by Alfred Wurr
He looked up at me with a crooked smile, then nodded grudgingly. “Point taken.”
“Lil knows it too,” Caleb said. “She’s just freaked. You know her.”
Alan grabbed his wallet. “Whatevs. Want to hit the arcade?” he asked, looking at both of us. The hotel had an arcade with several popular games.
I squinted my eyes. “Whatcha talkin’ about, Alan?”
He grabbed the winter jacket that I’d taken from the desert chamber and held it up by the hood. “It was empty when I was there just now. We can scout it out.”
I pulled on the winter jacket once more.
“Do they have Dig Dug?” Caleb asked with a smirk. “Ready to get your ass kicked again?”
“As if, dude,” Alan said. “Put some money on it.”
Brad burst through the door as I pulled up my hood. “Van’s fuelled up,” Brad said. “Let’s pack up and get going.”
“Ah, nuts,” Caleb said.
“Lucky,” Alan said. “To be continued, dude.”
The guys began to pack up. Alan finished first and did sit-ups while waiting, resuming his argument with Caleb over who was the better gamer.
“Bite me, Caleb,” Alan said, switching to push-ups. “Least I carve waves better than you.”
“Do they always argue like this?” I asked, looking at Brad.
“Only about surfing and video games,” Brad answered, zipping up a gym bag. “Every frickin’ day,” he said, with a crooked grin.
A pounding on the door startled us all. The girls would have entered without knocking, so we all looked at each other like deer in headlights. Alan waved me towards the bathroom, mouthing the word hide. He raised his voice. “Just a second.”
Brad approached the door and peered through the keyhole as I tiptoed like a ghost into the bathroom and closed the door softly behind me.
“Who is it?” Brad said as the bathroom door closed.
“FBI, sir. We would like to ask you a few questions,” said a man’s voice, muffled by the door. “Please, open up.”
“Uh, sure,” Brad responded. “Can I see some ID?”
“All right,” he said after a pause. The sound of the door opening followed a moment later.
I stepped into the tub and drew the curtain closed. It was still damp from the boys’ recent showers. Large wet towels hung from a chrome rack attached to the wall opposite the showerhead. I held still and listened.
“May we come in?” asked the man. The sound of footsteps followed. “I’m Special Agent Sean McGregor. This is Special Agent Terry Grant. We understand you are travelling with two young women. Are they around? This will go faster if we do this once.”
“They’re down the hall,” Caleb said, his voice higher than normal. “I’ll get ’em.”
I could hear him slip past and run down the hall. “Nice room,” said the other agent. “Would you mind turning off the TV?”
“Sure, no problem,” Brad replied. The TV went silent soon after. “Hey, girls,” he continued as the door to the room opened again.
“Oh my goodness. What’s going on?” Lucy said, her voice breathy. “Is this about the robbers?”
“Did you arrest them?” Lilith asked.
“Vegas police picked them up at a roadside bar last night,” said Agent McGregor. “There was a brawl of some kind. Seems they got into a quarrel with other patrons.”
“Drunk as skunks, both of them,” Grant chimed in.
“That’s amazing,” Lucy exclaimed. “I’m so relieved.”
“Fuckin’ A,” agreed Caleb. The others muttered similar sentiments.
After they quieted, Agent Grant continued, “They confessed, after being told of the evidence against them, so you kids shouldn’t need to testify. I’m sure you’ll be glad of that.”
“Thank you for telling us,” Lucy said.
“You said you had questions, though,” Brad said. “We told the sheriff everything we know.”
“Well, there’s one thing we are curious about, which is why we came to see you ourselves.” McGregor said, hesitating. “During interrogation, they revealed that the fight was over a story they were telling. Something about being set upon by a snow monster in the desert near Lunar Crater.”
“Evidently some listeners found their story laughable, and the skinny one took exception,” said Agent Grant.
“Oddly enough, they stuck by this crap during interrogation,” McGregor said. “They claimed you saw it, too.”
No one said anything for several seconds.
“So, did you see anything like that?” Grant asked finally.
Alan snorted. “A snowman? In the desert? As if.”
