And if I mess up, the thought ran through her head coldly, then I’ll be answering for that, too, and taking as much blame as is necessary to keep the Library safe. Evariste’s not the only one who’s gambling with high stakes.
‘Just a moment,’ Kai said suddenly, turning to peer out of the window. He switched to English. ‘Officer! Is that car following us? The green one, back and to our left?’
Irene turned to follow his gaze, but it took her a moment to pick out the car. She hadn’t noticed it before – it had been lost in the sea of long-bodied cars and heavy taxis, or shielded by one of the passing omnibuses packed with people on both floors. She wasn’t used to judging this place’s rhythms yet, or spotting what was unnatural.
The cop in the right front seat swore and stepped on the gas. ‘Those damn reporters must have got on our tail after all. Sorry about that, ma’am, sir. You’ll just have to run for it, the moment we get to the subway.’
‘How far is it now?’ Irene asked.
‘Just around the corner, ma’am. You all ready to go?’
‘Ready and waiting,’ Irene said. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a few ten-dollar bills, passing them forward into the hand that was already extended to accept the bribe. ‘Thanks for the assistance.’
The car pitched around the corner and screeched to a stop against the curb. Kai scrambled out almost before the car had finished braking, pulling the door open for Irene. As she jumped out, she saw the green car weaving through the traffic to pull in behind them.
Its windows were rolled down and something metallic glinted in the sun.
Kai swept her legs from under her and dropped her to the sidewalk, throwing himself protectively across her as the first few shots rang out.
CHAPTER TEN
Irene plastered herself against the sidewalk as bullets whined through the air above her head. They chewed holes in the car they’d just left and scythed into the crowd at the station entrance. Screams mingled with shrieking car wheels as every bit of traffic in the vicinity attempted to get out of the vicinity.
Including, she suddenly realized, the police car that had brought them here. And it was the only thing between them and whoever was firing the tommy-guns.
‘Car wheels, lock!’ she shouted with the speed of panic.
Every single car within the range of her voice squealed to a stop. The air was thick with dust and exhaust fumes. The two cops abandoned the car, scrambling out to run for cover. But the bullets didn’t stop.
‘Jam the guns?’ Kai suggested. He wriggled sideways, trying to get further out of the line of fire.
‘Yes, I was getting to that!’ Irene snapped. She should have done that first, rather than clog up the entire area with stopped cars. Panicked decisions were rarely good decisions. ‘And then we run.’
‘We should deal with those gunmen.’
‘No guns, no gunman problem. If we get away, that’ll defuse the situation.’ A bullet whined just above her head as she prepared to move. ‘Get ready. Guns, jam!’
Kai pulled her to her feet, and they were running before anyone realized the shooting had stopped.
Irene had assumed people would take cover in the subway station entrance. But she hadn’t considered the impact of two men with tommy-guns, indiscriminately hosing the street with lead. Now she could see the bodies, she forced herself to carry on, ignoring the copper stench of fresh blood in the air. She didn’t have time for it, if she wanted to get out alive.
The turnstiles inside the subway station were deserted, apart from the guard hiding in his booth. Everyone had, quite sensibly, chosen to run away rather than wait to see what was going on. It drew a very clear picture of this America – or at least this New York – when it came to guns and violence. Irene had to admit that Captain Venner had been justified when he’d told her to leave town.
A flood of people were streaming down the tiled stairs beyond the turnstiles, hurrying down corridors and piling into any trains that were leaving the station. Men and women jostled shoulder-to-shoulder, abandoning any semblance of politeness in their urgency to get away from the gunfire. Women in narrow knee-length skirts and thin draping jackets were pushed up against men in wide-shouldered suits, staggering to keep their feet in the mob. The wide entrance hall was full of voices screaming and re-echoing, curses cut short and pleas to let someone through. A group of sailors in blue and white formed a flying wedge, punching their way through like an arrowhead. Kai swerved to one side to grab something from a magazine stand, and Irene had to struggle against the crowd to catch up with him.
‘Which train?’ he shouted, catching her wrist and pulling her closer.
‘Any!’ she called back. ‘But we want the end carriage.’
He didn’t ask why, but instead forced his way through the crowd, dragging her behind him. The New York subway was no place for weaklings under normal conditions, and the shooting outside had pushed it towards a new level of pandemonium. Unlike the normal semi-civility of the London underground Tube, this was a morass of screaming, elbows and trampling feet.
Still, she thought grimly, it would make it very difficult for anyone to follow them.
The two of them staggered onto the next subway train that came along, then – before it left the station – scrambled through the door at the far end and exited onto the track, carefully avoiding stepping on any rails. Irene wasn’t sure which rails were electrified and didn’t want to find out the hard way.
A quarter of an hour later they were hiding in a maintenance room. A single light bulb dangled from the ceiling, casting a dim light over the cans of paint, mops and buckets and other dust-shrouded impedimenta that filled the place. There was barely enough room for the two of them. But it was the first time in hours that Irene had been sure they were safe and unobserved.
And hopefully there weren’t any werewolves in this underground railway system.
‘This wasn’t what I planned at all,’ she said. She raised a hand to brush dust and soot from her face, and noticed that her fingers were smeared with blood. That must have happened outside the station. When she’d been crawling on the ground as the bullets whipped by above her. Irene wasn’t a stranger to violence: she’d been shot at before. But this casual level of overkill, with absolutely no regard for civilian casualties, was disturbing. ‘I knew we should expect trouble from dragons, but I hadn’t planned on being shot at by organized crime, or chased by the police.’
‘The level of surveillance is worrying,’ Kai agreed. ‘And it seems to be intensifying. I don’t think we can afford to stay in any one place for long.’
‘Then let’s get this over as fast as possible, before anyone else gets shot,’ Irene said. ‘I’ve had enough of being reactive. Time to get proactive. We need a map.’
‘Done,’ Kai said, pulling a folded street-map out of his jacket.
Irene blinked. ‘How on earth did you get hold of that?’