Rook

by JC Andrijeski

  My back hit the protruding air vent on top, snapping me out, hard enough that I wondered if he’d done it on purpose.

  Either way, the pain yanked me away from Terian’s mind.

  I struggled to sit up as Revik walked to the rear of the car, opening the trunk with the keys and pulling out a black gym bag filled with something heavy. He reached inside the driver’s side window to unlock the door.

  “Allie!” he said, jerking it open. “Now!”

  I rolled over the top of the hood to the passenger side while he leaned over and opened my door from the inside. By the time I got in, he was already ripping open the black nylon bag, and it struck me that the line of cars behind us had resumed honking.

  I watched Revik jam the key into the ignition, holding a gun against the steering wheel.

  “Put on your seat belt!” he said.

  I fumbled with the strap as the GTX’s engine rumbled to life, but I couldn’t quite work it with the handcuffs. Revik put the car in gear. Then a voice emerged above the sound of the car’s motor. It took me a second to realize it was real...that it wasn’t his, or something from inside the Barrier.

  “What in the name of Mary’s tits...”

  Jerking my head around, I forgot the seat belt and crouched down, looking past Revik and up through the driver’s side window. Two cops stood there. Behind them, a black and white slanted down the bank beside the fisherman’s truck.

  The cop who’d spoken stared at the gun in Revik’s hand.

  “You got balls, buddy,” the second cop said, unholstering his sidearm. He raised the gun, aiming it at Revik’s face. “Now toss it out the window. Real slow.”

  “Sleep,” Revik said. “Now.”

  Both cops collapsed on the onramp without emitting a sound.

  I sucked in a breath, shocked at the clean indifference of the act.

  The one holding the gun wasn’t much older than me.

  I didn’t have time to think about that, either, though. In the rearview mirror, I saw movement in the space by the fisherman’s truck. I turned my head right as another policeman emerged.

  My voice burst out of me.

  “Revik!” I yelled.

  The third cop pulled his sidearm. I saw the brown eyes flash silver as he raised the gun.

  “Seer!” I yelled.

  “I know,” Revik growled.

  His hand clamped roughly around the back of my neck, forcing me down past the bottom of the seat and under the windows. He took his foot off the brake in the same instant and the car lurched forward as the cop squeezed off his first round.

  The sound of the shot seemed to come late, a second after the soft plink as the bullet went through the rear driver’s side window. I turned my head, staring at the hole in the upholstery until Revik shoved me down even further on the seat.

  I crouched on the mat when I heard the GTX’s engine roar back to life.

  I sat on the floor as Revik threw the car into reverse, slamming into the truck behind us. By then he had aimed the handgun and fired at cop number three. He hit him in the chest on the second shot, knocking him backwards into the police car so that the man’s arm and shoulder broke the passenger side window.

  The cop’s partner emerged, firing wildly.

  Screams erupted on the street.

  I peered over the edge of the window, watched people run and duck in fear, eyes wide, and for a moment, I see them through Revik’s eyes, a flock of birds scattering...then Revik swiveled the gun towards the fourth cop, narrowly missing the man’s head.

  He stepped on the gas...

  But his foot slipped.

  The engine’s rev faded.

  Bewildered, I looked up, then saw Revik slumped in the seat as the car continued to roll. I froze, seeing his eyes glaze as the car veered towards the edge of the road. I threw myself up and into his lap, hauling the wheel to the left with my cuffed hands, trying to get my foot down to his, to keep the car from stalling, or worse, careening off the onramp and down that weed-choked slope onto the street below...

  ...when just as suddenly, he was back.

  I felt it just before he raised his head, jerking back into life.

  The gun rested on his thigh, pointed at his feet from where he’d slumped in the cloth seat. He stared at my handcuffs in front of him where I gripped the steering wheel, blinking at them as if he didn’t know what they were. When I looked back at his face, his eyes narrowed on mine, and for an instant I saw the predator there again.

  “Revik!” I screamed. “Snap out of it!”

