And then for himself.
He felt the building under his feet shiver and shake, and suddenly, he was trying to run over open air. At least, that’s what it felt like with the roof crumbling underneath him. He wouldn’t have been able to keep ahead of it, since the same thing was happening to the roofs in front of him as well, as spells plowed through the houses below.
But Zheng was another matter.
He grabbed John around the waist like an American linebacker grabbing a football, and headed for the in zone. And headed fast. John had a vague sense of buildings literally disintegrating underneath them, of dust and debris flying through the air, of a crimson spell that ricocheted off something below and flew up through the roof, missing them by inches, and of Zheng’s constant swearing.
But they didn’t fall in. John received a new appreciation for vampire speed as Zheng and the blurs of his men leaped the sometime sizeable gaps between buildings, jumped over air conditioners and other obstacles, and somehow kept just ahead of the crumbling infrastructure. Which kept on crumbling, why John didn’t know, since it felt like they’d gone a dozen blocks by now!
And then he looked back, and saw why.
“Son of a bitch!”
“What?” Zheng said, and craned his neck, too.
“Son of a BITCH!”
There were echoes of more local types of curses from the boys, but John barely noticed. Because following them across what was left of the rooftops, scrambling over debris and fighting through a hail of spells, was a very determined orange doughboy. Or what was left of one.
It was about half the size it had been, maybe less, which still left it big enough to peer over the edge of the smaller buildings without having to jump. And to scramble over the taller ones like an overgrown toddler determinedly following its mama. Or its daddy, in this case, John realized sickly.
And everywhere that baby went, the war mages were sure to follow.
Along with their attack.
Well . . . shit.
Chapter Sixteen
C an’t you stop that damned thing?” Zheng demanded.
Not from this distance, John started to say as the big vamp put him down. They’d gotten far enough ahead to pause for a second, although that might not have been the best plan. Because a bolt of something ripped by John’s face, close enough that he could feel the heat on his lips, causing him to rear back.
And then Zheng started shaking him.
“Cut it out!” John snarled.
“Then do something!”
“If you’d brought me some usable weapons, perhaps I could!” John said, as they took a flying leap over another alley. The gap was a little wider than he would have liked, forcing him to have to expend magic to clear it, although the vampires managed it with ease.
Enough that one of them turned on him before he’d even touched down.
It was Kong, of course.
John didn’t know what the creature was saying, because his little interpreter was cowering in an armpit. She appeared to have a fear of heights. John tried poking her, but only succeeded in getting a tiny smack from a gold lace fan in return.
And then Kong was in his face.
“He said you would have your weapons, if you hadn’t turned the sun on us!” one of the other vamps said. “We barely got out of there alive!”
John didn’t bother to point out that he hadn’t done that, because he would have if he could. Not on them specifically, but on the tribunal. “What did you expect me to do?” he demanded. “Let several hundred war mages be murdered?”
It appeared that Kong understood English better than he spoke it, because he didn’t wait for a translation.
“He asked how many of us your men have killed today?” his colleague said, looking like he’d like to know, too.
“Less than they will if we stand here arguing!”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Then how about this? None. Not on purpose, nor by their free will. We are not your enemy—”
“You always enemy!” That was Kong himself, pushing his friend out of the way. “You kill us! That all you do! This no different!”
Zheng had gone ahead of the rest, over by the edge of the flat roofline, and he didn’t look happy. John started to join him, when the big vamp turned around and came back over, saying something sharply in Cantonese. It caused Kong to whirl away in disgust, but the tension was as thick as the smoke drifting in the air around them.
“His family was killed by a mage,” Zheng explained briefly. “He went after the son of a bitch, got cursed with vampirism for his trouble, and then almost died with no master to show him the ropes. He’s not your kind’s biggest fan.”
John looked through the clouds at Kong, who was now over by the roof edge where Zheng had been, but for some reason wasn’t jumping it. “For what it’s worth, that spell isn’t in use by the Corps,” he said. “I doubt most even know it. The Corps doesn’t specialize in making more vampires.”
Zheng snorted. “No, I suppose not. Still, keep your distance.”
That would be a good trick, John thought, as they crowded together on other side of the roof. And then stepped back abruptly—or at least, John did. The vampires, except for Zheng, sprang away like all the fires of hell were after them.
Which did at first appear to be the case.
John risked a quick glance over the edge of the roof, only to see that the buildings on either side of a wide street were burning and shooting flames out of a group of windows below. They looked like factory windows: large and square, and facing each other across the road. The duel updraft was feeding into an inferno that felt likely to roast him, even if he’d had shields.
He stepped back and glanced at Zheng, who, judging by his expression, had already realized that they couldn’t go around. The buildings on either side were too far away for even vampires to jump with accuracy, and the ground below was swarming with mages. And behind them . . .
The now smaller doughboy was gaining—fast. It looked like he’d taken one too many bolts to the butt, which was draining him. But there was still some magic there, and thus maybe some hope.
“I can bridge it,” John said, watching Zheng. “If you trust me.”
Zheng scowled. “Do we have a choice?”
John looked at the roofs behind them, some of which had caved in under the doughboy’s still considerable weight, and the rest were covered in fast approaching mages. “Not anymore.”
Zheng smiled, showing fang. “Then I guess we trust you.”
But did he trust himself, John wondered, staring first at his creature and then at the sky. It was still raining in fits and starts, sometimes heavy as a deluge, and sometimes almost playfully, like a child tossing water around. But even the harder bursts didn’t seem to be helping his creature or hurting the fires.
Unlike the wind, which had increased substantially in just the last few minutes.
It whistled down alleyways, ripped flames off rooftops and sent them leaping into the night. Or scattered them across suspended storage piles, which quickly turned into floating pyres, dripping fire and ash onto the mages below. And, increasingly, onto the fleeing crowds, huddled under spelled umbrellas to deflect both rain and magic, and trying to keep to the smaller streets. But fleeing all the same, because they feared fire more than battle.