Germ

Julia heard a scream and had just followed Stephen into the alley through the hangar's side entrance when the big sliding door in front clattered as if someone were pushing it open. She stopped in her tracks, holding on to the door.

"Stephen!" she called. "He's in here!"

Then she was back inside, dodging around planes and taking an infuriatingly circuitous path toward the front.

He's all right, she thought. He made it back.

Shortly after Allen had left, it became too dark to maneuver safely through the hangar, so she had flicked on the overhead lights. Now she watched for approaching shadows on the painted gray floors. She expected to collide with Allen at any moment. She cleared the last plane and froze solid.

Outside the big doors, illuminated only by a strip of pale light, Atropos held Allen in a death grip. Allen's head was yanked backward, his arm twisted grotesquely around his back, where Atropos gripped his wrist and hair in one black fist. The killer spun to glare inside, jerking Allen around like a doll. His other hand clutched Allen's exposed neck.

Dressed in black that faded into the darkening night, his skin white in the hangar's glow, Atropos resembled Julia's nightmare vision of Dracula—if Dracula needed vision correction and a comb. He smiled at her, a victorious grin. She fought the urge to back away.

Then he moved—maybe it was no more than a twitch—and she knew he was about to make his escape.

She raised her gun, centering the sights on his forehead. He stared back into her eyes.

Allen was gagging, strangled. He rolled his eyes toward her, and she realized that he was not gasping for air; he was trying to speak. He mouthed the words silently.

Stephen ran up behind her.

"Stay back," she told him.

His heavy breathing seemed right at her ear.

Movement—Atropos's arm shot out and pulled the hangar door shut.

She couldn't fire, not with Allen out there. She ran to the door. Sounds came from the other side. The squeal of a hinge, rattling metal. A lock! She pulled at the door. It wouldn't budge. She listened. Silence. She backed away, aimed at where she thought the lock was, fired. A second later, two holes ripped through the sheet metal. Atropos was shooting through the door. She spun away.

"This way!" Julia shouted, retracing her route to the side entrance. She pushed through into the alley beyond. She was on her second bounding stride when muzzle flashes erupted from the front of the alley. Bullets zinged past, rattling the metal walls as they struck. No gunfire. He was using a sound suppressor and subsonic rounds, the same rig he had the night before. If it was outfitted with a laser sight, he hadn't turned it on.

She returned fire, aiming high. She wanted Atropos to think twice about shooting at them, but she couldn't risk hitting Allen.

Stephen crashed through the door.

"Down! Down! Down!" she yelled.

More flashes and explosions as their enemy shot at Stephen. He bounded off a wall, landing heavily on the ground.

She laid down cover fire, hoping Atropos would believe he was in jeopardy of being hit. She looked back and saw in the brief light of the closing door Stephen sprawled in the dead center of the alley. He wasn't moving.

"Stephen?" she growled, panic cinching her throat.

"Yeah?" Low, quiet.

"You hit? You all right?"

"We can't just lie here. He's got Allen. We gotta—"

He didn't finish. She heard scraping against the concrete, the faint rustle of clothes. A shadow shifted to her right, moving past.

"Stephen—!"

Thu! Thu! Silenced gunfire.

Bullets sailed around them, punching holes in the metal walls, tearing chunks out of the wood fencing that sealed the alley behind them. The deafening reverberations seemed to last forever.

Finally Stephen whispered, "I'm okay." He was just ahead of her, on the ground. "He's trying to pick us off."

"We can go over that fence behind us, try to come circle him."

"He'll see us."

She thought about their options. She ejected her spent magazine and replaced it with the one she kept with her shoulder holster.

"Why isn't Allen fighting?" he asked.

"Atropos had him in a death grip," she said. "He may have passed out."

"Or he's already dead." Stephen's distress was obvious. He was on the verge of doing something rash.

"If we rush him, then we all die."

He said nothing, then: "I'm going over that fence. You stay here. He can't cover us both."

"Wait a minute." She watched the disappearing rectangle of near-black at the head of the alley.

"What?"

"Just a sec." She tossed the empty magazine against the opposite wall, fifteen feet in front of their position. There was no response from their attacker. She stood and began walking slowly forward, keeping to one side. "Keep your eye on that door," she whispered, indicating the hangar's side entrance. She moved faster up the alley.