Josh took a wary look around that attempted to appear as though it wasn't a look at all. “He hasn't been dead that long,” he hissed. “Pick up any readings?”
“You think the killer—” Ren's eyes widened in alarm.
“—is still here. Never mind the ESP.” Josh didn't waste any more time. He focussed his eyes on the horizon, latched onto Ren's arm, and took off at a run. Ren didn't argue, but she interjected a dodging motion to their escape: violently weaving side to side as they hot-footed it out of range.
“I think we did it!” Josh exclaimed, after a while, and he started to slow, panting under the hot sun.
Ren nodded, but didn't slacken her speed. She yanked Josh forward with a jerk that seemed to twang his arm. “They'll never catch us now!” she said.
* * * *
“Dusty.”
Dustin felt as though he were hearing the voice from a long way off. He was in a deep cavern, but he was floating now; gradually drifting toward light and warmth and voices. He wondered if this was the white light he'd heard so much about...
The voices were familiar, and there was a hint of impatience as they called his name, over and over. Dustin's lips twitched and he muttered, “Use it, don't abuse it.”
“You're awake, then.” Erik sounded pleased with himself. “Had me worried for a minute. Thought I'd blown it.”
“Comforting words,” Valterzar commented.
Dustin opened one eye, expecting a return of that crushing headache that was the last thing he remembered.
“How's the head?” Erik's voice held a trace of anxiety. He really had been worried he'd blown it.
Dustin grinned. “Great!” He prodded his leg. Barely a twinge. “You do damn good work when you want, Dainler.” He reached out a hand and gripped Erik's. “Thanks.”
Erik nodded at Jamie. “He'd prefer to be self-effacing and humble, but you can thank the Wickham Widget here for holding your brains together till I arrived. He was shaking with the effort.”
Jamie snorted. “Only because they were so scattered. I had to find ‘em first. That was the hardest part.”
Dustin grinned at him, then sobered, memory returning, when he looked at Zar. His face whitened, and he slumped against the seat. “Do we have the coordinates?” he asked quietly.
Zar knew he was wondering how he could have forgotten Ren and Josh, for even a moment. “Lucky to have any memory left at all, Dusty,” Zar told him. “Don't beat yourself up over it.”
Dusty's smile had no humour in it. “Maybe I didn't want to remember,” he said darkly.
For the first time, Erik realised Merrie's tears might not be solely related to Dustin's near-miss. “What happened?” he asked tensely.
“Don't!” Dustin climbed out of the car. “I can't...” He averted his head and walked away, still limping slightly.
Erik saw it. He'd have to hit him again later, when it wasn't such a rush job. “Someone tell me.”
Valterzar put a hand on his shoulder. “Josh and Ren are dead,” he said bluntly.
Erik went ashen. His breath caught in his throat. He wobbled a little and Zar gripped his shoulder more tightly. Merrie came over and took his hand. Her eyes were wet. “It's going to be all right, Erik,” she said.
“How can it ever be ‘all right'?” he asked, distressed. In a sudden flash of insight, he realised how spoiled his gift had made him. The last time he'd had to face death this personally had been with his mom. In the years since then, he'd convinced himself that it wouldn't happen again—no more pain because he wouldn't let the “death” happen. He'd stop it, the same way he'd stopped it with Dusty.
He'd always been able to fix things—to halt the Grim Reaper. In all his adult years, he'd never had to face the inevitable—that someone he loved was gone forever.
He couldn't accept it now. He just didn't know what the alternative was. He looked a little blankly at Dustin's retreat. Dusty doesn't know what to do, either, he thought.
He realised the next moment he was wrong. Valterzar was speaking now, and Erik forced himself to focus. “...thinks he can change it.”
“What?” Erik asked incredulously.
“Dustin is convinced he can get there first—and find a way to stop it.”
* * * *
“Merrie's with me,” Valterzar told them. He took Merrie's hand, and tossed James the keys to the crew cab.
“So I surmised,” Jamie retorted, looking from one to the other.
