Robert Liparulo - The 13 th tribe

“Drop it, kid! Now!”

Tyler scrambled to his feet and shot down the alley the way he had come. His reasoning for choosing that path instead of the tunnel home didn’t catch up with him until a few seconds later: The tunnel didn’t bend until it was close to the courtyard at the far end; if Shadow Man threw the sword or used the gun he’d taken, Tyler would have had no chance at all. He was fast on his feet, especially turning, zigzagging, and generally acting rabbit-ish. And he knew the monastery’s crazy layout.

Yeah, good job, he told himself. Keep thinking, don’t be stupid.

Stupid? Like what? Like taking that little black thing? The thing the murderer with the big sword wants?

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Drop it, just drop it.

But his hand wouldn’t obey. His fingers tightened around it. Somebody killed for it. Somebody died for it. He didn’t understand why that mattered, why that meant he shouldn’t let it go, but that’s the way he felt.

He and Dad used to watch a TV show, What Would You Do? or something like that. In one, a woman was hit by a car that just kept going. Some people on the show panicked and froze, others ran to see how the woman was. Dad had said, “Call 911, people! Get the license plate!”

Tyler had understood calling 911, but “Get the license plate”?

“Justice,” Dad had said. “Make the person responsible pay for his actions.” Dad was big on justice.

If you’re not going to drop it, Tyler thought, run faster!

Nothing reached his ears but his own panting and the loud kich-kich-kich of the utility case. If he was going to lose the man chasing him, he had to get rid of the case. He tugged at the buckle, but it didn’t budge. He glanced into blackness behind him and saw Shadow Man flash through a ray of light twenty feet back. Clenching the Life Savers thing in one hand, he used the other to reach into his pocket and fish out his knife, his whittling, prying-cool-things-outof the-dirt, fingernail-cleaning knife. His father had taught him how to open it with one hand, using his thumb to flip the blade out. Without slowing, he opened it and tried to slip it between his pants and belt so he could cut the belt’s canvas. But he missed and jabbed his hip.. twice.

A hand gripped his shoulder, squeezing, tugging him back.

Tyler yelled. How’ d he get so close? Shadow Man’s panting-grumbling was right there, right in his ear; his boots were loud on the stones.

Stupid! Pay attention!

He swung his arm above his head, crossed it over his face, and plunged the knife down into Shadow Man’s wrist.

The man yelled, and his hand slipped away. A string of sharp words reached Tyler’s ears, along with the unmistakable sounds of the man tumbling to the ground.

That’s it! That’s it! Yeah!

He turned to head up the stairs to the rooftops and looked back.

Shadow Man was already rising-gripping at the wall to help himself up. He roared, and Tyler heard all the rage he could not see on the man’s shadow-hidden face. He burned up the steps, crossed a bridge, and started toward a waist-high wall that separated terraces. He stopped. Behind him, Shadow Man raged on as he pounded up the stairs.

Tyler knew what he had to do. He took off in a different direction. He darted to a gap between two living quarters that had been built centuries apart. The alley-if you could call it that-was wedge-shaped, with the far end barely wide enough for him to squeeze through. A square of glass bricks set into the right-hand wall showed that a light had been left on inside the building and illuminated the far end, making it appear wider than he knew it was. Perfect.

He waited at the entrance until the man appeared on the bridge and spotted him. Then he shot into the gap.

When the shooting started, Jagger was on a rooftop terrace. He had pursued footsteps, but every time he thought he was right on top of whoever was making them, he’d found no one. Coming to believe the phantom sounds were tricks of the compound’s jumbled buildings, he’d started back toward the front gate. He’d seen boot prints in the blast’s sediment and had been following them when the footfalls led him a different direction.

The first gunshot-the deep boom of a shotgun-got him spinning and reaching for a firearm he didn’t have. Another blast. He ran toward the sounds, the back corner of the compound. Then a barrage of small-arms fire. Two guns, at least. He pictured a monk facing off with a hit man, blasting away at each other. He wasn’t sure what he could do without a firearm of his own, but he’d figure that out when he got there.

More than anything, Tyler dominated his thoughts. He remembered a gut-wrenching news clip of a schoolboy killed in the crossfire of rival gangs and pushed himself to move faster. He vaulted over a short wall and leaped from one roof to another. Please, Tyler, be where I left you. Please Hands shoved him off the roof. Turning as he fell, he saw that the walkway was vacant, no one there to push him off. But he’d felt the shove, two distinct points of impact, on his left bicep and left side. At the same time, a leg had swept his feet out from under him. He came down on his back, the wind burst from his lungs, his head cracked against the stone ground. As he heaved for air, shadows rushed over him from the alleys and eaves and corners. His vision went dark.

Tyler’s head and rear end scraped the alley’s side walls, then he popped out behind the buildings, where a ledge hung over another rooftop six feet below. He turned and slipped his lower half over the edge. Bracing his forearms on the ledge, he balanced over the drop-off and peered into the alley.

Shadow Man skidded to a stop at the other end. His sword was gone, and he was holding his wrist with bloody fingers. He glared at Tyler and started for him, becoming a silhouette, merging into the darkness. When he appeared in the light, he was turned sideways and already rubbing the walls. He shimmied closer. The guy was thin, but there was no way he’d make it through.

Relief made Tyler’s gut feel better. The alternative route to the rooftop below Tyler’s feet was long: across several other rooftop terraces, down a flight of stairs and up another-and that was if you knew the layout. He smiled, but lost it when Shadow Man smiled back. The man edged back a bit, jostled his arms around, then pointed the gun at Tyler.

Tyler dropped just as the gun fired. He hit the roof and fell onto his back. Sandy fragments of the ledge sprinkled down on him. He rose, rubbing his tailbone, and backed away, watching the edge in case the man found a way through or was waiting to catch a glimpse of Tyler through the crack.

A noise chilled him. He’d scampered over enough rooftops not meant to be scampered over to recognize it: the scraping of terra cotta tiles over one another. He heard grunting and knew for sure: the man was climbing over one of the small buildings. He’d be there in seconds.

Tyler darted to another ledge. Across a five-foot span was the wall of a building that rose way above his position. In the space between, a flight of stairs descended into darkness one way; in the other direction it rose and turned out of sight. He lay on the roof and pushed himself over the edge. His feet landed on different steps and he flipped backward, striking his head on the opposite building. The thing he’d taken fell from his hand. It rattled down the stairs, spilling out a tiny item as it did. He crawled to this new something and picked it up. It had little prongs that poked his finger. He dropped it into the utility case, then used both hands to sweep the steps below until he found the original item. It was a container with a hinged lid, which he closed.