“I used to like roller coasters!” Mantu shouted above the noise.
Ray started to reply but had to stifle the urge to vomit as they dropped again. If this kept up he’d join Vinod in the plastic bag club. As if in response to his thoughts, Vinod let out a loud urrrrp and shuddered as his head disappeared deeper into the bag. Claire reached out and placed her hand on his arm.
An ear-splitting beeping noise came from the cockpit. Claire’s eyes snapped open.
“What the hell is that?” Ray asked.
“Fuck if I know, but I don’t like it,” Mantu said.
Burnham’s voice came over the intercom. It was hard to hear him over the beeping and Konstantin cursing in Russian in the background. “I’m going to put her down,” he said. “This might be rough, so hang on.”
Claire shot Ray a panicked look. We’ll be okay, he mouthed to her, but even he didn’t believe it. It felt as if the metal shell containing them was going to break under the pressure. For a split second they were in complete darkness.
When the lights came back on Claire was praying under her breath. Vinod’s legs were pulled up against his chest as if he were trying to curl into himself. “Come on, Burnham,” Mantu shouted. “And Konstantin, you bastard. I know you two can do this.”
The copter plummeted and this time Ray did scream. Mantu joined him with a stream of obscenities. The motor whined and strained, rising in volume and pitch. Images of Ellen and William flashed through Ray’s mind: Ellen in her waitress uniform pouring him a cup of steaming coffee; William bent over one of his many notebooks, scribbling stories about robots and interstellar wars; the three of them at the carnival in Guatemala, waiting to get on the ancient, decrepit Ferris wheel that had separated them and ended life as he had known it.
The last time he would ever see them both.
I love you, he whispered in his head, pushing his mind the way Claire had taught him. Maybe they would feel his final thoughts across space and would know that he tried his damnedest to save them before he exploded into fragments. He hoped so, but it felt like his message was lost in the swirling ice and snow that lay between them.
Then they were jerked in their seats, and as the floor tilted Ray felt himself falling forward toward Claire. They were completely sideways. He couldn’t even scream now—time seemed to have frozen and he was suspended, hanging above Claire and Vinod and waiting for the straps holding him to break.
Then the helicopter tilted backward, and he was staring into Claire’s wide eyes above him. Their gazes locked. In that moment she looked like an angel, her hair falling forward, descending from on high to take him away. He heard her thoughts and felt them explode in his head—Dear Ray, don’t be afraid.
And then he watched as she drifted back down.
“Come on, Burnham, you fucking son of a bitch!” Mantu shouted.
The copter had righted itself. Mantu screamed in happiness.
When they landed Ray’s upper and lower teeth smacked together and his head swam with pain. The lights flickered again, and when they came back on his body was still vibrating from the impact. The incessant beeping had stopped. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the rotors spinning and the choppy stalling of the engine.
Then Mantu started laughing.
The intercom crackled. Konstantin was yelling hysterically and screaming in Russian. Burnham sounded stunned. “We’re…uh, we’re okay. Sorry about all that.”
They all shrieked with joy. Even Vinod lifted his head, tears streaming from his eyes, and shouted as he choked back sobs.
—
Their joy was short-lived.
It took Burnham a long time to stop shaking after they all mobbed him. He seemed dazed. The celebratory smiles evaporated when Burnham finally spoke. “We almost didn’t make it,” he said. “I was pushing it. Shouldn’t have been flying in this weather.”
“It’s all right, brother,” Claire said, gently placing her hand on his back.
Burnham shook his head. “No. I risked all our lives. I should have known better.”
“Bullshit,” Konstantin said. “You flew good. We’re alive.”
“No,” Burnham said. “It was foolish to keep us up in that storm. This craft is made for cold weather but not that kind of wind. And now we might not be able to get off the ground again.”
“Stop it,” Mantu said. “Konstantin’s right. We’re alive. I don’t think any of us thought we were gonna make it. So cut that shit out. You did it.”
“Yeah,” Konstantin said.
