“Where to?” he asked.
“I don’t fragging care,” the other elf said. “Out of town. Get to the airport, get on a plane. Let’s just get the frag out of here before any more drek starts. I don’t know what this is, but it’s not something we can handle right now.
“Lets just get out, frag it!”
It really was all they could do.
26
Getting out of the city was a nightmare. Panic radiated out from the square like a tidal wave, and they were trying to outrun it. The mayhem was fueled by the trid broadcasts from on-the-spot camera crews expecting to be showing the proud Doge to his people. The drunkenness of the carnival added to the propensity for hysteria, and the lurid trid report of the blood spirit even had wild rumors of the return of the Red Death and numerous variants on the same theme circulating within minutes like wildfire through a tinder-dry forest in August. Venetians and tourists were running everywhere. In their costumes and masks they made the streets, bridges, and canals of the city look like a labyrinth peopled by the escaped, deranged inmates of an immense asylum.
They couldn’t just take Streak’s advice and run like the blazes. Michael had a million-nuyen cyberdeck at Quadri’s and much of their research notes were there. Sneaking in through the kitchens at the back of the building, they got in without being seen and stuffed everything into bags faster than they’d ever done in their lives. Michael gave Claudio a vast tip by way of thanks. At the sight of all of the money, the man’s eyes widened and he grew suspicious.
“Are you a part of this? What has been happening to our great city?” he growled.
“I think we were intended to be victims of what happened to your great city,” Michael told him, “and we’re running for our lives, and that’s no exaggeration.”
That disarmed Claudio immediately. He kissed Michael on both cheeks and wished him good luck.
“You, too, and when this is all over we’ll come bark for some quieter times.” Michael said.
Streak was impatient to get moving. “Look, bugger the sweet goodbyes and let’s just get in the car.”
“Oh, God, we don’t have one,” Michael suddenly remembered.
“Yes, we do.” Streak was dangling some keys on a Lancia keyring in Michael’s face.
“Thank heavens you had the sense to hire one,” Michael said with a sigh of relief.
“Who says I hired the fragger? Come on move your hoop. There’s no telling if we can actually get through the bloody streets,” the elf said.
“I’ll just hang my arm out the window and they’ll get out of the way,” Juan said laconically.
“We can get seven people in the car?” Geraint wondered.
“It means some people sitting on others’ laps in the back, but don’t waste my time and yours making no jokes. Now move your rakking arses!” Streak yelled at him.
Geraint might be the employer of the pair, but he wasn’t going to argue. They ran out the back of the cafe, piled into the car, and started what was obviously going to be a tortuous and uncomfortable journey to the airport.
“Just exactly where are we going?” Serrin asked. “I don’t know, and it doesn’t much matter!” Streak said. “Nnnngh,” he added suddenly, wrenching the wheel sharply to avoid a stray pedestrian who fell into their path from one of the packed sidewalks. “We can hop across to Padova, it’s only twenty klicks or so, and collect our thoughts there.”
Geraint nodded. “We’ll find an airport hotel and figure out what we’re going to do.”
And that is what they did, though a drive that should have taken a few minutes took almost an hour, with some streets so jammed with hysterical people that backtracks and detours became inevitable. The longer the journey got, the jumpier everyone became.
“I think we’re being followed,” Michael said anxiously, looking out the back window for the umpteenth time.
“No, we aren’t,” Juan informed him. “I’ve been watching in the mirrors. It’d be impossible to follow anyone anyway. In all this, I mean.”
“We could be astrally traced.”
“I don’t detect anything, and believe me I’ve been trying. I’m actually quite good at that sort of thing,” Serrin said, grim-jawed. “Years of practice.”
“Sometimes paranoia can be a definite advantage,” Michael said more happily.
“Its only paranoia if it isn’t real,” Serrin grumbled and said no more about it. Kristen was looking dubiously from one to the other as they spoke, but made no comment of her own.
“Poor Raoul,” Xavier chuckled. “Boy, did he catch it in the hoop. What a frying.”
“You know,” Streak said, “we were amazingly lucky he Azzies turned up.”
“Yeah, right, their bullet missed Kristen’s head by a hair. Real lucky,” Serrin shot back.
“Nah, think about it, you pillock. If they hadn’t been there the Inquisition would have had you on toast. We didn’t have a line of fire and you didn’t see them. But the Inquisition boys saw the Azzies and they came first in the firing line-before us.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Serrin said.
“To those guys that blood magic stuff is real heresy. Big-time bad stuff They wanted the Azzies even more than they wanted us. Or you.”
“Yeah, but they did want me,” Serrin said, “and that isn’t paranoia. I heard the mage’s words.”
“Yeah, that was big-time,” Streak replied. “Some stunt, that barbecuing across the square. Now why don’t you frag people like that?”
“I don’t have years of training with the Inquisition, if that’s the right term. It still seems odd to me.”
“Oh, you can call them the Inquisition all right,” Xavier declared with some feeling. “We know those guys, yes. Don’t forget they got their start in our back yard. Nadal, Acquaviva, all those guys with Ignatius. The Jesuits got damned near ninety per cent of their membership from Spain in the early days. It was policies that said they had to go to the Pope and have their central place in Italy, but it was originally a Spanish deal.”
“You do know these boys,” Streak said.
“Yeah, and not just in Aztlan. Seen ‘em in the South American states too, Xavier grunted. “They don’t care much for the Amazonians either. And they don’t care for their own brethren.”
“Nothing like a bit of that ole-time religion for making people kill each other in exciting, brutal, and deeply imaginative ways,” Streak declared gleefully.
“I thought that was your number,” Serrin said.
“Hey, be fair!” Streak protested, absolutely seriously. “The name of our game is to lake out your enemy as quickly as possible-before he does the same to you. With these Azzies, its torture and outright bloody sadism. Take a look at some of the stuff those people invented as torture instruments sometime; there’s a museum in Amsterdam where they’ve collected a lot of it, Makes me shudder just to think about it. Sick frags. Real gratifying to know God guided their hands as they crafted them so exquisitely.”
“Point taken,” Serrin acquiesced.
At long last they managed to reach the outskirts of the airport. Despite the lateness of the hour, the place was flooded with people panicking to get out of the city. If they’d been wanting to book a regular flight out of there they wouldn’t have had a prayer, but with their own aircraft all they had to do was dispense several large sums to the officials by way of flight clearance and get themselves whisked out of the VIP lounge and on to the runway verge.
“You wanna make the hop to Padova or just frag off somewhere else?” Streak asked. He was almost the only one, save for Juan sitting next to him in the front of the vehicle, who didn’t have to stretch his legs from the discomfort of being crammed into the car, which was not really designed to take seven adult passengers.