The K-110 on the ground began stalking toward them, letting the incoming fire spend itself uselessly on its reinforced cowling. A few of the Fixers clustered behind it, using it as cover as they and the machine went hunting.

Mia knew she couldn’t help Belle and Andrea. They would survive or fall on their own. She had to find some way of stopping that truck.

A plan began to form in her head.

A very, very bad plan.

CHAPTER 167

EAST TEXAS CONVENTION CENTER

LABORDE, TEXAS

The whole universe froze around us both.

He was on the dais, standing over the body of a Secret Service agent, a dripping red knife in his hand. Blood pooled out around the agent, draining from a slashed throat. There was a Fixer beside Santoro, and well behind him, I saw Eve. She was staring, too, her eyes bugged out with a mix of fear and malevolence.

The whole room swam, and shadows crept in at the edges of my vision. The Darkness asserting itself, needing to be fed. I stupidly wondered if the parking lot was now full of night birds.

I raised the dart gun, but the crimson-eyed Fixer flung himself at me. It was so fast I couldn’t get out of the way, and the descending weight smashed me back and down. I twisted as I landed, though, and came up on top of the killer and brought the Snellig barrel up. But just as the Fixer back at the processing plant had done, he slapped it away with such force the pistol went spinning out over the crowd.

I wasted no time and dropped my knee into the pit of his stomach, parried his hands to one side, and drove my right thumb into his eye socket. There was an explosion of red, and he shrieked so loudly, it hurt my head. Instead of writhing in agony, he punched me in the side hard enough to lift me off him. I crashed down and immediately rolled away as he hammered down with his fist. I pivoted on my hip and kicked him in the mouth. Enhanced or not, skin, muscles, bones, and tendons are still vulnerable. My kick knocked his jaw askew.

I hopped to my feet and pulled my Wilson knife from its pocket sheath, thumbed it open with a flick of my wrist, and, as the Fixer lumbered up, I swept his foot out from under him, caught his hair as he fell, and cut his throat.

Then I spun just in time to see Santoro shove Eve toward the backstage door.

“No!” I yelled, and it came out weird. Too big, too rough, too alien. It was the voice of the Darkness speaking through me.

Together—I and that destructive thing inside me—I leaped onto the dais and raced after them.

But the door banged open, and another group of Fixers came out of the back.

I immediately turned and ran like hell.