Jin felt the second shot before he saw it.
This time, Battle Instinct didn't stay quiet. It hit him all at once, sharp and cold, a hand closing on the back of his neck. Not toward the street. Not toward the place where Spades had been standing. Toward him.
He turned.
Something pale was coming down out of the dark from the north, so fast it was barely a line. It was already halfway across the rooftops by the time he saw it.
His sword came up on its own.
The spike hit the flat of the blade with a crack like a breaking branch. The force of it ran up his arm into his shoulder and twisted his whole body halfway around. The spike glanced off, spun away, and buried itself in the wall of the shop behind him, all the way to the broken end. Plaster burst out around it in a white cloud.
Jin looked at it. Then at the blade in his hand. Then north.
So now she was looking at him.
He moved.
