Page 3 (2/2)

A long orange jet of fire rains frolass-and-chrome cases at a spice kiosk The business end of the flaer than a 45 semiauto A tube runs froas and propellant are stored

Eleanor ns, and the backs of a few slack-jaweddown at us Annie Oakley and Charlie Manson’s demon baby, jacked up on that sweet and special prekill adrenaline

Then she’s down and running with a shty six-year-old I take off after her, running deeper into the market She’s small and fast and a second later she cuts left, down the far aisle, and doubles back toward Broadway

I can’t catch her or cut her off, but there’s an eive it a kick and send it through the e The cart slah the counter of Grand Central Liquor Suddenly it’s raining glass and Patrón Silver Right on cue, people start screa

Eleanor is back on her feet a second before I can grab her She’s not sle and a chunk of bone the size of a turkey dru out just below her elbow She has the fla flat out No way I can stop Instead, I go faster She pulls the trigger and I’ in fire

I hit her a , but I know it’s her because she’s the only thing in the store light enough to fly like that My vision clears, but even I don’t want to see this When she pulled the trigger to hose me down, all the liquor on her clothes and the floor went up Eleanor is an epileptic shadow puppet pirouetting around in a lake of whiskey fire

Vaular hus, but when they let loose, it’s like a runaway traincats You feel it in your kidneys and bones Tourists pee and puke at the sound Fuck ’e to spread Grease on the grills of nearby food stalls starts going up A propane tank blows, setting off the sprinkler syste out of the market back onto Broadway, still covered in flames

Chasing a burning girl down a city street is a lot harder than it sounds Civilians tend to stop and stare and this turns the pins You’d think that on soet the hell out of the way of a burning schoolgirl screah to crack store s and the stupid son of a bitch chasing her Not that I’ it for the money, but they still stand to benefit from it

When Eleanor runs across Fifth Street she isn’t burning any on charred stick insect legs

Up ahead, there’s an abandoned wreck of a movie theater called the Roxie The lobby and marquee areas have been converted into an open-air market Eleanor blows past the racks of knockoff T-shirts and toxic rubber sandals Slah the inch-thick plywood screwed over the theater doors where the glass used to be I follow her inside, but hang back by the s my eyes adjust to the dark

The na’at would be a s so Besides, Eleanor won’t knohat a na’at is, so it won’t scare her the way I want I retired Wild Bill’s Navy Colt pistol a while back and replaced it with a S and mean it doesn’t even need bullets I could beat Godzilla to death with it if I stood on a chair The gun is loaded alternately with un shells, all coated in arlic, holy water, and redsauce It only holds five shots, but it does its job well enough that I’ve never had to reload

When you’re going in so inside, a place you know a Lurker likes to hang out, a s back, circle the perimeter, and look for traps and weak points I’m hot, annoyed, and in a rush, so that’s exactly what I don’t do Besides, I’ one dumb little Kentucky fried blonde She can’t be much trouble now that she’s cornered Yeah That’s probably what all those G-un

Inside the theater, it’s a sauna Burst water pipes in a sealed-up building I haven’t ates It smells like they invented irl Eleanor end up day-squatting here? She didn’t run into the theater by accident She knehere she was going By the sound of all the broken beer and wine bottles under my feet, so do a lot of other people Make that “did,” past tense The winos are probably what attracted her to the place Who doesn’t love a free lunch? I have a feeling that there aren’t too many random squatters in here anymore

Turns out I’ht

The squatters aren’t randoirl