She looked back at Franny, who was huddled against the door to the casino. “Hurry up! And pick up some of these guns. You need to be useful now.”

He wanted to refuse, but he was afraid how the old monster would react. She had decided she needed him. Better not to antagonize her. Franny darted past the transformed man. He didn’t want to look but couldn’t help himself. Please God, let the poor bastard be dead, he thought, then the long cabinet gave one final jerk, violent enough that it rolled onto its side.

He gathered up a couple of pistols and a small submachine gun. Stache was doing the same. They all piled into the van. Franny was surprised when Baba Yaga took the wheel. She threw the van into reverse and they went roaring up the ramp and out onto the street just as more mobsters erupted through the doors of the casino. Bullets wangled off the hood of the van. The guard leaned out and returned fire. Franny followed suit. The old lady hit the brake and spun the wheel, sending them into a violent spin. She righted the van, and accelerated away from the casino. As they roared past the limo he saw the windows were shot out, and the Otter had half his head missing. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t been left in the car.

They went weaving through the traffic at speeds approaching seventy miles an hour. Franny wondered where she had learned to drive like this. Now that the immediate danger was past Franny felt that heat and trembling in his muscles that signaled the end of the adrenaline overload under which he’d been operating. Which meant he was suddenly very aware of his injuries. His shoulder was throbbing in time to his heartbeat and the wound in his side was a flare of agony.

He also had time to reflect that he was riding in a van that had carried kidnapped jokers to Baba Yaga’s not-so-little-house-of-horrors. So why had she set up the fight club? Now that he had met the woman it was clear she was coldly practical. There couldn’t have been enough money in bets to make it worth the risk. So why do it? He decided to just ask her.

She glanced over at him. “So now you think to ask. After you have come in and broken all the dishes. You’re a fool, boy. You think you’re a hero, but you may have destroyed the world. I hope it was worth it.”

“What are you fucking talking about?”

“You’ll see. Soon the whole world will see. Can it be stopped? Well, we’ll see about that, too.”

They were passing through the center of the city. They crossed a plaza with an equestrian statue in its center. Off to the left Franny saw the outline of the hospital etched against the setting sun. Sirens were converging from all over the city. A couple of police cars, lights flashing, barreled past them. Down a side street Franny saw steel barricades being set across the street by Kazakh policemen.