He landed about three feet away and pulled a tapered dagger from some hidden pocket in his black jumper. I recognized that dagger: thin, black-bladed, with a dragon’s head on the hilt, its mouth open in a silent roar. The signature weapon of Mogart’s private army, the agents of darkness who had chased me from Knoxville to Canada, from Canada to France, from France to England.
“Okay,” I said to him. “You got me. I give up.”
I raised my hands in the air. He came toward me slowly, the dagger pointed at my gut.
“Just make it quick, okay?” I asked.
He lunged forward with a hoarse yell. I had two seconds before he was on me. I used those two seconds to rip the shawl off my shoulders. I dropped the shawl over his head, twisted the two ends to wrap it tight, and then slung him forward with a shot-putter-like motion. He sailed over the edge of the overhang.
I turned back toward the building—where the heck was Nueve?—and saw another dagger-wielding AOD coming toward me. I got lucky with the first one but, based on the past, my good luck wasn’t going to hold.
At that moment sirens screamed to life directly beneath us: an ambulance was leaving on a call. Maybe my luck hadn’t completely run out. I sprinted to one side of the overhang. I had a fifty-fifty chance this was the correct side. The AOD’s fingers tugged on the back of my dress as I threw myself over the side.
I had guessed right: the ambulance burst into the open the moment we went down, and we tumbled head over heels onto its roof.
The ambulance whipped hard to the right coming out of the parking lot, slinging us against the opposite edge. Then it began to accelerate toward the entrance ramp to I-40.
He rushed me. I scooted backward until my butt smacked against the red spinning lights mounted near the front of the ambulance.
We hit the on-ramp clocking sixty at least, and then he was on me. I drove my shoulder into his stomach, knocking the breath out of him. My momentum carried us toward the rear of the ambulance, where he finally went down, his head falling back over the edge. I landed on top of him and caught his wrist just as he brought the dagger around to the side of my neck.
The tip nicked my skin as he tried to force the blade forward. I could feel the blood trickle down my neck and soak into the collar of my dress.
Nueve’s present ... which shoe was it in? The one on my foot or the one lying on top of the hospital elevator? Had all my luck run out or was there still a drop or two left?
I clawed at my shoe as the wind tugged at my wig, pushing it forward until I was looking at him through a curtain of gray curls.
The fingertips of my right hand brushed against the hard casing of the poisoned pen. An inch ... a half inch ... but in a situation like that a half inch might as well be a mile.
He was too strong, too determined, too focused. Even if I managed to grab the pen, by the time I got the cap off— assuming I could—the dagger would be slicing my carotid artery and I would be one dead old lady.
So I spit right in his eyes. His grip loosened for an instant, and I gained the half inch I needed. I flicked the cap off the pen, pressed the button, and slammed the needle into his neck.
His eyes flew open and then froze that way. His body went stiff as a board beneath me. The dagger fell from his hand.
I picked it up and scooted toward the front of the ambulance. It was slowing down. I glanced over my shoulder and saw we were in the emergency lane, coming up on the scene of a pileup that blocked all three westbound lanes.
The ambulance screeched to a stop. I slid off the back before the paramedics could exit the cab. I sauntered over to the guardrail, just another old lady out for a stroll on the interstate with her six-inch dragon-headed dagger. Unfortunately, a cop was standing about twenty feet away. I looked at him and he looked at me, and so I gave him a little nod like, Hey, sonny, don’t mind me. I’m just your average old lady out for a stroll on the interstate with my six-inch dragon-headed dagger. Then I threw one leg over the concrete railing and steeled myself for the thirty-foot plunge to the embankment below.
The cop shouted something and started to run toward me, his hand resting on the butt of his revolver. Like he would actually shoot an old lady, dagger-wielding or not.
Still, on the off chance that he might actually shoot a dagger-wielding old lady, I froze on the barrier.
I shouldn’t have.
A black Lincoln Town Car pulled up behind the ambulance and two men in dark suits jumped out. One had a semiautomatic pointed at my head. The other man was focused on the cop.
“That’s all right, Officer,” he said in a gentle Southern drawl. “We’ll take it from here.” He looked at me and smiled. “Hello, Alfred.”
The cop didn’t lower his gun. He didn’t know who to aim at now—me or the dark-suited guy.
Dark Suit pulled an ID from the breast pocket of his jacket and held it up.
“Vosch,” he said to the cop. “FBI.” He smiled a second time at me. “Step down, Alfred. You made a good run, but it’s over.”
“I gotta call this in,” the cop said. He still hadn’t lowered his weapon.
The man who called himself Vosch nodded, still smiling, while his buddy ripped the dagger from my hand, pulled me from the barrier, and handcuffed me.
“Look ...” I said to the cop.
“Shut up, Alfred,” Vosch said pleasantly. Then he said to the cop, “Terrorism, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and interstate flight.”
The suit with the gun—now he had the muzzle jammed into my rib cage—dragged me toward the car as I shouted at the bewildered young cop, “These guys aren’t FBI! Check out their wheels—since when do FBI agents drive Town Cars?”
I was slung into the backseat. Vosch’s partner slid in beside me and slammed the door. The driver, a big guy with slits for eyes and a crooked nose, glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Kropp,” he murmured.
I could see Vosch talking to the cop, who had put away his gun, which I interpreted as a sign that he was buying Vosch’s story. Vosch was showing him some papers, probably a phony warrant for my arrest.
“At least tell me why you guys want to kill me so bad,” I said.
They laughed.
Vosch walked back to the car and got in beside the driver. We roared straight back a few yards, spun around and then proceeded the wrong way to the next exit. I could see cars jamming all three lanes; the interstate was backed up for miles.
We exited onto Kingston Pike and headed east, toward downtown. I waited for the killing blow. It was the perfect time: I was handcuffed and helpless, trapped behind dark-tinted glass. They had been trying awfully hard to kill me and this was the perfect opportunity.