Shadow Man skidded to a stop at the other end. His sword was gone, and he was holding his wrist with bloody fingers. He glared at Tyler and started for him, becoming a silhouette, merging into the darkness. When he appeared in the light, he was turned sideways and already rubbing the walls. He shimmied closer. The guy was thin, but there was no way he’d make it through.
Relief made Tyler’s gut feel better. The alternative route to the rooftop below Tyler’s feet was long: across several other rooftop terraces, down a flight of stairs and up another-and that was if you knew the layout. He smiled, but lost it when Shadow Man smiled back. The man edged back a bit, jostled his arms around, then pointed the gun at Tyler.
Tyler dropped just as the gun fired. He hit the roof and fell onto his back. Sandy fragments of the ledge sprinkled down on him. He rose, rubbing his tailbone, and backed away, watching the edge in case the man found a way through or was waiting to catch a glimpse of Tyler through the crack.
A noise chilled him. He’d scampered over enough rooftops not meant to be scampered over to recognize it: the scraping of terra cotta tiles over one another. He heard grunting and knew for sure: the man was climbing over one of the small buildings. He’d be there in seconds.
Tyler darted to another ledge. Across a five-foot span was the wall of a building that rose way above his position. In the space between, a flight of stairs descended into darkness one way; in the other direction it rose and turned out of sight. He lay on the roof and pushed himself over the edge. His feet landed on different steps and he flipped backward, striking his head on the opposite building. The thing he’d taken fell from his hand. It rattled down the stairs, spilling out a tiny item as it did. He crawled to this new something and picked it up. It had little prongs that poked his finger. He dropped it into the utility case, then used both hands to sweep the steps below until he found the original item. It was a container with a hinged lid, which he closed.
He caught movement from the corner of his eye and turned to see Shadow Man hurl himself from the ledge. The man hit the wall, then crashed onto the stairs and began tumbling. The backpack’s strap slipped from his shoulder to the crook of his elbow. The pack bumped down a step, seeming to pull Shadow Man down with it. The pack opened, and a human head rolled out. It picked up speed-hair flying like fire, eyelids open to white orbs, the mouth locked in a curled-lipped grimace-and bounced directly at Tyler.
Tyler screamed, a horrified, sustained release of all the screams he’d been denied: over the invisible man with floating eyes and magically appearing sword; the ear-splitting firefight; the beheading. He whirled away from the head, somersaulted down the steps, found his feet, and ran.
[45]
When the shadows retreated, giving Jagger a view of the stars and the buildings crowding around him, he was still trying to fill his burning lungs. He couldn’t have been out long. He rubbed the back of his head, felt a bump, and rolled over to push himself up. While the lights were out, his heart had moved into his head. It pounded in there, making his eyeballs and forehead, jaw and ears as miserable as his heart apparently was about its new accommodations.
For a few moments he forgot what he’d been doing when he fell.. was pushed. He’d been running… gunfire… Tyler!
Someone had been shooting at Tyler! No, that wasn’t right. It came back to him the way reality did after a particularly nasty nightmare. The gunfire was unrelated to Tyler, except that he was outside somewhere, only possibly in the vicinity of it. Jagger had been hoping, praying Tyler was nowhere near it.
He took a step and stumbled, catching himself against a wall. He shook his head, aggravating his misplaced heart, making it pound harder. The gunfire had stopped. He had to find out what had happened, had to get to Tyler, get him home. He looked around and knew where he was, only a couple buildings from the back-corner shootout.
Okay, he thought, move.
He walked, breathed, felt the pounding subside a little. He picked up his pace, began considering what he might find: dead monks… dead bad guys… live monks and bad guys gearing up for another volley. In that instant he didn’t care. His sole desire was to find his son. He couldn’t help believing the monks had brought this on. Taking that man in, being so secretive about it, about a lot of things. So help him, if anything happened to Tyler or Beth, the people who’d blown through the front gate would be the least of Gheronda’s problems.
