The 13th Tribe

by Robert Liparulo

  Phin slammed his foot into Dirty Harry’s knee, snapping it backward. As the man came down, Phin grabbed the gun, twisted it out of his hand, and cracked it hard into his temple. He rolled to the monk who was stooping to pick up shotgun shells and introduced the top of the guy’s head to the butt of the handgun. He spun and hooked his arm over the bed, leveling the pistol at Creed’s eye. But he had already heard the click-click-click of Creed’s empty revolver.

  Phin stood, plucking a gorget from Creed’s lap. Apparently he’d been about to clamp it around his neck when the action started. Phin tossed it away and Creed slumped, his gun hand lowering to the covers, his shoulders drooping, his chest deflating. It made Phin think of a melting ice sculpture captured with time-lapsed photography.

  “Who?” Creed said. “At least tell me that.”

  Phin found the switch in his cuff and turned off the suit. He peeled back his hood and facemask. He shuffled his feet in a kind of dance and threw open his arms: ta-da!

  Creed nodded and glanced toward the door. “The others?”

  “Nevaeh and Ben. They’re either on their way or preventing monks from reaching us.” He took in Creed’s head bandages, his pallor, the posture of a defeated man. So unlike the Creed Phin knew. Where were his strength, his militaristic demeanor? Getting away had drained him, as years spent on the front lines of many wars hadn’t done. “You look ready.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Phin grinned, bobbing up and down, excited. He examined the handgun he’d taken from the monk, a Taurus Protector. “Nice gun,” he said. “I expected something about a hundred years older.” He slipped it into a pocket, then stepped over a monk to retrieve his sword. When he turned around, Creed was holding something up in his fingers, a small container with a hinged top, open now. Inside, Phin could see the microchip.

  “This is what you came for,” Creed said. “Take it and go.”

  Phin’s head canted to one side, as if he were examining a curiosity. “You know I can’t do that. Dude, you should have just skedaddled.” He wiggled his fingers through the air, imitating a bird. “Others have.” He nodded at the chip. “You betrayed us, man. We can’t trust you.” He stripped off one glove and reached out to take the chip in its container, but Creed closed his fist around it. He leaned forward.

  “Listen,” he said, pleading, shaking his fist, “this isn’t the way. Not anymore. Times change.”

  Phin laughed. “You’re not really trying to convince—”

  In a flash, Creed’s legs tucked under him and he propelled himself at Phin.

  Phin jumped back, simultaneously raising the blade and swinging it at Creed, severing first his hand and then his head.

  [ 42 ]

  At the junction of the alley and the tunnel—where he had returned on hands and knees when the gunshots had made his curiosity stronger than his fear—Tyler dropped his face into his hands. He tried to scream, but all he could do was gasp for breath. His stomach retched, and he waited for the vomit to come. But like his scream, it stayed inside. He hitched in breath after breath. He blinked, blinked, opened his eyes, and saw the detailed texture of the stones through his fingers.

  His heart clenched tighter. He had crept out from the alley—not realizing it at the time, but pulled by the fascination of an invisible being suddenly taking the form of a gray-scaled Shadow Man—and when the sword had . . . had . . . he had dropped his face right then and there. So here he was, exposed in the light of the open door.

  He raised his head, turtle slow, sure he’d find Shadow Man standing over him, the sword poised high like a guillotine’s blade. But Shadow Man was still in the room, his back to the door. He was working to get something into a backpack; while his shoulders seesawed up and down, his hips swayed back and forth.

  The man touched his ear the way Secret Service agents do in movies and said, “I got it . . . Yes, Ben, I saw it, all right?” He laughed. “Oh, and I guess they’re having a two-for-one special today, because I got Creed too.” Pause. “Right. Meet you there.” He moved his finger from his ear, hefted the pack, and spoke again: “You’re welcome, buddy.”

