“Be careful,” she said, tense.
“I will be,” I said, peeking into the stairwell. I couldn’t be certain he was unarmed-lots of men carried two guns, and it seemed any clothing and weapons he had on him vanished when he transformed, reappearing when he became a human again. That was pretty standard for shifters of moderate power.
I thought I heard a flutter of wings, and decided to follow it down the stairs. Unfortunately, this meant I could be running into a trap like the very one I’d just set for him.
“Do you see anything?” I asked.
“Watching …,” Megan said. “Yes! The floor below the top floor has shadows moving in the fruit lights. He’s making a run for it. Want me to send him ducking?”
“Yes please,” I said, pressing my back to the concrete wall.
I heard a few shots over the line. A suppressor, even a modern one, didn’t completely eliminate the sound of gunfire-but they worked marvels nonetheless. Any spark from her shots would be hidden, which was important at night like this, and the gunfire didn’t sound much like gunfire. More like metallic clicks.
There was a cracking of glass from the room nearby. Megan wasn’t trying to hit the Epic; her shots just needed to make him more worried about her than he was about me. I thought I heard a man curse in the next room.
“Going in,” I said. I leaped off a tree trunk and pulled open the swinging door, then ducked down in a crouch, searching for my mark. I heard heavy breathing, but could see nothing. It was a big room, a kind of large office space with broken cubicles and old computers. As I crept forward I passed a few of those cubicles that had been capped by canvas, making little dwellings filled with discarded pots and the occasional other refuse of human habitation. All were abandoned.
Megan had fired in through the large series of windows on the wall opposite me. Dust floated in the air, lit by fruit that dangled from the ceiling like snot from the nose of a toddler who had been snorting glowsticks.
How would I find Knoxx in this room? He could hide practically forever if he turned into a bird. I’d never-
Something launched out of the cubicle beside me, a black form with fur and claws. I yelped, firing out of instinct, but my aim was off. The thing hit me hard, knocking me back, and Megan’s gun thumped against the floor. I struggled, trying to throw the creature off. It wasn’t as big as I was, but those claws! They raked me along the side, which burned something fierce.
I flailed, one hand forcing the beast back, the other reaching for my gun. I didn’t find it, but instead gripped something cold and metal from inside the covered cubicle beside us. I raised it and slammed it into the side of the beast’s head.
A can of spraypaint?
As the beast turned back at me I sprayed it in the face, covering the thing’s snout in glowing blue paint. The light let me pick out that the creature was a dog, though I didn’t know my breeds. It was lean, with short hair and a pointed face.
It scrambled back, then the edges of its form fuzzed and the dog became a man. He stood, wiping paint from his eyes.
“Help!” I shouted. “You have a shot?”
“Maybe,” Megan said. “I thought you wanted him alive, though!”
“I want me alive more,” I said. “Take the shot!”
Knoxx reached the gun I’d dropped.
Something shattered one of the windows, and Knoxx lurched to the side as Megan’s bullet took him in the shoulder. A spray of dark blood painted the wall behind him.
Knoxx slumped down, looking dazed, his face still glowing with blue paint. He groaned and dropped the handgun, then became a pigeon and fluttered away, crookedly.
“Did I get him?” Megan said in my ear.
“Right in the shoulder,” I said, breathing out a tense breath. “Thank you.”
“I’m just glad I didn’t shoot you,” Megan said. “I was aiming through infrared.”
I groaned, climbing to my feet, hand to my side where Knoxx’s claws had caught me. I was alive, but I’d failed to capture him. Still, I should probably count myself lucky.
A flutter of wings sounded from the other side of the room.
I frowned, picking up Megan’s gun and inching forward. By the light of drooping fruit I saw spots of dark liquid on the desk nearby. I followed them to where the pigeon crouched on a windowsill, face glowing blue.
It’s wounded, I realized. It can’t fly.
The pigeon saw me and leaped out the window, fluttering awkwardly, losing feathers as it struggled to stay aloft. It barely made it to the next building over before being forced to land.
So it could fly, but not well. I looked down at my side. The clawing hurt, but didn’t seem life-threatening. I looked out the window again, then put away the gun and shoved my hands into the gloves clipped to my belt. I raised them, then checked the legjets as the spyril warmed up.
“I’m going after him,” I said.
“You’re-”
I lost the rest of Megan’s words as I jumped out the window. Twin jets of water lifted me from below before I hit the ocean, and I bobbed back up into the air, one hand down-streambeam pointed into the water. I spun for a moment, orienting myself.
Just ahead, the pigeon-still glowing blue across the face and neck-leaped off its perch and tried to flee. I grinned and sprayed the handjet behind me, tipping myself forward so my legs shot water downward and back at an angle.
I was off, wind blowing against my face as I tailed the weakened bird. It moved in a sudden, desperate burst of speed, keeping ahead of me despite its wound. I jetted after it, turning a corner by twisting and thrusting my legs to the side like a skier, then resetting and pointing the new direction.
Ahead, the bird landed on the windowsill of a building to rest. As soon as I got close, it lurched into the air again, fluttering and flapping, a glowing bob of blue.
I roared after it, and realized I was grinning. Ever since I’d started practicing with the spyril, I’d wanted to try something like this. A real test of my skills, fledgling though they were.
The bird, frantic, ducked into a building through a small gap in a broken window. I jetted up behind and used a spray of water from my handjet to shatter the window further, then I followed with my shoulder, breaking into the room. I managed to land without falling on my face-barely-and charged after the blue animal. It darted out another window, and I broke through, leaping into the air again.
“David?” I could barely hear Megan’s voice. “Were those windows? Sparks, what is going on?”
I smiled, too focused to give a report. My chase wound through the waterway streets of Babilar, passing people on rooftops who pointed and cried out. The bird tried to fly high at one point, but the strain was too much and it came back down to land on a rooftop. Yes, I thought. This is it. I jetted up onto the roof and landed near it.
As I got my balance, the bird’s form fuzzed and reshaped into a man. Knoxx’s face was pale where it wasn’t blue, and blood covered his shoulder. He stumbled back from me, clutching one hand to his shoulder, pulling out a knife with the other.
I stopped and stared at him for a moment, waiting. Then, finally, he toppled over, unconscious.
“I’ve got him,” I said, staying back in case he was faking. “At least, I think I do.”
“Where are you?” Megan asked.
I looked around, trying to orient myself after my frenzied chase. We’d curved through the streets and come back around to near where we’d begun.
“Two streets over from the building where I placed the camera. Look for a rooftop about four stories above the ocean, sparsely populated, a big mural of some people picking fruit spraypainted on the top.”
“Coming,” Megan said.
I unstrapped my gloves, then took Megan’s gun from my pocket. I didn’t want to get any closer to Knoxx without backup, but with that wound, would he bleed out on me if I didn’t do something? There was too much to lose, I decided. I needed this man alive. I inched forward and finally decided that either he was a really good faker, or he actually was unconscious. I bound his hands as best I could using his own shoelaces, then tried to bandage his wound with his jacket.