Stoneheart Read Online Free PDF Page A

crinkled.
    “God helps them what help themselves.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Means hold my hand and run like a bastard.”
    George let his hand be enfolded by the big, black hand. He had just enough time to wonder at the fact that the metal felt soft and pliable and not as cold as he’d expected, before his arm was almost yanked out of its socket as the Gunner headed for the underpass.
    They skidded into the fluorescent-lit tunnel and clattered down the low ramp, heading north, beneath the traffic. Halfway down the underpass there was a busker strumming a guitar, singing an old Simon and Garfunkel song about being safe in a fortress deep and mighty, with more attack but less accuracy than the original.
    His eyes watched George approach. He gave no sign of seeing the Gunner, or of hearing the hobnailed crash of his ammo boots on the concrete floor. He just watched George’s approach with boredom then disgust. He cut the song long enough to spit an ironic “Thank you” as George passed the open guitar case without adding to the spattering of coins in its scarlet interior.
    George was still looking back as the Gunner dragged him up the steps into the darkening, tree-shrouded end of Hyde Park.
    “He didn’t see you!”
    The Gunner just kept running, weaving through the pedestrians heading home through the neon-enhanced gloom, heading away from the traffic, deeper into the park.
    “None of them can see you!”
    The Gunner tugged George’s arm just in time to make him look ahead and sidestep the tree trunk that loomed out of the orange-tinged darkness.
    Which was a pity. Because if he’d kept looking back he might have noticed that he was wrong.
    One pair of eyes had seen them. One pair of eyes stretched in something more intense than disbelief. The eyes stared out from beneath a long sweep of dark and shiny brown hair. They were wide-spaced eyes with hooded lids set in a creamy white face.
    On the top floor of a red double-decker bus speeding west on the open bus lane, a girl of George’s age wrenched out of her seat and stumbled back through the standing passengers, eyes locked on something disappearing into the park, as the bus drew her farther and farther away.
    She yanked the stop cord and serpentined down the stairs, oblivious to the complaints of the other passengers, ignoring the “Hoi!"s and the hands that plucked at her long sheepskin coat as she launched onto the rear platform of the bus, eyes raking back into the darkness, searching for something she could no longer see.
    The conductor grabbed her.
    “Oi, missy, simmer down.”
    She didn’t even look back.
    “I have to get off!”
    The bus hammered down Rotten Row.
    “Next stop in a minute,” said the conductor, not letting go.
    The bus slowed for a taxi. The girl twisted her head like a snake and bit the conductor neatly between his thumb and forefinger.
    As he yelped and let go in surprise, she leaped off the back of the slowing bus, stumbled, fell, got up, dodged another bus that braked hard, and ran off into the park. The girl—whose name was Edie—didn’t seem to mind the new graze on her knee any more than the honking and shouting behind her.
    But then the other thing about the pale face beneath the shiny hair was that it was tough beyond its years, a toughness that came from having decided she wasn’t going to mind about little things ever again.
    And it had the look of a face hard on the trail of something big.

C HAPTER S EVEN
    Parking
    T he Gunner pulled George to a halt in the intricate tracery of shadows cast by a neon light above a spreading plane tree. He looked all around.
    George concentrated on getting oxygen into his lungs. He waited until he’d gotten enough for a short question.
    “Are we safe?”
    The Gunner just set off again, but this time George noticed that it wasn’t a headlong run. It was more like a game of hide-and-seek, where the Gunner flitted them from one pool of shadow to the next, always keeping an eye