Thoughts of what had happened at my house when I had allowed that force free rein came thundering back to me, and like someone trying to keep his gorge down, I willed the thing inside me to remain there. I couldn’t live with myself if the power inside me harmed Stacy.
I had almost reached Nick by that time, and even through my fury, I could see the alarm in his expression. I had done some uncanny, inexplicable things, and he must have been anticipating something equally outrageous from me.
Without a warning, he swung his gun in my direction and fired wildly. I could feel the wind from the bullet as it whizzed past, and I heard a metallic clink as it hit something solid behind me.
Not caring if Nick shot at me again, I let out a primal scream and launched myself at him. He fired again, and missed only because he tried to sidestep my tackle. I caught him with a shoulder, and we both spun around and fell to the ground.
I was the first to get back on my feet, but before I could renew my attack, something very much like lightning struck me low in the back. The pain was unbelievable, and I bit my tongue as my body stiffened in a kind of paralytic shock before I fell over.
“We want him alive, you idiot,” Al said in a snarl. I turned my head and saw him standing over me, a stun gun in one hand.
“Sorry, boss. I thought he was going to do that thing again.”
“I told you I had it covered. Next time, you will follow my instructions, or it will be the last.”
Pulling himself off the ground, Nick dusted himself off, all the while keeping one eye on me.
The feeling was starting to return to my arms and legs, and I was able to breathe on my own accord. I got to my knees, and Al promptly pushed me back down with his foot.
“Nah,” he said. “Stay down.” He pointed the stun gun at me again, and from the expression on his face, I thought he was going to hit me with another charge of electricity.
Stacy must have thought so too, because she twisted out of Tom’s grip and kicked at the gun, her foot connecting with Al’s wrist. The stun gun flew out of hands, and he immediately turned on her. Tom lunched forward and pulled her back away from Al. He wrapped one meaty arm around her neck to secure her.
Al glared. “You seem to be having trouble with the little girl, Tom.”
Tom, reddening, placed the barrel of his gun against the side of her cheek.
Raising a finger to Stacy, Al said, “That’s the second time you hit me, you little bitch. There won’t be a third.”
She shot him a defiant look, and in return, he smiled confidently and rested his foot on my back.
“We need him alive. We don’t need you.”
Tears streaked down Stacy’s cheeks; not from pain, but from anger, frustration, and fear.
“Don’t hurt her,” I said through gritted teeth. “She’s got nothing to do with this. Let her go.”
“Not a chance.” Al let out a hollow, humorless laugh. “I can’t believe how stupid you two are.” He pulled out a cell phone, which looked like Chuck’s, and gave Stacy an incredulous look. “You sent your brother a text telling him where you were going? What a twit.”
Stacy paled, and said, “What have you done to him, you bastard? If you’ve hurt him—”
“Not to worry.” Al dropped the cell phone back into his pocket. “We’ll catch up to him soon enough. He’s just as stupid as you two. What, did he think pulling the battery and throwing the phone in a trash bin would be enough? You can get new batteries at any electronics store.”
Stacy slumped, and I had the same overwhelming feeling of defeat. Although I had gone to jail and spent months in the company of criminals, I had never thought like them. We were completely outmatched against Al, who most likely had decades of experience.
“Amateurs,” he said in a hiss. He bent over and picked up his stun gun from the ground.
Snapping his fingers at Nick and Tom, he motioned toward the SUV truck at the other end of the parking lot. “Let’s get the package delivered. Shall we, gentlemen?”
“Hey,” someone barked from a short distance away. When I turned, I saw the grizzled biker. He still wore his leather jacket and boots, but wasn’t wearing any pants. A rumpled pair of boxers with a pattern of pistols and hearts on them hung around his ample waist.
A half-empty bottle of beer in his hand, he pointed to his motorcycle. “Who’s the shitter what shot my bike?”
Nick took a step toward the biker, but stopped when Al put his hand in the way.
“I’m sure it was an accident,” he said. “Nothing personal.”
The biker took a swig of his beer to finish it off, and then smashed the bottom of it off against one of the metal poles supporting the overhang.
“Accident, my ass. Someone’s going to pay for that.” He let out a short whistle through his teeth, and two more bikers—both fully dressed—stepped out of the room. One of them popped open a switchblade, while the other whirled a long, heavy chain with an industrial sized bolt fastened to the end.
Keeping his voice as placating as he could, Al said, “My apologies if any damage was done. I’m sure that we can come to some kind of arrangement.”
“Yeah,” the biker said. “You can step away from those folks there, and we can have ourselves a little go-around.” Over his shoulder, he spoke to his two buddies. “What do you say? Want to get a little exercise to work the kinks out from a long day on the road?”
The two men grinned in anticipation, and the remaining bikers poured out of the two adjacent rooms they had rented.
Al and his henchmen were outnumbered two to one, but I didn’t think that fact would have deterred them. It was that the commotion had attracted several other motel guests, as well as the manager, who had a cordless phone pressed against his face. Presumably, he was contacting the authorities.
