The Nimble Man Read Free Page B

to peer through Eve's rain-streaked window, eyebrows raised. Then
he popped his own door open and slipped out. Eve stripped off her suede coat,
folded it and left it on the seat, then followed suit. The rain began to dampen
her hair immediately, streaming like tears upon her cheeks. Thunder rolled
across the sky, echoing off the faces of the buildings. Lightning blinked and flickered
up inside the clouds as though behind that veil the gods were at war.
    Doyle slammed his door without another word to Squire. His
gaze was locked upon the brownstone and he stared up at its darkened windows as
he strode around the limousine to join Eve on the sidewalk.
    Her nostrils flared and she sniffed at the air. "Does
this seem too easy to you?"
"I'm not certain that's a word I
would choose," Doyle replied, wiping rain from his eyes.
    Eve pushed her hair back from her face and rapped on the
limo's passenger window. When Squire rolled it down she bent to peer in at him.
The goblin's eyes went to her chest, where the tight cotton of her turtleneck
stretched across her breasts.
    "Up here, you little shit."
    A dreamy smile spread across his features. "Sorry. What
can I do for you?"
    "Open the trunk."
    He reached for the release and there was a small pop, then
the trunk lid rose. The sound of the rain pelting the metal altered at this new
angle. Eve went to the rear of the limo and reached into the trunk to retrieve
a parcel wrapped in soft leather. She unfolded the leather and folded her
fingers around the stock of the sawed-off shotgun, and she smiled as she
dropped the leather wrap into the trunk and slammed it shut.
    Turning to Doyle she cocked the shotgun. "Too easy."
    "Perhaps," he replied. Then he nodded toward the
brick steps in front of the brownstone. "Would you like to get the door?"
    Eve strode purposefully up the short walkway, not even
bothering to check the windows of the surrounding homes for prying eyes. That
sort of thing was Doyle's problem, and he dealt with it often enough. She went
up the four steps and paused on the landing, then shot a kick at the front
door. The blow cracked it in half and tore it from its hinges. The bottom part
of the door flew across the building's foyer and shattered the legs of a small
table; the top half swung like a guillotine from the security chain that still
connected it to the door frame.
    With preternatural swiftness she darted inside the
brownstone, swinging the gaping double barrels of the shotgun around as she
scanned the parlor on her left, and then the formal living room on her right. Nothing
moved. Nothing breathed.
    Doyle stepped in behind her. Eve glanced at him and saw the
corona of pale blue light that encircled his eyes, the aura of that same glow
surrounding his fingers. The illusion of the kindly, aging gentleman had
disappeared. This was the magician. This was who Doyle was.
    "Anything?" he asked.
    Eve's eyelids fluttered as she inhaled. She glanced at the
stairs that led up into darkness. "Nothing that way." Then she
narrowed her eyes as she stared into the shadowed corridor that led toward the
back of the brownstone. "But that way . . ."
    "Magic. Yes. I feel it."
    Doyle went past her, heedless of any danger. The blue light
around his fingers and leaking from his eyes grew brighter and he was a beacon
in the darkened corridor. Eve tried to make sense of the layout of the place in
her head. Living room and parlor in front. Probably a back staircase somewhere,
a pantry, big kitchen, and the sort of sprawling dining room that had been
popular in the first half of the twentieth century.
    There were framed photographs on the walls that had
obviously hung there for decades and wallpaper that had gone out of style
before John F. Kennedy was President. Yet there was no dust. No cobwebs. No
sign that time had continued to pass within that home while it went by on the
outside.
    The corridor ended at a door that was likely either a closet
or bathroom, but there were rooms to either side,