Freya's Inferno (Winging It Book 1)

by Sonja Bair

Somewhere in my brain, a neuron fired off some transmitters in the shape of a question mark. Something in the sound and feel of the laptop opening was off, but the action of opening it was so routine that my muscles finished the motion regardless of the odd feeling. About a half second too late, my brain supplied the reason for the noise and extra resistance. A smaller version of Jia’s booby trap lay to the side of my computer, hidden under some science supplies which had not been there a few hours earlier. The motion of opening the laptop set the trap in action. Attached almost directly above my web camera was a small nozzle, and out of the nozzle, chlorine gas was shooting straight into my face. Instinctively, I gasped, jerked my head to the side, and squeezed my eyes closed. That prevented most of the spray from entering my eyes, but gasping in surprise led me to inhale a cloud of the poisonous gas. Immediately, my mouth and throat felt like a firebomb had exploded from within. I choked, desperate for air, but an invisible rubber band squeezed tighter and tighter around my chest. My vision shrank to a pinpoint and all my conscious thoughts went into getting air into my lungs. Somewhere far, far away, students noticed my struggles and from what seemed like a thousand miles away, I could hear their shouts of concern. But the pain had clawed into my airways and was dragging me away into a land of hurt. One last rational thought passed through my brain. I needed to make sure the chlorine pressure sprayer couldn’t activate again and injure someone else. I forced my five-hundred-pound arm from uselessly clutching my neck up to the hose. I could see it connected to the jars of chemicals. I ripped the hose off the jars. And then... black.

  Chapter 24

  Jia was going down. It had taken eight levels of Hell, but my patience with her antics was over. Luckily, several people were coming to the same conclusion. Officer McCleary arrived almost as soon as the medical staff left my hospital bed. Although her manner was professional, from her clipped questions and frequent scowls, she appeared angered by the attack. There were no fingerprints or other incriminating evidence left by Jia at the scene, but all of us knew that she was behind it. McCleary promised that the entire local police force would be on the case. My mother came as soon as she heard; she had The Look in her eyes. Meng and Wen checked in via phone and swore a solemn oath to find Jia and extract punishment. My principal showed up at the hospital, too, aghast at the violence that had happened at a normally calm school. The media squirmed their way in as soon as possible. I tried to play down the story, but it must have been a slow news cycle, so there was way too much publicity than I wanted. The one good thing that came out of the attack was my release from teaching duties for at least a week. My Alva genes hadn’t cleared up the damage from the chlorine gas by the time the doctors saw me, so I was medically advised to stay home to recuperate. While I normally wouldn’t want to start the year by taking so much time off, I felt like I was trying to herd too many cats right now. I wanted Jia taken care of and Robert and Maria gone before I tried to take on the role of teacher again.

  The doctors at the hospital sent me home after an initial exam. They saw plenty of damage on the x-rays, but there was nothing they could do about it except send me home with instructions to get plenty of rest. Alva genes to the rescue, though, and by the next day, I was feeling mostly healed. On the second day, the garden was weeded, the windows were washed, and even my shoes were organized, leaving me with time on my hands and no plan. Alrik was hanging around in the background, working on his laptop but every few minutes, he stopped and glanced up, checking on me. My family ganged up on me and told me that I wasn’t allowed to participate in the hunt for Jia. David had forbidden me to go with him to track down Robert and Maria. It was nice that they cared, but I needed to be in the action or else I would go insane.

  “Let’s go flying,” I said, turning to Alrik.

  “Not now,” he said. “You need to take it easy.”

  “There’s easy and then there is crippling boredom. Let’s do something,” I said in more of a whiny voice than I would like to admit owning.

  “I’ve got to do some work,” Alrik said, motioning to his computer.

  “Fine, I’ll go myself.” I stood up and made it a couple of steps before Alrik blocked my path.

  “No.” There was a dark anger in his eyes. Why was he angry at me?

