The Ferryman Institute (38 page)

The Inspector himself was halfway through when he stopped. He turned to her, his face pensive.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mlle. Spiegel, but this is the part where I tell you I was lying. I never had any intention of letting you live. You know too many things and are too large a liability to be left to your own devices. I'm woefully sorry that fate has dealt you such an unfortunate hand. Please give my regards to whatever Ferryman guides you to the afterlife.”

Javrouche pointed the gun at her. “Au revoir, mademoiselle.”

Time stood still. In other circumstances, Alice would have found Javrouche's completely expected betrayal rather hilarious, but unfortunately, like her life, the list of other circumstances she would experience had been cut short.

She closed her eyes and waited for the end. Perhaps it was fitting that the taste of Disco Fries lingering on her tongue would be the last thing she remembered.

So be it
, she thought. And there it was—the final thought she'd been looking for ever since she started on this crazy adventure. Succinct, poignant . . . that would do. That would do nicely.

She smiled.

Except, instead of nothingness, she heard three noises in such quick succession that they were nearly superimposed on one another:
Gwuagh!—p-tink!—THUMF!
When her brain had a moment to sort out that auditory puzzle, it concluded that it kind of sounded like a man shouting in surprise, a silenced pistol going off, and the bullet from said pistol crashing into a wall.

Her eyes popped open.

It took her a moment to realize that two men—Charlie and the Inspector—were now tussling on the ground. As she began to piece things together (in her defense, her brain had been busy peacefully accepting its impending demise), Charlie regained his feet—how he managed that with his hands cuffed behind his back, she didn't know, but there it was. The other officers seemed caught in a state of shock, completely taken aback by Charlie's sheer audacity. Javrouche was lying flat on his back, gun now pointed menacingly at the ceiling like a hit man turtle flipped on his shell. Charlie must have barged into him somehow, which meant he'd evidently saved her life—again. Man, what was with this guy? Was there any situation he couldn't get out of? He looked pretty dreamy right then, running toward her with his hands completely locked behind his back, his eyes desperate but still calm, his lips opening in—

“Run!”
he screamed as he scrambled toward her.

It snapped Alice out of her reverie, and she quickly came to terms with the fact that she was, in fact, very much still alive, though, if she didn't move fast enough, not for much longer.

She got to her feet, cut in front of the Ferryman, and burst through an
Employees Only
door at the back of the dining room. The hallway split in two directions. Straight ahead looked to be a
series of small offices, while an entrance to the kitchen sat a few feet to their left.

“Go left!” Charlie yelled from over her shoulder. A dreadful crash went through the air as Charlie kicked over tables and chairs, making an impromptu barricade against the door they'd just clambered through.

The voice of Javrouche bellowing instructions rolled like thunder in the distance. Alice darted quickly to her left.

“What now?” she yelled as they suddenly found themselves in the kitchen. It was modestly sized, or so Alice imagined, given the premium space went for in New York. The cooks' reactions to her and Charlie's unannounced entrance were a mixed bag: some were shocked, others angry, a handful way too busy frying potatoes to give a crap. Apparently, just like in the movies, no good diner kitchen was complete without the obligatory cook who saw a pair of strangers running through his kitchen and shrugged.

“You need to cut off my hands!” Charlie called from behind her. He stumbled momentarily after he bumped into one of the more visibly upset cooks, but he managed to keep his feet.

Alice stopped midstride. “I need to
what
?”

“I need to get these cuffs off and that's the quickest way to do it.” At her look of extreme shock, he continued with waning patience. “They'll grow back, you know that. Come on—we're wasting time. Grab that knife and close your eyes if you have to.”

This wasn't quite the escape Alice had envisioned. The cooks were now chattering ceaselessly, mostly in Spanish, as Alice eyed the cleaver that just so happened to be sitting right in front of her. Even though she knew Charlie was telling the truth, the simple thought of actually chopping off someone's hands, immortal or not, made her gag.

Charlie, meanwhile, had already turned around and placed his arms on one of the prep tables as straight as he could.
Oh man . . . this is totally going to suck
, she thought.

