by Angie West
Chapter Ten
Secrets and Lies
Wind skating was nothing like surfing. It wasn’t much like skating, either. The best way to describe it was that it was very similar to driving a car…that is, if the car was strapped to your shoes. You didn’t move your feet at all, you just tried to stay upright as you went flying around a track. Waist high concrete walls bordered the track itself; it looked pretty much like your average racetrack.
Mark stayed close the first few laps around the track, since wind skating could easily become hazardous to one’s health. Talk about a turn for the worse. But surprisingly enough, once I got over the fear of becoming a giant skid mark, I had a great time. The most challenging part was staying clear of the other skaters. It was just my luck that the track was nearly at full capacity that day. Still, the wind whipping through my hair felt wonderful. I leaned to the right and narrowly missed mowing down a woman in hot pink shorts.
Oh well, I was still getting the hang of it. I yelled an apology over my shoulder, anyway. The way I saw it, it was hard enough to master something you had never attempted in the past. Just imagine trying to master an activity that you had never known existed. Everyone knew that made it twice as hard, didn’t they?
But I was having fun, regardless, and doing pretty darn well, I thought, with no small degree of satisfaction.
During our last run on the track, Mark even took my hand. I told myself it was simple concern that motivated his actions, nothing else. Whether I believed this or not was another matter. For the most part, I did want to believe that he felt nothing out of the ordinary for me. Because if he did—and I was becoming increasingly convinced this was the case—then it did not speak well for him. I was supposed to be his cousin. I didn’t know how they did things out here, but where I was from, cousin lovin’ was—
“They’re closing the track!”
“What?” I jerked myself back to the present and struggled to stay upright. Leave it to me to daydream at sixty miles an hour. I applied light pressure to the skates’ miniscule front brake and began to slow down.
“Track’s closing.”
“Okay.” We came to a stop near the old Victorian house that served as both business office and homestead for the owners of the track. Next to the house was the tall wrought-iron gated exit. The track butted up against a long set of concrete stairs that cut through the sloping grass and led to the towering old house. It was there that I stopped.
“If you don’t mind returning the skates, then I can run out and get the car. That way you don’t have to walk through the entire parking lot.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind the walk.”
“I know, but you must be sore after all the skating. The first time is always the most difficult. Even if you don’t feel it now, you probably will by tomorrow morning.”
Was he considerate or what? “Thank you.”
“Good. I’ll only be a minute.”
I think it took longer to take the skates off than it had taken to put them on. There were eight buckles across the feet and six more that fastened around the ankles.
The owner of the track was a short, balding man who looked to be in his mid-forties. He looked like a used car salesman to me, but he had nice eyes and a pleasant smile. He held a cellular telephone to one ear and motioned for me to wait. I nodded an agreement and shouted to Mark.
“It will be another minute!”
“No problem! I am going to…” he yelled back.
The rest of whatever he was trying to say was lost in the wind that had rapidly picked up.
“What?” I yelled back, squinting to try and read his lips.
“Clean the car out!” He pointed to the car several times.
“Okay!” I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted, waving before returning to the base of the stairs. I zoned out for a moment or two while I waited for the owner to return. My daydream was short lived though, and I stumbled when the first gust of wind slammed into me. Despite the growing force of the breeze, everything else seemed to be normal. I blew out a shaky breath and chided myself for overreacting. It was an approaching storm, nothing more sinister than that. A quick appraisal of the sky above assured me that there were not even that many dark clouds out yet. With any luck, I thought absently, Mark and I would make it home before the downpour was in full swing.
When the first bug whirred past my head, I knew that I was in trouble. I strained to get a better look at the thing as it continued to buzz back and forth in front of me. Yet try as I might, I couldn’t identify it. The best I could come up with was that it looked like a cross between a locust and a common housefly. The most unusual thing about it was its massive size. The creature was nearly the size of my hand. Sure, it didn’t compare to the naule, yet for a flying insect it was enormous. I ducked as it sped past me a third time. It was getting closer, I noted with a sense of foreboding. It was…circling me. I backed up, crouched low next to the concrete steps, and scanned the yard for the manager. He was nowhere in sight.
