But first, make sure she's safe.

He found the strength to stand, and found that the stairs had ended. A low, glassine door stood here, he would have to duck to go through it. It might have been locked at one time, but right now it was shattered off its hinges. Something had hit it in a hell of a hurry.

He also smelled sorcery. The familiar scent of her threaded through with smoky sorcery and water, wet earth, and crushed green things. Rain dripped off leaves, and there was a faint track that his dark-adapted eyes picked out with little difficulty. He smelled dawn coming, and the reek of blood.

Late. I'm too late. He pushed himself forward, following the great gouges torn in the earth; the High One had its claws out and was running. She couldn't match that kind of speed, she wasn't a Drakul. She wasn't even a full Phoenicis yet.

Chess, Chess, just hang in there, sweetheart. I'm on my way.

Roots reached up to trip him, but the old, tired flood of adrenaline gave him temporary speed. Still, when he burst out into the clearing he wasn't prepared for what he saw. Two slim shapes, one much taller and one so familiar he knew it even in the stew of agony and instinct. Dark hair, tangled back, a pair of jeans, her pale hands both clasped around the hilt of a knife whose blade glittered a hard, hurtful, deadly blue.

Her back was to a tree, and blood slid down the left side of her face. And in the air around her, stirring like golden feathers made of light, the beginnings of a mantle shone.

He didn't pause, his stride lengthening. He flung himself on the Inkani's back just as he heard her scream his name.

So that's who I am, he thought, wonderingly—and then the demon turned, swift and fresh, and tossed out one six-fingered hand.

The stunning impact smashed against him, hurled him back. He met something hard and felt a brief starry jolt of surprise before losing consciousness for a few precious seconds.

When he struggled up out of it, he knew he was in trouble. The thing was too fucking close, too close, and it was reaching down, a smile tilting up its thin lips. Blue eyes glinted with unholy light. “The pup doess have teeth,” it chortled, and its claws swept down. Flesh parted like water, and he heard his own scream, like a wolf on the hunter's spear.

"Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, you! Blue-eyes! You sack of shit, I'm talking to you!"

It was Chess's voice, but subtly different. How? He couldn't think of how. Christ, don't attract its attention, sweetheart, just give me a second to get up and we'll fix this. But his body wouldn't obey him.

The High One, wonder of wonder, paused. It straightened, and he wondered why he felt so cold. Pushed myself too far. Chess, get out of here while it's busy with me, go. Please. His arms were turning to lead, so were his legs.

"You are usseful, imrahir,” the High One hissed, its voice like the slow scald of boiling oil passed over shrinking skin an inch at a time. “But we can find otherss."

"Hey, pal.” She did sound different. Her voice was deeper, richer, and it hurt, scraping along his skin in a different way than the Inkani's. A purely inimical way, with the dragging pain that told him sunlight was on him.

Brightness against his eyelids. But it's raining, he thought. And it's not dawn yet.

"You're in my fucking city, Blue Eyes.” Chess's voice deepened, but retained all its low sweetness. “And you have pissed off the wrong fucking librarian!"

It rose to a screech then, the unearthly hunting-cry of a Phoenicis, hot wind flooding the clearing and screaming through the leaves. The Inkani screeched too, but the force of its cry was blasted away by a massive noise, as if every church bell, pipe organ, siren and foghorn in the world had rung at once into every microphone. His eyes flushed red as the light pressed against his face, light so intense he could see the faint traceries of capillaries in his squeezed-shut eyelids. The smell of burning amber and golden musk drenched the air, blotting out everything else in the world, and he heard a solid chuk sound, as if a blade had been driven into a side of meat.

Bit by bit the light lessened. He heard harsh breathing, and a string of obscenities that made him want to smile. Damn, can that woman curse. But he was cold. Very cold. Oddly cold.

"Ryan?” Her voice again, tired, without that deep edge of danger. The light was draining away, but he couldn't open his eyes just yet. “Oh, God, no. Talk to me. Ryan? Ryan?"

"The wrong fucking librarian,” he heard himself say, in an odd, dreamy voice. “That's fucking beautiful, Chess."

She made a low, hurt sound, very much like a sob. Don't cry, sweetheart. It's all okay.

"Come on, get up,” she said. “There might be more of them. Come on, we have to get up. Of all the goddamn places to come up out of those blasted tunnels, they have to pick the middle of a park. Come on. Please, Ryan. Please.” She sounded very close to a nervous breakdown, and the demon in him raised its weary head, suddenly very close to relaxing. “Please, Ryan."

I can't. Christ, I'm dead. I can't.

I have to.

The world tilted and swayed drunkenly as he struggled to obey her. “I'm glowing like a Christmas tree on crack,” she muttered. “Wonderful. Perfect."

"It's y-your m-mantle.” Why am I stuttering? His tongue wouldn't obey him. “P-p-protects y-you."

And then, he passed out.

Her left hand was bleeding too badly from the demon's claws to be of any real use and she had, par for the course, developed a black eye. At least she'd stopped glowing, mostly. Instead of sending streams of light in every direction she seemed to glimmer, a pale-gold foxfire glow hovering a few millimeters above her exposed skin. But she was exhausted, and the feeling of vital force bleeding out and away from her had been awful. She never wanted to do that again. Ever.

Doesn't matter. If they try to hurt him again, I'll do what I have to do. Whatever that was, I'll find a way to do it again. Whatever I did.

Rage. The feeling had been rage; she'd found something inside herself cracking as the demon had bent over Ryan, intent on killing him. And then the light had come, and a hot fury drove her forward to spit the blue-eyed demon on her knife as it writhed.

Chess shivered. Ryan was little help, he simply slumped against her, all of his weary attention taken up with staying vertical, and his dark eyes had a vacancy to them she didn't like. He looked like hell, he was covered in blood and guck, and his feet were bare. The only clothing he had left was rags, and vivid pink, swiftly healing weals showed against his pale skin—at least, the parts of him that weren't covered in dried blood. His wrists looked terribly swollen, and he moved jerkily, without his usual fluid, eerie grace.

And to add insult to injury, her eyes seemed to have gone a little haywire. She saw things, like pale lines of force swirling through the air, the trees as columns of liquid light, each living thing seemed to have its own aura. If she didn't concentrate on seeing the real world, everything started to look all wonky and glowy, connected with lines of blue or white humming energy. Ryan himself was a furnace of light, strangely geometrical and oddly alien. Maybe she had a concussion. It wasn't out of the question.

Quit it, Chess. You're out of ideas, and there's going to be more demons here soon. She struggled forward another step, her foot sliding in mud, the rain was pelting down now. The sky was gray in the east, but not enough to lighten any of the shadows under the trees. A park, for God's sake. We can't come up anywhere where I can possibly hail a cab—though who'd stop for us looking like this? And my purse is at home. And to top it all off, I've got a glowing-blue knife.