Hexed_ The Iron Druid Chronicles - Kevin Hearne [51]
Eric had the advantage in terms of reach, but Frank was much faster. Frank was landing two or three slaps to every one of Eric’s, and after a half minute of that, Eric had damn well had enough. He turned his openhanded slap into a fist, crunching it into Frank’s nose. Frank yelped and staggered backward, raising his hand to his face. It came away drenched in his own blood.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry, Frank,” Eric said, holding his hands up.
“Sorry isn’t going to make it better,” Frank growled, and he bull-rushed his partner and wrapped him up in a textbook tackle. Eric managed to twist as he fell so that he landed on his shoulder, keeping his head from hitting the pavement. They rolled around a little bit, back and forth, neither getting the advantage over the other, but eventually Frank came up on top, rage driving him to dominate his larger opponent. He landed a couple of solid punches on Eric’s face, and then they were both bleeding. Eric boxed Frank’s ears and threw him off to the side but didn’t pursue him. They were both dealing with more pain than they were used to, so they were content to lie there bleeding, sling various anatomical epithets at each other, and accuse their mothers of sexual adventures with farm animals. Good times.
Laksha still hadn’t returned, and no one had exited the club in all this time. The music continued to thump through the walls into the night, and I wondered if I should start worrying.
The police officers hauled themselves slowly to their feet and plotted to blame their injuries on me. Their story would be that I had hit them with my baseball bats, broken both their noses, and escaped. They’d get worker’s comp for fighting, and I’d get an APB for assaulting an officer. Great.
As they returned to their patrol car to radio their lies to the station, I heard what sounded like faint screams coming from the club, a high-pitched top note to the techno pulse. Laksha emerged with a wicked grin on her face, and then more people came spilling out behind her, some of them in nothing but underwear, clearly panicked and fleeing for their lives.
Laksha’s grin faded as she saw the lights of the police car but didn’t see me. She kept coming straight ahead to clear the press of the stampeding mob, and I hissed at her to get her attention.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Use your other senses. I’m in camouflage.”
Laksha’s eyes rolled up and then she spied me standing off to her left. “Ah, excellent.”
“What happened?” I gestured at the club.
“I killed twelve Bacchants, as we agreed,” she said pleasantly.
“Is that why these people are panicking?”
“Partially. But mostly it’s because there are three more in there and they’re tearing people in half.”
Since I’m an Irish lad, I’m already fairly pale, but that intelligence turned me from eggshell white to bone. Either Malina’s divination had been incorrect or a few bonus Bacchants had arrived late in the game. “Well, why didn’t you kill them too?” I asked.
“Because we agreed on twelve.”
“I’ll be sure not to fetch you any extra apples, then. Where are they?”
“I’m sure they’ll be coming out after me soon enough. They’ll be the ones dressed in white sheaths stained with wine and carrying staves. Bloodthirsty look in their eyes, chunks of meat in their teeth—you can’t miss them.”
She wasn’t kidding. A particularly piercing scream drew my gaze to the entrance, where a diminutive brunette in a white nightie had seized a much taller woman by the hair and a fistful of fabric at the small of her back. As I watched, this tiny woman—who could not have weighed more than 110 pounds—heaved the larger one off her feet, spun her around like a discus thrower, and slung her in a high, shrieking arc across