by S T Branton
Not bothering to wait around and see if he got up, I tore back out of the room and into the stairwell. There were cops above and below me, but it looked like Archie and the rest of the group had made it. Now I needed to escape and get to the streets. I ran down a flight of stairs, reached another door and tried the handle. It was locked, so I kept moving. Another floor and another door that was locked shut. One of these doors would either be unlocked or have to be kicked in. My best bet was to make it to the fire stairs again and get to the alley behind the building.
One more floor, and this time a cop reached it the same time I did. He swung first, trying to hit me with a baton that I dodged. I ducked below and swung a punch to his chest. It was now or never for the taser glove, and I flicked my wrist like Archie showed me to activate it. A loud whirring sound emanated from it and the cop’s eyes bulged as I smiled. I thrust forward and pressed it to his chest.
Nothing.
Worse than nothing—the whirring sputtered and stopped. The cop and I both looked down at it in confusion, then at each other, and back at it. I shrugged and flung the crown of my head at him, hitting him under the jaw and knocking him out cold where he stood. Before he could hit the floor, I kicked him down the stairs where he barreled into a couple other cops and knocked them down like the world’s weirdest bowling game ever.
I spun and kicked the door, and it flew open easily. I ran across to the first window I saw, then jumped and crashed through it, not bothering to think until too late that I didn’t know if the ladder was waiting outside it. I fell down an entire flight before I swung my axe out and caught the railing. My body jerked hard as I held on for dear life several floors above the concrete.
I let go with one hand and climbed up and onto the railing, then over to get on the stairs. It didn’t seem like any other cops were coming this way, and I ran down the stairs as fast as I could. When I was on the second level, I took my shot and leapt from the railing and onto the concrete below. As I landed on my feet, I heard the sirens behind me and knew they were coming. I needed to get going.
I took off down the first alley and darted to the left when it split. It split again and I went right, and quickly realized my mistake. Feet pounded behind me and whistles blew to alert me to stop. And I was in a dead end, stopped by a tall chain-link fence and buildings on both sides. I spun and waited.
There were likely two choices—using the axe or punching my way out. When the cops arrived, there were three of them, and punching my way out looked less likely. These were three, large, unhappy cops, and I was damn tired. I reached for the axe again when a whirring sound started. I looked at my hand and saw the glove glowing.
What the hell, it was worth a shot. I reached out and grabbed the first cop. A bolt of electricity shot out of my hand and the cop shook hard, then fell over. The other two stared in shock, and one reached for his hip. I knew what that meant, and I flung myself at him, smashing my elbow into his face before laying my buzzing hand on his chest. The third cop was yelling into his shoulder mic when I reached out and grabbed his leg, shocking him and knocking him out cold.
With three cops sprawled at my feet, I stood gingerly and tried to figure out what was next. I heard traffic coming from behind me and I decided to get out any way possible. I scaled the chain link fence, went over and landed on the ground outside it, free from police and on my way to escape.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After sneaking around a building, I found myself on a side street on the other end of the neighborhood. I ducked under the line of concrete that separated me from being seen by those on the street and tried to half-run, half crab-walk my way to another alley. I was safer in them since even if there were bad guys hanging around, all I had to do was fight.
Out in the open, anyone who glimpsed my bruised, swollen, and bloody mug would have a good idea that I was up to some trouble and liable to call the cops. I also carried a rather concerning-looking axe, which I was sure would draw some attention as well. I debated ditching it in a trash can, but two things stopped me. One, I really, really liked it and two, if I ran into trouble again, I’d kick myself for losing it. When stuck between a rock and a hard place, I figured I’d go with whichever one kept an axe in my hand.
I realized rather suddenly, as I tucked and rolled past a break in the concrete, that I had no idea exactly where Piccadilly Circus was. Or what it was, for that matter. I had a vague understanding that it was not, in fact, a literal circus where dill pickles were on display in new, strange, and horrifying manners. Other than that, it was all context clues, and the only context I had right now was that it was a physical place, and everyone seemed to know about it.
Ahead of me at an intersection, was a police car with several cops crowded around it, seemingly uninterested in doing anything in particular except running out the clock while other cops did the heavy lifting. Lifting that likely included finding me. I couldn’t simply walk past them, so I figured I would cross the street going the other way and make my way down an alley on that side instead.
I stepped into the road and was very rudely reminded that checking traffic was a little different than back home as a car blared toward me, the driver laying on his horn, from the opposite direction of where I thought it would be.
I snapped my eyes back to the cops and saw one of them vaguely look in my direction, but then go back to his conversation. I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding and looked for traffic correctly this time. When I saw an opening, I tried to walk across as casually as possible. When I finally reached the other side and got into the alley, I bolted, running like my ass was on fire. After a few blocks, a dozen or so turns down new alleys, and at least one puddle of what looked like ancient, stagnant rain, I was positive that I’d shaken any trace of a dragnet set out for me.
I was also positive that I was completely, totally, helplessly lost.
