Harris began firing again—one shot, two. There were only two faces out in the darkness now, and one of them was shouting to the others. The return fire abruptly stopped. The two faces kept coming, one of them much higher off the ground than the other.
Gaby’s hand clamped down on Harris’ balls with a grip of steel. He jerked in pain and fired an accidental shot into the air. “Jesus, let go!”
“Let me up, or I Will Tear It Off!”
Harris writhed. It hurt worse that way, but he couldn’t help himself. And that face was getting closer—
That face. Adonis, not more than ten yards from the edge of the circle. Harris took aim and fired. He missed; he couldn’t hold his aim steady. Not with a furious nutcracker clamped on him.
Five yards. Adonis was so close that Harris wouldn’t be able to get to his feet in time. Harris fired again.
The shot hit Adonis in the nose. A gross spray of blood and meat, black in the moonlight, blew out the back of Adonis’ head.
Adonis jerked to a stop and looked surprised.
Then it kept coming.
And it began to grow, stretching unnaturally just before it reached the boundaries of the circle. Moving too fast to slow down, Adonis, ten feet tall and growing, reached the edge—and stopped there like a mime running into an imaginary pane of glass.
Doc fell over on his side and turned to look at Adonis. He was in time to see the old man, a stretched, twelve-foot-tall version of the old man, stride up to the edge.
The old man’s face, twisted in anger, peered down at the three of them—and Gaby, finally seeing what was going on, gasped at the sight of their elongated attackers. She let go of Harris.
Doc looked at the old man. He said a single word: “Duncan.” His tone was pained, not surprised.
Then the world popped.
The bubble of light in the conjurer’s circle dwindled to nothing. Adonis and the old man just stood there as Phipps tentatively approached.
It was bad. The old man’s shoulders were shaking. “Sir?”
The old man spun on him. It was his I’m-just-about-to-lose-it look, all trembling anger ready to erupt. “It was him,” Duncan hissed. “He’s found me. Like he always does.”
“Sir, we need to get back to the cars. The police will be coming.”
The old man looked at him as though he’d spoken in a foreign language, then finally nodded.
The other men had hung back, brushing off their clothes. As he reached them, the old man quietly asked Phipps, “Who started shooting?”
“That was Kleine, sir.”
“Kleine!” The old man smiled at the startled gunman. “How is your lovely daughter?”
“Uh, just fine—”
The old man drew his automatic and shot the man between the eyes. Bloody matter blasted out the back of Kleine’s head.
Unlike Adonis, the gunman didn’t keep going. He just fell over backwards.
The rest of them hurried back to the cars.
Harris rolled off Gaby and gulped in the air of Neckerdam. The stars above the city glittered down at him.
Nobody was shooting at him. But his arms were still shaking.
Gaby rose, looking around. “What the hell is happening here?”
“Doc!” That was Alastair, pelting up the roadway leading to the manor house. He skidded to a halt beside the collapsed body of his friend and knelt to check his pulse.
“They shot at us,” Harris gasped out. “I don’t know if he was hit.” He reached over to pick up the guns he’d dropped—and froze. They lay where they’d fallen, but they were now deformed, twisted as if exposed to some enormous heat. Like Gaby’s pepper spray.
“What the hell is happening here?”
Alastair gingerly probed around Doc’s back, then peeled him out of the sweatsuit jacket. “I don’t think he’s been hit. A bad poisoning, though. I wager he ignored it.”
“Much as he could.” Harris wearily tried to sit up, then decided against it. His groin still hurt. Better just to stay here for a minute.
“And then commencing a devisement like this. Exhaustion and shock. The idiot.”
Gaby stood over Harris and glared at him. But her voice was deceptively sweet. “Are you going to tell me? This is the last time I ask nicely.”
Weary, he grinned up at her. “Welcome to Neckerdam. Gaby, meet Alastair Kornbock. Alastair, Gaby Donohue.”
“Grace, child. Harris, help me carry him to the car, will you?”
Doc didn’t wake up, but didn’t get worse. They got him up to his room in the Monarch Building and Alastair sent the two of them away.
They found Jean-Pierre and Noriko back in the lab. Jean-Pierre spotted Gaby, put on a predator’s smile, and walked up to her as if dragged by magnetism. “Harris, introduce us.”
“I’m surprised to see you two awake.” Dawn was finally lightening in the east, but Jean-Pierre and Noriko looked alert.
“We were preparing to spell Alastair out at the estate. Harris, your manners.”
“Oh, yeah.” Jean-Pierre’s sudden, deliberate charm put Harris off. “Gabriela Donohue, this is Jean-Pierre Lamignac and Noriko Nomura.”
Noriko bowed.
“Grace,” said Jean-Paul. “So, you are the famous Gabrielle. Doc’s description does not do you justice.” He bent to kiss her hand.
She watched this with a bemused expression. “You remind me of my uncle Ernesto.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. He’s in jail where he belongs.”
He straightened, his expression confused, and she turned away from him. “Harris, your friend Doc is in bed, all your fires are put out . . . it’s time for you to give me some answers.”
Gaby caught on faster than Harris had. “Wait a minute. When you say ‘Sidhe Foundation,’ you don’t mean the pronoun. You mean like in ‘banshee.’ ”
Jean-Pierre winced. “No. Daoine Sidhe. But like the Bean Sidhe, they’re almost gone.”
Gaby’s face was an interesting study; Harris could almost see the thoughts clicking through her head like coins through a mechanical change-counter.
She looked at him. “Pop’s half-Irish,” she said. “And a fireman. A great storyteller both ways. He had lots of fairy tales for all the kids.”
“So this means something to you.”
“Oh, yes. Either you slipped me a tab of LSD, or we’re in the land of the little people.” She glanced at Jean-Pierre and Noriko. “Only they’re not so little.”
Harris finished up his account: “So just as we were popping out he saw the old man and called him ‘Duncan.’ I can only guess that means the old guy is Duncan Blackletter.”
Jean-Pierre paled and lost all the charm he’d been beaming at Gaby. “Doc killed Duncan Blackletter.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“Gods. Then I’ll kill him.”
Gaby broke in, “I have a question. The way you’ve been talking about ‘protecting’ me—am I your prisoner?”
Noriko and Jean-Pierre looked at one another.
“Of a fashion,” she said.
“Of course not,” he said.
“Which is it?”
“You are not,” Jean-Pierre stated firmly, before Noriko could speak. “You are our guest. We will defend you with sword and firearm as long as you choose to accept our aid.”
“Thanks.” Gaby rose. “For right now, though, I’m going to take a walk.”
Jean-Pierre rose also. “I will be pleased to accompany you.”
“I mean, I’m going alone.”
He frowned. “That is not advisable.”
“I know. I’m doing it anyway.”
“Why?”
“To prove I can. If the only way I can go somewhere is with one of you hanging off my arm, then I’m your prisoner. Right?”
Jean-Pierre tried being patient. “Doc would want—”
“Come on, Jean-Pierre. Do I walk, or am I your prisoner? You just said I wasn’t. What’s your word worth?”
Harris winced. He already had the impression of Jean-Pierre that Gaby’s words would cut deep.
Jean-Pierre’s face froze into a blank, cold lack of expression. “If you are foolish enough to go . . . I will not stop you.”