"Well, Collector," said Mu'an, sucking breath after labored breath, "I've told you all I can. Kill me if you must – I only ask you make it quick."
"You aren't going to die today, Mu'an – at least, not by my hand. C'mon, Kate, it's time to go." I stuffed the shard into my pocket and grabbed Kate by the wrist, dragging her deeper into the teeming medical tent.
"You're just forestalling the inevitable!" called Mu'an, though his huddled form was already lost to the crowd. "She
will
be taken, and when she is, you'll pay!"
As we pressed through the crowd, Kate leaned close. Her voice was nearly swallowed by the din – the patients around us now were the worst-hit, and between the flurry of medical personnel, and the nightmarish arcade cacophony of their monitors, I could barely hear myself think.
"You think he's right? That my collection is inevitable?"
"Eh, you know demons – they just can't help but indulge in a bit of apocalyptic bluster every now and again." I flashed her a smile. It felt tight and awkward on my face.
Kate looked over her shoulder, and I followed suit. A half-dozen of New York's Finest were pushing toward us through the crowd, maybe thirty feet away and closing fast.
"You got a plan to get us out of here?" Kate asked.
"I'm working on it," I replied. I figured it sounded more encouraging than
no
.
The tent roof sloped steadily downward toward us, and through the crowd I caught a glimpse of open street and pale gray sky. I pushed aside a nurse in blood-spattered scrubs and broke for the edge of the tent. It wasn't till I could feel the kiss of fresh air across my face that I saw him.
He was a mountain of a cop, with dark deep-set eyes peering outward from a fleshy face, the features of which were twisted into an angry frown around a mustache the size of a small woodland creature. His barrel chest strained the buttons of his uniform blues as he approached, nightstick in hand. I sized him up as he approached, wondering if I could take him down. I was pretty sure the answer was no. A shame, that – he didn't look like one for talking.
I released Kate's hand and stepped clear of the tent, my hands raised in surrender. My crutch clattered to the ground, and I had the sudden, queasy realization that if this didn't work, I couldn't exactly make a run for it. Kate, for her part, had the good sense to stay a few steps behind me, hidden in the bustle of the tent, although if I didn't deal with this guy quick, it wouldn't matter – there were a bunch more just like him bringing up the rear.
"Stay where you are!" he shouted, his sandpaper growl slathered with a goodly helping of Bronx.
"I'm unarmed!" I replied. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, nearly disappearing between the flesh of his cheeks and meaty brow. If he hadn't planned on frisking me before, he sure as shit was gonna now.
Fine by me. The closer I could get to him, the better chance we had.
"Put your hands on your head." I complied. The cop holstered his nightstick and approached. "Now turn around." Again, I did as he asked.
His hands were the size of hams, and he was none too gentle patting me down. My muscles tensed in anticipation. When he gave my bum leg a good thwack, I made my move. And by
made my move
, I mean
fell down
.
Well, mostly, at least. Mr Suspicious here made my job easy by not skipping over the pound of gauze I had wrapped around my wound, and who could blame him? After all, the bandage gave me ample room to stash a weapon, and I was plenty shifty. His only mistake was in not knowing it was my hands he had to be afraid of.
When his hand connected with the bandaged meat of my thigh, I let out a wail. My leg buckled. That part wasn't just for show, but I'd expected it – in fact, I was counting on it. I twisted as I fell, so that we were chest to chest when he did his cop-ly duty and caught me. Or, rather, we would have been chest to chest, had my hands not been between us.
I plunged them both deep into his chest, grabbing hold of his soul with all I had. His eyes went wide, his features slack. The medical tent, the station, the pavement beneath our feet – all of it disappeared, replaced with a swirling morass of grays and blues and the occasional shining points of light, sparkling like stars as they orbited breakneck all around us. This was a good man, I realized – touched by darkness, but not consumed by it. It was then that I resolved not to kill him.
