“Then whose phone can you use?” Martha asked. “The one payphone on the main street hasn’t been operating for months.”
“I’ll think about it,” Vic said. “I can’t risk going back into town just now anyway. If they’re still in the forest they’ll still be around the main street. It’ll have to be tonight or tomorrow.”
Martha didn’t argue. Vic realized just how tired she looked. The rush of adrenaline had subsided, leaving in its wake a deep gulf of exhaustion. It was catching up with him too, despite the greater endurance offered by his unique biology. His skull still ached dully from the car crash. His limbs felt weak with fatigue. The strain was mental too, fear and pain crowding in on his thoughts, making him falter. He knew he had to keep his mind focused if he was going to get through it all, but right now all the training and experience he’d picked up at the Institute felt a million miles away.
He used his claws to open a can of dried fruit. Martha didn’t want to eat, until he reminded her how she’d coaxed him to finish his greens as a child.
“Pretty ironic, don’t you think?” Vic said, smiling slightly as he pointed out the role reversal. “We’re going to need all our strength to get through this, so eat up, Mom.”
Despite herself, Martha smiled too, and began to eat.
Outside, darkness started to fall. Vic sat watch as the shadows beneath the boughs deepened and lengthened, eating up the forest around him. He let it consume him too, closing his eyes. Were there still Purifiers out there, stalking between the trees, hunting him? Were they still in town? Had there been casualties from the day’s events?
Thoughts continued to press in on him from all sides. How had the Purifiers found him? He was convinced someone in Fairbury had contacted them. But who? As much as his family talked about the town rallying behind them, he’d seen more than a few dirty looks after getting off the bus from the Institute. The likes of Tony crossing the street had seemed rude at the time, but now it had a more sinister tone. He had no idea how deep anti-mutant hatred had wormed its way into Fairbury as a whole since he’d been away. The actions of the Purifiers proved that those who supported his family were at great risk. Who else could he trust?
The answer seemed obvious. Until he could contact the Institute, he had to rely on himself. That wouldn’t help him find a phone, though. For that he’d have to take a gamble.
•••
Neither Vic nor Martha slept much that night. Vic stayed curled up on the platform outside the hut door while his mother remained in her chair, drifting in and out of wakefulness. He made sure she drank plenty and checked her head intermittently. They watched the sun rise over the canopy together. Ordinarily it would have been a quiet, peaceful moment, an opportunity for parent and child to share with one another. But Vic could hardly force himself to sit still. He’d made a decision during the night. He knew how he was going to reach the Institute.
“Are you sure?” Martha asked when he told her.
“It’s the best I could come up with,” he said. “It’s on the other side of town. If the Purifiers still have a presence in the area, it’ll surely be in this locale, not there. I just need to cut around Fairbury to the north and I’ll make it.”
Martha seemed too tired to argue. She promised to wait in the treehouse until he returned. In turn, he promised her she’d soon be safe, and when she was, he would find Dan.
He dropped back down to the forest and picked up the secondary trail leading north-west, away from the ashen ruins of his house. He was still in his hoodie and jeans, but he dropped into chameleon all the same and moved off to the side of the track rather than follow it directly. If there were still cultists in the forest, he was confident he could slip past them, but not if he ended up running directly into them.
The woodland was quiet and lush in the rising morning heat. At its edge, fields of ripe corn and maize stretched away towards a brightening blue horizon, swaying softly in the breeze. Vic darted across the road, jumped a rail fence, and was in amongst the crops.
It proved slower going than he had anticipated. Dirt dragged at his feet and pollen made his eyes water and sting. Twice he veered too far north rather than west, only realizing his mistake when he emerged onto a road and saw the signs to Fairbury. He dared to cut a little closer in towards town in an effort to save time. One field required a sharp detour as a distant farmer started shouting at him, his faint anger accompanied by the barking of his dogs. Vic gave that one a wide berth. He didn’t get on too well with dogs.
