On the Prowl (Alpha & Omega 0.5)(61)

As I started kicking him in his oversize calves, more to take out my frustration than in any hope of escape, the Fey appeared behind the plinth. I stared at him, and he dropped me a wink. I was still trying to absorb that when he flipped open the cage door, allowing the tiny brown bird inside to flutter out. Then a late-arriving troll crashed into him and they both went over the back of the stage.

Instead of flying away, the bird started flitting in circles around my head. Matt saw it and squeaked something rude before releasing me and snatching up a net from inside the podium. He took a swipe at the bird, but it dodged with an arrogant flip of its tiny wings. He tried again, but it moved at the last second in an almost calculated gesture. Unable to redirect his bulk in time, Matt went barreling down the steps to crash into a group of Sebastian's men, scattering them like bowling pins. I smashed my palm down on the release button on the podium, springing the manacle open, and slid my wrist free, but several of Seb's remaining thugs were there before I could so much as take a step.

"Leaving early, Claire? And you the main attraction." Sebastian mounted the steps slowly, his dignity back in place despite the pandemonium. I suppose he thought he was safe, surrounded by the rapidly re-forming posse, but for once his optimism was misplaced.

A nearby Were snatched up one of the gold, satin-striped chairs usually provided for bidders that had been shoved to the side tonight to accommodate the throng. He threw it at the head of a troll who was rhythmically smashing one of his pack member's faces into the side of the steps. He missed his target, but he didn't miss Seb.

One of the guards moved to help his felled boss and the other only had me by one arm. He didn't look too bright, but he made up for it in muscle. His suit bulged even more alarmingly than Mart's, to the point that I expected to see him burst out of it like the Hulk at any moment. He was a norm, brought along as cannon fodder in case of an emergency, to buy time for the mages in the group to hustle the boss out of danger. He obviously didn't view me as a threat, which in his case was pretty accurate. At least until the little bird fluttered down onto the dragon's nose and looked at me inquiringly.

It wasn't easy getting the muzzle off one-handed, but I managed it. "You're lazy and stupid, and nobody thinks you're tough," the gamelan told my guard. "And you look ridiculous in that suit."

The guard collapsed to his knees, holding his ears and shrieking. Gamelans don't merely speak the truth, they rip away all the happy little lies we tell ourselves to mask it, forcing us to acknowledge it deep in our very souls. They make us face the raw facts about our lives, and most of the time, they're not pretty.

Seb had gotten back to his feet, but he took one look at the feathered menace and stumbled back a step. It seemed he'd read the catalogue. Unfortunately for him, he was trapped by his own guards, who had formed a line to hold off the mad brawl the salon had become. "You have no talent for business, and three of your relatives are planning to kill you," the bird informed him, raising its high, thin voice to be heard over the noise. "Oh, and one of them is sleeping with your mistress."

Seb screamed and started clawing at his guards, desperate to get away before he heard any more. But the bird had lost interest in him. I eyed it with apprehension as it sized me up out of one bright black eye. "Your father never loved you, and he wasn't even your real father," it finally informed me.

I looked at it incredulously. "That was your best shot?" I'd figured that much out by the time I was six.

It gave an odd sort of bob with its whole body. "It's no fun when they already know their life sucks," it said to no one in particular, and flew off.

I looked around for an avenue of escape, but everything was chaos. The Weres appeared to be losing the battle, mainly because the customers, annoyed that the auction had been interrupted, had joined the trolls. Or, at least, most of them had. A few had decided to take advantage of the pandemonium to make off with some free merchandise. I saw a vampire, who had been the witch's chief competition for the djinn, make a dive for her. She glanced at him in annoyance and, with a word I couldn't hear, sent him flying across the room into a glass display case. The case broke, scattering shards everywhere and causing him to roar in rage. He didn't roar for long.

The case had held a group of charms and all the magic swirling around activated them. Individually, they wouldn't have been much of a problem for a vampire, but he obviously didn't know how to handle several dozen at once. His body was caught in wild tendrils of magic that wrapped around him like brightly colored ribbons, each with a different function. I couldn't see everything through the sparks and swirls, but a lot of the charms must have been baldness cures, because he ended up enmeshed in a cloud of long black strands that sprang from his own head. He tried to break free, ripping out handfuls of hair by the roots, but it grew back almost immediately. The witch doubled over in laughter.

I didn't wait to see what happened when he got loose, but punched the button to send the podium back underneath the stage. I insinuated myself into the small open area in the back, where the auctioneer's legs usually went, to ride it down. The service ramp used for unloading trucks with big items was adjacent to the lower level. If I was lucky, I could get out that way and circle around to my car while everyone was preoccupied with the fight.

It was a slow mechanism, but no one seemed to be paying me any attention. The only person nearby was the old mage who had seemed so enthralled by the rune. He had somehow fought his way back to the stage, and in the midst of the bedlam, had eyes only for the stone. He grabbed it, ignoring the banshee who immediately started up again, but he didn't take off with it as I'd expected. He started chanting something instead, holding the stone in front of him with a look of rapture on his face.