  “Alrik,” I said calmly, “I am going out. I appreciate the bodyguard bit, but honestly, there’s a limit that I can take, and I’ve hit it. I’m going to the ranch and I’m going to go flying. Deal with it.” I tried to sidestep him. He moved with me. I sighed. “Think about it. So far, every time I have been attacked either by Jia or Robert or some other monster, I have saved myself. You might be the big strong guy and I might be about ten inches shorter than you, but I can and have taken care of myself just fine.”

  Staring over my head for a moment, Alrik didn’t say anything. Then he put two hands on my shoulders and looked down at me. “Do you know what it was like to see you in the hospital bed hooked up to oxygen tanks?”

  A glib comment came to mind, but glancing up at his face made me stop. He was being too serious. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.

  He continued, hands still on my shoulders. “I try to be there for you. I have slept on that appalling couch for so long, it’s starting to actually feel like a bed. I scout around your house every morning and every evening to see if there is something out there. You don’t know it, but even when you are at school, I watch over you. But you still get hurt. Even with me trying to protect you every way I can, you still get hurt. One of these times, you may get so hurt, even Alva healing won’t save you.” By the strength of his grip on my shoulders and the look in his eye, I could tell how frustrated he was.

  I reached up and put my hands on his face. “And I may get hit by a meteorite tomorrow. You can’t protect me from everything. And I don’t want you to spend your days trying to protect me. I want you to be my friend. I want you to laugh with me, to go have fun with me, and to commiserate with me if and, more realistically, when life punches me in the face. Please don’t waste time worrying about me.”

  “I can’t help but worry about you. You find trouble easier than you find your car keys.”

  I laughed at the unexpected humor. It was true; my car keys always ran off and hid in the most bizarre places. “See, Alrik? That was funny. I appreciated that joke more than the knight in shiny armor act. Let’s go flying.” I tugged at his hand.

  Alrik gave a half-smile, and I could tell I had broken through, at least a little. He let go of my shoulders and said, “It sounds like a good plan, but I have a conference call soon which will be at least a two-hour meeting. Go without me.”

  ***

  Like usual, the temperature at the ranch was sizzling. The sun blazed hot and fierce, with not a cloud in sight. Sometimes, extreme temperature feels good; it reminds me that I’m alive. I took a deep breath and the hot air stung my nose and throat. I guessed I hadn’t completely healed yet. I took another experimental deep breath. It hurt, but the pain was manageable, even if I started breathing heavily from the exertion of hard flying.

  Looking around, I reveled in the solitude of the moment. Drew was at home right now working on some ranch accounting, but he was the only one around. Based on his suggestion, I planned on making a flight to a distant reservoir created by some long-ago farmers who had moved away after being defeated by the harsh climate. After a flight, a dip in the reservoir would feel fabulous. I stretched out my wings. If I may say so myself, they are beautiful. The first time my wings appeared, I was around five years old, which is normal for an Alva. My guess is that natural selection, unfortunately, weeded out any fledgling who sprouted wings before that age. Even at five, I had many crash landings, scraped knees, and a few broken bones. My mother threatened more than a few times to tie me down with a leash to prevent me from leaving the ground, but the open sky relentlessly called to me.

  My mother and aunt were the first people to accompany me when I was learning to be Alva. We had fun, but it wasn�
��t anything like flying with another person my same age. A few years later, I flew with Alrik, and we shared the same reckless abandon. In fact, I can blame a couple of the broken bones on flying with him. Flying with other kids was nothing new for Alrik since he grew up surrounded by Flock. Instead, the novelty of flying with me was my sense of wonder. I remember begging him to teach me how to free fall as well as he did. He laughed at my clumsiness but then rejoiced right alongside me when I finally got the hang of it. I taught him the airborne dance moves that my seven-year-old self thought were hot stuff. He indulged me and perfected the moves with much grace. I smiled at the memory

  The path to the reservoir took me over the mine where Qiang died. I paused for a moment over the site, flying in a circle around the area. I offered up a prayer for both Qiang and Jia. My mother and the Chinese elders hadn’t had any luck finding Jia. Neither had the police. Meng and Wen were not surprised. As a child early in her training, she had often escaped to the forest surrounding the school and hidden when she felt overwhelmed by life. Qiang was the only who could find her. Meng said that Jia had once convinced Qiang to escape from school as well, and they were gone for three weeks. Wen smiled at the memory and said at the time the teachers and mentors weren’t very upset, since the couple was having a hard time balancing their strengths and weaknesses. The three weeks of running away had brought them together and they arrived back at the school much more stable and complementary. Her hiding skills were not so amusing now. I winged on past the cave-in site.

