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The guard spoke up. “I can find it,” he said with quiet confidence. “I used to patrol that district. But how will we know which building?”
Reese ripped a sleeve off his blue silk shirt and handed it to Jayla. “Tie this to the outside,” he said grimly.
“Probably multiple units inside,” the guard cautioned. “How will we know which one?”
Jayla knotted the sleeve loosely around her neck so she wouldn’t lose it. She said, “You’ll hear the screaming.”
Reese nodded. “Go! Go!”
Without another word, Cody headed for the nearest utility pole and shimmied up. Jayla waited till he was at the top, then followed. Below her, she saw Reese and the guard skirting the fallen brick, trying to find their way past it.
“Pay attention,” Cody said sharply, taking her hand as she stepped out onto the webbing. “Follow me, but watch your feet. And if I drop down to the street, you drop down. Don’t try to go ahead if I say it’s too dangerous.”
She nodded. “All right. Let’s go.”
Cody plunged forward, moving with swiftness and grace. His sure feet moved nimbly from rope to rope; his lean body swayed effortlessly from side to side as his balance transferred. She made certain her own feet were securely placed, then released her hold on the pole and followed him.
The trick was to keep moving. There was the constant sense of tumbling forward, of an unreliable base giving way beneath her shoes, but if she never paused, she could translate that falling feeling into forward motion. Her arms were stretched as wide as they would go, counterbalancing her shifting weight.
They had practiced this; there was a rhythm to it. Race forward on the thick cable until she felt herself start to careen, then widen her stance and slow her pace by placing her feet on the great loops of the supportive webbing. The cable was stronger, less springy, a swifter track; the ropes of the netting had too much give, forced her to take slower steps, lift her legs higher to reach the next foothold. But the cable was dangerous and dizzying, and she couldn’t follow it for long. She alternated.
Ahead of her, Cody danced from cable to netting, cable to netting, running so smoothly he seemed to skim above the street, supported by nothing but air. Below them they passed another set of crashed gridcars, two more mounds of bricks, groups of people shouting, a child wailing, a pile of splintered wood that had somehow caught fire. Above them, the sky hardened from tired turquoise to obdurate indigo; an unforgiving onyx was traveling in from the west. Jayla felt an irritable wind scratch at her face.
Suddenly, the cable beneath her feet loosened, then snapped taut; she felt herself flung to the netting and grabbed frantically for a hold. “Down! Get down!” Cody shouted, and she swung herself over the side of the webbing and dropped to the street below. She landed in a hard crouch, feeling the impact all the way to her hips, and slapped her hand to the pavement to hold herself steady. The ground bucked beneath them; somewhere nearby, glass shattered explosively. Not ten yards ahead of them, one of the utility poles sizzled, then erupted into flame, falling sideways and taking down a whole line of cable with it. Cody grabbed her and pulled her back before the sparking wire could fall on her head.
“On foot the rest of the way!” he called over the sounds that came from all directions—more glass falling, more cars crashing, more stones hailing down from collapsing buildings. Somewhere, someone was screaming. “We’re almost there!”
She just nodded, and he set off again. They were in a part of town she didn’t think she’d recognize even in daylight, all low buildings and empty windows, trash in the shallow ditches, grime on the stone foundations. She knew they were in the northern part of the city, because the mountain face reared up so close and so solid that she could almost touch it.
There were fewer rockfalls in their way, no more crumpled gridcars. This wasn’t a part of town that saw much traffic, and the buildings that made up this neighborhood lurked as far from the main street as possible. The ground steadied beneath their feet and they were able to race forward with nothing to slow them down.
A short, narrow drive looped off from the main road, and Cody veered down it without hesitation. The street was lined with more of those anonymous, shuttered buildings, all of them ominously quiet, and a handful of private vehicles.
“That’s Tivol’s sprinter,” she said.
Cody nodded. “And that’s the house.”
They approached the door from a sideways angle, just in case Tivol happened to be peering out of the curtained windows. Jayla slipped Reese’s blue sleeve from around her neck and tied it to the curved metal handle of the door. Cody had already ducked inside. When she entered, she found a short, smelly corridor lined with six doors. Cody had his hand on the nearest one. From the other side, Jayla could catch the faint sound of voices, but she couldn’t make out any words.
“Locked,” he mouthed.
She lifted a foot and mimed a hard kick. He shook his head and reached into his pocket for a ring of spectacularly assorted keys.
“One of these should fit,” he breathed.
She raised her eyebrows, wondering—but not particularly caring—if it was even legal to own such things. He picked through the array, tried one without success, then tried another. She felt a jolt of triumph as his hand turned the key through its full revolution. The door fell ajar by half an inch.
Inside, the voices had risen enough that Jayla could tell a man and a woman were arguing. She thought there might be some value in making a violent entrance, so she motioned Cody to stand aside. Loosing a combat yell, she kicked the door open and leapt inside.
One quick glance gave her the scene—a small space, drab furnishings, and two figures struggling in a far corner of the room. She yelled again and charged forward just as the larger figure whirled around with a cry of his own. It was Tivol, and he had blood on his hands. He shouted in rage or alarm and rushed toward her, his fingers curled like claws before him. It was easy to take him down, smash his head against the hard floor, flip him to his stomach to neutralize his flailing arms, lay her dagger against the side of his neck.
Tivol tried to wrench himself free. She slammed his head against the floor again, then dropped heavily onto his back, feeling his body spasm as her weight bowed his spine. Through that whole exercise, she hadn’t once lifted the blade.
“Jayla, no. No! Don’t kill him!”
That was Madeleine’s voice, and it jerked Jayla’s head up. Madeleine was standing a few feet away, swaying with exhaustion, her hands at her throat. There was blood trickling between her fingers and staining her jacket.
“He hurt you!”
