Christopher Smith - Running of the bulls

The next few moments were a blur.

The flames were growing. Pieces of the ceiling were crackling down onto the piano and the stairs. It was difficult to see clearly. Worse, Marty couldn’t hear Carra walking behind him because of the fire’s roar and the falling plaster.

Carra was an encroaching funnel of orange light. She looked across the haze at Maggie, cocked her head at her and then quietly lifted her gun to Marty’s head. A large chunk of the ceiling gave way and smashed onto the piano. Hot air and flames fanned out, creating a blizzard of smoke and ash as Maggie took aim at Carra’s chest.

But too much smoke was blowing into the room. It was almost impossible to see. Time slowed. She held her hand as steady as she could and fired at Carra just as another piece of the ceiling dropped. Marty turned away from it and moved into Carra’s path.

And when he did, the bullet cut through him, he sank to his knees and fell hard on the floor.

For an instant, Maggie stood there, unbelieving. She shot him.

For an instant, Carra looked down at Marty and then through the smoke at Maggie, unbelieving. She shot him.

Carra turned to run, Maggie fired off a shot but missed.

She was about to run after her when she heard footsteps running across the second floor. She looked up at the staircase and watched, stunned, as Wolfhagen leaped from the top step and fell through the smoky air.

His legs scissored beneath him.

For balance, he kept his arms held out at his sides.

In one of his hands was a gun.

His shock of white hair turned increasingly orange as he neared the fire.

He was heading straight for the center of the burning piano, where the lid was burning. She reared back when he smashed on top of it. The lid broke but Wolfhagen was invincible. He leaped out of the pit and into the room. He came face to face with her and lifted his gun, which she swatted away with her own. She punched him hard in the face with her free hand and then hit him harder with her gun against his left cheek.

He stumbled back, but Wolfhagen was nothing if not quick. He fired at her and missed. The room was smoky, he couldn’t see. Neither could she. Eyes and lungs burning, she pointed her gun where she thought he was standing and fired. She listened but didn’t hear him fall. Instead, she heard him running toward the door that was across the room. Freedom was there. They both knew it.

But she wouldn’t allow him freedom. Rage drove her forward. At the front of the room, the air wasn’t as smoky. There was a distinct breeze and the sound of traffic mingling with the sound of flames. And Maggie knew-Carra Wolfhagen was gone. She’d run out and left the door open.

Maggie ran faster and as she did, she began to make out all of him. He turned over his left shoulder to see how close she was. His face appeared to her-that face that she hated. He was breathing hard, panting like the animal he was, his crowded teeth bared into a tight smile of triumph. He knew he was going to make it. She could feel it. She swung around one of the tables in the center of the room, lifted her gun and steadied her aim.

She heard Mark say something behind her, something about the smoke. But he wasn’t her focus. This was her chance. She was taking Wolfhagen. He charged forward and then turned toward her again. “Love your face,” he said.

“Love yours more.”

When she fired, his head exploded. But she was running so quickly, she ran straight through it as it exploded. She felt blood and brains and bone collide against her face. He went down and she jumped over his falling body. One look told her what she needed to know. He was dead.

At last, she was rid of him.

But what of Marty?

She shook and wiped off Wolfhagen’s remains. She turned the corner and sprinted into the other room. She screamed for Jennifer to get herself and Mark outside. She could see Marty glowing from the fire at the far end of the room. Next to him, the piano was snapping, crackling. Marty was in a heap. The building was going up quickly. Too quickly. If she didn’t hurry, either the second floor would collapse on top of them or the smoke would kill them.

She stopped beside Marty, pulled him away from the heat and saw that her bullet had hit him in the chest. He wasn’t moving or breathing. She could hear Jennifer rolling Mark forward. They were coughing. She called to Jennifer and told her to get an ambulance.

With a chest wound, she knew the procedure of reviving him had to be done differently and so she lowered her mouth to his, covered the wound with the palm of her hand and forced air into his lungs while Roberta’s words rolled through her head: You’re going to shoot him, my friend is going to die and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

But the dead could be brought back.

Applying more pressure to the wound and aware of the sound of sirens coming near them, Maggie spoke to Marty between breaths. She knew he was dead but she wouldn’t stop. She breathed air into his lungs and was aware of the blood seeping up through his chest each time she did so.

And she knew. His lungs were filling with blood. He was drowning.

Before each breath, she spoke to him.

“Don’t die,” she said with a raised voice. “You come back. I know you can see me. Jennifer is safe. You don’t have to leave. Come back.”

All around her, the walls were starting to give. Chunks of the ceiling gave way and smashed to the floor while fire on the second floor started to reveal itself and tumble down from above. Jennifer and Mark were at the door now. They stopped to look inside and then Jennifer started to run toward Marty.

“Go!” Maggie said. “Get him out of here. Don’t come back-you won’t have a second chance if you do. Marty’s fine, Jennifer. I’m getting him out of here now. Wait for us across the street on the sidewalk.”

Reluctantly, Jennifer stopped.

“Come with us, Maggie.”

It was Mark. She found him and now she was certain she’d lose him again. The building was going to give way. She knew it. She felt it. It took everything she had within her to say, “Just go. We’re right behind you. I promise.”

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too.”

They left.

She gave Marty another shot of air, but nothing was working. She increased pressure on the wound and then, in her despair, she realized she was crying. All around them, pieces of the ceiling continued to fall. The house was shifting, weakening. The walls were alight with flame. The heat was intense. She leaned over him and held his face in her hand. She gently shook him. “Come back.”

The police, fire department and EMTs broke into the building. Maggie looked at them as they raced toward her. She turned back to Marty. “You’re not going to die,” she said. “Your girls need you. Do you hear me? Your girls need you. You can’t do this to the girls.”

And then, in spite of the smoke closing down on her, she pressed her scarred cheek to the hot floor, took a lungful of clean air and breathed whatever life was left inside her straight into him.

SIX MONTHS LATER

AMSTERDAM

Smelling of cannabis and feeling a bit high because of it, Vincent Spocatti left the Speak Easy Coffeeshop on Oudebrugsteeg, where pot was smoked as freely as the coffee was poured, and took a right on Warmoesstraat, a narrow street whose origins began in the 13th century.

As such, surrounding him was a bizarre hive of the old and the new. This was a popular street and now, on the tip of dusk, it was teeming with clutches of people walking close and in the midst of chatter. He listened to them as they passed-a cacophony of Dutch voices lifting and lilting.