  His eyes clicked abruptly into focus.

  Reaching around me, he caught hold of the wheel, gripping the gun where it had loosed in his fingers. Without looking over, he moved one arm long enough to push me out of his lap.

  He returned to the Barrier as he did it, and either I am too close, or something else drags me right along after him...

  REVIK HEARS TERIAN’S laugh before he locates him among the metallic bodies.

  Terian throws another cluster-fuck of silver, spinning lights at Revik’s head once he does, a Barrier structure that makes the orange sleeper Revik lobbed at me earlier look like a blown kiss. Revik makes his energy flush with the background and disappears, something he can do even with a part of himself operating on the ground, and I wonder where I am, if I am with him in this space...but he melts sideways and reappears, too late for Terian to redirect.

  The silver spinners disappear into the empty nothingness of Barrier space.

  I’ll kill her, Revik tells Terian.

  No, Terian says. You won’t. That’s the beauty with you, Dehgoies. By the end of this, we will have not only her, but you as well. You’re only a half-step from falling willingly, my friend. We can be brothers again...

  Revik focuses on me.

  He knows I am with him, somehow, but he can’t see me here—

  You will help us train her, Terian says to him. Breaking in newbies was a particular talent of yours, as I recall. Especially the females...

  Terian sees Revik starting to withdraw and calls after him.

  ...I will let you have her, my brother!

  In that heartbeat of Revik’s hesitation, Terian lobs another cluster...this time of images, sensations. In it, Revik sees my body under his, our lights merging as I open to him. It is a mirage, a lie, but it catches both of us off-guard and briefly he is forced to untangle it.

  He snaps the connection and is met with...separation pain, he calls it...that nausea I’ve been feeling with him, what I struggled with just that morning. Unlike with me, the feeling is familiar to him, though, something he understands. But with me, it bothers him more, creates a resonance with some younger version of himself, a place and time he wishes to forget.

  Anger briefly suffuses his light, then reason.

  He’s let it go too long, he thinks.

  He will remedy that, in Seattle.

  At the thought, heat flushes his belly, a flicker of sensual memory. I glimpse bare skin, a seductive smile, and this time it has nothing to do with me...

  The Rook laughs. You lie, Revi’! I know you...even if your clan friends do not! I see how empty this new life of yours is! Terian’s smile turns friendly, and Revik recognizes that too; I feel the part of him that succumbs to that pull.

  She will be my gift to you! Do you think your clan elders would offer you such a prize? Access to their precious Bridge? Do you, Revi’?

  There is only the barest pause before Revik makes his light disappear, but Terian’s laugh follows him out of their connection.

  I saw you thinking about it, brother! I saw you!

  The clouds fade as Revik wills himself back.

  Back to the car, back to me.

  I SAW HIM come out of it.

  Crouched on the floorboards of the GTX, I watched him warily, wondering how much of what I’d just seen and heard really happened.

  My handcuffed wrists rested on the seat in front of me. I watched his face as he fired out the window ag
ain, his light focused on his targets. I heard the crash of breaking glass, felt him hit something he’d aimed for, wondered why he wasn’t driving away. Even as I thought it, he slammed his foot on the gas, his hand holding the gun falling to the manual gear shift.

  Once more, his eyes phased, but it was gone as soon as I saw it, leaving only a tension around his eyes, a quick glance at me. The GTX leapt forward, throwing me into the edge of the seat. I heard more shots and peered back between the seats.

  I saw the cop in the road, firing steadily at us.

  “Get your head down!” Before I could react, Revik caught hold of the chains between the handcuffs, yanking me down forcibly.

  “Was that Terian?” I said. “The guy from the park?”

  Revik gave me the barest glance. “Yes,” he said.

  “I thought you killed him!”

  Revik jerked the wheel sideways. The tires thumped up over a curb, bounding me high enough to pass the headrest.

  “Put on your fucking seat belt!”

  “I can either stay down, or wear a seat belt...pick one!”

