Vessel, Book I: The Advent

by Tominda Adkins

  * * * * *

  The Jesse Cannon tour bus, much like Jesse Cannon himself, rarely went anywhere without receiving loads of attention. The waving and honking, the hanging out of windows and sunroofs, the variety of underwear regularly flung at the windshield. Things I'd stopped noticing long ago, plus things I had learned to notice right away, such as crazed stalkers in station wagons, or the occasional paintball-happy death metal fan out seeking musical justice.

  The fact that it was close to 11 p.m. on a rural Indiana highway did not change matters much.

  "I could really get used to this," Jackson said, admiring the suggestive salutations of yet another female driver in the next lane. Having appointed himself the only person onboard qualified to drive the bus, he had been at it for over three solid hours now, minus one stop for gas and cigarettes. "You need a new driver anytime soon?" he asked, without taking his eyes off the side window.

  "Darling, you can drive my bus anytime," Jesse yawned from the couch.

  Considering all this highway attention, and considering the apparent fact that the Hollows at least knew Jesse's identity (we could not otherwise explain their tour shirts, nor their presence at the Odette show), it seemed rather unwise for all the Vessel to be riding around in a thirty-two foot diesel tour bus with Jesse's picture all over it. The issue was certainly debated more than once, but there was truly no alternative. No place to get a rental car this late, no way we were going to face the exposure of public transportation, and no sane reason to sit still. Not in a hotel. Not at a truck stop. Not anywhere.

  Less dire problems had already been seen to. The broken windows were patched over with flattened designer label shoeboxes and duct tape. Corin's right hand and most of his arm was wrapped in a thick mass of ace bandage, held firmly in place by additional duct tape. And Khan was dressed. Sort of. The seams of the extra-large shirt I had given him were in a strained state, to say the least. No duct tape had been necessary, but it was on hand just in case.

  That shirt, by the way, was hot pink, the kind of hot pink that should be unlawful in amounts exceeding one square inch. And across its front it read in bold, white, glittering letters:

  JESSE CANNON SEXODUS TOUR

  I went. I saw. I came.

  In addition, Khan had somehow fit himself into a pair of my pajama shorts, provided to him after a second private argument between Jesse and myself, this one over whose waistline was smaller. I will admit that Jesse won that one, but not before being threatened with another black eye.

  The friendly woman in the next lane took her exit, and Jackson returned to the conversation at hand, which, not for the first time, had found its way to the subject of the bedouins. The ones who'd watched Amphet sink into the earth. The ones whose ancestors were supposed to be waiting to assist the Vessel.

  In short, the ones who weren't around.

  "I bet they don't even exist anymore," said Jackson. "Probably all got picked off a long time ago."

  "That's certainly possible," Corin forced himself to agree. He was staring his Sabre phone down for information, prodding it crossly with his bandaged fingers. "Do you think the Statue of Liberty has anything to do with them, or us? Symbolically, I mean."

  Jackson snorted. "Like what?"

  Corin shrugged. "Why else would the dreams have told us to meet there?"

  "Maybe because it's a place we'd all recognize," Ghi offered. "Even me."

  I was hunting around under the table as they talked, searching for the coffee pot, which had tumbled out of sight during all the doughnuts we'd done in Odette's parking lot.

  "Look, we wouldn't have to reveal anything about ourselves initially," Corin was saying, cautiously,"but I would just like to again point out that perhaps the FBI―"

  Oh, this again.

  I spotted the coffee pot next to one of Khan's enormous feet, snatched it up, and then got out of the way.

  The idea of contacting any government organization met the same fate it had the last time it was mentioned. Jackson and Ghi were strongly opposed. Jesse put his hands over his ears in a tired way, and Khan, before anyone could reassure him, caught the carpet on fire.

  "Would you just relax?" Jesse stamped at the short flames, exasperated. "No one's going to turn you in!"

  Corin threw his head back. "I'm just saying―"

  "Are you out of your mind?" Jackson barked. "They'd haul Ghi and Khan off in a heartbeat, and put the rest of us under a scalpel―"

  "―they're bound to have some record of―"

  "―and if anyone else wants to drive this bus to DC, then go right ahead. Cause I won't, and I ain't ending up in no goddamn petri dish!"

  "―and if we simply inquired―"

  "What's a petri dish?" Ghi frowned.

  "It's French," Jesse replied sagely.

  "―then maybe they would have some information―"

  "―neighbor called the Feds about that mutilated cow, and we didn't see him again for weeks. Sold everything. Started growing onions."

  "―Bloody never mind."

  "―Onions!"

  I stepped around the last dying flicker of Khan's outrage, placed the pot in its proper place on the coffee machine, and flipped the brew switch.

  "What if you just went to sleep?" I said. "Maybe another dream would tell you all what to do."

  There was sweet silence for a moment.

  I turned around and leaned against the counter. All of them were staring at me. Even Khan, although it's hard to tell with him.

  "That's brilliant, actually," said Corin.

  I shrugged.

  "I volunteer!" Jesse jumped to his feet, stretched grandly, and made way for his bedroom. "I'll let you all know the moment I know anything."

  The door shut behind him. We looked at it for a moment, as if fearful that he might come back out. He did not.

  "No need to thank me," I said, taking his place on the couch.

  A restored calm fell over the bus. The words "Ohio Welcomes You!" blurred by on a sign by the highway, and Jackson took the speed up a notch. Corin sank further into the armchair, giving his eyes a moment's rest from his phone.