Burnham sighed and shook his head. “Well, we’re about three hundred klicks from where we want to be. And we’ll have to see how much damage we took.” His face was drained of all color. “It’s too dark out to do an inspection. So I advise you all to bed down and get some sleep while you still have walls around you. We’ve got a lot to figure out in the morning.”
He vanished into the cockpit.
—
To Ray’s surprise the adrenaline finally subsided enough so he could try to get some sleep, and the weight of his exhaustion hit him full-force. He pulled the sleeping bag tight until only his face was uncovered. It was brutally cold now that they had landed and the engine had shut down. The wind whistled against the copter’s exterior and the ice pelted incessantly. He watched Claire’s breath fog from inside her bag next to him. Vinod’s heavy breathing turned into an abrasive snoring. Mantu was a shadow, sitting up wrapped in his sleeping bag staring at a map with a flashlight. Konstantin had gone far into the back of the craft before passing out. Burnham had said he was sleeping alone in the cockpit.
The copter shuddered in a shrieking gust of wind. If the wind was powerful enough to shake this monstrous craft, Ray wondered how they would ever leave.
He slept dreamlessly.
—
They all awoke before dawn. No one was very talkative as they ate unheated baked beans, strips of dried fish, and crackers. Ray had slept soundly but still felt groggy, and his tailbone ached from the rough landing. Even Mantu seemed too absorbed in his thoughts to talk much. Konstantin stayed in the back of the craft tinkering with the snowmobiles.
Burnham finally joined them as the first bit of dull light broke through the tiny windows. “Everybody feeling okay?” he asked. His eyes were rimmed with black circles.
“As good as can be expected,” Claire said, pulling her hair back. She held out the bag of crackers but Burnham waved them off.
“As soon as it’s light enough I’m going out there to look things over,” he said. “The instruments seem okay for now, but that landing might have done some damage. The good news is we put down in a pretty open area. A little bit farther east and we would have landed on a frozen lake. And that would have been the end.”
“I didn’t need to know that,” Mantu said.
“But even though we’re not as close as we had hoped, I think we should get the snowmobiles unloaded and move out from here.”
“How far away are we?” Mantu asked. He held out his map.
Burnham stood next to him and pointed. “We’re about here,” he said. “A little under three hundred klicks. We have to get through this bit of forest here.” He ran his finger along the map. “After that it’s nothing but ice and snow and rock until we reach the compound.”
“So we leave right away?” Ray asked.
“As soon as we can. It looks like the winds are dying down. In the old days we could get a weather report, but you know how that goes now. GPS still works fine, so that helps. After I do my inspection I suggest we open her up and get those snowmobiles out and readied. Konstantin is already putting together everything we’ll need: tents, food, guns and ammo, extra fuel. It’s about eighteen degrees out there, but with the wind blowing it’s gonna feel like twenty or thirty below.”
“Jesus,” Ray muttered.
“My great-great-great-grandparents got shipped over from Africa,” Mantu said. “My body was built for the savannah, not this Eskimo whale-blubber-eat
ing bullshit.”
Vinod snickered and put his face in his hands.
“None of us are built for this because we’re not Inuit,” Claire said. “But humans have managed before. We’ll do what needs to be done.”
Burnham nodded. “It’s not going to be easy. My guess is we’re going to have to spend at least one night, probably two, out there before we reach our destination. Just pray we don’t get hit with a blizzard. Days are short, and you don’t want to drive at night and wind up flipping over a rock or running into a tree.”
“Or plunging through a sheet of ice into the middle of a lake,” Mantu added.
“Or that. And we’re going to be riding through avalanche territory, so we’ll need to be extra careful. Finish up eating and Konstantin will take over. When I’m done with my inspection we should be able to move out and get a good ride in before dark.” He looked at each of them. “This is it, folks. I hope you’re ready.”
He left them in uneasy silence.
—
It took almost two hours to get the snowmobiles down the ramp, oiled, and fueled. The snow and wind subsided a little, but the cold still worked its way through their layered gear, goggles, and face masks. They were in a huge, barren field of ice and snow. To their north was a heavy, white-dusted forest of conifers that looked like something out of a Christmas postcard, but more ominous and desolate than festive.
