Sudden Prey

four-by-four—disappearing down the street.
    “Go,” he said to the kid. “That way. Down toward the dome.”
     
     
     
    SANDY FOUND AN alley and stuck with it, loping along behind the apartment buildings. LaChaise had told her, teasing, that if she turned herself into the wrong cop, she was dead. True enough: she had his picture, but not his name.
    And he’d be looking for her. Her best option, she thought, was to find a phone and call Davenport.
    Now, if she could find someplace open. But what would be open at seven o’clock on a day like this? The city was a wilderness, the snow pelting down in buckets. She stepped out in the open, then back into the dark as a car roared by, then into the open again to look down the street. There was light on the side of the Metrodome. If she could get in there, there’d be lots of phones. She started that way.
     
     
     
    LUCAS, STADIC AND the uniformed cop moved slowly up the blood trail, peering into the dark, starting at every shadow; the uniform fired once into a snowblower as it sat beside a house; Lucas nearly nailed a gate, as it trembled in the blowing snow. They shouted back and forth to reassure each other, and to pressure the bleeding man. Keep him moving; don’t let him think about it.
     
     
     
    MARTIN FIGURED HE was dying, but he wasn’t feeling much pain. Nor was he feeling much cold. He was reasonably comfortable, for a man who’d torn open a thigh wound and had taken a gunshot hit in the butt. The butt shot had come in from the side, and nearly knocked him down. But he kept moving, feeling the blood running down his legs. He’d have to stop soon, he thought dreamily. He was running out of blood; that’s probably why he felt so good. The shock was ganging up on him, and pretty soon, things would start shutting down.
    One more shot with the bow, then he’d dump it. And when they came in again, for the last time, he’d go to work with the AR-15. His final little surprise, he thought, and grinned to himself.
     
     
     
    LUCAS HIT THE ground next to a bridal-wreath hedge. A handful of snow splashed up in his face, and he snorted and tried to see past the corner of the apartment building, thrusting his .45 that way. He could feel Bunne’s blood on the pistol stock, a tacky patina that’d be hard to get off. “Go,” he yelled, and the uniform went past and immediately screamed and went down, and Lucas flopped beside him, thought he saw movement, and fired, and the cop was screaming, “Got me, he got me . . .”
    Lucas pulled him back. The arrow was sticking out of the cop’s leg, just above the knee: it had apparently hit the bone square on, and was stuck in it. “Gonna be okay,” Lucas said, and yelled at Stadic, “Stay back, forget it, just hold your ground.” He called for another ambulance on the handset and asked Dispatch, “Where’s the help?”
    “They oughta be right ahead of you, they’re all over that block.”
    “You can’t see the guy,” Lucas sputtered. “You can’t see him in the snow . . .”
    Stadic hunched up beside him. “What do you want to do?”
    “Hold it here for a minute. Get the ambulance . . . ?”
    The uniformed cop picked up on it. “Where’s the fuckin’ ambulance . . .”
    An ambulance swung in behind them, and Stadic turned and ran back to wave it down.
    “One more push,” Lucas said. He spoke at the downed cop, but he was talking to himself. He got halfway to his knees, then launched into a short dash and dropped behind another hedge. Up ahead, powerful lights were breaking out around the block, and, behind the lights, he sensed moving figures.
    “Davenport,” he yelled.
    “Where are you?”
    “Straight ahead; I think he’s between us . . .”
    And somebody else shouted, “We don’t know that’s Davenport, watch it, watch it . . .”
    Then Lucas saw Martin. He’d been hunkered into the side of a shabby old apartment, next to a line of garbage cans. He broke across toward the next apartment, and Lucas shouted, “There he is,” and fired two quick shots, missing.
    “He’s coming around the apartment, look that way, he’s coming around, watch it . . .”
    And one second later, the lightning-stutter of the AR- 15 lit up the back side of the apartment. Lucas half-ran that way, aware of the slipperiness underfoot, the shotgun already at his shoulder, leading the way. The automatic fire stopped before he was halfway there, then started again with a fresh clip. Glass was breaking, more