They passed another alleyway that transected their own. Ahead, the rain at the end of the alleyway appeared to bow inward, taking the shape of a man before he actually materialized just inside the alley.
It was Atropos.
She stopped cold. Stephen huffed behind her. 'I . . . don't . . . understand . . .' he managed between inhalations. 'Could he . . . have . . . come around . . . that fast?'
She thought of the crunching glass they'd heard in the store. No way. 'Go back,' she said. The figure was moving toward them. Spinning, they dashed toward the opposite end.
Ahead of them, Atropos stepped through the door into the alley. His head snapped around to take them in.
They stopped cold. They looked from one warrior to the other. Physically, they were identical in every way. They even converged on Julia and Stephen with the same measured gait. Each held a pistol in his right hand, a little red dot dancing beneath it, reflecting off the wet surface.
'They won't shoot,' she told Stephen. 'They're in each other's crossfire.' She inched toward the Atropos that was farthest from them, the one who had followed them through the store. She pulled Stephen along by the hand.
'When they get close enough, they will,' he said.
'That's why we're going to run down this other alley. You see it?'
'Yep.'
'To the left.'
'Yep.'
'Now!'
They bolted into the cross-alley, crashing over a garbage can. Food wrappers and bits of trash clung to their legs; the odor of rot wafted over them. Julia's stomach, already knotted by fear, contracted at this new revulsion. She knew she could vomit and run at the same time if she had to. But in the next second, she'd forgotten about corporeal grievances—her aching muscles, her cold and waterlogged flesh, nausea—and simply ran. She listened for a sound that would signal the warriors' arrival at the head of the alley. Would they try to get closer? Or would they just aim and shoot, a certain bull's-eye in this straight-as-a-shooting-range passageway? Would the spit of a silenced round be the last thing she ever heard?
They came to the end of the alley and whipped around the corner, out of the path of any bullets sailing their way. They pressed against a stuccoed wall, panting.
'We gotta keep going,' she said. Then a movement caught her eye, A block away and across the street, a stranger emerged from an alley. He was wearing a leather jacket, appearing casual with one hand in a pocket. He had stolen Indiana Jones's hat and had it cocked forward, obscuring his eyes. Rain poured off of it like a backyard water feature. He motioned to them, beckoning, then stepped out of sight.
Stephen looked at Julia.
'I don't know,' she said.
A loud sound came from the alley next to them, a knocked-over-trash-can sound. That decided it for her. She ran toward where the man had stood. They curved around the corner and saw him at another intersection of alleyways. He was a black man and almost invisible against the darkness. Again he beckoned to them. He disappeared into the adjoining alley.
When they followed, they found that the alley disappeared into darkness. Behind them, footsteps echoed against the buildings. They plunged into the darkness. As a wall of brick materialized at the end of the alley, a metal door swung open. Julia crashed into it; Stephen crashed into her. Bodies rushed out of the black opening, enveloping her in unyielding, viselike arms.
She kicked out, and a pair of hands seized her foot, wrenching her leg. She was pulled into the darkness. Stephen came behind her, grunting and thrashing. The door shut, and the arms hurled her to a dirt floor she could not see. She felt Stephen land beside her. A click, and light pierced her pupils. Blinded, she heard more clicks, metal sliding on metal, mechanisms locking into place. She knew these sounds. Shielding her eyes, she looked around—
Into the black barrels of a dozen guns.
eighty-four
Julia blinked. A face presented itself over the rifle poised directly in front of her. Crevices exaggerated the contours of the man's mouth and cheeks, the permanent twin furrows between his eyes. A spiderweb of delicate lines fanned out from his eyes, which were red and moist and slightly protuberant. Folds of flesh gave him little jowls that, coupled with an expansive mouth that God surely intended for profound utterances, made him look wise. It was a face at once friendly and sad.
It was the man who had beckoned to them.
The rifle came down—only this one—and the man pressed an index finger to his lips. 'Shhhhhhh,' he whispered, soft and long, as a mother to a baby. He took one step backward and leaned an ear to the metal door. Gently he laid the fingertips of his empty hand against the door, as though feeling for vibrations.
No one else in the room moved. They stood in a circle around Julia and Stephen, leveling an arsenal of pistols, rifles, and shotguns at them. Water dripped from their clothes. The man at the door cocked his head and raised his rifle like a shaman's staff, a call for silence. Then she heard them: footsteps approaching the door, the scuff of a sole against pavement. The sound moved past without pausing.
Someone behind Julia clicked his tongue, preparing to speak. The man at the door raised the rifle higher, shook his head. The sound outside the door returned, this time stopping directly outside. Silence. There was no noise for so long, Julia wondered if the person outside had moved off undetected. There was an almost imperceptible
'Get down,' Julia hissed, trying for both discretion and urgency.
Then it happened: the assailants outside fired into the door. The bullets made convex dents in the door's metal skin but did not penetrate it. Two . . . three . . . four. The man at the door moved to the side, gesturing for the others to do the same. The handle jerked violently, then again, as bullets hit its outside counterpart.
Julia noticed that a heavy bar had been braced horizontally across the door; their safety was not dependent on the handle's integrity. The handle fell away, leaving a three-inch hole straight through to the gray alley. A shadow moved over it, then an eye appeared, rolling to take in the men, locking on Julia.
A rifle cracked behind her, loud. The bullet pinged three inches from the eye, which pulled away. A sound- suppressed barrel slipped into the opening. It spat blindly, hitting the wall behind Julia.
Men yelped and bolted toward an interior exit.
The black man by the door slammed the butt of his rifle against the barrel, which spat another bullet—this one kicking up a chuck of dirt a foot from Julia's knee. She felt hands under her arms, and she rose off the ground at rocket speed. She swung through the air and landed on her feet behind the crush of men leaving the room. She looked back. Stephen's expression was firm, implacable. He pushed her forward.
The man at the door kept striking at the barrel until it retreated. At the edge of the hole, the door's metal skin exploded inward.
The Warriors outside were shooting through without exposing their barrels.
She made it into the next room. The men crowded the back wall, pointing their rifles at the doorway. The black man ran in and slammed the door. He nodded, and someone hefted open a trapdoor in the floor.
The black man walked to the edge. He took in Julia and Stephen. 'Come,' he said.
Julia hesitated.
His expression softened. 'It's not a dungeon. It's an underground passage. To a safer place. It's only a matter of time before those blokes get in.' Tinged British, his voice was deep and smooth.
As if to appease her, or to indicate he was out of there, with or without her, he stepped into the hole and descended until he was gone. She peered down. A flashlight flicked on, revealing the man's face at the bottom of steep stairs. She glanced at Stephen and dropped her foot through.
The air below was moist and cool and redolent with an earthy scent that reminded Julia of clean skin. Without a word, the man turned and walked into a tunnel, carved through red dirt and clay. She followed. As they
