City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market)) (11 page)

As they shot through the jagged hole in the skylight, Bayang’s prey let out a whoop of excitement, as if he were having the time of his life.

“I’ve always wanted to fly! I dream about it almost every night,” her prey exclaimed happily. “This is wonderful.”

What am I doing? she asked herself. I’m not supposed to be teaching him to enjoy flying again. I should’ve killed him and left in the confusion
.

Even now, it would be so easy to arrange an accident up here. But she couldn’t. Not after her prey had saved her life.

Why did he have to complicate what should have been a simple assassination? she complained to herself. In the old days, prey knew their place. They didn’t save their hunters in the middle of a pursuit
.

Over the millennia, her people had created an elaborate system of relationships based on mutual obligations. The diagram of that system was so complex it resembled a thorny thicket. As a result, repaying a debt was as instinctive as breathing for Bayang.

As Bayang leveled off, she told herself that she was merely biding her time while her primary mission had changed. Now it was to stop whatever Badik’s scheme was. Once she had taken care of that, she could dispose of her prey afterward.

San Francisco’s civic center spread out below them, the people in the streets like colored knots in an ever-changing tapestry that now filled the plaza. Police cars surrounded the museum, their flashing lights pulsing like fiery rubies. On the rooftop itself, gnome janitors gaped at them with scrub brushes in their hands, having momentarily forgotten their job of cleaning the pigeons’ mementoes from the balustrades—a task that guaranteed eternal employment since the pigeons simply shifted to the areas the gnomes had already cleaned.

“Where are they?” asked her prey. Bayang sighed inwardly to herself. This was awkward, wasn’t it? She supposed she had better adjust her labels and temporarily call him by name—Leech.

In the back of her mind, there was a small worm of doubt now. She could kill prey as long as they were just hateful things. It would be harder to murder someone she knew. When the time came to resume her original mission, would she be able to?

In the last
century, humans and magical creatures alike had packed San Francisco’s hills and valleys. Naturally, when they built their homes, they had constructed structures like the ones they had left behind in the old country. Minarets competed with pagodas for the title of the tallest building, stolid emporiums stood across the street from canvas-roofed bazaars. The sheer volume of noise, color, and smells was known to overcome the unprepared tourist
and guidebooks advised visitors to acclimate themselves for a couple of days before venturing very far into the city.

Bayang, the griffin, Leech, and—she cursed herself in exasperation, she might as well use the wretched hatchling’s name as well— Scirye scanned the surroundings. From the groans, her prey’s friend, Koko, seemed to be sick.

“There!” Scirye said.

Bayang’s people prided themselves on their keen eyesight but the girl’s was far sharper.
Perhaps
, Bayang thought,
she gets it from generations of desert dwellers
.

The girl leaned forward so that her hand was pointing over Bayang’s shoulder toward the northeast. Finally, Bayang picked out the speck that was Badik flapping toward the skyscrapers along Montgomery Street in the heart of the business district.

She felt anger surge through her. She had waited centuries to settle this debt with Badik.

“Hold on,” Bayang said, and banked the carpet so sharply that the Kushan’s pet griffin was thrown from her shoulder.

“Oog.” Koko made gulping noises as if he was trying to hold back his breakfast, but the girl let out an exhilarated whoop that Leech echoed.

“Is this also your first time flying?” Leech asked her as the wind whistled about them.

“No,” the girl said. “My mother’s last post was at the embassy in Istanbul, and the ambassador maintained his own stable of griffins,” she explained. “He took me for a flight on one. I loved it.”

Bayang glanced over her shoulder to see the girl’s hair streaming wildly behind her. She was grinning.

“I’m surprised someone of the Old Blood is in the consular corps,” Bayang said. “I’ve heard Kushan nobility are famous for their pride and don’t like to mix with ‘commoners.’“

“The Old Blood belongs to my father’s side,” the girl explained.

“And his is so diluted that we have only a distant claim to the lion throne.”

Knowing how murderous Kushan politics could be, Bayang reflected that perhaps that was the reason why the girl and her family were still alive.

The hatchlings’ enthusiasm must have pleased the carpet because it seemed more responsive to Bayang’s commands. Having tamed it, Bayang thought they could risk going faster.

“Lean forward,” she ordered. “It will cut down on resistance from the air. And hold on tight.”

She had been eying the flagstaffs on buildings of various heights, trying to judge the best winds. The one she wanted was a bit lower than she would have liked, but she angled into it. It caught the carpet, sweeping it along like a leaf on a stream.

They flew over the rooftops, barely skimming over the huge water tanks that would be used in case of fire. When they startled a flock of pigeons, for a moment they were surrounded by flapping gray and black scruffy bundles.

The small griffin shot over Bayang’s head, aiming for the nearest bird.

“No, Kles!” Scirye commanded. “We don’t have time for that.”

The griffin flapped his wings to stay in place, his eyes fastened on the fleeing birds. His movements were stiff and jerky as if he were fighting his own instincts. “It’s not like I was picking on them, you know. The pigeons here are vicious. They probably mug any lost tourist. Besides, I’m hungry. I would have shared.”

Koko had turned an interesting shade of green. “How can you think about eating?”

As the carpet passed beneath him, the griffin dropped back down to join them. “If you throw up,” Kles said unsympathetically, “remember not to face the wind.”

“Yeah, Koko. You’re the one who’s been complaining about doing the same things lately,” Leech said. “Enjoy it.”

“Oog, and double oog,” was all Koko could say.

The buildings in the business district were so tall that they acted like mountain ranges with the wind howling through the artificial canyons. Spires aimed at the sky like lances, while carvings of flowers, eagles, and grape vines decorated the buildings’ shoulders. Granite, marble, and brass were everywhere.

