I was still blinking against that light, trying to see behind it even as I struggled to pull the chains with me down the log, when I heard something else.
Gunshots.
EIGHT
I FROZE, SURE I'd hallucinated them.
Then another shot echoed in the space between buildings, and I cried out against the gag in my mouth, which I'd also forgotten. When a third shot broke the relative quiet of the clearing, I started to struggle once more, fighting to pull my arms forward again.
By then, firing seemed to be coming from more than one place.
I flinched when the shooting turned into a volley, as ponytail's people started firing back into the dark. Crouching as best as I could against the side of the log, I tried to figure out what they were aiming for, but I couldn't see much, especially with the light in my eyes. My whole body hurt now, anyway. My arms were starting to go numb from the odd angle from which I hung, and my weight pulling at my shoulders, but whenever I shifted position, sharp pains shot up my biceps and even my back. I realized I was rubbing my wrists raw, trying to move them along the log. Then I hit the edge of the cement block and had to stop.
Shots continued to fill the air around me, forcing me to grip the log, trying to use it as a shield. Each shot made me flinch again, but none of the bullets hit me, and eventually I tried peering around the log again to see what was going on.
Ponytail's guys were mostly holding guns now, at least the ones who could.
The shooting started up again and I looked around, realizing again that none of ponytail's freaks were even looking at the three of us tied to logs. It looked almost like they were aiming for one of the windows of the main building, or maybe even the roof.
I felt a surge of hope when I realized something else.
Whoever else was out there, they seemed to be a good shot. And if they were aiming for Ponytail's guys, they were definitely on my side, as far as I was concerned. For probably the first time in my life, I hoped they were cops.
I saw two of Ponytail's guys fall on the other side of the fire. Ponytail himself and the Russian were still firing back steadily, the Russian down on one knee, partially hiding behind the stone basin. Then a shot got him directly in the face, and the Russian fell back, screaming.
Ponytail fell a second later.
The first shot seemed to get him only in the leg. After gasping and clutching his thigh, he kept firing until a second bullet got him in the middle of the chest. Throughout the whole thing, he never made a sound, unlike the Russian who was still screaming, rolling in the grass and making sounds worse than anything the burning guy had done.
I stared down at Ponytail's body and it hit me that he was probably dead.
The feeling of unreality stole over me again. A well-aimed shot threw another of Ponytail's people back to the grass. I saw them moving on the ground, so they weren't dead, but I could hear choking, gasping sounds, so the bullet might have gotten lodged in a lung. Another guy lowered his gun and started bolting towards the arches leading to the main building of the museum... until another shot brought him down, too.
Seemingly all at once, it was over.
The clearing grew quiet.
I mean, I could hear a few things. The seer tied to the far log was making sobbing noises as she struggled against her bindings, fighting against them so violently she was all the way under the suspended log. The Russian was still screaming only a few yards from where I was tied, and at least one other person pleading with someone, maybe with the shooter, or maybe with God, I couldn't make out their words well enough to know for sure.
I probably looked like the seer.
All I knew was that I still hanging there, gasping, trying to get enough oxygen through the gag, to move my arms, when the shooter appeared on the lawn.
He wore all black, too. He'd saved our lives, I was sure of that now, but somehow, seeing him there didn't exactly fill me with relief. Instead I was seeing all the people he'd shot, and hyper-aware of the fact that I was still completely helpless.
I fought harder against the bindings on my arms, but never took my eyes off him as he bent over and knelt beside felled bodies, checking them.
I watched him take a weapon away from the Russian and feel over the body of ponytail guy before he extracted another gun and shoved it into a pocket. He straightened long enough to shoot the Russian again, which maybe was a mercy at that point, but made me flinch anyway, letting out a short cry.
If he heard me, he didn't look up.
Moving to the next cluster of bodies, he disarmed two others, even though they weren't moving at all. The shooter didn't pause, but proceeded methodically, his gun always trained on the ones he hadn't yet gotten to.
Whoever he was, he also didn't speak.
I could only hear a few people breathing in the clearing now. The guy with the burnt hair and face wasn't moving at all. Nor was the Russian, or ponytail guy, or the guy who called me a Serpent. In fact, the only person I saw moving now, apart from the three of us tied to logs, was the guy who'd been wielding the cattle prod earlier that day. I was staring at him, watching him trying to crawl across the grass, when another shot caught me off guard. His body crumpled to the grass, and I gasped, looking back at the shooter.
I couldn't see his face though, not from where I hung. I could only see his legs, which were covered by dark-colored pants. Before I'd managed to pull my head back together, I saw those legs moving in my direction. Letting out a cry against the gag, I fought harder against the cuffs, but I seemed stuck in place, unable to move the cuffs, or myself, anywhere. I'd even stopped sliding down the side of the log, probably because I was hanging nearly under it anyway.
I was still fighting, gasping to breathe, when the shooter reached my side.
His knees bent, bringing his body, and then his face level with mine.
The last person I'd expected to see met my gaze. His pale eyes nearly glowed in the fading light of the fires, narrowing as they studied my face.
It was Jon's cop.
