shook her head.
A voice came from behind him.
“We’ve got a stowaway…” Mr. Jay said with a chuckle, “So to speak.”
Conan snapped his visor down and turned, a chill running up his spine. He pointed back into the shadows and shook his head.
“You don’t think she should come,” the man whispered and stepped close to Sophie. She looked up at him through her single eyehole. The dead girl shook her head like an angry old gummer. Mr. Jay laughed, “And she’s quite certain she should.”
Conan made fists of both his hands and shook the air with them. Too spooky. He stamped a few paces away from Sophie and turned to watch. He didn’t know what to do. Sophie couldn’t come. She was too dangerous, and nobody knew what she would do.
But Mr. Jay didn’t understand. He smiled in a sad way and then reached out to stroke the dead girl’s mask.
“You won’t tell me why you want to come,” he said, without expecting an answer. “And so I can only guess.” He nodded, but Sophie shook her head and moved toward the wall. Go on! Go home Sophie! “It is important to me that I not fail.” The magician’s face was grim. “I must rescue Dawn and leave the City.”
Sophie took a gentle step forward, one long finger crossing her heart.
“You promise you will not interfere with my mission?” Mr. Jay asked. Stupid. Damn. Grownup! Sophie shook her head vigorously, until Conan thought her mask would fall off. The little fighter was so angry he could shit kittens, but what could he do? Go home please!
“Come with us then,” Mr. Jay said and turned, his eyes resting momentarily on Conan’s visor before he started jogging back toward the Tower. “I am sure my little friend here will keep an eye on you for any sign of mischief.”
Conan’s chest pumped up with pride waiting until Sophie started after Mr. Jay. Now that she was not sneaking after them, the little fighter realized with some gosh-blush respect that Sophie ran very quickly for a dead girl-for any stupid girl.
And they were both fighters in their own way. Before long Conan was running at his top speed, doing his best to keep up to the dead girl’s easy stride. Out of the gloom, the Quinlan boys appeared. Their faces were sour lemons, and it was clear from their stances that they were blocking the way. We’re fuckity-fucked!
“The vent’s welded shut,” said the twin on the left.
“Can’t get in that way,” said the twin on the right with Liz stepping out from behind them. She was just about to light a cigarette when she saw Sophie. Liz scowled and the dead girl shifted behind Mr. Jay.
“What’s Sophie doing here?” said the forever girl, lighting her cigarette.
“She followed us,” Mr. Jay said, Conan looked up at the man and nodded his agreement. Stupid-stupid-spook! “And I told her to come with us.”
Liz groaned through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Well, she won’t come far, the ventilation shaft is welded tighter than a choirboy’s ass.” The Quinlan boys chuckled. So did Conan.
Mr. Jay shook his head, and then looked down at the metal stick in his hands. He raised it, sighting along its length. “I can get through, but didn’t want to draw attention yet.”
Conan saw the metal begin to glow and he smiled. He reflexively stroked the air with his kill-fist, being salt and pepper for a dust up. All that sneaking around was feeling like fingers over the lips and tiptoes and such, and nothing a young fighter would want to do.
But Sophie was moving, she stepped out in front of Mr. Jay shaking her head from side to side like a grandma and laid her long fingers across the back of his hand.
“What is it, Sophie?” Mr. Jay leaned over her, and Conan felt the battle cry in his mind going raspberry when the dead girl started to move the fingers of that hand like they were legs walking up a flight of stairs. Then she pointed to where the shadowy tunnel branched to the right. Sophie made a grunting noise and then pretended she was opening a door.
“There’s another way?” Mr. Jay’s voice was disbelieving. Conan was shaking his head now, catching the man’s gaze and wanting to go: See! See! Here’s the trouble. He frowned. “How do you know?”
But Sophie just nodded her head until her hair jumped around like spaghetti strings. Conan crossed his arms angrily. He was afraid the spook would do something like this and here she was bending the show over a stump.
“She might know,” Liz said, scratching her chin through a cloud of smoke, which drew a bunch of head nodding and hand flapping from the dead girl. She started pointing up the tunnel again as Liz continued, “Sophie escaped from the Tower, makes sense she might know a thing or two about getting back in. And, we didn’t find her right away. She spent years haunting these tunnels.”
“All right then,” Mr. Jay said, turning to Sophie. “Lead the way.”
And Sophie was so happy and nodded her head so much that her spirit even broke through Conan’s angry mood, and he could feel her smile behind that mask. He wondered if she could feel his.
59 – Smelly Nick
Felon stayed back in the shadows. Tiny covered the Marquis. The assassin wanted to be ready for Lucifer. He was bound to resent the intrusion. The Marquis led them a half mile through the sewer to a group of derelicts gathered around a fire.
They were in bad shape, living or dead wearing rags and tattered, either by body damage or boils and sores. Bottles moved from dirty hand to dirty hand. They whistled and made catcalls at the old transvestite. The Marquis fanned his cheeks like a southern belle. Felon shut them up by waving his gun.
The Marquis asked for Smelly Nick. They all pointed along the tunnel.
“He stays down by the main collection basin,” said a dead man, his missing lower lip replaced by a thin curtain of drool. “Likes the sound of runnin’ water!”
They walked into the shadows. Tiny kept a hand wrapped around the Marquis’ left arm and his gun pointed at the center of the powdered wig. The salesman had not stopped talking since they first set out.
“I got to talk to Lucifer,” he whispered excitedly over his shoulder.
“No promises,” Felon hissed. “Cover the Marquis.” The assassin watched for anyone following them. Felon’s troubles could become a lethal distraction if he wasn’t careful. He had to purge the noise in his head before he met Lucifer.
Balg wanted him dead. The Demon had tricked Felon into killing a powerful Angel.
Balg wanted the nun and he had coerced the Marquis, into kidnapping her.
All City of Light Authority was looking for her. He recognized her name, Karen Cawood: the Tower Builder. And the priest Felon killed she called Reverend Stoneworthy: the other Tower Builder. The Authority vehicles chasing them on the Skyway weren’t doing it for their health. The assassin couldn’t have kicked a bigger hornet’s nest.
He had hired three mercenaries to protect him. They were loyal as far as you could pay them-no farther. They were the type of dog that easily turned on its master.
So Felon had one road open to him. He had been reckless to keep killing Divine and Infernal creatures. But he liked it. That emotion blinded him to the danger. It was just a matter of time before he was in over his head. Killing them gave him a false sense of security.
Since Lucifer led a neutral gang, he might want to hire Felon’s gun and abilities. Staying neutral with all these competing interests sometimes required gunfire.
“Ahead,” the Marquis said in fluting tones.
The damp asphalt underfoot gave way to a slope of poured concrete. They moved up it. Felon’s senses scanned ahead. An echoing trickle gave the impression of a big body of water. But the smell said it wasn’t water.
“Tiny will kill you at my command,” Felon hissed in the Marquis’ ear. He snarled, “Predict that!”
Their footsteps echoed on the incline. Tiny played the flashlight over a wide space ahead dimly lit by lantern
