Nocturnal

The Long Night

The cold rain poured down, soaking sweatshirts, jeans, shoes and even socks — it made Alex Panos miserable.

Alex and Issac walked north on Hyde Street, their sweatshirt hoods up and their heads down. They were careful not to bump into anyone. The Federal Building rose up on their right, part of a world Alex didn’t understand and didn’t care about.

What he did care about was staying alive. To do that, he had to start taking some chances.

“Alex,” Issac said, “I don’t wanna do this.”

Alex’s lip curled up. “You should shut up now, Issac.”

Of all the people to be stuck with, he had that whiney bitch Issac. Issac should have been the one to fall to his death, not Jay.

“This rain sucks,” Issac said. “It’s been days, man. I’m cold and I’m hungry. Maybe we should just go to the cops.”

Cops like Bryan Clauser? No way Alex would go to the police. No way.

Without the Boston College gear, Alex and Issac were just two more teenagers walking the streets. They’d found places to sleep, but they had been careful not to break in anywhere or to do anything that would attract attention.

Because someone wanted them dead.

“Come on,” Issac whined. “If you’re going to your mom’s, let me go see my parents. I got to at least let them know I’m okay.”

Alex stopped and turned. Issac stopped, too, wide-eyed with the instant knowledge he’d pushed it too far.

“You’re not going home,” Alex said. Issac was a big kid, but Alex had a good three inches and at least twenty pounds on him. They’d scrapped once. After the beating Alex had dished out, Issac wasn’t going to try it again.

“We stay together,” Alex said. “We’re going to my mom’s because we need the money.”

“You spent like five hundred bucks on that gun,” Issac said. “That was all we had. And I don’t even get to carry it.”

Alex nodded. No, Issac didn’t get to carry it. That was the breaks. Alex reached behind his back, patted the gun under his sweatshirt where he’d tucked it into his belt. He was checking it every five minutes, it seemed, just to make sure it didn’t fall out.

He’d always wanted a Glock but had been afraid to get one. Being busted as a minor in possession of narcotics was one thing — being in possession of a gun was another. But now someone was trying to kill him, someone connected with the cops. Alex wasn’t going out like Oscar, and he sure as hell wasn’t going out like Jay.

Issac looked like he was about to cry. “I know we need money,” he said, “but can you really rob your mom?”

“I’m not going to put the gun to her head, stupid,” Alex said. “She probably won’t even be there. I know where she keeps the money. I’m done with your whining, man. If you’re going to act like a bitch, I’m going to treat you like a bitch. You got it?”

Alex stared, waiting for an answer. He couldn’t let Issac go to his parents. That would bring the cops. Alex would do whatever he had to to stay safe, stay hidden. If Issac had to be shut up for good, well, that’s the way it was.

Issac nodded. “Okay, man. I’m down for the ride.”

“I know this sucks,” Alex said. “We don’t have a choice. Do this with me, then I think we can sleep in a house tonight. April’s parents are gone for a couple of days.”

Issac smiled. “Shrek? Dude, no way.”

Alex laughed and punched Issac in the shoulder — playful, but Alex wanted it to hurt a little, just a reminder of who was in charge. Issac winced, then forced a laugh of his own.

“She’s putting us up,” Alex said. “So you call her April, not Shrek. We’ll get Mom’s cash, then we’ll go to April’s place.”

“What then? What do we do when April’s parents come back?”

Alex wished he knew. Maybe it was time to get out of San Francisco. They had a gun now. They could rob places, get money, just keep moving until he figured out what to do.

“I’ll tell you later,” Alex said. “All I know is that tonight, when you’re all warm and dry, you’ll feel like a douchebag for making fun of me about April a few weeks ago, huh?”

“I guess,” Issac said. “I mean, she does kind of look like an ogre.”

“Yeah, and I’ll be the one getting my dick sucked tonight. You won’t be getting shit. She’ll do whatever I tell her. I might even tell her you get to watch.”

