I tapped on my badge, lighting it up, and drew my weapon before rounding the Scout. There was some commotion from the front—unclear shouting—but stopping wasn’t in the plan. I didn’t know the area, and chasing a runner through the understreets was a hazardous game. Out in the open with a creature was one thing. Animals, even black dogs, were wired to instinct, making them at least somewhat predictable. Humans, not so much. Especially this one.
“Cut him off?” Cari shouted, hitting the alley in full stride.
“No. Just… go.” I passed her easily, my longer legs eating up the distance, my boots pounding on the alley’s hard concrete.
Kenny dove to the left at the back of the building, and I turned the corner hard, keeping my weapon down and close. There was a small stretch of asphalt behind the Kitty, mostly parking for its employees, but a few kids were pulling themselves out of a tiny box of a car. Their shifting weight tilted the car up and down, its single middle-mounted front wheel dipping to one side then the next as the diminutive car vomited out its passengers. Even with only Kenny’s back to me, I could almost hear him debating hijacking the car and half wished he would. Shooting him at this point wasn’t off the table—just enough to slow him down—and it would be easier if he were in a piece-of-shit dot on three wheels whose top speed was probably barely above a drunk slug.
Sadly for me, he chose to lumber on.
The kids were ahead on my right, wide-eyed and pointy-eared, mouths open in surprise as they watched us approach. Kenny panted heavily, sucking in all the sour, foul air coming up from the sewers, and his slapping feet kicked up pieces of garbage with each step he took. Even from far away, I could see the kids were barely kissing the edge of adulthood, most of their modifications silicone constructs applied with a crude, uneven hand. Their clothes were outlandish, elaborate costuming with some of it half left in the car, obviously too big to wear and fit into the scrap metal that brought them there.
“Don’t make me shoot you, Kenny!” I yelled at his back, gaining on him with each stride. “You know—gods damn you.”
Bastard kept running.
Alleys and backdoor parking lots are never anyone’s highlight, but the Kitty’s back bins seemed particularly ripe. The stench alone was enough to bleach out someone’s nostril hairs, and I nearly gagged from the miasma rising up from the scum-clogged grates set into the ground. I tried to avoid the slippery algae pools growing across the wet gully running down the length of the alley, but some places were too wide, even with my long legs. Kenny had no such qualms. He splashed through the soggy moss, splashing up waves of sour water with each pounding step.
If I was going to catch up with the son of a bitch, I was going to have to be less delicate.
“What the hell,” I muttered, sidestepping another grate, careful to keep my feet clear of the mini swamps dotting the ground. “I’ll just hose the Scout out when we get back.”
Cari was somewhere behind me, shouting something I couldn’t make out. If she was asking me to get out of the way so she could get in a clear shot, I wouldn’t have blamed her. The farther we got down the walk, the thicker the smell, and I was surprised the kids hadn’t passed out from the stench. Kenny lumbered past them, his arms churning up and down. A hard sprint toward him almost put me on my ass when I slid over a piece of something clinging to the incline, and I righted myself with a flail of my arms before I took a spill in front of the kids scrambling to get out of the car.
I was about to pick up my pace again when I heard the first gunshot and one of the kids’ shoulders exploded in a gush of bone and blood.
Their screams were shrill, keening, and sharp, punctuated with panicked cries for their gods to help them. I wanted to keep after Kenny, but the splash of blood brought me to a stop. Metallic and cloying, the scent of fear and pain carried over me. A second boom hit, another tearing sound through the already high-pitched confusion, and a window shattered somewhere. Then came another shot, popping up bits of concrete and water. I shuffled to the side, pulling one of the kids behind the car and crouching down to drag the injured one out of the shooter’s line of sight.
She fought me, eyes wild and white. My fingers dug into her jacket, an oddly constructed knockoff of a formal Sidhe robe. A piece of fastener tape ripped as I tugged, the front opening up to give me a peek of the white T-shirt now soaked with blood beneath the jacket’s embroidered front. One of her ears flopped off, tangling in the pink-streaked metallic gold wig she’d tugged on while getting out of the car. The silicone swoop of fake cartilage tumbled out when I gave another yank, a pale floppy island poking up out of a sea of grit and muck.
“Come on, kid. Quit fighting me.” Murmuring the same stupid things I said to gut-shot Stalkers dying on a job seemed silly, but the girl quieted down a bit, going slack instead of helping me, but I took what I could get. I’d hauled out bigger and heavier. Tracking and taking down ainmhi dubh often meant hiking miles with hundreds of pounds of acidic meat slung over my shoulders or dragging the load behind me on a soft sling. “Hang on. You’re not that bad.”
The boy I’d pulled in first shook and trembled, his cheek dotted with the girl’s blood. I grabbed his wrist, pressing his hand on her wound, and he blinked at me, his own crudely elfin face bleached from fear. Staring down at his friend, he retched, gagging on his own terror.
“I can’t… I’m only fifteen,” the boy gulped, swallowing air he didn’t need in his belly. “My mom doesn’t even know I’m down here.”
“Yeah, figure that out later. Press down. It’ll help stop the bleeding.” I did a quick head count. The girl was sliding in and out of consciousness, but her eyes were still tracking. Flicking on my link, I pinned down the location and sent out an EMT call, attaching my SoCalGov badge number to the request. I got back a quick confirmation, acknowledging the gunshot civilian I’d tagged the call with. “Where’s your friends? Shit, you two! Come here.”
“Got ’em!” Cari tumbled in, shoving at the remaining kids. The other two—another boy and girl—were older but with the same wide-eyed terror stealing the color from their faces. “Stay down. Kai, you’re going to lose him.”
“Girl. And she’s fine. Clean through. Shoulder hit. Medics were tagged and are on their way.” I glanced down the alley. “Crap, you mean Kenny. I can’t dump you here. These kids—”
“Go! I’ll take care of this.” Cari ducked past me, shoving at the faux elfin boy next to me. Broken from his shock, he stumbled to hide behind the old van I’d gotten the others behind. “You guys stay behind the cars. Kai, go! I’ve got this. I’ll find you. Don’t lose that bastard. And don’t get shot.”
“Thanks.” I almost kissed her forehead but figured she’d either punch me or it would discredit her Stalker status with the kids. “Wish me luck.”
Kenny was a dot on the far end of the alley, hanging a sharp right with a skidding slide. He went down hard, slamming into a crumbling brick wall. While I was too far to hear what he said, I knew the look on his face. A Dempsey-like thundercloud rolled over it, flushing it redder than the flashing sign fixed to the building wall, an erratic lit-up shout to buy more cans of shaving cream. Kicking himself over, he struggled to get up, his hands sliding out from under him until he could get a good purchase on the ground, gravity and his plump belly giving me enough time to catch up. I was less than half a block away when he staggered to his feet and broke into a limping gallop, hurrying away from the alley as fast as he could.