Resurrection (27 page)

She would win, Eddie saw, but not without incapacitating those men. And if she did so, every policeman in Cairo would be after her.

The watching crowd was growing, people transfixed. Enon-Amet was anxious to have this business done so they could retreat to a private meeting, and Adaiz was equally anxious to get his brother out of the public square. The policemen were incompetent. Adaiz, having no gun of his own at the moment, turned to Mechanic’s tall bodyguard.

“End this, can you?”

Marcus nodded and reached for his gun.

Running, Eddie realized there was only one way to save Pruit. He veered from his course toward her and headed instead for the Mechanic and the men around him. The watching crowd was getting thicker, and he pushed his way roughly through.

He cut through the crowd thirty feet beyond the Lucien, then circled back behind them. Their eyes were on Pruit. One of the policemen fired at her. She leapt to the side, firing back and hitting the man in the leg. The other two policemen dove for her.

Eddie reached the hooded Lucien, coming up behind his robed back. Eddie’s knife was already drawn. In a quick motion, he grabbed the bottom edge of the Lucien’s robe and slid his knife up from bottom to top, slicing the material cleanly through. He grabbed the ragged edges of the robe with both hands and threw them forward.

The robe fell away, revealing the silver skin and alien form of Enon-Amet. His chest and arms were bare, gleaming. His pointed face stared out at the square in shock.

There were several moments when little changed and time was slow. There was the chatter of the crowd, with all eyes turned to Pruit. Then there was a high, long scream, as a child saw the Lucien. Eyes turned.

Adaiz saw that his brother stood exposed. Enon was paralyzed. This was the nightmare they had imagined since arriving on Earth. He was exposed as alien before a sea of barbaric humanity.

Even the police were looking at the silver Lucien. They had suddenly forgotten Pruit.

Enon looked wildly around.

“Adaiz!” he cried softly. “Adaiz!” He needed direction.

Adaiz had no idea what the reaction of the crowd or the policemen would be. But they would not stare in silence forever. In a moment, they would move to action. All he knew was he must get his brother out of this location as quickly as possible.

“Run!” he said in Avani, pushing Enon toward the café. “Run! Our escape route!”

Time shifted gears. Enon-Amet turned toward the café and began to run, but there was Pruit, heading him off, preventing his escape. She pointed her gun at him, aiming for the flesh of his neck, one of the Lucien’s most vulnerable spots. She fired, and Enon felt the bullet sing by his head.

He veered aside, changing course as she fired again. He could not follow the rehearsed route. Instead, he ran across the top of the square, the crowd turning to watch, still transfixed. There were small numbers of people who continued to browse through vending stalls, unaware of the commotion. In moments, Enon found himself in the middle of these. He gripped a woman’s shoulder and thrust her aside as he sprinted for the end of the square.

There was an intersection up ahead, a smaller road leading off. He headed toward it, his gun now in his hand. There was a thick grouping of people in front of him, and he fired at them, spraying out bursts of laser. The crowd dispersed, several falling to the ground.

Pruit was after him. She wove her way through the crowd, people trying to get out of her way, and then she was in an all-out sprint to catch up.

Two of the policemen were intact. Watching the silver alien wreaking havoc on the crowds, they came back to themselves. They were policemen, this was their city, and no matter how fantastic this creature was, it was their duty to stop it and capture it, if possible. If they did not, there would be thousands of witnesses to point out their failure. “Come!” the senior of the two yelled; then they too were running, their machine guns clutched in their hands.

Adaiz watched Enon run, and he looked wildly around, trying to make a plan, trying to figure out a way to save him. He cleared the pain of his wounds from his mind and grabbed the gun from Marcus, pushing the tall man away as he did so. Then he was running after his brother.

Enon ducked up a new alley, only to find it thickly crowded. He shoved and shot his way through. Pruit ran into the alley after him and saw the crowds, which were now in an all-out panic, trying to disperse, trampling on the bodies of the men and women who had been killed by the Lucien’s gun. Her eyes flitted over a little boy crying and pulling at the hand of his dead mother. Near him, a young woman was staring in shock at the body of her husband.

