As we reached the clogged entrance and it became apparent progress wasn’t going to get any faster due to the masses bottlenecked for hasty egress, I checked our power reserves. “Silver, we can’t teleport unless we can get a recharge from that punch, not with two riders. We’ll have to get direct contact with James and Kara.”
My twin didn’t waste any time warning James, his hand had already ridden up underneath Kara’s shirt as he struggled to maintain a grip around her ribcage, establishing direct contact. One of our hands slid onto Kara’s exposed side and the other we used to pull down James extended arm then entwine our fingers in his.
The flood of energy, immediate and breathtaking swelled each cell in our body to overflowing, making pleasure and pain blend together seamlessly. Silver wrestled the wild pulsing power toward a purpose but before she ‘ported, I barked, “Heads up, James, we’re outta here!”
Green eyes on the barest cusp of panic looked down at us and then the crowd began to crumble around the edges to be replaced by the open night and parked cars. The most an average Axsian could teleport without technological aid was one other ‘rider’ but Silver and I needed no such assistance when flooded to the gills with a dimensional surge. It was hard not to be distracted by the possibilities, but James projectile vomiting onto the asphalt did the trick, bringing us back to reality quite nicely. Kara was stirring in her brother’s grasp and we all needed to get in the Suburban before she started to scream or resist our escape.
Silver snapped, “Hey, Romeo, can you drive?”
We received a weak nod in response.
Kara lifted her head off her brother’s shoulder. “Cass?” Her disorientation indicated that the veil Shiva had put her under had lifted.
“Nope, it’s Silver and we’re leaving. Let’s get in the damn car now.” Silver worried about unseen reinforcements catching us when we were vulnerable. James was busy getting his focus and trying not to decorate the cigarette littered parking lot with more gastrointestinal goulash. I moved us behind his back and eased Kara out of his arms.
Her frame was long and gracefully thin, though not overly muscular, so her weight didn’t require any added strength to bear. Kara’s height was the main hindrance as Silver and I attempted to keep her upright and open the door to the backseat at the same time.
It seemed like she actually tried to help a little bit as a gentle breeze blew away some of our bar smoke stench. So far, so good. Maybe we’d injured Shiva sufficiently to prevent him from teleporting long enough for us to get away. Somehow, I doubted it.
We needed somewhere to regroup in private and Silver was itching to jump in the Web and tear apart whatever attachment Shiva had established with Kara. Until the alien’s presence in our friend’s mind was eradicated, he could influence her thoughts or pull her through the Web any time he wanted. There were no Axsian authorities to stop us like they had with Zik.
Silver pushed Kara across the bench seat then jumped us up after her. After our coat was pulled all the way inside we slammed the heavy metal closed with a bang.
Through the window we observed James straighten his stance, step over the evidence of his nausea and open the driver’s side door to semi-collapse behind the wheel, then slam his door shut as well.
I took over as Silver evaporated into the Web to start ‘doctoring’ Kara. “James, I don’t think we should head back to the compound just yet. Do you have money to get us a hotel room?”
“I have a credit card but the police will be looking for us soon. I don’t know if Hazards has security cameras. I didn’t notice any on the way in but I wasn’t exactly looking for them either.” He sounded wheezy.
The engine started without hesitation. James shifted into reverse before craning his neck to look behind us through the rear window for any meandering pedestrians. A few other cars were leaving too, and the driver of the purple Challenger next to us started to back up without looking, just missing another car by inches. Finally, when the coast was clear James got us out of the parking lot safely and onto a wide street with car dealerships to the left and right.
Sirens began to wail in the distance, getting ever closer. Two black and white Chevy Tahoes sped past us in the opposite direction headed back the way we had come, lights flashing.
It would take the police a while to tie us to this vehicle, either through eye witness testimony or security camera footage if there were any. Officer Walters would call Malcolm right away to find out who we were and why all of this happened tonight.
“Call in to Control and tell them we had a run in with the local police and some unidentified Weavers that could possibly be Warps. If we do that, at least the compound will be on high alert. Malcolm said some charity work has resumed so I wonder if Shiva has gotten ahold of anyone else besides Kara with his little mind control trick. Silver went into the Web to see if she can sever the attachment between Kara and Shiva.”
James had already begun digging in his pocket for his phone when our last remark made him freeze. “What do you mean ‘sever the attachment’…bonds are permanent. They can fade over time a bit but they’re never gone unless someone dies.”
Kara’d gone back to sleep and I assumed Silver had something to do with that. The dark circles under her eyes added to the pale and fragile look as her head rested against the window.
James threw his liberated phone over the seat and into our lap. “The number for Control is in my contacts. After it starts ringing put it on speaker.”
Once I complied I held the phone out between us as it began to ring. The voice that answered was gruff but efficient. “Control.”
James angled his head back toward the extended cell phone but kept his gaze trained ahead as he turned us right onto an access road, rolling us to a stop at a red light.
