The Nimble Man by Christopher Golden, Thomas E. Sniegoski Page B

gust of wind nearly
dislodges him, and then he is able to throw his upper body over the edge, and
he is sliding over the railing and onto the observation deck. He tumbles into a
wet and heaving ball upon the floor of the deck, rain still soaking him, but it
takes him only a moment to catch his breath before he is up once again. Graves
stands in a crouch, expecting an attack, but apparently Zarin has already
presumed Graves has been dealt with, for he is nowhere to be seen.
    Alarm stabs his heart. If Zarin is gone, then it may be
too late to stop him from seeding the storm clouds with his poison, from having
a deadly, toxic rain fall all over the city. Cradling his right arm, the torn
shoulder muscles throbbing in agony, he rises and begins to run along the outer
edges of the observation deck.
    Graves rounds the corner and Zarin is there, a short,
ugly little man bent over a tray of small canisters, each tied in a net and
attached to a large balloon. Zarin is filling a balloon with gas from a
portable tank, and Graves knows at once that it is helium. And now he knows how
the madman plans his attack. The poison canisters must have timers. The
balloons will carry them into the storm where they will spray toxins into the
air, and the rain will become fatal.
    Wiping the water from his eyes, Dr. Graves shouts Zarin's
name and races at the killer.
    Fog encroaches at the edges of his vision, enshrouding
him, and for a moment Graves is lost. Then from out of the fog he sees a figure
emerge . . . it must be Zarin!
    But it is not.
    Gabriella is wearing a dress he bought for her that falls
upon her curves in such a way as to make his heart and lips both stutter. She
smiles at him, her chestnut eyes brightening, and the fog begins to thin. There
is an electric hum around him and Dr. Graves feels as though he is awakening
from a terrible dream. He glances about and finds himself in the familiar
setting of his Washington Heights laboratory. To many he is an unwelcome
neighbor, but the prestige of his reputation balances out their concerns about
the color of his skin, and the fact that Gabriella's does not match his own.
    "Leonard," she says, her voice still thick with
the sultry accent of the little fishing village on the northwest coast of Italy
where they had met. "We were supposed to meet your friends at Birdland an
hour ago." There is no chastisement in her voice, only that playful,
loving patience. "Come, now. Enough of science for tonight."
    Graves glances down at the beakers on the table in front
of him, at his notebook and the thick black pencil he has been writing with. A
warmth spreads through him that has been rare in his life and he leans forward
to shut off the burners beneath the beakers, snuffing those small flames.
    When he looks up expectantly, she is gone.
    The lab is gone.
    The air is thick with humidity and the buzzing of flies
and the heat is oppressive. Sweat drips down his back and stains his shirt at
the armpits, his body so warm that the droplets of it are a cooling relief
where they trace their paths on his skin.
    Tangled jungle stretches as far as he can see in every
direction. Things chitter and rustle in the trees but he pays them no mind. He
did not hike all this way to let the wildlife drive him off. This is the
Yucatan, where his next step could be into any one of a hundred agonizing
deaths. There were far more ways to dive here than there were ways to live. But
Dr. Graves was not returning to New York without the object of his quest.
    And now he had found it. He held his breath and stared at
a cluster of strange, spiny-barked trees in front of him. They twisted in upon
themselves, branches intertwining as though in a dance. The Xuithla tree was
dismissed by most botanists as tribal myth. Yet here it is. The rarest tree in
the world, and if its legendary healing properties are more than legend . . .
    Voices erupt around him, echoing through the trees and
Dr. Graves spins in search of their origin. He blinks as