I COULD ONLY stare up at him as he untied the gag from around my mouth.
Before I could think of anything to say, he dropped the gag and straightened. I craned my neck, watching as much of him as I could see as he walked around to the other side of the log. I felt his hands doing something by my wrists, then a pulling sensation as he started tugging on the the chain dug into the wood between my cuffs. I let out an involuntary moan as it pulled on my already hyper-extended arms, but it didn't stop him from whatever he was doing.
Then, all at once, my arms were free.
I fell like dead weight. I couldn't move my arms at all, so I fell straight onto my face in the remaining wood under the log. It hurt, but no where near as much as my arms hurt when I tried to move them to pull myself off the ground. Waiting for the feeling to come back, I lay there, paralyzed for a few seconds, before I could make myself try again.
Slowly, I managed to crawl off the wood, until I was laying mostly on cement.
I realized then that Jon's cop hadn't waited for me, but had already walked away. I could see him over by the seer now, on the other side of the dais.
He was freeing her, too. He held some kind of tool in his hands that he was using to saw through the thick chain between her cuffed wrists.
Seconds later, she fell as heavily as I had, letting out a similar cry.
Unlike with me, though, he helped her out from under the log. Then he was doing something to her neck, and I realized that he was using the same tool to saw through the collar she was wearing. It took him less time to cut through that.
When the collar came free, I saw her wrap her fingers around her neck, smiling at him. Even from where I lay crumpled on the ground, I could see that she had tears in her eyes. She nodded to something he must have said to her, something I didn't hear. Then I saw her using some kind of sign language, right before he helped her rise shakily to her feet.
Traumatised or no, and even with his help, she seeme
d to have a lot better control over her body than I did. Still, seeing her upright inspired me to try for the same. I only made it to a sitting position though before I had to rest again, panting.
I looked over at the two of them again, and saw the seer touching the face of Jon's cop with one hand. She was smiling at him still, and kissed his cheek while I watched, gesturing again with her hands. If they were talking, their voices were pretty damned low, because I hadn't heard him speak a single word at that point.
Fighting again to get vertical, I made it to my hands and knees, then grabbed the support on one end of the log. Gasping a bit, I dragged myself shakily to my feet.
I was still leaning against the log when I saw Jon's cop heading back towards me. I heard him make a strange clicking noise as he motioned towards me. Behind him, I saw the female seer limping away from the clearing altogether, towards the hallway with all of the columns and the arches. I could tell she was hurt too, that time. She was cradling one of her arms and wincing at each step, wiping blood off her mouth.
Then Jon's cop spoke, forcing my eyes back to him.
I flinched at the sound of his voice, only realizing then how quiet it had gotten with all of the religious fanatics dead.
"Take it easy," he said, sounding faintly irritated. His voice had that same German accent I remembered. "You were drugged. Don't get up too quickly... I can still feel it on you."
"Are you letting her go?" My jaw didn't seem to want to work, and I realized the gag had wrenched it enough that it ached. "She's leaving?" I said.
He nodded, catching hold of my arm as he reached my side.
"She does not want to stay."
I gave a humorless laugh. "Yeah. I bet."
"She wanted me to thank you," he said. His pale eyes met mine when I looked up, holding a hard kind of scrutiny. "She was very grateful to you."
I nodded without really making sense of his words, still trying to work my jaw.
"What for?" the man said, blunt. "Why is she grateful? She wouldn't tell me."
I shook my head. "I have no idea. Honestly."
The man frowned, but he didn't let go of my arm.
"Are you okay?" he said.
I couldn't help it. My voice turned incredulous as I looked up at him.
"Peachy," I said.
He made that clicking noise, and I heard the irritation in it again.
"Thanks," I said, before he could speak. "Given that I was kidnapped, drugged, nearly burned to death in some end of the world apocalypse ritual and then almost shot... I'm good. I'm alive. So thanks."
He didn't answer. When I looked up next, he motioned to the other side of the clearing with his head. I realized he was indicating towards the third person who'd been tied to a log... the guy with all the symbols burned and inked into his skin.
"We should talk to him," he said.
I nodded, looking down at my legs, as if willing them to move.
I couldn't help but wonder why he was bringing me along to talk to the guy though, and not the seer, who actually could have gotten some information off him. They'd seemed pretty friendly, so maybe he was just being considerate, letting her go.
It struck me a moment later that I was almost jealous.
The thought made me laugh a little. It was too ridiculous not to laugh.
If the man noticed me smiling, he didn't ask.
"How did you get free?" he said. I looked up and his pale eyes held that wariness, nearly on the surface. "I was tracking you... then I heard the screams. I came, and it looked like something had already happened. What?"
I only shook my head again, answering truthfully.
"I honestly don't know. Really."
"But something happened?"
"Well, yeah." I looked around the clearing, at the piles of scattered and smoldering wood, the man with the burned face and hair crumpled on the ground. “...Obviously."
I tried to think past the pounding in my head, but I was still coming up blank.
“...There was a bright light," I said finally. "I guess one of them must have done something to the fire, because once I could see again, it was spread all over like this... and some of the others were on fire. Screaming, like you said."
