Every party guest was accounted for when they entered the Electroswinger. Karren took Jasper’s advice and headed to the bar to order a lunberry drink. Attom continued trying to recruit Jasper, but the busy dance floor made it easy for her to slip away.
“Jasper, could you mute yourself?” Holly asked. “I can hear the club music from here.”
“Sure thing,” Jasper muttered as she tapped her comm. She picked out a few other Starchatter employees on the dance floor as she pushed forward through the crowd, but it would be impossible to keep tabs on everyone. That wasn’t an issue. Despite what she’d told Holly, monitoring the party wasn’t what she’d come here for. Why would any of these morons try to go back to the office, anyway?
Jasper kept her eyes on the approaching exit that would put her in the alley next door. She could hardly believe how smoothly everything was going—
A hand grabbed her arm. In a heartbeat, Jasper was thrown to the ground. She rolled to the right to avoid getting stepped on and sat up.
The man staring her down held a gun. One low-ranking Blade in front of her, and there were bound to be more around. Jasper jumped to her feet. The last thing she wanted was to get fired at in the middle of a crowd.
Jasper ran for the bar. When she reached the counter, she grabbed an empty stool and spun. The Blade emerging from the crowd behind her didn’t have a chance to dodge before the stool collided with his face.
Jasper jumped onto the countertop.
“Galax?” Attom asked incredulously. He sat a few feet away, bathed in the neon green glow of the bar with a drink in hand.
“Try again.” Jasper tossed aside her glasses, pulled her hair from its updo into a high ponytail, and drew out her largest dagger.
“Van Terra!” a woman shouted. Another Blade. She approached the counter and pointed her gun at Jasper. “Hand over Alvarez, and we’ll let you go. For now.”
“She’s not with me.” Jasper eyed the other two Blades stepping off the dance floor on either side of the woman. It was all but impossible for dancers in the crowd to realize what was happening with the loud music and strobe lights, but people at the bar scrambled to get away. Attom had already vanished.
“We’ve got twenty more Blades in here alone,” the woman said. “And more waiting outside the building. All Electroswinger exits are covered. Tell us where Alvarez is.”
“No.”
The three Blades fired at once. Jasper deflected the bullets with ease, one after the other, sending them into the shiny black countertop and causing the whole thing to fracture beneath her feet. She sent the dagger spinning toward the woman and jumped down into the bar.
The weapon buried itself in the woman’s shoulder. She cried out in pain and dropped her gun. The other two Blades flew over the counter to retaliate. Jasper grabbed a bottle off the shelf behind her and swung at the first to reach her. While he went down, she dodged a bullet from the second and brought the bottle down on his head. He collapsed.
She needed a new way out. There was an apartment complex above the Electroswinger, and a restaurant below. Which would be easier to access?
Jasper’s gaze flickered to a nearby ventilation shaft sitting a few inches off the floor.
Shouting, screaming, more Blades approaching. She let loose a few throwing stars before pulling out a smoke bomb and one of the small explosives she saved for emergencies. Another Blade made it over the counter and swung at Jasper. She took the blow to the side of her head and staggered to the right. The smoke bomb and explosive slipped from her hand.
Jasper dodged the next swing but stumbled into the fists of a second Blade. He shoved Jasper into the shelf behind her, sending bottles and glasses crashing to the floor. Liquid pooled at her feet. The light illuminating the case flickered.
“Alvarez. Now.” The Blade pressed a gun to her shoulder. “Or we find out how much pain you can really handle.”
“Alvarez is right behind you,” Jasper said.
The Blade glanced over his shoulder.
Jasper shoved her foot into his chest. He flew back into the counter. “Wow, you really fell for that.” She reached behind her, grabbed the shelf, and pulled it down to block the path of more Blades coming her way.
She dove to the floor to dodge more gunshots, and to grab the explosive and smoke bomb. She peered over the edge of the counter to scan the ceiling. She had once chance. The push of a button turned on the explosive’s timer.
Ten, nine, eight…
Footsteps came from Jasper’s left. She threw a punch that knocked the man to the ground, scooped up his gun, and whirled around to fire at the Blade coming from the other direction.
Seven, six, five…
Jasper emptied the gun and fired blanks at the dance floor to disperse the crowd beneath her target.
Four, three, two…
Jasper jumped onto the counter and threw the explosive.
One.
It hit the ceiling and exploded, raining debris down on the floor. Jasper activated the smoke bomb and tossed it up. As dark smoke filled the air around her, she slid to the floor, crawled to the ventilation grate, and pried it off the wall.
“She’s going up!” a woman shouted. “Move everyone up a level. Block all exits.”
Jasper squeezed into the vent shaft and went down.
She pressed her hands and feet against the walls and worked her way to where the vent branched off to the right. She climbed in and crawled to the next grate. But before she could get it open, the shaft buckled beneath her. A moment later, it broke open, depositing her into the restaurant.
The table she landed on collapsed. The family whose dinner she’d just ruined shouted in surprise and jumped out of their seats. Jasper brushed pieces of food and shards of glass off her coat as she climbed to her feet.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Eh, I’ve heard this place overcooks everything, anyway.”
She stepped out of the wreckage and ran for the nearest window. Bracing herself for the inevitable pain, she jumped. The window shattered and she joined a torrent of glass raining down on a balcony a couple stories down.
Ouch. She’d been hoping for a skywalk beneath the window. Suppressing a groan of pain, she stood up. The empty apartment she needed to get to was one level up. And on the other side of a sizeable gap.
Jasper’s gaze moved down to the roof five stories below. That would be the quickest path to her destination. She sighed, stretched her arms, and got ready to half-climb, half-fall down the side of a building.