Almost without knowing what she was doing, she fell back, away from the tower and into the darkness along the edge of the city. She found herself running with a reckless speed, heedless of obstacles. There was no plan in her mind. She felt simply an animal panic to get away: to race for the deepest, most secret place she could find.
Dark alleys, low mounds of rubble, angular adobe structures flashed by in the faint moonlight as she ran. Suddenly, she caught herself short. To the right were the squat, low forms of the granaries. And directly before her, its low maw a rectangle of deeper darkness, was the entrance to the Crawlspace. Inside, she knew, the blackness would be complete. There might be a hiding place in there, perhaps inside the roomblocks of the secret city itself.
She began to move forward, then stopped. Pursuer or no, she would not allow herself to enter the Crawlspace, and its lethal payload of dust, ever again.
Instead, she turned and dashed into the alley alongside the granaries. Halfway down the alley’s gentle curve, she stopped at a notched pole ladder, leaning against the rearward set of roomblocks. Grasping at the dry wood, she climbed as quietly as she could to the second-floor setback. Stepping onto the roof, she pulled the ladder up behind her. At least that would slow the skinwalker down, buy her a few more seconds of time.
She shook her head, forcing the panic away, trying to keep her thoughts clear. The clouds moved once again over the moon. Only the river spoke. Quivira was silent, watching, under a shroud of darkness.
She moved across the rearward set of roofs, past a long row of keyhole doorways. Bats flitted from the recesses of the city, flicking through the shadows on their way to the valley. Except for a few central roomblocks that ran from the front of the city to the back, most of the buildings were cul-de-sacs. She thought of hiding inside one of the roomblocks, then quickly dismissed the idea; out here, in the city proper, it would only be a matter of time until she was hunted down. Better to keep moving, to wait for an opportunity to descend into the valley.
She crept along the row of open doorways, then paused at the corner of the roomblock, listening.
A sudden footfall invaded the darkness. Nora looked around wildly; with the sound of the river echoing through the vault, it was almost impossible to tell where the sound had come from. Had the skinwalker followed her around to the granaries, and was it even now slipping up behind? Or was it lying in wait somewhere in the plaza, biding its time until she crept toward the rope ladder?
There was another noise, not as faint as the last. It seemed—she thought—to have come from below. Dropping to her stomach, Nora crawled to the side of the roof, and cautiously peered over the edge into the pool of darkness. Empty.
She rose to her feet, the smell of flowers stronger now: overripe, sickly sweet. Her heart was hammering violently in her chest. She backed away from the parapet, and as she did so she heard the rattling sound of the pole ladder being placed against its flanks. Quickly, she ducked into the nearest set of roomblocks.
She pressed herself against the wall, gasping for breath. Whatever she did, wherever she went, she was at a disadvantage. The skinwalker was faster than she was, and far stronger. It was at home in the dark. She realized that it would never allow her to escape from the valley.
There was only one possibility. She had to even the playing field, to minimize the threat. And that meant finding a weapon.
Inside, the room was still and cool. Nora glanced quickly around. A pile of war god masks stood in one corner, crimson mouths twisted and leering in the faint moonlight. The air smelled of pack rats and mold. She crept through the next doorway into another room, darker than the first, feeling along the walls, letting her memory of the place guide her steps.
Cautiously, she felt her way into the third room. A shaft of pale light came through a crack in the roof, and there they were: a stack of fire-hardened wooden spears, ending in razor-sharp obsidian tips. She hefted a few, selected the two lightest, and moved out of the room into a narrow passageway.
She felt her way along the wall, moving toward the next room in the block. Her memory of the location of the spears had been more or less correct; she also recalled that this system of rooms had an entrance at the front as well as the back. But there were many hundreds of rooms in Quivira, and she could not be certain.
Locating the doorframe, she ducked into the next room. Here, gray light filtered from the far doorway. With a small glimmer of relief, Nora realized she must be close to the front of the structure. She moved into the darkest corner and waited, listening.
By now, the skinwalker would have followed her into the roomblocks. Nora rested the spear on her shoulder. It felt puny, insubstantial, in her sweaty fist. Perhaps it was the height of folly for her to think she could do anything to save herself. But the only other option was to do nothing, to wait in terror for the inevitable end. And she knew that—however quick and strong the skinwalkers were—they were also mortal.
She tensed at the faint sound of a footfall in the room beyond. The sound of the river was muffled here, inside the roomblocks, and she strained to listen. There was another faint noise. The reek of flowers grew overpowering. Struggling to keep her wits about her, Nora raised the spear. A shadow, black upon black, seemed to fill the doorway. With an involuntary shout, she heaved the spear with all the strength she could muster. Immediately, she jumped away, running through the far door into the last room of the block. There had been no sound, no cry; but she thought she had heard the deep, flat sound of the spear sinking into flesh.
She stumbled forward, out the doorway and onto the flat roof along the front of the structure. Not daring to pause for a breath, she glanced about for a way down.
There was a sudden scrabbling sound behind her, then a heavy weight fell across her back, forcing her violently to the ground. Crying out in pain and surprise, she tried to struggle away. A heavy pelt of fur, dank with sweat and the ghastly stench of rotting flowers, fell across her face. She looked up to see the masked head rear back over her, spear bobbing from one shoulder. An arm raised up, obsidian knife flashing.
With a tremendous effort she pulled herself to one side. There was a searing pain in her calf as the knife struck a glancing blow. Without pausing, she tumbled headfirst off the roof of the roomblock. Landing in a pile of sand, she scrambled to her feet and ran into the protective shadow of the first-floor blocks. She was aware that she whimpered as she moved. Her leg throbbed, and she could feel the wet gush of blood running down around her ankle.
From behind came a heavy thump, as of a large body leaping to the ground. She ducked into the doorway of the nearest room, then half ran, half limped through a series of galleries to a small, dark chamber. Clouds had temporarily veiled the moon, but she knew that beyond this chamber lay the central plaza. She knelt in the close darkness, thinking furiously. A rancid smell of blood filled her nostrils: she must have been cut far deeper than she thought.
A brief running patter brought her to her feet. Any minute, and the moon would reappear from behind the clouds. It would be the work of thirty seconds to follow the trail of blood directly to her. And then, the thick smell of blood would be replaced by the wonderful, terrible, scent of flowers.
As if on cue, a ghostly aura crept across the walls of the room as moonlight slanted once again into the city. Nora tensed herself for what would be her final run across the plaza to the retaining wall. Deep down, she was well aware that she could never make it in time. But she could not bear to sit in this room, cornered like a rat, awaiting a brief, brutal end.
She took a deep breath, then another. Then she swivelled to face the doorway leading out of the room.
And froze.
In the far corner, illuminated by the sepulchral moonlight, lay Luigi Bonarotti. His glazed eyes were wide open in a sightless stare. In the dim light, he seemed bathed in an even deeper shadow of blood. Nora took in the outrageous, horrifying details: fingers cut off, unbooted feet torn away, head partially scalped. She fell to her knees and covered her mouth, gagging.
As if from a great distance, she heard the skinwalker moving in the alley behind the roomblocks.
She sat up quickly, her gaze returning to Bonarotti. There, still holstered around his waist, was the monstrous gun.
She leaped for it, fumbled with the catch, and pulled it from the holster. A .44 magnum Super Blackhawk, deadly as hell. She wiped the bloody grip on her jeans, then scurried back against the wall as another footstep sounded, closer.
With terrible speed, the skinwalker appeared in the doorway, thick pelt fluttering. The white spots along its midriff glowed blue in the moonlight, and red angry eyes stared at her from behind the slits in the buckskin mask.
