So I climbed out onto the ledge amidst gusting winds. My nose and fingers went numb almost immediately. I tried to ignore them as I lowered my legs into the groove in the wall and braced my feet against the bricks on either side. Then, my heart pounding madly, I shifted my hips and wriggled a bit, until the outward pressure of my legs against the bricks was the only thing that kept me from kissing sidewalk. Once my arms were low enough, I was able to spread them and plant my forearms against the bricks as well, assisting my legs.
I cannot possibly explain to you how frightened I was, staring down. The swirling snow kept me from seeing the ground at times. Once I started there would be no going back. One slip, one miscalculation, one inconveniently placed patch of ice, and I would be able to add “pancake” to my impersonation repertoire.
I pushed hard with my arms and let my legs loosen. I slid them down a few inches and tightened them again, until they supported my weight once more. Then I loosened my arms and slid down a few inches before stopping, tightening my arms again and repeating the process.
I started climbing down, shifting my legs and arms in turn, five or six inches at a time, moving down the brick groove inchworm style. I made it about ten feet before an image invaded my mind: a gruff, aiming his gun down at me from a couple of feet away and casually popping several rounds through the top of my head.
I started climbing faster, my stomach turning with reaction to the height and the fear. I heard myself making desperate little grunting sounds. The wind howled, blowing snow into my eyes. Frost formed on my eyelashes. My coat did little to protect me from the wind swirling the length of my body, and I started shaking uncontrollably.
I lost the staff when I was about fifty feet up. It tumbled from my numbing fingers, and I held my breath. The rattle of its impact could attract the gruffs’ attention and ruin the whole purpose of taking the madman route off the building.
But the solid length of oak fell into a drift of snow and vanished silently into the white powder. I labored to emulate it, only less quickly.
I didn’t slip until I was ten feet up. I managed to take the fall well, mostly because I landed in the same snowdrift that had received my staff. I struggled up out of the freezing white, and almost went back down when my staff tangled in my legs. I took it up in mostly nerveless hands and staggered out of the drift.
A sphere of light whipped past the other end of the alley, then reappeared and shot toward me.
Toot-toot’s face was unusually sober, even grim. He zipped up to me and held a finger to his lips. I nodded at him and mouthed, I need to know how to get out.
Toot’s sphere of light bobbed once in acknowledgment and then sped away. I looked up. Other balls of glowing light darted about the skies, flickers that you would barely even notice if you didn’t know what to look for. I took a precaution while I waited.
As before, I didn’t wait long. Toot returned a moment later and beckoned me. He took the lead and I followed him. I was getting colder. The fall into the drift had covered me in a light layer of snow, which had then melted. Wet clothes are exactly the worst thing to be wearing in that kind of weather. I had to keep moving. Hypothermia isn’t as dramatic a death as being ripped apart by bullets, but it’ll get the job done.
When I got to the far end of the alley, I heard another bleating cry from a gruff, drifting on the moaning wind, softened by the falling snow. I glanced back and just barely saw motion as a gruff descended the side of the building the same way I had—though much more swiftly.
A second later there was an agonized, inhuman scream as the gruff got to the bottom and discovered that the snow had hidden the box of nails that I had stolen from the tool room and spread liberally over the ground. The screams went on for several seconds. One of the nails must have pierced the gruff ‘s hoof, and as tired and cold as I was, I still had energy enough to grin. That one wasn’t going to be dancing in elf circles anytime soon.
I’d lamed two of them, and figured it would be enough to make them back off the chase, at least for the moment. But you never can tell. I wasted no time in following Toot through back alleys and away from the chosen emissaries of Summer. Around me the little glowing Christmas balls of light, the Za-Lord’s Guard, darted back and forth, a wary ring of sentinels spread in a perimeter that moved as I did.
Several blocks away I found an all-night grocery store and staggered in out of the cold. The clerk glared at me until I hobbled over, clumsily dug change out of my pockets, and left it next to the cash register before shuffling to the coffee counter. At that point the clerk evidently decided that he wouldn’t have to get out the shotgun or whatever he had behind the counter, and went back to staring out the window.
There were a few other shoppers there, and I saw a police car crunch through the snow on the street outside, probably responding to the alarm at the building. Nice and public. Probably safe. I was so cold I could barely fill up the cup. The coffee, which burned my tongue a little, was absolutely delicious, even served black. I guzzled the hot drink and felt sensation begin returning to my body.
I stood there for a moment with my eyes closed and finished the coffee. Then I crushed the paper cup and tossed it into the trash.
Someone had snatched John Marcone, and I had to find him and protect him. I had a feeling that Murphy wasn’t going to be thrilled with the circumstances around this one. Hell’s bells, I wasn’t happy with it. But that really wasn’t what was bothering me.
What really worried me was that Mab had been involved.
What was the deal with having Grimalkin along to do her talking for her? Aside from making her seem even more extremely disturbing than usual, I mean. Oh, sure, Mab may have seemed fairly straightforward, but there was a lot more going on than she was saying.
For example: Mab had said that Summer’s hit men were after me because Mab had chosen me to be her Emissary. But for that to be true, she had to have done it hours ago, at least a little while before the first crew of gruffs had attacked me at the Carpenter place.
And that had happened several hours before the bad guys grabbed Marcone.
Someone was running a game, all right. Someone was keeping secrets.
I had a bad feeling that if I didn’t find out who, why, and how, Mab would toss me into the trash like a used paper cup.
Right after she crushed me, of course.
Chapter Eight
A wide-axled, full-of-itself, military-wannabe truck crunched through the snowy streets and came to a halt outside the little grocery store. The lights glared in through the doors. I squinted at it. After a minute the Hummer’s horn blared in two short beeps.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. I hobbled to the door and out to the truck, which blended seamlessly with the background and the foreground, and with most of the air.
The driver-side window rolled down and revealed a young man whom fathers of teenage daughters would shoot on sight. He had pale skin and deep grey eyes. His dark, slightly curly hair was long enough to declare casual rebellion, and tousled to careless perfection. He wore a black leather jacket and a white shirt, both of them more expensive than any two pieces of furniture at my apartment. In marked contrast, there was a scarf inexpertly crocheted from thick white yarn around his neck, under the collar of the jacket. He faced straight ahead, so that I saw only his profile, but I felt confident that he was smirking on the other side of his face, too.