Tanglewood and Armstrong turned right and jogged warily into the near-blackness. Their shadows flickered and fled into the surrounding darkness as they passed a backdrop of fountaining sparks from another massive pour. Margo followed Skeeter. "Are you all right?" she shouted in his ear. "You're limping!"

"It's nothing, just a shallow scratch! Stings a little is all!" He'd suffered worse as a boy, learning to ride in the first place. Skeeter had the big Webley Green out, held at the ready, up near his chest, elbows folded so Kaederman couldn't knock it out of his hands should he come around a corner where the killer was hiding. Leading with a gun, sticking it out in front of you with locked elbows, was a fast way to disarm yourself and end up seriously dead. Only idiots in the movies—and the idiots who believed them—were stupid enough to lead with a firearm.

Skeeter and Margo edged their way into the wood-and-iron ravines between cooling bell molds. They worked virtually back to back as they advanced, moving one haphazardly strewn row at a time. Molds of differing sizes and shapes jutted out unpredictably, threatening knees, elbows, shoulders. Heat poured off the stacks like syrupy summer sunlight, deadening reflexes and hazing the mind. It was hard to breathe, impossible to hear above the din of the foundry floor. Down the room's long central spine, bright gouts of light shot out at random, throwing insane shadows across the stacked molds to either side.

Skeeter moved by instinct, hunting through the alien landscape. Sidle up to a junction, ease around for a snap-quick glance, edge forward, check the floor for droplets of blood, peer along the rows down either aisle for a hint of motion... Then on to the next junction, row after row, sweat pooling and puddling, the wool of uncreased trousers raw on bare skin and stinging in the wound down his inner thigh, hands slippery on the wooden grips of the pistol... Another fast, ducking glance—

The bell mold beside Skeeter's head splintered under the bullet's impact. Iron spalled, driving splinters across his cheek and nose. Pain kicked him in the teeth, then he was dodging low, firing back at the blur of motion three rows down. The big Webley kicked against wet palms, the noise of the foundry so immense he barely heard the sharp report. Skeeter blinked furiously to clear his vision, waved Margo back and down. Wetness stung his eyes, sweat mingled with blood burning like bee-sting pain from the jagged slivers in his cheek where the bell mold had spalled. He blinked and scrubbed with a muddy, torn sleeve. When he could see again, he dodged low for another look, down at hip-height, this time. Sid Kaederman was leaning around a stack, waiting to shoot him, but he was looking too high. Skeeter fired and a wooden pallet splintered six inches away from Kaederman's chest. Skeeter cursed his blurring, tear-blocked eyes, and the sweat that had let the gun slide in his hands, and his lousy aim...

"Go!" Skeeter yelled as Kaederman ducked back. They rushed forward and ran flat-out, gasping hard for breath in the stinking, steaming air. Down three rows, risk the peek... Kaederman was running, stumbling every few strides on his injured leg. Skeeter sprinted after, gaining fast. The paid killer glanced back, but failed to fire at him.

He's out of ammo! Skeeter realized with a rush of adrenaline. There was no other rational reason for Kaederman not to whirl and fire dead at him. A surge of confidence spurred Skeeter to draw ahead of Margo, relentlessly whittling down Kaederman's lead. The hit man ducked down a sideways aisle, vanishing from view. Skeeter swore and closed the distance, ducked low through his own skidding turn. Harsh, sulphurous light flared, momentarily blinding him. The smelters were dead ahead. Workers with iron poles nearly four feet long, hooked on one end, and men with heavy prybars snagged a big crucible and tip-tilted it, pouring its blazing contents into the mouth of a bell mold four feet across, using the prybars to control the angle of the tilt.

Sid Kaederman reached the newly-filled mold and started waving his gun at the stunned foundrymen, shouting that he would shoot them if they didn't get out of his way. The men stumbled back, away from the apparent lunatic. Then Kaederman ran along the line of pulleys, toward the far end of the foundry where access doors led to the street. Blistering hot crucibles, just filled with molten metal, swayed down from the smelters toward another big bell mold waiting to be filled. Kaederman glanced back, realized Skeeter was gaining...

He whirled around and snatched up a long iron pole from the floor where a terrified bell caster had abandoned it with a clatter. Kaederman dropped his useless pistol and reached with the hooked pole, instead. He snagged the lip of a brimming crucible swaying its way toward him, a big one that must've held a bathtub's worth of blazing liquid metal. Pulling hard, Kaederman slammed the rim down and ran. Molten bronze flooded out across the floor. Liquid metal splashed and crested in a wave of destruction, spreading across the entire narrow space between stacked, newly-cast bells, an inch deep and still flooding outward. There was no way around it and no way to climb those red-hot iron molds to either side. Skeeter's forward momentum was too great to avoid the deadly lake in his path.

So he jumped straight toward it.

Toward it and up. He stretched frantically, reaching for the massive iron I-beam of the pulley system overhead. It's too high, I'm gonna miss it, oh Christ, don't let me miss... He dropped the Webley, needing both hands free. It fell with a splash and vanished into the scalding, hellish glow. Then his palms smacked against the I-beam and he grabbed hold, swinging his feet up in a frantic arc. He clamped arms and ankles tight, then just hung there, sloth-like, panting and sweating so hard he was terrified his grip would slide loose. Uncurling his fingers long enough to wipe first one hand, then the other, against his coat took a supreme act of will.

Then he wriggled himself around, managed to crawl up and over the top of the narrow iron beam, and balanced on hands and knees, all but prone above the hellish puddle. A black crust had formed along the top, a thin scum of solid metal that seemed to breathe as it cooled. The molten metal beneath flashed and flared in a scaly pattern like the scutes on a crocodile's back. Kaederman had turned to run, dropping the long iron pole into the edge of the molten flood splashing back toward him, but he wasn't moving very fast, clearly tottering at the last of his strength. Margo, thank God, had dodged the lethal flow, ducking sideways into another canyon between bell molds.

Breath regained and balance secured, Skeeter moved forward along the beam in a scooting crawl that was taking far too long. Swinging himself cautiously down once more, he passed hand over hand above the heaving mass of cooling metal, moving ape-like along the beam, swinging up again only to avoid pendulous crucibles.

Kaederman, who'd managed to stumble maybe a dozen paces beyond the far edge of the puddle, glanced back... and tripped, sprawling flat. His mouth moved soundlessly as he scrambled up again. Then Skeeter was across and jumping down to face him. Kaederman lunged forward, snarling curses and giving him no time to draw his other gun. They grappled for long moments, gouging and punching.

A blow from Kaederman's knee grazed the cut along Skeeter's thigh. Pain shot through the abused flesh. Skeeter staggered back a step and tangled his feet over the iron pole Kaederman had used to tilt the crucible. His stumbling footsteps kicked its far end askew, out of the puddle of molten bronze, trailing lethal beads across the foundry floor. Skeeter danced a wild jig-step and finally righted his balance, just a boot heel shy of the malevolent lake. The cool end of the long pole rolled and bumped into Kaederman's foot, a weapon ready for the snatching. Kaederman's face twisted in triumph. An unholy laugh broke loose. Before Skeeter could fling himself forward to stop him, Kaederman stooped and snatched up the pole in a two-handed grip—