took out both bombs and held them close to my chest, then let myself point downward. Let’s see how they handle six hundred kilometers per hour, I thought, seeing the world streak by below me.
They pointed, they shot. I ripped the strings out with my teeth and aimed the bombs, dropping them when I was barely twenty meters off the ground.
And, up! I raced toward the sky, hardly able to see because of my speed. Then I heard a whistle and something hit my head. It knocked me sideways, dazing me. There was tremendous pain, and suddenly I was falling, my wings out, making me spiral like a pinwheel as I plummeted downward.
CHAPTER 103
Hawk
Pietro had felt me stiffen. “What? Did you see something?”
“I think so.” I tilted my head, automatically rising, wrinkling my nose at the smog I was sucking in. A thousand meters later I said, “I’m pretty sure I saw some soldiers in the deep shadows of the bombed-out middle. And the upper floors—when we went past a corner, we couldn’t see through the windows to the other side. They’ve got the windows covered or blocked. They’d only do that if they were trying to hide something.”
“Whoa,” Pietro said. “Good eyesight! From the ground those black windows don’t stand out at all.”
“People expect ’em to be dirty, like everything else in this city.”
“Okay,” Pietro said, letting that opening for a crack pass. “Drop me off at the middle? I’m going to try to get to the top floors.”
I caught an updraft and floated on it for a minute, resting my wings, thinking things through. The long tail of my mohawk streamed out in back of me. Flying is… beautiful, and part of me was dying to bank and head west, back to Tetra. Leave the City of the Dead behind me. Take Pietro away from Giacomo. Both of us starting fresh—not to mention clean—someplace new. That would be so—wonderful. Great. Awesome. Every other good word.
Instead.
“I’m going to rush into the middle superfast and then put on hard brakes,” I told Pietro. “Get ready to jump or fall off as soon as we’re over something solid. Then we’ll take out the soldiers and head upstairs.”
“Okay,” Pietro said.
I banked, turning in a big circle that would give me enough time to build up some speed, even with this tremendous weight on my back. “Hang on!” I aligned my body with the building, pointed my toes the way Max had told me, and gave my wings everything I had. A fresh shot of adrenaline coursed through me, and my fatigue and pain faded away. Only one thing mattered now: to stop McCallum. Any way I could.
Pietro may have made some little sounds, but they were lost to my speed, my power. There was a big empty circle in the middle of the Marble Tower, as if it had been shot by the biggest bullet in the world. That’s where I was heading. I felt Pietro’s grip increase, felt his face burrowing into the crook of my neck.
In maybe three seconds we were there. I shot into the empty space at probably two hundred kilometers per hour, then backbeat my wings, dropping low enough so my boots could skid along the floor. Pietro rolled off as I continued to slow—and just as my toes reached the edge of the other side of the building, I stopped.
Turning, I folded my heated wings quickly, then rushed back to where Pietro was jumping to his feet. Almost instantly, two guards ran at us, their long rifles held like clubs.
I jumped sideways, hitting one in the chest with both feet. He staggered backward and I whirled with a roundhouse kick at his rifle, which clattered to the floor. A snap kick at his helmet made him reel backward, followed by a powerful uppercut punch under his chin that made his eyes roll up into his skull. He fell like a sack of rocks.
I looked up to see Pietro standing over his guard, holding something small and black. “Taser,” he said, wiggling it at me.
“Nice. Take the easy way out,” I said.
Pietro only shrugged. “It was a Christmas present.”
I spotted a metal staircase and nodded toward it. Pietro went in front of me, stopping at the first stair to turn and face me. “This is gonna be my fight,” he said. “You should clear out while you can. Thanks for getting me here. I won’t forget it.”
“You can either start climbing or get out of my way.”
“Look,