Chapter 4

Juliette walked into the apartment she shared with her father, and immediately made a bee-line to the bookshelf, pulling out the Complete Works of Shakespeare and prying out the brick in the wall behind it, pulling the cash and Papa's notebook out of the Stash, and stuffing them all into an evening bag. In a hectic rush, she grabbed a few more changes of clothes - and another body stocking - and threw them into the bag. She surveyed the apartment, looking for anything else that she'd want to salvage. Business comes first, she could hear Papa's voice ringing in her head, and survival is always your business. Hesitating, she grabbed the bulky Complete Works of Shakespeare and threw it into the bag.

That nigger Nimrod Marshal, Donovan, had been on their heels for years now; they had - no, she had learned a lot of his tricks. When she saw him at Frankie's, she knew he'd figure out she'd been there, and would be able to figure out where she was going. They'd been so careful keeping the apartment off Donovan's radar. At least, with her new Gifts, she knew she could travel back here much faster than he ever could. Now there was only one way she could think of to stymie his pursuit. There were only two things, she knew, that could stop the Nimrod's visions once she'd touched something - Papa's blinking, and fire. And she'd touched pretty much everything in the apartment. Of course, one of those was unavailable to her, now...

Juliette wiped some tears from her eyes. "Sorry, Papa." She uncapped the bottle of rum she'd taken from Frankie, and started splashing it around the apartment. Then she dug for Papa's smokes, grabbed his box of matches, and scattered them around, holding onto just one. She was standing in the doorway when she struck the final match and threw it into the middle of the front room. She closed the door on the fireball that erupted. Although she was pretty sure the fire wouldn't harm her, couldn't even hurt her, she was carrying a lot of things fire could hurt. She just hoped the fire wouldn't spread beyond her apartment. She liked her neighbors.

Just in case, she slipped a pair of her work gloves on (so she didn't have to touch anything else) and started banging on the doors. She yelled "Fire!" as she ran down the hallways and down the stairs. Running out the door, she stopped by a nearby Gamewell and pulled the lever, sending an alarm to the fire department. People were already streaming out the front door as she glanced back; smoke was coming from her windows. Then, she was in the air; she'd given Donovan enough time to catch up with her. She heard the sirens and the panicked cries of the crowd behind her, winced at the noise, and hoped that the chaos she was leaving behind would slow him down.

Aloft, she considered her final destination. She and Papa had set up quite a few safehouses across the city, and would only access them through his blinks. Still, most of them had some method of outside access - just in case she was ever left alone. She remembered joking that he couldn't ever leave her; he was Gifted, and so unaging. She'd thought he was immortal, too, back then. At least he'd known better.