Hannity knelt, practically bowing to the little creature.
“It’s you,” he said. “I—I was just thinking about you. I lost Cato. I failed.”
The finch tipped its head to the side, seeming to weigh Hannity against an unseen counterbalance. With a flutter of pointed wings, it took to the air again, and flew down the street to land on the hood of a grey BMW. At once, the car rumbled to life, and flashed its headlights. Heaving a tight sigh of relief, Hannity stood. He was being given a second chance, one he intended to make good on.
Peeping loudly, the finch leaped up. Already circling overhead, a veritable storm-cloud of flittering, yellow bodies had amassed from nowhere and were now moving toward the river. Hannity followed the whirling flock with his eyes and nodded.
“I understand,” he said to no one. “Thank you.”
XLVI
Left leg throbbing dully, Cato watched the narrow alley ahead spill into a quiet square, where several other small roads snaked off in different directions. Hardly slowing as she neared it, Louisa whipped Niccolò’s car around the cistern in the center of the space, then took off up a street leading south toward the river. Eyes locked forward, knuckles white upon the steering wheel; she dropped the shifter into third gear, and accelerated dizzyingly.
Wishing he had a drink to ease his frayed nerves, Cato shot Louisa a sidelong glance. Though her expression remained one of careful concentration, he knew what she must be going through, or rather, he could guess. Based on what little he had been able to learn about Louisa during their brief time together, she didn’t exactly have that many people left she could call family. And now because of the Man and his fucking mess, she might have one less.
“I need to tell you something,” Louisa said, startling Cato from his thoughts.
“Oh,” he said. “What is it?”
“It’s something the Man mentioned about you last night—about why he hid Leta’s identity from you and kept the two of you apart.”
“Oh,” said Cato again, only now his tone was less bright.
Louisa glanced at him then quickly returned her eyes to the road.
“He told me you were more important than you looked—that you’re supposed to play some big role in all of this.”
Not sure what he should say to such a thing, Cato patted his pocket for cigarettes, finding the pack crushed.
“I didn’t think much of it at the time,” Louisa went on. “I mean—he seems to enjoy speaking in riddles, you know. But I’ve been going over it, and back at the hotel—something strange happened—something telling.”
Cato lit himself a broken cigarette and furrowed his brow.
“It was when you went after Hannity and I ran the other way,” Louisa said. “I—I could have sworn I saw him about to shoot me, but then at the last second he didn’t. He was only interested in you.”
Dragging on his cigarette, Cato wrinkled his nose at the eggy odor of gunpowder on his fingers.
“But—” he ventured carefully. “But what about Niccolò?”
“That was an accident,” Louisa replied. “They were aiming at you.”
Thinking back to the stairs, of how Louisa had tackled him mere seconds before bullets had ripped through the air, Cato closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. So it wasn’t just the Benefactor who was responsible for Niccolò’s predicament, it was his as well.
“Don’t think like that,” Louisa snapped, reading his expression. “That’s not why I’m telling you this. Niccolò—he knew the dangers. He’s been a part of this world for a long time—longer than you even.”
Cato nodded, but the act was more mechanical than it was honest.
“Anyway, I have a theory if you want to hear it,” Louisa continued. “About why Artemis sent Hannity and the Spartoi after you—about why you’re so important to the Man.”
“Sure,” Cato mumbled. “I doubt this day can get much worse.”
Down-shifting to take a hard left, Louisa sped through the turn. Arched doorways and shuttered windows streaked passed.
“What do you and Artemis have in common?” She asked. “That is—what makes the two of you similar?”
Frowning around his cigarette, Cato pondered the question. However, before he could find the connection, a small yellow bird slammed into the windshield and exploded with a bloody poof of feathers.
“Jesus!” He swore, cringing back. “What the hell was that?”
Clearly just as shocked as he, Louisa craned her neck to look upwards.
“Dio…” she whispered in horror.
“What?” Asked Cato. “What is it?”
Another bird, and another after that, fell from the air, dashing themselves violently against the glass.
“Hold on!” Shouted Louisa. “It’s going to get rough!”
