Germ

Stephen took the lead. They sloshed through rust-red torrents, blinking at the pelting rain. The water was cold; Stephen's toes went from frigid to sore to numb. At each cross street, they scanned for signs of people or police or shelter. Stephen continually veered to one side of the street, then the other, rattling door handles, rapping at doors. Pedro Juan Caballero could have been a ghost town.

At an intersection, a cutting wind hurled beads of water at them with the force of a shotgun blast. They stepped out of the crosscurrent, and Julia stopped so fast her feet slipped out from under her. She clung to Stephen's arm, managing to stay up only after planting one knee in the mud.

Atropos was coming toward them. Somehow he had overtaken them, or they had gotten turned around in the storm. Julia kept her eyes on the killer as she regained her footing. The wind had caught the man's long coat, causing the sides to flap behind him like leathery wings. She saw a flicker of red dancing at his side: his pistol like an extension of his arm.

Lightning burst across the sky, illuminating a million raindrops as if they were tiny mirrors. It blinded Stephen for a sheer moment. In that time, Atropos halved the distance between them. Clear, now, was the look of grim determination on his face. His right arm rose stiffly, pivoting at the shoulder. The laser drew a glittering arc toward them.

"Move!" Julia yelled. She shoved her weight into Stephen. The two splashed down in a stream of rushing water at a point in the street where a curb would have been, had these back roads possessed them.

He didn't hear the spit of the silenced gun, but a nearby window shattered like a melodic counterpoint to the rain's ceaseless pounding.

"Move! Move!" she screamed. They tumbled over each other, gaining their feet. He pulled her up and pushed her forward, back the way they'd come. She stumbled again, splashing down in the mud. He leaped over her, his momentum making a sudden stop impossible. He turned and was blinded by Atropos's red laser. He snapped his head away and felt the hot-piercing impact of a bullet.

eighty-three

The red dot of Atropos's gun flickered through the beads of falling water and touched Stephen's face like the finger of fate. He flew back, crashing through the door of a shop, its glass pane bursting into slivers, for a second becoming indistinguishable from the rain.

"Stephen!" A drenched rope of hair fell into her face. She swatted at it, flipping it away. "Stephen!"

She rose from the mud and swung around toward Atropos. He stood dark and solid in the center of the road, fifty feet away. The gun was at his side again, and he was simply watching. Slowly, watching him, but anxious for Stephen, she stepped to the shop door. The Warrior made no advance, no move intended to stop her. He seemed to be communicating his understanding of the situation: she and Stephen were his to kill at his leisure; nothing they did could prevent him from acquiring his trophies.

Stephen was lying inside the store, his feet protruding over the bottom wood slat of the door. His head was thrown back so only his hairy chin and neck were visible beyond his chest. Did she really want to see his face, the damage a 9mm could do to it? But if he were alive, could she deny him the chance to behold a friendly face before dying?

Then his chest heaved, and he raised his head. His eyes found her and his lips tried to form a smile, but settled on a grimace.

"Stephen?" She felt disoriented, dreamy.

"I think he shot me." He crossed his right arm over his chest and gripped his shoulder. She saw where the jacket was torn and soaked in blood.

She stepped through the broken door and crouched at his side. "I thought . . ." She smiled and he took it in; the healing touch of an angel—or a shot of morphine—could not have effected such a positive change to his expression. He grinned, reminding her of when they met, only a few days ago; she'd felt an instant kinship with him and had hoped she wasn't being naive. Her chest tightened as she realized now he was one of the few genuine good guys—as Goody had been. Her heart ached to see him hurt.

She stuck her finger in the bullet hole in his jacket and felt for the wound. He winced.

"High on the shoulder," she said. "Not too bad."

His eyes widened. "Where is he?"

She looked out through the destroyed door. "He's just standing there, watching. I think he's toying with us."

At that moment Atropos's rain-blurred figure took a step toward them, then another.