  He didn’t answer.

  I slid carefully back up the seat, peering out over the dashboard past the plastic statue of the saint.

  Still holding the gun, Revik gripped the steering wheel with his other hand, edging it hard and soft as he maneuvered us across a pit of gravel towards a field that stood between us and the main freeway. I looked back at the onramp, realized he’d bumped the curb to avoid the line of police cars heading for us on the frontage road beside the freeway entrance.

  Slamming his foot on the gas once he cleared the gravel, he bounced us across a weed-choked stretch of grass dotted with broken bottles, plastic bags and scrub brush. I glanced at the speedometer, saw it edging towards 60 mph, then glimpsed a large rock and cried out, but Revik had already jerked the wheel to clear it, jumping us into oncoming traffic.

  “Jesus! Revik—”

  “There are things I haven’t told you,” he said, over the screech of tires as he straightened the car out from a skid. For the barest instant, his eyes glinted silver. “...About Terian.”

  I swallowed as his eyes faded back to clear.

  “Is he here?” I said. “In the physical?”

  Revik barely looked at me. “No.”

  I glanced over as he wiped his nose. I didn’t notice the blood until his fingers came away covered in it.

  “What happened?” I said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. I’m losing light.” Reaching into his pocket, he dug something out and tossed it at me. Small and bright, it landed on my lap. It was a key.

  “I'm not chasing you anymore,” he said.

  I snatched the key off my leg just before he swerved again. Revik rammed the GTX over the path of an eighteen wheeler, sliding past as the man honked. Still watching the road, I unlocked the cuffs from around my wrists, dropping them to the floor.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He nodded curtly, not looking over.

  EARL REDDING KNEW a sicko when he saw one.

  He’d been running long-hauls across the whole of this country for 27 years, including all over California, and that mecca of perverts and terrorists, San Francisco. This dark-haired fellow, who obviously had some Oriental in him, had the audacity to impersonate a cop. Luckily, Earl saw through it. And a good thing, too...not five minutes later the Chink fuck went on to shoot three of Washington’s finest dead on the highway onramp like some kind of cop serial killer.

  That poor white girl was clearly one of his victims. Whatever his intentions, whether he wanted to sell her, rape her some more, or kill her, Earl couldn’t let it stand.

  He’d watched the whole thing, calling in details on his radio, then, when he saw the shooting and the green muscle car heading for the freeway proper, he’d turned the wheel, making the beginnings of the arc needed to clear the island around the onramp. Once he’d straightened out the length of his rig, he downshifted and jammed his foot on the gas, driving up the shoulder past the line of cars.

  Up ahead, a couple of highway workers stood beside the remaining cop car parked up on the shoulder. They were in the process of covering one of the cop’s bodies with some kind of tarp. A line of cars stood in the left lane, waiting for the space to clear. Horns honked, a few drivers cheered the highway workers as they huffed the second cop car up the steep incline and back towards the road, some even helping, wearing civvies as they pushed along with the orange jumpsuits.

  Earl pulled further up into the shoulder, glancing to his side to make sure he wouldn’t tip the rig. He started yanking on his horn. When the highway workers didn’t look back, Earl pulled harder, more urgently, finally just holding it down for a long, continuous bellow.

  First one worker looked up, then another.

  Earl saw the second react, eyes widening to white-rimmed dots in a cartoon-like face. Earl waved his hand out the window, telling them to get out of the way. One shouted to the others. Another tried to wave Earl off, but Earl only hit the horn harder. All five of them finally scattered, three in the right direction, two in the wrong one.

  The front grill of Earl’s truck slammed the back end of the cop car.

  The car leapt forward on the hill then abruptly off to the right and into the main onramp, rolling straight for the gravel bank at a quickly accelerating rate. It knocked over one of the highway workers, hitting another a glancing blow that threw him 10 feet where he promptly began to skid down the sharp gravel of the hill. The car shortly followed him.

