The man was unconscious, blood oozing from a gash above his eye where he’d face-planted on to the floor. Of course the Camarilla were tracking him. He’d been dumb to think otherwise. They’d probably been on his tail since he’d fled Chicago. Maybe before.
Rémy slid to the floor. He was so tired. The tablet around his neck was still screaming, taunting him. He missed Tia Rosa and his mom. A sob escaped from his throat. He lashed out in frustration, kicking the pea-coat guy’s legs multiple times until the man groaned and slipped back into unconsciousness.
Squeezing back his tears and letting his pulse settle, Rémy felt his anguish thin out. He pulled himself up, shored up his grief, stifled his self-pity and pushed on.
Outside, sirens were closing in on the shop, lights from the panda cars pulsing through the latticed front windows. A customer must have called the police. He had to move. Rémy pulled the unconscious man across the shop and pushed open a hobbit-sized door tucked into the rear wall. He dragged the man inside the cramped space, and then backed out, shutting the door and jamming a chair under the handle. He kicked the Taser under a cabinet, out of sight. He didn’t need to be caught on the streets with it.
This may not be Chicago, but he wasn’t born yesterday.
The male shop clerk was outside peering in, a uniformed police officer in silhouette behind him. Rémy sprinted up the stairs, out through a small arched window and on to an old iron fire escape. At last, the tablet stopped shrieking in his head.
He shut the window behind him. Rémy secured his guitar case on his back and climbed up the iron steps to the uneven roofs above the alley.
A loud whistle carried above the city’s noise. A young police officer stood in the street below, staring up at him and talking into her radio.
‘This is Patrol Officer one-zero-three in pursuit of a black youth, approximately eighteen years old, heading across the rooftops towards the Prêt-A-Manger on Adelaide Street. Repeat, a possible burglary suspect fleeing on the gabled roofs above Hogarth Lane…’
Rémy ducked behind a rusty water tank and crawled to the end of the roof, where he watched as the officer sprinted to the front of the old building. He could hear her yelling at the shop clerks. From the sound of things, they were being deliberately unhelpful.
‘How do I get up on that roof?’
‘Why’d you want to do that?’
‘Is there a key to get into this place?’ she asked.
‘We’re waiting for the owner to open up. He’s always bloody late on Mondays, ’specially if he had a rough weekend.’
Rémy peered over the edge of the roof. The police officer was eyeing the clerks.
‘Do you often turn up for work without coats or bags?’
‘I don’t see that it’s any of your business.’
‘Fine,’ said the officer. ‘You two stooges stay where you are. I’ll be back for a chat in a bit, and you’d better have figured out a way inside by then.’
Rémy jumped across the roof to the building next door. But he wasn’t fast enough. The officer was directly beneath him, looking up. In a panic, he scanned up ahead, trying to find the best way down.
A second officer was approaching the first, coffee in his hand.
‘What the hell took you so long? Didn’t you hear me whistle?’
‘Sorry, Lakshmi, not a peep. What’s up?’
‘Spotted a guy climbing out on to the roof up there. Could be one of the jewel thieves mentioned at watch this morning.’
Exploiting the distraction, Rémy turned back the way he’d just come, and then scrambled to the building directly next door. The sound of a soprano practising scales in the building below wafted up through a filthy skylight. The woman’s voice gave him pause, the music calming him a little. He looked down to an empty alley no bigger than a hallway, and across to the church of St Martin in the Fields.
The roof was newer here and the slates steadier. He backed up four steps and sprinted towards the building’s edge. He leaped, his legs bicycling in mid-air, his guitar case banging against his back. He landed on the flat, tarred roof of one of the church outbuildings. There was no cover. Quickly, he shimmied down the shortest wall to the pavement below and ducked into an empty doorway at the rear of the church.
Car horns, a plane overhead, a cacophony of city noise, but no running footsteps and loud police whistles. Rémy glanced out from his hiding spot. Although it was still early on Monday morning, rivers of tourists streamed along London’s labyrinth of narrow alleys. He burst from his hiding place, sprinting along the lane towards Orange Street.
Wrong move.
‘Stop!’
Rémy skidded round the corner into the lower end of St Martin’s Place, not slowing until he’d reached a throng of people. Yanking off his hood, he dodged deep into a pack of white teenagers. Another wrong move. He had no cover among the fair-skinned tourists.
‘Stop that kid in the hoodie! The black kid with the music case! There!’
Rémy bounced off the tourists like a bumper car, ignoring the shouts closing in behind him. More police appeared. Ducking low, he snaked through more pedestrians, quickly cutting towards Leicester Square.
Rémy dropped his shoulder and rammed into the female officer on his tail. Instead of going down, she whipped out her baton and cracked it on the back of his legs. He leaped at the pain, but it jarred him on. With a second burst of wind, he charged into Irving Street and scrambled into an empty newsagent’s doorway. He reached for his iPod. It wasn’t in his pocket.
Damn it!
He must have dropped it.
Criminal mastermind. Not.
Still they came for him. Rémy picked up his speed, skidding on his knees behind a row of litter bins. He could see only one way out.
You’re stronger than I ever was, baby boy.
Rémy filled his head with sound, imagining in a speeded-up film in his mind what he needed to do. Then he stood up. Rolling forward on the balls of his feet, Rémy lifted his head and began to sing.
‘Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma! Tu pure, o Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza,
guardi le stelle
che tremano d’amore, e di speranza!’
The swarm of police stopped. Pedestrians and tourists gawked as if a pause button had been hit. Rémy’s rich tenor voice was pitch perfect and completely unexpected.
‘Ma il mio mistero chiuso in me;
il nome mio nessun sapra!
No, no! Sulla tua bocca lo dire quando la luce splende!’
A swirl of silver mist began coiling around Rémy’s feet and legs, drifting up over his jacket and around his guitar case. He punched into a sprint, heading towards the statue of Shakespeare at the centre of Leicester Square. Adrenalin exploded into his limbs as he was enveloped in a shimmering silver shroud.
‘Ed il mio bacio sciogliera il silenzio che ti fa mia!’
The crowds faded, the police blurred. Rémy ran faster, sang higher, stretching himself out to the music, opening up the sounds in his throat, letting them carry him towards the statue.
‘Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle! Al’alba vincero!’
Translucent pencil beams of light pierced the leather of his boots. All around him an ethereal sheen appeared to pillow the square. His hands became a shimmering bronze glow. His fingers fused together. A wall of sound morphed into a matrix of light. Each line pulsing, changing colours, striving for its crescendo.
Here goes everything, Mom!
In three bounding steps, Rémy got big air.
‘Vincero! Vinc-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ro!’
At the ear-splitting, bone-chillingly beautiful high C, every person in the square was brought to their knees, hands pressed to their ears, their cries competing with the final lingering note.
Their pain played to Rémy’s advantage. Only a handful of people actually witnessed him defy the laws of physics and disappear into the now mist-covered statue of Shakespeare.