“Yeah, you’re not going to get anywhere with that.”
As the suspect switched to a set of long knives and attacked with the twin blades flashing, Erika went into a tilt, her stiffened body drawn backward by some invisible force as if she were on a dolly. While her vision phased in and out, she caught sight of the cash register and the back of the checkout counter, and then she was sucked into the darkened storage room—
Down on the concrete floor, by a pile of books that had been knocked over, the body of an old man was lying faceup on the floor, the eyes open and seeing nothing. Blood had pooled under his head, and going by the pasty white skin tone, he had been dead for at least an hour or two. He was wearing… the exact same cardigan as…
“Oh, shit,” the female voice said, “do I still have that mothball sweater on—ah, much better.”
A clipping sound, of high heels on the bare floor, circled behind Erika, and then the door started to close, seemingly on its own. She got a last look at the suspect out on the far side of the counter. He was fighting with a ferocity that only came with serious training and experience, those silver-bladed daggers flashing as he battled the shadow. And in response, the thing, whatever it was… was slapping back at him with these arm-like extensions, and when there was contact, the man hissed and reared back as if hurt—
The storeroom’s door slammed shut, cutting off Erika’s view.
“I hate when you look at him like that,” the woman’s voice said. “It makes me want to kill you right now.”
* * *
Even though Balz was fully engaged with the shadow, he was aware of when Erika stopped shooting from behind him. As he transitioned from his gun to his daggers, he prayed that she’d gone the self-protection route and run out the back of the shop—
“You fucker,” he growled as the shadow nailed him another good one in the shoulder.
Doubling down on his slasher routine, he leaned into the fight, the blades of his steel weapons flashing in the low light, slicing through the shadow’s punch-like offensive. Whenever he came into contact with the entity’s form, the thing screeched and shifted away—but it always returned. Two magazines’ worth of bullets, and now this up-close-and-personal, and the bastard was showing no signs of slowing down.
Balz was getting into trouble as he was forced into a retreat that took him up against the counter where the cash register was. Along with a horrible burnt fish stench, he could smell his own blood, and he was sweating more than he should have under his leather jacket, his body like a car engine overheating on a hill, smoke pouring out from under its hood. He was not going to make it through this alone, but how was he going to get a break to call in for help—
Clink!
As the heel of his shitkicker hit something that answered back with a metal note, he glanced down.
A fire extinguisher. Where the hell had that come from—
Use it.
As a third-party voice entered his head, he didn’t waste any time wondering where the hell the advice came from. He grip-switched his dominant hand, releasing the hilt and grasping the point of the dagger between his thumb and first two fingers—then he threw the weapon end over end at the “head” of the shadow.
Perishable skills that were all nice and pruned and fucking tended-to meant that even if you were a coked-out, self-induced-insomnia train wreck, when you absolutely needed to hit a target in the middle of a fight you damn well could: The dagger went right into the head-like top of the shadow, and as the entity let out a roar of pain, Balz pulled a power-squat, palmed the extinguisher, and reholstered his remaining dagger. Yanking out the pin on the handle, he pulled the hose off the side and pointed the nozzle forward. As his opponent righted itself, he discharged the chemical cloud at the thing—
The sound was like a semi-trailer truck braking on hot concrete, the ear-splitting soprano-scream so loud, Balz froze, sure as if he’d suffered a blow to his head. Fortunately, his hand stayed in squeeze-mode, and within seconds, he couldn’t see anything as the fog filled the shop.
And then he realized all he was hearing was the hissing of the extinguisher. No more screaming. Backing off the handle, he stopped the stream, but remained braced as he wheezed in the white cloud of chemicals swirling around the stacks of old books. As it dissipated, it revealed…
The shadow was gone.
“Erika!”
Conventional fighting and survival rules would have him popping two new magazines into the butts of his autoloaders, calling for backup, and doing a quick search of the aisles to clear the shop. Instead, he kept the extinguisher with him and jumped over the counter. Landing on the far side, the “old man” he’d shot was nowhere to be found. Big surprise—and there was a quick shot of satisfaction that the demon had had to clothe herself not only in that Mr. Rogers’s cardigan, but in the loosey-goosey skin of the elderly human.