by Jay Barnson
“You know I can’t do that. I gave my word.”
“But there’s no need for immediacy. The king won’t reverse his decision, but given enough time, we can find a rationale that allows you to avoid confronting the giant. The queen and I are both upset at this decision, and maybe we’ll convince him...”
“I can’t do that, either. Look, Rumela ain’t going to do well in that cell, and I ain’t going to give your papa or anyone else an excuse to execute her.”
She lowered her head. “You are quite loyal to her.”
“She saved my life when Zainus was trying to kill me. I owe her the same. Besides, she’s my friend.”
She looked into his eyes. “Jack, I...”
Outside, a guard said loudly, “Here I am, come to awaken Jack and take him to Bachan. But first I shall stare at this lovely candlestick for but a moment.”
Delcina lowered her eyes. “I must go. Jack, I’m so sorry.”
Jack shrugged. “Well, I guess it ain’t really your fault.” He hefted the dagger and said, “You know, I been in a few really bad scrapes over the last few weeks. Don’t count me out yet. Maybe I will figure a way out of this one, too. Anyway, thank you, Delcina. Princess Delcina. Your highness?”
“Just Delcina is fine. I shall pray for your victory, Jack.”
“That’s mighty kind of you.”
With that, she slipped out through the door. Moments later, the guard knocked. “Okay, Jack, I’m here to take you to Bachan as soon as you are ready.”
Jessabelle gripped the door handle as Leon raced the SUV down the thin, crumbling road. Leon took a curve too fast, slipping well into what would have been the left lane if any markings existed. Through her gritted teeth, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know yet. I want to get to the highway. From there we can get lost, and decide what to do next.”
The next turn went the other direction, pushing Jessabelle against the door. The tree branches seemed awfully close, but at least the ravine was on the other side. Leon swore multiple times, and said, “All we had to do was stay hidden a few weeks.”
“It’s my fault,” Jessabelle said.
“No,” Leon answered after a painful hesitation. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. No matter what happens, remember that it’s the Coven’s fault. They are the ones who...”
Drifting into the other lane on a right curve, Leon nearly hit an oncoming truck. Tires squealed, and a van behind the oncoming truck slammed on its brakes and slid to the side of the road, the front bumper stopping just short of the guardrail.
The SUV skidded sideways, and nearly went off the road as well. Leon swore, turned the car, and moved it out a few feet to realign it with the road. With a deep exhalation, he unfastened his seatbelt and opened the driver’s-side door. “Take the wheel,” he said to Jessabelle.
“What? Where are you going?”
“Min,” he answered cryptically, grabbing the rifle from behind the driver’s seat.
“But what if they’re...”
“Just get ready to drive.”
Jessabelle was about to protest that she didn’t know how to drive and didn’t even have a learner’s permit, but Leon had already stepped out into the cloud of dust, rifle held at the ready. With the car dinging the open-door alarm, Jessabelle slid into the driver’s seat. She looked at the pedals and stepped on the brake with her left foot. She had heard that you were supposed to use the same foot for both the gas and the brake, but she didn’t know why. It seemed natural that the left foot would be on the left pedal. The SUV had automatic transmission. Jessabelle knew that meant she only had to move the big stick to the drive position from park.
How hard could it be?
A woman’s voice from the other vehicles, syrupy and solicitous, said, “Leon! And Jessabelle! We were just coming to see you.”
Jessabelle peered through the open door to see what was going on. Leon already had his gun aimed at a woman of Asian descent who was halfway out of the van.
“Everyone, get back in the cars, ignition off, and throw the keys this way. Now,” Leon commanded, “or Min gets a new piercing.”
The drivers complied, tossing their keys onto the asphalt. The woman seemed surprisingly calm for having a gun pointed at her head. “Come on, Leon. There’s no way out of this one. You know I’m expendable.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I’m coming to believe the girl and I are not.”
“Don’t be too sure. They prefer you alive, but for all the trouble you’ve been, the other way is an option.”
“I’m sure none of your people want to explain a dead beta and a failure to bring in either target.”