A shot rang out, and he spun toward it: in the center of the compound, closer to the Burning Bush, closer to Tyler. He wanted to call out him, to let him know he was coming, to hear that he was all right, but if Tyler was safe somewhere, calling to him could draw him out into danger. He ran all out, forgetting about himself, about caution, about anything but getting to his boy.
Less than a minute later he arrived at the Burning Bush. Tyler was gone, the branches that had hidden him fanned out from the corner on the ground. Unthinkingly, disbelieving Tyler’s absence, he lifted them, expecting… what? His son? A clue to his disappearance? Had he left on his own or had someone taken him? Was he home now, curled up on the couch with Beth… safe somewhere else… kidnapped..?
Jagger’s mind slammed the door on other possibilities. He turned in a circle, hoping first to see Tyler-coming to him, cowering in a different corner-then scanning for clues. His boots and Tyler’s sneakers, their socks were on the steps where they’d left them.
Meaning to yell, it came out a whisper: “Tyler?” He raised his face to the sky, drew in a deep breath, but before he could send his son’s name into the compound, Tyler screamed, a long, terrible, little-boy scream. It turned Jagger’s heart to stone.
“Tyler!”
The scream had come from the compound’s most jumbled, stacked section of buildings. Getting to the Burning Bush, Jagger had run through a tunnel under it. He bounded up the steps to the rooftops. “Tyler!” He crossed terraces, bridges, leaped over alleyways, looking, looking and calling. He traversed the roofs, descending a level, then re-ascending, heading toward their apartment. The Basilica’s obsidian-like roof floated across a chasm to his right; the Southwest Range Building ran the length of the rear wall to his left. Beyond that, the black presence of God’s Mountain watched.
He descended into a valley formed by two buildings rising on either side of a walkway, which was itself composed of the rooftops of buildings below it. At the end was an arch, beyond which was a wide terrace running perpendicular to the walkway.
Right or left? he thought as he hurried toward the T. North or south?
The maracas rattle of Tyler’s utility case started as suddenly as a flipped switch. Close, but the walls around him tossed the sound around, and he couldn’t be sure how close or even from which direction it came. He stopped, held his breath.
On the terrace, Tyler flashed past the arched opening.
“Tyler!” Jagger dashed to the terrace and swung right just as his son’s bobbing head disappeared down the stairs at the terrace’s north end. “Ty-”
Footsteps rushed toward him from behind. He spun to see a man dressed from toes to neck in a gray skintight suit. He had short-cropped hair, wild eyes, and the maniacal grin of a butcher who loved his job. Most disturbing was the handgun he clutched in a bloody, gloveless hand. He was pumping his arms in an all-out sprint.
All this Jagger registered in a glance. The guy was nearly on top of him. Jagger’s sudden appearance had not given Tyler’s pursuer time to slow; the man’s eyes were just now growing wide in acknowledgment of his presence.
That this nightmare was chasing his son sent a flood of rage through Jagger’s body. He stiffened his muscles and narrowed his focus on one thought: this guy was going down.
[46]
Faced with a charging madman, most people would freeze or jump out of the way. Jagger attacked. He took two quick steps toward the man, crouched, and threw his shoulder into the guy’s midsection. He rose, flipping the attacker over his head, sending a backpack tumbling across the terrace. Before the body landed,
Jagger had pulled his baton, snapped it into full extension, and swung it into the hand holding the gun.
The man howled, but kept his grip on the weapon. Jagger raised the baton, taking aim at the man’s head, which lay between Jagger’s feet where it had landed. In a move out of Cirque du Soleil, the attacker executed a backward flip, raising his legs over his head and planting a foot squarely into Jagger’s crotch. Jagger dropped the baton and doubled over… then sprang forward, tackling the man as he tried to stand. There was no time for pain; two seconds of incapacitation meant death.
Jagger fell on top of him. He clambered up his back and pushed down on the man’s head with his prosthetic forearm, grinding his face into the terrace. He gripped the gun hand, lifted it, slammed it down, over and over.
The man drove his head back into Jagger’s chin. He slipped his body out from under Jagger’s and began kneeing him in the hip. He twisted and shoved his foot into Jagger’s ribs, thrusting Jagger off him. The man rose up on one elbow and crossed the gun under his body to fire it.
