I was relieved to find the next room empty, and I heard the sounds of Connor searching another room close by. I turned my focus back to my immediate surroundings. There were two closets at the far end of the room I had to check out. Simply moving was a distraction, so much so that when I finally reached the closets, I didn’t even register the fact that the dark-robed figure from my vision was hiding in there-until he sprang out at me. He pushed me down in his effort to escape, and as I fell, I winced painfully as the pointy corner of a book jabbed into my lower back.
“Connor!” I shouted. “There’s someone here!”
I floundered for several seconds in the sea of scattered books and crumpled papers. The dark-robed figure rushed nimbly across the top of the debris without sinking in before racing out of the room. I hoped Connor was having better luck navigating the apartment than I was.
Clumsily, I got back on my feet and waded as quickly as I could out into the main hall. The sound of a struggle came from the direction of the living room. As the hall opened up onto the main room, I saw Connor and his assailant grappling as the two of them toppled over onto an overturned couch. When they regained their footing, I noticed two things-one strange and one dangerous. The strange thing was a large, dark wooden fish that the intruder clutched close to his body. The dangerous thing was a heavy, curved dagger he held in his other hand. I had seen its kind before, unique in that its sharpened edge was along the inside of the weapon’s curve.
A kukri,I thought. It was the calling card for someone prepared to perform ritualistic sacrifice.That’s a cultist if I ever saw one.
“Knife!” I shouted to Connor, who looked down at the blade for the first time. He moved to pry the wooden fish from the cultist’s hand. When the figure flicked the blade at Connor, he moved back to avoid its swinging arc. The blade ripped through the fabric of his shirt. Thanks to Connor’s awkward positioning, he stumbled out of reach, but not before the backs of his knees hit the couch. His arms spun out of control with the momentum and his legs flew up in the air, toppling him over once again, but saving him from his attacker’s next swipe.
For a second, the madman lifted the blade high overhead and I thought he was going to finish Connor off, so I shouted unintelligibly. It sounded ridiculous, but it did the trick and the robed figure paused and turned from the couch. I pulled my retractable bat from inside my coat and extended it, daring him to come after me.
Instead of attacking, however, the cultist flicked his wrist, and with a barely audible click, the blade disappeared up one of his voluminous sleeves. Connor reached up from behind the couch and made a grab for him, but he kicked Connor’s hand away, turned, and dashed out the apartment door.
Connor groaned as he lifted himself slowly up from behind the couch. His free hand rubbed the back of his head. He seemed on the verge of falling over again, but he grabbed the edge of the couch and steadied himself.
“After him,” Connor said and stumbled across the room. I ran for the door and together we burst into the hallway outside the apartment…to emptiness. I looked up at the elevator indicator, but neither car was even remotely close to our floor. I caught movement in the corner of my eye, though, and turned to see the door to the stairwell slowly closing. I rushed through it and looked down into the opening between the stairs going down. Catching a glimpse of robe several floors below, I hesitated a moment to check on Connor.
“You up for it, boss?” I asked. I was worried. He was still rubbing the back of his head.
“Am I up for it? And let you have all the fun, kid?” Connor leapt past me, taking the steps four or five at a time. I followed at a slightly less breakneck pace, holding on to the railing as I went. Connor was the more experienced of us, after all, and I was more than happy to let him be the more reckless pursuer, but I didn’t want to tumble to my death in my haste. And if my mentor got to collar the son of a bitch first, more power to him.
But as the chase continued downward flight after flight, it seemed like Connor was unlikely to catch up with the fugitive. The intruder kept an almost inhuman pace all the way to the ground floor. When I finally reached the bottom and caught up with Connor outside the Westmore, the robed figure had dashed into traffic on Central Park West, causing much screeching of brakes and honking. Connor and I looked at each other, registering our mutual exhaustion, and sprinted off after the cultist as he dashed into the woods at the edge of Central Park.
The rest of the chase was a blur. Trees with their low-hanging branches, pedestrians lounging on the Great Lawn, vendors…sometimes a combination of all of these got in my way, but I refused to let up on our prey. I had no idea why the stolen wooden fish was important or why it had been taken, but it was Irene’s and I wanted it back. Forty blocks later, the chase ended when the figure jumped the security turnstile at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Empire State Building. I watched as he shoved past the tourists waiting to get in and ran off into the building. When we attempted to follow suit, however, a well-built security guard blocked our way.
“That man stole something from us!” I pleaded. “We’ve got to stop him. He’s getting away!”
A particularly nasty woman with yellow teeth thwacked me on the arm with a postcard book as she waited to get in, shouting, “There’s people on line, mister!”
“Relax, lady,” the guard said. Connor flashed his D.E.A. ID, which did count as official local government documentation, but I was still clutching my bat as I fished mine out. The guard checked them over carefully before gesturing us through the security gate one at a time.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “That guy’s not going anywhere. Damned cultists are already giving this building a bad name.”
I stood there, stopped reholstering the bat, and stared at the guard in amazement.
“Wait a second. Youknow he’s a cultist?”
“Sure,” the guard offered with a sour look on his face. “They’ve been stinking up the building for ’bout six months, ever since they started yammering to the Mayor’s Office about equal rights. They’re up on thirty-three, I think.”
We thanked him and walked toward the elevators. Connor shook his head. “Unbelievable.”
“I wonder if anyone has been informed back at the D.E.A.?” I asked. We stepped into the waiting elevator and I pushed 33.
“We’ll find that out when we talk to the Inspectre. Right now I want to get that goddamn fish back.”
The doors shut and I looked at Connor quizzically. “What’s so important about that fish?”
“I’m not sure,” Connor replied, “but if they wanted it bad enough to trash Irene’s place, then maybe it was worth killing over, too. Somebody wanted it awfully bad.That’s why I want it back.”
“Ah.”
I had hoped for a more concrete answer. Something like, “It’s the sacred fish of the Mondoogamor tribe,” or “It mystically cures young teens of acne,” but just wanting it back because it was stolen worked, too.
When the elevator reached the thirty-third floor and the doors opened, we braced ourselves for an attack. After all, the man we were pursuing had tried to fillet us, so it seemed wise to make sure the coast was clear. Connor stuck his head out quickly to the left, and I did the same on the right side, finding nothing.
“Clear?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Great,” he said.
“Where do you think he went? I’m not even sure what offices we’re looking for.”