“Shit,” I swore. “If he is not back in exactly ten seconds, I am dropping the skates and making a run for it.” The creature was flying erratically and my nerve was waning by degrees. I felt sluggish and short of breath as the minutes passed.
“Ten seconds…” I mumbled. “Been more than ten seconds…” I began to panic. I could hardly move and my chest was becoming more constricted by the second, yet my mind remained sharp and alert. I was fully aware of what was happening, but unable to control it. Venom, I realized with dread. The thing had stung me. Even though I hadn’t felt the sting, it was the only logical explanation for my sudden symptoms.
“Lady! Hurry and get up here!” It took a Herculean effort to turn my head, but finally I managed. It was the owner of the track. He stood near the top of the steps, frantically waving his arms. I struggled to move and fell to my knees. The man shouted one more time before disappearing into his house. I didn’t blame him. The creature had apparently called for backup, because there were at least ten more of them swarming around me now. I would never be able to make it up the stairs. My only hope was to make it to the gate on my own or get Mark’s attention somehow. Stumbled onto the track, I tried unsuccessfully to scream. Mark was just beyond the gates. He was half inside the passenger seat of the car and the stereo was blaring. He would never be able to hear me over all the noise. My heart sank, but I refused to give up. I just had to find another way to grab his attention. I forced myself to take a step toward the gate, then another. A sharp pain in my side dropped me to the ground.
The sky began to darken and the wind howled. A buzzing sound filled my ears as the gates began to close. I saw Mark straighten in the car as my throat began to swell painfully. I could only pray that he would run. The gate was more than halfway closed. He’d never make it out alive if he tried to be a hero. As desperately as I needed to cling to the hope that he would come and get me, I had no desire to watch him die next to me.
But Mark would never leave a man—er, woman—behind, and I knew it. In the next instant, he had dashed through the gates and thrown me over his shoulder. I pressed numb hands to my puffy throat and struggled to breathe. The gate swung shut and the latch clicked into place a second after we raced through it. Mark stopped and tried to set me on my feet next to the car, but my knees buckled and I slid down to the gravel and continued to gasp. He kept his hands under my arms and knelt down in front of me.
“Annabelle, why didn’t you say something?” he asked in a tormented whisper. “Oh, no—you can’t breathe, can you?”
I shook my head in answer…or at least I think I shook my head. In any case, I meant to. But Mark summed up the situation fairly well on his own. We had to get out of there and we had to move quickly. He tossed me into the car and swiftly jumped behind the wheel.
“Just lie back and try to take deep, slow breaths. You should be okay in a few minutes.”
I did as he instructed and several minutes later, the pres
sure on my throat had eased ten-fold.
“Better?”
I placed a tentative hand to my throat and nodded.
“Good. Just stay nice and relaxed. Their venom is strong but it doesn’t have much staying power. You are going to be fine.” he said with conviction.
So it had been a reaction to venom, as I had suspected. What a thing to be right about. Mark steered the car onto a gravel road that cut through the forest that connected outer Briggston to Grandview. Like the track, the forest was unprotected territory. I wondered why Mark had taken this particular path instead of circling back to Briggston and taking the protected route home. But then again, we had been running for our lives, and this was probably the fastest way home.
Little by little my muscles began to come to life, and I sat up straight in my seat and turned to face Mark.
“I think the venom is gone now.”
He checked the clock on the dashboard and gave a brief nod. “That’s about right. What happened back there?”
“I was waiting to return our skates and one of those…things…just appeared out of nowhere. It circled several times and then it must have stung me. Before I knew what was happening, I was pretty much incapacitated.”
“What happened to Phil?”
“Phil?”
“The track manager.”
“Oh. He was safe the last time I saw him. He tried to warn me, but it was too late. He ran into the house.”
“That sounds like Phil, all right,” Mark replied tensely.
“There was nothing that he could have done.”
“Maybe not.”
“Definitely not. He was at the top of the stairs and I was on the edge of the track surrounded by that time.”
“Why didn’t you run or yell for me, Annabelle? You could have died.”
“I didn’t know what it was at first. I didn’t feel it sting me, either. Not the first time anyway. The second one hurt.”
