another, the sparks catching up to the man until a round finally caught his calf just before it pulled up out of sight.
Pavlo’s body thumped down on the roof, unseen. Not so much as a yelp. An instant of silence.
Then a scraping.
Nate looked down at his side. A quarter-size hole, leaking ink. He reached behind, found the exit wound. Through and through.
Rolling to all fours, he forced himself to his feet. The only way he could walk was in a half shuffle, tugging one leg along. His right hand held the gun, so he tried to clamp the wound with his left but could apply virtually no pressure at all. He mounted the stairs, drizzling blood in a neat line at his feet.
His vision spotted, his legs growing wobbly beneath him. He pictured Cielle with her coloring book on that airplane, bouncing over the Rockies.
Climbing the stairs took such focus that he barely noticed when his head pulled up into the sight line. A flash of light and a bullet wavered the air inches from his temple, the bark of the gun coming on a split-second delay. Across the roof Pavlo backed up, tender on his wounded leg, readying for a second shot.
Nate lifted the gun as far as his strength allowed and fired. A bullet embedded in Pavlo’s thigh, tearing his pants, revealing the tattooed star on his kneecap. Pavlo’s gun clattered to the rooftop, sliding to the edge and then off, and he clenched his jaw and took a few hobbling steps toward Nate, his sinewy face contorting with rage.
“I will not kneel to you.”
Nate’s next shot shattered his hip. Pavlo jerked ninety degrees, red mist puffing from his waist. He wobbled on his feet, then squared himself again, screaming, tendons standing out on his blue-inked neck.
Hand shaking around the Glock, Nate shot out his ankle.
Pavlo collapsed onto the roof, his knees striking hard, jolting him before he fell flat onto his stomach. Then he started dragging himself away, elbow over elbow, toward the brink of the roof. Nate started after him.
The staggering openness and panoramic view snatched the breath from his lungs, and he paused for a drunken instant to regain his balance. It seemed he was standing on top of the entire city. Los Angeles unfurled below, a bejeweled blanket. The digital billboards and flashing club signs, green stoplights and stalled cars, all the stop-go, all that hot-cold, all those souls floating through the streets on gleaming rims, walking the corners on patched-up pumps, clogging the alleys gripping brown-bagged bottles. Everything was flayed open and laid bare, the gonna-bes and winged dreamers, the glittering lights coursing block to block, the blood of the city. Here Nate had soared and crashed. And here he had salvaged from the wreckage the slivers worth keeping, had pieced them together with trembling hands to form something better, something true.
The taste of the night air was oddly pleasing, wild fennel and sage of the canyon mixed with ash from the explosion. His blood felt warm against his skin and then quickly cold. He sent a signal to his legs, and a moment later they started moving again.
On his belly ahead, Pavlo grunted and scraped, grunted and scraped. Walking across the wide skylight, Nate left footprints of blood. He’d just reached the other side when a voice said, “Stop.”
Nate halted, gun lowered, shoulders slumping, his inhalations coming in weak rasps. For a moment he just breathed, and he heard Misha breathing behind him, too, waiting for a single wrong move.
Slowly, Nate turned. Misha stood on the skylight, aiming directly at his forehead. Nate’s Glock remained at his side in his all-but-dead right hand; he couldn’t raise it if he tried. Misha’s boyish face looked smooth and innocent in the pale light. Blood gleamed on one of his hands, a pinkie finger sticking out at the wrong angle, but that didn’t stop him from keeping the sights dead level.
“Did you really think you could do it?” Reluctant admiration found its way into Misha’s voice. With his damaged hand, he reached slowly for a pocket, pulling out a pair of matte-black handcuffs. The pinkie, bent perpendicular to the back of his hand, looked like a snapped twig. “Even if you killed us all, a man such as Pavlo Shevchenko makes one phone call and ten more of us get on a boat in Kiev. And if you kill all
Nate’s gun hand twitched, and Misha’s eyes dropped to it. A single threatening movement and it was over.
Nate said, “Then I guess I’ll have to kill him, too.”
Misha’s rosy lips pressed together. Amused. “You cannot even raise your hand.”
Nate said, “Don’t have to,” and fired down into the skylight.
The center of the thick pane gave way, Misha lurching back, his arms flaring as his gun discharged, and then he dropped down into the break, fangs of glass biting into him. Sinking to his torso, he lunged to hold on, the handcuffs flying from his grip and skittering across the rooftop. He managed to clutch the crumbling edge, his fingertips sliding on the intact ledges of glass.
The points had raked through his body on its way down, one shard buried between his ribs. A tiny spurt of bright arterial blood splashed against the pane. As soon as the dagger of glass stopped damming that wound, he was done.
He stared at the tip of Nate’s shoe. “A hand,” he sputtered. His fingers slid another millimeter, leaving four streaks on the glass.
Nate raised his shoe, put it on Misha’s shoulder, and sank him through the shattered skylight. Misha landed in the block of moonlight, his limbs twisted this way and that, glass tinkling on the concrete floor around him.
Nate swayed on his feet, summoning strength, the wound in his side drooling. He’d lost a lot of blood.
Behind him he could hear Pavlo grunting, still dragging himself away. The breeze carried the sound of sirens. Down at the base of the hill, flashing lights turned off Laurel Canyon. Winding their way up, they swept around a bend, vanishing for the moment.
Nate forced his body to turn, to walk. He caught up to Pavlo a few yards before the precipice. Despite his decimated lower body, Pavlo had reached a vent pipe and was prying at it, powerful forearm muscles flexing beneath their tattoo wrappings. Remarkably, he’d made some progress, the pipe rattling a bit in the flashing. His movements had slowed, but he was still at it, and Nate realized that he would stay at it until he tore free a weapon, pulled himself back to Nate, and staved in his head. Most shocking was how
Standing over him, Nate aimed down at the back of his neck and pulled the trigger.
The Glock gave a muted snap. No more rounds.
Pavlo never looked up, never stopped tugging at the pipe, but he registered the sound and gave a rasping chuckle. “You think this is pain?” he said, panting, the roof pressed to his mouth, muffling his words. He released a few notes of laughter, sweat shining on his cheek, the nape of his neck.
Nate grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him across the roof, Pavlo’s hands scrabbling for traction, his feet dragging limply. Nate’s grip gave out just at the edge. A few hundred feet below, the canyon finally bottomed out in a seam of boulders and jagged rocks.
Pavlo’s legs were a mess, streaming blood, one foot twisted around on the ankle. He couldn’t rise or run, but he clawed his way up Nate’s body, tearing at his shirt, grabbing his shoulders, bringing his face close. The warble of sirens grew clearer.
Mustering one last burst of energy, Nate braced himself to hurl Pavlo from the roof.
There was a click between the men’s bodies, and Pavlo grinned maniacally up into Nate’s face. A victorious leer. Nate glanced down.
Pavlo had gotten Misha’s handcuffs and locked one cuff around his own wrist.
And the other around Nate’s.
“Now if you throw me, I take you with me,” Pavlo hissed.
The breeze came up, whipping Nate’s hair, carrying the earthy scent of the canyon and soot from the dwindling fire on the first floor. He turned his head, regarding the drop. Way down at the bottom, spotlit by a preternatural throw of moonlight, Charles stood atop one of the boulders, the breeze lifting his hair and sucking the
