Ranomi ignored this jibe and walked up to Adriana. As Njinga tightened the cuffs around the girl’s wrists, she stared into Adriana’s eyes with tears of compassion rimming her own.
‘I’m so sorry about this,’ she said in a gentle tone. ‘Please believe me when I say that I had no idea that this was going to happen. And you two could be a bit more gentle with this poor girl,’ she added, glaring at Njinga and Zakaria.
‘I’ll never be free again,’ Adriana sobbed. ‘Only death can release me now. I’ll never be free again…’
‘Adriana, please, there’s no need to talk like that—’ Ranomi began.
‘You’re not the one who’s been passed around as a slave from one group of men to another!’ Adriana snapped, the flames of wrath dancing hotly in her eyes. ‘I trusted you! I risked my life for all of you! And what a fool I was to do it, what a stupid, stupid fool I was! Well go ahead then, take me prisoner. Kill me even, I don’t care anymore. I realised long ago that this nightmare could not be escaped from, and any hopes of ever being free again were empty dreams, and nothing else. Go on, do what you want with me.’
‘You will be treated fairly, and with as much respect as any captive of war deserves, and—’ Zakaria said.
‘Shut up Zakaria!’ Ranomi hissed, her own eyes glowing with anger. ‘The last thing she needs to hear right now is your patronising bullshit!’
‘Ranomi, listen, we have a mission—’ Njinga countered.
‘Fine, fine, you’re right,’ Ranomi muttered before Njinga could finish, none too pleased about what was happening. ‘We do have a mission to complete, and this squabbling is costing us valuable seconds, minutes even. We’ll deal with you later, Adriana, but I swear to you on my honour and my life that you will not be harmed by any one of us.’
Adriana said nothing in response; instead she stared glumly at the floor, her lip quivering and tears streaming down her cheeks.
Zakaria checked the time and then looked back at the open doors behind him. The strewn corpses of the freshly slain Huntsmen troops, the hanging pall of smoke, the blood-sprayed walls and the hundreds of empty bullet shells gleaming under the red glow of the emergency lights all gave the scene a suffocating and nightmarish feel.
‘Never mind the girl, where the hell is Kimiko?’ he growled. ‘She’s two minutes late! Now two of our team members are missing!’
‘We can’t afford to worry about her or Chloe,’ Njinga said, still shaken from the skirmish, but with her resolve returning. ‘Come on, we gotta move.’
‘You’re right,’ Zakaria grunted grimly. ‘We must move now. The Huntsmen are about to become the hunted. Ready your weapons, my friends, for from this point on we cut down anyone or anything that moves in these corridors.’
Ranomi and Njinga both nodded as they held their firearms out ahead of them, and together the beastwalkers advanced with silent speed up the stairs, dragging the stumbling, sobbing Adriana behind them, and soon all that remained of their presence was the ghost of an echo in the deathly stillness of the hallway.
PART SIXTEEN
53
SIGURD
12th October 2020. New York City
‘One for Apocalypse Now, please.’
The cashier at the Classic Reels Theatre, a large Hispanic girl in her twenties, who wore her hair tied in a tight knot on top of her skull, chewed mechanically on gum as she hammered the computer keys.
‘You wanna sit at the back or what?’
Her voice was nasal, and her tone apathetic.
‘I don’t mind. Anywhere.’
‘I ain’t no good at choosin’,’ she drawled. ‘You pick.’
She paused chewing for a second to glance at the towering figure who was smiling strangely at her through the bulletproof glass. Ice-blue eyes, bushy braided beard, platinum blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. A charcoal business suit through which powerful bulk practically erupted, the clothes straining to contain the treelike girth of the muscles beneath.
‘Let’s say … at the back, then.’
A strange accent; vaguely European, but ultimately not easily placeable. She kept her eyes locked on the man for a few more seconds, temporarily hypnotised; there was something about him, something beyond his striking appearance that held her attention. What was it? Fear? A strange attraction, even? She couldn’t place it, but there was definitely something about this man. Something imposing, no, more than imposing. Terrifying? She shuddered, resumed chewing her gum, and returned her gaze to the screen.
‘Sure, back row it is, mister.’
The man smiled eerily, and a chill ran down the girl’s spine.
‘Thank you.’
‘You want popcorn with that? You buy popcorn now with your ticket, it’s cheaper. You want a soda or somethin’? You get a combo, it’s a better deal.’
Sigurd shook his head, still wearing an unsettling smile.
‘No thank you. Just the ticket.’
‘You sure? It’s a long flick.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Seven dollars thirty-five.’
A massive, pale hand, crisscrossed with dozens of bone-white slash scars, pushed a ten-dollar bill under the wall of bulletproof glass. The cashier could no longer look at the man; something dreadfully powerful pulsated in those glacial eyes, something too overwhelming and frightening to contemplate.
‘Two si-, si-, sixty-fi, five…’ she stammered, finding herself stuttering and stumbling over the words as she counted out the change with fumbling fingers.
The brightness of the tungsten lights illuminated the man’s hair, anointing him with an aura of gold, a shimmering halo about his head, yet this only seemed to add to his sinister and almost demonic presence. The girl pushed the change under the window, retrieved the ticket from the buzzing printer and pushed it through too. Thick fingers brushed against hers for a split-second, and a kind of dark static sprang flea-like from his skin to hers, making her jump back with fright, and causing her to suck the wad of gum
