Chapter Forty

Spike Boy launched himself atToni, and she screamed again, scrambling backward, her heels digging into the mattress. Fear rocketed adrenaline through her, and her heart sped into an impossible beat.

Spike Boy seized her by the ankle and dragged her across the mattress.

With a sharp, discordant breath, she kicked Spike Boy's hold off, the side of her shoe scraping a patch of skin off his hand.

"Shite!" he snarled, white liquid oozing from his cut. "You bloody diesel!"

She rolled onto her hands and knees and clambered to the bedside table, grabbing the cell phone Nyko had left there, and –

Spike Boy threw himself on top of her.

The cell phone slipped in her grip, dangling precariously from her fingertips.

"Now, now, no scarperin' off, Toni love." Spike Boy yanked the phone out of her hands and hurled it against the wall.

Her heart drummed a pattern of panic in her chest. She'd managed to plant her thumb on number one, but had it been long enough to send a signal?

Rearing above her, Spike Boy planted a knee in the small of her back and wrenched her arms behind her.

She struggled and yelled, her stomach heaving into her throat.

Spike Boy zipped a plastic spot-tie around her wrists, then flipped her onto her back and stuffed a ball gag into her mouth.

No! She hissed a breath from her nostrils, her eyeballs flexing in terror against their sockets. A scream pounded against her larynx. Jacken! But her husband was knocked out on the floor. Not dead, thank you, God – Spike Boy had used pellets again – but certainly in no position to help her.

Spike Boy hefted himself off her, pausing to rake his gaze over her body. "Fuck me ragged, but you're a right fine piece." His black eyes glittered. "It's goin' to be a bit of all right knobbin' you, especially between the –"

The sound of the hotel door opening brought Spike Boy's head whipping around.

The Varcolac were entering the room – they'd received her call! – but they were coming in slowly and cautiously, no doubt figuring they'd be arriving in the middle of a marital spat.

Spike Boy had plenty of time to move into ambush position.

Thrashing her legs, Toni tried to scream a warning around her ball gag.

Thomal was first through the door, his eyes jerking wide at the unexpected presence of an Om R?u.

Spike Boy grabbed Thomal by the throat and testicles. "Another 'round with you, is it?" He tossed Thomal across the room, sending him smashing through the fourth floor window in an explosion of razor-edged glass.

"Thomal!" Arc shouted. He pulled a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon across the room after his brother, flinging his body halfway through the broken window just in time to catch Thomal by the forearm. The two men dangled there as Spike Boy snatched his rifle off the hotel table and swung toward –

Gábor let fly a knife.

The blade sliced deep into Spike Boy's shoulder, white acid spraying. The Om R?u yelled and dropped his weapon.

Nyko surged in behind Gábor, hissing when he saw Toni trussed up like a prize deer, and Jacken sprawled out on the floor. He reached for a knife on his belt –

Another Om R?u – Skull – appeared behind Nyko in the hotel doorway, his own rifle up. Sh-zip. He took out Gábor.

Eye-blink quick, Nyko spun around and snatched up the barrel of the rifle, ramming the stock back into Skull's face, driving the man's nasal bone into his brain. Skull's face tilted skyward, flat as a plate, white acid fountaining in all directions. As the Om R?u timbered over like a felled oak tree, Nyko snatched the rifle out of his hands, whirled, and shot Spike Boy twice. Sh-zip, sh-zip.

The pellets splatted harmlessly against Spike Boy's leather jacket. He laughed. "We're immune to the enchantment, tosser. Why else do ye think we swan about with these pellet rifles? They can never be used against –"

Nyko rushed him.

Spike Boy stomped on the butt of his own rifle, flipping it up into his hands. Sh-zip. " – against us."

Nyko dropped to the floor.

Spike Boy turned, saw Arc still dangling, and pegged the blonde warrior with two pellets.

Arc crumbled out of the window, falling four stories down with his brother to the street below.

Toni let out a strangled cry.

Spike Boy sauntered over to the bed and stared down at Toni with those shiny black eyes of his. "Well, shite, Sunshine, looks like everyone's catchin' a good forty winks now." His lips pulled back from his teeth in a mockery of a smile. "No rescuin' for you today, love. What a bleedin' shame."