Read Online The Altonevers by Frederic Merbe - Free Book Online Page B

pushing and crawling, following him through holes
of swinging arms and legs as the rumble raging on.
    The two wash out of the cat house and
the crowd, into the evening streets filled by grinding gridlock
traffic. A black limousine pulls away and speeds unchecked down the
uncongested sidewalks. The raven haired girl is sitting in the
backseat, looking into a mirror fixing her lipstick as the car
swings around the corner, and disappears. Anna looks to him, as he
carelessly looks around, and she says as calmly as she
could.
    “ What the hell was all that
about!?”
    “ We really should be
going,” he says.
    “ Not until you tell me-”
she’s interrupted by a tide of sirens and rising gunfire erupting
from only a few blocks away. The two instinctively scramble around
and over the gridlock, caving in the roofs of cabs and passenger
cars while leaping and fleeing. Their feet carry them like wind for
a few city blocks, then slowing and weaving between bumpers and
headlights.
    “ No, stay in the middle of
the streets, low, crouch between the cars. They'll see you on the
sidewalks,” he says.
    “ Slow down,” she shouts. He
stops, leaning against a box truck. Lighting a smoke in waiting the
few seconds it takes for her to catch up. She’s hardly running,
with heavy breaths and an unnerved expression on her
face.
    “ You’re a chain smoker. How
are you not out of breath?”
    “ I dunno, but I know we
have to get out of here?” he says.
    “ Here? this street, or this
town?”
    “ This Alto, and onto the
next.”
    “ I haven’t been anywhere.
I’ve hardly seen anything yet, I didn’t even get a
scarf.”
    “ I, am a wanted man. Wanted
by the InterAlto authorities and my boss. Particularly wanted here,
now, right now.”
    “ I didn’t shoot anyone, and
neither did you, and what did that crazy succubus say about a
helping hand? how is killing a criminal cop helping you?” She
shouts flagrantly, in his face pointing with spittle
flying.
    “ Hey you!” a harsh voice
yells, proceeding a sweeping flashlight followed by a burst of
gunfire”
    “ Oh my God!”
    “ Wanted alive or not, Anna,
now C'mon, follow me!” He says. She follows him unflinchingly, and
they slip to the sidewalk and down a long alleyway.
    “ Up,” he says.
    “ Up where?”
    “ Up there,” he points,
leading her eye’s to the ladder of a fire escape.
    “ I can't jump that high. I
can touch it, but I don’t think I can grab it,” she
says.
    “ Stand here,” he says,
pulling her under the fire escape ladder, whose toe is ten feet
above her head.
    “ On three, jump,
okay,”
    “ Okay,” she agrees starting
to crouch to leap.
    “ Okay now.”
    “ What aah!” she yells, as
he grabs she her around her thighs and throws her straight up into
the air, and she grabs the ladder, dangling from it with on one
hand.
    “ Good, now up, up Anna.
Quickly, quickly please,” he says trying to push up her flailing
feet. She struggle and manages to get a knee on the ladder’s last
step. He jumps and pulls himself up after her, they scale the side
of the building in seconds. The two stand at the ledge, looking
down to street level from the rooftop to the sirens and flashlights
sweeping and passing by down below, clueless to the two high above
the laundry lines.
    “ Well that's that,” he
says.
    “ What do we do
now?”
    “ We gotta hang tight till
the flood of flashlights and badges washes away,” he says as it
starts raining, then pouring.
    “ We're gonna stay on a
rooftop in the rain?” She asks, with arms folded and a curious
look. Lightning strikes a building on the other side of town,
flashing the night rain with a burst of yellow light that lingers
for seconds too long. Its brick and wood face erupts as a burst of
cinders floating through the air.
    “ Over there then,” Anna
says, pointing to the corner of the roof. Already soaking wet, they
scurry under a rickety wooden water tower barely out of the
downpour. Laughing about it and