At once, the sky above took on a frantic light as an impossible multitude of finches careened down the alley like a living flood. Lodging in the grill and denting the hood, their tiny corpses battered the racing car with concave bangs.
“Are those birds?” Cato balked, flinching with each new strike.
Now nearly covered by matted clumps of feathers and blood, the windshield was a gooey smear. Louisa turned on the wipers, but within seconds they were jammed by broken wings and chunks of hollow bone. Giving up, she pressed the accelerator to the floor and cut blindly through the suicidal hail.
“Look out!” Cato warned.
A group of tourists appeared in the street, screaming and dashing for cover as the birds ripped past them toward the car. Without slowing, Louisa jerked the wheel, raking Niccolò’s cruiser along the alley wall to skirt the frightened runners. Barely visible amid the fluttering wings and sprays of blood, their faces registered an almost biblical terror.
Terrorized himself, Cato watched them vanish into the fray. Bright cracks began to split the windshield, forming a dangerous pattern upon the glass. Preparing himself for the worst, Cato shut his eyes and waited for an implosion of shattered glass and living missiles. Yet, just when it seemed that things were at a breaking point, the thunder dwindled, then came to a stop.
Slowing, Louisa let her grip on the steering wheel slacken.
“Are—are you ok?” She asked, eyes wild.
“Yeah,” Cato nodded. “No—I don’t know.”
Turning around to look out the back window, he gaped at the macabre scene behind them. As if painted by a twisted artist, the entire alleyway was covered, from the tiled rooftops to the cobbled street in dead birds.
“What was that?” Louisa said. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire life!”
“It was her,” Cato answered, pulling the Springfield from his jacket. “She’s onto us—we need to keep moving. We can’t stay here!”
…
Louisa sat for a beat as Cato’s words worked their way sluggishly through her mind. Though she knew they must be true, it was surprisingly hard to act on them given what she’d just experienced. By comparison, the explosion at La Spada Spezzata had been a fairly conventional attack, blasé even.
“Hello?” Cato repeated. “Did you hear me? We have to go, like right now! She’s coming—she’s coming!”
“Okay,” Louisa breathed, shaking her head vigorously. “Okay—here, help me with the glass, I can’t see—we need to get rid of it.”
She dropped her seat back and put her feet up on the inside of the windshield.
“Push!” She ordered.
Doing as he was told, Cato awkwardly got his legs up and began to work with her. Already loose from the barrage of finches, the safety glass began to come free in one piece of interlocking shards.
“Push,” Louisa repeated. “A little more.”
With a slight sucking noise, the windshield fell forward onto the hood of Niccolò’s cruiser, then slid off to one side. Rearranging herself in her seat, Louisa shifted into gear and skidded away over cobblestones slippery with blood. Beside her, Cato tucked his Springfield against the handbrake and dug in
Leta’s gym bag for more guns.
“Oh no,” he groaned. “Looks like we lost the rifle.”
“What?” Louisa squinted, her hair whipping as she raced them down the alley.
“The Berretta,” said Cato. “The carbine rifle—it’s not here.”
“Is that bad?”
“It’s not good, but we’ve still got an Uzi, and a bunch of pistols.”
“And the shotgun,” Louisa added. “Don’t forget about the shotgun.”
Masklike, Cato grinned at her and rubbed his ears.
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he said. “I’m going to be remembering that shotgun for the rest of my life.”
Louisa down-shifted and spun the wheel, drifting them out onto the Via Cola di Rienzo. Less snarled here, traffic flowed southeast toward the Ponte Regina Margherita, a wide two-lane bridge that crossed the Tiber just shy of the old city walls. Drawing stares of astonishment from the other motorists, Louisa gunned the engine and wove the cruiser between busy lanes. Although she was fully aware of how strange they must look right now, no windshield and a confetti of bloody feathers, she didn’t have the wherewithal to care about any of that.
At the intersection of the Via Cicerone, she shifted gears and sped through in front of a honking tour bus. No sooner had it crossed the frame of her rearview mirror than a grey BMW whipped into view and fell in line. Louisa squeezed the wheel and gathered speed. Following suit, the BMW nosed out of traffic to run up the oncoming lane on their right flank. Superior in performance, it bore down on them with the ease of a true predator.