  Earl only saw part of this. Glancing once in his rearview mirror, he patted the 12-gauge wedged between the cushion of his seat and the plastic storage containers that held his music collection and audio books for driving. Muttering, he aimed for the freeway down the sloping frontage road.

  Seeing the green GTX on the weed-choked field between the town and highway, Earl hit the gas, and the giant engine thrummed louder.

  “You’re going to put that girl down, boy,” he muttered, wiping a hank of greasy hair out of his forehead. “Then you and I are are going to have a talk...yessir.”

  He propped the gun against his knee, dislodging a photograph that had been wedged in the ashtray since he’d quit four years earlier. On it, a little boy and girl smiled, encircled by the arms of a woman with long, streaked-blond hair.

  Earl didn’t notice.

  9

  MORTAL PERIL

  MY EYELIDS DROOPED.

  I jerked up my head, then shook it violently, overwhelmed by my own exhaustion, irritated by its suddenness...but more than anything, scared by it. The intensity of my sudden desire to sleep struck me as more than a little strange. It was weird enough, in fact, that it made me wonder if I’d been drugged. I couldn’t imagine when, or how, so my mind drifted to shock, to wondering if I was having some kind of psychological reaction.

  Was this how people went into shock?

  But I wasn’t really that kind of person, either.

  Generally, when the shit hit the fan, I got more alert, not less. I’d never been one of those people to fall apart in a crisis, to go catatonic or start flipping out. Never.

  And yeah, okay, granted this might be more of a crisis than I’d ever dealt with before, but I’d been in life or death situations before today, sure. Hell, I’d been in life or death situations a few times in that prison cell, only a few months before.

  I didn’t go into shock. I didn’t panic. Not like that, anyway.

  My mind usually got really damned clear in those situations, in fact.

  Usually, I was the one to keep my head straight when stuff got rough, like when Cass had that asthma attack at the bar in college and nearly died, and when my friend, Frankie, got stabbed by that crazy biker chick outside the No One Club.

  I hadn’t freaked out. I was scared, sure...but I dealt with it.

  The GTX had been weaving up the road, avoiding cars, for what felt like hours now, although I knew realistically it couldn’t be more
than twenty or so minutes. I still crouched low on the passenger seat, watching Revik’s eyes dart between side and rearview mirrors as he wove from lane to lane, evading our pursuers. Crouching there, I struggled to stay awake, watching trees and land flash by through the windshield and side window, even pinching my arms to keep my eyes open. Most cars on the road, seeing the black and whites, just got out of the way.

  I nodded off, thinking about this...

  There was a crash, metal grating on metal.

  I jerked in my seat violently and opened my eyes, saw Revik slamming the GTX into a Ford Ranger with banged up fenders, forcing it into the next lane. I saw the driver of the Ford yell at Revik, eyes wide, tinged with more fear than anger.

  When I looked over, Revik was staring at me. His narrow lips curled into a frown.

  “What do we do now?” I said, loud above the wind from the holes shot in the back windows.

  His eyes returned to the road.

  I glanced back at the passenger side window and flinched back, seeing a truck driver staring down at me, a shotgun resting in the crook of his arm. His eyes looked manic, not quite at home, and I sensed more than saw the silver flicker of light that lived there.

  Paralyzed for the barest breath, I only stared up at him, at his too-blue eyes and dirty brown hair. I took in the blue flannel shirt and reddish nose and mutton chop sideburns and realized I recognized him. It was the same man who’d yelled at us on the street, who yelled at Revik to get me out of the road. He didn’t look like he wanted to help me now, though.

  He aimed the gun down at the hood of the GTX.

  Before I could make a sound, Revik hit the brakes, slamming into the car behind us. He created enough space to slide the GTX behind the bigger rig, pulling us out of range of the crazy guy with the shotgun. Then he jammed his foot back on the accelerator, passing on the truck’s blind side, in the far right lane.

  A few car lengths later, he found a clear patch of road. The driving smoothed, even as he jammed his foot down on the accelerator. I watched the blur of trees go by faster.