Soul in hand, I yanked, and now it was the cop who wailed. His pained cry brought tears to my borrowed eyes, but I had no time for such sympathies. His wails died suddenly as he collapsed, shuddering, to the ground – in shock, no doubt. But my work was not yet finished. I took care to reseat his soul just as I had found it, hoping that when he regained consciousness, all would be right in his world. Somehow, though, I doubted it. I only hoped I hadn't changed him for the worse.
When I released my grip on his soul, the world lurched back into focus. I found I was sprawled out on Park Avenue, lying half on and half off of my new cop-friend. Our tussle, which lasted a second at most, had drawn a small audience – two EMTs and a nurse on their way into the medical tent stood frozen in their tracks, staring. All looked puzzled by what had just happened, and at least one of them – a lean, angular Latina EMT – was clearly measuring the odds that I was dangerous against the odds the cop needed her help.
I took pity on her and clarified the matter: I popped the snap on the cop's holster and slid free his piece – a sleek black Glock 9mm, lighter than I'd anticipated. Then I hobbled back to the tent and grabbed Kate by the wrist, yanking her out into the street. I couldn't help but notice the cops in the tent were closing fast. In seconds, they'd be upon us.
"What are you waiting for?" I brandished the gun at our trio of onlookers. "The man needs help!"
Without a word, they sprung into action, racing to the felled cop's side and checking for vitals. Now it was Kate who stood frozen in obvious puzzlement, watching as they loosened his uniform collar and tried in vain to rouse him.
"Kate, come on!"
But she didn't respond – she just stood there, watching. "Did you…" she asked, the question trailing off to nothing. "I mean, is he–"
"He's unconscious," I replied. "With luck, he'll be just fine.
You
won't though, unless we get moving."
That seemed to shake off her preoccupation with the unconscious cop. She followed my lead as I hobbled north-west toward Vanderbilt. My leg was throbbing again, but I ignored it, gritting my teeth against the pain and forcing this meat-suit into a jog. Even Kate, uninjured, struggled to keep up.
"Sam, where the hell are we going?"
But as we rounded the corner onto Vanderbilt, her eyes went wide. Just fifty yards away sat a medevac chopper, idling in a makeshift pen of police barriers at the intersection of Vanderbilt and Forty-third.
"I'm not exactly sure," I replied. "But I know how we're gonna get there."
26.
"Sam, you can't be serious." Kate stopped dead in the street, looking first at me, and then at the helicopter that sat idling in the center of the intersection – its upper rotor still, but its engines emitting a high, keening whine.
"The way I see it, Kate, we don't have a lot of options."
"But we can't just steal a helicopter."
"We're not
stealing
a helicopter – we're hijacking one. And of
course
we can; I'm one of the bad guys, remember?"
"It's not that – it's just, I mean, they're not going to let us get away with it."
"Kate, they're not going to let us get away
period
, if they have their way. This is the only shot we've got."
From behind us, shouting. Our pursuers had cleared the tent, and it was clear now they weren't the only ones on our tail: two parties of six or so uniformed men had just finished flanking the tent on either side, and onlookers pressed ever tighter to the police barriers that cordoned off the station as officers on all sides of us abandoned their posts to join the chase. Standing in the empty stretch of street between the tent and the makeshift landing pad, Kate and I had nowhere to hide. As the men approached, guns drawn, I grabbed Kate by the arm and together we ran for the chopper. This time, she didn't argue.
The helicopter was facing north-east toward Fortythird, away from us, and the cabin door was open, though we could not see inside. Kate and I approached the door cautiously, creeping toward it along the tail. A glance behind us told me our pursuers weren't so psyched about our exit plan – the whole lot of 'em were sprinting toward us, shouting and waving like madmen in an attempt to alert the flight crew to our presence. Doubtless there were at least that many more approaching from the other side of the chopper, and it was only a matter of time before every cop, National Guardsman, and SWAT unit in the city descended upon our location. The time for caution had passed.
I wheeled toward the door, gun at ready. Inside the cabin were two flight nurses, both lean and efficient and rendered genderless by their flight suits and helmets as they busied themselves stowing gear and inventorying supplies. When they saw me, they froze. With a twitch of my gun barrel, I suggested they vacate the vehicle. They caught my drift just fine, and climbed out of the chopper, hands held high.