She wrapped her fingers around the heavy blade and lifted it up just as one of the cooks—apparently the most brazen of the bunch—approached her with a look she didn't quite care for. He rattled off something she didn't catch, but his body language was pretty universal. Alice translated it to something like,
Tell me what the fuck is going on here before shit gets real.

For Alice, the proverbial shit was already the genuine article, so she honestly couldn't care less about explaining the situation. However, she wanted him off her back, and yesterday. It occurred to her then that she might be able to kill two birds with one stone. She inhaled sharply, held her breath, then brought the thick knife down twice in quick succession just below Charlie's wrists. Two loud
THWHACK
s silenced the room as the sharpened blade separated Charlie's hands from his arms, cuffs and all, with an easy grace. Without stopping, Alice whirled around with the knife still gripped tightly in her fingers, eyes blazing. She just so happened to find herself pointing it at the outspoken cook who'd been—or at least had seemed to be—threatening her and who now—again, seemingly—appeared to be shitting a brick. Like riding a bike, stilted Spanish she'd picked up from playing against the more culturally diverse soccer teams of Central Jersey combined with several years of half-remembered high-school classes into one fantastic outburst.

“¡Cállate! ¡Fuera ahora, estúpido mexicano, o voy a cortar tu pene!”

Much like the diner patrons earlier, the chef and his amigos didn't need to be told twice. Everyone bolted for what she assumed was the back door with the realization that
la gringa
was clearly
loca
. The outspoken chef, whose unmentionables she'd just
threatened to chop off, turned as he reached the back of the kitchen and gave her a menacing but almost tired glare.

“¡Soy dominicano, puta!”
And with that, he was gone.

“I had no idea you were so racist,” Charlie said as he surveyed his new stumps. Already, they seemed to be reextending themselves back into hands. “He was obviously Dominican.”

Alice winced. “You speak Spanish?”

“I've picked up a few languages over the years. Comes with the territory.”

She lined up a snide retort, but wasn't given the chance to use it. The noise in the kitchen suddenly escalated as a group of Ferryman officers burst in. With a small yelp, Alice bolted toward the back. She was getting nervous—the adrenaline was pumping, and the few undigested bits of garbage food she had managed to stuff down her face were roiling in angry protest. There was no time to be sick, though—not now. They needed to escape, to find Cartwright, to get this whole thing cleared up.

The past few minutes had given Alice a very good idea of what was waiting for her if she was caught—it rhymed with
breath
, which, coincidentally enough, she was running out of. A hallway cut sharply to the right at the back of the kitchen, the same direction the cooks had run, and she prayed to whatever god would listen that there was an exit at the end of it.

“I'm getting rather tired of chasing you, Mssr. Dawson,” came Javrouche's voice, pushing through the room like a foreboding wind. A cacophony of pots and pans crashing into various things enveloped the room.

Alice followed the hall to the right and was buoyed by the sight of an unremarkable brown door with a rusty-looking bar handle.
Please don't be locked, please lead outside, and please, for the love of God, be easy to open.

She finished her quick prayer to the Saint of Door Opening (she had no idea if that was a thing, but decided “Saint Jeremiah the Opener” sounded plausible enough) and, without slowing down, slammed her body into it. Her right arm went numb with the impact, but it swung open easily enough (
Praise be to you, Saint Jeremiah
) and she found herself stumbling out into a small alleyway. Off to her left, a dilapidated chain-link fence leaned forward, while to her right, the sound of Eighth Avenue traffic—and hopefully escape—played endlessly on a loop. It was the easiest decision she'd had to make in a while.

“Go!” Charlie yelled. “I'm right behind you!”

Though she wanted to shout something snappy back at Charlie, Alice found herself lacking the necessary oxygen required for sarcasm. She winced slightly from smashing into the door, only just realizing that she still held the knife from the kitchen in her right hand. Given the previous night's accident, probably not the smartest thing she'd ever done.

