Flakes of luminous white snow wafted down all around them, so thick it felt they were trapped in a snow globe. They slipped and slid down the steps.
The whine of a squad car made Decker pause for a second. Then, another siren. Soon, the street was alive with their screams.
Someone shot at them from below. Decker looked down. A policeman was firing at them from the street. He could hear bullets ricocheting right next to his ear.
Decker ducked, kicked in a window, tossed Lulu into the opening, and flung himself in right behind her.
They rolled onto the glimmering floor of a corridor. It shimmered with broken glass. He could hear it crackle and crunch under their feet.
An apartment door opened beside him and a teenage girl wearing a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt appeared in the entrance. She had pigtails, he noticed, and huge almond-shaped eyes… before the door slammed shut in his face.
They ran down the corridor. Decker pulled Lulu behind him. They had almost made it to the door leading to the stairs when it opened and the dull metal gray of a gun muzzle slid into view — like the head of a snake.
Lulu rolled to the floor in what seemed like slow motion. Decker reached for the gun barrel.
A shot bubbled up from the opening, followed by the sound of a thunderous report. Bang! Then, nothing but ringing.
Decker could feel the heat of the gun barrel in his hand as he grabbed it, pulled it up and then back, striking whomever was holding it on the opposite side of the door. There was a dull thud. The door opened and Decker saw another young gang-banger fall to the floor, a nasty gash on his cheek.
“Come on,” he shouted to Lulu. They leapt over the kid in the stairwell. Above them, Decker could hear people milling about. Their footsteps echoed down the stone stairs. Then, the taught blast of gunfire.
Decker and Lulu leapt to the side as the bannister splintered beside them. Someone was shooting at them from above!
“Cease fire, you idiot. He wants them alive,” came a voice from above.
Decker yanked Lulu forward and they dashed down the stairs. They ran as fast as they could, careening against the walls, fearful of venturing too close to the bannister.
Only two more flights to the bottom, Decker realized. He stole a quick glance above and noticed the hands of three sets of agents on the bannister in pursuit.
He jumped to the next landing, spun about and waited for Lulu to catch up. Only one more floor and we’ve made it, he realized. Just one.
They ran and they ran, turning round the last bend. They sprinted the last few steps to the door. It led out to the basement and the basement garage. Decker could smell the scent of car exhaust. The smell of the open road, and of freedom.
He kicked the door open and the frame of a man coalesced into view.
One moment there was nobody there. The doorway was empty, the coast clear. Then, the doorway was blocked by a shape quite familiar.
Decker ground to a stop. He’d been about to lunge forward, to lead with a punch and a kick, when he saw who it was.
Rex McCullough.
His best friend… holding a weapon.
And it was pointed right at his heart.
PART III
CHAPTER 50
I hid in the garden, completely exhausted, and drank from a green garden hose. Sirens wailed in the distance. They were still looking for me. They would keep looking for me until they had found me. Of that, I was certain. After all, the blond man had the age of the universe.
My only chance now was to do what I had to do first.
I stared up at the snowy white clouds. It was late afternoon, almost sunset, and the sun languished on the distant horizon like a coin on the lip of a jukebox.
A perfect sunset, as always, I thought. I handed the hose to Barzani. “And every one of us in here, we’re… you know,” I suggested. “Dead?” It was difficult to accept. It was ludicrous.
He brought the cool jet of water to his lips. I watched as he drank. When he was finished, he dropped the hose on the ground. “Not everyone,” he said, wiping his mouth. He turned off the tap. “That’s both the problem and the opportunity.”
At that moment, for no special reason, I remembered my hand. I tore off another piece of my shirt and slowly, with great care, began wrapping it around my battered red knuckles and fingers. As I fiddled, a monarch butterfly wafted in over a great bed of blue sage where the hose was attached to the house. Its wings bobbed, black and orange, weaved and fluttered, bounced and wafted, and I marveled at it. I marveled at the way that it danced in the air right in front of me. And the fact that it even existed.
“Here, let me help you with that,” said Barzani. He began to re-tie my bandage.
“They say it takes several generations for monarch butterflies to make the journey from Mexico up to Canada every year,” I said, changing the subject, “and yet, somehow, they know where to go. They remember genetically. Does that mean that they’re programmed? Are they machines too?”
The monarch hovered and settled on the tip of a kaleidoscope-colored Buddleia nearby.
I smiled. I reached out with care, slowly, delicately, afraid of my clumsiness, but the butterfly didn’t flutter away. It remained on the tip of the bush, preternaturally still.
“Hold still,” said Barzani.
And I did.
He laughed, his dark brown eyes softening. “What was it Zhou said?” he asked me as he fussed with the bandage. “‘Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, for all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness, unaware that I was Zhou. Soon, I awaked. And there I was, myself again. But, now, I do not know whether I was a man then, dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I’m a butterfly now, dreaming I’m a man.’”
We are the authors of our lives, I thought. I am. I am! I watched as the butterfly took flight into the gloaming light. I feel.
“There you go,” said Barzani as he tied off the end of the bandage. “Good as new.”
Jupiter shimmered high in the sky. It twinkled and gleamed, so alive! I smiled, remembering the childhood movie and song. “When you wish upon a star, Makes no difference who you are, Anything your heart desires…” But I never had the chance to complete it.
The blond man appeared right beside us, right next to the hose and the butterfly bush.
I stood up and leapt back, only to see Barzani turn and slip on the wet soil as the blond man came in from behind.
He swung his right hand down and around, and then up through Barzani’s lower back, through his spine, upward, until Barzani began to shimmer and shine, as if charged by Saint Elmo’s Fire, aglow, like white phosphorous. He let out a scream, a primal cry at the moon as the arm rushed up through his colon, up, up, through his liver and spleen, his sternum and ribcage, tearing the lungs with his fingers, his throat, until it pierced the skull casing and clenched the gray throbbing mass of his brain in his fingers.
For a moment, Barzani stood there on the tips of his toes, his back arched, picked up from behind by the great hook of the other man’s arm.