“I still don’t see why I have to carry this one,” the tall man with a pistol in his right hand complained. Three babies hung in a crude backpack carrier across his back, all sound asleep, just like the one cradled in his left arm. None seemed to hear the screams of a woman coming from the open door at the end of the hallway.
“Because that one weighs almost as much as I do, you Lelsi-licker,” said the bearded gnome walking next to the taller human. The meter-tall male carried a single human baby in a backpack, as well as a naked blade that matched his height. A smear of fresh blood showed near the oval-shaped crossguard. Voices sounded from the stairwell in front of the two, and the gnome paused. “Up or down?”
The tall man closed one green eye, and seemed to try to make the other one turn inward -- looking at his own nose. A low humming sounded, almost unheard in the wash of noise in the hallway. The voices from below grew louder, then were joined by the pounding of multiple footsteps running up the stairs.
“Up.”
The man took the stairs two at a time, rushing ahead of the gnome who followed, faster than would seem possible for his short legs. The two quickly passed the fourth and fifth floors, then took the final flight of stairs that stopped at a locked steel door painted red. The man pulled a roll of picks and wires from the front of his hoody, then began to pick the lock.
“Where did they go?” a voice called in Spanish from below. “Up, quickly!”
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“Out of time, Sion,” the gnome said. “Shake your arse or we’re gonna tangle with the Guardias.”
“You want to do it? I mean, you’ll only need a footstool and a ladder, but sure, we can wait,” the man replied.
“Fuck your mother, you moron. Just hurry up.” Footsteps thudded up the stairs below, then paused as someone thumped on one of the apartment doors. More thumps followed on three more doors.
“Done. Let’s get off this damned world and stop carrying demon-damned infants. Shit, if I have to smell one more kid shit, I’m gonna stab it.” The man pulled the door open slowly, then stopped once it was wide enough for him to squeeze through.
“Alive and unharmed or we don’t get paid,” the gnome said as he followed out onto the roof. Red-tiled rooftops mixed with trees covered the area around them. Dozens of yellow or white satellite antennas and metal aerials covered the rooftops. None looked close enough to reach easily for the man, much less the gnome. “Where next?”
“Working on it,” the tall man said. He holstered his pistol, then grabbed a piece of chalk from his pants, and a carved branch as long as his forearm. He took the chalk and marked the cardinal points in a broad circle. Then he tapped the branch to each spot, moving from South to East to North to West. Each tap brought the hum up louder, then a tap in the middle of the circle turned the interior into a twisted wrongness of colors mixed with blackness. “Going through. Don’t be slow.”
Twenty seconds later, a police officer in the green of the Guardia Civil shoved through the door opening, followed by two more a few seconds later. The two men and a woman stared out over the neighborhood, then quickly looked over the sides of the building. “Mierda!” swore the first one to arrive. He pointed at the other man to stay on the roof, then hurried below, taking the female officer with him. Maybe this time the kidnappers were in one of the apartments, but he didn’t hold much hope.