by Darrell Pitt
Chapter Seven
A hand suddenly grabs mine. I’m jolted out of my astonishment by a familiar face, a person who is not looking at me with hate or a maniacal desire to kill me.
“Brodie,” I say.
“I thought I might find you here.”
“How –?”
“Now’s not the time,” she interrupts. “Looks like we’re too late to find Mr. Swan.”
“You know about him?”
She shakes her head. “Later.”
We hurry down the street and through a confusion of back alleys and main roads until we’ve put some distance between us and Ravana. It can’t happen soon enough for me. We hurry through a district surrounded by abandoned factories and high fences. It starts to rain and within minutes I’m feeling cold and wet. A distant roll of thunder reverberates around the buildings like the beating of an enormous drum.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“I’ve got a place.”
“Where is it? Underwater?”
She gives me an odd look. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re English, aren’t you? You know, bad weather and –”
“No,” she says. “I think I’m Australian.”
“You mean you don’t remember -.”
“Later.”
She flashes me a smile. For the first time I realize she is quite attractive. She has red hair, blue eyes and a neat, heart shaped face. She is still wearing the same clothing; jeans and a jacket.
“Where is this place?” I ask.
“It’s close.”
“What happened to your motorcycle?”
“It ran out of fuel.”
“And you didn’t get more because…”
“Because I have no money and I didn’t feel like robbing a bank to get some.”
Under these crazy circumstances this seems like a reasonable explanation. She takes a right turn under a gap in a wire fence. I follow her across a vacant lot littered with refuse. We reach a double wooden door secured with a chain. Dragging on the bottom edge, she creates a gap for me to enter.
Whatever the warehouse used to be was a long time ago. There are pieces of machinery all over the place; it’s odd looking apparatus not much larger than a person. I suspect that it belonged to the last business run here. Probably this place has held many different commercial enterprises over the years.
“They used to make shoes here,” Brodie says.
“And before that?” I ask. The high ceilings are almost fifty feet above the floor. There’s a crane and pulley system that runs the whole length of the structure.
“That’s anyone’s guess.”
Now the storm has begun in earnest and it’s raining hard. Through the glass skylights in the ceiling I can see lightning flash. Its stark light floods the many dark recesses of the warehouse. There are other corners which remain in pitch darkness. Those are the ones that scare me.
“We’re safe here,” Brodie says. “I’ve been here a while.”
“How long is a while?”
She shrugs. “About three days.”
“You don’t have a home?”
Brodie shakes her head and leads me to a small office at the rear of the warehouse. She lights a candle and its flickering glow reveals a couple of piles of blankets, a few tins of food, some bottles of water and a few books.
“This is home,” she says. “Ever since I landed…here.”
“You mean…” I try to understand exactly what she is saying. “Um, what do you mean?”
“I woke in a building on the other side of town,” Brodie says. “I had no idea who I was or how I got there or where I came from. I assumed I’d been in an accident and so I started looking for a police officer.”
“Makes sense.”
“I had only walked about a hundred feet down the street when I van pulled up behind me. These guys jumped out and tried to drag me into the van.”
My blood goes cold. It was bad enough for me, but I can only imagine it would be every woman’s worst nightmare. Brodie sees the look on my face and forces a laugh.
“It’s okay. They got more than they bargained for.”
“What do –?”
She throws a few punches into the air. She’s fast. Incredibly fast. Unnaturally fast. I don’t think I realized her speed when she faced Doctor Ravana back in the room. She drops low and kicks into the air. Leaping to her feet, she snatches up a piece of timber from a nearby pile and tosses it up. A second later her hand snakes out and strikes the center of it.
It shatters into matchsticks. I pick up a clutch of the shattered remains and examine it carefully.
“Remind me not to start any arguments,” I say.
“I only use my super powers for good,” she says with a straight face.
“But seriously, that’s not normal.”
Fast is fast, but she’s so fast I doubt any martial arts expert on Earth could keep up with her. And not only is she quick, but she knows what she’s doing too.
“I think I’m about three times as fast as a martial arts expert,” she says. “Maybe faster.”
“Do you know what style you’re fighting in?”
“Style?”
“Kung Fu, jujitsu…”
“Oh, that.” She shakes her head. “Not a clue.”
“And what about your name?” I ask. “How did you work out your name?”
“It’s on my clothing.”
I suddenly realize my clothing might be similarly marked. I check the inside back of my jeans and – hey presto! The name ‘Axel’ is stitched onto a small tag. I then proceed to tell Brodie about waking up in the room, the guy on the floor and everything that had happened to me since I woke. She listens in dead silence until I finish. Then she just shakes her head in amazement.
“Good thing I’ve been following those guys for days. Otherwise…” She lets the word hang in the air. Finally she says, “That book must be important. It might answer all our questions.”
“We can find it in the morning,” I tell her. “I know where I left it.”
She nods. “We’d better get some shut eye. We’ll start out early.”
Brodie hands me blankets and a pillow. I don’t expect to sleep, but by the time she blows out the candle I find I can barely keep my eyes open. The storm subsides to a steady flow of rain. The wind blows distantly and a piece of metal bangs out a random tune.
The next thing I know is Brodie’s shaking me awake. At first I don’t know where I am. There is a cramp in my neck and I feel stiff and cold. I look up at her face and don’t immediately recognize her. Then it all comes back.
Oh. That’s right. Mrs. Bruce Lee.
Time to move.
It’s early morning. Brodie produces a spare sweater. I’m glad of it because it’s a cold morning. We’re out the door in minutes. The rain has stopped, but the streets are still wet. We walk a couple of blocks. Then Brodie spots a nice car. She produces a wire coat hanger from her jacket.
My eyes desperately examine nearby apartments. “What are you doing?”
“Getting us a ride,” she says. The car door opens and within minutes she has the vehicle hotwired and we’re driving through the early morning city streets. I’m shaking my head in amazement. Whatever Brodie was before she arrived here, she was no girl scout. Still, I’m not about to criticize her. Without her we would be walking twenty blocks. Now we cover the same distance in a fraction of the time.
After a while I tell her to pull over. We climb out of the car and make our way down an alley. In the next street I recognize a couple of landmarks. A café. A diner. A used bookstore. This is the place.
Heading down another alley, my eyes search the brickwork. We end up at the other end and slowly work our way back again. I’m beginning to think Ravana’s men have already found the book, but then I notice a shadow near the ground. Easing the book out of the slot, I breathe a sigh of relief. It appears undamaged.
Opening it, I start
leafing through the pages. Brodie looks at my face as slowly my expression turns from excitement to disbelief.
“What is it?” she asks finally. “What’s written in it?”
“That’s the problem,” I say. “Nothing’s in it. All the pages are blank.”
