had a deliciously forbidden, wicked feeling; but he could think it now.
Ah God, but she had been, still was, so beautiful… that was only a memory for Falcon now. He had been immunized. At what expense.
Looking hard at Carados, he said: “You’re from Haiti. Your accent tends to come and go, that’s what threw me off. Older than you look. Aren’t we all? Friend of old Papa Doc’s, I bet.”
Carados glowered at this mild display of spirit. “You get up and march, I said. Else when we get you there, we’ll use you as I first intended.”
Falcon stood up, moving more slowly and creakily than was really necessary. It was a considerable relief to be off the fence. “Where’s your car?” he asked, trying to sound reluctantly submissive. He meant to try a thing or two while they were riding.
Then he paused, looking at the fat figure in manshape. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Call me Arnaud,” replied the werewolf cautiously. More alert than Carados, he sensed changes in the old man. Arnaud stood straight and watched the old man carefully.
Carados said: “Move, old one. This way, across the street. Just a short walk, no car this time.”
Falcon, who had been ready to walk, let himself slump a little. “No? What then?”
“We simply walk the tunnel,” explained Arnaud. “Nimue can extend it a long way now. We’ve created a temporary entrance in that alley across the street. It’s being held open for us.”
“Nimue’s power is high.” Falcon nodded to himself. “The sacrifices.” And then he saw the car that was pulling up quietly behind the others, and was aware before they were of what it meant, and allowed himself a twisted little grin.
The car’s doors were opening on both sides. “Police officers! Stand right where you are!”
Falcon doubled over slowly, went down in a crouch-and-fall like a man already shot, except that he reached out with his hands to save his face and body as he sprawled his whole length out on the sidewalk that was still faintly warm with the heat of yesterday. Get yours you bastard, he thought with pleasure, seeing Carados turn toward the police, drawing a gun.
Chicago cops were not at all slow about getting down to the nitty-gritty, not when armed-and-considered- extremely-dangerous turned at bay with metal glinting in his hand. A fusillade was already rambling in the air not far above Falcon’s head. The nearest auto in the parking lot behind him swayed on its wheels, squealing like a hurt animal as it took a bullet’s full energy in frame or engine block. Fragments of brick wall sprayed down on Falcon sharply before he got his personal protective spell in gear, tuned against the heavy threat of leaden bullets. Should have done that sooner, but it had taken him precious seconds to remember how.
Carados must have been getting similar help, from Arnaud or more likely from Nimue herself, or he’d be down in bundled bloody rags by now instead of sprinting after Arnaud for the alley beside the parking lot. In the dark alley’s mouth the dark man turned, heedless of more bullets harmlessly puncturing his clothing. Grinning, he aimed his own weapon carefully, pausing long enough to add one more cop to his list of victims, before he turned again and ran back into darkness. Quite probably, Falcon realized, by now the mouth of the secret tunnel had been shifted from the alley across the street to this one. It could be almost anywhere. Falcon could see the potential connections in his mind, almost without trying. That magic tunnel was web-centered at the castle, and now it went on across the world as far or almost as far as did the Street of Failure.
There was another squad car partially blocking the street at each end of the block, and still more cop cars were now screeching to a halt nearby. The police wouldn’t have forgotten the alleys either, of course. Not that thoroughness was going to do them much good against Nimue. They must have spotted Carados some minutes ago, to give them time to close in like this from all sides.
Their prey had fled—no, it hadn’t. In a moment of silence Falcon could hear two voices bickering. Arnaud was remonstrating with his companion about something, trying to get him to hurry along. Carados after one reply ignored Arnaud, and raised his voice to call a fond farewell to the police, adding a few terms of endearment of his own invention. As far as Falcon could tell now, the voices were up in a second-story window in one of the nearby buildings. The cops hadn’t been expecting magic tunnels, any more than anti-bullet spells. Falcon, still holding himself face down on the pavement, smiled bitterly.
