by Rashaad Bell
Chapter 24
Exit strategy…
Jenova was swerving in and out of traffic, going as fast as she could. Despite this fact, our pursuers were gaining on us. They had pulled up on the driver side and I fired at their passenger side door and window, but the bullets didn’t seem like they were doing anything other than chipping away at the paint and scratching the glass.
Darkstar rammed into the side of their car with ours then slammed on the brakes. An eighteen-wheeler roared past us on the opposite side. Jenova hit the gas, swerved around the truck and drove on the shoulder.
I slid back into the car. “These bullets ain't doing shit. Who are these people?”
“Marauders for the Translucent Man.” Connor replied in a shallow voice from the backseat. He was sitting up fully now, yet I could tell he was using all his strength to do so. “I thought you were dead Madison.”
“I got better.”
“We need a distraction.” Jenova sped up even faster until we were lined up with the passenger side door of the eighteen-wheeler. “Take the wheel.”
“What?” But it was already too late; Jenova had already opened the car door and begun to climb out.
“What in the hell?” I reached over and grabbed the wheel, sliding into the driver’s seat. Jenova Darkstar was hanging onto the car doorframe, then leapt the space in between us and the eighteen-wheeler, grabbing onto its large passenger side mirror for leverage.
She opened the door and slid into the eighteen-wheelers cab. Seconds later the driver of the truck was flung out, his body slamming against our door, ricocheting off into to the highway behind us.
Connor had climbed to the front of our car, taking a seat next to me as I drove. “What is she doing?”
“Fuck if I know.” I shot back.
The eighteen-wheeler veered off to the left suddenly, never decreasing its speed, the trailer it pulled not able to keep up with change of direction. It tipped over, then began to jack knife across the freeway.
“Oh shit.” Connor turned and watched as the eighteen-wheeler flipped over and over across the freeway, exploding in a violent blast.
I kept driving straight, not sure what to do next as the explosion lit up the sky behind us. Connor was fully turned around in his seat, watching everything go down as I tried to focus on the road ahead and stare out the rearview mirror at the same time.
There was no way Darkstar could have survived that explosion, yet my knowledge of demon physiology was nonexistent and I honestly didn't know what she was capable of. Hell, after these last few hours, I didn't even know what I was capable of. Connor turned back around in his seat, snapping on his seatbelt, like that was gonna help our current situation.
I did know one thing though. "We need to get the fuck out of California." I said.
"I'm way ahead of you on that." Connor pulled out his cell. "Fuck this city. How fast are you going?"
I shrugged. "I don't know?" I glanced down. "Hundred and five."
"Slow down." He stated. "We don't need to draw any more attention to us then need be."
I decreased the cars acceleration to be more in line with the current speed limit. "Okay, so what’s our next move?"
Connor typed in a series of numbers into his cell then waited for a response. “Hello? Hey, Mr. Guy who pilots all my planes, it's me, Connor...yeah, crazy shit huh? All over the news you say? Well I did hear on good authority that the Bay Area was the epicenter of mutant deviancy. I don’t know, it’s like their Mecca or something. Uh huh. It didn’t mention anything about me did it? Right, right, well God blesses fucking America or some shit like that, anyway, get my plane ready for take...yes, well of course now. Fuck you mean it's not refueled yet? Look, I'm not paying you to sit around on your ass and watch the news all goddamn day, have my shit ready by the time I get there, which should be, Gods willing, in the next hour or so or heads will roll and trust me, I mean that quite literally. I'll use that bitch as a bowling ball. Get it encased in amber and everything. Yeah, I thought so. Why thank you. Oh and have a nice day."
Connor hung up the cell and looked at me. “Plane should be good to go by the time we get there, just follow the signs to the airport, we should be okay."
"What about Jenova?" I asked.
Connor glanced back at the pillar of black smoke behind us. "Yeah, what about her?"
"You think she survived? You think she's still alive?" I asked.
He did a double take at the smoke. "I don’t know."
"We just can’t leave her Connor. If there’s some chance that she's alive..." I knew she was. I couldn’t explain how I knew it, but I felt it in my soul.
"Look kid, I'm glad for everything she did. I am really. Pulling you out from wherever the hell it was you were at and getting that body of yours to work again, I'm grateful for that, I owe her one. Not to mention the way she just manned up and took one for the team just now, that was some crazy...did you see how she just jumped over to the truck and flipped that bitch over? No hesitation. No second guessing. That's crazy. That's some Michael Bay shit right there and I, no, you and me both, we owe her for that. I mean, that chick is like, forever in our debt.”