She jumped onto a vending stall, grabbed the bottom of an overhanging balcony, and swung herself up and out of the melee. From here, she looked across a series of haphazard balconies and roofs, following the route of the bazaar. She jumped to a new balcony, surprising two small children napping in the sun, then grabbed the roof and hoisted herself up. She was on corrugated aluminum, hot and smooth.

Below, she saw Enon still fighting through the square even as people tried to get out of his way. Pruit’s shawl had long since fallen off, and now she ripped off her black robe, leaving only light pants and a thin blouse. She felt immediate relief from the heat, then was running again, finding her balance on the uneven roofs, jumping from one building to the next.

For a moment, she lost sight of Enon. Then she saw him. He was climbing to the top of the buildings opposite her. She fired, using her projectile weapon. The shot went wild, ricocheting off an unlit neon sign across the alley. She dropped to one knee and fired again with steady hand. The shot missed him narrowly.

Now Enon was atop the roof. He was running fast, his long legs carrying him in what looked like an endless series of leaps. He cleared the breaks between buildings with no effort at all. He fired back at Pruit, but he was not stopping, and the shots were off, searing the roof several yards from her.

Pruit could see the police in the alley below, pointing up at the roof. They too fired at the Lucien, using rapid-fire weapons that made up for lack of accuracy with sheer numbers of bullets. Enon tucked his head down inside his high collar bone to protect his neck from the shots, but he could not maintain this position, for it prevented him from seeing his way.

Then Enon was hit. Pruit saw him jerk forward, and there were two brown splotches on his upper back where he had begun to bleed. He did not stop running. She was familiar enough with Lucien anatomy to know that the sheaf of bone protecting his upper body would prevent those shots from doing much damage.

Then she felt and heard a bullet sear the air by her own head. She turned and found that Adaiz was on the roof behind her, heading at her in a dead run. Like the Lucien, he ran in great, strong leaps. There was blood on his shoulder and side where his wounds had reopened. He seemed ignorant of this, wholly consumed in chasing her. She fired back at him, still running, and missed.

Pruit jumped a span between two buildings and landed hard. A laser shot tore into the roof just in front of her hands—the Lucien was shooting again. Then another bullet from Adaiz, this one grazing her left arm. She leapt up and ran as two more laser shots plowed into the roof behind her.

Adaiz knew there were only twelve shots in this gun. He had just used two. It did not matter; he would get Pruit. Something had happened to him as he chased her. He had found himself elated rather than angry. Though he was aware of the sore burning of his wounds; the pain no longer bothered him. He would get his chance to finish what they had started in Jean-Claude’s rooms, and this time, he would not be shaken by her.

Pruit leapt to a lower building and was out of Adaiz’s sight for a moment. One of the policemen was on the roof with the Lucien now, chasing the silver being furiously. The policeman fired his gun with abandon, and Pruit saw several more bullets hit home in Enon’s back.

Enon stumbled. As he lost his balance, he turned and fired at the policeman. The man collapsed, his leg hit. Enon fired again, and as he did, Pruit dropped to her knee and sighted on him. His head was up; his neck was exposed. She thumbed the trigger and shot. Enon’s arms went to his throat, and she heard a scream issue from him, sibilant and awful.

Adaiz turned his head just in time to see his brother fall. Enon tottered for a moment, almost as though he were under control. Then his body collapsed in a twisting motion. He landed at the edge of the roof and toppled over, falling down into the alley below.

Confusion reigned in the alley. There were two dozen dead in the street. Children were crying. Men were pulling the bodies of loved ones away. A few unlucky victims were crawling about numbly, clutching laser wounds that would soon kill them. Most people were huddled at the sides of the alley and in shops. There were sirens everywhere, closing in on the bazaar.