“It’s Lee. Did Smith report in about us heading to town?”
Tinny silence, then, “Yes. Do you have a situation?”
“I do. More than Outsiders were present at our prior location. We won’t be heading in for a bit. Tell Moore that Officer Walters should be calling and the police will want us for questioning.”
Instant disagreement. “Negative, Lee. You need to report in immediately.”
“I can’t do that yet.” James motioned with his hand for the call to be cut off.
The light turned green at the intersection and we accelerated. I tossed the phone back over in his direction and heard the thump as it landed on the seat. “Silver needs some time with Kara uninterrupted. Can we swing by a store to get some food before we find a place to hole up?”
He frowned, squeezing the steering wheel. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
James got distracted with traffic as we merged onto Loop 289 and the bright lights over the wide concrete ribbon of road ruined our night vision, causing the cars around us to blur. I closed our eyes and let the spots on the inside of our lids settle down. “A long time ago Silver and I almost severed our bond with Maggie accidently. We stopped before the damage was total and it healed over time. If Silver can do the same thing for Kara then hopefully she’ll be okay.”
As if she could sense the turn of conversation, Silver’s presence became heavy before her voice came through loud and clear in our head. “I’ve never seen anything in the Web like what I’m seeing right now. The brief glimpse I got of Calvin Harris before he died didn’t look like this. Kara’s presence is infested with Shiva’s, as if he dug in tentacles all over the place. I’m not sure what’ll happen if I sever the connection, Cass. What if it kills her?”
Out loud I said, “Don’t do anything yet, Silver. Wait until we get settled somewhere. Maybe together we can figure it out.”
Our eyes popped open as James made a quick lane change to take an exit. The Suburban’s engine roared with acceleration as we merged onto another access road and turned into the parking lot of a non-descript hotel advertising cheap rates for extended stays.
James turned in his seat after the gear shift was slammed into pa
rk. “What’s going on with Kara?”
Silver took over our mouth to reply, “I don’t know, James, I just don’t know. We need time to figure this out. Kara’s important to us. We won’t take any chances with her but she can’t stay the way she is. Can you get us a room, quick?”
The obvious concern in my twin’s husky voice spurred James into action. With one last look at his sleeping sister, he got out from behind the wheel to slam the car door and jog into the hotel lobby. There really wasn’t any more to say so Silver went back into the Web to monitor Kara’s condition more closely while I watched for any signs of danger in the physical world.
James ran back out of the hotel after a few minutes empty handed to knock on our window. The crank was stiff as we rolled it down but the fresh air that rushed in was rather pleasant.
The look on his face was sheepish. “You’ve still got my credit card.”
I dug around until I found the thin piece of plastic, which no longer looked like identification, and handed it through the open window. James turned and loped back inside the hotel. Some sort of bug the size of a quarter buzzed right past the Suburban. Just in case there were any more out I began rolling up the window again.
That one temporary blast of clean air had made the interior feel hot and stuffy. I rolled our duster off a shoulder at a time then pulled it out from underneath our hips to heap it on the seat between Kara and me.
The notebook still concealed in an inner pocket affected the way our coat folded just slightly. I was tempted to pull it out and flip through it, taking an impromptu stroll down memory lane, but I knew we couldn’t afford the distraction.
Eventually James came back out with room key cards in hand to jump back behind the wheel and wordlessly start up the engine. He pulled us around the back of the three-story building into a parking space right by an entrance. The lot was about half full of cars, most of which were work trucks for an out of town construction company.
With the engine off again, the bushes around the base of the hotel came alive with insect sounds—buzzing wings and rubbing appendages. I leaned across the bench seat to pull Kara’s head away from the window and she stirred, mumbling nonsensical ‘words’ before flopping against our side with her head on our shoulder.
James gazed over the seat back and smiled at my expression as his sister made sleep sounds then snuggled into our neck.
Swallowing a laugh, he said, “Hold on. I’ll help y’all get out.”
James ended up carrying his sister over his shoulder and handing us the room keys. I took care to make sure the vehicle was locked since we’d left it unsecured at the bar earlier.
He instructed, “Third floor, room 302…we’re gonna have to take the stairs because there’s only one elevator and it’s in the lobby. I looked at the floor plan of the hotel they had posted on the wall in case of fire. The stairwell should be right inside this entrance.”
Shifting our coat over our arm I rubbed the smooth paper enclosing the key cards with our fingertips absently before leading us in. It was unusual for our gloves to be off this length of time but I deemed it necessary if immediate teleportation was required. I wouldn’t feel even remotely safe until Silver and I had irrevocably destroyed Shiva’s presence in Kara’s mind.
Three flights of stairs with a body to haul left James huffing and puffing by the end. We were forced to wait in the stairwell until a family coming down the hallway from the opposite end made it into their room, luggage and all. When the coast was as clear as it was going to get, we hotfooted it to our door and I inserted the card key without issue.
