Mything Persons

his constant carping and allergy problems throughout

this venture, I was tending to discount his usefulness.

Not so. The vampires we encountered in our flight had

not heard the alarm and were unprepared for the whirl-

wind that burst into their midst. Guido never seemed to

116 Robert Asprin MYTH-ING PERSONS 117

break stride as he barreled into victim after victim, but

whatever he did to them was effective. None of the

fallen bodies which marked his progress attempted to

interfere with Aahz or I ... heck, they didn't even

move.

"River ahead. Boss!" he called over his shoulder.

"What's that?" I puffed, realizing for the first time

how out of shape I had grown during my prosperous

stay at the Bazaar.

"A river!" he repeated. "The street we're on is going

to dead-end into a river in a few blocks. I can see it'from

here. We're going to have to change direction or we'll

get pinned against the water."

I wondered whether it wouldn't be a good idea for us

to just plunge into the river and put some moving water

between us and the vampires, as I seemed to recall a

legend that that was one of the things that could stop

them. Then it occurred to me that my bodyguard prob-

ably couldn't swim.

"Head right!" Aahz shouted. "There! Up that

alley."

Guido darted off on the indicated course with my

partner and I pounding along about fifteen paces

behind him. We had built up a bit of a lead on our pur-

suers, though we could still hear their cries and yelps a

block or so back, and for the first time I started to have

the hope that we might actually elude them. Now that

we were out of their line of sight....

"Lookout. ..."

There was a sudden cry from above, and Massha

came crashing to the ground, gaming the dubious

distinction of being the first person I've ever witnessed

doing a belly-flop on dry land. I'm sure the ground

didn't actually shake, but the impact was enough to

leave that impression. I experienced a quick flash of

guilt, realizing that my first thought was not for the

well-being of my apprentice, but rather unbridled relief

that she hadn't landed on one of us.

"I think the controls just came unstuck," Aahz said,

rather unnecessarily to my thinking.

"Are you all right, Massha?" I said, crouching over

her.

"Wha—ha ..." came the forced reply.

"Of course, she's not all right," Aahz snapped,

assuming translator duties. "At the very least she's got

the wind knocked out of her."

Whatever the exact extent of the damages suffered

from her fall, my apprentice wasn't even trying to rise. I

would have liked to give her a few minutes recovery

time, but already the sounds of our pursuers were draw-

ing closer.

"Can you carry her, Aahz?"

"Not on my best day," my partner admitted, eyeing

Massha's sizable bulk. "How about you? Have you got

enough juice left to levitate her?"

I shook my head violently.

"Used it all supervising our aerial maneuvers back at

the jail."

"Hey. Boss!" Guido hissed, emerging from the

shadows behind us. "The alley's blocked. This is the

only way out!"

And that was that. Even if we got Massha up and

moving, all it meant was that we'd have to retrace our

steps right back into the teeth of the mob. We had run

our race... and were about to lose it rather spectacu-

larly.

The others knew it, too.

"Well, it's been nice working with you, Guido,"

Aahz said with a sigh. "I know I've gotten on your case

a couple of times, but you're a good man to have

around in a pinch. You did some really nice crowd work

getting us this far. Sorry about that last turn call."

118 Robert Asprin MYTH-ING PERSONS 119

"No hard feelings," my bodyguard shrugged. "You

gave it your best shot. This alley would have been my

choice, too, if I'd been workin' alone. Boss, I warned

you I was a jinx when it came to jailbreaks. I gotta ad-

mit, though, for a while there I really thought we were

goin' to pull this one off."

"It was a long shot at best." I grinned. "At least you

can't say that this one suffered from over-planning."

Aahz clapped a hand on my shoulder.

"Well, partner?" he said. "Any thoughts on how to

play this one? Do we try to surrender peacefully, or go

down swinging?"

I wasn't sure the crowd would give us a choice. They

were almost at our alley, and they didn't sound like they

cared much for talking.

"NOT THIS WAY! THEY'RE DOUBLING BACK

TOWARD THE JAIL!"

This unexpected cry came from the street near the

mouth of our alley.

I.couldn't believe it, but apparently the mob did.

There were curses and shouted orders, but from their

fast-fading manner it was plain that the crowd had

turned and was now heading back the way they had

come.

"What was that?" Massha managed, her voice re-

turning at last.

I motioned her to be silent and cocked an eyebrow at

Aahz, silently asking the same question.

He answered with an equally silent shake of the head.

Neither of us knew for sure what was going on, but

we both sensed that the timely intervention was neither

accidental nor a mistake. Someone had deliberately

pulled the crowd off our backs. Before we celebrated

our good fortune, we wanted to know who and why.

A pair of figures appeared at the mouth of the alley.