“Sounds nuts,” Brad said.
“Yes, well,” Grant began, “it’s a crazy story. So crazy we’re wondering why they would make it up. Now, now, I’m not saying it’s true, but did you see anything that might account for their claims? A bright light of some kind, perhaps? If so, did you see which direction it went?”
A thump echoed through the bathroom unexpectedly as a wet towel hit the tub behind me, having slid and fallen off the rack. I mouthed a stream of silent curses.
“Is someone in the bathroom?” Agent Grant asked quietly.
“Uh, no,” said Alan, “must be the pipes. It’s a really old building.” Then, more loudly, “Hey, seriously, no one’s in there, man.”
Footsteps approached the bathroom door.
Chapter 8
Car Trouble
I looked around in a panic, searching for a way out. Wet towels and shampoo bottles offered no salvation until a desperate idea sprang to mind. As the door creaked open, I grabbed the damp towels from the rack, threw them over my head and reached for the Underfrost. The residual moisture in the air crystalized and grew at a rapid rate, swelling from the surface of the tub; within an instant I stood in a few inches of snow.
“Phew, cold in here,” Grant said from the other side of the curtain. I plunged down into the snow. My jacket resisted, bunching up under my armpits, but I jerked downward, forcing it deeper, and reached up to ensure the terrycloth covered me. I just hoped the rattle of the ceiling fan, left running by the last bather, masked the sound of scrunching ice crystals.
The shower curtain scraped and rattled along the metal bar as it opened wide. “Humph,” Grant said, his voice muffled by snow in my ears and towels above me. “Looks like a towel fell or something.”
“Huh? Uh, yeah, told you,” Alan said, traces of surprise in his voice. “It’s just us.”
“I thought I heard something,” McGregor said. “Did you hear that? Turn off that fan.” The fan died, and the room fell silent.
“The woman at the front mentioned one of the rooms is supposedly haunted. Maybe she wasn’t kidding,” Lucy said, laughing.
McGregor snorted. “Right,” he said, drawing out the word. “Probably came from next door.” He looked at his colleague. “We done here, Terry?”
“It would seem so,” said his partner.
Footsteps receded, and the door clicked shut. I stayed where I was, unable to hear more than muffled, unintelligible conversation from my hiding place, counted to sixty, then stood up, grabbing the towels before they could fall and betray my position again.
“Well, thanks for your time,” McGregor said. “We appreciate your help. You were lucky to get away unhurt. Those two are different ends of the same piece of shit.”
“Have a good trip,” Grant said. “Stay out of trouble.”
The door clicked shut. The bathroom door burst open seconds later as I stepped out of the tub. My companions stared at me with wide eyes and open mouths.
“How could they not have seen you?” Alan said, shaking his head vigorously. “No way, no way.”
“Yeah,” Caleb said sagely. Lilith, Lucy and Brad nodded too as everyone crowded in around me.
I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll show you someday.”
“Ohmigod, are we the only ones that can see you or something?” Lilith asked, wrinkling her n
ose, looking thoughtful. She crossed her arms, rubbing her biceps and Alan wrapped an arm around her. She leaned into him, glancing up at him briefly.
I snorted, shaking my head. “I wish.” I shooed them before me. “Let’s get out of here.”
Brad held a finger to his lips and said in a faint voice, “I’ll check the hall. Make sure they’re really gone.” He soon returned and gave us the all clear.
Reassured, we moved back to the main room, and the gang filled me in on what I’d missed while hiding under the towels. Before saying goodbye, the agents had asked again whether the young tourists had seen anything weird. They’d reaffirmed that they’d seen nothing like the goons described. Brad suggested the thugs were confused from blows to the head, perhaps mistaking the headlights of their truck for something supernatural.
Brad grabbed his keys and luggage. “Let’s hit the road. I’ll meet you downstairs by the back door. Bring the room keys and we’ll check out once Shivurr’s safely aboard.”
“Hold up,” Caleb said, grabbing his own belongings. “I’ll come with you.”