“They’ve found us,” Louisa announced, tipping her head.
Cato turned in his seat, then tensed and reached for the Uzi.
“That was fast,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—”
Swerving hard, Louisa braked and let a delivery van come between them and the BMW just as it drew level. Clutch pressed to the floor, she shifted into second and hopped the Alpha up onto the crowded sidewalk.
“Out of the way!” She yelled. “Mossa—move it! Get out of the way!”
People scattered, making a narrow path as she blew by. Almost to the next cross-street, she cut back onto the main road and came very near to hitting a man on a scooter. Tires squealing, she spun the wheel and clipped a parked car instead. The man on the scooter began to shout something at her, but the grey BMW promptly mowed him down, and pulled along side the Alpha.
“Duck!” Screamed Cato.
Firing from the open windows, two of the Spartoi, Eurus and Notus, opened up with heavy-hitting Colt .45s. Head down, Louisa stomped on the gas, leaping the cruiser forward amidst a rain of glass and flying bullets. Steering by instinct alone, she smashed the BMW’s front bumper and pushed past it with a screech of tearing metal.
Low in his seat, Cato freed the Uzi’s collapsible stock and shouldered the weapon.
“I’ll cover you,” he said. “Go, go, go!”
He turned clumsily and fired from his shot-out window in a wild spew of vivid sparks. The bullets found their mark, biting into the skin of the BMW like teeth. It veered sharply and plowed through a newsstand, letting loose a great fountain of papers.
Louisa sat up and pressed the accelerator, tearing off before Hannity or his boys could send shots chasing their way. Ahead in the shrinking distance, the Regina Margherita Bridge rose to crest the ancient river. Louisa forced the Alpha harder, yet something in its reaction time felt off to her. As if to second her fears, steam began to jet from the bullet holes in the hood and rush in through the open windshield.
“Not yet,” she urged the car. “Don’t give up on me now.”
On their tail again, the BMW burst from the chaos of falling newspapers to close in swiftly. Cato twisted to fire again, but one of the Spartoi beat him to it, shaving off the Alpha’s side view mirror with a blast from an M16. Nearly struck by the volley, Cato recoiled and dropped back inside the car. Avoiding a second hit, Louisa tapped the breaks, skipping the Alpha clear as more shots screamed past. The slugs battered the windshield of an oncoming Fiat, clouding it with blood. Out of control, the little coupe careened across both lanes of traffic toward the bridge’s guardrail. Spinning the wheel to the right, left, and right again, Louisa fishtailed past the doomed Fiat as it smashed full speed into the embankment. Airborne, its motor revved freely on a downward arc. In her rearview mirror, Louisa watched helplessly as the car sank.
Still hunkered low after his near miss; Cato seemed to sense her desperation.
“I’m on it,” he said.
Running out his seatbelt, he wrapped it around his waist like a harness, then clipped himself in.
“What are you doing?” Louisa cried.
Hand on the door latch, Cato gave no explanation, but merely flashed her a fingers-crossed look. When the BMW pulled near, and the Spartoi with the M16 emerged for a third attempt, Cato threw his door open and leaned out. Suspended by the seatbelt, he rattled off fifteen hot rounds from the Uzi that cut a zig-zag up the side of the BMW and into the unsuspecting Spartoi. Surprised, the pale man—Eurus, let go of his M16 and grabbed at his throat. Pumping from between his fingers, spurts of shimmering blood hung dark in the air. Cato fired again, holding the trigger down until the Uzi clicked and the action froze. Hit repeatedly, Eurus lost his balance and was sucked under the BMW’s back tires as if by a vortex. Forced sideways the car slammed into the guiderail then ricocheted their way.
Louisa down-geared for extra torque and punched the gas, steering them clear of the collision at the last possible second. Scrambling back in amid the commotion, Cato pulled his door shut and ejected the Uzi’s mag.
“That was close!” He shouted. “Did you see how fucking close that was?”