Issac’s blue eyes widened. “Oh, wow, man.”

Alex couldn’t tell if that was an oh wow of excitement or fear. Didn’t matter. Doing stuff in front of Issac would embarrass the hell out of April. Some girls liked humiliation.

They passed a boarded-up doorway. A homeless guy completely covered in a soaking wet blanket lay there, trying to avoid the worst of the rain. Alex didn’t know who had it worse, him or the bum. Unlike the bum, Alex was young, strong, and would find a way to stay alive — but at least the bum didn’t have someone trying to kill him.

The rain kept pouring down. Alex and Issac kept walking north.

Pookie walked back to the table with a second round of beers — an Elizabeth Street Brewery IPA for him, a Bud Light for Bryan. Bryan had no taste in beer.

Bryan sat on the bar stool, his elbows on the small, round table, his head in his hands. The table was right next to the bar’s namesake — a twelve-foot-tall wooden statue of Bigfoot himself. The statue made Pookie think of drawings of snake-men, and of an old lady talking about building-climbing werewolves.

Pookie set the beers on the table.

“Buck up, little Terminator,” he said. “Turn that frown upside down. Also, just insert your favorite peppy euphemism here.”

Bryan lifted his head. “A do-it-yourself pep talk?”

“Absolutely,” Pookie said. “The night is darkest before the dawn. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. If you don’t drink, I’ll keep talking.”

Bryan picked up his bottle and drank.

Pookie’s partner was angry and confused, and rightfully so. Bryan wanted to fight, he wanted to lash out at something. He was damn close to going off like a bull in a china shop. But it was Chief Zou’s china shop, and that would not end well.

“Bri-Bri, we’ll get this figured out.”

“You keep saying that. It just gets worse. A cop is dead because of this shit, Pooks. And Robertson gives us the boot?”

“We’ll find the guy who did this,” Pookie said. “We’ll find out what’s up with your dreams, Rex’s drawings, the symbols, all of it.”

Bryan moved his bottle in slow circles on the table. “I think I made those drawings because of Rex, because I saw the same stuff he saw.”

Pookie couldn’t see how such a thing was possible, but he wasn’t about to rule it out. At some point, you have to believe what your eyes are telling you. Seeing the snake-face drawing in Rex’s room proved that there was some kind of connection.

“Astral projection, Bri-Bri? Telepathy? Mind-controlling little green men?”

Bryan shook his head. “I got no idea, man. All I know is Rex hates BoyCo. Hates them with everything he’s got.”

“Hate is a valid motive to kill Oscar and Jay,” Pookie said. “But did he have the means?”

“You saw Bobby’s body. Someone in Rex’s house did that, and it wasn’t his dead mom.”

Pookie shook his head. “Sure, but it wasn’t Rex. Kid is a buck-ten after two trips to the pasta buffet. He’s working with adults, and big ones at that. Let’s not count your dreams for now. Based on what Tiffany Hine saw, and based on what Mister Biz-Nass told us about Marie’s Children wearing costumes, we have to assume that Rex is mixed up in that cult.”

Bryan made more beer-bottle circles. “He’s thirteen. He’s an outcast. Maybe he gets recruited by Marie’s Children. Maybe he makes some kind of deal with them to kill his enemies. That’s plausible, but it doesn’t explain my dreams. More important, it doesn’t explain why anyone would cover this up. The body count is up to three.”

“Four,” Pookie said. “Oscar Woody, Jay Parlar, Birdman and don’t forget Rex’s mom.”

“Right, four,” Bryan said. “Why would Zou and Robertson let this happen? If Marie’s Children are behind the killings … maybe Zou is part of the cult?”

That same thought had been rattling around the back of Pookie’s mind. It seemed that Zou had to be involved, somehow, but to think that the city’s top cop was part of some wacko witches’ coven? The idea shook Pookie’s beliefs to the core.