“The venom makes your skin more sensitive in large doses. You were probably stung a lot more than two times…I’d bet more like twenty times.”
“Twenty? Are you sure?”
He nodded. “There were a lot of them.”
“What were those things?”
“You really don’t know?” He frowned.
“No.”
“Scavengers,” he finally said. “Kahn’s scavengers. It’s highly unusual to see that many of them in one place, though.”
“Why is that? Don’t scavengers usually travel in packs?” I asked, rubbing my hands up and down my arms and fiddling with one of the air vents on the dash. Mark turned a switch and a steady stream of hot air rushed over my skin.
“Not these guys. They aren’t very intelligent animals. They’re not known for being well organized, either. Typically, they prey on animals, not people.”
“That is strange,” I replied absently. A terrifying idea was beginning to take shape.
“Their venom only lasts a few minutes—maybe ten minutes tops,” he continued. “They weaken their victims for the retrievers.”
Retrievers? I was not sure if I even wanted to know what the retrievers were. But I was sure that Mark was going to tell me, so I remained silent and stared straight ahead.
“Do you know what the retrievers are?”
“No.” More silence.
“Do you want to know what the retrievers are?” he asked slowly.
“Not really, no.”
“Well, they aren’t as bad as the naule.”
“Humph.” I shifted in my seat and pressed my lips into a thin line. I’d had enough for one day. At that moment I did not want to hear another word about Kahn, the naule, scavengers, or any other beast. I was covered in scrapes and bruises and had gravel in places better left unsaid. I just wanted to go home and take a hot shower.
We were half way through the forest when the first howl sounded in the distance. I jerked forward in the seat.
“What was that?” I demanded.
“Shit. Hang on.” Mark hit the gas and the car shot forward, the treeline blending together to form a dark green blur on either side of the car. I dared to glance at the speedometer. We were at ninety miles per hour and the needle continued to climb. I took a deep breath and fixed my gaze on the center console. Anything was better than watching the trees fly past. I was careful not to look at the speedometer again, too. I added ‘how fast we are going’ to my mental list of things that I did not want to know. Two more mournful howls sounded in the swiftly approaching night, and I glanced worriedly at Mark.
“What is that?” I shouted over the noise of the engine.
“The retrievers.”
“Wolves?”
“No.”
“Dogs.”
“Not exactly,” he hedged.
“Oh man.” I was fast learning that when the people of Terlain did not quite know how to describe something, it was bad.
The small dog in the middle of the road took us both by surprise. It was a golden-furred animal with round dark eyes in an even more rounded face. It was actually very cute.
“Don’t hit it!” I cried out.
Marks swerved around the animal and nearly lost control of the car in the process. We missed a large oak tree by a matter of inches. I was thrown roughly against the dash as he struggled to regain control of the vehicle.
“Ouch!” I rubbed my bruised wrist for a second before resuming my death grip on the door handle. “Hell with it…hit it next time!”
“That is a very bad idea!” he yelled back. He glanced at the rearview mirror and went pale all of a sudden.
“Mark? What is it? What’s wrong?” I craned my neck to see what had spooked him so bad. “What’s the matter? It’s just the dog. He’s trying to follow us. He must be lost. I think that we can slow down now.” Before you kill us both, I silently added.
“That’s no dog, Annabelle. It’s a retriever.”
I turned back to get a better look at the animal. I noticed that it looked remarkably similar to the golden retriever breed of puppy that was so popular in my world. Of course it was much smaller and more round in the face than a true golden retriever.
“That tiny thing? You have got to be…” I trailed off and gripped the back of the seat as the dog began to take on an entirely new and sinister shape. The tiny muscles along its back began to bulge and shift. Its soulful howl became a bone-chilling snarl as it transformed before my eyes. The animal’s head elongated and its eyes became black slits in its lean face.
“Oh, my God!”
“Don’t look at it. Just hang on.”
“It’s half the size of the car, Mark!” It was also fast and gaining on us by the second. I dropped back into my seat and gripped the armrest until my knuckles turned white.
“Plan?” I croaked.
“We just have to get to the fence.”
A break in the trees ahead revealed a telltale shimmer.
“How far?” I swallowed.
