Candy waves to him.

“Hi, Mr. Rose. How are you?”

Quay holds up a hand.

“Calm down, Atticus. We’ll have you set up in a new space as soon as we get what we came for.”

“Which brings me to the sixty-four-dollar question. What the hell are you doing here, Norris? You already have Paul planted with us. Does he even know about you? What’s going to happen if he sees you?”

“I don’t give a tinker’s balls what happens to him. He’s an instrument. A pocket watch bought and paid for. As to why I’m here, I thought that would be obvious. Redundancy.”

“There’s plenty of assholes in Kill City already. We don’t need duplicates.”

“Did you know that when NASA sent the Apollo rockets into space, they each had three computers on board? Three, on the assumption that two would fail.”

“So Paul is the first two and you’re lucky number three?”

“No. Paul is one. You’re two. I know you’d move Heaven and earth to get what you set out for. But what if you both failed?”

“What if I succeeded and didn’t want to give the 8 Ball up?”

“That too. And now that we’re this close, I don’t know that a redundant system is all that necessary.”

“We’re not there yet.”

“When the Apollo Eleven lunar module, the one that first put men on the moon, was landing, all three computers failed. Neil Armstrong had to land on the moon manually. But he was an experienced pilot and they were so close that it was not only feasible but doable. And so man landed on the moon and returned safely. I believe that from here my little team can pilot ourselves down to Mare Tranquillitatis all on our own.”

Shadows move in the cavern behind Quay and his people. They’re so focused on Candy and me that they don’t notice.

“Do you really want the thing so bad that you’re prepared to fuck up the plan this close to the end?”

“Yes. And we won’t fuck it up.”

“And this is all because you’re an art lover and not some crazy old man who thinks the Qomrama can somehow make him live forever.”

“My reasons are no concern of yours.”

Whatever is moving in the dark is getting closer. I take a step toward Quay. His goons level their guns at me. I’m fast but there’s no way I can get to Quay without acquiring many, many new holes in my body. Am I strong enough to throw any hoodoo? Maybe. But if the door to the spiral staircase was any indication, nothing fancy. On the other hand, maybe I won’t have to do a thing.

“What if you’re wrong, Norris? Did you find the bridge? Did you see the spiral stairs back there? Did your master plan include any of those? What if there’s more of that ahead?”

“Of course we didn’t cross the bridge. Some idiot destroyed it. But another family showed us a safe way around. You’re not the only one who thought to bring trinkets to trade with the natives. As for the stairs, slippery as they were, we navigated them just fine.”

“You walked straight down the stairs?”

The shadows behind Quay’s men have spread out across the whole cavern. There are so many I can’t count them.

“Of course. Did you expect us to fly?”

From the dark comes a grunt.

“You’re not a stupid guy, Norris, but you’re one dumb son of a bitch.”

With another grunt the shadows behind Quay swarm over him and his men. I don’t wait to see who or what they are. I bark some Hellion and practically fall over. Candy grabs me as a smoke screen fills the cavern between Quay’s people and us. We head back to our group, Candy pulling me the whole way. By the time we get back I can breathe again.

Behind us it sounds like a bad night in the arena. Shrieks and curses. The crunch of bones cracked by kicks and rocks. Then gunfire. Rifle flashes explode through the smoke like stars going nova. More screams. Some human and some not. The shooting gets sloppier. More desperate. A few rounds hit the floor near us. Whatever is back there is winning and won’t go home quietly once they’ve finished off Quay’s Boy Scouts.

Candy holds out her hand. It’s covered in blood.

“I think I’m shot.”

Her T-shirt is ripped and there’s fresh blood on the side. I tear it open until I can see the wound. There are a dozen punctures. Ragged lacerations.

“It’s rocks or shrapnel. You’re okay.” To the others I shout, “Go, go, go.”

They take off. Candy still looks a little freaked by the blood. I grab her hand and we follow.

Soon the wide passage is clogged with wreckage on both sides, narrowing the way so only one person at a time can squeeze through. Ahead is a long section of scaffold closed on both sides with lumber. Paul freezes at the entrance looking back toward the noise. Brigitte goes around him, turns on her light, and goes inside to see if the way is clear.

“Shit!” she yells, and backs out into the open. The skin on both of her shoulders is ripped and bleeding. She moves her light around inside the scaffold. The wooden planks are studded with metal. Some are wedged in sideways and sharpened like razors. Others bend back on themselves like fishhooks.

“It’s very narrow inside,” says Vidocq, looking past her. “We’ll have to walk sideways and carefully. It will be slow.”

“Then get going.”

They head straight for us as the smoke screen dissipates. I can’t tell how many of them there are, but it sounds like a small army. As the others file into the scaffold I try one more bit of hoodoo. Something simple, blunt, and not very powerful. I recite some Hellion and try to move just a few small stones on the nearby rubble just a little shove. Every breath I take hurts. Pain builds behind my eyes like an ice pick. But it works, in its own lame way. A few keystones shift and jagged slabs of rock and concrete slip away from the wall and crash onto the floor, blocking the narrow passage. It’s not exactly the Great Wall of China, but it will slow the crazies down, and right now I’ll take anything.

Candy is waiting for me at the scaffold entrance.

“Come on,” she shouts.

I push her inside and get out the Colt. She starts down the metal-lined corridor trying to keep her eye on me. But she can’t see what’s coming and keeps cutting herself.

“Turn the hell around. I’m fine back here.”

She turns and starts moving faster. The pace through the scaffold is slow enough that I can actually keep up. Little curses and whispers of pain echo off the walls. Everyone is trying to keep quiet, but the corridor is long and the metal is sharp and every inch of this place fucking hurts. But we’re cooler than Steve McQueen and no one panics or rushes. Even Delon is keeping a steady, reasonable pace.

Concrete crashes to the ground behind us, followed by screams and running feet. The crazies are through and coming at us. Up ahead, Brigitte, Delon, and the others are out from under the scaffold. A second later, so is Candy. As I step out, the scaffold shakes like there’s an earthquake. The crazies pour in behind us and it’s not pretty.

They’re not going sideways and they’re not slowing down. They sprint at us full speed, teeth bared and eyes blank, ripping themselves to pieces on the blades and hooks. I try some arena hoodoo, a killing hex. I shout the words and almost throw up. It’s too little too late, I played myself out collapsing the rubble. I aim the Colt and pull the trigger. It clicks.

Shit.

I fired the last two rounds in the corridor upstairs. Brigitte pushes past me and shoots at the mob.

“Go for the legs,” I say.

The crazies start falling, and the fallen ones at the front are trampled by the ones behind. Each fallen body narrows the way and slows them. I reach into my coat and pull out a SIG .45, and while Brigitte shoots at the crazies’ legs, I shoot at their chests. Between the two of us, we’re piling up bodies fast. It’s harder for each new crazy to climb over the body of its fallen, fruit-bat comrade. Soon there are so many bodies that the passage is blocked all the way to the ceiling. We can still hear screaming from behind the all-beef barricade, but no one is coming through.