And Rune knew then that it was going to be all right; she could escape. They were nowhere near her and Rune had to spring only twenty feet or so to get to the back door. She slammed the hallway door shut, wedged a c
hair under the knob, and kept running.
Haarte got to the door in a few seconds and tried to open it but it was tightly blocked.
Rune could see dim light coming through the lace curtains on the back door.
Nothing could stop her now. She'd get outside, into the alley, run like hell. Call 911 from the first phone she found.
Haarte slammed into the door and pushed it open slightly, but the chair still held.
Fifteen feet. Ten.
Another slam.
"Go around, through the kitchen," Haarte called to Emily.
But their voices were a world away. Rune was at the door. She was safe.
She undid the chain. Turned the latch and then the knob. She swung the door wide and stepped out onto the back porch.
And stopped cold.
Oh, no ...
No more than two feet away from her was Pretty Boy. He was startled but not so startled he didn't lift his pistol like a quick-draw gunslinger and point it directly at her face.
No, no, no ...
She leaned back against the doorjamb. Tears streaming down her face. Arms limp, shaking her head. Oh, no ... It's over. It's over.
But then something odd happened, the sort of thing that happened in the Side, in the magic realm. Rune seemed to go out of her body. She felt as if she died and rose away into the air. Actually wondering--did he shoot me? Am I dead?
Floating away. Completely numb. Sailing up into the air.
And from there, from a cloud hovering over the Side, she looked down and saw: Pretty Boy putting his arm around her and leading her away from the open back door of the town house, handing her off to another man behind him, a man in a blue jacket that said U.S. MARSHAL on the back, and from there to another man wearing what looked like a bulletproof vest printed with the letters "NYPD." Passed along again until finally at the end of the line was Detective Manelli, with his close-together eyes, with his funny first name.
Virgil Manelli.
The detective held a finger to his lips to keep Rune quiet, then led her away from the house. She looked back at the line of men clustered around the door. Big men with stony faces, wearing suits of thick blue armor and carrying stubby machine guns.
On the sidewalk, Manelli handed her off one last time--to two medics, who put her on a cot and began hovering over her, pouring ice water on her burnt hand and then wrapping it with bandages.
Rune paid no attention. She kept her eyes on the men around the back door. Then Pretty Boy said into a microphone on his collar, "Subject is clear. Move in, move in, move in!"
Everyone on the stairs, all the knights, charged into the building, shouting, "Police, police, federal agents ..." Flashlights illuminated the interior of the town house.
Rune heard a funny sound. Laughter. She looked at the attendant. But he wasn't laughing. His partner wasn't either. She realized that the sound was coming from her.
Delicately, one of the medics asked, "What's so funny?"
But she didn't answer. Because from inside the town house came the sound of gunshots. Then calls of "Medic, medic!"
And the men in the ambulance left her while they ran toward the back door with their bags in hand, their stethoscopes flapping around their necks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
She huddled away from him. From Pretty Boy.