The area I had wandered was more industrial and less populated, which usually meant trouble. It was exactly the kind of place I would expect Archie to have a friend of a friend of a coworker of a friend who sold Farside stuff. Since I didn’t have much choice, I tried to follow the buildings back out to a street where I could find someone or something to tell me where I was and how to get where I was going. But one miscalculated turn, and I was now in the dankest, darkest, most decrepit of alleys, and a sound behind me let me know I wasn’t alone.
At this point, I had fought so many people today that I was simultaneously in need of a sit-down and about ready to straight-up murder the first person who cut the wrong expression at me. I was tired, hungry, kind of sleepy, bruised to hell, and I knew for absolute certain that I smelled bad. If I didn’t get into a shower, put on some comfy sweatpants, and eat a taco in the next few hours, I was likely to use the first tool Archie made that might have a nuclear reaction in hopes it had one.
The sound behind me intensified as more things were knocked around. My ears were tuned in to hear footsteps, but whoever was behind me was being careful not to make any. Either they were Far creatures or literal ninjas, because the only noises being made were small and seemingly accidental. After years in The Deep, I got used to small sounds equaling big problems, but whoever it was likely thought they were following me without being noticed.
I kept them coming, walking fast enough to set a decent pace, but slow enough they could tail me. If I could make it deep enough into the alley, I could dispatch them, maybe force some information about where the hell I was out of them, and get out of there.
Finally, when I felt I had gotten them deep enough into the alley to not arouse suspicion from the street, I spun. Something smartass was on the tip of my tongue, but as soon as I scanned what followed me, it went away into a whiff of lost one-liners and unrepressed sarcasm. I searched my brain for a word to convey the sense of surprise, dread, and frustration at how stupid I had been and only came up with one.
“Fuck.”
Standing before me were three vampires, weak ones, but ones
who could cause some damage. I knew where these guys came from and why they were after me. This meeting was no accident. The big slashing “SS” in the chest of each one of them had the marks of a dueling sword. Like the one the assassin used. Each of them looked like they had been turned fairly recently and were still getting the hang of their new life. Or unlife, as it were. Dead life? The vocabulary here was confusing.
Nevertheless, word was somehow spreading fast that I was in town.
One of them shuffled a step closer to me, and I realized he wasn’t actually touching the ground. That would account for the lack of footsteps. They all three floated inches above the concrete—enough to hit a can or a bottle lying on the ground, but not enough for their shoes to make scraping sounds while they followed. Oddly, this made me feel a little better. At least I wasn’t losing my ability to hear people walking behind me.
Right when I’d started to figure out a plan for the three vampires, a sound behind me startled me enough to spin to it and my heart sank. There were four others behind me. I was surrounded by low-level vampires, all most likely under the control of an assassin who I had royally pissed off, and now not only had a contract on my ass but a grudge too. An axe to grind.
Axe.
Holy shit, I still had the axe. I yanked it from my back, where I had slung it using its leather strap, and armed myself with it in a manner that was simultaneously backing up and challenging them to charge me. I tried to back up toward the concrete, not the building closest, so I could make a mad dash for any door I saw if things got too hairy.
I spun the axe in my hand, finally ready to use the blade for its intended purpose as they closed in around me. One made the first move and paid for it. The axe split him down the middle, and while I used a lot of energy for that shot, it was worth it to see the sudden realization and fear in the eyes of the other ones. It wasn’t clear to me how much coherent thought a newly made vampire was capable of, but I saw by their reaction to their dead colleague that they were aware of fear. I pulled the axe back to me as I let the split torso of the first vampire fall on the ground and looked at them.
“Who’s next?” I invited.
Three of them charged at once, and I swung low, arching up. I connected with all three in various areas, the first in the knees, separating one leg and slicing a great chunk out of the other. The next got caught at his hip and crossed over his chest to his shoulder, and both of them hit the ground in shock and disbelief. The third one wasn’t so lucky.
As his body tumbled toward me, his head fell off and rolled behind him. The body crashed into the wall and slumped, squirting blood high into the air and making a red rain shower down on the rest of us. The head rolled to a stop next to the one whose torso was badly cut and a dull, monotone scream came out of it.
There were three left, but I felt a lot better about them now. All three charged at once, fanning out so I couldn’t hit them in one blow. One reached for my arm and got hit by the sudden whirring of my shock glove, which sent him flying backward while sparks flew out of him. Another tried to grab my axe and wrestle it away from me while the third tried to get me from behind.
I temporarily let go of the axe with one hand to elbow the one behind me, then reached to grab it again. The vampire pulled it up, and I suddenly hung a foot off the ground. It opened its wide mouth, and fangs gnawed after me. I dropped my grip on the axe and fell to the ground, opting to punch it as hard as I could with the shock glove.
The vampire shook violently, and the axe fell from its hand. I caught it on the way down and swung without looking behind me. The blade caught the vampire charging me from behind in the neck and stuck there. I slowly turned my head to see him, my hand on the chest of one, electrocuting him until he smelled like frying meat, and the other holding an axe buried deep in his throat.
