Soldier of Fortune: Gideon Quinn Adventures Book One

Chapter 23

Gideon knew they were being followed.

He knew they were being followed because if they weren't, all the shouts of protest, grunts of pain, and crashes of glass breaking behind them were the beginnings of Nike's most specifically transient bar fight, ever.

He hoped that just this once his instincts were off, and the noise really was the result of a pub-brawl-crawl, but a quick glance over his shoulder showed him five figures—two slim and dark and three broad and fair—plowing through the street.

"That's just adorable," he commented, "in a sick kind of way."

"What is?"

"The triplets are coming." He turned and gave Mia a do let's hurry hand on her shoulder. "With their friends the mercenary twins."

"What twins?" she asked, but hurriedly, in deference to the hand. "And how is that adorable?"

"Adorable in a sick kind of way. I did qualify the statement," he pointed out. "And the twins... remember the woman from the alley?"

"The one with the slithery voice." Mia pulled him left, off of Marlboro and onto a still smaller street, one of those formed when more buildings were erected than the original city plan allowed for.

"That one, yes. Her name is Rey."

"She was pissed—"

"Angry."

"—that you bashed her brother. You never mentioned they was twins."

"Were, and it didn't seem relevant at the time. Except for them being buddies with a set of triplets, which is—"

"Not adorable," she cut in quickly.

"In a sick kind of way," he qualified, again.

She, no surprise, rolled her eyes and shrugged. Then she took a sharp right into a narrow, connecting walkway.

Gideon squeezed her shoulder to stop and, with his back to the rightmost building, leaned carefully out to see what was happening behind them.

At first he thought they'd lost the full hive of siblings, but a flurry of motion at the corner of Marlboro told him they were still coming.

"Let's scarp," he said, and followed Mia deeper into the passage, which was so narrow at some points that his shoulders brushed the walls on both sides.

The buildings were also of the ramshackle oeuvre, and he was sure several only remained upright because they were leaning on each other.

Even better, their entrances weren't at street level, but below, so that one had to descend a staircase to get in the front door.

It was not, in other words, a strong tactical position, should their pursuers catch up with them.

A cracked window they passed was emitting a stream of smoke—ease-laced tobacco—giving Gideon the impression the entire row of ramshackle townhouses had been converted to hukka dens.

He was about to ask Mia if she was certain of her route, when she turned left, to one of the sub-level doors, taking the steps down in two quick jumps.

Gideon followed, less enthusiastically. "Tell me this isn't your someplace quiet."

"Nah, this is just a shortcut," she assured, opening the door and waving him in before her.

As much as Gideon didn't want a run-in out here, he was almost certain he didn't want to go into this building, from which the vapor of ease and trip, and who knew what other narcotics, threatened to rob him of his focus.