Liberation

by Debra Dunbar

  One of the elves snickered. “I’ve done that twice. I hate these human buildings. So inelegant. Such an affront to nature and our Lady. I can’t wait to tear them all down and re-forest everything. Here. It’s this door.”

  He stepped forward and swiped a card, pulling the leather-covered handle to open the door. They all entered the room and the door shut behind them. Inside sat forty-one elves on the beige carpet, trying to stay as far away from a pile of unassembled cubicle partitions as possible.

  “Lysile!” One shouted, jumping to his feet.

  Busted. Lysile dropped Eros’ arm and grabbed one of the elves, smacking his head into the door. The other shoved Nyalla aside and ran. He grabbed the keycard and swiped it, yanking the door open. Nyalla used her foot to keep it open and watched as the elf raced down the hall.

  She couldn’t let him get away and raise the alarm, but she couldn’t let the door close when she didn’t have a card to swipe and wasn’t sure the other guard had one. Pointing the staff at the running elf she touched the blue gem. A light shot out of the staff and hit the elf in the back, expanding to a blinding flash.

  “He’s gone.” Lysile stood in the doorway beside her, positioned like a track-and-field sprinter on the mark to chase down the runaway.

  “Yep.”

  “Is he dead?” Eros asked, his eyes wide as he peeked down the corridor to where the elf had been.

  “No, he’s in Los Angeles. I’m not exactly sure where. Probably on the shoulder of the Harbor Freeway. At least, I hope on the shoulder, or else he might very well be dead. I like this staff.” Nyalla smiled at the magical item with affection. “I’d use it more often, but it’s kind of a pain to carry around all the time.”

  “I can imagine,” Eros said, glancing at the weapon with respect.

  Lysile ducked back inside and in seconds, the whole lot of them were crowded in the hallway. There was only one problem.

  “Uh, Eros? How do we get out of here? We can’t exactly walk all over the Pentagon and through security with all these elves in tow,” Nyalla asked.

  “The same way the elves have been getting to the Crystal City parking garage. Follow me.” Eros took off running, the elves easily keeping up. Three turns later, they all went through a room and opened a series of three doors. The last had been alarmed at one point but the wires now lay clipped and broken on the ground.

  Eros wrestled the door open. “This was one of the original tunnels modified after 9/11 so workers in the basement level can escape a building collapse or fire. Instead of the Capitol, it comes out in the tunnel near the Metro station where we caught the aliens on video.”

  Nyalla jogged up beside him as they ran through the surprisingly well-lit tunnel. “But Crystal City? I couldn’t park the Suburban and the horse trailer near there, so I’m near the Pentagon City Metro. We can’t walk forty-two elves through the streets, and I can’t see us cramming them all into a Metro car either.”

  Cram into a Metro car, they did. It was preferable than running through the subway tunnels and hoping not to get hit by an oncoming train. After emerging through a secret entrance behind a ticket kiosk, Nyalla bought each of them a trip card, thankful that the machine accepted credit cards. Then the elves, all trembling and crying huddled in the subway car while commuters eyed them with interest over the edges of newspapers and iPads. Once at Pentagon City, Nyalla herded the lot through the platform area. There. Just one short stairway upward, and they’d have a clear shot to the Suburban.

  The elves all crowded on the escalator, hugging themselves in fear, but bravely facing these strange human mechanisms to escape their captors. Once at the top and through the gates, they grouped together near the station exit.

  Nyalla looked both ways. “Go.”

  They ran as fast as possible. Well, the humans ran as fast as possible, and even though the elves looked like they wanted to tear past them at full speed and race for the woods, they kept pace, knowing Nyalla was their only sure way out of here. Just as they reached the Harris Teeter parking lot, the sirens began.

  Nyalla unlocked the car. “Get in, get in. Eros, open the doors for them, they can’t touch metal. No, no seat belts, just squeeze in as tight as you can. I know, but you all need to fit in here.”

  The elves were nose-to-toes and still another fifteen were trying to squeeze in. Nyalla ran back to check the trailer.

  Gone. Little Red was gone. And the trailer was wide open. The sirens came closer. They were going to block the roads. There was no time. The dragon would just need to find his way home on his own. Lesson one, dragons don’t listen. He’d gone flying off right when she needed him, too.