Finally, he spotted the raised embankment of the north-western highway, Route 73, ahead of him. He scrambled up its flanks and made a dash across it, narrowly avoiding a collision with a silage hauler. On the other side he slid down and turned south, into town.
This was the moment of greatest danger. All he had was the possibility that the Purifiers were no longer in Fairbury and, if they were, that they weren’t in this part of it. If they had sympathizers and they spotted him, his only hope was that he could get in and out again before the cordon closed. At least he could trust the person he was calling on.
A brisk summer shower had kicked up as he reached the edge of town, slicking the sidewalks and making the gutters drool. He was glad of it – it washed the worst of the dust off his clothes and gave him an excuse to pull his hood up. He stuffed his hands into the hoodie’s deep pockets for good measure, trying to hide the fact he’d ripped his lower sleeve off to bind up his mother’s wound. He felt the toy dino, still in his pocket. After all this he’d have to give it a name.
There were very few people out on the streets. Vic tried to keep his head down and walk quickly without seeming like he was hurrying – a near impossible task. He avoided eye contact with those he passed. He was convinced they were staring at him. If he’d had hair, he guessed it would be on end at this point. As it was, his palms were sticky again and his mouth full of spit – he kept having to swallow, trying to regulate his breathing and heart rate. Be calm. Be calm.
He glanced up and saw his destination. Roundaway’s Cafe, a little red-bricked coffee house nestled in between Suzie’s Pets and the West Fairbury Stationery Store. Its outside menu board and two small tables sat desolate in the downpour. In a moment of horror, Vic thought that the cafe was closed, but light spilled through the front windows. People sat inside, staring out blankly into the rain. Without lingering, Vic entered.
The bell over the door chimed. He kept his hood up. He could feel people looking, always looking. He stuck out. There was nothing he could do about it. He was committed now.
No more than seven or eight people were sat around the tables crammed into the little space. He didn’t look directly at any of them – he knew he’d recognize them, and vice versa. He walked straight up to the counter and smiled.
Miss Trimble stared at him for a second, glanced past him over his shoulder, then smiled back. She was a tall, slender woman with large round spectacles, her mousy hair streaked with gray and her apron seemingly perpetually messy. She leant over the counter slightly, and while her tone remained neutral, Vic could see the mischievous recognition in her eyes. It filled him with an unspoken relief.
“Morning there! What can I get ya?”
“Iced Americano, please,” Vic said, doing his best to sound unconcerned. “Also, if you’ve got a phone I could use, I’d be very much obliged.”
“Right over there,” Miss Trimble said, nodding to an old pay phone in the corner and sliding fifty cents from the tip jar across the counter. “Best make it quick.”
Vic took the coins and walked to the phone, trying not to rush. There had to still be Purifiers in the area. Otherwise Miss T wouldn’t have advised him to hurry. Heck, she was pretending not to recognize him! That spelt trouble.
He slotted the coins into the phone and punched in the Institute number. All students were given an emergency contact, a direct line to the school should they ever f
ind themselves in a life-threatening situation. This absolutely qualified. As Vic entered it, he heard the bell over the cafe door chime. He didn’t turn around.
Chapter Ten
“What can I get you fellas?” Vic heard Miss Trimble ask. The phone in Vic’s hand was ringing through at the other end.
“Nothing,” replied a man’s voice. “We’re just looking for some information.”
Vic felt his heart rate spike. He didn’t turn around. The cafe was deadly silent.
“Please identify,” pipped an automated voice in his ear. The Institute’s security setting – all it required from him was either his student number, or his name for voice recognition. He couldn’t utter either though. He tried to shift so that the exposed hand holding the phone – clawed and green-scaled – was out of sight from the counter.
“Are you fine-lookin’ fellas lost?” Trimble asked in her most chipper voice. “Needin’ directions out of town?”