“Let’s go,” Al said to Nick and Tom, but in a voice loud enough for the bikers to hear. “If anyone tries to stop us, put a bullet in them. No messing around.” With that, he switched the stun gun to his other hand—still aiming it at me—and pulled out his automatic, holding it casually at his side but in plain view. All the while, his eyes darted back and forth, watching everyone at the same time.
The leader of the bikers spat on the ground. “Looks like we got ourselves a few chicken-shits. They’d rather run and hide than have a straight-up fight.”
They didn’t move any closer to us as Al and his men led us away, but they kept pace, determined grimaces etched on their faces. They weren’t going to try their luck against bullets, but they weren’t going to back down from a fight either.
Throughout the entire confrontation, my emotions seesawed between anger and fear.
Once again, I was helpless to do anything. Even if I could somehow figure out how to summon and channel that power in me faster than Al could shoot me with the stun gun again, I didn’t think I would be able to do anything before Tom shot Stacy. I couldn’t risk making a move.
The brief flare of hope I had when the bikers came out was completely gone.
I could see in Stacy’s eyes how frightened she was, but she held back her tongue and her tears, putting on as brave a face as she could under the circumstances.
I kicked myself for not being able to think my way out of this situation.
At their SUV, Al poked me with the stun gun. “You get in the back.” I opened the door and slid across the seat.
Nick made his way around to the other side of the vehicle and got in beside me. Al closed the door, sealing us in.
I had a strange feeling something wasn’t right. The front had bucket seats with a large console between them. There wasn’t room for three people up there, and Al had already shut me in the back with Nick.
“Stace!” I yelled.
Al smiled at me.
I saw him raise the hand with the automatic in it and point it at Stacy’s head. He faced her and cocked the gun, not caring that there were witnesses.
“You have one chance to tell me where your brother is.
Save me some work, and I’ll let you live. Or don’t say anything, and die. Either way it’ll make me happy. After all, I owe you some payback, bitch.”
Darcy’s bottom lip trembled, and her eyes were wide with fear, but she said nothing.
I reached for the handle and tried to surge forward to throw the door open, but Nick grabbed my arm and held his gun to my temple. “You won’t be able to dodge a bullet from this close,” he said in my ear.
Outside, the bikers, seeing how ugly things had turned, stepped forward as one.
The leader pointed at Al in warning. “Hey! You’re not going to pull that trigger.”
Quick as a snake, Al swung the gun toward the group and fired one round. A puff of dust and rock kicked up between the biker leader’s boots. The men stopped in their tracks.
“Back off,” Al commanded and, without bothering to check whether the bikers were obeying his order, brought the gun back to bear on Stacy. “Last chance, honey.”
Obviously in shock, Stacy couldn’t form any words. She cried out and raked her fingernails across Tom’s arm, kicking her feet and trying to wriggle out of his grasp.
“Too late,” Al said with a click of his tongue.
I screamed and tried to summon that power from this morning to stop him, but the butt of Nick’s gun, heavy and sharp, smashed into my temple, and my senses swam.
Al winked at Stacy and started to squeeze the trigger.
I heard a scream and realized I was shouting Stacy’s name.
I could feel the power inside me—fighting against the nausea from the blow to the head—surging up, but something happened in the instant before Al pulled the trigger all the way back.
As if it had struck the embers of a campfire, the barrel of the gun exploded. The metal burst into pieces, all fluttering about like a thousand fireflies.
Stacy instinctively jerked her head away. Tom, stepping back from the shower of sparks, let go his hold on her, and she fell to the ground hard. It looked as if she might have skinned her knees and hands.
My astonishment over the spectacle was brief, however. Although I felt a surge of relief that Stacy was alive, I could see from Al’s reaction something else was happening; something that scared him.
Eyes wide, both he and Tom swung around toward the highway, and Tom raised his gun. Without hesitation, he fired rapidly, as if intending to empty his cartridge in whatever it was that had spooked him.
He got off three rounds before his gun turned a glowing red color, like an iron in a fire. With a yell, he threw his weapon away from him as quickly as he could.
At the same time, Nick scrambled out of his door and leaned over the hood of the car, both arms out to hold his gun steady as he took careful aim.
Before he squeezed off a shot, he suddenly jumped back from the car as if he had been lying on hot coals. The sleeve of his jacket burst into flame. His gun dropped from his grasp as he batted at the fire burning his arm with his other hand.
Earlier, when I had been in the room eating dinner, I had felt an electric jolt run through my innards. That same sensation came back, and without having to search for its origin, I looked toward the highway.
The first thing I saw was a cube van race back onto the highway, sending a shower of gravel and dust pluming out behind the roaring tires. Within seconds, the van was gone from sight. But that vehicle wasn’t the cause of that odd sensation I felt; it was the passenger the van had dropped off.
When the dust cleared, I saw a vision of fury masked as a young woman.
She was radiant. Her long, red hair flowed loosely about her head. I could feel an unearthly power emanating from her as she walked toward us with a purposeful stride. Her right hand—fingers slightly spread—extended before her, pointing directly at Al. I got the distinct feeling that the woman intended to unleash absolute vengeance on him, with no more warning than he’d already had.
