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Wax srew etic He heard footsteps on the wooden floor at the top of the stairwell They were ready for him It was a trap, of course

He found that he didn’t care He unslung both shotguns, then Pushed on the nails in the steps and blasted up the stairwell He passed the first floor and continued on toward the second--he’d rather check up first, then down If Steris was being held here, she’d probably be up at the top

Noe’re burning, Wax thought, ainst the door at the top of the stairs, breaking out into a second-floor hallway Feet stomped up the steps behind hi no ht Let’s do this

Wax Pushed hard against the nails in the boards under the feet of the uns at hi the floor treht, rolling out of the hallway and into a roouns back at the doorway

Vanishers from the stairwell piled into the hallway after hiun blasts He Pushed, sla out theThis building was lass in the s, just shutters

Wax blasted out into open air There was a lamppost on the dark street, a little bit to his left He Pushed on that while at the sa The Push sent hi; he landed and half ran, half leaped parallel to the ground along the wall

Reaching the next room over from where he’d been, he Pushed on another lah thefeet-first, splinters spraying around hi, then turned toward the wall between him and the roorabbed his revolvers, pulling them out in a cross-aruns he’d ever owned He raised theht, then Pushed hard on the nails in the wall before hirating into a spray of splinters and planks, nails beco as deadly as bullets as they ripped into theany that the nails had missed in a storm of splinters, steel, and lead

A click to his left Wax spun as a doorknob turned He didn’t wait to see as beyond He Pushed on the doorknob, ripping it out of its fra to get in The door slah the wall of the hallway--there were no roo--propelled out into the ht

Wax holstered the Sterrions, barrels s into the hallway and coun in each direction A few straggling Vanishers cli weapons to his left

He Pushed on the twinthes flipped out into the air above the guns, and Waxillius into the waiting Vanishers on either side

The floor next to Waxilliu hiunfire fro s shotgun blasts down through the floor, h the broken walls

There had to be another dozen Vanishers below Too razed his thigh He turned and ducked away, leaping over the bodies of the fallen and dashing down the hallway Bullets chased hi below as they fired everything they had up at him

He hit the door at the end of the hallway It was locked A healthy dose of increased weight--along with soh and found himself in a small less roo olden hair and a ruown sat on a bench at the back of the rooard Steris She looked utterly duh the broken doorway,around him He Pushed on so the boards there to ripple, drawing unfire

"Lord Waxillium?" Steris said, shocked

"Most of"I lanced at the man in the corner "Who are you?"

"Nouxil"

"The gunsun

"I’ terrified A few bullets blasted up through the floor between them The Vanishers had realized they’d been tricked They knehat he was looking for

"It doesn’this e it open with an increased-weight Push "It matters if you can swim or not"

"What? Of course I can But why--"

"Hang on tightly," Wax said as un in the guns him some thirty feet in an arc toward the canal outside

Wax spun, grabbing Steris as she stood up "The other girls?" he asked