Russell continues to run through the hills and down the mountainous terrain. We pass through dense maple and oak trees that shroud the graceful slopes. It’s all rushing by me in a blur as my head lies against Russell’s chest. Reaching a clearing, I see a silver shape ahead of us that is as familiar as the shape of a lover to my mind. It’s Reed’s car, the Audi R-Eight, and I can’t wrap my head around how Russell has come to be driving Reed’s car…unless Reed’s dead and no longer needs his car.
Before I can ask Russell any questions, he is shoving me into the passenger side of the car and slamming the door shut. Getting in the driver’s side, he starts the car and slams his foot down on the accelerator. “How did you…” I begin to ask him feebly, but I have to stop as the smell of the interior of the car hits me. It smells just like Reed and leather. The scent is so wonderful and gut wrenching, that I turn my face toward the leather seat to get closer to the smell of the one I have loved like no other. As the scent overwhelms me, I writhe in pain from the agonizing need to crawl back to the cave behind us. It’s a need that would have me give in to my desire to drink the blood of the one who has just professed to love me, and no other, for eternity.
Shrinking against the seat, I hold on tight to it while Russell tries to gain control of the car as it fishtails and skids down the dirt terrain of the old road we are on. The road leads away from the copper mine—away from the family that desperately wants me back.
“Damn, I knew there were more ways out of that hell hole,” Russell growls as he sees the cars that need no headlights come into view behind us. Sweat seeps down his brow as he shifts the car into a faster gear, burying the needle when we skid onto the paved road that winds away from the hills behind us. “I thought I had disabled all their cars before I went in, but I guess I missed a couple. They’re like a nest of ants with all of their tunnels going clear through those hills,” Russell says. Then, he has a massive shiver, like his flesh is crawling at the thought of the Gancanagh. “They shouldn’t be able to catch us, Red, they’re in SUVs and this car has some balls,” he reassures me. The Gancanagh, making it to the pavement behind us, rapidly lose ground to the Audi’s engine and aerodynamics.
So many questions are running through my mind, but I’m incapable of asking any of them. Curling up into a ball, I pant as my fever causes scary hallucinations to skip through my consciousness. Russell is talking to me, but he sounds like the old VHS tape I had when I was really little. I had a favorite movie with princesses that I used to play over and over, until one day, the tape jammed in the machine, causing the princess to speak in a dark, deep voice that sounded like the devil had possessed her and all of her fairytale-land friends.
A part of me is attempting to rationalize what is happening to me, equating my reaction to being bitten by a rattlesnake. But then, I glance over at Russell and see his face distorting and shifting in twisted patterns of flesh. I press myself against the door of the car, getting as far away from him as I can in the tiny space. When my eyes focus on the passenger window, I shy away from it, too. Sharptalon ravens fly against the glass, attacking us. Their black wings beat the windshield like mallets, striking it with shrill cries that scream, “Nevermore.”
My half-lidded eyes are blurring in and out of focus as I attempt to maintain my grasp on reality. We drive for an eternity around the inside of a paper cup until we finally shoot out the bottom of it. Lynette and Autumn come floating by riding on the library copier. They are looking in the change slot to see if it contains any money. Sneering at me from outside the car, Lynnette’s cell phone is ringing. She tries to hand it to me through the window of the car. I don’t want to answer it, but it won’t stop ringing. Taking it from her grasp, I hold it to my ear. Keegan’s voice begins telling me all of the ways he is going to tear me apart when he gets back from Hell. Dropping the phone back out the window, heavy air comes rushing in, permeating the interior of the car with the scent of water, indicating that we are near the sea… or, the river.
A cacophony is building in waves of vibrations, beating against my chest, while pine trees race by me in a blur of dark shadows. I rest my head against the seatback, staring outside while Cherubim race alongside the car, smiling at me. One has golden hair that flows and streams behind him from the velocity of his powerful wings. His pale blue wings beat powerfully and his leonine features, intensely beautiful to my eyes, relay a message that I can’t understand fully… something about Brennus and retribution…it is his misfortune to burn for me as others have burned for him.