Jagger completed the roll he’d started when the man shoved him, winding up on his back. This put RoboHand inches from the gun. As the hammer fell, he flicked his hook, knocking the barrel away. The gun roared, and the bullet could have parted Jagger’s hair, it came so close. He pushed RoboHand under the man’s chest and clamped it over the hand and fingers that gripped the gun.
The man tried to jerk his hand away, but it might as well have been bolted to Jagger’s hook. He tugged and tugged, casting a stunned expression at Jagger. Jagger flexed his biceps, deltoids, trapeziuses, and the rest of his upper-body muscles-all of them contributing to the power of his grip. In the second it took the man to draw breath, Jagger heard his fingers break-like eggshells and Fritos under a booted heel-then his scream obscured all other sounds.
Jagger released RoboHand’s tension, slid the prehensor off the fingers, clamped the gun barrel, and pulled it away. He swung it around to his real hand, which found the trigger and grip wet and sticky with blood.
A locomotive drove into his cheekbone. As his head snapped back, he realized the man had elbowed him: a bony joint, powered by a muscular arm and backed by the weight of the man’s upper body. Considering the excruciating pain his attacker must have been in, it was impossible for the man to have risen so quickly and launched such a precise counterstrike, but the exploding nerves in Jagger’s face screamed otherwise. The man spasmed upward like a bucking bronc and came back down on him. His left knee pinned Jagger’s gun arm; his right foot slammed down on the prosthetic.
Jagger rocked back and forth, twisted and pulled his arms. He kicked his legs up, but the man leaned forward, out of reach. His mangled hand was tucked to this chest, and he was grinning. He reached to his side and produced a sword. Its blade was about two and a half feet long, three inches wide, and marbled with blood.
Jagger squirmed, rocked, pulled, tugged, kicked.
“First you,” the man said. His tongue slid over his lower lip. “Then the boy. What’s his name?” He looked around and called, “Tyler! Tyler!”
“No!” Jagger said. He rocked left and twisted his fake arm. It popped free of the man’s boot. He shot it up to the man’s neck and squeezed. The hooks slid over a hard surface, ripping away the scaly material and exposing a metal collar.
“Pretty cool, huh?” the man said and laughed. He swung the sword down at Jagger’s face. Jagger caught it with RoboHand, kicking up sparks and stopping the blade six inches in front of his face.
Through gritted teeth Jagger said, “Not as cool as mine.”
He twisted his arm and wrist, but with his back and other arm pinned, he couldn’t generate enough strength to wrest away the blade. The best he could do was not let go, and he wasn’t sure that was enough. The man was strong, and knew the kind of fighting moves that made him dangerous beyond his strength and weaponry. Jagger could think of a dozen ways the guy could push the sword into his face or weaken him enough to maneuver it free.
The man leaned over and rested his forehead on the back of the blade, which quivered under the pressure of converse forces.
“You know,” the man said, “we were going to leave you alone. But you got in our way-you and the kid-and that gives us permission. Not just that, an obligation.” He straightened, looked around again. “Tyyyyler! Here, boy!”
Under the man’s knee, Jagger’s right arm was out of action, but not his wrist. He tucked it in as far as it would bend, gave it every bit of concentration not already allocated to keeping the blade out of his flesh, and pulled the handgun’s trigger.
A red blossom bloomed on the man’s cheek, instantly followed by another, larger one on the other side, higher up. He spat blood. It ran over his lip and down his chin, along with a white chunk of tooth. He released his grip on the sword and toppled.
Jagger flicked the sword away and reached for the man’s wrist, thinking he was going for the gun. RoboHand snagged his sleeve, ripping it along a seam. The man thudded down over Jagger’s gun arm. The man’s own arm extended overhead onto the terrace, as if reaching for something. The tear in the sleeve revealed a glittering gold tattoo on the inside of his forearm-a comet or fireball, as far as Jagger could tell.
He held the torn-off swath of scaly material over his face, watching it shake as his muscles tried to process the flood of adrenaline coursing through them. He closed his eyes.
