With nowhere else to go, Mari tugged Alain toward the bar, coming around the end to confront the bartender, a wiry elderly woman who would have looked grandmotherly if not for the aura she carried of having spent a good portion of her life in prisons. The woman scowled at Mari. “No one behind the bar but me.”
Mari whipped out her pistol and pointed it at the woman. “Can’t you make an exception in my case?”
The old woman stared, then rolled over the top of the bar with surprising agility, dropping off the other side to the floor. Before the bartender could scramble to her feet, the front door exploded open, fragments spraying the room. Mari brought her pistol around, squeezing off a couple of shots as dark-jacketed figures burst into the room, themselves firing rifles into the gloom of the bar. The few patrons hurled themselves to the floor.
Mari tried to aim at one of the attackers, but a volley of shots shattered bottles and glasses behind her, spraying fragments of glass in all directions. She dropped behind the bar, shoving Alain down against the outside wall and crouching between him and the opening at the end of the bar. More bullets hit the top of the bar, sending splinters flying, as others thudded into the front of the bar. From the other side, Mari could hear the thunking noise of bullets plowing into the brick wall behind her, sending out spurts of pulverized brick dust to drift downward. Armed Mechanics must have burst through the back door as well.
Some of the lanterns in the room had been knocked over, their flames now catching on the floor and tables to brighten the dimness and give Mari a decent view of the open end of the bar. Someone in a dark jacket appeared at the opening and Mari aimed and fired in one motion, making the figure jerk back and away.
We’re trapped. No way out this time. It’s over. Mari felt fear filling her again, but along with that fear was a powerful certainty that overrode everything. “Stay down,” she said to Alain over the sounds of gunshots and the impacts of the bullets. “They won’t get to you while I still live.” The conviction she felt was an odd thing, separate from her terror and utterly unyielding. She might soon die, but all that mattered, the only thing that mattered in all the world, was trying to save Alain even though she knew it was hopeless.
Mari felt a sudden rush of fatigue and her arm drooped. She was raising her weapon again when Alain’s hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled backwards. Off-balance and surprised, Mari yielded to his tug even as she wondered where he had found room to get farther back.
An instant later she was stumbling onto the street outside, staring at a once-again solid wall and at another Mechanic who was staring back at her with a dumbfounded expression. Mari recovered first, swinging her pistol to club her opponent senseless. A shout from the corner drew her attention and she saw another Mechanic there, yelling and pointing at her. Mari brought her weapon up again and fired, sending splinters flying as the shot hit the wall near him. He dodged behind the corner, still yelling.
Mari looked around, seeing Alain propping himself up against the wall, ashen-faced with fatigue. She put one arm around him. “Lean on me!” Moving as fast as possible while supporting Alain, she staggered across the street. Shots rang out behind them and bullets went snapping past. Mari hit the corner of the next street and swung them behind it as another volley tore holes in the bricks and wood of the structure there. She leaned out and fired, sending Mechanics diving for cover, then waited despite the shots still coming her way and fired again to discourage pursuit for a few more seconds before swinging back and supporting Alain once more.
“Run, blast you!” she urged Alain, who was still having trouble getting his feet under him. Mari supported as much of his weight as she could. She would carry him if she had to, but she knew they had to move faster if they were to get away again. They reached the next street and Mari crossed immediately, then went down the next side street and took the next corner as another shot took a chunk out of a window frame near her.
She staggered with Alain down a short side street, her heart pounding with fear and fatigue, her legs wobbly with effort, and saw an open-top horse-drawn cab there, the driver looking with a puzzled and worried expression toward the sound of the gunshots growing closer. Seeing Mari, he shook his head. “I’m not taking any fares. I’m leaving.”
“Not without us.” Mari tossed Alain into the cab with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, then jumped in as well and stuck her pistol in the driver’s face. “Go!”
Mari wondered just how deadly her expression must have looked as the driver paled and whipped his horse into motion. The cab thundered down the street, scattering a few pedestrians who stopped to hurl insults their way. Mari rested her free hand on Alain, rising up enough to look back and see Mechanics running out onto the street, then leveling their rifles at the fleeing cab. More shots rang out and the pedestrians scattered again, this time not stopping in their flight.
“Turn, you idiot!” Mari yelled, pivoting to stick the muzzle of her pistol against the driver’s back. The cab swung wildly, tilting onto two wheels as it took the next corner going full out. The cab settled back onto four wheels with a jarring crash while Mari tried to figure out where to go next.
“Left,” Alain mumbled from the seat where Mari’s free hand was holding him in place.
“Turn left at the next corner!” Mari commanded the driver. “And slow down a little or I’ll blow your head off!”
They took the corner with less danger that time and the cab rumbled down a long straight stretch before Mari ordered it to turn left again. As it settled onto the new street, she saw a city park to the right and pulled back her weapon. “Stop the cab.” The driver reined in his foam-flecked horse. It was hard to tell which one was staring with wider eyes, the horse or the driver. Mari hopped out, pulling Alain with her. Before she could say a word, the driver whipped his tired horse back into motion. By the time Mari had dragged Alain into the cover of the park, the cab had vanished.
She kept going until they reached a bench well concealed by bushes from the street they had left, then dropped Alain onto it and collapsed beside him. Cursing her trembling hands, she pulled out some bullets and refilled the clip in her pistol, fumbling with the rounds as she tried to force them into place.
“Where are we?” Alain looked around wearily.
“I think we’re at the boundary of the industrial areas,” Mari guessed, angered by the way her voice wavered from stress. “That’s where the parks are. What happened back there? You told me you couldn’t get us through a wall because there wasn’t enough power.”
“There was not,” Alain confirmed, breathing deeply and staring upward. “There definitely was not. But then, while we were behind the bar, the power was suddenly there.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that could happen?” Mari asked crossly. It didn’t make sense to be angry at Alain, but her nerves were jumping crazily.
“It cannot happen. Power can be drawn down by the work of Mages, but then can be renewed only slowly. It cannot spike as the power did there. It came from somewhere, Mari.” Alain’s expression suddenly shifted and he stared at her. “It came from you.”
“What? Alain, that’s totally ridiculous.”
“But it happened. I do not understand it at all, but it came from you. With what you provided and my own strength, I was able to get us through the wall.”