Tempt the Stars

wide.
    And then Caleb fell into me again and we were rolling and bouncing and falling down four “flights,” with pieces of rug managing to catch us every time I was convinced we were about to run out.
    And then I hit something with my face that was a lot harder than wool. And looked up to find Casanova staring down at me. And then snatching me up and flinging me to the side.
    Right before an Allû crashed into the space where I’d been lying.
    “Take it apart!” Casanova screamed, practically hysterical. And his men didn’t waste any time. But they were hotel security, not soldiers. They didn’t carry grenades or percussion bombs, and while somebody had thought to break out the handguns, they weren’t too useful against something with no internal organs.
    I scrambled up and grabbed Casanova’s arm. “Pritkin wanted me to tell you something—”
    Casanova swore. “I’d like to tell
him
something—”
    “No, listen. I think it was about how to fight these things! And he ought to know. He used to have a golem once—remember? And they’re not that different!”
    “Well, what is it?”
    “That’s just it; I don’t know! We have to get somebody back up there—”
    Casanova said something that looked pretty profane, but I couldn’t hear it. Because the crowd was really getting into it now. They screamed in mock terror as bullets riddled the fallen warrior, then yelled approval when it got back up, the neon glow from a nearby storefront streaming through the hundred or so holes in its body.
    They were also pushing against the line of vamps Casanova had strung across the street, which would have been okay. Since there was no way they were breaking through that. But then the warrior sent a group of security who tried to rush him crashing back into their buddies, and opened up gaps that the crowd started to surge through.
    “Push them back, push them back, push them ba—” Casanova was yelling, before he got backhanded, too.
    I saw his men stare at him fearfully, unable to help and control the crowd at the same time. I saw him sail through the air and hit a wall. I grabbed a gun off a nearby vamp and scrambled after him, because I
didn’t
see the Allû—
    Until I was suddenly on my back again, with a blank bronze face staring into mine.
    Its weight was threatening to crush me, the jagged edges the bullets had torn in its torso were stabbing me like tiny knives, and the heat from several blackened places on its armor was trying to scorch me. But I barely noticed. Because that blank bronze faceplate was maybe two inches from my nose, reflecting my own stunned features back at me.
    And, insanely, the only thing I could think of at that moment was Daisy, peering at me out of the side of her bucket, her eyelash drooping over one shiny cheek.
    And the fact that that was a damned weird last thought to have.
    But then Caleb proved me wrong, jerking the bullet-ridden body off me and sending it sliding over the ground. Which wouldn’t have helped much, except that he slapped a shield over it before it could get back to its feet. I scrambled after it, a half-formed thought hammering at my brain, and found the creature lying on its back like a bug caught in amber.
    But not for long.
    War mages are tough, and if the training Pritkin put me through was anything to go on, they emphasize endurance above everything. Because you can’t channel magic if you pass out from exhaustion. But Caleb had been fighting all day, and part of that time had been somewhere that required added effort. The strain was all over his face, and I didn’t think I was the only one who noticed.
    There were no eyes, no mouth, nothing to form an expression of any kind on that piece of burnished metal. Just blank determination as it pushed inexorably against the shield. So why did I get the definite impression of malice staring up at us?
    These things might not feel pain, but they clearly felt something.
    Like for the woman who had blown a bunch of them to pieces a couple of weeks ago.
    Too bad I didn’t have any of those weapons now. And the one I did have wasn’t likely to do enough damage to matter. I didn’t have
anything
—
    My thoughts stopped, screeching to a halt at the sight of a small, diamond-shaped jewel glittering in the middle of a sea of bronze—what would have been the creature’s forehead, if it had one. I hadn’t noticed it before, because it was tiny, maybe half the size of my little fingernail, and reddish gold,