As I lean forward to ask this angel what he means, he is gone in an instant and everything stops moving. I become aware that I’m sitting next to Russell. We are in the rear parking lot of the small grocery store where we shop for food. It’s the one near our apartment in Houghton. Russell parks the car and I’m trying to listen really hard to what he’s saying, but since his face is melting in waxy streaks, I’m finding it hard to focus on the words. Reaching out to me, Russell attempts to hold my hand, but I nearly scream because the slightest pressure from his soothing caress causes me searing pain.
Leaping out of the car, Russell slams the door shut. He approaches the back door of the grocery store, pushing it in with ease as if it is made of newspaper instead of steel. Agonizing moments elapse as I wait for Russell to come back out. When I gaze over to the empty driver’s seat, the door slowly opens and Brennus’ sleek figure eases into it. With a whimper, I press my back against the passenger door. The handle digs into the small of my back, while I look around hopelessly for a means of escape. Brennus stares at me with mock pity on his face as his teeth click, engaging them so that he can pierce his skin. Blood, seeping from deep wells in his wrist, makes my head spin. Reaching out with a shaking hand, I pull his arm to my lips, tasting cold, thick blood that instantly cools the burning in my throat.
I have no control over my reaction as I suck and swallow more and more of the salty, metallic-tasting liquid. But, something begins to happen the more I consume. The voice speaking to me now is not how I remember Brennus sounding. This voice sounds more like Russell’s—the slow, southern twang that he uses when he is trying to get me to listen to reason, or when I’m really sad and he is trying to comfort me.
It takes me a few moments to realize that Russell is in the car with me, not Brennus. Russell’s strong fingers are holding a straw to my lips, allowing me to sip awkwardly from a large, clear-plastic deli container that they use to dispense potato salad. “That’s it, that’s my girl. Yer okay…I got ya…just drink this venison blood and we’ll go. Yer almost done, Red, just pretend it’s a smoothie or somethin’,” Russell says. When the straw starts making a loud, slurping noise, he pulls the cup back from my lips and asks, “Do ya need more?”
“I…” Pain grips me again, but it’s less intense than it was a second ago. Russell pulls another container from the floor of the car, and taking the lid off of it, he sticks the straw in it and holds it to my lips again. I drink the second one as fast as the first.
“More?” he asks when I finish the second deli quart. Reluctantly, I nod my head as he pulls the third one from the floor of the car. “Can ya hold this one while I drive the car?” Russell asks, looking around the lot for threats. “I want to get outta here just in case there is a silent alarm in the store, or…” he trails off, but I understand that he is not comfortable with our position.
I grip the plastic cup between shaking hands, fumbling to get the straw in my mouth again. “Here, Red, never mind,” Russell says, taking the cup back from me and holding it again. I drink it as fast as I can, and when I am finished, he asks if I need more. I’m still in pain, but my anxiety to leave the vicinity of our apartment is more pressing than my need to have total relief from the gnawing pain inside me.
“Go,” I whisper, because my throat is too tight to say more. Russell doesn’t need me to say more. He chucks the empty cartons out the window and creeps away from the back of the store as quiet as possible. He takes obscure side str
eets out of town, maintaining the speed limit and turning on his lights, so that we can look like model humans leaving town in a human way.
Russell keeps glancing at me every few seconds, probably to assure himself that I’m actually here with him in the car, as much as to see how I’m doing. He begins talking when he starts to shake. I think he’s trying hard not to go into shock because his thoughts are scattered. He is rambling about things that aren’t very important, in the grand scheme of things, but I recognize it for what it is, it’s the need to focus on something other than the horror he just experienced.
“Angie, ya know coach Blake’s wife, told me ’bout how she makes blood sausage. It’s one of those sketchy things that the Yoopers make up here. Y’all remember how I went over to their house for breakfast a few weeks ago?” he asks, and I nod. “Well, she made some for us and it was kind of nasty, but I ate it because I didn’t want to hurt her feelins,” Russell says. I nod again numbly because it’s just like him to eat something he hated just so he wouldn’t hurt someone’s feelings. “It was black and had a kind of burnt, piney taste to it. She thought I liked it, so she started to tell me how to make it. She said I would have to go to the meat counter at the grocery store because I needed to get a pint of venison blood to mix in with the meat. I had no idea what I would be doin’ with that information this week,” he mutters, blowing out a deep breath and shaking his head.