“A hundred yards that way, give or take.”
“We are never going to make it. Slow down.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I’m serious. Slow down to sixty-five or seventy and get off of the road. It will have a harder time following us if we put trees between us.”
Mark glanced in the mirror again and nodded. “You’re right.” He eased his foot off of the gas pedal and the car began to slow. “There should be a spot up ahead where the trees break off.”
“Hurry, Mark!”
“Right there!” He steered the car toward the empty space to the left.
The beast appeared seemingly out of thin air in front of us. Its massive paws thudded against the ground in front of the car, effectively blocking our path. The beast that had been chasing us stopped behind the car and began to casually lick its paw. There was nothing else for Mark to do but hit the brakes. Swerving in either direction would have meant crashing into a tree at fifty-five miles an hour. Mark’s hands gripped the
steering wheel while I still clutched the dashboard.
“What now?” I whispered without taking my eyes from the beast in front of us.
Before Mark could answer me, the retriever at the front of the car bared its teeth and lashed out with one paw.
I screamed as the entire front bumper gave way.
“Get out of the car!” Mark ordered. “Get out now!”
I reached for the door handle without a second thought and had one foot on the ground when I felt Mark pull me back. The retriever lunged at the car again and the next thing I knew, we were airborne.
“Get down!” He wedged me into the driver’s seat next to him. We hit the ground with enough force to knock us into the back seat. Blood rushed to my head and I was disoriented for a minute before reality set it. The car was upside down.
“Mark! Are you okay?”
“Are you?”
“I…think so.” But not for long, I thought in horror as I watched the retrievers approach.
“Come on, we have to go. They’re coming for us.”
Our luck held and the car door creaked opened. Actually, it fell completely off when Mark pushed at it. We might not have seemed like the luckiest people in the world at that moment, but it felt like it to me. By all rights, we probably shouldn’t have survived the impact of the crash.
“Look! The fence!” I wanted to cry when I saw the faint shimmer next to us. The beast had tossed the car less than ten feet from the fence! We half stumbled, half ran to its safety and hopped over it with no time to spare. The retrievers snapped and snarled before giving up and retreating into the woods.
“How exactly are those ‘not as bad’ as the naule?”
“They’re smaller?”
“Not funny, Mark. Not funny at all.”
“Well, the important thing is that we made it, right?”
“Oh, thank God! We made it. We’re alive! We are alive, right? I’m not dreaming this?” I ran a shaking hand through my hair and looked myself over for injuries.
“You are not dreaming, and yes, we are alive. Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good. Come here.” He enveloped me before holding me at arm’s length for inspection.
“You sure you aren’t hurt?”
I shook my head. “No, but I bet we will both be sore in the morning.”
“Probably.” He let his forehead rest against mine. “I am so sorry, Annabelle.”
“Don’t be. What happened just now is in no way your fault.”
“Yes, it is,” he insisted vehemently. “I took you into unprotected territory. I could have gotten you killed.”
“You know, as strange as this is going to sound, I think I am getting used to near death experiences. Is that bad, you think?”
“Yes, that’s bad.”
I laughed humorlessly. “That’s what I thought. Anyway, I should probably thank you for saving my life…again.”
He shook his head and pressed closer. “Annabelle…”
His lips touched mine a second later. He was careful and so sweet that it took my breath away. His hand slid around to cradle the back of my neck and I leaned into him before I realized what I was doing.
“Mark?” I finally pulled away from him with a million questions in my eyes. Oddly enough, the fact that he thought I was his blood cousin was not one of them. At least, it was not in the top twenty. It should have been number one, but it was difficult to think with him so near.
He regarded me steadily but said nothing. I found myself being slowly hypnotized and leaned forward ever so slightly, ready to throw any and all inhibitions out the window.
“Wait!” I threw my arms up to put space between temptation and me. “We can’t do this.”
“Why can’t we do this?” he asked simply.
“Well, I am your cousin,” I gestured wildly and began to babble. “Not exactly, but you—”
I broke off abruptly when he grabbed my arm and flipped it over.
“What…?” he murmured, holding my arm with my hand palm up and staring intently at the space above the inside of my wrist.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
He studied my arm for a while longer before raising questioning eyes to me.
