Sunfail by Steven Savile Read Free Book Online Page B

pocketed it, then picked up what looked like a car alarm remote sitting beside it and hit the Lock button.
    There was a small pop from the computer, followed by a flash of smoke. She’d detonated a small charge inside the case, mangling the hard drive.
    It was crude but effective. They wouldn’t learn anything from the machine. The acrid scent of burning wire and metal fused with the curls of smoke.
    Turning to go, Sophie saw the only thing in the entire apartment she’d truly miss: a picture hanging on the lounge wall. It was a beautiful landscape, an Impressionist-style watercolor of Notre Dame at sunset, painted on a hand-woven paper scroll. She’d picked it up from a stall on the Brocante des Abbesses the day after she’d landed in Paris.
    On a whim, she stepped over to it and lifted it from the hook, broke the glass frame, and pulled it out. Sophie rolled the scroll up and tied it with the attached ribbon before thrusting it into her go bag. It was a silly thing to cling onto, and those couple of seconds of sentimentality cost her.
    As she turned back toward the door, she heard a faint scuff.
    Cabrakan had caught up with her.
    Sophie flattened herself against the wall so her shadow wouldn’t reach the door. She’d sheathed the knife when she’d gone for the go bag. Close quarters a knife was better than a gun, though she had no intention of sticking around to fight.
    One of the things that had drawn her to this apartment was the way it invited the warm sunlight in through the glass double doors that dominated the lounge’s outer wall. The doors led out onto a small balcony, just big enough for a tiny round table and two folding chairs surrounded by a cluster of bright potted plants. In nice weather it was somewhere to relax, sip strong black coffee, and eat a pastry from the shop across the street while she watched the people down below. Today it was her way out.
    She opened the doors, looking back over her shoulder as she stepped out. This was going to be fun.
    Without thinking about what she was doing, Sophie gathered herself and leaped from the balcony. Misjudge it by a couple of inches and it was suicide.
    She threw herself to the left and for one sickening second thought she was going to miss the top of the iron rails of her neighbor’s balcony and cannon back off them. She slammed into the rusty iron, kicking out and scrabbling for purchase fifty feet above the Parisian walkway.
    For another long sickening second she thought her boots wouldn’t find anything to grip onto, then the steel toecap caught between two of the railings and gave her just enough traction to haul herself up. She folded over the railings and dropped down onto the worn tiles of the balcony.
    Behind her, she heard the impact of her apartment door being thrown open, hard.
    Her apartment was in the middle of the building. The balcony ran around the entire span of the apartment, giving it a beautiful double-aspect. It also meant that in five steps Sophie was out of sight—unless they had eyes below.
    She grabbed the wrought-iron railing and swung herself over the edge, grasping the rails with her other hand as she lowered herself. The iron bars had vertical beams for hanging lanterns and clinging vines. Those beams were as good as a ladder down to the balcony below. The decorative curls of the wrought iron made easy hand- and footholds.
    Sophie descended quickly, jumping the last few feet to the ground. Looking back up, she saw the assassin’s dark figure leaning over her balcony, scanning the streets. She couldn’t make out any signal between Cabrakan and someone down on the ground, meaning he was almost certainly alone. That was all that mattered. She ran for the Vélib’ rack, intending to grab another bike and lose herself in the crowds on the Boulevard de Magenta, but stopped short.
    There was a motorbike parked outside her apartment building, a beautiful beast of red and chrome: a classic Swiss Egli-Vincent. It hadn’t been