“No,” growled a second male voice. While the first was deep and solid, this one had an unhealthy rasp to it, as though the speaker was suffering from some sort of deep-set chest infection. “We’re looking for somebody. I think you know who.”
“I’ve no idea, sweetheart,” Miss Trimble said. “If it’s the manager you’re after, you’re speaking to her.”
She’d raised her voice fractionally. The electronic tone on the other end of the line repeated its identification request in Vic’s ear.
“Victor,” he tried to hiss as Miss Trimble spoke.
“Please identify,” the voice on the phone repeated.
He said nothing. He couldn’t. Any louder and he was certain it would give him away. His hand trembled slightly. His grip on the phone was like a vise.
“Well, if you don’t know who we’re looking for, I’m sure some of your patrons will,” said the first voice. It carried on in a louder tone, addressing the whole cafe. “Where’s the lizard?”
Vic’s skin crawled. He felt as though he had a target painted on his back, but he couldn’t turn around. The urge to color-change was instinctive, almost overwhelming. The voice on the phone repeated its request. A few seconds more and it would automatically hang up.
“Someone in here knows where he is,” rasped the second voice. “So, start talking.”
“I suggest you two leave right now,” Miss Trimble said, her own voice now riven with iron. “I hit the silent alarm as soon as you walked through the door. The cops are already on their way.”
“We gave the cops the runaround yesterday,” the rasper continued. “They’ve got no authority, and plenty of them sympathize with our cause. You don’t intimidate the Purifiers.”
“What about you?” the deeper voice demanded. Vic heard footsteps, before a different voice answered. He recognized it as Mr Parsons, the Fairbury Springs hotel owner.
“We don’t know anything about any lizard. I’d suggest you do as Miss Trimble says and get the hell out of here.”
“Hell’s already here, old man,” the rasping voice sneered. “Your salvation is in our hands. What about you, little missy?”
“Please, just leave us alone,” said the trembling voice of Mrs Stevens, the bakery owner. “We don’t know where he is!”
Vic heard more footsteps, moving closer now. He could smell rancid breath and stale sweat. The line to the Institute had terminated, leaving nothing but the dial tone droning in his ear.
“And what about you, kid?” rattled the chill, deathly voice, right next to him. “You’ve been awful quiet on that phone.”
A split-second to act. That’s all he had. Vic spun to his right, hard and fast, and brought the phone receiver crashing across the jaw of the man who’d been standing behind him.
He was a lot bigger than Vic had anticipated – tall, scarred and shaven-headed, with tattoos depicting blazing fire and wailing souls all up his bare arms. He also wasn’t wearing Purifier robes – he was sporting frayed combat pants and a stained black T-shirt with a snarling wolf emblem. All this Vic took in in a heartbeat as he felt the phone shatter in his grip. Spittle and blood flew from the man’s split lips.
The blow sent the Purifier reeling. His buddy was behind him, dressed in sweatpants and a vest that had been plastered to his torso by the rain. He was dragging a sidearm from his waistband, crying out. Someone in the café screamed, and several dived for the floor, chairs clattering.
Vic leapt up onto the café counter in a crouch and lashed out with his tongue. The muscle, slick with drool, darted half the length of the cafe and knocked the pistol right out of the Purifier’s grip. Vic dragged his tongue back in and whipped out simultaneously with his foot, kicking the first man in the hip and dropping him to one knee.
In such a confined space, filled with civilians, the odds weren’t the worst but getting people out without someone getting hurt looked impossible. He had no more than a second to choose. Fight or flight.
Turned out he wasn’t getting a choice after all. The second cultist was winding up to charge him rather than scramble after his lost sidearm, but he never got the chance. There was an explosive crash of shattered glass as something – a body – came hurtling in through the cafe’s window. It went right over the top of Mr and Mrs Ellis’s table as the couple dove for cover, overturning their drinks and fruit cake slices to join the carnage. The head of the incoming figure struck the leg of the man going for Vic, bringing him down too.