Min shrugged. Once again, something instinctive reported a peculiarity of her body language, the betrayal of emotion to Jessabelle. This time, the panther easily identified the emotion as fear, in spite of the pains Min took to appear casual. Jessabelle empathized completely.
“Get in my car, Min.” Leon said. “You are coming with us.”
“Seriously? You are going to kidnap me? Where do you think this will end, you big idiot?”
“With you still alive and breathing, if you get into the back of the car right now, and don’t do anything that surprises me.”
Min got into the car behind Jessabelle and slid over to the passenger’s side. “Hi Jessabelle,” she said in an even more syrupy voice. “My name’s Min. Are you old enough to drive now?”
Jessabelle answered by closing her door. Leon moved around to the passenger-side and fired his rifle twice... once into a tire of each vehicle. The sound was deafening in Jessabelle’s ears.
Min hissed through gritted teeth. “Damn it, Leon. Stop shooting or you’ll kill us all!”
Climbing into the back seat behind Min, Leon said, “I’m not that bad of a shot.” Min rolled her eyes, but Jessabelle could feel the genuine fear radiating from the woman.
Leon closed the door and commanded, “Jessabelle, go!”
Jessabelle pulled back on the lever, and it didn’t budge. She pressed on the gas pedal, and the engine revved though they stood still.
“Push the button on the stick!” Leon ordered as he turned the gun back on Min.
Jessabelle found the shift-lock button on the side of the lever, and pushed it in while she pulled back on the lever. The car shifted into drive. She pressed the gas again and let off the brake. The SUV lurched forward. Jessabelle partially suppressed a shriek as the vehicle accelerated to the breathtaking speed of nearly fifteen miles per hour, and she struggled to keep it between the lines.
“My, my, a speedy getaway and everything,” Min said. “Truly, you are a criminal mastermind, Leon.”
“Shut up,” he growled.
She looked over the seat at the pile of equipment on the floor of the SUV. “Is that the shotgun I got you for Christmas? I should be flattered you kept it.”
“Shut up,” he repeated.
Fighting with the steering wheel, Jessabelle asked, “Wait, did y’all two used to date or something?”
Leon clicked the safety on the rifle, and set it carefully beside him. “Just drive, Jessabelle.”
Jessabelle gradually increased speed, but the turns scared her half to death and she’d slow down again. Her motions were erratic, turning the vehicle in jerks that took it all over the road. The speedometer barely read twenty miles an hour, and she expected to get everyone killed. “Leon, are you sure you don’t want to drive?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” he said and focused his attention back on their prisoner. “What’s ‘Plan B,’ Min?”
“How would I know?”
“Because everyone else knows, and you were never one to be left out of the loop.”
“You will find out yourself in a few hours.” Min’s chuckle was cut short as Jessabelle hit a pot hole and nearly lost control. Jessabelle caught sight of Min’s glare in the rearview mirror.
Leon shook his head. “How fast do you think your guys can fix a tire?”
“What?”
Jessabelle caught a glimpse of something in the rearview mirror. She didn’t dare take her hands off the steering wheel, but she craned her head to get a good look in the mirror.
The black shape raced along the road. It ran on two legs, but not like a man. It used a thick, short tail for balance. In the glimpse in the mirror, she saw that it appeared far more animal than man and was big. Maybe ogre-big. And it was gaining on them.
“Leon! Behind us!” Jessabelle yelled.
“Here we go,” Min said, buckling her seatbelt.
“What the hell is it?” Leon said, rolling down the window.
“The dwayyo,” Min responded. “Remember that?”
“Oh, shit,” Leon responded. “Jessabelle, drive faster.”
Leon leaned half of his body out the window and fired several times at the beast behind them. The monster leaped off the road, disappearing somewhere behind the trees. All of Jessabelle’s attention was focused on the road ahead, as she increased the speed as much as she dared, afraid any jostle might throw Leon out of the car.
Leon leaned back from the window. He set the rifle on the floor and pulled up the shotgun.
