All that being said, like a little terrier chasing a big truck, I hadn’t given much thought to how I’d subdue him when—or if—I caught him. Though also like certain small terriers, come hell or high water, I wasn’t giving up.
I didn’t slow down until I reached a clump of what had to be tourists, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at an honest-to-god paper map. Did they even make those things anymore?
“’Scuse me, pardon me, coming through,” I said, weaving, dodging, and bumping my way through.
The gunman had vanished around the corner.
Dammit.
I stopped at the corner long enough to peek around and make sure he wasn’t waiting to blow my head off. I got a gratifying glimpse of him darting into a parking garage across the street.
“Yasha, parking garage on Hudson.”
I crossed the street and quickly darted inside to keep from being silhouetted against the sunlight from the entrance. I drew my gun and sprinted as quietly as I could down into the garage to the protection of the closest concrete column and stopped to let my eyes adjust to the shadows.
The garage was below street level. I’d been in these before. Going through the low entrance made you feel like you were driving into a cave. If you had to go to the bottom level to find a space, it felt like there was barely enough clearance to stand up in, and if you weren’t a claustrophobic wreck before driving in, you were then.
I didn’t know how far down this one went, but I wasn’t going any farther than this level.
When a predator went to ground, you didn’t jump in the hole after it—and if you had to, you didn’t go far.
Since the garage was small by Manhattan standards and the gate was both an entrance and exit, this was probably the only way in or out. I could simply stay put and wait. The only way this guy was getting out was past me. Unless his car was here, then he’d be trying to go over me.
I tried to turn down the volume on my breathing enough to hear the gunman moving or starting a car.
I opened my mouth to get even more air in. What the hell? I could sprint farther than this without getting winded. Apparently running after—or from—a guy with a gun who’d just fired shots inches from where I’d been standing kicked my adrenaline into overdrive. More adrenaline flowing equaled more air needed.
Once I could hear over my own wheezing, there wasn’t anything else to hear, other than passing traffic and dripping water from somewhere below.
It was too dark to tell how many columns were down here, but it was highly likely the gunman was behind one nearby waiting for me to make the first move.
I had news, I wasn’t going anywhere.
Only minutes away was a Russian werewolf in an armored Suburban that could block the gunman’s exit or pin him against a back wall. Ian and I had been shot at, and Yasha was the protective sort. Since there’d never been a day when a shelf and a pile of boxes had stopped my partner, he’d follow, if for no other reason than to yell at me for running off without backup.
None of that would keep the gunman from taking an elevator up into the building above, but I had one elevator in my line of sight, and chances were in a garage this small, there was only one. It was the only decently lit thing down here. Only half of the lights in the rest of the garage actually worked, the rest were either burned out or flickering on and off, like they were powered by anemic fireflies instead of electricity.
Looking out into the silent, too-poorly-lit-to-be-down-here-by-myself hole in the ground, I began to have second thoughts about my show of initiative, or as my Aunt Vicki, who was the police chief back home would have said, I’d “run off half-cocked.”
As my adrenaline rush faded, realization started to set in, and it wasn’t pretty. A trained and experienced agent could do something like this. I was neither trained, nor experienced.
I was a dumbass.
If I managed not to get myself killed, the next time I found myself in a similar situation, I’d think twice. I’d probably still do it, because the way I saw it I didn’t have a choice, but at least I’d think about it more before it did it.
The garage was almost full, except for the far corner, which, considering the size of the garage wasn’t all that far, was twenty spaces at the most.
No one had parked there.
I couldn’t really blame them. There was no light for five spaces in either direction. I wouldn’t have parked there. The corner didn’t even have shadows, just a big chunk of dark.
I looked closer.
A chunk that was less dark than it’d been a couple of blinks ago.
The source of light wasn’t a bulb, it was the wall itself. A wall that should have been a solid slab of concrete.
Underground garages smelled like gas, oil, and the leftovers of whatever fast food someone had most recently tossed out of their car.
Even then, chances were nil to none that those leftovers would smell like rotten eggs.
A smell nearly identical to sulfur.
I jumped as explosive pops and showers of sparks rained down from overhead as every light in the garage blew, leaving me in near total darkness.
Except for the far corner.
A thin, glowing line appeared, spreading, disintegrating the dark as it went.
An orange glow.
Oh shit.
The gunman didn’t have a getaway car down here; he had a getaway portal.
11
TIME for me to leave.
I turned.
Less than ten feet away—standing between me and the only exit—was the gunman.
His hands were loose at his sides, there was no gun in sight, and his jacket was unzipped all the way, exposing a bare and seriously pasty chest.