“I’ve done a lot of stuff this week I never thought I’d be doin’…” he says numbly. “Do ya know why we’re here right now?” he asks rhetorically. I shake my head slowly. “That annoyin’ door is why we’re here right now. If we had been in any other apartment in Houghton, I would be dead and y’all would be…well, not here…” he says, trailing off. “They sent two of them to our apartment to get me. I could smell them outside the door, feel the coldness clear through it. Ya know how when ya open the door, it knocks ya back off the step if ya don’t know ya have to step back when it opens?” he asks me fast, his speech increasing in speed along with his heartbeat as the adrenaline of the remembered attack comes back to haunt him. “Well, I had been makin’ myself some eggs when I heard them creepin’ up the inside stairs to the door. I had the fryin’ pan in my hands when they just ’bout reached the door to the apartment. I bum rushed the door, sendin’ it crashin’ open on them, which knocked Ultan into Driscoll and sent them down the stairs. I followed them down and wacked them both with my fryin’ pan in the head.”
His hand shakes when he brings it to his neck, rubbing it absently as he watches the road ahead and the rearview mirror intermittently. “I knocked ‘em both out cold, so I had to carry them back up to the apartment. I tied ‘em up—I gathered up some stuff in bags—the money—I threw it in the car. I bolted over to the library to get ya—to tell ya we had to go, but there was a huge crowd millin’ ‘round outside and I couldn’t find ya. Y’all had disappeared. I ran in—I saw that conference room on the main floor—I saw a chair had been flung through the window—I hoped… maybe ya got away—if someone was after ya, and then I got afraid because I thought ya might go back to the apartment—I left the evil freaks tied up there. So, I went back, but ya never came home…” he says, his expression bleak.
“They killed Mrs. Strauss—they even killed her cat. I don’t know why they had to kill the cat, too. Maybe it was hissin’ at them or somethin’, I don’t know, but they drained that poor old lady—left her body in her big, green armchair,” he says. The grief he is feeling is etched on his face. Then, something changes in him, shifts, and his face hardens.
“Naw…” he says in a soft growl—the look of cold detachment, “I’ve done things this week that I never could’ve imagined last week. I thought that there was a lot of human left in me, but I can tell ya, Red, there isn’t. I had no mercy for Ultan or Driscoll…even when they begged me…and they begged me, Red—they begged. I had to move them out of the apartment. I torched the place so no one can find anythin’ that will lead them to us. I took them to our trainin’ spot and worked on them there. They told me everythin’. They told me how they would turn ya—how Brennus probably already had ya in a cell and wouldn’t give ya enough water. I was out of my mind, but it took me four days to get that information from them. I had to really hurt them, Red—I did some things to them that made me have to leave afterward and puke my guts out, but there was no way they were dyin’ without tellin’ me everythin’.”
He sits quiet for a little while, driving through the dark night toward Marquette. I can’t ask him where we are going. I can’t think, even as the pain is slowly receding, I’m still not able to form the words. I just sit next to him, listening to him talk as we both continue to shake from trauma. “I thought I was buyin’ those grenades to kill ya, Red,” he says in a near whisper, turning to look at me. Raw pain shows in his eyes as tears well up in mine for what he has been through. Reaching out, I find his hand. It’s warm and sweaty while mine is ice cold and dry. I feel him squeeze my hand.
“I had to find that gun and knife show that traveled south to Iron Mountain. I found the guy I’d bought the swords from and he knew a guy that hooked me up with the military arms. I told them it was for some minin’ I planned on doin’, but they really didn’t care as long as I had the money,” he says with a humorless laugh. “I planned on goin’ down there, findin’ y’all, and settin’ us both free. I hoped yer soul had already moved on, but I wasn’t gonna let yer body suffer down there alone, so I planned on us just movin’ on. If yer soul was with Freddie, then I figured he would have to release it if my bomb blew him to smithereens.”