  The words confused Tyler, but then another assault on his mind pushed everything else away. The thing in the backpack was the shape of a bowling ball, and a dark stain was spreading over the bottom of the pack.

  Tyler’s vision focused for a brief moment on the headless body hanging off the edge of the bed, spilling blood into a pool on the floor. He dropped his gaze and saw the severed hand midway between the bed and the door. Its fingers were splayed open, as if it were waiting for someone to hold it.

  And rolling toward Tyler like a marble on the flat stones of the walkway was the black thing the now-dead man had offered his killer. It stopped barely an arm’s length away. Instinctively, Tyler reached out and snatched it up. It wasn’t a marble or any type of ball: more like a partial roll of Life Savers. As he pulled back with his prize, Shadow Man’s sharp voice stopped him.

  “Hey!”

  Tyler raised his head. Shadow Man was bouncing toward him, slinging the backpack over his shoulder, raising the sword.

  “Drop it, kid! Now!”

  Tyler scrambled to his feet and shot down the alley the way he had come. His reasoning for choosing that path instead of the tunnel home didn’t catch up with him until a few seconds later: The tunnel didn’t bend until it was close to the courtyard at the far end; if Shadow Man threw the sword or used the gun he’d taken, Tyler would have had no chance at all. He was fast on his feet, especially turning, zigzagging, and generally acting rabbit-ish. And he knew the monastery’s crazy layout.

  Yeah, good job, he told himself. Keep thinking, don’t be stupid.

  Stupid? Like what? Like taking that little black thing? The thing the murderer with the big sword wants?

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Drop it, just drop it.

  But his hand wouldn’t obey. His fingers tightened around it. Somebody killed for it. Somebody died for it. He didn’t understand why that mattered, why that meant he shouldn’t let it go, but that’s the way he felt.

  He and Dad used to watch a TV show, What Would You Do? or something like that. In one, a woman was hit by a car that just kept going. Some people on the show panicked and froze, others ran to see how the woman was. Dad had said, “Call 911, people! Get the license plate!”

  Tyler had understood calling 911, but “Get the license plate”?

  “Justice,” Dad had said. “Make the person responsible pay for his actions.” Dad was big on justice.

  If you’re not going to drop it, Tyler thought, run faster!

  Nothing reached his ears but his own panting and the loud kich-kich-kich of the utility case. If he was going to lose the man chasing him, he had to get rid of the case. He tugged at the buckle, but it didn’t budge. He glanced into blackness behind him and saw Shadow Man flash through a ray of light twenty feet back. Clenching the Life Savers thing in one hand, he used the other to reach into his pocket and fish out his knife, his whittling, prying-cool-things-outof the-dirt, fingernail-cleaning knife. His father had taught him how to open it with one hand, using his thumb to flip the blade out. Without slowing, he opened it and tried to slip it between his pants and belt so he could cut the belt’s canvas. But he missed and jabbed his hip . . . twice.

  A hand gripped his shoulder, squeezing, tugging him back.

  Tyler yelled. How’ d he get so close? Shadow Man’s panting-grumbling was right there, right in his ear; his boots were loud on the stones.

  Stupid! Pay attention!

  He swung his arm above his head, crossed it over his face, and plunged the knife down into Shadow Man’s wrist.

  The man yelled, and his hand slipped away. A string of sharp words reached Tyler’s ears, along with the unmistakable sounds of the man tumbling to the ground.

  That’s it! That’s it! Yeah!

  He turned to head up the stairs to the rooftops and looked back.

  Shadow Man was already rising—grip
ping at the wall to help himself up. He roared, and Tyler heard all the rage he could not see on the man’s shadow-hidden face. He burned up the steps, crossed a bridge, and started toward a waist-high wall that separated terraces. He stopped. Behind him, Shadow Man raged on as he pounded up the stairs.