As the carpet settled into one of the currents, the air seemed to come alive around Leech, whipping at his face and trying to tug him from the carpet, not even caring that bits of fringe and fabric were flaking off the rug’s edges.

The carpet bucked and writhed now in the wind’s grip, as if the rug were a saddle cloth on the back of a wild stallion. People on the upper floors of buildings looked up, startled from their desks as the carpet sped by.

“Hey, the carpet’s getting warm,” Leech said admiringly. “It comes with a heater. Those old-timers thought of everything.”

“No,” Bayang said in a worried voice. “The original spells woven into its threads were never designed for this speed.”

“Keep going,” Scirye urged. “We’re closing the gap.” Badik had grown in size from a speck to a bumblebee.

They streaked past an old building whose owners had used all of their triangular lot by creating a skyscraper with three sides and then filling the ledges and corners with scowling gargoyles.

From the corner of her eye, Bayang thought she saw one of them lean forward. “Did one of those things move?” She had just started to nod her head in that direction when a gargoyle rose on four legs and spread its wings. It was one of Badik’s gray fliers, hidden among the statues. It had crouched down and remained still to set up this ambush. A little farther away on the ledge, another stood up.

They flung themselves downward, plunging with outstretched talons.

“Hold tight,” Bayang warned and sent the carpet into a steep dive.

As the wind tore at them, the griffin lost his grip and was pulled free. With a squawk of protest, he disappeared behind them.

“Kles!” Scirye cried in alarm. She turned to see him flapping his wings frantically to catch up with them.

“Don’t worry,” Bayang said. “Those are Badik’s creatures. It’s not your griffin those things want.”

“That
doesn’t help my peace of mind any,” Koko moaned.

Flying on a carpet was not the same as flying in her true form. The carpet would be sluggish when it came to pulling out of a dive. And she had her passengers to think of, so she adjusted her tactics to fit the situation, trying to level off sooner than she would have liked.

The carpet tried to respond, but as Bayang feared, it was difficult. It took several frantic tugs at the steering loops before the rug flew horizontally again. They wound up much lower than Bayang had intended, skimming over the startled patrons in an outdoor cafe. A lizard waitress lashed her tail at them so violently that the tail itself detached and crashed into a buffet table.

“Sorry,” Scirye called as they left the restaurant.

Bayang looked back. Their plunge had opened more distance between them and their pursuers, and Bayang flew over the tops of the cars, buses, and trucks waiting their turn to go as an air sprite hovered above the intersection, directing traffic with a glowing wand. As they zoomed past the sprite, the creature put his large lips together and blew a shrill, piercing whistle.

Bayang stared steadily ahead and downward of their path, steering around a truck loaded unusually high with crates… watching… waiting… as the diving monsters’ shadows swelled in size. And in the meantime, Badik was getting farther and farther away.

“They’re practically in our laps.” Koko gulped.

Bayang banked to the left so suddenly that it threw them all in that direction. Only the straps saved them from falling, and Bayang fought to adjust for the sudden shift in weight. But she had timed it perfectly.

A monster screamed past the spot where they had been and smashed into the top of a bus with a reverberating thump. Brakes screeched and horns blared all over the street as vehicles swerved and fishtailed, causing more collisions.

Bayang straightened the carpet out over the sidewalk, but they were now so low that they knocked the hat off a man. Pedestrians threw themselves to the pavement to avoid them as she unwound the chain from her waist.

She whipped the chain out so that it wrapped about a streetlight, arm and wrist straining to hold onto it. The straps cut into her ankles as the carpet swung violently around. She just hoped they were strong enough to stand the maneuver or Bayang herself would go flying from the rug.

When they had spun 180 degrees, she tugged the chain free and then angled the carpet upward. They had come up behind the remaining monsters, who were now hovering over the gigantic traffic jam as they tried to spot their targets.

“I got a shot,” Leech whispered excitedly.

Scirye said in a low voice, “No, don’t throw that axe!”

“Yeah, that axe is worth a mint,” Koko scolded.

“No rich, spoiled girl is going to boss me around,” Leech said rebelliously.

“No,” Scirye said, “I guess I’m standing in for your conscience.”

She had such a natural authority that Leech found himself lowering the axe.

Bayang rose up slightly, twirling the chain over her head as they charged forward. Her aim was true and the chain wound itself
about one monster, pinning its wings to its back. With a jerk, she sent the monster spinning to the street where it smashed into a windshield.

With a shriek of rage, the remaining monster shot toward them, talons spread, fangs prepared to rip and tear. There was no time to get the chain ready for another strike so she turned the carpet. It would have to be up to the hatchlings to defend them.

Leech swung and missed as the monster slipped agilely to the side so that the monster was now over Scirye. The horrible creature ripped a chunk out of the carpet’s edge, flinging the disintegrating fragment away as it slashed at Scirye. Instinctively, the girl raised the leather gauntlet, and though the talons scratched marks on the tough fabric, they did not pierce it. But the force knocked her down against the carpet, her elbow causing another piece to flutter away.

With a shrill cry, the griffin plummeted out of the air and straight onto the monster’s neck. The startled monster dropped several feet before it bounced upward again. Hissing and snarling, it tried to twist so it could reach its tormentor.

Scirye swung the axe as she sat back up. The steel blade flashed in the sun as it bit deep into the monster’s chest. Green ichor gushed from the wound.

As the monster fell with a thud on the roof of a taxi, Kles flapped free, trilling in triumph before he settled again on Scirye’s shoulder.

Scirye, though, didn’t seem to share in her griffin’s jubilation. She was no longer the angry Pippal bent on revenge. Instead, she sat, staring in shock at the green fluid slowly trickling down her still outstretched arm. Nor did the boys say anything, their bluster all evaporated by the deadly flight.