I yelled, “Nicolai!Run! They’re coming!”as I bolted across the courtyard.
But no one was standing on the other side of the gate.
Where the heck was he? Where were hisguys?
Terrible thoughts rammed into my mind, but I refused.
No.
No,Nicolai wasn’t already gone or dead.No.
I’d lose these goons, and then I’dfind him.
The terra cotta wall on the other side of the courtyard was theTeatro Nuovo,the New Theatre, the route most tourists took to enter Juliet’s courtyard during regular visiting hours.
I sprinted and caught the theater’s door, flinging it open and barreling inside.
The men who’d attacked us were tall with long legs and probably in better shape than me. If I ran straight through to the sunny street on the other side, they would run me down on the empty early-morning streets.
But this wasa theatre.
And I was a theatre kid. This place wasmine.
I ran for the auditorium house, and then down the aisle between the scarlet velvet seats to the red-curtained stage, and then backstage.
The House Manager’s lighting control panel was right where it should be, stage right, in the front wall on the other side of the proscenium arch. I slammed the faders all the way down.
Darkness crashed through the seating area like a tsunami obliterating the building.
You could be your own shadow daddy when you controlled the lighting design.
Men’s shouts filled the darkness, and slams, and crashes, more yelling and shouts.
Sounded like someone fell over the seats in the dark auditorium.Oops.
They thought they’d put a dagger in me, just like how Juliet Capulet had died.
Au contraire.If they wanted a duel, I’d see theirRomeo and Julietand raise themThePhantom of the Opera.
There must be a grand chandelier around there somewhere I could throw at them.
I knew I was dallying too much at the Stage Manager’s panel, but the spiral staircase to the narrow balconies of the catwalk system was just over in an alcove behind the wide gauze of the scrim. The dim backstage lighting would guide me there, and I could climb up it in a flash.
But first, what could I throw at them?
Footsteps in the house between the rows of seats, shouting, fumbling, seats flapping, cursing.
This electrical box was just the house panel, not the control booth for the stage’s lighting system. I couldn’t drop the lighting battens on them from here, no matter how gratifying it would be to watch a steel rod holding thousands of pounds of fresnel and leko lights crash down on them.
Seconds had passed while I stood there.
I ground my teeth.
Time to go.
I turned and started for the stairs to the catwalks.
The pulley system lined the wall, the thick ropes and wheels to lower set pieces and flats in the fly space above onto the stage.
