How the hell get out of this place before he dropped in his tracks... His head was swinging like a yo-yo and his legs were turning to spaghetti.
Wilhelmina came out of her holster as Nick swung open the door and shuffled into the passage. She was noisy, but she was his best bet under these conditions. Wilhelmina was a 9mm stripped-down Luger who had done time in the SS Barracks at Munich before Nick had killed her owner and adopted her. She had become his most trustworthy troubleshooter.
A wave of sickness came over him, and he moaned. The door to the radio room swung open and the operator stepped out and stared at him. So soon! Nick moaned to himself. One shot here and the whole house is down upon me and I don’t even know how to get out of here.
He leapt at the blurred colors of the plaid shirt and drew back Wilhelmina with all his strength. Wilhelmina struck quietly but with a force as deadly as her bullets, dealing the blow to the throat that crushes the windpipe, and delivering it with lethal power and precision.
The fellow in the plaid shirt managed one awful noise and dropped. Suddenly all the doors down the passage flew open and it seemed that the floor swayed and the whole length of the narrow hallway was a gauntlet filled with scarecrow creatures with goggling eyes and clutching, clawing hands.
Something Old, Some New
Wilhelmina wavered in his faltering grasp. The impossibly big eyes of the human scarecrows swam before Nick’s face.
He gritted his teeth and swore bitterly to himself. Goddamn you Carter pull yourself together and get out get out get out! A hand plucked at his sleeve. He pulled his arm away angrily as if he’d been jostled by a beggar in a crowd, and the feebleness of his own gesture alarmed him so much that a little shiver of awareness ran through him and his eyes pulled briefly into focus. Nick tightened his grip on Wilhelmina and willed his feet to walk in a straight, agonized line down the narrow passage. As he walked he whispered, like a man in his own dream or someone else’s nightmare.
“One move out of any one of you,” he crooned maliciously, only dimly conscious of what he was saying, “and I shoot. One sound, one tiny move, one step in any direction...” Wilhelmina’s one black eye scanned the hallway, probing back and forth, back and forth. “...and you die. Anybody want to die?” He reeled forward and the gaunt figures drew away from him without moving their feet, without moving their hands, just swaying back and watching him with their sick, frightened eyes. “Because whoever gets in my way is going to die.” One foot, other foot, one foot, other foot, choke down the sickness and keep it in your stomach, half-close the eyes and keep them in your head, blink away the blackness, pinch your brain to stay awake... The passage forked. One fork led back to the café. The other probably led to the rear and a door to the street. But maybe not.
“You. You.” Wilhelmina jabbed at a tattered sleeve. “Which way outa here? Show me. Lead the way.”
A frightened junkie tried to backtrack into his cubicle. Nick snarled and prodded him with the Luger. “Come on! Show me! And not the front. The back.” The man shook convulsively, but managed a shambling turn toward the left and into another short passage with a door at the end of it. Nick plodded after him, fighting to keep his mind alert amidst the red haze that swirled around it.
“Open that door. Tell me if there’s anyone outside. Don’t lie — I’ll blow your head off.”
Trembling fingers fumbled at the knob. The door swung open. Nick’s unwilling escort shot him one burning look of hatred and stepped outside.
“No one,” he reported. “People end of block, not here.”
Nick loomed up behind him and pressed Wilhelmina into the gaunt back. He stared dazedly out into the street. Seemed clear, so far as he could see through the thick, painful mist that was almost drowning him. A door opened some feet or yards behind him and through the roaring in his ears he heard a strangled shout, or perhaps it was nothing but a sharp intake of breath. He pushed past the fellow in the doorway with such surprising force that the man stumbled and fell with a sharp, sibilant curse. Nick sucked in the late afternoon air and willed his feet into a run. They were lead, and he was living death, and his senses screamed at him to give up the unequal battle and let the red darkness swallow him. But the one glowing spark that was his sixth sense told him that he must run and dodge and run again, because danger ran behind him and he could not let himself go down or else... or else... or else what? He felt dimly that the end of the world would come if he gave in, and it would be all his fault. A gust of wind slapped lightly at his face, lending him fleeting strength. His dulled hearing caught the sound of footsteps much too near him and he darted a glance over his shoulder. The footsteps slowed and Nick’s half-focused eyes saw the man with the green face and the froggy lids raise an arm, thrust it down between its own shoulder blades and come up with something long that glinted ominously.
Instinct welled up from some hidden depth and made Nick fire even as he twisted his unwilling body to one side. A long, wicked knife sang past him to clatter uselessly to the sidewalk; the man called Laszlo yelped and clutched his shattered shoulder. Nick fired again and saw Green Face throw himself down into the street and scrabble crabwise into an open doorway. My God! Was that doorway still so close? Nick forced himself upright and stumbled into a run, pumping one more useless shot over his shoulder.
It seemed to him that there was a thundering of feet from somewhere behind him, somewhere behind Laszlo, somewhere in that crazy house with all the doors and cubicles. He made his tired mind pump sparks of energy into his heavy body, and he ran.
His mental map shimmered, blurred out, re-formed into the small blocks, side streets, broad avenues and twisting alleys that he’d scouted so painstakingly hours or weeks or years before. He ran like one possessed, forgetting that the clever fugitive won’t run but blend into his surroundings, remembering only that he must follow his planned route of escape. His heart was pounding harder than his footsteps, and his stumbling feet were enemies of speed and caution. At last he found the archway and the unpaved lane he sought. A tall man in a flowing blue robe stared at him as he entered, but made no move to stop him.
Nick staggered through the lane and came out into a narrow back street lined with shacks that were little more than straw-hut dwellings. He crossed it in a loping run that seemed to him no more than a crawl, and when he reached the other side he tripped on the low walk and fell.
Peace. Rest. It was wonderful. He lay face down and felt his mind drifting, drifting... No! Get up and go! Get up, you goddamn legs move! Open, bastard eyes, and stay open! He drew a deep, painful breath, then another and another, calling on his last resource of Yoga-trained strength and will to pull himself off the littered sidewalk and back onto his feet.
His leaden legs ran painfully for one more block and took him to a wider street that led into a noisy, pungent market place busy with the evening trade. Nick slowed to a walk and lumbered into the crowd like a man wallowing through muddy water. He threaded his uncertain way through groups of veiled Tuaregs and tanned, proud-featured Moors, past the flower stalls and the displays of exquisite silverware and bizarre amulets, away from whatever hunted for him in the narrow back streets. Stopping at a stall that steamed with hot foods and hotter liquids, he bought a mug of sweet, strong coffee and made himself look back for pursuers. If they were still after him, he could no longer see them. The coffee scalded a path down his throat and into his stomach. He drank as much as he could bear of the hot, sweet stuff and then moved on. Across the square and down the block. Across the street and down another. He saw a battered taxi bustling by and longed to hail it. But it passed him by before he managed to raise an arm to flag it. The red haze settled back into his head and pressed down on his shoulders. Walk! he told himself fiercely. Walk, damn you, and keep on walking.