Page 16 of Into Darkness (Night Prowler 6)
With the serious, detached expression of a scientist, he gently touched the back of his hand to her face, brushing the slope of her cheekbone with a knuckle. Beyond her pain, she noticed he was handsome, in a cold, carnivorous sort of way. Like a shark.
“Just goes to show you,” he mused, examining her skin, her face, her hair, “appearances can really be deceiving.”
“Yes,” said Lu, reaching up to grasp his wrist. “They sure fucking can.”
His eyes widened. This time it was his turn to scream.
Smoke. Heat. Fire, crackling hot. Scalding wind whipping her hair into her eyes, her braid undone, her hands slick with blood, her tears dried to salt on her cheeks. Lu stumbled down the stairs, a maelstrom of burning ash and howling wind surrounding her. Soot clogged her nose and throat, suffocating her. The house groaned—a hollow, echoing baritone as the wood support beams began to collapse—a sound underscored by the high, wavering screams of sirens.
She stumbled from the doorway and fell into the street. Dragging herself to her knees with a gargantuan effort of will that required her to grit her teeth against a tidal wave of pain, she ignored the gaping neighbors, the shouts of alarm and fright, the sound of heavy feet pounding closer.
The Schottentor gate. The white rabbit. We’ll get you out.
She didn’t bother to look back; she knew the men in black were there. She could judge their distance by the footfalls, their breathing, and the chink of metal beneath their coats, sounds that seemed unnaturally loud to her ears, even above the collapsing inferno of the home where she grew up. It was as if only the most important noises were reaching her ears, picked out and enhanced by some inherent ability she’d never before used, a latent talent designed for situations precisely such as this.
If her hearing was sharper, her agility had been reduced by double the amount.
Her legs were jelly. She didn’t know how she was moving, only that she was. That she had to. To stay put was to die, or be caged, or something far worse she didn’t dare consider. Not now. Now the instinct for self-preservation had kicked into high, powerful gear, and Lu was running for her life.
She made it to the end of the block just as the first of the fire brigade screeched around the corner. Directly behind followed the black-and-yellow Peace Guard vehicles. Flashing lights and sirens and the stench of burning rubber, the babble of voices, the world slipping sideways then righting itself again as she bit down, hard, on the inside of her cheek. She forced herself to keep going even though pain like a spear of fire stabbed through her chest. Her vision faded at the edges. Her body broke out in a cold sweat.
The Schottentor gate. The white rabbit.
She had to make it. She would make it.
Gasping, stumbling, she ran blindly, using her sense of smell to avoid places there were people, skirting streetlamps, keeping to the shadows as she went. Even injured and half blinded by pain, she could make it with a bit of luck. She knew how to hide, knew how to melt into darkness, knew all the hidden corners of this city she’d been slinking through all her life. Only a little luck, only a little—
Another set of feet pursued her. Quieter, far more swift than the rest. Up on the rooftops, somewhere—
She glanced up and to her right, catching a flicker of movement, a shadow that vanished as she passed under a footbridge. When she came out on the other side, the shadow was gone.
High above the city on the top of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the message on the district’s rotating megascreen had changed from “One World In Harmony” to a flashing red “ABERRANT ALERT,” with her name and picture beneath, followed by the words, “Wanted For Murder. Armed And Extremely Dangerous. Notify Peace Guard If Spotted.”
Murder. The word sent a sweeping chill of guilt through her.
How many had died at the Hospice?
Liesel. Oh God, Liesel . . .
She ran through a cobweb maze of dirty alleys and cobblestone lanes, gulping warm night air, the city a tintype haze of silver and bronze and glimmering gold around her. She skirted the city center, keeping to the residential areas though it wasn’t a direct route. Just as she was sure she would collapse, she spied the ghostly glow of the grow light fields in the distance, illuming the night sky.
The vast tented area where the only fresh vegetables and fruits to be had in New Vienna were grown under mile-long rows of artificial lights was situated on the east bank of the Danube, outside the city walls, surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire. Beyond, where suburbs and schools and shopping centers had once stood, was the uninhabited Wasteland. Legend had it packs of scavengers roamed there, vicious as rabid dogs, but in all his years of working in the fields, her father had never seen them.
Father. An animal sound of anguish tore its way from her throat, and she stumbled and fell.
She knelt in the dirt a moment, panting, crying, until she could finally breathe again. When she stood, she realized with a start she was almost to her destination. The waste treatment plant was only yards ahead, hulking dark behind a chain link fence, its rows upon rows of high windows bright with light, its tall stacks chugging steam into the sky.
Lu limped forward. She couldn’t hear her pursuers anymore; had she lost them? No, she realized with dawning horror as she dragged herself across a dark street, just missing getting smashed by a passing electric trolley, mercifully empty of passengers. She couldn’t hear them because she couldn’t hear anything.
The only sound now in her ears was a high, tinny buzzing, and that was all.
We’ll get you out. We’ll get you out.
Her left leg had gone numb. She dragged it behind her, clinging to the chain link fence, forcing herself forward. It was an eternity. It was a never ending fight, a slog of left foot, right foot, pulling, dragging . . .
Then she saw it, and sobbed in relief: the Schottentor gate.
It was there, just beyond the plant, hidden beneath a tangle of overgrown shrubs, a break in the tall expanse of solid, curving stone that comprised the city wall. It was deserted, dark, one of the lesser gates kept always locked.