Ten minutes later, Brad circled the block, turning left onto Mineral Street, left onto Oddie, then left again, heading east on Erie Street, which would take us to Las Vegas. As we drove down Erie, passing the Mizpah Hotel again, I watched the old town scroll past. Waves of heat rose from the sidewalks and my feet twanged with the memory of walking on hot sand.
I felt excitement and trepidation to be leaving behind a place of relative safety, once again, for the open road.
“Hey, there are those FBI agents,” Lucy said, pointing at the passenger-side mirror, as we crossed Brougher Street.
“Where’s that?” Brad asked, checking the mirrors himself from the driver’s seat.
“Back there. In the black car,” Lucy said. As she spoke, a black sedan pulled away from the curb and drove our way. “I hope they’re not going to pull us over.”
“Can’t see why they would,” Brad said.
“Maybe they didn’t buy our story,” Alan said, looking nervous. “That McGregor dude seemed suspicious.”
“Get a blanket to hide Shivurr in case they do,” Brad ordered. “And cool it. Maybe they’re just heading the same way.”
The van stopped at one of the few traffic lights in Tonopah, allowing the black car to close the distance. Another vehicle, a red pickup truck, separated us. When the light changed, we moved again, the truck turned right, and for a moment, through a gap in the drawn curtains, I got my first look at the agents.
They were not FBI.
I recognized them from the Bodhi Institute. These two were part of Dixon’s security team. It made sense. The Bodhi Group must have been checking with state police and sheriff’s departments, looking for anything that would suggest my location. When the robbers, Simmons and Esterhazy, had been arrested, telling stories about a snowman in the desert, it would have been too unlikely a coincidence for them to pass up. Without inside knowledge of my existence, any law enforcement official would dismiss the thugs’ story as ridiculous, of course, but McGregor and Grant knew that I was real.
They must not know for sure that I’m here, I thought. When the fake FBI agents hadn’t found me in the hotel room, they must have decided to follow my friends, hoping that they’d lead them to me.
If they spotted me, it was a good bet that our pursuers would call in backup to try to capture me. Knowing my capabilities, they were unlikely to try to apprehend me alone. Then again, maybe they’d already called for that backup to waylay us after we were out on the secluded highway. Either way, I felt ill at the thought that my new friends might now be in danger too.
As Brad drove faster, the agents’ vehicle dropped back. Must be trying to keep a low profile, I thought. Before long, Erie became Highway 95 as it angled south toward Las Vegas.
“Can you lose them?”
“Shivurr, we’re in the middle of a flat desert on a highway that doesn’t turn for miles in a 1977 VW van,” Brad said, shaking his head. “How do you suggest that I lose them?”
“Right, sorry,” I said. “Damn it. Give me a second to think.”
A few possibilities existed—if I could manage one of them. Neither would be easy under these conditions, but if they worked, we’d lose the tail, and no one would get hurt. The first, less dangerous, option was almost certain to confirm my presence to the agents. The second option was a bit more dangerous, though unlikely to be fatal, but less likely to reveal my involvement. Ah well, I thought, might as well go for the safer choice.
Moving to the back of the van, I peeked between the curtains and took a deep breath, closing my eyes in this reality and opening them upon the wintery maelstrom of the Underfrost. Its icy white glow, in this state of focus, coloured and illuminated all in shades of bright whites and blues—a frosty paradise superimposed over a sweltering desert hell.
I gave my head a shake and blinked, feeling woozy. Seeing two realities mingled while travelling down the highway at fifty-five miles per hour was disorienting. Like focusing on a single voice in a crowded room, I pushed aside irrelevant data in one realm while emphasizing relevant data in the other, and the nausea quickly subsided.
In the distance I could see the ghostly outline of the pursuing vehicle cutting through the blue-white ether as it accelerated and drew closer.
I held up a hand and a beam of frost energy lanced from my palm to the car’s front end, too fast for my mind to perceive. I squinted my eyes and turned my head, seeing stars. If I were stationary, the beam would’ve quickly become visible in this reality as its cooling effects accumulated, but since we were moving, the space it passed through was continuously changing, keeping it from becoming visible to our pursuers.