Chapter Eleven
No one got a chance to move before the door came flying in as well, accompanied by its little clattering bell. Vic cringed away from more shattered glass, his eyes screwed shut. When he lowered his arm, expecting the worst, he found himself looking at the most welcoming sight he’d seen since reuniting with his parents. Over six feet of solid rock advanced implacably through the splintered doorway, crunching glass to powder underfoot.
“Having trouble, lizard boy?” Rockslide rumbled. All Vic could do was grin.
The man Santo had flung through the window – presumably a Purifier who’d been guarding the door – was unconscious. The one Vic had brought down had managed to find his gun in the chaos. Raising it, he fired. Somebody screamed, the discharge in the confined space threatening to burst Vic’s ears.
The bullets had been aimed at Santo. Each ricocheted harmlessly off, one bouncing off the wall and the other two lodging in the ceiling. The impacts struck sparks off Rockslide’s chest but left no further impression besides a trio of slight white scuffmarks.
“Good shot,” Santo grunted, his craggy face looking even more displeased than usual. “Now get out, before I start crushing skulls.”
Fanatics these three might have been, but clearly none of the Purifiers present were suicidal. The two who had first come into the cafe snatched the unconscious third between them and, with some difficulty, hauled him up and out of the broken window. Santo clearly had no intention of giving way to them so they could use the remnants of the door.
“I’ve never been gladder to see you, Rocky,” Vic said, his voice heartfelt.
“We need to go, now,” Santo replied. “I may have already been spotted, and even if I wasn’t, those three will bring more of their kind.”
“I’m so sorry for all this,” Vic said, turning to Miss Trimble. To his surprise, he found her smiling.
“It’s OK, Vic,” she said. “Worth it to see someone stand up to those bastards. I’ve got property insurance. That’s what this was, after all, even if it was the assailant’s head being broken in through the window.”
“Thank you,” Vic said, looking at the rest of the customers. They seemed less delighted than Miss Trimble with the entire incident. Most were frozen at their tables, staring in fear and awe up at Santo or at the wreckage of the cafe front. Mr and Mrs Ellis were still on their knees amidst the debris of their own broken table, clearly in shock.
“Thank you, everyone,” Vic repe
ated to them all. “You could have turned me in, but you didn’t. If you had they might have taken me before Rocky even got here. I owe every one of you, and I won’t forget it.”
“Just get your father back, Vic,” Mr Ellis said, finding his composure as he extended a hand to help his wife to her feet. “We saw them take him in the street yesterday. Dragged him off into one of their trucks.”
“Do you know where they went?” Vic asked.
“No. Last I saw they were headed east out of town.”
“We must go,” Santo urged, shifting his bulk out of the door with some difficulty.
“I’ll find him,” Vic carried on, nodding his thanks to Mr Ellis. “And that’s a promise. Miss T, you better not be shut too long!”
“I’ll have this place reopened as soon as I’ve swept up the glass,” Miss Trimble called after Vic as he sprinted outside, grinning once more.
“How did you know I was in trouble?” he asked Santo as he caught up with him. The big mutant had begun to move at a sidewalk-jarring jog, heading north.
“I didn’t,” he grunted. “But your friends guessed.”
Vic set off after him, having to move quicker to keep up. “Cipher? Graymalkin?”
“Cipher,” Santo confirmed. “She told me she had not heard from you, and that she had seen reports of Purifier activity in the vicinity of your home.”
“The text,” Vic said, realization dawning. Cipher had sent him a text he hadn’t responded to the night he’d arrived home. Any calls had likely gone unanswered while he’d been out in the woods. Not for the first time, he gave thanks for the caution of his friends.
“How did you get here?” he asked as they carried on. “And how are we getting out?”
“The SR-70,” Rockslide said simply.
“They let you take the school’s Blackbird?” Vic asked incredulously, shooting a disbelieving glance up at his big companion. “I guess you really have graduated then!”
First Team Page 9