“She’s been a cop for thirty years, Bryan. How would she have got hooked up with them?”

“Maybe on the Golden Gate Slasher case, she found something. Or maybe something found her. Look at her career. She started out on patrol, she works a case with the symbols, winds up as an inspector” — Bryan snapped his fingers — “just like that.”

Pookie nodded, trying to work through the possibilities. “Yeah, okay, so maybe she’s a shit-kicking rookie who gets a break on the Golden Gate Slasher case. That case brings her into contact with the occult freaks behind the killings, assuming that the John Doe didn’t act alone. Marie’s Children recruit her, or indoctrinate her, or make her wear a fez hat like those Shriners, whatever, and bam — they have someone on the inside of the SFPD.”

Bryan slow-motion-slid his bottle from his left hand to his right, then back again. “Doesn’t get more inside than the chief of police. Someone with a lot of power gets control of Zou, then moves her up the ranks until she controls what cops get assigned to murder cases.”

“Maybe,” Pookie said. “But it still doesn’t add up. We think Verde is in on this with her. Birdman was Verde’s partner, so wouldn’t that mean Birdman was in on it as well? Why send Verde and the Birdman somewhere they could get killed? And the BOLO out on Rex is no joke — every cop in the city is looking for that kid. If he’s in Marie’s Children, and Zou is in Marie’s Children, why wouldn’t she pull the BOLO?”

The connections just weren’t there. On top of that, it didn’t jibe with Pookie’s instincts.

“Chief Zou has been a superstar cop for thirty frickin’ years, Bri-Bri. She’s done every job, from patrol to inspector to administration. She’s been shot twice in the line of duty. She’s won every award the department has to offer. And we’re thinking she’d take money to cover up for serial killers? I can’t buy it.”

“Might not be money,” Bryan said. “Blackmail, maybe.”

Pookie’s cell phone buzzed: a text. He pulled out the phone and read it. It was from Susie Panos.

SUSIE PANOS: ALEX IS HOME. HURRY!

He showed the text to Bryan.

Both men slid off their stools and ran for the door, leaving their beer and the giant statue of Bigfoot behind.

Night had fallen. Under a small tree just inside Sharp Place at the corner of Union Street, Rex and Marco waited. Waited and watched. They each had a blanket. Not the warm kind, either — Rex’s blanket was already soaked. It stank. Marco said that was important, the stinky part. It made sure people kept on walking.

The blankets were more complicated than Rex had thought. They were heavy because they were actually four blankets sewn together at one edge. Like the pages of a book, you could flip them so that a different color faced out: dark gray, brick-red, black and dark green. All the colors had lots of stains. The blankets also had hidden pockets. Marco kept his hatchet in one, safely out of sight.

On the way to this spot, Marco had stopped to show Rex how the blankets worked. When Marco picked the right color and slid into a shadowy area, then sat perfectly still, he all but disappeared.

Marco had also shown Rex how to wrap the blanket around his head, almost like a hood. Rex could see out, but for someone to see in they’d have to get real close.

Rex was cold, wet, shivering, and he’d never felt this amazing. The cold, the wet, those things didn’t matter — he was waiting, he was watching.

He was hunting.

“Do I get to meet Sly tonight?”

“Probably,” Marco said. “He’ll call when he comes out. He’ll be very happy to know I have you.”

“Why don’t you just call him?”

“No cell-phone reception at home,” Marco said. “Just wait, my king — Sly will call.”

Rex kept looking up at the window across the street.

“Sixth floor, you said?”

Marco nodded. “I followed Alex here myself a few days ago. He likes to hang out on the fire escape, so I know which apartment is his.”

The fire escape ran up the face of the ten-story building. A row of bay windows rose up on either side, close enough to the fire escape that someone could step out of them right onto the small, metal landings.

Alex could be in that building. Rex was so close.

“What is Sucka going to do?”

