Kenan crept to the edge of the roof, his back to her. “There’s a ledge just below us. We can get down to the street right here. And then I think we just run for the window. Unless you’d rather bear my children instead.”
She knelt down beside him. “I’d rather throw you off this roof.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you’ll be in a better mood when we get home.”
Before she could respond, he slipped down off the roof and climbed down to the street. She scowled and followed. They paused a moment in the shadows and then dashed straight across the intersection toward the house where Aker slept. Kenan grabbed the lip at the bottom of the second window on the left of the door and nodded at her.
While he swept the street with his revolver, Shifrah leapt up and smashed her arm through the old wooden rods that barred the window. The rods splinted into pieces and she hooked her arm over the sill. She felt Kenan shoving her thighs up and she half-fell inside the room. The sword was lying on the table right in front of her, just as the stranger had described it. Shifrah grabbed the heavy scabbard and shoved herself back out of the window. As she fell back to the street, she caught a glimpse of the man in the bed and the young woman lying beside him.
“Run.” Kenan dashed to the left and Shifrah dashed after him, clutching the heavy seireiken in both hands.
After a bit of fumbling, she got the strap of the scabbard over her shoulder and let the sword bang and thump against her back as she ran. “Did you see them? The bounty hunters?”
“I heard them.”
“Are you sure?”
A gunshot ricocheted off the wall above them.
“Pretty sure,” Kenan grunted. “We need to lose them before we get to the rail yard.”
“So we’re trusting this Anubis person with our escape plan, too?”
“He was right about the window and the sword, wasn’t he?” Kenan bolted left down a long narrow alley.
Shifrah tore after him. “Do you have a plan for losing the bounty hunters?”
“Run really fast?”
“I didn’t think so.” Shifrah tried to picture the city in her mind. It had been so long since she had had to escape from anyone on the streets of Alexandria, but a few old memories swam to the surface. “Follow me.”
She pulled ahead of Kenan and led him down the next street. Their own footsteps echoed along the empty corridors of the city, and a low shout echoed from behind them.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Back to the arena.”
“Why?”
“We need the high ground.”
“This isn’t mountain warfare!”
“It is now!” Shifrah turned another corner and the arena came into view ahead. A quick glance over her shoulder showed her one of the tall Bantu hunters less than twenty yards behind them, and another figure in the distance just rounding the corner.
Shifrah sprinted into the long dark tunnel of the arena, speeding by the empty stalls and stairs, her footsteps multiplied a hundredfold by the close walls. The end of the tunnel was a spot of bright morning light in a sea of darkness that grew steadily larger with every step.
“Move-move-move! This is a shooting gallery!” Kenan hissed.
I know, I know.
Shifrah raced out of the mouth of the tunnel and veered to the left as the first bullet whistled out of the darkness. Kenan ran out behind her, ducking his head. She wheeled about and ran up the steep stone steps, climbing the rows of empty seats two at a time, and she waved Kenan down. “Shoot them when they come out!”
“Shoot them?” He drew his matte black revolver. “That’s your plan?”
“Just do it!” She clambered up a bit higher before crouching down in the seats to watch. The stone benches stretched out around the arena like the wings of a great bird, dotted here and there with a sleeping body. She took the seireiken off her back and waited.
The first Bantu ran out of the tunnel just as they had a moment ago. A large rounded pistol gleamed in his hand. Kenan’s first shot snapped the pistol out of the man’s hand, and his second shot shattered the man’s knee. The bounty hunter crashed to the ground, groaning.
The second man, however, was far more cautious. After a moment’s pause, a head and a pistol popped up over the lip of the tunnel and he fired at Kenan. The shot struck the seat in front of the detective, and he fired back. A splash of red leapt from the bounty hunter’s hand and he fell back down, out of sight.
Shifrah was up and running. She leapt up the steps as fast as she could, her legs already burning from the long sprint across the district. “Kenan!”
When she reached the top row, she turned right and found a wooden panel on the ground in front of her. There were two huge iron hinges on the left of the panel and a rusted iron lock on the right. Kenan jogged up behind her and looked over her shoulder. “There’s two more of them down there,” he said quietly. “When do we start using the high ground?”
“The what?” Shifrah carefully drew out the seireiken, and the bright fiery blade painted both their faces in golden orange hues. A quiet buzzing filled her ears, the soft babble of a hundred distant voices, but she ignored it as she touched the point of the sword to the wooden panel, and it instantly blackened and started to smoke.
“The high ground. You said we needed the high ground.”
“Oh, that. No. I just needed you to follow me.”
“What the hell?” He glared at her. “Then what’s the real plan?”
The wooden panel burst into flames. The boards crackled for a moment, and then slowly caved in, falling into the dark passage below. Shifrah smiled. “This is the real plan. Run, hide, shoot. Repeat as necessary. Don’t worry. You’re doing great.” She slid the deadly burning blade back into its clay-lined scabbard and dashed down the dark stairwell, which was now partially illuminated by the bits of burning wood that had tumbled down into it.
They both clattered down the steps as quickly as they could in the dark. Down and down, passing no landings or openings, until Shifrah stumbled onto a stone floor. The stairs had ended. They stood in a small dark room with a single ray of soft blue light slicing along the floor on one side.
A door. Shifrah pressed her ear to the door and listened. Nothing. No one out there.
She carefully tried the handle, but it too was locked. Damn.
Drawing out the seireiken once more, she again heard the buzzing of distant voices, and this time she paused to rub her ear and opened her jaw, hoping to dispel the noise. When the babble continued unabated, Shifrah shook her head and pressed the point of the sword carefully to the door handle. The metal quickly glowed, brightening from dull red to bright yellow. The iron twisted, sagged, and finally fell to the floor with a dull wet slap. The door swung open.
Shifrah sheathed the sword and slipped out into the dark corridor. To her left at the far end of the tunnel she saw one of the tall bounty hunters looking down on the arena field. To her right was the open street. They went right.
As they jogged across the street and headed west down the main avenue, Kenan said, “Well, that wasn’t much of a plan, but it worked. Two down and two lost. If we’re lucky, there won’t be any more after us right now, at least not until Aker realizes his sword is missing and puts out another call for hired help.”
Shifrah rolled her eye. “I smashed in the bars of the window in the room where he was sleeping, Kenan. He probably woke up and figured out that someone took his sword about two seconds after I took his sword. He’s already coming for us, right now. The only advantage we have is our two-minute head start.”
“Which we just squandered running around the arena,” Kenan said. “So the only real advantage we have is that Aker doesn’t know where we’re going. Unless he’s working with the man on the roof, Anubis, and this is all one big set-up.”
“Do you honestly think that Aker, a brainless, whoring, hash-smoking thug, is working with a mysterious man who floats around on rooftops?”