  “Get in the trailer,” she shouted to the remaining elves. “Stay low where the padding is. Don’t touch the metal.”

  Shoving the last one in, Nyalla slammed and locked the trailer door. Jumped in the driver’s seat and took off.

  The elves screamed as she rocketed out of the parking lot and up Route 1, to the Interstate. Eros was white-knuckled in the passenger seat. There were elf arms and legs on the console, whacking Nyalla in the head, thumping the back of her seat.

  She could see the ramp for 395 ahead, see the lights of the police cars starting to block the road. She wasn’t going to make it.

  “Take the Fourteenth Street bridge,” Eros shouted over the elf screams.

  No way was she trying to drive a giant SUV and a horse trailer through downtown DC and Georgetown.

  “How do I get on the Parkway?” She yanked the Suburban around a corner and headed into Arlington, past fast food restaurants and low-rise apartments.

  “You’re crazy. There aren’t enough exits off the Parkway. If they block it, we’ll be trapped.”

  Nyalla floored it, screaming through an intersection just as the light turned red. “There’s enough parkland with woods around it that the elves can vanish if we get blocked and need to get out and run. They’d stand out on the Beltway or in downtown DC. That or get flattened. This way they’ll have a chance.”

  “We won’t have a chance,” Eros braced himself as they swung around another corner, the horse trailer lifting briefly on two wheels.

  “Even chance for us. Better for the elves. Now how do I get on the Parkway? I need to get on before they close down every road out of Arlington.”

  Eros directed her, even though he was beginning to look slightly green. By the time they were accelerating onto the Parkway, he was breathing so heavily that Nyalla feared he might need a paper bag.

  They weren’t fifty yards onto the Parkway when Nyalla first saw them, darting through the trees faster than the SUV. She floored it and swerved around a slow-moving delivery truck. Impossibly, the elf screams from the back seats grew louder.

  There was a flash of light and Nyalla yanked on the wheel, swinging into the other lane and nearly capsizing the trailer. A fireball burst past them and set a Lincoln Town Car aflame. The vehicle spun to a stop in the median, people bailing from the flaming car as Nyalla roared past.

  “What was that? What was that?” Eros yelled, adding his voice to the screaming elves and a weird thudding sound. Arrows. The elves off the Parkway in the trees were firing arrows at them. Thankfully the monstrous SUV was solid enough that none penetrated the vehicle, because Nyalla was pretty sure they were spelled to kill.

  And there went her last-chance escape plan. The flashing lights ahead told her they were blocking the road, but if she pulled over and had the elves run for it, they’d be picked off like bitey fish in a puddle. Setting her jaw, Nyalla gripped the wheel and kept the accelerator down.

  “What are you doing?” Eros asked, hastily checking his seat belt. “I thought you were going to pull over and have us run.”

  “I’m going to ram them.” Nyalla focused on the point where the two patrol cars came together, hoping if she hit them hard enough she could spin them out of the way and keep going. At least the police hadn’t had time to get the spike strips down yet—that was a lucky break.

&nbs
p; “You’ll kill us,” Eros squealed.

  “There’s a better chance of us surviving a crash than being shot with spelled arrows. Besides, this Suburban is really sturdy. I’ve wrecked it twice in the past year and I’ve always been fine.”

  Eros ducked down and assumed a crash position, as if he were on a plane. The police thankfully realized her intention and dove out of the way. Seconds before she hit, one of the police cars lifted into the air. Nyalla swerved for the space, clipping the other car with the trailer on her way through.

  Glancing in her rear view mirror, she saw a dragon drop the police car into the median before flying to catch up with them.

  The elves cheered. Then they screamed again as the dragon dug his claws into the roof rack of the SUV, lifting it upward. Dragons are strong, but Little Red was young and the Suburban weighed nearly six thousand pounds before being stuffed full of elves and towing a horse trailer. The truck lifted a few feet off the ground and hovered, wheels spinning. The angle tilted the trailer backward and the bumper dragged along the roadway, setting off a shower of sparks and causing the elves to scream louder.

  The good news was that Little Red was propelling them forward faster than the elves in the woods could run. Another fireball went past them, exploding a sign that announced an exit for the CIA. Cars spun into the shoulders and median, clearing a path.