“Suicide mission,” I say, and my voice sounds thick and raspy.
“Yeah, I guess so. I thought I’d pick a fight I couldn’t win,” he says. “It turns out I had a royal flush,” he adds with an ironic smile. “That thing loves ya, Red,” he whispers as all of the hair stands up on his arm again. “That thing killed Freddie for ya.”
“Yes,” I croak. “I’m his favorite slave.”
“Naw…yer wrong…he is yer slave, he just doesn’t know it yet,” Russell says. “He’s gonna go mad without ya. He’s gonna twist and burn for ya, and then he’s gonna do anythin’ to get ya back…and I don’t know if I can stop him alone. I can’t believe we’ve made it this far… there are over a dozen of them…”
“I know—I know them all by name,” I whisper. “I killed one… Keegan… I murdered him,” I confess, and I know that my face is turning white as I say it.
“What happened?” he asks.
I shake my head, “They made me fight him to see if I’d been training. He cut me… he was going to hurt me and I… he said he was going to kill you when he found you,” I explain as a tear escapes my eye. “They gave us knives, so I got behind him and I slit his throat… he didn’t bleed like I thought he would…it didn’t pump out of his neck, but it seeped down the sides… since I nearly cut his head off… he died.”
“Oh my God, Red—they made you fight one of them?” Russell asks incredulously. I nod and watch his lips press together as his breathing increases. “Did he put ya in a cell…did he ask y’all ’bout wantin’ water?” Russell asks, and I nod again. “Then, how is it that ya still have a soul, Red?” he asks in confusion.
“Figured it out…the game. Decided not to play…” I rasp, my throat is beginning to feel cracked and dry and I wish I had some water.
“Ah, so it was like that, huh? Y’all told him ya didn’t like his game so y’all were takin’ yer ball and goin’ home?” Russell says, smiling a little in the corners of his mouth. I can’t smile, but I nod because I guess that is about right. I was taking my soul and going… wherever I’m I allowed to go. I want to tell him about my Uncle Jim and how he had been there and held my hand when I needed him, but I can’t form the words.
“Put an IV in… brought me back,” I say, holding up my arm where the IV had been, but there are no marks there anymore to show him.
“He couldn’t stand losin’ ya,” Russell says in
a thoughtful tone, studying me. “I bet they’re never supposed to do that. It’s supposed to be a choice, accordin’ to Driscoll…he said y’all can choose to die or to become Gancanagh. Driscoll said he never knew of anyone choosin’ not to become a Gancanagh. But, Brennus took that choice away from ya… Freddie must’ve been really convincin’…”
“Portrait… Alfred gave him the portrait,” I say, and all of the color drains from his face. Russell knows the portrait that I’m talking about—he used to go visit it daily when it was on display at school.
“So it is all ’bout ya. I was pretty sure when I saw ya sittin’ on his lap tonight. I kept askin’ Ultan ‘why us.’ I mean, we’re not even faeries, which is a big deal to them,” Russell says, looking at me in the eye as he explains. “Ultan said, normally, they wouldn’t even consider changin’ someone unless it’s a faerie. He said they usually leave other beings alone–they just feed off of humans. He said that Brennus heard our story, but wasn’t gonna bother even checkin’ us out—but Ultan said somethin’ happened and he changed his mind. He saw yer portrait and he had to have ya,” Russell says the last part with bitter conviction.
“I think…” I start to say, but have to clear my throat because it feels like I’ve been drinking sand. Russell notices and reaches back in one of the duffle bags in the back. Rummaging around while he drives the car, he manages to extract a bottle of water. Handing it to me, I gratefully take it, drinking half of it before I am again able to speak. “I think that, in a messed up kind of way, Brennus is trying to help me,” I murmur as a scowl forms on Russell’s lips.
“How is makin’ ya an undead, evil parasite gonna help ya?” Russell barks in anger. He is still shaking, but his anger seems to be getting that part more under control.
Intuition: The Premonition Series Page 35