Connor looked out the window for a second then turned towards me. “But did you tell her to jump out the car? I know I didn't. I'm glad she took the initiative and all that, but I didn't tell her to do that. If she's still alive then she's ass deep in the Translucent Man’s Marauders by now. You wanna tangle with them cats again, because I sure as hell don't. Didn't they shoot you through a wall? Who in the fuck gets shot through a wall? You do, that's who and that was the least of what they did. Look, I'm sorry, but we are not prepared for that type of opposition. Maybe later. Get some intel, find out who the fuck this Translucent Man is and what he’s about, recruit some backup, then we can surgical strike that shit, do a snatch and grab. I’m down for that, but right now, we got to get the hell out of California. The Translucent Man is out here in a big way, official like. He’s got his Marauders and his Wolf Pack hunting down people on this supposed list of his and they are not fucking around. Best thing we can do is get out of the spiders web while we still can, then come back with a water hose, okay?"
"Yeah, okay." As much as I’d hate to admit it, he does have a point. It still doesn't make me feel any better though.
The drive to the airport was uneventful, thank heavens. I was sure that there was gonna be some type of drama before liftoff, but there wasn’t. We parked the car and headed towards the private landing strip, boarded Connors plane and was up in the air, headed back towards Palm Coast, Florida and towards what little bit of life I still had left.
I knew that coming to San Francisco was gonna be a game changer for me, but I never, not even in my wildest dreams believed I was going to arrive back in Florida as a Vampire. That option had never even occurred to me. I wasn’t sure how the adjustment process was gonna be, how would I be able to live in my old life again when so much of it had been stripped away and replaced with something else?
I thought Connor would give me some type of moral support on the flight home, but once we boarded the plane, he just totally zoned out, staring off at the ceiling. It was creepy how he could sit in one position like that without moving, without even breathing and I wondered if that is how people would see me now?
“What are you thinking about?” I asked once the silence had become deafening.
“The Eden Complex.” He said. “And those Marauders, how coordinated and ruthlessly efficient they are.”
“Tell me about.” I agreed.
Connor came over and sat next to me. This time I was able to see him do it, clock his speed with my Vampire eyes as he got up from his chair and sat down beside me, rather than him just appearing like before.
“No, you don’t get it, Madison. I’ve fought Hunters like them before, people specifically trained to take down Vampires and the like. I’ve been fighting them for over a fifteen years and I’ve seen some especially good ones
in my day, but these people…”
“You mean the Marauders? The ones who attacked us at the safe house?” The ones who killed me.
“The Marauders.” Connor repeated. “I’ve never seen anything like them before. Their combat training, the type of sophisticated weapons tech they employ. It only took two of them to take me and you down. Two humans with some fancy gadgets, that’s all it took.”
“To be fair Connor, the only combat experience I have is watching Kung Fu Theater every Sunday morning. It’s not like I could have been much help.” I admitted.
“That’s not the point, Madison. I’ve killed dozens of humans at a time before, trained men, soldiers built for war. Just the fact that you are Vampire gives you a superior edge over the humans. Your strength, your speed, your intellect, we are to the humans as they are to the chimpanzee.”
I appeared at the bar, pouring myself a bottle of that same red wine that I had tried earlier on the flight in. I wanted to see what it would taste like now. “Yeah, but a chimpanzee is strong enough to rip your face off given the chance.”
“I think that’s exactly what we’ve done.” He said. “We were so lackadaisical with our perceived dominance that we gave the humans a chance and now they’ve gone and created something that could rip our face off.”
I took a sip, smiled, then drained the glass completely, pouring myself a refill. “I thought the Marauders just wanted the people who bare the Mark of Pandora?”
“That’s what I thought as well, but that demon, Jenova Darkstar, despite all their talk of casting him out of this dimension, they were still shipping him off to the Eden Complex, same with me as well and I’m not on their list. You were their Primary Target.”
“I remember Amastacia and Graul talking.” I said. “They were instructed that I had to be deceased before transport.”
“I remember.” He said.
“Then what good am I to the Translucent Man if I’m already dead?”
“I don’t know.” Connor admitted reluctantly.
“I still don’t look like a corpse do I?” I stretched my arms out in front of me, examining them for defects. As far as I could tell, my body was completely healed.