“Be careful with that thing!” Min muttered, pressing herself against the door as he maneuvered the weapon in the tight confines of the vehicle.
“Be careful?” Leon said, racking a shell into the chamber. “You turned a dwayyo loose on us! Do you remember how many people we lost trying to capture it in the first place? It’s going to kill us all, and then go back for your men for dessert.”
“We have it under control.”
Leon scanned the woods where the creature had disappeared. “No way,” he said. “You were the only witch, and I know you aren’t that powerful.”
Min rolled her eyes. “I’m not, but the collar around its neck is. We used Jessabelle’s blood to make it, too. Kind of ironic, when you think about it.”
“My blood?” Jessabelle yelled, allowing herself to be distracted from driving for a moment.
“You’re part domestic cat,” Min said. “A lot of witch magic is based on blood.”
“That’s gross!” Not as gross as when her cousin had fed her food laced with Jack’s blood, but it was still an unpleasant thought. “And it’s wrong.”
Another pothole threatened to send the vehicle careening into a side rail and possibly down into the ravine. Jessabelle worked the brakes and the gas, feeling more comfortable with it, but still afraid to do much more than twenty miles an hour around the poorly paved, winding road. As she recovered, the black shape burst out of the woods to their right, slamming into the side of the car and shattering Min’s window. Min yelped. Jessabelle reflexively slammed on the brakes as the vehicle lurched from the blow. Claws tore through the roof.
“Drive! Drive!” Leon screamed. Jessabelle hit the accelerator again. Tires squealed against the asphalt, but the car hardly moved. The beast held them fast.
Leon turned the shotgun muzzle toward the rear of the car. Min shrieked and ducked down as well as she could against the safety belt. A deafening blast exploded from the gun muzzle, not just once, but over a half-dozen times in the space of three seconds, tearing through glass, plastic, metal, and fur. Leon’s left hand furiously worked the pump as if he was tossing the shells into the monster. The dwayyo relented, and the smoking tires found purchase. Jessabelle held the steering wheel in a death-grip, and she narrowly dodged a tree when the car lurched forward again.
“Where are my slugs?” Leon yelled as he dug through the junk on the car’s floor.
“You don’t have to yell!” Min yelled back. “And none of us know.”
Jessabelle’s ears rang. The road straightened out in a rare stretch, and she took the chance to adjust the rearview mirror. She didn’t like what she saw. The dwayyo resumed its pursuit, and it was gaining on them. It resembled a towering wolf that loped on two legs, its huge paws terminating in sickle-like claws. “It’s coming back!”
Leon loaded new shells into the shotgun. He glared at Min. “Call it off.”
Min shook her head. “It’s not that simple. But if you anger it enough, it really will kill us all.”
“Too bad. We’re making it angry.”
“You idiot. You can’t kill it. These things kill snallygasters.”
Jessabelle couldn’t hold back. “So do we!” she yelled. “Curve!”
The SUV lost speed in the turn, but Jessabelle was getting better at controlling the vehicle. She silently prayed they wouldn’t encounter another car coming the other direction. The speedometer crept back over twenty miles per hour when the vehicle jerked with the horrible sound of long, hooked claws piercing metal. In the mirror, she saw the dwayyo behind them, holding onto the rear of the vehicle, digging furrows in the asphalt with the claws on its feet. Jessabelle slammed the gas pedal down, kicking up smoke. Just before the car slowed to nothing, the rear hatch tore off, leaving the dwayyo standing in the middle of the road. Jessabelle jerked the steering wheel as they surged into the curve, causing Leon to drop a shell he’d been loading into the shotgun.
Pieces rained from the back of the vehicle onto the road as they drove. Something rattled as it dragged below them. Somehow, the car still ran. Somewhere behind them, the dwayyo still hunted.
Leon shoved the last shell into the shotgun and racked the pump. Both he and Min turned in their seats to search the twisting road for signs of the dwayyo. Min spoke loudly over the noise of the road through the open hole in the back and dragging pieces. “Surrender and I can try and calm it down. Remember, you lost two men last time. Think of Jessabelle.”
