Tales of the Unquiet Gods by David Pascoe Read Free Book Online Page B

the underside of his wrist as it went past, hard enough to throw him off balance instead. A little footwork, a solid strike to the floating ribs, and the touch - and match - would be hers.
    Anne floated sideways and planted her feet, rotating her hips to bring the strength of solid grounding into her strike. Mike was going to feel this one, side of beef though he might be. She twisted, rotating from her pelvis through her spine and her shoulder, and finally out her right arm in a textbook blow.
    Right into the meat outside his interposed elbow. One moment, Mike's arm was extended out in front of him; the next it guarded his ribs, and her punch did precisely nothing.
    She'd had him: she'd been certain of it. And in that moment of fouled certain, Mike struck back. He pivoted, grounded his foot just behind hers and spun. His spine uncoiled, and Anne flew threw the air.
    She had a brief view of the mirrors lining one side of the studio, albeit upside down. Shelley's horrified face - again, upside down - flew by. Anne's little sister still resembled a bit the Ryan she'd been born as. But softened and about a million times more comfortable in herself than Ry had ever been. And then Anne caught sight of Mike's bag where he'd dropped it next to hers.
    Suddenly, the bag glowed gold and the world - still upside down - seemed to shimmer. Anne was caught, suspended in a sliver of eternity while everything around her scintillated.
    Everything but Chelle and the trio of dark figures in the mirror behind her. They looked human, but were horribly not so. Tall, still - too motionless to be human - the three stood shoulder to broad shoulder, everything shadowed, as though seen through heavily smoked glass.
    Three beautiful faces, hard with ancient cruelty, loomed over Anne's oblivious sibling. Enormous eyes of no color Anne could describe rode cheekbones a model would kill for. Straight noses, thin and patrician hung over wide mouths. Mouths almost as wide as Anne's own, though these lips were thin where Anne's had always approached lush.
    The world shuddered.
    Chelle stared open-mouthed at Anne. One Chelle did, at least. Another Chelle - identical but for the bizarre golden tinge - crouched inside the mirror behind Anne's sister. That Chelle knelt, one hand palm raise to the inside of the mirror and pressed hard against it while the other pounded on the glass. That Chelle stared with wide, horrified, pleading eyes at Anne where she drifted ever so slowly through the air.
    The mirror-Chelle mouthed Anne's name as the dark trio unfolded long, black-clad arms. They reached for her, and as one, their lips spread, revealing sharp, even teeth the color of charred bone in dreadful parodies of a human's smile.
    Anne's marrow froze. Every muscle of her body tensed, just as time resumed its normal flow. A brief shimmer, and objects regained their colors. The figures in the mirror disappeared, and Anne had a split-second to realize she didn't have time to fall well.
    Anne crashed to the floor in a jumble. The mat took the worst of the impact, and for a bare moment, she lay in relative peace. Nothing seemed broken or wrenched beyond the normal pain of taking a landing poorly. Lying still was good. So was breathing, for that matter.
    "Annie!" Her sister's voice shattered her brief reprieve from conscious thought.
    Anne opened her eyes and beheld Chelle's pale, oval face. Upside down, of course, as seemed to be a pattern recently. The fear in her sister's big brown eyes snapped Anne back into the bizarre vision. Her heart trip-hammered for one painful moment, as she seemed to see the terrible inhuman smiles reaching hungrily for her sister.
    Chelle's face was soon joined by Mike's. An expression of confused concern replaced the bruiser's scowl, and then a curiously blank look. It was as though, for a moment, Mike was looking at something totally different without moving a muscle. Then his eyes refocused on hers, and he offered a hand.
    "She's all right,