  "How's your arm now?" Ghi asked from the far end of the couch.

  Corin had been growing sweatier and generally more uncomfortable-looking by the hour. The bandages had been more than enough to staunch the bleeding, but it wasn't the bleeding that anyone worried about. We all remembered how things had looked underneath.

  Dry. The bites, the scattered craters of missing flesh, had looked unnaturally dry. And dark―greenish black around the edges, to be exact. The broken skin had darkened before our eyes before he'd covered it up.

  "It's fine," Corin said.

  Dry and dark. Flaky. Sick. Waxy. Unhealthy. Corin's arm was many things, but it was definitely not fine.

  "But what if it's not?" Ghi pressed. "We should really stop and get it checked out. Khan and I can hide in here."

  "Checked out?" Corin smiled. "By who, a priest? Ghi, no doctor is going to know what to do with this." He lifted the affected arm, leaning back in the bus's only recliner. "We just need more information. And we'll get it. With or without those desert people."

  Ghi nodded, exuding not an ounce of certainty.

  "You're not going to turn into one of those things, are you?" I asked, perhaps too bluntly. It was a question that needed asking.

  Ghi shook his head. "It doesn't work that way."

  "And if it does, you're fully authorized to set me on fire." Corin nodded at Khan, who offered the minutest affirmative gesture with his thumbs in response.

  Reassuring.

  Shrieks and shrill cheering interrupted us, leaking in with the night air as a carload of girls sped by, hanging out the windows and waving. High school cheerleaders, fresh from the game, still in their uniforms and glitter hair spray.

  "God bless America," Jackson uttered feverishly.

  Corin sighed and reclined toward the front of the bus. "What's the word, driver? Still think we can ma
ke it to Charlotte by morning?"

  Jackson's shoulders, stout enough to be visible on either side of the seat, bobbed up and down. "I reckon," he said. "Let's see where we are around nine. Probably best to get a rental outside the city."

  "I am not abandoning this bus in some hick town!" said an indignant voice from the back room.

  "Then we'll leave your ass on it!" Jackson shouted back. "Go to sleep!"

  "Yeah, and then what?" I asked. "Are you guys just going to run from these things forever?"

  Ghi blinked "Well, no―"

  "So what are you going to do when they show up again?" I demanded. "Ice tricks? Set them on fire? Because that didn't even do the job, apparently."

  Khan blew air out of his nose, clearly offended.

  "I bet I could float like Criss Angel if I tried!" Jesse shouted through the closed door.

  "Go to sleep!" we screamed back.

  "See?" I sank back into the couch, folding my arms. "Floating. That'll be real helpful, I'm sure."

  Ghi and Corin stared tensely at one another. Jackson's focus narrowed to the road, which was empty and practically straight. They knew something about what was going to happen, that much I could tell.

  "What?" I asked, seeking eye contact. My throat went dry.

  Corin sat forward. He looked at me, shrewdly, but not unkindly.

  "How much did Jesse tell you?" he asked. "About where the Vessel came from?"

  "Everything," I said. "He told me everything."

  "And what did he say about how this would all end?"

  I had to think about that for a moment. I felt that Corin was seeking a particular word or phrase, but I had to pick my way first through the more vivid details. Zabur. The throat-cutting. The sisters. The last divination.

  "Those cities are going to rise out of the sand," I said, remembering that much. "The moon's going to roll backwards, all of that."

  "Christ, Jesse," Corin whispered, angry―I assumed―that I'd been told too much.

  As it turned out, I'd been told too little.

  "It all depends on Dahrkren," Ghi explained. "When he's gone, they're all gone. All we have to do is last long enough to find him."

  Well that made sense. Which should have been a clear warning that I was investing way too much thought into things I planned to forget as soon as possible.

  "Okay, so, where?" I asked. "And when?"

  "Where the cities fell." Ghi shrugged. "Wherever that is. The desert's a big place. And when? Well, whenever he makes his way back there, but ..."

  "You don't know when that'll happen," I said.

  Ghi shook his head.

  "What we do know," Corin said carefully, "is how to kill him."

  "Hold it right there!" Jackson called from the front. "I do not want to be here for this."

  "For what?" I snapped.

  Corin sighed at the ceiling. "Becoming."

  "What?"

  He dropped his gaze to me, looking a shade more miserable than before. "Jesse really didn't say anything to you about the Becoming?"

  "Not in here, man!" Jackson warned, shaking his head. "I can't abide a crying woman."

  "She deserves to know," Corin said. There was an edge to his tone.

  What in the hell are they talking about? I thought back to the hospital room, waded through all the crazed hours since. And once again, the final divination replayed in my mind until I recalled the right part.

  ... and by the sacrifice of Becoming they will defeat the crueler force, and banish death’s pale eye from the heavens …

  "Becoming," I thought out loud. I hadn't given the phrase a speck of consideration earlier, and it took me a moment to decipher its meaning.

  When I did, I smiled.

  I did more than smile. I sat forward with both hands to my lips, emitting the tiniest snortle. "Wait a minute," I said, envisioning the outcome for myself and trying not to laugh. "Becoming? So that means you're all going to turn into women? Into those sisters?"

  Corin looked at Ghi. Ghi looked at Corin. Jackson looked at the road. Khan looked at nothing.

  "No, Jordan," Corin said. And then he knocked the smile right off my face. "It means that we all die."

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