“Kill him,” Marco said. “Sucka has been waiting for his chance. Pierre got to kill the first one. I helped, but Pierre got him. Chomper and Dragonbreath got the second.”

Chomper? Dragonbreath? Such cool names. Sucka was also a cool name, but Rex didn’t want him to kill Alex unless Rex could see it happen. He wanted to watch Alex suffer. He needed to hear Alex beg.

“Marco, tell Sucka to bring Alex out here.”

The bearded man’s eyes widened. “My king, we can’t bring him out here! It’s too early, people are around, we’d be spotted!”

“Then take me inside. I need to see that bully die.”

Marco shook his head. He looked pained, like he might cry at any moment. “You’re my king and I’m supposed to obey, but I gotta keep you safe! We can’t go in. Please just stay here and let Sucka do it for you.”

If Rex was the king, then people had to do what he said. He’d spent his whole life being told what to do — now he would do the telling.

“I said I want to see it. Tell Sucka not to kill Alex until I get there.”

Marco just stared. He didn’t seem to know what to do. After a few seconds, his blanket slid aside a little. His hand came up with a cell phone.

“We get these at CVS,” Marco said. “Or Walgreens. Just buy them and turn them on. It was Sly’s idea, ’cause they can’t trace them back to us or nothing.”

He started to dial, then stopped. “My king, what about other people in the apartment? What if the boy’s mother is home?”

Rex thought about that. He closed his eyes and remembered the leather belt tightening around Roberta’s neck, how she had struggled and scratched.

His dick started to stiffen.

“He can kill the mother,” Rex said. “And he can kill Issac if he has to, I guess, but you tell Sucka not to kill Alex until we come up there. I … uh … I command that, or whatever.”

Marco dialed.

Rex tried to sit still. He waited.

“No fucking way, Mom,” Alex said. “Issac and me ain’t going to the cops!”

She was crying. The bitch was always crying.

Alex packed clean clothes into a duffel bag. Issac looked through Alex’s dresser, searching for dry clothes that wouldn’t look all baggy on his smaller frame.

His mom was doing that thing with the tissue paper again, wadding it up and pulling little bits out of the ball.

“Alex, honey, the police say your life is in danger. Just stay here with me. We’ll call them together.”

He walked closer to her. He towered over his mother.

“I’m not going to the cops, and you better not call them. You got that, Mom? Just give me some money, we have to get out of here.”

“Alex, baby, please.”

“Mom, we saw Jay die. We were on our way to get him. Remember that cop in black that came here? He was pointing his gun in Jay’s face. The cops are the ones that want to kill us.”

His mother’s upper lip quivered. Snot dripped out of her left nostril. So goddamn pathetic.

“But, Alex, baby, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would the cops want you dead? What have you done?”

He still didn’t have an answer to that. He and the boys had done some bad shit, for sure, but definitely nothing worth killing Oscar and Jay over.

“It’s raining, baby,” his mother said. “It’s cold and wet out. Can’t you just stay here till it stops?”

Issac nodded with way too much enthusiasm. “That’s a good idea. Just till the rain stops. Don’t you think that’s a good idea, Alex?”

Alex stared at Issac until the smaller boy looked away. Then he stared at his mom. She was hiding something. He looked down — she had her phone in her hand.

He grabbed her wrist, lifted it up hard.

“Ouch! Alex, stop it!”

He ripped the phone out of her hand. She grabbed for it, but he pushed her. She fell back hard against his bedroom door.

He called up her texts. The most recent one read:

ALEX IS HOME. HURRY!

She’d sent it right after he and Issac had slipped in the building’s back door and come up to the apartment. Sent to Pookie Chang, SFPD. Alex’s stomach felt tight — those cops were coming. How could his own mother have sold him out like that?

He knelt and shoved the phone into her face. “This guy you just texted? He was there when Jay died! He’s partners with the one that shoved a gun in Jay’s face, you stupid whore!”

“Alex! Please!”