“Why can't we take the helicopter?” Erik asked. “It'd be faster.”
“Security,” Valterzar told them. “Send it off.”
“The czar has spoken.” There was a trace of anger in Dustin's tone.
“At this point, secrecy matters more than speed.”
“Does he still think he's your boss?” Erik sounded surprised, but there was a trace of derision there, too.
Valterzar's jaw tightened.
“I know,” James said, seeing Valterzar's frown. “Weight of the world on your shoulders. Impossible to get good help in these out-of-the-way spots.”
“They may come back in and strip the site, if they think there's a threat.”
“But that's not what you're worried about,” Dustin said quietly.
Valterzar's eyes met his. “Right. I'm more concerned that if their payload was so important to protect the first time through, they may consider it even more vital the second.”
* * * *
Valterzar drove out of town, then set off across the desert. Merrie was silent in her corner, and he beckoned her over. “I miss you,” he said.
She gave him a sad smile and scooted over, so he could put an arm around her. She rested her head against his chest.
Zar didn't say anything more. He knew there were no words he could give her to counter what she'd seen. What they were all trying to avoid thinking about, Merrie had shared with the victims. As the last of the life had been sucked out of them, Merrie had been there, to have all the anguish pass through her shadow on that other plane.
It was as he bent his head, to brush his lips across the top of her head, that he saw it. A glint of glass, off a pair of binoculars. He punched in James’ number on his phone.
“Didn't I tell you not to call me here?” James said. “Oh, it's you, Zar,” he added with mock surprise.
“Binoculars. Could mean trouble.” Zar was watching the other truck in his rearview mirror. At that moment, it swerved, dipped, then did a spectacular roll down a nearly non-existent embankment.
"Shit!" Valterzar slammed on the brakes, and went tearing out his door, Merrie right on his heels. They were running toward the steaming truck when Merrie caught a flash, much as Zar had. She knew what it was, though, because she'd seen it before—when Ren had toppled, in a spattering of blood and bone, onto the sunbaked sand. It was the reflective glint off a rifle scope.
"No!" she screamed, and threw herself against Zar, tripping him onto the dirt.
Valterzar lay there, momentarily stunned, the weight of her sprawled across him. Some terrible knowledge was seeping into his brain—into his gut. He felt a darkness, chilling and incontrovertible, slicing his insides. A forbidding bleakness that took away his inner light.
A small rivulet dripped across his shoulder and down his chest. Then, it just kept running.
Too wet for the desert. Makes no sense... He wouldn't look at it, couldn't look at it. It was a warm river, and she was heavy against his back. His Merrie Girl. Gone and taking all the joy with her.
He rolled over, careful not to dislodge her—careful not to shift the hand that, even in death, draped him so lovingly. For a moment, she lay atop him as she had a few nights since. So little time. So much left undone. There'd barely been time for that—for that one lovers’ night. He kissed her fingers, wanting to hang on to the warmth—of body, of personality—that was her.
Zar began to weep, in great, shuddery gasps. Merrie. My Merrie. He got up on his knees—then, wobbling, sobbing in those terrible shudders, he pu
shed himself to his feet, Merrie still in his arms. He buried his face in her hair.
It reminded him of that night, when he'd saturated himself in her scent. He'd inhaled all of her, and it was forever imprinted on his brain.
I love you, Merrie. He wished he'd said the words. Then. When there was time.
He jerked, when the first of the bullets hit him, but he just kept walking. It took a second shot—and a third—before he was brought once more to his knees. His sobbing dissipated in a long drawn-out sigh that became a groan. When he toppled face-first onto the harsh sand, his arms remained around her, his face still buried in her hair.
* * * *
“We're upside down.”
It was the third time Erik had said it. He didn't sound capable of saying anything else right now. Dusty realised he'd fared better in the back than Erik or Jamie. Closer to the rollbar...
He undid his belt and lowered himself onto the roof. Then he crawled forward and peered at Erik. “You okay?” he asked.
“I don't know,” Erik said. “Don't feel anything.”
