few seconds if they did.
Spyder parked the Dead Mans Ducati by a clam chowder stand in front of Fishermans Wharf and left the keys in the ignition. Taking Lulu by the hand, he led her down the long wooden walkway connected to the piers. Long before Fishermans Wharf had been transformed into a video game and fried fish tourist trap, the place had been a working pier for fishing boats coming in from beyond the Golden Gate. Even weekend sailors avoided the place now, however. It wasnt just the tourists. The few places left to tie up had been staked out by hundreds of growling and extremely territorial sea lions. Mostly, the animals used the piers to sun themselves, so in the cool morning air there werent more than a dozen or so sacked out on the deck. Spyder walked Lulu carefully around the sea lions to the airship.
Primo waved to them from the end of the pier. Shrike was sitting on one of the pilings, her face to the sun. Her pale skin was outlined in the orange and pinks of dawn light. Spyder stood behind her. She got to her feet, put a hand on his chest and smiled at him. "I never doubted you for a moment, even if you doubted yourself," Shrike said and pecked him on the cheek. She went to the balloon and Primo helped her into the gondola, then Lulu. Spyder followed them inside as Primo cast off the rope that tethered them to the wharf. For a second, it seemed as if nothing was happening. Then, they rose straight into the chill morning sky. Spyders stomach dropped with the nauseous sensation of riding in a freight elevator.
Shrike was passing around cups and a thermos full of hot coffee. Spyder poured some and watched Primo at the front of the gondola operating a spider web of lines and pulleys, positioning the airship to catch the bay winds.
Страницы: << < 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 > >>