He wanted to punch her in the mouth, but he couldn’t — she was still his mother. He ran to the living room, grabbed her purse and brought it back. Inside he found fifty bucks and a small bag of weed. He threw the purse at her; it hit her in the face. She covered her mouth, and then — of course — started crying again.

“Backstabbing bitch,” Alex said. “Issac, get up. We’ve got to—”

The sound of splitting wood: someone had just smashed through the apartment’s front door.

Rain poured down even harder, but that became a background thing as Rex saw the sixth-floor window open. He saw a big body climb out onto the fire escape, black sweatshirt and jeans making him blend into the night. As soon as that person climbed out, another followed.

“Marco,” Rex said. “That looks like Alex and Issac.”

Marco worriedly pulled at his ear. “Uh-oh. Where’s Sucka?”

“I don’t even know who Sucka is, so you tell me.”

Marco looked at his phone, as if by doing so he could make it ring and tell him what was happening. Raindrops splashed off the illuminated screen. He looked back up at the boys on the fire escape. “I’m not sure what’s happening.”

Rex felt confused — Marco had acted so quickly back at Rex’s house, but now the man seemed lost, unsure. Maybe he needed specific orders or something?

Alex and Issac climbed down the fire escape’s steep switchback stairs, moving from the sixth floor down to the fifth. If they got away, would anyone be able to find them? They would escape and that wouldn’t be fair, not when they were right there.

“Marco,” Rex said. “Get them.”

Marco looked at Rex, then at the phone again, then to Alex and Issac.

“It’s not even midnight yet,” he said. “This is too public. There are rules.”

Alex reached the fourth-floor landing. He was going to get away.

Rex reached out and grabbed Marco’s wet beard, pulled the man’s face close. “I don’t care about your stupid rules. Get Alex! And don’t you dare kill him, you hear me talking to you?”

Marco’s eyes narrowed — not with anger, but with purpose. He put the phone away and stood. Blanket still over his shoulders, he reached into the hidden pocket and pulled out his hatchet.

Timing the traffic, Marco tucked the blanket tight around him, stepped out into the rain and started crossing the street.

Bryan held on tight. Pookie turned the Buick in a squealing right off Larkin onto Union. Wheels slid across wet pavement as windshield wipers tried to clear away the heavy rain. A block ahead, Susie’s building rose up into the night air. At ten stories high, it dominated the surrounding four- and five-story buildings.

The car’s tires slid, then caught. The Buick leveled out, rocking Bryan back to the right. They’d left the siren off — they didn’t want to warn the kid they were on the way.

Up the street, through the dark drizzle and fuzzy streetlight glow, Bryan saw movement on the front of the building; two figures descending the fire escape.

“That’s them,” Bryan said, pointing. “They’re already running.”

The boys stopped. Bryan saw one continue down, while the other reversed direction and started climbing up.

“They made us,” Bryan said. “You take the one on the fire escape, I’ll take the one about to hit the ground.”

Pookie swerved into the wrong lane to pass a truck, then cut in front of it just in time to miss a head-on with a black Acura. He ran a red light at Hyde, but the lights turned red as far as they could see and traffic slowed to a stop. Pookie locked up the brakes to keep from slamming into the cars ahead.

Bryan held the dashboard as the Buick’s momentum pulled him forward. As soon as the car rocked back, he was out the door.

The late hour and the rain combined to leave little foot traffic on the sidewalks. Just one person, in fact, moved across the water-sheened blacktop, crossing from one side of the street to the other.

A big mound of a person — a person covered with a blanket.

That person was crossing the street and heading for the bottom of the fire escape.

Holy shit this is really happening I’m not dreaming this time.

As Bryan ran, he looked to the fire escape. Even in the dim light and heavy rain, he recognized the thick build of Alex Panos standing on the bottom landing. Alex hit a lever; a ladder rattled down to the concrete.

Alex descended.