“You were stung.”
“Yes, we have already established that.”
“Look.”
Small red punctures formed the emblem from the key, across my wrist…the emblem of Terlain.
“What is this?”
“The scavengers marked you.”
“Why?”
“To let the retrievers know to take you alive.”
A chill crept along my spine and I shivered in the balmy night air.
“Where?”
“To Kahn.”
“Of course.” I sighed and ran a finger over the red-rimmed puncture wounds. Mark pulled me over to a large tree across the street in the city park and lowered himself to the ground.
“We need to talk,” he said flatly.
“I guess we do.” I scrubbed a hand over my face wearily. “I don’t suppose this could wait until I have had coffee and a shower?”
“What happened back there was not some random attack.”
“It sure doesn’t look that way, does it?”
“What’s in the bag, Annabelle?” He pointed to the purse that had somehow made it through the attack unscathed.
“Makeup?”
“Annabelle…”
“Oh, fine—here.” I unhooked the strap from around my neck and placed the bag in his outstretched hand. “And my name is not Annabelle,” I added in resignation. It seemed like as good a time as any to come clean.
He paused in his search but did not look up. “I know.”
“It is Claire Ro—wait—what did you just say?”
“You have been using a fake name. I know.”
“You know?” I repeated, dumbfounded.
“So what is your real name?”
“Claire Roberts. And I am not really from here.”
“It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out, either.” He snorted and continued to rifle through my notes. “What is all of this?” he questioned in disbelief several minutes later. He held the note pad I had been using in the library earlier that day.
“It’s a long story is what it is,” I muttered.
“Well, start talking.”
I told him everything, from start to finish, leaving nothing out. I had to give him credit…he neither interrupted nor looked at me as though I were crazy.
“So there you have it.”
“I see.”
“I just don’t know how I am going to explain all of this to your father. I mean, he thinks he has finally found his niece, after all of these years. I am really sorry for deceiving your family. Truly, I am. But I had to get away from the guards.” I hoped that they could all forgive me someday.
“Claire?”
“Hmmm?”
“You are forgiven.”
“That’s nice of you to say, but let’s see how my ‘uncle’ Bob feels about all of this.” I sat up straight as another thought occurred to me. “How did you know that I was using a fake name?”
He shrugged. “Because I don’t have a cousin Annabelle.”
“But Bob’s sister—”
“Nope. My father is an only child. No sister.”
“So…he’s known about this the whole time?”
“Well, he knew you were not his niece. I doubt that he knows anything about the bombshell you just laid on me.”
I digested that for a several minutes.
“Why did he do it?” I finally asked.
“My guess is that he wanted to protect you. The night I showed up at the house with you, he told me that he met you at a public auction. He wanted to give you a home,” Mark admitted softly.
Tears stung my eyes at the depth of Bob’s generosity.
“What’s wrong, Claire?”
“You
mean besides everything?” I shook my head. “He didn’t even know me.”
“He didn’t know me either, once,” he confessed in a quiet tone.
“What do you mean?”
“Bob found me wandering the streets of Ohala. I was an orphan.”
“How old were you?”
“Four.”
“Do you remember your parents?”
“No. The earliest memory I have is of Bob and Pamela picking me up in an alley. I was looking for food.”
I was reminded again how lucky I had been to grow up in the midst of so much love and dedication. “I am so sorry.”
He seemed uncomfortable with my sympathy, so I tried for a lighter tone. “You look like Bob, a little bit.”
“Thanks.” He climbed to his feet and extended a hand to me.
“We still have a lot to talk about, but what do you say we get home first?”
“I thought you would never ask.”
It was after midnight when we crept up the walkway to the house. Mark kept a hold of my hand even as we entered the kitchen, and it never occurred to me to pull away.
“Are you hungry?” he whispered.
“Starving. What about you?”
“The same. Go on upstairs and take a shower if you still want one. I’ll make us something to eat.”
“What about you?”
“I can clean up in the bathroom down here.”
“Okay, thanks.” I turned to go up the stairs.
“Claire.” He tugged on my sleeve and kissed me thoroughly.
“Wow.”
“Meet me in the library.”