Finally, I let go of the hold with the glove and grabbed the axe with both hands. I yanked it out of his neck and watched them both crumple to the ground. I drew a deep breath as I looked at them all around me in various states of deader than undead and still sort of breathing undead.
I needed to finish them. I walked up to the first one, who I had buried the axe into his neck, and slammed the blade down to decapitate him. I repeated this for all the others, and when I was done, I was absolutely soaked in blood, tired, and angry. The only bright side was that after all that, I suddenly wasn’t all that hungry anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Four
When I was five years old, my father brought me to the circus. It sounds like the beginning of a dramatic and deeply introspective college entrance essay question. This would be the point when I should start waxing poetic about feeling like the tiger leaping through the rings of fire, fearing men in red coats because of the patriarchal oppression of the ringmaster, and getting my first makeup tips from the clowns. But, bear with me, that's not where we're headed.
Although, there might have been a few months in high school when I was first allowed to wear makeup and thought blue was a valid shade for all eye makeup requirements from shadow to liner to mascara.
Anyway, when I was five years old, my father brought me to the circus. It was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. A contortionist in a bright pink bodysuit turned herself into a wheel and rolled around one of the rings, then rode standing up on the back of an elephant. A group of men built themselves up into a tower and deposited another woman on a high wire. I ate approximately my weight in cotton candy and peanuts. It was nothing short of magical.
Of course, now that I was out of The Deep, I might want to question circuses and the issues with animal rights. Not to mention the sheer terror factor of that many clowns bubbling out of the back of a tiny car like an Alka-Seltzer of the damned. That put a touch of a damper on the joy and whimsy of my memories of that trip with my dad, and I never ended up going back. But I still remembered how much I loved that first afternoon under the Big Top.
So, when we decided to meet up at Piccadilly Circus, I was stoked. I was confident by now the problematic elements of the show were gone, and I had a serious hankering for a big fluff of pink cotton candy. Had to be pink. Blue cotton candy was only for heathens and the Ferris wheel at the middle school fall festival. That day was a pink cotton candy type of day.
It goes without saying I was a little bummed when I got directions from a shopkeeper closing up late who was willing to overlook the blood and ended up running into what was decidedly not a circus. There was no huge tent, no smell of popcorn, and no gasps of fear from the audience that the people swinging on the trapeze would miss their catch, but secretly kind of hoping they'd get to see them fall.
Instead, I walked out into a large open space in the middle of a circle of buildings. A few people meandered around in the shadows of the dark lessened by the lights around the edge.
Without a phone or any other way to contact them, I had no choice but to wander around until I caught sight of Ally, Archie, and Pip. I did that, part searching out my group and part taking in my surroundings. This might be my only chance to visit London, and it might not be the most leisurely of experiences, but I was going to make the most of it.
The late hour meant there weren't a ton of people, but the crowd was still enough that I had to weave through people as I made my way across the stones. There seemed to be a combination of commuters who worked late, locals headed somewhere, and tourists. Yet, somehow, it didn't have the same feeling of the tourist spots throughout the city and in other places. There wasn't anything overtly shiny and manipulative about the place, which was saying a lot considering the massive billboards and neon lights flashing the names of local businesses.
Instead, it almost felt overlooked, like the people moving around in it didn't see it. It was the same kind of effect as people who lived near national monuments or natural wonders. Eventually, you see it so many times it doesn't really matter anymore. That was nice in a way. It meant those amazing things got to be so much of a part of their lives they were used to it.
&nb
sp; At the same time, it was sad. Nothing as beautiful or as astonishing, if confusing, as places like this should be overlooked. Not me. I knew what it was like to have the ability to see things like this taken away from me. Everything taken away from me. Now that I was out, I was going to absorb everything like a sponge, appreciate it all, and never lose sight of how incredible the world around me was.
Starting immediately. Wow. That was a gorgeous fountain. It had absolutely no place in a circus, but it was stunning. Even the statue of the winged archer on top made me a little nostalgic, remembering Ally's encounter with the Angel, and Archie coming into my almost execution with crossbow blazing. Even Pip stared up at it like it was speaking to her in some way.
Pip. I found Pip!
Not that she blended all that well. They had her in a new human disguise, and if anything, it was worse than the first. The rune Archie made came from a good place in his heart, but rather than really making her look like a human, it made her look vaguely humanoid. Of course, I might only have been able to see it because I knew it was there.
It was entirely possible a woman no more than three feet tall would throw on a dress, bad makeup, and a floppy hat and rock it out with her swagger down the street. But that swagger came from her still not being able to walk with her tail strapped to her leg. And if the floppy hat fell off, I wasn't convinced anyone who passed by wouldn't be able to see her spiky little lizard head sticking up from her awkward-fitting dress.
"Were you trying to confuse me by telling me to go to a circus that isn't a circus?" I stepped up beside Pip.