The Dark River

Gabriel ran silently across the cobblestones. Cutter didn’t see his opponent, and Gabriel began to narrow the space between them. They were at the bottom of Snow Hill, the narrow street that led up to St. Sepulchre and the looming silhouette of the Old Bailey criminal court building. Cutter vaulted over a car, spun around, and saw Gabriel. Surprised, he took off and sprinted up the hill. When they were about two hundred yards from the church, Cutter couldn’t resist his own fear. He began glancing over his shoulder again and again, forgetting everything but his opponent.

A black London cab emerged from the shadows and turned onto the street. The cabdriver saw the red tracksuit and slammed on the brakes. Cutter leaped up into the air, but his legs hit the cab’s windshield and he bounced off like a straw effigy of a man tossed into the street.

The cab screeched to a stop. The Manchester crew came running, but Gabriel continued up the hill and climbed over the spike fence to the empty garden of St. Sepulchre. Bending over, he placed his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath. A Free Runner in the city.

14

Maya walked down East Tremont and turned onto Puritan Avenue. Directly across the street was her current hiding place-the Bronx Tabernacle of the Divine Church of Isaac T. Jones. Vicki Fraser had contacted the local minister and he had allowed the fugitives to stay at the church until they figured out a new plan.

Although Maya would have preferred to leave New York, the East Tremont section of the Bronx was much safer than Manhattan. It was a frayed-at-the-edges, working-class area-the kind of neighborhood that had no large department stores and only a few banks. There were surveillance cameras in East Tremont, but they were easily avoided. The government cameras protected parks and schools. The privately owned cameras were inside bodegas and liquor stores-conspicuously pointed at the front counter.

THREE DAYS EARLIER, she and Alice had escaped from the underground world beneath Grand Central Terminal. In the daytime, they might have encountered city workers, but it was very early in the morning and the tunnels were cold, dark, and empty. The dead-bolt locks and padlocks on the doors were standard models-not difficult to open with Maya’s small collection of picks and tension wrenches. Her only other tool was the random number generator that dangled from the cord around her neck. At different junctions, she pressed the button and chose a direction based on the number that flashed on the screen.

They passed beneath the streets of the Midtown area and followed the railroad tunnel that ran up the west side of Manhattan. When they emerged from the tunnel, it was a new day. Alice hadn’t gotten any food-or sleep-since they left the loft, but the little girl remained beside her. Maya flagged down a gypsy cab and told the driver to take them downtown to Tompkins Square Park.

Approaching the message board on the Purest Children memorial, she saw that no one was waiting for her. An unpleasant sensation-something close to fear-passed through her. Was Gabriel dead? Had the Tabula captured him? Maya knelt down on the cold pavement and read the message: G2LONDON. She knew Gabriel needed to find his father, but at that moment his decision felt like a betrayal. Her father was right-a Harlequin should never form an attachment with a Traveler.

When she came out of the park, she saw Alice standing beside the gypsy cab, waving frantically at her. Maya felt annoyed at this act of disobedience until she saw that Hollis and Vicki had just arrived in another taxi. They asked where Gabriel was and explained that they had been separated from him as well, eventually emerging from the underground and checking into an off-the-Grid hotel in Spanish Harlem. Neither of them discussed what had happened at the hotel, but Maya sensed that the warrior and the virgin had finally become lovers. Vicki’s uneasiness around Hollis had completely disappeared. When she touched him at the Chinatown loft, it had always been a quick, fluttery gesture. Now she took the palm of her hand and held it against his arm or his shoulder, as if reaffirming the connection there.

THE BRONX TABERNACLE of the Divine Church was an impressive-sounding name for two rented rooms above the Happy Chicken restaurant. Crossing the street, Maya peered through the fogged-up window of Happy Chicken and saw two bored cooks standing guard behind a steam table. She had purchased dinner there last night and discovered that the meat wasn’t just cooked at the take-out restaurant; it was frozen, thawed, sliced, pounded with mallets, and then deep-fried until covered with a rock-hard crust.