Fabiano’s familiar, the heron—had he died in the fire that took her headquarters? Or…
A warning screech from Angie sounded from above. Alistair looked up, just in time to see the enormous shape of the great blue heron, its beak sheathed in brass, descending on him.
Sam’s legs went weak. The heavy door had clearly been breached by force, torn half-off its hinges, its deadbolt snapped.
The roar of an angry lioness echoed from below.
Paladino took out his gun. “Something ain’t right, boss,” he said, which was the understatement of the century as far as Sam was concerned. “You get in the car and keep your head down, and I’ll check it out.”
“No.” These were Sam’s friends; he wasn’t going to stand by and just watch while they were in danger. “I’m going in, too.”
Paladino didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “Stay behind me, then.”
That he could do. “Okay.”
Paladino put his back to the wall and slipped down the stairs, and Sam imitated him. The sound of breaking bottles joined the angry snarling of big cats—then something let out a deep, growling bellow he didn’t recognize. Another familiar.
Paladino swung through the doorway, gun pointed forward. He swore, got off a shot, then dove for cover inside. Not knowing what awaited, Sam plunged in behind him.
The interior was chaos: smashed furniture, broken bottles, silk plants overturned. All of the Gattis were in animal form; Reinhold was nowhere to be seen.
An alligator bellowed again and lunged at Philip. Philip evaded its jaws, twisting and leaping in the air to land on its back, clawing at its tough hide. A bull tried to gore Teresa, who barely got out of the way as it charged. And an enormous white tiger faced off with Wanda and Doris.
He knew that tiger. Tim, the one who’d bonded with Ignatz Ursino’s former witch. They’d thought he died in the fire that consumed the Black Rabbit, but apparently he’d somehow escaped.
Paladino crouched behind one of the overturned tables. He tried to aim at the bull, but didn’t pull the trigger. “I don’t have a clear shot. Damn it!”
“Do you have a knife?” Sam asked. “Or—the kitchen! There’s plenty of knives in there.”
The switchblade Paladino pulled from his pocket opened with a snick. “I’m gonna go for the bull. You see what you can grab from the kitchen, if you can get there safely.”
The bull tried to pin Teresa against the bar; one of its horns grazed her flank, leaving behind a streak of blood, but she managed to squirm out of the way. Seeing his opening, Paladino charged behind the bull, bringing his blade across the tendons on the back of its leg. It let out a bawl of pain—and kicked.
If it had caught him in the face or chest, it would have killed him. As it was, one hoof impacted Paladino’s shoulder with a horrible crunch, spinning him around like a top.
Sam ran as fast as he could through the wreckage. He went over the elevated stage for the band, then ducked behind the bar, shattered glass crunching beneath his feet. He almost went down, spilled booze turning the floor slippery, but managed to grab hold of the bar before he fell.
Tim, Wanda, and Doris were between him and the kitchen. And they weren’t the only ones.
A flash of movement drew his eye to a combatant he hadn’t noticed before—maybe that none of them had noticed.
Just a mouse—nothing more. Small. Harmless. Inconspicuous enough to slip through the mayhem, until it reached an unbroken bottle of vodka that had rolled out from behind the bar.
The mouse shifted into a young woman with a hard, angry face. She snatched up the bottle, tore off the stopper, and stuffed a twist of cloth from her pocket into it.
“No!” Sam yelled and rushed to stop her. But he was too late.
She met his eyes as she raised a fire hex to the improvised fuse and set it alight.
26
Alistair moved just in time to avoid getting stabbed through the eye. Instead, the heron’s beak viciously punctured his shoulder. Without the brass sheath, the blow was enough to spear through a good-sized fish; with it, it went much deeper.
He staggered, unable to support his weight on his right foreleg, the warm gush of blood soaking rapidly through his fur. The heron landed and took the opportunity to go for him again, striking snake-fast. Its aim was off, maybe because his leg picked that moment to collapse, and rather than spearing him in the gut it skipped along his spine, peeling away a strip of hide but not going any deeper.
If Alistair could just get his claws on the thing, he’d be able to take it down—but the long neck and deadly beak were enough to hold him off. He managed to scramble away from it, even though it put him at risk of being shot. He could only hope Sullivan and his soldiers were keeping Fabiano and her goons occupied.
He curled up his injured leg, limping on the remaining three, and growled a warning at the heron. It stared back with cold yellow eyes, sizing him up for its next blow.