  Tyler knew what he had to do. He took off in a different direction. He darted to a gap between two living quarters that had been built centuries apart. The alley—if you could call it that—was wedge-shaped, with the far end barely wide enough for him to squeeze through. A square of glass bricks set into the right-hand wall showed that a light had been left on inside the building and illuminated the far end, making it appear wider than he knew it was. Perfect.

  He waited at the entrance until the man appeared on the bridge and spotted him. Then he shot into the gap.

  [ 43 ]

  When the shooting started, Jagger was on a rooftop terrace. He had pursued footsteps, but every time he thought he was right on top of whoever was making them, he’d found no one. Coming to believe the phantom sounds were tricks of the compound’s jumbled buildings, he’d started back toward the front gate. He’d seen boot prints in the blast’s sediment and had been following them when the footfalls led him a different direction.

  The first gunshot—the deep boom of a shotgun—got him spinning and reaching for a firearm he didn’t have. Another blast. He ran toward the sounds, the back corner of the compound. Then a barrage of small-arms fire. Two guns, at least. He pictured a monk facing off with a hit man, blasting away at each other. He wasn’t sure what he could do without a firearm of his own, but he’d figure that out when he got there.

  More than anything, Tyler dominated his thoughts. He remembered a gut-wrenching news clip of a schoolboy killed in the crossfire of rival gangs and pushed himself to move faster. He vaulted over a short wall and leaped from one roof to another. Please, Tyler, be where I left you. Please—

  Hands shoved him off the roof. Turning as he fell, he saw that the walkway was vacant, no one there to push him off. But he’d felt the shove, two distinct points of impact, on his left bicep and left side. At the same time, a leg had swept his feet out from under him. He came down on his back, the wind burst from his lungs, his head cracked against the stone ground. As he heaved for air, shadows rushed over him from the alleys and eaves and corners. His vision went dark.

  [ 44 ]

  Tyler’s head and rear end scraped the alley’s side walls, then he popped out behind the buildings, where a ledge hung over another rooftop six feet below. He turned and slipped his lower half over the edge. Bracing his forearms on the ledge, he balanced over the drop-off and peered into the alley.

  Shadow Man skidded to a stop at the other end. His sword was gone, and he was holding his wrist with bloody fingers. He glared at Tyler and started for him, becoming a silhouette, merging into the darkness. When he appeared in the light, he was turned sideways and already rubbing the walls. He shimmied closer. The guy was thin, but there was no way he’d make it through.

  Relief made Tyler’s gut feel better. The alternative route to the rooftop below Tyler’s feet was long: across several other rooftop terraces, down a flight of stairs and up another—and that was if you knew the layout. He smiled, but lost it when Shadow Man smiled back. The man edged back a bit, jostled his arms around, then pointed the gun at Tyler.

  Tyler dropped just as the gun fired. He hit the roof and fell onto his back. Sandy fragments of the ledge sprinkled down on him. He rose, rubbing his tailbone, and backed away, watching the edge in case the man found a way through or was waiting to catch a glimpse of Tyler through the crack.

  A noise chilled him. He’d scampered over enough rooftops not meant to be scampered over to recognize it: the scraping of terra cotta tiles over one another. He heard grunting and knew for sure: the man was climbing over one of the small buildings. He’d be there in seconds.

  Tyler darted to another ledge. Across a five-foot span was the wall of a building that rose way above his position. In the space between, a flight of stairs descended into darkness one way; in the other direction it rose and turned out of sight. He lay on the roof and pushed himself over the edge. His feet landed on different steps and he flipped backward, striking his head on the opposite building. The thing he’d taken fell from his hand. It rattled down the stairs, spilling out a tiny item as it did. He crawled to this new something and picked it up. It had little prongs that poked his finger. He dropped it into the utility case, then used both hands to sweep the steps below until he found the original item. It was a container with a hinged lid, which he closed.

