Taking a train halfway across the world was only the beginning of Jon's adventure. Tomb thieves and darker, older things are haunting the archaeological site at Alarna. Jon and his brother Tam, the unusual Blackfeather children, and the dig artist A...
Kara dashed around one corner and another, mentally cursing her terrible luck. The boy behind her was not losing ground. His nice clothes were quite dust covered and his hair was coming loose, but he was not giving up. Kara was beginning to suspect he knew these alleyways. She didn't, not yet. This place was still new. But no bespectacled little pretty-boy was going to catch or find her when she wanted to disappear.
She found a set of uneven steps around another corner, and dashed up them to the roof tops. The boy followed. Kara ran along above the narrow streets, upsetting birds, and hopping up and down levels as they changed. The boy stayed right behind her.
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Kara growled. Time to shake him up a bit. She leapt a narrow alleyway across to another network of roofing. He made the jump. She took a riskier one. He did too. She looked back. He was grinning.
That was it. Kara jumped headlong off the next rooftop, rolled down an awning and landed just right, with her knees bent, in a crowded street below. She began to weave through the crowd, looking back. No sign of him on the rooftop. She grinned and hefted the handbag. It had a good weight. She wondered what the pretty little girl had in it. There was a nice jingle of coins somewhere in the depths.
A small and dirty urchin lifted a hand beseechingly, hearing the coins. Kara frowned. "Steal your own," she told the child.
Everyone wanted something for nothing.
Kara looked for landmarks, scanning the colored shop signs and searching for the wells that marked certain squares. There was one ahead, and there was the annoying little boy with spectacles. He had taken them off and was scanning the crowd with sharp green eyes. He looked a little the worse for wear. His long hair was loose and tangled and he now had a skinned knee, but he seemed quite cheerful.
To Kara's surprise and horror, he spotted her. He moved to one corner of the square, and she darted off to the other. The chase started again, this time through busy streets. Kara wove in and about the crowd, shoving people out of the way when necessary. To her great annoyance, the boy did not lose ground. He dodged people rather well. It was time for a different tactic. Kara took to the less crowded alleyways again.
Sometimes you had to convince people to stop following you the hard way. Kara crouched down behind a rain barrel after rounding a corner into a convenient alley. The boy dashed by but began to slow, not seeing her. She put her foot out as he was passing her hiding place and tripped him. He went sprawling, but intelligently, rolling with his fall.
Kara sprang at him before he could regain his feet. She got in a good blow that bloodied his nose, but then he set her off balance and they went rolling in the dust, fists flying. Kara got the upper hand by kicking him in the shin. She grabbed about as they careened past a rubbish heap and found something solid to hit with. After a scuffle for it, which was dangerously close, Kara came out on top. She sat on the boy, holding her weapon, a large empty glass bottle.