Bryan was twenty feet away from the blanket-covered man, who was still thirty feet from the fire escape. Alex reached the sidewalk and took off.

The shambling mound of a person moved faster. The blanket flapped away for a moment, and in that moment Bryan saw a glint of metal.

He drew his gun and sprinted faster.

Pookie scrambled up the cold, wet metal as fast as he dared. He looked up, blinking against the rain hitting his face, and was surprised to see a figure crawl out of a sixth-floor window and jump onto the fire escape. The person was little more than a shapeless shadow thanks to the heavy blanket that covered him. High above, at the eighth floor, Pookie saw a smaller figure — Issac.

Pookie’s feet hit hard on the fire escape steps. He had to get to Issac before that blanketed man did.

Bryan saw Alex running as fast as he could, big body lumbering, big arms swinging. The man chasing him moved much faster; he closed in on Alex, the gray blanket trailing behind like a heavy cape.

Goddamn he’s fast!

Still sprinting hard, Bryan raised his gun.

“Police! Get down!”

The man either ignored him or couldn’t hear over the rain.

Bryan thought of stopping, chancing a shot, but if he missed, he might hit Alex.

Pookie had made it to the seventh-story landing when the man chasing Issac vanished from sight onto the roof. The nearly vertical climb already had Pookie’s legs and lungs burning in complaint.

From up on the roof, he heard gunshots.

His foot slipped on a step and his knee banged hard into metal. He climbed on despite the pain.

Cold wind blowing, jacket and hair already soaked with driving rain, Pookie reached the ninth-floor landing — just one more short flight to reach the roof. He drew his Sig Sauer and started to climb.

Marco heard a man yelling somewhere behind him. Police. Again. Sly was going to be so pissed, and if Firstborn found out, Marco would get such a beating. There were no tunnels around here. The nearest hidey-hole was the old Russian Hill reservoir, but that was five blocks away. Besides, Marco couldn’t just run — the king had given an order.

Marco knew that if he could grab the boy, he could then scramble up a wall to the roof and the cop wouldn’t be able to follow. The king had commanded the boy not be killed, but that didn’t mean Marco couldn’t wound him.

Still running, Marco raised his weapon.

Bryan saw streetlights reflect off the wet blade.

A hatchet.

Bobby Pigeon’s killer.

Bryan stopped running, aimed, then fired twice. The man stumbled forward and landed on Alex, sending both of them face-first into the sidewalk.

Pookie heard two noises — a double tap from back down on the street, and a deep, bass thong from up on the roof. He swung his pistol over the roof’s brick retaining wall, letting the gunsight lead his vision through the pouring rain. The bottom of his forearms rested on the narrow wall’s flat top, leaving only his hands and head exposed to danger.

What the fuck?

A snap-sequence of visuals — a man wearing a mask with a long, curved beak, an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, rolling weakly in a puddle on the black-tar rooftop. And a second body, this one wearing a black sweatshirt, lying facedown and motionless: Issac Moses. Past them both, barely visible on the dark roof, a man standing, holding a bow, wearing some kind of … hooded cloak?

The standing man turned toward Pookie. The deep hood hid his face in shadow. He let go of the bow and reached into his dark green cloak, reached in so fast.

The bow hadn’t even hit the roof before the man drew two pistols and fired. Pookie pulled his trigger twice even as he dropped behind the wall, bits of masonry spinning all around him.

Bryan sprinted in, gun raised before him. The blanketed man rolled off Alex. Bryan saw blood staining the back of the man’s white tank top — he had taken at least one round.

Bryan rushed in to see if he could stop the bleeding. As Bryan reached for him, he felt a strange warmth in his chest.

What the hell …

He didn’t see the big boot kicking out until it was too late. The sole drove into his stomach and sent him flying backward. So strong! Bryan knew he’d lost his wind before he even landed. The Sig Sauer was still in his hand. His ass hit hard on the concrete. He let the momentum carry him in a backward roll. At the apex, Bryan pushed hard with his head and shoulders, bouncing himself into the air and letting him land on his feet.