His words gave Dusty a lurch of fear in his gut. “I'll see you clear, Erik,” he promised. He rolled over and booted out the side window. He managed to shimmy out, but he wished halfway through that they hadn't piled up so much behind the cab. It would have been a heck of a lot easier to climb out the back.
Dustin knocked on Jamie's window, but he was out cold. He had a knot on his head that made Dusty flinch. So, Dusty ran around to Erik's window instead.
There was a hole in the glass. A relatively small hole, with shimmering glass spiderwebbing that showed Erik's face in an oddly disjointed distortion. Dustin slid his pinkie in the hole and tugged. The glass, barely intact, fell in shattered fragments.
“How you doing, Erik?” Dustin asked, but he already knew. The bullet hadn't stopped at the window.
“Can't move!” Erik told him, panic making his voice rise.
“Shock,” Dusty told him confidently. Nothing to lose by lying.
Nothing left, after today.
Erik must have been leaning forward when it hit. Dusty guessed it had hit his spinal column at an angle, done its damage, then headed out, through his chest.
“Gotta get you out of here, so you can heal Jamie. He'd got a lump on his head you wouldn't believe,” Dusty told him.
Erik couldn't heal himself. All his life he'd healed everyone else. Hell—he'd fly a thousand miles to heal a friend, if that's what it took.
But he couldn't heal himself.
Erik was having trouble breathing now, and Dusty guessed his lung was filling with blood. He could read the panic in Erik's eyes, and he took his hand in a tight grasp. Then, he realised Erik couldn't feel it, so he pushed his head in, and rested his forehead against the other man's ear. “I'll see you clear, Erik,” he promised again. He held him close and talked to him about when they were kids—about the time Jamie had tossed a chair at him in a fit of temper—and the day Erik had layered the foxy teacher's chair with multiple tacks, claimed it was someone else, then insisted on “healing” her. “Remember that one, Erik?” Dusty asked, smiling through the lump in his throat. “How you told her it had to be ‘hands on', and she believed you?”
He guessed it was sometime during that last story that Erik died. When Dusty pulled back a little, Erik was staring blankly at the dashboard, a slight smile on his face.
“You saw him clear, Dusty.” Jamie sounded like he was choking. There were tears running down his face. He reached over and gripped Erik's shoulder. “Wish I could tell him...” He couldn't finish. He shook his head. “Better your way.” His breath caught. “He never knew...”
Dusty reached out and gripped his arm. “I'm getting you out of here, Jamie.”
“Do you really think you can change it, Dusty?” For a moment, he sounded like the kid Dusty had once known.
“I don't know,” Dusty told him honestly, as he yanked Jamie out through the broken windscreen. James was wobbly, so Dustin took one of his arms over his shoulder and moved toward the other vehicle. Zar and Merrie were lying there, in the dirt—
"Oh, Jesus!" Jamie turned away, to be sick.
Dusty closed his eyes and hauled James rapidly past them. The sniper. Get clear of the sniper.
He started up Valterzar's truck and took off, across the sand. He couldn't get the pictures out of his head: Erik, Merrie, Zar. Josh and Ren. Ren—his Kitten.
“One thing's sure, Jamie,” he said, through gritted teeth. “We're going to give this a damn good try. God knows, we've got nothing left to lose.”
* * * *
“Know anything about coordinates?” Dusty asked him, a short time later.
“Yeah,” Jamie said. He seemed to be coming out of his shock a little now. Dustin was tempted to ask him about his head, then realised it wouldn't do any good—only remind him he was hurting. There wasn't much either of them could do about it out here. “Helps me find my volcanoes.”
Dustin smirked. “Doesn't say much for your powers of observation.”
“Hey, when I run into the lava dome, then I know I'm in the right place.”
It was conversation, to fill the gaps and shorten an uncomfortable silence.
Silence that'd give us too much time to think.
“James, if I take a detour, do whatever it takes to bring me back.”
“Sure thing.” Jamie glanced at him. “Something coming on? Want me to drive?” He added, “It might be better if you were practising a little ‘conservation’ here—of energy.”