They burst out onto the sidewalk, Eighth Avenue straight ahead. Alice didn't exactly have directions on what to do at this point, so she turned to her left to head uptown, away from the fateful diner. She'd only taken two steps when she saw them—a group of Ferryman officers, four or five strong, heading toward them. One about-face later and she was heading in the opposite direction, only to see a trio barreling out of the Tick Tock. She froze.

“There!”

Alice took a peek over to her right, only to immediately regret it. Three more officers, with Javrouche keeping pace behind, his gun in hand, were following in their footsteps. She kept her eyes focused on the Inspector as she cut to her left, her brain telling her she needed to not have that godforsaken gun pointed at her again. She needed to get away. She needed to escape.

Alice never saw the taxi coming.

By the time she realized that she was standing in the middle of a car lane, the taxi was already bearing down on her. Its horn blared in protest, its tires squealing in horror as the brakes clamped down in an effort to stop on a dime. This cab was in rough shape, however, and its brakes probably couldn't have stopped on a runway, let alone a dime. She caught a glimpse of the driver, but it was hard to tell what he really looked like the way he was screaming from behind his windshield. Alice realized quickly that it was too late. She'd practically jumped out in front of it, and like the notorious deer in the headlights, she just stood there, staring at the lit-up words
OFF DUTY
.

A pair of hands suddenly pushed her farther into Eighth Avenue, her body tumbling through the air both from the force and the sheer unexpectedness of it. Behind her, she could hear the cab slam into something with a muted
crunch
, followed by a heavy
thud
. Several loud snaps and pops scattered out into the night air, almost the same sound that wet logs make when placed in a fire.

Next thing Alice knew, she was hitting pavement. She could feel her clothes and skin ripping and tearing as she skidded along the street. Her right shoulder, which bore most of the initial impact, seared with an ungodly pain before her head bounced off the ground.

Hard.

For an instant, a burst of colors dazzled her, dancing across her eyes. She lay there for a moment, wondering what the hell had just happened. Then, some unconscious function of her body implored her to get up. In a daze, she staggered to her feet. Her mind felt wrapped in cotton, most of it seemingly lost to the reaches of shock. The only thought that drove her on was that of escaping, a
notion that felt embedded into her psyche now at a subconscious level.

Though she'd made it to a standing position, her legs wobbled as if she were caught in the middle of an earthquake. The cabdriver jumped out of the car with his hands on his head, bewildered by the scene in front of him, but she ignored him. She barely registered Charlie's crumpled body at first, splayed out in front of the cab though it was. He was saying something to her—what was it? She couldn't make it out. Nothing audible seemed to be registering properly, actually. He was telling her something through gritted teeth. Alice frowned. She wanted to see him smile again.

The cabbie was looking at her now, talking quickly based on how his mouth was moving, but she couldn't make out his words, either. He seemed concerned about something, but all she could focus on was a long streak of gray in his bushy beard. Behind the taxi driver, on the side of Eighth Avenue opposite the diner, a man was running toward them. He looked familiar—where had she seen that man before?

That wasn't important. She needed to focus. What was she supposed to be doing again?

Escaping.

Yes, that was it. Charlie was crawling toward her now, but wasn't getting anywhere very fast, what with his left arm and leg looking like two snakes slithering next to him. At a conservative guess, they must have been broken in six or seven places. Good thing he didn't feel pain or anything. Alice watched his lips carefully. It looked like he was saying the word
go
, over and over again. Well, duh—she knew that, but she couldn't go without him. They were in this together, and they were going to escape together, too. They just needed to cross the street, that's all. To get away from
the men chasing them. Where were those guys anyway? She turned and looked back toward the diner . . .

. . . and there was Javrouche. Pistol in hand, he grabbed Charlie underneath his arms. The Inspector was shouting something, and suddenly the pistol was pointed at Alice. She could see right down the long barrel of the silencer, almost as if it were an extension of his outstretched arm. Even so, Javrouche's attention was on Charlie, whom he continuously tried to lift up, but couldn't. Seeing this, two officers were running over to assist the Inspector.