I gestured for them to back away, and reluctantly, they complied. One of them spoke, though the words were lost in the wail of the engine. Then I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and I realized the words were not for me, but for whoever was on the other end of that helmet mic.
The pilot had climbed from his perch behind the controls and was sneaking through the cabin – toward the open cabin door, and toward me. In his hand, he held a flare gun. I spun, leveling my piece at his face, and he stopped short, my barrel a scant inch from the bridge of his nose. The flare gun clattered to the cabin floor, forgotten, and he, too, raised his hands. I liked this one, I decided. He was brave, but not stupid. He was also the only one of the two of us who could fly this fucking thing, so by my count that was two reasons I was glad he hadn't made me pull the trigger.
My pilot-friend again made for the cabin door, though slowly this time, as though anticipating my demand that he follow his crew. I shook my head and waved him back inside. Though his eyes were hidden behind the reflective visor of his flight helmet, I saw his features slacken as realization dawned. He climbed back into the pilot's seat, while behind him, Kate and I clambered aboard.
"Get this thing in the air!" I shouted, but this time, it was he who shook his head. He tapped the side of his helmet, twice, and gestured toward a headset hanging from the console before him.
I slipped on the headset, which looked to me like an old pair of headphones, and adjusted the microphone before repeating my command. "It'll take a minute," came the crackling reply.
"It takes any longer, and you and I have got a problem – you get me?" I pressed my gun tight to the base of his neck, and he nodded – a jerky, frightened gesture. "Just fly us out of here, and you have my word you won't be harmed." Again, he nodded, though if I were him, I probably wouldn't have believed me.
There was a tap on my shoulder, and I damn near jumped out of my skin. It was Kate, and she looked worried. I lifted one earpiece, and she leaned close, shouting: "Sam, we've got company!"
A glance out the open door proved her right: the cops had set up a perimeter around the chopper, just outside the barriers that marked off the landing area. Two men, crouched behind riot shields, crept across the landing area toward us, buffeted by the breeze kicked up by our rotor, which now swung lazily overhead.
I nodded toward the flare gun that lay on the floor of the cabin. "See if you can't slow 'em down a bit – and get that door closed!"
She nodded, retreating to the back of the cabin. Over the
whump, whump
of the rotor above, and the chatter of the police in my headset, I didn't even hear the flare go off. But the gray of the afternoon was shattered by a sudden orange-red burst that sent the uniforms surrounding us diving to the pavement, and forced their advance team to scamper backward toward the barriers. The pilot did his damnedest to ignore the spectacle outside, instead focusing his attention on the confusion of dials and switches that comprised the helicopter's control panel. I allowed myself a thin smile as I realized we might actually make it out of there alive.
The chopper rocked on its skids as Kate slid shut the cabin door. Then the rock became a lurch as we leapt skyward. We hovered just a few feet above the street, motionless but for the gentle pitch and yaw of the chopper as she was buffeted by the wind.
"What now?" asked our pilot.
"Just fly."
"Where?"
"Anywhere." He nodded, and we began to climb.
Below us was a flurry of activity as our pursuers swarmed the landing pad. Too late, the order came to take us down – shot after shot rang out, audible even over the racket of the chopper. As we rose, I heard a dull thud, and the helicopter shuddered.
"Are we hit?" I asked, a little more panicked than I would have liked.
The pilot nodded. "Feels like they dinged our elevator. Long as we don't lose it, we'll stay up all right – but it's gonna be a bumpy ride."
We continued upward, the helicopter hitching and shaking like a carnival ride too long past inspection. The pop of gunfire beneath us faded to nothing as we cleared the rooftops, pitching southward in slow, jerky arc that eventually brought our bearing east.
"No," I said, again pressing the gun to his neck, "keep us over the city. You think I'm gonna let you take us out to sea and ditch this thing?"
He maintained his heading. "If you expect to crash us into a populated area, you'd better pull the trigger – alive, I won't let it happen."