“I'd rather be practising a little ‘concentration’ on my driving.”
“Good,” Jamie said.
Dusty glanced at him. “What?”
“I've had enough driving for the day anyway.”
“It must have been a bullet in the tyre—”
“I know,” James told him. “Not for the first time do I wish my abilities leaned a little less toward the punch and push, and a little more toward the—”
“—precognitive,” Dusty finished with a sigh. “You're not the only one.”
* * * *
There wasn't much left. Part of the hillside had collapsed, in what could have been an avalanche of erosion, if it hadn't been for the scar tissue in a reddish gash across the face. “This has to be it,” Dusty said determinedly.
“If not, we're going to waste a lot of time digging for nothing.” The sun was halfway to the horizon now, which made it cooler, but when the darkness came, it'd be complete.
“We have gear,” Dustin told him.
“Yeah, but we don't know what. Half was on the other truck.” James looked at his expression and said hastily, “I'm not saying we don't have to do something. Valterzar talked about secrecy, and what could happen. As it is, we're probably being followed by that sniper guy. If not, he may have asked for some reinforcements to head our way.”
Dusty nodded curtly, and headed for the back of the truck.
“What did you think?” Jamie asked in exasperation. “That I was going to put this off? Preach about ‘since it's all in the past anyway...'?”
Dusty turned back to look at him. “Weren't you?”
“Shit, no!” Jamie complained. “The more that happens, the harder it's going to be to fix. All I was going to suggest was that we look around, for some metal or something—some clue to tell us this is the right place. So we don't waste the little time we have left.”
Dusty put the suggestion into action. He'd only gone a few metres when he squatted, and gently wrested a shiny piece of metal from the ground.
“What is it?” Jamie asked.
Dustin couldn't speak. He lifted it, so James could see the “K", twisted and melted from the explosion.
James took a deep breath, then nodded. He went over to the truck and untied two spades, a pick, and a couple of shovels. Dustin's expression was as desolate as the dried sands, but Jamie ignored it.
Time to call him back to the present.
James gave a sharp whi
stle, to get his attention, then tossed him a spade. “We have to dig down to cabin level, right?”
Dustin nodded.
“Well, my Boy, you're about to find out what a geologist's life is like.”
* * * *
Jamie opened the door for Merrie, but when she seemed inclined to hover in the corner he sighed dramatically, and concentrated briefly. Merrie, taken by surprise, was flung against Valterzar. “Much better.” James winked at Zar, slammed the door firmly, and went over to the other truck.
“Cute couple,” Erik remarked.
“I'm beginning to think all the people I know think like me,” James complained.
“God forbid,” Erik muttered.
Dusty flashed a grin from the back. “How's that?”
“In geological time. Takes them aeons to sort everything out. It's a wonder some of those feelings don't metamorphose with the amount of time they take.”
“That's what I'm counting on,” Erik said, with a smooth smile. He looked deliberately at Dustin, and offered him an irreverent salute.
“Snowballs in hell, Dainler,” Dustin said, grinning.
They drove out of town and several kilometres across the desert. It was bouncy and jolting, and Erik was glad when Valterzar finally called a halt. “To think I could have taken a helicopter,” he complained.
“It's a test,” Jamie told him. “Just to see how well we function with our brains bounced out.”
“With them screwed on half-assed backwards,” Dustin corrected. “That way Dainler won't feel so unique.”
Valterzar got out of the truck and came back, to knock on the window. Jamie rolled it down. “How can you stand it with the window up?” Zar asked.
“Dust or heat. Dust or heat. Hmm-m, big decision. Heat,” Jamie retorted. “Makes me think magma.” Zar looked past him at Erik, who had one of those battery-operated mini fans, and was plying it around his face. Zar snorted.
Dustin raised his hands. “Don't look at me. Mis ventanas estan gordas.” He grinned, his eyes and teeth appearing exceptionally white in his dirty face.
“Just call him ‘Dusty',” Erik put in.
“If you need any translating done, I taught him everything he knows,” James added.
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