And I’m with her, he thought. He still couldn’t quite believe it.

“I’m not dressed for this,” Olena said in her Ukrainian-accented English. It was an understatement. She still wore the clothes of her role in Baba Yaga’s casino. Pleasure girl, given like a piece of exotic meat to victorious gladiator jokers. Her short red dress clung to her curves, skintight. It was so sheer Marcus could see the contours of her abdomen and the lines of her collarbones. He didn’t let his eyes linger on her nipples, though they wanted to. She was gorgeous, but she wasn’t a piece of meat to him. She was more than that. If they survived this he would prove it to her.

There was one thing out of place in her appearance. The Glock that she had shoved down under her belt. It pressed flat against her belly.

Earlier, he’d asked her, “Where’d you learn about guns, anyway?”

She’d answered curtly, “My father.” That was all she would say about it.

“Are you ready?” Marcus asked, starting to slither away.

She fell in step beside him. “I still think we should—”

“I’m not going to the hospital! The hospital’s going to be filled with people from the casino. People I sent there.”

“Wasn’t only you that did it,” she grumbled.

“You saw the ambulances arriving as we left. The military vehicles. There must be cops all over the place.”

“You’ve been shot. When people are shot it’s hospital they go to! Why are you stubborn?”

“I’m a joker. If I wasn’t stubborn I’d be dead by now.” Marcus paused as a black SUV roared across the intersection in front of them. A moment later a police car flashed by, lights blaring but with no accompanying siren. Moving forward, Marcus asked, “What if Baba Yaga’s there? We’d both be fucked then.”

“She is dead woman. Who is afraid of her?”

They’d been through this all already. The hospital was out. Talas itself was out, what with Baba Yaga’s thugs around, with no way of knowing who they could trust, and with him being the way he was—a black half-snake joker from New York. Not only that, the entire city seemed to itch with unease. While they’d hidden and tried to rest, sporadic gunfire kept jolting Marcus awake. Once an explosion went off near enough for Marcus to feel it through his tail, loud enough that the whoosh of the flames was audible. At some point sirens began to wail a monotonous message. They were still at it. Shouts and running feet, the sounds of fighting, helicopters chopping through the sky. He didn’t know what all was going on, but they had to get away from it.

Olena said, “You should’ve killed Horrorshow as well.”

“Horrorshow?”

“It’s just one name for him. That awful old man always beside Baba Yaga.” She made a sound in her throat, an exhalation of both disgust and fear. “Once I had to sit near him in the box.” She shivered, flicking her fingers as if to shake some foulness off them. “God. He’s horrible. He’s … I don’t know what. Some people said he liked the killing, that he enjoyed it and that Baba Yaga created the whole arena for him. Others said he was an ace who had crossed her. She’d made him like that as punishment, so that he would suffer and suffer, and everybody would see it. I don’t know what’s true. There were many rumors.”