The man remained conscious, but not fully there. He squirmed and gurgled out unintelligible words. With the man’s chest over the gun, Jagger thought about how easy it would be to twist the weapon again and put another slug into him.
He heard footsteps and opened his eyes. Rising onto an elbow, he scanned the terrace. It was empty. The fight had taken him away from the arch, so he couldn’t see the walkway on the other side of it.
“Tyler?”
He reached for his baton. It moved away from him, scraping on the stone tiles, then it lifted off the ground. His mouth dropped open as he watched it dance in midair. It rose high, and that’s when he saw the eyes, only eyes. They blinked, and the baton sailed down at his head.
[47]
The blow didn’t knock him out, but it might as well have. A spike of pain pierced his brain, kicking up incongruous thoughts like disturbed bats:
— Tyler, get to bed — technically speaking, the brain itself does not possess the sensory nerve endings to feel pain — ha ha ha ha ha — I did not come to bring peace, but a sword — the children! not the children too — the monastery was founded by the Roman Empress Helena in 330 AD — you’re here at the pleasure of Gheronda — and that gives us permission — you and the kid — you and the kid Jagger groaned, touched the new wound, and pulled his fingers away to visually confirm the blood he felt. It took his eyes a few seconds to focus.
Fast breathing drew his attention toward the man lying on his arm. His back rose and fell far more slowly than the quick breaths Jagger heard. He noticed the eyes: they were hovering near the man’s head, which teetered one way then the other unnaturally.
A woman’s voice whispered, “Phin… Phin!”
The eyes moved higher and stared at him. White sclera formed twin almond shapes, irises that appeared black in the dim light. They shifted down, and the man’s body began to roll over. Jagger tugged his arm out and pulled it close, tucking the handgun under his leg.
The eyes rose straight up and disappeared. Footsteps pattered around him. The backpack the man had dropped floated off the terrace, its strap forming a triangle above it. It swooped around, and the strap became an upside-down teardrop over what must have been someone’s shoulder. He was looking at the part of the pack that ordinarily pressed against a wearer’s back.
Jagger caught a glimpse of the eyes and said, “Who are you?”
The pack bounced in the air until it hovered over the man’s feet. One of his legs rose, the pack rotated, and the man slid away, trailing a slick of blood over the terrace. His unelevated leg cantered out, bent at the knee. Th
e man gurgled, shook his head, lifted it.
“Ev-ah,” he said through blood and shattered teeth.
Jagger wondered if his tongue was intact.
He shook his head again and said, “No, no, wait”-or so Jagger interpreted from the “ oh, oh, aith ” the man gurgled out.
His leg came down. The pack moved around to his head and lowered, stopping a foot off the ground. His head rose-too steadily and too high to be his own doing. Jagger imagined the hand that must be holding it, the invisible woman crouching beside it. There was whispering, gurgling. The man’s head turned, and he spat. More whispering. The head lowered and the pack rose. The eyes stared at Jagger.
“Where’s the boy?” came the woman’s voice.
Jagger felt ice crystals form in his blood. He regretted not finishing the job, not pulling the trigger one last time. He sat up, bending his legs to keep the gun hidden.
“He has something of ours,” she said.
“Leave your address,” Jagger said. “I’ll mail it to you.”
Silence. Then: “We’ll find him.”
Jagger closed his eyes, then slowly opened them. “Just… leave. Please.”
“Not without what’s ours.” A beat. “Is he yours, the boy?”
“What does that matter?” Jagger said, but his words felt like denying Tyler. “Yes, he is.”
“All we want is what we came for. If he…”
Jagger stopped hearing her words. Tyler had appeared behind her, rising up from the stairs. He smiled when he saw Jagger but recognized that something was wrong-not the least of which, Jagger thought, was the backpack floating between them. His boy froze, except for his lips, the corners of which drooped.
Go back, Ty, Jagger thought, hoping beyond hope that somehow, some way his son would hear him, would understand. Back up, Tyler.. go… away.
The 13 th tribe if-1 Page 16
