The fire left Hawk’s eyes and he lowered his gaze.
Fury’s soldiers, five of them dressed in red, waited at the end of the alley. The three metal dogs paced. A tall man with a shaved head, the leader of the group, stepped forward. “We won’t follow you up there. We’re not stupid.”
“What will you do, then?” Artan said.
“Wait. We’ll wait.”
Hawk brandished his knife, the blade covered in diseased blood. “You’ll be waiting a long time.”
“We have an army behind us. If we have to do this in shifts, then so be it.” A wicked smile split the man’s angular face. “We can wait forever. What will you do when you get hungry? Or we could just come back with spears. Rocks. Throwing knives.”
Max’s stomach sank.
“So you might as well come down now. If you do, we’ll go easy on you. We’ll just cut your throats and leave you for the scavengers. I mean, we might string up your corpses as a reminder to anyone that this is our city, but you’ll be dead, so what does it matter, right?”
Artan muttered beneath his breath, “Fuck!”
Max said, “And all of this because you took us into a fight we didn’t need to have.”
Hawk shook his head. “You’re right. This is my fault. I’m going to go down and face them.”
“What?” Artan said.
“It’ll give you and Max a chance to get away.”
“No, it won’t.” Artan shook his head. “It will give them a chance to kill you on your own; then they’ll only have to wait for two of us to come down. We’ve got nowhere to run.”
Hawk’s broad shoulders sagged. “Arthur.”
Max said it this time. “What?”
“That’s what he called me. Grandfather Jacks. He named me Arthur. He said I was useless, that I’d amount to nothing.” Tears filled Hawk’s eyes, and his knife shook in his tight grip. “He said I was a liability and that he needed to teach me lessons on how to be better. But I never learned from his teaching, so he taught me again”—his eyes glazed—“and again, and again.” He launched his knife at the soldiers. They moved aside, the ting of the blade hitting the ground. “See! I’m useless. I can’t even throw a knife.”
“Look.” Max put a hand on Hawk’s back. The hunter jumped at first, but then his gaze settled. “Whatever happens, we’re going to find a way out of this. Whatever happens.”
Hawk nodded several times and bowed his head.
Artan peered over Hawk and raised his eyebrows at Max. “So what do we do, then?”
“You led us here,” Max said.
“We still need a way out,” Artan said. “Regardless of who’s to blame.”
The roofs of the buildings were too high to reach, even if they stood on one another’s shoulders like when they got out of the pit in the funnel. The soldiers and the dogs waited, staring up at them, batons raised, jaws hanging open. Max yelled and kicked the welded door again. Another deep thud! “This thing sounds like it’s several feet thick. Maybe we have to fight them.”
Artan shook his head. “There must be a better option.”
As one, the dogs’ eyes switched from red to blue. Max said, “Are you seeing that?”
“Uh-huh,” Artan said.
All three dogs turned and ran.
The soldier with the bald head pointed up at Max, Artan, and Hawk. “Know that you got lucky today. And if you have any sense, you’d get the hell out of this city right now.” His jaw clenched and his teeth bared, he said, “If we find you again, that promise of a quick death has expired. We will fuck you up.”
The tall soldier led his team after the dogs.
About thirty seconds passed before Hawk said, “Do you really think they’ve gone?”
“Are you still keen to go down there?” Max said.
“Max!” Artan tilted his head to one side.
“What?”
“We can’t make him go down there on his own.”
“Not on his own,” Max said. “Just first. We wouldn’t be in this shit if it wasn’t for him. It’s the least he can do.”
Before Artan replied, Hawk raised a halting hand. “He’s right. It is the least I can do.”
Much easier going down than it had been going up, Hawk crossed the gap in the stairs from a two-footed standing jump. He landed on the other side with a clang! His fists raised in front of him, he descended the stairs with slow and deliberate steps.
Clang! Max followed Hawk.
Clang! Artan took up the rear.
At the end of the alley, Hawk charged out into the road, picked up his knife, and slashed at the air. He turned one way and then the other, his blade out in front of him. “They’ve gone.”
“Where?” Artan said.
“How would I know?” Hawk shrugged. “I’m guessing what happened to the dogs meant something? Maybe it was a call for help. All that matters is they’ve gone. Now let’s get out of here before they come back.”
Max led Artan from the alleyway. He pointed at the tall steel tower in the distance. “Let’s take this blessing for what it is and get to Gracie’s tower.”
“You suddenly gone religious?” Artan said. “Praise be to the high father and all that?”
Thick lines creased Hawk’s brow, and his eyes darkened, his irises turning black.
“Sorry.” Artan raised his hands in apology. “I didn’t think.”
“Look, let’s just get out of here,” Hawk said, “before they come back.” He led them in the opposite direction to the one taken by the red army.
Chapter 23
William followed the same route as Olga and Matilda. He hung from the first floor of the fire escape and dropped to the ground. He landed beside them, absorbing the shock with bent knees. “That many soldiers in one place has to be a good thing, right?”
Olga raised an eyebrow. “Unless you run into them.”
“Well,