Pruit turned to see Adaiz staring in shock at the dead Lucien. She fired at him, but he caught her motion from the corner of his eye and dropped to the roof in a move that must have been agony on his damaged shoulder. She ran toward him, and Adaiz fired from his prone position. She leapt to the side, and they could both hear the shot whining away across the roof.

Adaiz fired again, but the gun was empty. He rolled to the edge of the roof and dropped off. He landed on a balcony and quickly swung his feet out and over its edge and dropped down into the alley.

There were still scores of people here, crouched in doorways, staring at the corpse of the Enon, which was already fading to a dull gray, with brown smears of blood drying in the heat.

Adaiz hit the ground and ducked under the cover of the balcony. The wound in his side was bleeding, and he was nearly doubled over. Another shot from Pruit hit the cobblestones underfoot.

Pruit leapt down onto the balcony. Her eyes swept the alley and the buildings across from her. The final remaining policeman was knelt over the Lucien’s body, studying it for any signs of life.

She saw Adaiz dart across the alley and into a dark doorway. He was unarmed, Pruit realized. He would be looking for a weapon. She dropped over the balcony and landed in a crouch in the alley. People were huddled in a shop behind her, staring at her with frightened eyes. Pruit turned from them, her eyes on the doorway where Adaiz had disappeared. She walked toward it, gun and knife at ready.

Adaiz slipped into the doorway and passed blindly down a hallway. It was walled by sheets of cheap particleboard that let in streams of sunlight. He could see her through openings between the boards. She was walking toward him.

Mentally, he neutralized the pain in his side. He stumbled over the bodies of three beggars who lay half-asleep in this stuffy hall, ignorant of the battle outside. He passed them and found another doorway back into the alley. Just outside were the policeman and the body of his brother, lying in the street. Enon was dead, that much was obvious, but Adaiz could not grieve yet. He looked at Pruit and discovered he still felt the battle elation. She was there, he was here, and his path was clear.

He judged the distance and saw her face turned to the first doorway where he had disappeared. He put his legs in motion, bolting from the passageway and back into the sunlight. There was the policeman, leaning over Enon. The man had two guns. The large one was gripped in his hands. The smaller one, the handgun, was in a holster at his side.

Pruit saw Adaiz as he emerged back into the alley. She turned, and their eyes met, and as they did, Adaiz felt himself vaulted into the awareness of the egani-tah. He could feel himself, he could feel the alley, he could feel her.

As Pruit looked at him, she nearly lost her balance in a sensation of broadening awareness. She could not find herself. She was moving even while she was still. She was bigger than a single location.

And then she knew. She was not only herself. She was him as well. He had encompassed her. They were looking across at each other, and she could see both sides, and she had two minds. Suddenly, there were thoughts, and they were pouring into her and out of her. She could not control it. He had created the connection, and she could only experience it.

I will kill him now.

I will kill her now.

She has killed my dear brother. I am alone to finish this mission. And I will finish it, and I will bring the prize of that technology home. And in a few years, the Plaguers will be no more.

He will sacrifice me and sacrifice my race.

And then their minds were fully joined, and there was only one other thought, which they shared equally:
You will never leave here alive.

Pruit raised her gun. Adaiz grabbed the policeman from behind and jerked the handgun from its holster. In the same motion, he pushed the man aside, and he and Pruit were facing each other.

Pruit fired. Adaiz fired. Both of them and each of them were aware of their hands on the triggers and the final pressure. The guns discharged.

Adaiz felt Pruit’s thumb press her trigger, he saw the trajectory of her aim, and he was already twisting aside.

Pruit felt Adaiz’s index finger pull back on the trigger of the handgun. Through his eyes, she saw the gun and where it pointed, she saw her own face down the barrel, and she was already dropping to the ground, out of the bullet’s path.

And then, as they each hit the ground, the egani-tah was broken, and Pruit and Adaiz were separate again.

The policeman jumped at Adaiz, swinging the barrel of his machine gun around. In a moment, Adaiz was embroiled in another fight for his life and had no attention left for her.