  He caught movement from the corner of his eye and turned to see Shadow Man hurl himself from the ledge. The man hit the wall, then crashed onto the stairs and began tumbling. The backpack’s strap slipped from his shoulder to the crook of his elbow. The pack bumped down a step, seeming to pull Shadow Man down with it. The pack opened, and a human head rolled out. It picked up speed—hair flying like fire, eyelids open to white orbs, the mouth locked in a curled-lipped grimace—and bounced directly at Tyler.

  Tyler screamed, a horrified, sustained release of all the screams he’d been denied: over the invisible man with floating eyes and magically appearing sword; the ear-splitting firefight; the beheading. He whirled away from the head, somersaulted down the steps, found his feet, and ran.

  [ 45 ]

  When the shadows retreated, giving Jagger a view of the stars and the buildings crowding around him, he was still trying to fill his burning lungs. He couldn’t have been out long. He rubbed the back of his head, felt a bump, and rolled over to push himself up. While the lights were out, his heart had moved into his head. It pounded in there, making his eyeballs and forehead, jaw and ears as miserable as his heart apparently was about its new accommodations.

  For a few moments he forgot what he’d been doing when he fell . . . was pushed. He’d been running . . . gunfire . . . Tyler!

  Someone had been shooting at Tyler! No, that wasn’t right. It came back to him the way reality did after a particularly nasty nightmare. The gunfire was unrelated to Tyler, except that he was outside somewhere, only possibly in the vicinity of it. Jagger had been hoping, praying Tyler was nowhere near it.

  He took a step and stumbled, catching himself against a wall. He shook his head, aggravating his misplaced heart, making it pound harder. The gunfire had stopped. He had to find out what had happened, had to get to Tyler, get him home. He looked around and knew where he was, only a couple buildings from the back-corner shootout.

  Okay, he thought, move.

  He walked, breathed, felt the pounding subside a little. He picked up his pace, began considering what he might find: dead monks . . . dead bad guys . . . live monks and bad guys gearing up for another volley. In that instant he didn’t care. His sole desire was to find his son. He couldn’t help believing the monks had brought this on. Taking that man in, being so secretive about it, about a lot of things. So help him, if anything happened to Tyler or Beth, the people who’d blown through the front gate would be the least of Gheronda’s problems.

  A shot rang out, and he spun toward it: in the center of the compound, closer to the Burning Bush, closer to Tyler. He wanted to call out him, to let him know he was coming, to hear that he was all right, but if Tyler was safe somewhere, calling to him could draw him out into danger. He ran all out, forgetting about himself, about caution, about anything but getting to his boy.

  Less than a minute later he arrived at the Burning Bush. Tyler was gone, the branches that had hidden him fanned out from the corner on the ground. Unthinkingly, disbelieving Tyler’s absence, he lifted them, expecting . . . what? His son? A clue to his disappearance? Had he left on his own or had someone taken him? Was he home now, curled up on the couch with Beth . . . safe somewhere else . . . kidnapped . . . ?

  Jagger’s mind slammed the door on other possibilities. He turned in a circle, hoping first to see Tyler—coming to him, cowering in a different corner—then scannin
g for clues. His boots and Tyler’s sneakers, their socks were on the steps where they’d left them.

  Meaning to yell, it came out a whisper: “Tyler?” He raised his face to the sky, drew in a deep breath, but before he could send his son’s name into the compound, Tyler screamed, a long, terrible, little-boy scream. It turned Jagger’s heart to stone.

  “Tyler!”

  The scream had come from the compound’s most jumbled, stacked section of buildings. Getting to the Burning Bush, Jagger had run through a tunnel under it. He bounded up the steps to the rooftops. “Tyler!” He crossed terraces, bridges, leaped over alleyways, looking, looking and calling. He traversed the roofs, descending a level, then re-ascending, heading toward their apartment. The Basilica’s obsidian-like roof floated across a chasm to his right; the Southwest Range Building ran the length of the rear wall to his left. Beyond that, the black presence of God’s Mountain watched.