“No, no, my dear, you’re positively exquisite.” Connor was very reassuring. “And as a Vampire, you are beyond words.”
“You kissed me.”
He smiled. “I know.”
"I'm with Ethan. That can't happen again Connor."
"I know."
Silence...
“We need to find out what is going on in this Complex of theirs.” I decided to change the subject, discarding my glass and drinking straight from bottle. “And we need to find out all the information we can on the Box of Pandora as well. If they are rounding up potential people with the Mark…”
“Then they might be trying to get inside one of the Boxes.” Connor finished.
“Or maybe they are trying to figure out how to put something inside it.” I added.
“Well I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Don’t worry, I did.” I took another swig. “And you’re also gonna have to teach me this whole fire thing. Crash course style.”
Connor came next to me, taking the bottle out of my hand and taking a sip. “I could try, but it will be difficult.”
I took the bottle back from him. “Difficult takes a day.”
“And it will be impossibly painful as well. Excruciatingly so.” He added. “Are you sure you’re up to that?”
“Impossible takes a week. I just had a picnic on the Shores of She’ol with Thanatos the White Wolf. I think I can handle some sunburn.”
“Who?” He asked.
“Never mind.”
“Fair enough.” Connor decided to let it drop. “Anything else?”
“Oh, I’m sure there is. There are lots of Vampire tricks of the trade that you have to teach me…” I took the bottle back from him.
“Of course there are and of course I’ll teach them to you, what type of Master would I be if I didn’t.”
“First off, you’re not my Master, I’m nobody’s slave. I don’t belong to you or anyone. You’re more like my…”
“Your teacher.” He exclaimed.
Connor thinks he’s so smug. “I was thinking more like my tutor.”
He nodded in agreement. “I can live with that.”
I put the bottle down on the table. “But there’s one more thing.”
“Oh there’s more?” He seemed quite amused at this point, not expecting what I was going to ask for next.
“We find out if Darkstar is alive.” I said, my tone deathly serious. “And if she is, we go in and we get her out. Surgical strike, just like you said.”
All the comedy drained from his face as Connor became deathly serious. “You have my word on that, Madison, if she’s alive, we’ll find her and if she’s not, then we’ll bring that Wonderful World of Oz crashing down around the Translucent Man’s head. I swear it.”
I poured the last of the blood wine into two crystal glasses and when I was done we raised them in the air for a toast.
“To killing the Wizard.” I said.
“To killing the Wizard.’ Connor repeated.
I drained the glass, then looked around for a phone, finding one next to a flat screen TV. “Hold on a sec, I wanna call Aiden, let him know I’m on my way home.”
Connor nodded, kicking back on the leather sofa and stretched out. It was hard to believe that I was going to be home and safe in just a matter of hours, yet I still kept thinking about how long it would take for the Translucent Man to make his move again.
He already knew where I lived and our escape was sure to come as a blow. It was only a matter of time before there was another showdown with the Marauders. At least this time I would be ready. I picked up the phone and dialed Aiden’s cell, hoping they hadn’t been worrying about me for too long. What was I even going to say to him? That I was a Vampire now? Would I even tell him something like that?
And what about Ethan? Me kissing Connor was the least of his worries now. John Rogers, young John Rogers that is, told us that he also bore the Mark of Pandora, same as me. If the Marauders are hunting down people who bare the Mark then it was only a matter of time before the Translucent Man’s Wolf Pack sniffed him out.
Aiden answered the phone and I could tell almost immediately that something was wrong.
“Yeah, it’s me. What? Slow down you’re not making any sense. Yeah, I’m on my way home now, but it might take a little bit for me to get there. What? No, no, stop fucking around, Aiden that’s not funny. Who told you that? The police? Wait, are you even sure it was the police? I know it’s a stupid question but are…you’ve what? Yeah, I heard you. You already identified the…When? Okay. Yeah, I’m on my way now. Yeah. Love you to. Bye.”
The phone dropped from my hand. I just stood there not knowing what to do. It was like a knife had been driven into my heart and someone was continuously twisting the blade. Connor was beside me in an instant, his hands on my shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” He asked. “What happened?”
“It’s my parents.”
“What about your parents Madison?”
I looked up at Connor, blood red tears streaking down the side of my face as I tried to talk. “They’re dead.”
To be continued….
Author Bio
I am currently hyper extending myself into the space between moments to do battle with carnivorous sound and cannibalistic electrons...