Burnham assigned each of them a snowmobile. His and Mantu’s would pull fiberglass sleds loaded with their extra gas and supplies. He drilled them all on how to operate the vehicles and on basic safety—most important, how to keep plenty of room between each rider so they wouldn’t crash into the person in front of them in an emergency stop. He adjusted the chokes and they each took a quick spin behind him, practicing stopping, turning, and getting the feel for the vehicles. Vinod seemed to enjoy it the most; he split off from Burnham and disappeared in the distance. When he finally cruised back to the copter and pulled off his goggles and face mask he was grinning widely.
Mantu slapped him on the back. “You liked that, huh?”
“It feels like flying, Brother Mantu.”
Burnham shook his head. “If you go that fast and hit something, you’ll find out what real flying is like. And then you’d better hope a tree isn’t in your trajectory. Please don’t go off joyriding like that again.”
Vinod’s grin disappeared, and Ray felt terrible for him.
“How is the copter?” Claire asked. She looked lost in the bulky snow gear, her face sunk in the fur-rimmed hood.
Burnham looked back. “That landing put a hurting on her. But she seems to be operable, from all I can see. At least I hope so for Konstantin’s sake. Normally there would be a crew going over every inch of her after a landing like that. But we don’t have time. Or the proper tools.”
His words were lost in a fierce wind that blew icy snow against their goggles. It was unavoidable now—they were heading out into the wilderness and leaving behind the simple but habitable metal shell of the copter. Ray looked out at the horizon, which seemed to stretch to infinity, and shivered.
“Time to get the ramp up,” Burnham said. “I have a few things to talk about before we head out, so let’s powwow inside. I want to get some distance before sundown.”
—
Ray wondered if everyone else was as charged as he was. He hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours in the past days, but he was jittery and overamped. They stood in a circle inside the vast belly of the Mi-26, now emptied of half its cargo. The wind buffeted the copter, and metal creaked and echoed ominously.
“I’ll make this quick,” Burnham said. He turned to the Russian. “Brother Konstantin, I wish you godspeed.” He spoke quietly in Russian, and Konstantin nodded, stoic as ever. One by one they all embraced him. Ray was surprised by the strength of the man’s hug. It was like being crushed by a grizzly. “You will do it, Ray,” Konstantin whispered. “You’re a good man. I will see you again, brother.”
Burnham fidgeted with his hands. “So we’re set. We can make it to the forest before nightfall and set up camp. The trees should protect us from the worst of this wind. I’ll lead. Mantu, you can bring up the rear.”
“I love it when you talk dirty,” Mantu said.
Vinod laughed, but Burnham rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Mantu, you never fail to elevate the conversation.”
Mantu grinned. “Sorry, Captain, just trying to lighten things up a little. The tension is as thick as the fucking snowpack.”
“I’d like to say a quick word,” Claire said. The light coming from the window illuminated her hair but left her face in shadow.
“Please, sister,” Burnham said.
“Let’s hold hands,” she said. Ray slipped his hand into hers. She squeezed. Vinod’s leathery hand slipped into the other. “May our circle remain intact as we move into the uncertainty ahead. The Weaver of Fate has brought us together, and she places us on a difficult road, united in spirit and body against a great enemy.”
Vinod’s hand quivered in Ray’s.
“But the universe abhors imbalance, and Lily’s work is bringing great discord to this land. She is tipping the scales in ways no one has ever seen, and because of that the forces of opposition have risen against her.” She looked at each of them, her eyes finally resting on Ray’s. “And the five of us are not alone. The Adepts showed us that, did they not? There are powerful forces working with us, unseen but present nonetheless. May they continue to aid us and bless us. Because, my brethren, we are going to stop her.”
Vinod’s voice cracked. “So mote it be,” he said. His head was low, his eyes hidden.