  Time flew, and I found myself at the reservoir before I knew it. After scanning for any obstacles lurking beneath the surface, I withdrew my wings and fell feet first into the lake. My muscles contracted at the abrupt change from hot air to cold water. I shivered from the intense change. I flipped around and scissor-kicked down a few times, feeling the water cool even more as I passed through the sun-heated first few feet. I blew out the rest of the air in my lungs and pushed with cupped hands against the water, preventing myself from rising to the surface. The pressure of the water surrounding me felt comforting. Eventually, my need for air caused me to kick up and break the surface.

  I treaded water lazily for a second, taking in the sun-scorched grassland surrounding me. My eyes stopped abruptly at the southeast ridge of the reservoir. Baked into the mud were footprints. I did a modified breaststroke over to the edge, curious as who would be this far from civilization with only an occasional cow for company. I climbed out of the water and took a closer look. There was only one type of shoeprint going back and forth from the water’s edge, although judging by the different degrees of dryness, the person had come to the reservoir over the course of several days. The most recent tracks were still moist; the person had been here only a few hours ago. I placed my foot next to the footprint. Even accounting for the shrinkage as the mud dried, the person had feet approximately the same size as I did. So they were most likely made by a female. I followed the footprints up the bank of the reservoir and into the grassland. Although the footprints faded, a path was clearly visible through the grass.

  I followed it. It led past a small stand of trees and toward a pile of large boulders which backed up against a small range of hills. I paused and listened. I couldn’t hear anything other than some faraway birds twittering among themselves. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose. Much as I expected, I smelled the supernatural scent of the Sun/Moon tribe. This is where Jia was hiding out. We were wrong—she wasn’t living out of her car. She must have parked it as close as possible to this spot and hiked in and out when she needed to.

  Almost unconsciously, I released my wings, giving myself a quick exit option. I crouched down so I was mostly hidden by the grass as it waved gently in the soft breeze. I strained my eyes hard at the boulders, trying to see into the dark spaces between them. Nothing. Edging past the trees and closer to the boulders, I moved as slow as possible so I could hear any sound or new movement in the treeline. Jia’s scent increased, but not substantially. She wasn’t here now. I stood up and walked closer, scanning in every direction as I did.

  If I weren’t watching every step with utmost concentration, I would have missed the small differences in underlying brush from one step to the next. But I did notice, so I stopped my foot in mid-air and pulled it back, placing it carefully in the previous footstep. I bent down and grabbed a small clod of dirt and tossed it where my foot had been about to land. Sure enough, the clod fell through the grass and hit ground long after it should have. There was now a dark hole where the dirt had fallen. I grabbed more dirt and rocks and as I threw them, they revealed the boundaries of the hole. It was about two-and-a-half feet in diameter.

  I peered over the edge. There were maybe ten sticks of some sort stuck in the sides, pointing slightly down toward the bottom, two feet away. I shaded my eyes and looked closer. The sticks were bamboo, which was as an invasive species growing around many creeks in the area. It was sharpened to points and almost touched in the middle of the pit.

  I rocked back on my heels. Jia had set a nasty booby trap. If anyone were to step in the wrong spot, their leg would fall into the trap. If the unfortunate soul tried to pull their leg out, the bamboo spikes would bite into their flesh, like an arrow or a fish hook. They would be stuck with ten nasty, deep holes in their leg, one of which would probably hit the femoral artery and cause them to bleed to death in a matter of minutes.