His faint hopes of being left alone, forgotten now, were dashed. A pair of hard-running feet came zeroing in on him. Hard hands seized him under the armpits, began to drag him around a corner. Falcon’s dragging feet kicked feebly, and he protested, mumbling curses—not really aiming them at anyone. Whoever was dragging him muttered them right back at him, in a voice strained with fear and physical effort. There sounded a shot, whose leaden burden whizzed the air close by.
Once round the corner, he was propped in a painful sitting position against a building. Glaring close into his was a young man’s face that he ought to be able to recognize—in a moment he did. It was that of the mundane young cop who had once talked to him of swords.
“Are you hit?” It was a fierce demand.
“Hit? Hit? Shit no I’m not hit. I got sense enough to know when to go down and stay put.”
The cop’s mumbled obscenities conveyed mingled exasperation and relief. “Come on. I want to get you into a car. There are things besides Carados that we have to talk about.”
Like how I walked out of jail so easy, thought Falcon. Now the cop had him on his feet. Which car were they going to get into, though? Two, three more were braking to a halt, brakes squealing, sirens silent. Here came the —what the hell did they call it? the Mash team?—the men with fancy helmets and body armor, cradling firearms of elegantly devious design. In a sudden near-silence Falcon could hear their little handheld radios rasping at each other cryptically. Another single shot sounded, and someone yelled, hit. Carados was contemptuously pushing his —no, it wasn’t luck at all. There were bursts of activity as uniformed men scrambled this way and that, climbing buildings, ducking in and out of doorways. Joe—Falcon suddenly recalled the name, from their long interrogation session—pulled his charge back into the sheltering mouth of another alley.
This alley proved to have unpleasant occupants.
The plump hand of Arnaud, at the moment sporting neither fur nor claws, closed gently but firmly on Falcon’s right wrist. “Nimue bids you come with us,” Arnaud chided softly. “It is her command, and you have no choice.”
Carados stood just a few feet distant, aiming his gun point-blank at Joe; Falcon saw the young policeman turn pale to his lips. The promise of death was very plain.
Joe started to say something, and at the same moment he reached quickly for his own gun, inside his coat. Carados deliberately tilted his aim slightly to one side and shot Joe through the right arm. Joe’s gun, half-drawn, fell to the alley floor.
“Come on!” urged Arnaud softly. Ten feet now from where Carados and Joe were locked in a hideous confrontation, Arnaud tugged almost tentatively—as if he were wary of being rough—at Falcon’s wrist.
“You can’t do that,” Falcon muttered under his breath. He was speaking to Carados, even if Carados couldn’t hear him, wasn’t paying him the least attention. When Arnaud tugged again, this time growling lightly in his throat, the fingers of Falcon’s held hand made a small gesture, as if he were spinning away a little top. An image of Falcon separated itself from Falcon, like a detachable shadow, as Falcon himself simultaneously became invisible. The image, head down and shuffling, moved off down the alley, one wrist gripped by its captor who appeared to be quite satisfied.
Carados had backed off another step or two from Joe, teasing, as if he might really be willing to walk off and leave a live cop looking at him. In the streetlight Falcon could see the harmless bullet-tears, in the dark man’s clothing. Joe stood in shock, holding his shot arm, swaying a little as if he were continually trying to brace himself against the next bullet, the one that it seemed must hit him with every passing second.
If Falcon was not completely invisible to both of them now, he might as well have been. He felt choked up. He groped for words that just were not available. If Nimue herself had been here… but she wasn’t. So something ought to be, had to be, possible. Falcon could fight her helpers. He could try at least, he could…
“Just reach for it, pig,” said Carados softly, backing away one more slow step. “Or don’t, I don’t care. It’s good night either way.”
A police radio rasped; it was half a block away, and it might as well have been on the moon for all the help it was going to be. Outside the alley the teams were going into action with professional care, all facing in the wrong direction. From deeper down the alley, Arnaud’s voice called impatiently for Carados to come on.
“In just a second,” Carados called back in a low voice.