Burnham finally broke the silence. “Okay, let’s move the snowmobiles away. I’ll be eyes on the ground for Konstantin until he’s up and out of here.”
Ray felt Claire’s hand slacken.
“Mantu, why don’t you—” He stopped, just as Claire collapsed.
Ray grabbed her just in time to keep her head from hitting the floor. He fell to his knees cradling her head. “Claire,” he shouted. “Claire, can you hear me?” Her eyes had rolled back into her head and her mouth was slack. “Get some water,” he shouted, and Vinod scrambled for a canteen. Her face had lost all color. “Jesus, Claire, what’s happening? Claire?”
Her eyes rolled back down. She blinked. But his relief evaporated when he saw the smile spreading across her face. Someone else was behind her eyes. It wasn’t Claire who gazed at him. It wasn’t Claire whose smile turned wicked and whose eyes burned with dark heat.
“You are all going to die out there,” she said.
Ray fought the impulse to drop her. It felt like he was holding a snake.
“But you,” she whispered, her tongue wetting her lips. “You, my dear Ray—I’m going to have such fun with you first. My little pet is coming home to Mother.”
Claire’s face had completely changed. It wasn’t her anymore. He wanted to slam her head against the floor. Again and again, until her skull cracked open and spilled her blood and brains across the corrugated metal.
Vinod must have sensed Ray’s revulsion because the slight man grasped his arms firmly. “That’s not Claire,” he shouted.
And that’s when she laughed. That hideous, mocking screech that rose in pitch until he could hear nothing else, like daggers driven into his ears.
It took both Mantu and Vinod to pull him away. Ray squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears with his palms, shaking uncontrollably. When the laughter stopped, and he finally opened his eyes, Claire was sitting up, blinking and ashen-faced. “What happened?” she asked. “Did I faint?”
“Yes,” Burnham said. “You fainted. But you’re okay now.”
Ray felt ashamed when he couldn’t meet her eyes.
—
Ray watched from the distance as the copter rose, snow swirling around it like angry ghosts. Burnham, standing as close to the aircraft as he could manage, signaled Konstantin with his hands, but Ray wondered if the pilot
could even see him amid the blinding white clouds stirred up by the blades. Ray was holding his breath, and he was sure the others were thinking the same thing he was: Please let it fly. Please let it go up and away and not slam back into the earth.
And it did rise, rolling forward slowly, the rhythmic roar of the rotors drowning out everything except the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. And then it lifted and was gone, lost in the endless gray clouds.
Burnham slogged through the deep snow and got on his snowmobile without a word. He turned the key, released the choke, and pointed ahead with his mittened hand to the vast expanse of forest. And then he was off.
—
It felt good to be moving. The handlebars had built-in hand warmers, and the windscreen kept most of the snow blown up by Burnham’s snowmobile out of his face. When the vibration began to make his rear end numb, Ray stood. No wonder people rode these things for fun—the speed and the openness was exhilarating. For a while he even managed to shake the mental hangover from Claire’s possession by Lily.
But as the sun sank lower—it hadn’t seemed to get very high in the first place—the cold started to seep through his many layers of clothing and his brief euphoria quickly faded. The forest didn’t seem to be much closer, and if he hadn’t known better he would have sworn it was receding like a mirage. Despite the heavy boots and socks his feet were starting to feel numb, and ice crystals had grown in the week’s worth of beard around his exposed mouth. Yet Burnham kept going at the same speed ahead of him, only occasionally looking back through the spray of ice and powder. Was he having second thoughts? If so, Ray couldn’t blame him. This was madness, riding through this bitter wasteland right into Lily’s armed compound. Where she was waiting for them.
A rock pinged against his goggles and he swerved. When he righted his course, he signaled to Claire that he was okay. He still felt ashamed at how he had reacted to her momentary possession. It wasn’t her fault, after all. But the laugh—the laugh had taken him right back to Blackwater, where Lily had him collared and tied up like a dog while Ellen had been chained, spread-eagled, to a blood-soaked rock. With Micah, his throat slit, bleeding to death in the dirt in front of him.
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