With the briefest of glances in Jessabelle’s direction, Leon said, “I am thinking of her. No way we’re going to be taken again. Are you ready to die with us?”
For a moment, Jessabelle considered slamming on the brakes and surrendering. She didn’t want to die. Especially not to be killed by this horrible creature. As nasty and as sarcastic as Min was, she offered them a way out. Before her foot could change the pressure on the pedal, she decided against it. Leon knew what he was doing. He was a soldier who had known her papa. Even if he had lost people, he’d fought this creature before. And besides that, Jessabelle had fought monsters, too, and survived.
They came to another straight section of road, but up ahead it ended in a “T” junction with the highway. She doubted the stop sign applied to her, but as the trees cleared she saw traffic crossing her path. A glance in the mirror revealed the creature barreling down the road. She pushed the gas pedal harder. It was still gaining, but not as quickly.
“Hold her steady if you can, Jessabelle...” Leon called. He fired several shots, more carefully this time. The blast was still incredibly loud, but the open hole where the hatch had been made it less painful.
The stop sign was coming quickly. Jessabelle couldn’t see the dwayyo in the mirror, but Leon frantically reloaded his shotgun. “Turn!” Jessabelle called to warn him.
He glanced toward her and yelled “Watch out!” Jessabelle didn’t know what he was yelling about. She could see the intersection—and the car coming from the right. Rather than risk hitting the stop sign, Jessabelle hit the brake and turned to the left, cutting the dirt corner and bouncing over grass and uneven dirt. She cut off the other car, which slammed on its brakes and blared its horn at her. Jessabelle ignored it and increased speed. The driver of the other car raised his middle finger, and then dropped it again as he noticed the gaping hole in the back of the car and Leon holding the shotgun.
Whether it was the sight of Leon and the shotgun, or the dwayyo that burst through the intersection in pursuit, the car behind them swerved off the road.
“It’s bleeding,” Leon yelled. “We’re on a bigger road, Min. People are going to see.”
“It’s not that simple!” she yelled, but she also turned around in the seatbelt to
look at the oncoming creature.
Jessabelle was glad this stretch of road was far wider, straighter, and in better repair. She chanced increasing speed a bit more. Meanwhile, Leon opened fire again on the creature. The monster made a horrible sound that seemed like a mix of a whimper and a roar. It was both terrifying and pathetic.
“Quit shooting it!” Min said. “I’m trying to send it back.”
“If it gets any closer, I am definitely shooting it.”
“I’m trying!”
“Try faster!”
Another car approached them in the other lane. It swerved and nearly ran off the road as it passed the monster. The dwayyo grew closer, and in the mirror Jessabelle spotted the flash of black leather and brass around its neck. Leon took aim at the creature’s head, and Min stared intently at it.
The monster slowed and stopped in the middle of the road. After a moment, it ran off, back the way they’d come.
“There,” Min said, her sigh barely audible over the sound of the air whipping through the car. “This whole op is a disaster.”
“At least you aren’t an alpha,” Leon said. “The man in the white suit barely knows you exist.”
Min shook her head slowly. “Last year, that would have been true. Since Evelyn pooched the op in Maple Bend, the alphas are covering their butts and finding scapegoats. This is going to end badly for me.”
“Or you can join us.” Leon said.
“What?” Min and Jessabelle asked together.
Leon tapped Jessabelle on the shoulder. “Go ahead and pull over as soon as you have a chance. I’ll drive.”
Min grumbled. “If only that stupid thing had gone for the tires instead of the hatch.”
Jack was surprised to find Bachan traveling with him, along with two other men also wearing the colors of the Royal Guard. They provided Jack a horse, a strong brown mare fully saddled with a blanket bearing the same crest Jack had seen displayed throughout the castle. Jack was not a complete stranger to riding, but he caught one of the guards smirking as he mounted. Bachan cast the guard, Aidan, a harsh look, and the man resumed his neutral expression.
