The Cult of Osiris

‘What am I, a detective?’ Nina saw a cab up the street. She waved furiously as they ran after it. ‘Taxi!’

‘We’re getting a cab?’ said Macy in disbelief.

‘Unless you’ve got a helicopter, then yeah!’ The cab stopped - but not, Nina realised, for them. A well- dressed couple stood on the opposite sidewalk, the man’s hand outstretched. ‘Hey, that’s our cab!’

The man grabbed the door handle. ‘He was stopping for us.’

‘This is an emergency, we need it!’ Nina reached the vehicle and yanked open the other rear door. ‘Macy, get in!’

‘What the hell are you doing?’ the woman shrilled. ‘Driver, don’t take them!’

‘I don’t want no trouble,’ said the driver, a skinny man with a strong Brazilian accent, as he leaned out of his open window to address Nina. ‘I stop for this gen’leman and lady, okay? You wait for next—’

The window of Nina’s door exploded. The driver screeched in agony as a bullet ripped into his left shoulder, speckling the windscreen with blood. Nina whipped round, seeing Snakeskin at the end of the alley with a gun in one hand.

Aiming—

‘Get down!’ she yelled. Macy shrieked and dived headlong into the cab as the rear windscreen blew apart.

Nina threw herself to the asphalt. A bullet hole erupted in the cab’s flank just above her with a plunk of cratered metal. Another window shattered, the woman screaming hysterically. Other pedestrians ran for cover.

The onslaught stopped.

The gunman’s weapon was a revolver, a six-shooter. He needed to reload.

Nina jumped up and threw open the driver’s door. The Brazilian was hunched in his seat, right hand squeezing his wounded shoulder. ‘Move over, move!’

He gasped something in Portuguese before reverting to English. ‘You crazy? I been shot!’

Nina stabbed at his seat belt release, then tried to shove him into the other seat. ‘I’ll get you to a hospital - just move over!’

‘You can have the cab!’ the well-dressed man gabbled as he ran off, his screaming companion clacking after him as fast as her high heels would allow.

Macy peered over the top of the back seat. ‘Oh, oh oh!’ she cried, pointing.

‘ “Oh!” what?’ Nina demanded, finally forcing the weakly protesting Brazilian out of the driver’s seat and jumping in to take his place. She looked back and saw the reason for Macy’s panic. The gunman had drawn a second pistol. ‘Oh, shit!’

She slammed the gear selector to Drive and stamped on the gas pedal.

The balding tyres screeched before finally finding purchase, the taxi lurching away. It was one of the city’s remaining Ford Crown Victorias, the former mainstay of New York’s taxi fleet being phased out in favour of less- polluting hybrids. To Nina, it seemed as though it should have been retired itself a long time ago, the transmission clunking and whining.

Whatever its state of repair, it could easily outpace a man on foot.

But not his bullets.

‘Duck!’ shouted Nina. Macy dropped flat again as more shots clanged against the taxi’s bodywork. One whipped over her and struck the bulletproof partition between the front and back seats with a crack, leaving a jagged scar across the Plexiglas.

‘My cab!’ the driver moaned, financial pain briefly overcoming physical. Teeth gritted, he forced himself upright, took his hand from his wound . . . and started the meter.

Nina looked at him. ‘Are you kidding me?’

‘No free rides,’ he gasped. ‘Now get me to hospital!’

More noise from behind - not gunfire, but the shriek of tyres as a massive, bright red Dodge Ram pickup truck skidded to a standstill. The bald man lumbered from the alley and climbed in, the snakeskinned gunman glaring after the retreating taxi before holstering his empty weapons and running to the cabin’s rear door. With a V8 roar almost as loud as the gunshots, the Ram snarled into pursuit.

Nina now remembered seeing the distinctive vehicle earlier that day - outside her apartment. They had found out that Macy was trying to contact her . . . and staked her out in the hope that she would lead them to their prey.

‘Forget the hospital,’ Macy said. ‘We need the police! Where’s the nearest precinct?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the driver. Both women shot him looks of disbelief. ‘I only live here three weeks!’

‘Do you know where it is?’ Macy asked Nina.

‘Ah . . . no.’

‘You said you used to live around here!’

‘I never needed to go there - New York’s not that dangerous! Well, normally.’ Nina swerved round a couple of cars waiting at a red light and made a wallowing turn to head north. ‘I think there’s one on 21st Street.’

Macy looked up at the street signs. ‘That’s over ten blocks! Have you got a phone? I’ll call 911!’

‘Yes,’ said the driver, nodding. ‘Yes, call an ambulance, good idea!’

The road ahead was still busy. Pounding the horn, Nina swung out into the opposite lane to get past a crawling garbage truck, barely missing an oncoming car as she darted back in front of it. Macy slithered across the back seat, broken safety glass tinkling with her. ‘Not an ambulance, the police - whoa!’ Nina gasped as another cab braked sharply ahead of them. She spun the wheel as fast as she could, but clipped its rear quarter and ripped off the end of its bumper. Enraged horns blared. ‘Shit! Sorry,’ she added to the mortified driver.

She fumbled in her bag for her phone, fighting to keep control of the cab with one hand. Behind, a skirl of rubber and a flare of spotlights in the mirror warned her that the Dodge had made it through the intersection as well. She found the phone, shoving it through the partition’s money slot. ‘Here!’

Macy dialled 911, giving a hurried, panicky description of their situation to the operator as Nina swerved through traffic to keep out of their pursuers’ line of fire. ‘The cops said to head for 21st Street,’ Macy said, ending the call. ‘They’re going to try to meet us.’

‘If these assholes don’t catch up first.’ Despite Nina’s best efforts, the Dodge was gaining. Macy tried to push the phone back through the slot, but she held up a hand. ‘No! Go to the contacts, call “Eddie”.’

‘Who’s Eddie?’

‘My husband.’

‘This isn’t the best time to tell him you’ll be late for dinner!’

‘Just dial it, smartass! He’ll know how to get us out of this!’ She shared a worried look with the driver as the cab shot through the next intersection. ‘I hope.’

Eddie had taken an immediate dislike to Grant’s buddies, a pair of overgrown fratboys who were taking full advantage of the extra pulling power granted by association with a movie star. But he kept his opinions to himself as they pawed at the skimpily dressed girls who had been easily persuaded to join them in the VIP lounge. Instead he lurked discreetly nearby, concentrating on his job, which was to get rid of the arseholes and nutters his client didn’t want near him. The arseholes and nutters he did want near him weren’t his problem.

His phone rang. Nina. He wasn’t supposed to take personal calls when he was working. But Grant wouldn’t notice while trying to count his latest ladyfriend’s teeth with his tongue. ‘Hey, love. What’s up?’

‘Someone’s trying to kill me!’

He could tell she wasn’t joking. It sounded as if she was in a car. ‘Where are you?’

‘The East Village, round 12th Street.’

Shit! That was almost half the length of Manhattan away, a hundred blocks - the better part of five miles. ‘How many bad guys? Are they armed?’

‘At least three, and yeah!’ An urk of overstressed tyres came from the other end of the line, followed by a high-pitched shriek and angry car horns.

The shriek wasn’t Nina. ‘Who’s with you?’

‘Someone from the IHA, and the cab driver - he’s been shot!’