Fang tapped Iggy’s hand twice. “Let’s go! Now!”
76
Two burly security guards picked up their pace as soon as they saw Fang, Iggy, and Gazzy race toward the stairwell. Fang knew that when someone was chasing you, you never got on the elevator, twenty-seven floors up or no. They could lock you between floors, be waiting for you. You always took the stairs.
Fang yanked the door open, and the three of them flung themselves downward, four steps at a time. They pushed past startled employees and almost collided with someone delivering sandwiches. Behind them, they heard stairwell doors being opened and security guards yelling. On one floor, the door opened right as they passed, and Fang felt someone take a swipe at his jacket. He continued to leap downward, keeping track of Iggy and the Gasman out of the corners of his eyes. Unfortunately, there were no windows in the stairwell that they could escape through.
The stairs felt endless and went back and forth so tightly that Fang started to feel seasick. Keep it together, he told himself. Keep it together. You’ve got a little kid and a blind guy depending on you.
“Okay, about to reach bottom!” Fang alerted Iggy after endless minutes. “Eight more steps, then a hard left!”
“Gotcha,” said Iggy.
Finally they reached bottom. If they could just make it out the front doors...
There were eight security guards waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Fang whirled to head back upstairs, but the door closest to them opened, and four more guards started thundering toward them. The three bird kids bolted into the lobby, trying to break through the line of guards.
Unsuccessfully.
“We’re leaving!” Fang snarled, but a guard had the back of his jacket and his belt loop. He marched Fang to the big glass doors, muscled them open, and tossed Fang down the building’s front steps.
“You don’t weigh nothin’!” he said in surprise.
“Don’t come back!” said another guard.
Iggy and the Gasman landed on the sidewalk next to Fang, and they quickly scrambled to their feet. After some of the situations they’d been in, getting thrown onto the sidewalk like trash wasn’t that bad, but it meant that Fang’s big plan had bombed. He dusted off his pants, opened the deli bag, and passed out squashed sandwiches as they made their way back to the safe house. WWMD? Fang wondered. What would Max do? Besides let a murderous creep into their lives, that is.
“No go, eh?” Keez was honing a switchblade on a spinning metal wheel.
“Nope.”
“You shoulda whooshed out those wings, man,” he said. “I saw you guys on the news once. You got them wicked wings, right? That woulda done it for sure.”
“Uh, I didn’t want to resort to cheap tricks,” Fang muttered. Plus, he hadn’t thought of it. Keez was right. That would have worked like a charm. Shoot.
On to Plan...H?
77
“The plan is hot dogs?” said the Gasman, enthusiastically wolfing down his second one. “I like this plan!”
Fang did a quick 360, but this section of El Prado had only the usual assortment of dealers, homeless people, and Ghosts. Nothing too threatening.
“The plan is not hot dogs,” Fang said, wiping his fingers on his jeans. “We’re just killing time till the real plan falls into place.” Of course, there was no real plan—yet. But Fang was the leader of this particular flock, and leaders always had to look confident, even when they were blowing smoke. Another lesson he’d learned from Max.
“All right, my man,” Keez said to the hot-dog vendor, and shook his hand. Fang gathered that Keez had just been comped about a dozen hot dogs in return for the vendor’s safety on this street. Interesting.
Iggy was halfway through his fourth hot dog when he suddenly froze in midchew. Fang watched his face alertly.
“What?” he said.
“Crud,” Iggy said, throwing down his hot dog. “Flyboys.”
“You guys scatter!” Fang told Keez quickly. “We’ve got trouble, but they’re only after us.”
“How do they keep finding us?” the Gasman wailed, then stuffed the rest of his hot dog into his mouth.
“We’ll stay!” Keez said, pulling out his cell phone.