickshaw.
They fell into the abyss, but they were just the vanguard. Probably additional sentries who had been closer than the rest of the army, maybe staking out another street, and had been able to catch up quicker. Like those, John thought, picking off three more who were dive bombing them from a nearby building.
“Out!” he yelled at Zheng, who threw him another clip.
“Last one. Make it count.”
Of course, John thought, slamming it into place. I’m sure it’ll make all the difference! And then he turned it on the mass of rickshaws suddenly swarming them.
“Shoot me and I kill you!” someone snapped.
“About time you found me!” Zheng yelled, looking up with a grin on the big face.
A long string of heated Cantonese replied, followed by a familiar dark head poking out from under a rickshaw’s canopy.
“Kong!” John said, recognizing one of Zheng’s little group of investigators.
“Get down, or maybe somebody shoot you on purpose,” Kong snarled, and spun his craft away, flying in the same direction as the barge.
The others followed suit, leaving a line of tiny vehicles zipping alongside them on either side, looking impossibly small against the huge expanse of flowing neon, pounding rain and massive, oncoming army. Why, John couldn’t imagine. What could half a dozen rickshaws do against so many?
That, he realized, when the rest of the canopies abruptly dropped, uncovering something mounted on the back of the vehicles. Something shiny and dark and bizarrely familiar. Something that looked a lot like—
“You have machine guns?” John yelled, as Zheng’s boys let loose a hail of bullets into the approaching horde.
Fortunately for the locals, most of the people in the road behind them had already gotten out of the way, veering off to one side or the other, or desperately trying to land. But that didn’t help those down below, in more earth-bound types of transport, who were suddenly inundat
ed by a literal rain of vampires. Hoods were smashed in, windshields shattered, and headlights went skewing everywhere as cars swerved to avoid bodies, or hit corpses and flipped, or were abandoned as people simply got out and fled.
Yet it wasn’t enough.
Zheng’s people kept firing, even as they were overrun. John saw what must have been fifty vamps jump one of the rickshaws, sending it plummeting to earth under a dark, squirming mass. Another was slammed by a smaller group, but enough to send it careening into a stone bridge. Several more went up in balls of fire out of nowhere, which didn’t make sense. Not unless—
“Grenades. They’re taking the bastards with them!” Zheng said, and then threw back his head and roared, like a wounded lion watching his pride be destroyed.
And the worst part was, it still wasn’t enough.
The army was just too numerous, and most had the shields John had seen earlier, back at the pharmacy. They’d popped out as soon as the shooting started, and most of the bullets weren’t getting through. The sound of machine gun fire abruptly cut out as the last of the rickshaws disappeared, yet the army came on. Smaller by hundreds, but not enough to matter. Farther away, but not enough to help. To get away, they needed a miracle—
Or a disaster, John thought, as a now familiar ripple of magic shivered through the air around him.
His head whipped around, but all he saw were neon signs, zipping vehicles and blowing rain. And wildly swinging bridges, and crumbling buildings, and falling masonry, with one chunk big enough to take out a nearby rickshaw. The small craft simply disappeared between one eyeblink and another, whilst the street below looked like someone had picked up the whole, long, brightly illuminated expanse and dropped it, causing the lights to flicker and the screams to reach a crescendo.
As a new earthquake ripped through the city.