The City Screams by Phil Williams

Author:Phil Williams [Williams, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Urban fantasy, contemporary fantasy
Publisher: Rumian Publishing
Published: 2019-04-08T22:00:00+00:00

12

After checking the other toilet stalls, Tova pressed herself against the bathroom doors to read her other messages. Starting fifteen minutes ago, Ki had left a tirade: Something’s wrong, they’re heading your way.

Shit, he hadn’t told her there was risk here.

Another message, twelve minutes ago: Definitely heading to the hospital. Get out.

Tova’s heart was pounding. How long had she been with Tasker? More than ten minutes? Were the Obake Police alerted around the time of his arrival?

Ki’s messages got more panicked from there: Move you idiot, move!, Tova why aren’t you moving?!, They’re almost there!

Tova sent a quick reply: Phone was off. There’s a man from the embassy here.

Ki replied quickly: Claiming to be who? SIS?

Tova wrote: Ministry of Environment Energy.

Ki’s response was almost instant: Get away from him. Right now.

Tova screwed her eyes closed. Tasker wasn’t safe? She pushed the door out to scan the hall. The nurse’s station was barely visible down the corridor, only Hamada’s arm in view. The consulting room and Tasker were out of sight. She could go the other way, unseen. Trust Ki over her own government? Hell, how did she know for sure he was even from her government. The phone buzzed in her hand.

KI: Obake coming in the East Wing. Exit somewhere else.

Tova shot another look back to the nurse’s station. There’d be time to rethink this later – from a distance – and she had Tasker’s card. Clutching her bag to her chest, Tova briskly walked off, away from Hamada and the agent.

She checked the signs hanging from the ceiling, mostly indecipherable Japanese. The moment she spotted an arrow with English text, NORTH WARD, she accelerated and crashed into a nurse coming the opposite way. As the nurse gesticulated angry surprise, Tova sped up, but when she hit a pair of double doors she skidded on the polished floor.

Tova stopped in a wide hallway with a curved counter, where three employees in scrubs stopped a conversation with surprise. One of them said something, and from the look of the doors ahead, and the waiting room chairs, she understood she couldn’t continue without a reason. She scanned quickly for an Exit sign, and spotted an icon for stairs. Waving at the nurses like an ignorant tourist, she hurried that way.

Tova took the steps three, four at a time, faster than she’d ever moved in Physical Education. Her heart was pounding when she finally left a doorway and hit a wall of humid air. Outside. A van trundled ahead of her. She scanned right and left. No idea which side of the hospital she’d come out on, or where to go from here.

She checked her phone again. No signal now, though Ki had got one last message in: I’m on my way.

Tova looked skyward, willing him to glide in on wings. That would be something.

There was a subway sign ahead, at the base of what seemed to be a massive shopping centre. Tova darted towards it, across the road, between vehicles. As she reached the doors, the big man in the bodywarmer stepped out.

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