The room we entered smelled like stale cleaning solution and carried a faint dog scent. It was tidy though, with one bathroom and closet section immediately to our left. A large area directly ahead held two double beds, with an end table in between on the left. On the right wall stood a desk, a refrigerator with a microwave on top and a wall-mounted flat screen television.
James walked over to the closest bed to unload his unconscious passenger gently onto her back. Kara still had her eyes closed as if she were sleeping peacefully. He brushed his fingers across her forehead, smoothing her hair away from her face and then quietly went into the bathroom and shut the door. I heard the taps turn and the water as it rushed through the pipes in the walls.
I thought at Silver, “What now?”
It took a second for her to respond and when she did I could tell worry for Kara was going to make her sharp. “How should I know, Cass? James needs to get back in here before we can start. What the hell is he doing anyway?”
Most likely he was trying to rinse his mouth out from his earlier bouts of nausea and I didn’t blame him for it. Silver picked up on my thought so I didn’t bother to answer her irritated question. The water cut off in the bathroom and James appeared, looking slightly damp around his hairline as if he’d splashed water on his face.
I walked over to the empty bed, threw down our coat and sat down to take off our boots. The red numbers on the clock between the beds displayed the time as just after midnight. Would any of us get to sleep tonight? Until Kara was squared away, I didn’t think it was possible.
After our boots were removed and placed neatly on the floor I walked over to the other bed and lay down next to Kara. It was awkward getting settled but when we were, I turned and waved James over.
He raised his eyebrows and I motioned to the other side of his sister as Silver took over our mouth. “I need direct contact so I can show you Shiva’s infestation. Hurry up.”
When we were all settled and touching one another to close the circuit, energy began to hum through our bodies.
James whispered, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that sensation.”
“Hush,” I murmured just before I closed our eyes.
Silver was already waiting of course. All of our lights shone beacon bright in the Web. James was a cool pulsating green that almost matched the color of his eyes. Silver was a part of me and we generally didn’t separate just to admire one another.
Kara’s presence shone brightly as well in between the black tendrils inundating her lavender, violet and deep purple presence. The lights that had danced merrily across her surface during our last visit were no longer in evidence. Shiva’s infestation of Kara looked like a close up of an invading fungus on a healthy cell under a microscope.
Silver’s voice rang loud and clear. “You see the problem, right?”
James drew closer to his sister as if sucked in by gravity. When his cool green light bumped up against Kara’s the black blight constricted, burrowing itself deeper into her.
“I see the problem, Silver. Let me think for a minute. James, don’t touch her anymore.”
James floated away then asked in a concerned tone, “Cass, how come I couldn’t see this when I checked on her in the Web?”
“Shiva knows how to mask his presence. Kal taught us the same trick. Now be quiet and let me think.”
My mind felt stuck in idle. I lost my concentration temporarily, and Silver and I began to drift away before we caught ourselves. That brought to mind the first time I entered the vast mindscape of the Web without Maggie and before Silver had revealed herself again.
Navigation here was mainly mind over matter. You are where you think you are when you think it. Silver had figured that out long ago. My figurative ‘gut’ started to hum, indicating I was on the right track.
“Sister, can you visualize the fuse on a stick of dynamite?” I shoved my thoughts in her direction so she would pick up my idea faster. After a moment I felt guilty for leaving James out of the loop and shared with him as well.
James responded with firm resolution. “I say we try.”
Silver protested. “It’s dangerous. If the burn goes wild it could consume your sister too, James. What if I make a mistake?”
I gave a dark mental chuckle. “Since when is it you arguing for caution, Silver?”
James seconded, saying, “That’s the damn truth.”
Like a spark escaped from a blaze landing on dried grass across a firebreak, the little spot of light landed on a curling black tendril. At first, the effect was minimal. Seconds later, an orange glow erupted, shooting through the obsidian tangle as a flash fire.
My theory had been simple. You are where you think you are when you think it had morphed in my mind. Kara had shared once that every Weaver looked different to another in the Web based on their feelings or perception of the other person. This implied a certain amount of flexibility to our representations.
If your will could be imposed upon another, as Shiva proved possible, then that influence could be turned back on itself.
Silver healed on a cellular level and often thought of her process as infecting our patient with a beneficial virus. I’d combined our ability to burn a Weaver from the Web with my twin’s knack for healing. It was working!
James drifted closer to us, taking care not to brush against Kara, who was looking brighter by the minute. “That’s really fast, Cass…holy shit! Will it burn all the way back to Shiva?”
Silver thought with vehemence, “I hope he melts to blood and sinks through the cracks into the darkest deepest hell.”
“We’ll see won’t we? If we’re lucky he’s still tied up with the police trying to play human.”
The last bit of black burned off to travel just like the burning fuse on a stick of dynamite I had imagined, down the trail of Shiva’s infestation. Would it kill him? We hoped so. Did we feel guilty? Not a bit.
The predator inside us all smiled and picked its teeth.
VECTOR (The Weaver Series Book 3) Page 11