  Nyalla rolled down the window and shouted “Take the 495 exit toward 270. I think we’ll be clear once we’re past the cloverleaf.”

  Chunks of bumper started coming loose from the trailer, clattering down the roadway behind them. Nyalla held her breath, hoping the thing held together and didn’t become detached. She felt the Suburban pull to the side as Little Red took the exit ramp at speed, weaving slightly into the trees with the shifting weight of his load. The trailer clipped a tree and Nyalla winced. Cars and trucks scattered, honking as they whizzed over the river bridge and onto the Maryland side. By the time they were on the entrance ramp for 270, Nyalla was pretty sure they’d lost their pursuers.

  “We’re good,” she shouted at Little Red. “Put us down, but stay close unless we need you again.”

  The dragon let go and the SUV bounced hard on the road, shocks screeching with the impact. Nyalla floored the accelerator, feeling the truck skid as the tires tried to match the speed of the vehicle. The trailer went sideways, nearly jackknifing, but by the time they’d passed the Montrose Road exit, she had it under control. And she was going to move into the HOV lane, because a vehicle with forty-four occupants certainly counted as high-occupancy.

  She signaled, checking her thankfully unbroken mirrors before changing lanes. Almost immediately lights came on behind them.

  “Are we going to try to out run them?” Eros’ voice was strained, as if he were fighting to keep from throwing up.

  “No.” Nyalla crossed her fingers and signaled, pulling to the shoulder and slowing down. They were in Maryland now, not Virginia. She was pretty sure the police in league with the elves hadn’t put out an APB on them yet. And if they had, she’d just need to hope Little Red would save their butts once again.

  Rolling down the window, Nyalla summoned her best smile for the young officer who leaned in to look with amazement at all the elves piled in the vehicle. “License and registration, ma’am.”

  She handed the documents over, and the officer went back to his car, returning in record time.

  “You’re tail lights are out.” He shook his head. “In fact, your vehicle is scorched, with arrows sticking out of it. Your trailer is missing its bumper and its license plate. You have un-seatbelted occupants, although they are in the rear seats. And the livestock trailer is carrying more people.”

  Nyalla’s smile wavered. “I’m so sorry officer. We were…the victims of a hit and run in Virginia, in Arlington. We’re not going far. I’ve got a soccer team I need to get to a playoff game.”

  He nodded. “Which school?”

  “Linganore?” she guessed.

  He handed her back her documents. “Hope you have better luck than their varsity football this past fall. That was a sad season.”

  She nodded. And waited.

  “And on behalf of the FOP as well as the Fallen Officers Fund, we thank you for your generous donations over the past decade. I’m assuming you’re a relative of Ms. Martin’s?”

  Nyalla nodded. “I’m her adopted daughter.”

  The officer patted the door. “Well, please convey our gratitude. And get that tail light fixed.”

  “Yes, officer.”

  Her hands shook as she watched the officer get back into the patrol car. Slowly she eased the Suburban back into traffic.

  “What was that about?” Eros asked, his eyes wide.

  Sam. Who paid off every agency and government official she could in an effort to keep herself out of jail. It seems that the Iblis had the foresight to establish goodwill with the Maryland State Police.

  Nyalla smiled, taking the first easy breath she had since leaving the Pentagon. “It pays to be friends with Satan, that’s what that was about.”

  Acknowledgments

  A huge thanks to my copyeditor Jennifer Cosham whose eagle eyes catch all my typos and keep my comma problem in line, and to Damonza, for cover design.

  Most of all, thanks to my children, who have suffered many nights of microwaved chicken nuggets and take-out pizza so that Mommy can follow her dream.

  About the Author

  Debra lives in a little house in the woods of Maryland with her sons and two slobbery bloodhounds. On a good day, she jogs and horseback rides, hopefully managing to keep the horse between herself and the ground. Her only known super power is 'Identify Roadkill'.

  Also by Debra Dunbar

  Dead Rising

  Last Breath

  Bare Bones

  Famine’s Feast

  A Demon Bound

  Satan’s Sword

  Elven Blood

  Devil’s Paw

  Imp Forsaken

  Angel of Chaos

  Kingdom of Lies

  Exodus

  Demons of Desire

  Sins of the Flesh

  Cornucopia

  No Man’s Land

  Stolen Souls

  Three Wishes