Path of the Tiger, стр. 29
The shouts of the Huntsmen troops behind William echoed through the corridors as he raced up each successive flight of stairs, his heart thumping frenetically in his chest and his muscles aflame with the exertion of his panicked flight. Just as he reached the top floor, a burst of gunfire erupted from his right as one of the Huntsmen troops, who had gone up the fire escape, fired on him through a window. As the glass exploded in a shower of diamond-glistening shards, William spun about on his heels and fired off three shots at the man, who dropped to the floor to take cover.
‘Shit!’ William cursed through his panting. ‘One shot left!’
Without giving his opponent the opportunity to fire on him again, he dived across the hallway and scrambled up the narrow stairwell that led to the roof. As he did, an uncanny tingling stirred abruptly in his bones, but his inner tempest of adrenalin quickly overrode that sensation. Just behind him the two Huntsmen troops were scrambling through the broken window into the building, hot on his heels. Hoping to slow his attackers, he poked his arm out into the passage and blindly squeezed off one last blast of wrathful thunder. A howl of pain announced that the chance shot had struck home, but William took no time to relish in his luck. He flung his gun away, and with all his might he heaved the steel door closed as the snare drum pitter-patter of combat boots swarmed across the passage behind him.
Before he could lock the deadbolt in place, though, a heavy shoulder barged the door half-open and almost sent William sprawling, but he recovered from the initial shock with a guttural roar, throwing his body with furious violence against the door in retaliation, in the process sending his adversary tumbling back from the impact. He braced himself against a stair behind him, locking his muscles tight as another one of the troops crashed against the door. Again William almost lost his footing, and the door opened slightly, but he forced it shut once more, crying out from the burning effort, but this time he managed to slip the deadbolt into place. As he ran up the stairs to the roof, booming thumps followed him up the stairs, the sounds of the Huntsmen hurling their bodies against the door; it would only be a matter of seconds before the bolt gave way.
Short on breath but fuelled by surging adrenalin, William raced up the final flight of steps. He burst onto the rooftop, spun around, and bolted the steel door shut behind him to buy a few more precious moments. It was at that moment that the strange sensation of recognition crackled again across his nerve endings; he had just detected the presence of another beastwalker.
‘William, my old friend. It’s been far too long.’
William spun around to his right and gasped, shocked at the sound of the familiar voice, and saw a man step out from behind one of the large steel vents.
‘Abou!’ William stammered. ‘What … how?!’
Aboubakar was attired in a traditional West African boubou – a perfect garment for a quick transformation of forms. Diamond earrings glinted in his earlobes, and his teeth blazed white as he beamed out a Cheshire cat smile.
‘It’s good to see you again after all these years,’ he purred.
William’s jaw hung slack for a few seconds as he attempted to process what was going on here. Urgency spurred him on though, and he snapped out of this semi-daze.
‘Run you idiot!’ he shouted. ‘Huntsmen troops are right behind me!’
Aboubakar boomed out a brash laugh before continuing.
‘I’m here to offer you a deal,’ he announced in his sonorous voice. ‘Come and join us. Save yourself from a world of pain and suffering and join with us.’
The contorted knot of confusion and panic on William’s face melted into a dark scowl of realisation.
‘So, they’ve finally got to you, Abou,’ he snarled. ‘You’re here with those murderers running up the stairs, aren’t you?! I never thought that you would cross over, that you’d be a traitor to your own kind. Tell me brother, what did they offer you to betray us?! And how could you possibly trust them to deliver on it? How?!’
‘The Alliance is the way of the future, William,’ Aboubakar answered calmly. ‘Our kind has grown weaker over the centuries while the Huntsmen have only increased in power. There is no place for stale loyalties and naïve dreams of sentimentality in today’s world; there are only economies and corporations now. Indeed, the old dreams have finally been revealed as the childish fantasies they always were. Profit is what turns the world on its axis … nothing else. Surely you have seen this? Why expend so much time and energy in the futile endeavour of resisting this brave new world, in which the Huntsmen are boldly leading the way? Has your Rebel propaganda worked its deceptive magic so well upon your own mind? You must have realised by now that it is hopeless to resist the true might of the Huntsmen’s empire. It is a fool’s errand, a mission doomed to inevitable failure.
Come, my friend, stop this foolishness and embrace the wonder and glory of the Huntsmen’s vision: a global, infinitely growing economy of power and profit that is now on the verge of expanding beyond the mere limits of this planet, and into the vastness of space! You, William, could be there on Mars, the red planet