“Futu-i!” he swore, and dove after Pritkin, and was strafed by bullets along the way. Because the goat had noticed that we had company, too, and had slung the gun around to target the nearest group of mages, but had hit Mircea instead. Fortunately, it hit the monster, too, which didn’t seem to have a master vamp’s healing abilities, and went down.

“Get out, get out, get out, get out!” I yelled at Mircea, who for once didn’t argue. He grabbed Pritkin by the scruff of his neck—and then fell back this way. Maybe because there were mages racing in that door now, too, and slip sliding on the same water that was suddenly rushing all around us, because the crazed goat had managed to crack one of the larger tanks, I wasn’t sure how.

Oh, that’s how, I thought, as I turned around and saw him shouldering something a little more hardcore than a gun.

“Rocket launcher,” Mircea said.

“You think?”

And then the world whited out.

“Lady! Lady!” Somebody was shaking me.

I opened my eyes—my real eyes—and there she was: Grace Kelley, or at least her Edwardian counterpart. She was standing on a lower stair, bending over me with a candle highlighting her features, and looking concerned. Because my consciousness had joined my body back at Gertie’s, and I couldn’t afford that right now.

“I will go and get help,” the foolish woman said.

“I don’t need help—”

“But you’re ill! You fainted—”

“I didn’t faint! I got shot at by a bazooka!”

“What?”

And then Mircea pulled me back in.

Things had not improved. The goat thing had been successful in breaking the wards around a dozen or so tanks, leaving the room temporarily flooded and gross, with squishy things floating in the water. That included the large tank that Mircea had been communing with, the womb of which had broken open to reveal—

“Oh. Oh, dear me,” someone said, and I jerked my eyes away from the bloated, half formed thing with the giant squid eyes emerging from a bloody, pus-filled sack, and turned around.

And saw Grace in her pretty lace gown and pearls, which she looked like she’d be clutching right about now, only they were in her ears.

Goddamnit!

“What is she doing here?” Mircea asked, while reaching for the squid thing.

“How should I know? And what are you doing?”

“Attempting to talk to it,” he said, and actually touched the whitish skin.

“Oh, dear,” Grace said again faintly.

I smacked his hand away. “Don’t touch that!”

“It helps my mental abilities—”

“You don’t know what it is! It could be anything!”

“—and we need its help—”

“Its help? Its help?” I was beyond furious. “You could have been out of here by now! The goat thing is distracting the mages. You could get by—”

“I can’t leave our prisoner behind—”