“What’s he doing?” Lilith said. “Why’s he holding his hand like that?”
“I don’t know,” Alan said. “Some kind of Jedi mind trick?”
I thrust my other hand next to my head, pointing my fingers skyward.
“I think he wants us to be quiet,” Lilith said, her voice low.
I closed my hand, snapping thumb to forefinger. They finally shut up.
The beam poured frost energy into the radiator, super-cooling it at the point of impact, but it kept slipping off target with every bump in the road. By the time I’d realign it, the hot fluid pumping through the engine took back the ground that I’d gained. I widened my beam, making it easier to keep it focused, then staggered. Water formed pools at my feet, and my body ached as my core temperature rose. Pursing my lips, I stood taller, pushing my hand forward as if closing an invisible drawer in slow motion.
A dozen heartbeats later—it seemed longer to me—the liquid coursing through the radiator thickened and solidified. Then a hose burst, yielding to the pressure as the pump tried to force engine coolant through the frozen block. A cloud of vapour billowed up from the hood of the car, blinding the occupants. I seized the moment to switch tactics. Holding my hands to my front, I made an upward gesture of my hands, as if urging a crowd to their feet, changing my focus to the hot asphalt flowing into the distance behind us. A half inch of snow grew upon its surface in moments, painting a wide trail of snow in our wake. The black sedan made no attempt to avoid it and slid sideways on contact with the now slick pavement. The driver counter-steered, overcompensating, and the vehicle spun a hundred and eighty degrees. It slid off the side of the road before coming to a hard stop.
I grabbed the seat in front of me, steadying myself, as Brad slowed the van to a few miles per hour. My nose brushed the back window as the vehicle rocked on its springs and he threw it into park. The three teens crowded in next to me, peering through the rear window. The sedan sat facing the wrong direction as the snow on the hot asphalt steamed, evaporating into the dry desert air.
“Oh, man, are they okay?” Lilith said. “Shouldn’t we go back to help them?”
“Screw that,” Caleb said. “I’m not getting disappeared by these spooks.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Alan said. “Th
ey’re all right. Look.”
True to his words, the doors to the car swung open and the occupants clambered out.
“Let’s go, Brad,” Caleb said. “They’re good.”
The van lurched into motion a second later, rumbling and straining as we resumed our journey.
I turned away from the window and sank into the seat, sighing like a deflating air mattress.
“That was intense,” Caleb said. “What’d you do, dude?”
I waggled my fingers. “Magic.”
After the excitement, we chilled for a while. Brad and Lucy chatted quietly while Alan napped, mouth agape, a jean jacket thrown over his chest for warmth. Caleb borrowed Lilith’s Walkman and read a well-worn paperback copy of The Hobbit, nodding slightly to the music.
“Good for you, Caleb. Reading,” Lilith said. “Nobody reads anymore.”
“Where’d you hear that?” he asked.
“Read it somewhere,” she said, shrugging before closing her eyes and falling asleep.
I studied the passing desert, thanking whatever frost gods there might be that I wasn’t out there, dragging my melting butt over its scorched surface.
“Shivurr, we’ll come in for a bit. Make sure this dude’s cool,” Brad said as he turned onto Wilhelm’s street a few hours later. “All right?”
“Sounds good, I appreciate the backup. I kind of know him but we’ve never met in person. This should be interesting.”
Chapter 9
Dungeon Master
Wilhelm lived on the outskirts of Las Vegas in a large Mediterranean-style home with an attached three-car garage. The house sat on a large lot, landscaped with desert rocks and plants. The homes were spread far apart on a largely treeless street, the backyards of which looked out upon the desert with hills rising in the west four or five miles away. We stopped in the driveway while Alan ran to the door to announce our arrival. As the teen walked back to the van, the middle door of the garage trundled upwards in invitation.
“He said to park inside,” Alan said, hopping back in through the side door of the van. Brad reversed a short distance and drove in, parking in the empty middle spot. On the left sat a black Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with a gold phoenix emblazoned on the hood. The bumper of the sports car sat inches from a Ducati motorcycle leaning on its kickstand next to stairs leading into the house.