  “So Jia doesn’t want visitors,” I said out loud to no one in particular. “Too bad, but I don’t need to walk into your traps.” I swept my wings down and lifted off the ground, scanning the ground from above, sure that had she planted many more booby traps, but I couldn’t spot any. I landed at the entrance of the cave, which was too tight to fit my wings through, so I folded them away and waited for my eyes to adjust. The cave was small; I could barely stand up in it. Jia had folded a small blanket against one wall as a bed. There were some food packages against the other wall. I took another step inside. Two paces past the food was a small pile of books, and I picked them up. One was a scholarly looking book with a plain blue cover. It was written in Chinese and gave no indication of what it was about. The next was a spiral-bound journal, which was two-thirds full, again written in Chinese. I stuck it in my waistband so I could bring it back for Wen and Meng to translate. Normally, I would feel bad about stealing someone’s personal journal, but this scenario had gone way past that point.

  The last book in the pile was in English, and I smiled grimly. Good call, David. You nailed it. The book was a well-worn and annotated copy of Dante’s Inferno. I tucked the book in my waistband as well, looking around the cave again. There was nothing else. Jia was living a very simple life right now, dedicated to one idea.

  I left the cave, nearly blinding myself in the sudden blast of sunshine on the way out. Scanning from the cave to the horizon, I looked for any trace of human activity. Nothing. Wherever Jia was at the moment, she wasn’t here. I took to the sky and looked for the trail she would use to get to and from her car. A faint trail led past some hills that surrounded the reservoir, so I scanned it for other clues about Jia The trail twisted and turned until about a mile later, it connected with a barely used two-track trail. There, parked under a decent-sized stand of sycamore trees, was the old green Lincoln. I was so shocked, you could have blown me away with a feather. I had assumed that Jia was out on the town, but her car told a different story.

  Using my bird’s eye view, I looked around, but no Jia. Since she wasn’t around, I landed next to the car and peeked in the windows. There was nothing inside but a thick stack of newspapers. I drummed my fingers on the top of the car, thinking. After a moment, I opened the door to the Lincoln, reached under the steering wheel on the dashboard, and pulled the lever releasing the hood. I walked to the front, reached under the hood, released the second latch, and pulled up the hood. Sweet Jesus, I thought. The acre of metal used for the hood made it weigh approximately ten tons. I propped open the hood, hoping the crazy spring me
chanism that they used in the Seventies could still hold the weight. Though the spring groaned in protest, it held. Next up, time for some car surgery. I grabbed the spare plug wires and jerked them up and off. The octopus of cords in my hand made my smile. Jia was not going to be using the Lincoln anytime soon.

  I paused for a moment, spark plug wires in hand, and savored the sense of advantage. Lately, I had felt like I had been one step behind, but now I might have caught a break.

  The world was silent around me, free from the usual human buzz. But then above me, I heard the snap of a branch. It was a small noise, but I looked up anyway and the hairs on my neck stood up. There was nothing to see and yet I sensed that there was something there. I walked back around the Lincoln to get a different angle.

  Without warning, a heavy weight crashed down on my shoulders and caused the ground to rush up and meet my face. The jarring impact caused the heavy weight to fall off me and roll away. Jia, my brain told me. And although she may have gotten the drop on me, literally, I was very proud at how fast my body switched into combat mode. I rolled up and onto the balls of my feet, swiveling around to face her. She, too, was quick on her feet. She looked bedraggled but determined. In fact, she had a look on her face that pointed to a single-mindedness of purpose, and that purpose was my destruction.

  I managed to get upright a split second before she did, and I plowed into her with all my weight. Now Jia was the one who was down on the ground, with me on top of her. During the fall, I used my momentum to twist her so she landed belly down. I brought my knee up to her back as I pinned her to the ground. I reached for an arm to wrench behind her back to immobilize her, but somehow she was able to pry her body off the ground and, using her torso and legs, flipped me off her back. Now we were again both on the ground, and it was a race to see who would stand first. I won, but it was a hollow victory. Jia didn’t even try to stand. As I stared at her, she reached beind her back and just like that, I was now staring at the gun she was pointing at me.