“On it.” Malena took off at a run, seeming to turn inside out as soon as she reached full speed. She hit the stage on all fours, slick black-and-orange hide gleaming like oil in the light. Some more people screamed. It was hard to know whether that was due to her, or due to the giant monster snake. Sometimes “why” doesn’t matter as much as we might want it to.

The snake was back in a holding pattern, swaying as it reared back to its original height. I needed more help. The edge of the stage was only about ten yards behind me. Careful to move slowly enough that I wouldn’t attract unwanted attention, I took a half-step backward and turned.

Pax met my eyes without hesitation, like he’d been waiting for my cue. I nodded. He stepped onto the stage.

Jessica grabbed his arm.

“I don’t think so, shark-boy,” she said. There was a gun in her free hand. Where did Jessica get a gun? More importantly, why was she holding it on Pax? He stopped, staring at her.

I started to take a step. Jessica turned her head, smiling sweetly.

“Move, and I’ll blow his head off,” she said. “He’s not human—did you know that? He’s some sort of monster. But even monsters need skulls. They get squishy and sad without them.”

“You’re one of the snake cultists,” I said. It made so much sense that I was almost ashamed of myself for not seeing it sooner—and actually ashamed of the snake cult for recruiting someone so obvious.

Then a gun cocked behind me, and I turned again to find Clint holding a pistol only a few feet away. The snake was still swaying behind him, although it seemed to have lost interest in wreaking havoc on the theater. Anders was down on his hands and knees, using Lyra’s blood to paint more runes on the stage.

“Oh,” I said. “You, too.”

“We don’t like the term ‘snake cult,’” said Clint. “It’s pejorative and retrograde. We prefer ‘dimensional capitalists.’ We’re going to be kings when this thing settles down and realizes who’s in charge.”

“No one’s in charge of a snake god,” I said. “That’s where you people always screw up.” There were a few drops of blood on the collar of his shirt. It was Lindy’s, it had to be. She’d had time to bleed before the giant snake swallowed her. “God, Clint, why? I liked you.”

“Why did you have to be a nosy parker who stuck her nose where it didn’t belong? I liked you, too, Val. You’re a good dancer. You’ve got a great ass. But you can’t just go hiring inter-dimensional bounty hunters because you want to get an edge in the competition.”

I blinked. Clint smirked.

Everything suddenly made a hell of a lot of sense.

Alice had a reputation in certain circles: she was, after all, an apparently ageless, extremely violent woman who traveled from dimension to dimension with a large supply of knives, grenades, and chocolate chip cookies. Clint had only ever seen me as Valerie. He’d have no reason to think Alice had a granddaughter, much less suspect the granddaughter was me. If Alice was here, and keeping company with me—something Jessica and Anders would both have reported to him by now—I must have hired her. If I was hiring muscle with dimension-traveling capabilities, I must be trying to cheat.

The fact that a snake cultist was passing judgment on my ethics would have been funny, if not for the part where he was holding a gun to my head. “You know, if you have a problem with my hiring decisions, you should also have a problem with murder and summoning giant snakes through the stage floor.”

“It’s the cost of doing business, sweetie,” said Clint. He adjusted his aim, keeping the muzzle trained on my heart.

Costuming is going to be pissed, I thought nonsensically. Aloud, I said, “Now would be nice.”

Clint blinked. “I thought you’d beg for your life, not for a bullet.”

I smiled. “Who said I was talking to you?”

There was a scream from behind me, high, shrill, and feminine. Clint’s eyes darted in that direction. It was a natural response: anyone human would have had trouble not looking in the direction of that scream, which was filled with pain and terror.

Well. Anyone human who didn’t know that it was caused by an Ukupani biting off the hand that threatened him. Knowing Pax wasn’t human and seeing him suddenly twist and distort into an eight-foot-tall bipedal shark-beast was probably pretty damn surprising.

Judging by the look on Clint’s face half a heartbeat later, it wasn’t as surprising as my kicking the gun out of his hand. It flew across the stage, landing out of reach of either one of us.