He brought up the gun.

The bearded, bleeding man reached for the wet hatchet lying on the sidewalk.

“Don’t do it, asshole! Don’t even move!”

The man stopped and looked up at Bryan. Then his eyes widened and his mouth opened in an expression of pure shock.

Pookie’s heart kicked inside his chest. He’d been shot at. He couldn’t just sit here, he had to move, he had to act and do it now. He licked the rain off his lips, sucked in a fast breath, then stood just enough to swing his gun over the wall.

The cloaked man was only a few feet away, rushing forward, bow in his hand. Pookie again ducked behind the wall as the cloaked man sailed overhead, out into the night.

Pookie clung to the fire escape as he turned to watch the man plummet to his death, but the man didn’t plummet — cloak flapping behind him, the man sailed through the air, legs and arms kicking and pumping like an Olympic long jumper. It was like watching a special effect, a high-wire movie of someone arcing down through the rainy night.

The man soared clear across the street. He hit the flat, black roof of a four-story building and rolled once, twice, three times. Pookie watched in disbelief as the man stood and walked back to the building’s edge.

Fifty feet away and six stories down, the bowman was little more than a mound of dark green fabric that blended into the black roof. And yet, Pookie could see the man was staring at the street. Pookie snapped a glance in that direction; on the sidewalk ten stories below, Bryan Clauser had his gun pointed at a man lying on the ground.

Then, Bryan slowly lowered his gun.

Pookie looked back to the man on the roof — he felt a dagger of horror when he saw the man holding the bow, drawstring pulled all the way back to his now-exposed cheek. Before Pookie could say a word, the man released.

The arrow ripped through the air.

Bryan and the blanketed man stared at each other. What the hell was this?

That blossoming warmth in his chest, so peaceful. It beat a rhythm, ba-da-bum-bummmm, the sensation overwhelming in its intensity.

A staccato hiss, a half-second whisper of something passing scant inches from his ear, then an even shorter crunching noise.

Both men looked down.

An arrow shaft stuck out of the bearded man’s chest.

Bryan instantly turned, his brain following the arrow shaft’s angle, his gun whipping around to point up and across the street. There, a shape that might be a man

[savior! monster!]

and an outline that might be a bow.

His finger flicked the trigger

[kill it now kill it NOW]

five times before his training kicked in, before he realized he was shooting at a building that had people in it.

The muzzle flashes screwed with his vision for just a second. By the time he could focus on the roof again, the outline that might have been a man was gone.

The rain poured down.

Bryan turned back to look at the bearded man, at the arrow sticking out of his chest. Only then did he think to look for Alex Panos.

But Alex was nowhere to be seen.

The arrow had missed Bryan. Thank God. Pookie looked back to the archer’s position, but now the roof was empty — the cloaked man had vanished into the shadows.

Had he just seen what he’d thought he’d seen? No. No way. Shit like that couldn’t happen. Maybe someone had slipped some acid into his coffee. Maybe he was tripping balls right this very second.

Bryan Clauser was still standing. With no archer/sniper in sight, Pookie had to deal with the situation at hand. He climbed over the wall and onto the roof.

Issac Moses was still there, but the wounded man wearing the mask was gone.

Pookie’s gun snapped up to eye level. He quickly walked toward the center of the roof, to the small hut there that probably led to the building’s internal stairs. Pookie circled the hut, letting his barrel lead his vision. Nothing. He tried the handle: locked.

There was nowhere else on the roof a person could hide. The roof door was locked. Pookie had come up on the fire escape, the only other way down.

So where was the masked man with the arrow in his shoulder?

The rain kept pouring. Pookie moved back to Issac.

Oh, God …

The kid’s chest and stomach were flat on the roof, but his head had been turned 180 degrees — Issac’s dead eyes stared up into the night sky.