Too focused to speak, Louisa simply jerked her chin and raced them over the bridge to the eastern bank of the river. There, she turned up a tree-lined drive, but quickly departed it for another small alley. Behind them, the BMW had recovered from its near calamity and was making up for lost time. Louisa glanced at it in the rearview mirror and cursed, doubting very much that Niccolò’s Alpha could get them all the way to the church at this point. Sputtering globs of black oil, the bullet holes in the car’s hood now bled like open wounds. It wouldn’t be long until the heart of the thing, its engine, seized up and left them stranded on foot.
Louisa scanned the alley, looking for a way to loose their pursuers. Ahead, the narrow walls parted, and a wide piazza came into view. Pinned in the center by an Egyptian obelisk, and fringed with umbrella-shaded tables, the square gave Louisa an idea.
“Fasten your seatbelt,” she ordered. “I’m going to try something a little insane.”
“Er—” fumbled Cato, trying to untangle himself from his makeshift harness.
Blasting into the piazza at full speed, Louisa pulled the handbrake and slid the cruiser in a tight drift around the obelisk. Timing the maneuver perfectly, she broke the drift just as the BMW entered the piazza. Framed in the driver’s side window, Mr. Hannity gaped. Like a battering ram, the Alpha plowed into the side of the BMW, buckling its axel and sending it tumbling into a barrel-roll of twisted metal, and debris.
XLVII
When his world faded back in, the first thing Hannity became aware of was that he was hanging upside down. Dueling for supremacy, imprints from the car crash in Afghanistan distorted his current understanding of events. The result was an endless loop of slurred vision and cross-chatter.
Hannity forced his eyes to focus and searched for his knife. Cutting his seatbelt, he dropped painfully onto his head. At once, his door yanked open and the pockmarked face of Boreas peered in. Reaching for him, the boy grabbed Hannity by the collar and pulled him roughly from the car.
“Let go!” Hannity growled. “I’m fine—let go of me god damn it!”
Releasing him, Boreas nodded and went back into the car for Notus. Mind rattled, body aching Hannity rose on shaky legs and took in his surroundings. Somehow, the BMW had ended up inside
a restaurant. Though the wreckage of this event could be seen everywhere, just how it had actually happened still remained fuzzy.
Hannity stumbled around to the other side of the BMW and looked out at the piazza. A little ways off, and smoking badly, the Alpha Romeo sat like a lopsided accordion. Propped open, the driver and passenger-side doors sent a clear message. Cato had escaped again.
“Fuck!” Screamed Hannity.
The brothers joined him, Notus looking none the worse for wear while Boreas had added new cuts to the arrangement of scatter-shot wounds on his face.
“Which way’d they go?” Hannity snarled, pointing at the Alpha. “Which fucking way?”
Boreas gazed calmly at him for a second then nodded past his shoulder to a fountain in the corner of the square. There, a man stood slack-jawed and frozen like a statue of Stupefaction.
“You!” Hannity called. “Don’t move.”
The man jumped and put his hands up. Marching toward him, Hannity jabbed a finger.
“You saw them didn’t you? Where’d they go? Tell me!”
The man—an American tourist, pointed to the nearest of three alleys, leading out of the piazza.
“Are you sure,” Hannity demanded. “You’re sure they went that way?”
The American nodded, taking a frightened step back.
“Yes sir,” he croaked. “Just a minute ago—a man and a woman—”
Almost unconsciously, Hannity loosed his 1911 and shot the American point blank.
“Grab the guns,” he said to the brothers. “We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”
XLVIII
On the Via del Corso, Cato and Louisa worked through a never-ending flow of wide-eyed tourists. They had entered the busy thoroughfare by way of a footpath just after the church of Santa Maria in Montesanto. No longer operating in the shadows, they were now center stage in the living theatre that was Rome. Modern storefronts hawked t-shirts and selfie-sticks, while gypsies spun lies for cash, and gave bad directions for free. Overhead, the regal façades of ancient buildings broke the skyline into an alternating pattern of crosses and capitals.
The Man From Rome Page 26