"One of them?" he said. "You mean one of them decided to let you go?"
I looked around at the bodies on the ground, but it didn't really help. I could count seven, and I'd only seen seven before, but I didn't exactly have the best vantage point on that log.
"I guess."
"Why would they do that, Alyson?"
"I have no idea. Why would they want to set us on fire in the first place?"
My answer only seemed to irritate him more.
But he didn't say anything. Sliding an arm around my waist to support some of my weight, he helped me walk over to the third log. As we approached, I saw symbol-guy speaking into the sky, something that sounded almost like a prayer.
“...And the day will come when the darkness will become Light, and the light, Dark," he recited. "And the gods will open the gate a last time, and the brothers and sisters will look across time and remember they are no longer alone...”
He looked at me, and began speaking louder, his eyes so wide they looked like silver coins punctuated by his irises, black with pupil. He stared at me, not at the cop.
"AND THE END OF TIME WILL COME AFTER THE THIRD RACE HAS BIRTHED...” he said, his voice a near shout, a sing-song chant. "AND THOSE WHO ARE NOT CLEANSED SHALL BE FORCED TO REMAIN BEHIND, IN THE DIRT AND ASH OF THAT BROKEN, FORGOTTEN WORLD, UNTIL SHE COMES FOR THEM...”
"Who?" Jon's cop said. "Until who comes for them?"
The man blinked up at the black-haired man. He looked at him blankly, as if noticing for the first time he was there.
"The Bridge, of course," the man said, his voice almost normal.
The black-haired man frowned, glancing at me.
"Some kind of scripture," he muttered.
"Well, yeah," I said. "I figured." Gripping the log, I managed to stand under my own power, more or less. "Do you know what it means?" I asked the black-haired guy.
"No," he said, staring down at our captive.
He seemed to be scanning the symbols on the man's body, squinting as if trying to identify them. The man on the log apparently hadn't tried to get away even once; he still lay on the very top of the wood, his eyes wide as he stared between our faces.
He was staring mostly at me, though. I could see the fear in his eyes, coupled with a near-reverence, but I still had no idea what it was about.
"Did they say anything to you?" the black-haired man said, still studying the symbols on the man's skin. "Why they were doing this?"
I shrugged. "Standard blood and fire whacko religious crazy shit. Something about an offering. Stopping the end of the world... they said they needed one of each of us."
The man looked at me sharply. "One of each of what?"
"He called me something... first race. He said I was an inter-something...”
"Intermediary," the black-haired man finished. He continued to stare at me, his face unmoving. Finally, after another pause, he said, "Why would they think you were one of those?"
"I have no idea," I said, throwing up my hands. "Because they're crazy? Because I'm a freak magnet? Because New York hates me?"
"I meant, did they give you a reason?" the man growled.
I sighed, in surrender more than anything. "They said something about medical records. The head guy said they found nine of us down here that way." When the black-haired man flinched, I gave a low snort. "Apparently I was convenient," I added sarcastically. "Oh, and I'm doing nothing with my life, so they figured no one would care if I died. And I was supposed to be a Snake god or something... whatever that means...”
The black-haired man didn't seem to notice the tone of my voice.
I saw him thinking, staring down at the bound man. I flinched when he leaned down abruptly, catching hold of symbol-guy by the hair. Gripping him tighter, he lowe
red his face, speaking in a harsh voice.
"We can start the fire again," he told the man. "No ritual this time... no glory. No wreathes of garlands from the Ancestors. Just pain. Just fire."
Symbol-guy's eyes shifted from me to the man holding his hair. The black-haired man was holding him tightly enough that it looked like it hurt, but symbol-guy didn't look afraid of him, or of his words. Mostly, he looked confused.
"Are you her guardian?" he said finally.
His voice was tentative, almost childlike.
"Yes," the black-haired man said. "I'm her guardian. And you're going to answer my questions, or I promise you, you aren't going to like me very much...”
The man swallowed, but his expression didn't change.
"How did you find her?" the black-haired man said.
"We were wrong," symbol guy said seriously, not seeming to hear the last thing my friend said. Nodding with that solemn expression, he looked back at me. "She wasn't the Serpent... or the Trickster. She is one of them. One of the Four. She was hiding...”
For some reason, that seemed to anger the black-haired man.
"You're damned right you were wrong," he growled. He gripped the man's hair tighter. Then he shocked me, smacking his head against the log, hard enough that I flinched.
"How did you find her?" he asked again.
The man smiled, speaking in a faraway monotone, as if reciting. "Blood type," he said. “...Heartrate. Reflexes. Rate of cellular and genetic degeneration...”
"Where did you get the ID? No one has a reliable ID for intermediaries!"
"The patron...” the man said, still in that faraway voice.
"The patron of what?"
"He is a prophet. A man of wisdom...”
"Where is he?"
The man's smile remained blissful. "The patron comes only in dreams...”
I saw the black-haired man's frown deepen. "Who else knows?" he said. "Are there more of you? Anyone else who has this list of intermediaries?"
"We are everywhere... our spirit lives...”
Allie's War Early Years Page 8
