“What is it?” Thomas asks.
“Nothing,” I reply, blinking. “Just tired eyes.” But my feet won’t carry me back in that direction. “Let’s keep going.”
“Okay,” Thomas says, and glances over his shoulder.
We walk on in silence and my ears are tuned behind us, editing out the grumble of our suitcase wheels. There’s nothing back there. It’s the exhaustion, playing tricks with my vision, and my nerves. Only I don’t believe that. The sound of my footsteps seems heavy and too loud, like something is using the noise to hide in. Thomas has quickened his pace to walk by my side rather than behind. His radar has been tripped too, but he might just be getting it from me. We couldn’t be in a worse place than this deserted, dark side street, lined with alleys cut between buildings and black spaces between parked cars. I wish we hadn’t stopped talking, that something would break the eerie silence that amplifies every noise. The silence is getting the better of us. There’s nothing following. There’s nothing back there.
Thomas is walking faster. The panic pulse is setting in, and given the option of fight or flight I know which way he’s leaning. But fly to where? We have no idea where we’re going. How far would we get? And how much of this is the product of a lack of sleep and an overactive imagination?
Ten feet ahead, the sidewalk disappears into a long shadow. We’ll be in the dark for at least twenty yards. I stop and glance behind me, scanning the spaces beneath parked cars and watching for movement. There isn’t any.
“You’re not wrong,” Thomas whispers. “Something’s back there. I think it’s been following us since we left the station.”
“Maybe it’s just a pickpocket,” I mutter. My whole body tenses like a coil at the sound of movement ahead of us, in the shadow. Thomas pushes into me, hearing it too. It got ahead of us somehow. Or maybe there’s more than one. I pull the athame out of my back pocket, out of its sheath, and let the streetlight shine on the blade. It’s sort of silly, but maybe it’ll scare them off. Exhausted as I am, I don’t have the energy to deal with more than one alley cat, let alone anything else.
“What do we do?” Thomas asks. Why’s he asking me? All I know is we can’t stay under the streetlight until sunrise. No choice but to go ahead, into the shadow.
When I’m shoved onto one knee I think it’s Thomas at first, until he shouts, “Watch out!” about three seconds too late. My knuckles skid against the concrete and I push myself back up. Tired eyes blink in the dark as I slide the athame back into my pocket. Whatever it was that hit me wasn’t dead, and the knife can’t be used on the living. A round object flies my way; I duck and it clatters off the building behind me.
“What is it?” Thomas asks, and then he’s knocked back, or I think he is. The street is so dark and the quarters are close. Thomas is thrown out into the lamplight, where he bounces off a parked car by the curb and reels back to hit the bricks of the wall like he’s in a pinball machine. A figure spins into my adjusting vision and plants a foot solidly against my chest. My ass hits the pavement. He strikes again and I get my arm up to defend, but all I manage is a rough shove. It’s disorienting, the way he’s moving; in fast and slow spurts. It throws off my equilibrium.
Snap out of it. It’s exhaustion; it’s not a drug. Focus and recover. When he strikes again, I duck and block, and land a shot to his head that sends him spinning.
“Get out of here,” I shout, and barely avoid a clumsy attempt at a leg sweep. For a second I think he’ll just bug out and run. Instead he stands straight and grows a foot taller. Words hit my ears, spoken in what I think is Gaelic, and the air around me presses in tight.
It’s a curse. To do what, I don’t know, but pressure builds in my ears ten times worse than on the plane.
“Thomas, what is he doing?” I shout. It’s a mistake. I shouldn’t have let the air go. My lungs are too tight to take any more in. The chant takes over everything. My eyes are burning. I can’t breathe. I can’t exhale, or inhale. Everything’s frozen. The sidewalk is pressing against my knees. I’ve fallen.
My mind screams out for Thomas, for help, but I can already hear him, whispering a chant to counteract the other. The attacker’s is all lyric and glottal stop; Thomas’s is deep and full of melody. Thomas grows gradually louder, his voice pushing over the top of the other voice until the other voice falters and gasps. My lungs let loose. The sudden rush of air to my throat and blood to my brain makes me shake.