Al, his face pulled back in a grimace of pain, and holding his hand, turned on his heel and fled. Tom and Nick followed right behind.
I opened my door, stepped out and went to Stacy, who was slow to get up off the ground. With my help, she pulled herself to her feet and gave me a quizzical look, seeing Al and his thugs running away.
“What happened?” Stacy asked me in a breathless rush.
I opened my mouth to ask if she was all right, but stopped when I realized the redheaded woman was not pursuing Al and his men. Without breaking stride, she continued toward Stacy and me.
I had no idea whether she was our rescuer or a new threat, and held myself stiff in anticipation. At the back of my mind, I remembered that there was some kind of primal power inside me, and if I needed to defend myself, I should try to summon it; especially against someone who could stop a bullet, melt guns and light someone’s sleeve on fire.
The power inside me, however, lay dormant. It was as if it sensed the newcomer was not a danger to me.
Stacy, seeing that I wasn’t looking at her any more, turned to follow my eyes. “Who are you?” she asked the strange woman.
Stopping an arm’s length away, the woman took a heavy breath and extended her hand toward me; this time holding it out in greeting.
“Hello, I’m Darcy Anderson. I’ve been looking for you.”
* * *
“Hey, kid.”
I turned and saw the leader of the bikers looking at me. He jerked his head toward the highway.
“You hear that?”
It took me a moment, but then I detected the faint sound of police sirens wailing in the distance.
Darcy said, “I’m not sure about you, but I would rather not have to explain what happened here to the cops.”
Shooting a quick glance at Stacy, who looked more confused than I felt, I said, “We should take off.”
Without further prompting, Stacy turned and headed back to the motel room, presumably to get our stuff.
The biker and his gang came up. He gestured to one of his guys, who went around to the driver’s side of the SUV and checked for the keys; they were still in the ignition. The man reached in and pulled them out.
Jangling them, he tossed them to the leader, who said, “We’ll hold on to these for a while. You’d better make yourself scarce, kid. Don’t worry about the pigs; we know how to handle them.”
I nodded and reached my hand out to shake his. “Thank you.”
He returned the handshake, glancing at Darcy. “Not at all.”
By then, Stacy had returned with our jackets and her purse. The three of us headed to my mother’s car and we all piled in; Darcy threw her pack in the back seat and crawled in after it.
I steered the car onto the highway and punched the gas.
In my rearview mirror, I saw—miles behind me—several cop cars pull into the motel parking lot.
It was only after I had gone past a long curve in the road and put the motel far behind me that I let out my breath.
Chapter Nineteen
We were heading south, and everyone kept silent for several minutes until Darcy asked, “So where are we going?”
I didn’t have time to reply. Stacy turned in her seat to face our new passenger.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, “but can someone explain what the hell is going on? Who are you? What happened back there? Why did Al and his thugs run?”
I said, “Actually, I wouldn’t mind hearing the answers to those questions, either.”
I flicked my eyes up to the rearview mirror. Darcy was framed in the reflection, and though she smiled at Stacy, I could tell it was a mask of politeness for our benefit. She was hiding some kind of darkness or pain. I couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but it was familiar.
I caught my own reflection, and it suddenly came to me that we shared something deep and profound. That bond was more than just a common loss, or feelings of guilt or anger. There was something much deeper inside.
A thought fluttered across my mind: She had lit Nick’s sleeve on fire … from a distance, I suddenly rea
lized. Tom’s gun hadn’t glowed like a hot poker of its own accord. Al’s gun didn’t spontaneously explode. The hood of the SUV hadn’t been hot because of a running engine.
Darcy had supernatural powers; maybe not the same as mine, but she had them all the same.
There were forces at play here that were not natural. A quick shudder traveled up my spine even as I felt my stomach sink. I tried to reconcile the truth of it.
A part of me had wanted to think I was imagining things, that it was my mind playing tricks on me to cope with the extraordinary events of the morning. I knew now, deep down, that there was a dark and terrible power inside me. That power had created the tornado that ripped through my house. It had changed the direction of the bullet that killed my mother.
Darcy caught my eyes in the mirror and said, “You felt it before I showed up here. It was like a static shock or a needle in your guts.”
“I felt something,” I said, not wanting to admit more than that.
She took a deep breath. “I assume we have a bit of a trip ahead of us?”
I nodded.
“Then I’ll go first.”
As if searching for the best place to start, she sat back in her seat and looked down at her hands.
“You and I have the same affliction,” she said, and I could feel the torment in her words as she spoke them. “For years, I thought it was something like a curse, a punishment for the sins of my past. It was only a few weeks ago that I found out it was much worse than that.”
She closed her eyes as she began her story. “I got married too young, and it went sour within the first few months. Eventually, it turned violent. We got into a fight; he beat me so bad I thought I was going to die. Something happened then that I couldn’t explain. Something inside me rose up and set fire to the house.”
I gulped as I listened. Her story sounded familiar to me.
She continued in a small voice. “Fire. I don’t know how, but in defending myself, I set my house on fire. I fell unconscious as soon as it happened. My parents were upstairs. The firefighters got me out, but they were too late to save them. I lost so much that night…”
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 32
