Free Whisper of Shadows (The Diamond City Magic Novels) by Diana Pharaoh Francis Page B

snatched at me.
    I ducked sideways under his arm and kept moving. My near-fall gave me a chance to look behind and revealed several pursuers threading between the cars behind me. They didn’t seem to be all that much in a hurry, which clearly meant that I was being herded and I was headed where they wanted me to go. Not good.
    I cut through the traffic jam to the other side of the road. I was about halfway down to the intersection. I thought I saw Touray in the growing melee surrounding the accident, but I didn’t pay a lot of attention. He could take care of himself. Or not. Not my problem at the moment.
    I focused on remembering the details of my surroundings. I made a habit of walking the city, getting acquainted with every shelf that clung to the sides of the caldera. I’d covered every inch of the city on foot more than once. I never wanted to be lost, and driving it wasn’t enough to teach me the nooks and crannies that were going to save my life tonight. I hoped.
    Diamond City sits like a massive barnacle on the side of a prehistoric volcano—or really, the giant hole it left behind—which is about a hundred miles across. The city sits on three shelves sticking out on the east side, with the leftovers spilling down into the Bottoms at, appropriately enough, the bottom of the caldera. That’s where most of the poor lived, and where you went to get lost when you didn’t want to be found. Downtown, the lowest of the three shelves, was where most working people lived and where the business district was located. Midtown, the next level up, was where the just wealthy lived. Higher still was Uptown, where the dripping-in-money folks lived, and finally, there’s the rim, where the more-money-than-God people built sprawling mansions made of gold bricks with platinum toilets. The shelves were connected by a number of tunnels.
    A lot of money lived in Midtown. Most businesses here were the higher-end variety and included a lot of clothing stores, restaurants, and spas. On this side of the Valger and Bitner intersection was a broad, squat complex containing a couple swimming pools, waterslides, a gym, trampolines, and whatever other entertainment the Disney of workouts might include. The one thing it didn’t offer was a good place to hide. Anyhow, the little valley between the building and road berm was filled to the flat with glistening snow. I wasn’t getting across without being seen, that is, if I didn’t just sink down over my head. Across Bitner was a golf course. I could slog across it, but I’d leave such an obvious trail that even a blind man could follow me.
    I considered jumping into someone’s car to hide, but I’d be trapped there when they started a car-to-car search, which I was certain they’d do.
    A quarter mile away or so was a subway entrance. I might be able to disappear that way, but I was willing to bet it was guarded. This trap was too well planned. If I couldn’t think of anything else, I’d risk trying to slip inside. Providing I could even get that far.
    I was only a couple car lengths back from the intersection when I felt a powerful binding spell bubble up and spread outward, effectively shutting down any magic activity in the vicinity. That wasn’t so great for the victims of the crash. Tinkers couldn’t do anything for them. But it did keep Touray from travelling out to safety, which was no doubt the point. It would also kill the trace null I always wore. When I got out of the binder zone, it probably would go haywire. I deactivated it. I could always fix it. On the positive side, until the spell shut down, no tracer would be able to follow me.
    Shit. I had a sudden bad feeling it would stop me from dropping into the spirit realm, too. I focused and tried to push my hand inside it. Nothing. I was cut off from that route unless I made it out beyond the binder’s limits. That meant outrunning my pursuers.
    I didn’t let myself panic. I’d been in worse situations. I just had to