by SM Reine
“Unless?” Temi prompted.
“I don’t know. I keep thinking in terms of them being part of some military experiment or mad scientist’s lab creation.”
“Hey,” Simon said, “the Harleys are on the move.”
“Which way are they heading?” I didn’t feel like chasing Eleriss and Jakatra off into the woods again, not when that monster was chasing them everywhere too. Besides, they might simply be coming to visit us, to see if we’ve found their information yet.
“They passed our hotel and went up Iron Springs Road,” Simon said.
“That goes out toward the national forest and some more hiking and camping areas, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but they’re still in town. Stopped at a light, it looks like. They’ll be out of my range before long.”
“I went up Iron Springs Road this morning,” Temi said. “To drop your friend off at the vet.”
An uneasy feeling jumped into my stomach alongside the salmon.
“If they figured out we had more of their blood,” Simon said, “they might be going to collect it.”
“Damn.” I’d been joking about the fridge insulating the blood. Was it possible the riders had sensed it as soon as I took it out of the van’s fridge this morning and gave it to Autumn? I grabbed my phone to call her.
“I also went that way to visit the grocery store,” Temi said. “Maybe they’re going for breakfast themselves.”
“Those coconut bars are pretty good.” Simon waved the empty box.
Autumn answered the phone with, “What is it?”
I stood up. “Get the blood back and get out of there.” I waved Temi toward the Jag. “We’re coming to get you.”
“What? Why?”
“I think our interesting men are coming to collect the other sample.”
“All right. Call you back in a sec.”
“Simon,” I said, “pack your stuff and let’s go.”
“They won’t do anything to her, will they?” Temi asked as we jogged for the car. “They politely took the slide last night.”
I didn’t know if polite quite defined Jakatra’s frosty demeanor as he’d stalked across the hotel room. “We let them take it without a fight. Who knows what would have happened if we’d tried to stop them?”
“Maybe it’d be wiser not to try and stop them,” she said.
“Wiser? Probably, but I want to know who these guys are that they don’t share any human blood types.”
We climbed into the car. Temi started it up. “Aren’t we still thinking this blood might belong to the monster?”
“I’m not sure what to think at this point.” That slip-up from Eleriss had me thinking the blood belonged to them, to Jakatra specifically; he’d been the one with the bandage. “I just know I want to see that DNA analysis.”
CHAPTER 20
We didn’t drive sixty miles per hour this time, but Temi did run a few red lights. I wasn’t sure that was a good idea given how many police and soldiers were patrolling the town, hunting for monsters, but traffic was non-existent, and nobody pulled us over.
“Are they still driving or have they parked somewhere?” I asked, glancing back at Simon.
His MacBook was open in his lap. “Uh, sec.” He picked up his phone.
“I appreciate how assiduously you’re paying attention back there.”
“I got some results back from the app. I’m... No, they stopped. A half mile ahead.”
“That’s where the vet is,” Temi said, increasing speed.
We zipped past the Starbucks—judging by the line of cars in the drive-thru, the monster threat wasn’t quite big enough to keep people from their espresso addictions—and some other businesses, then hung a hard right into a tree-shaded parking lot. A single car was parked out back, and two familiar motorcycles waited next to the dog potty area.
“I’ll stop over there so they won’t see us if they walk out the front.” Temi veered toward the far side of the building. Towering boulders rose on that end of the parking lot, ensuring the vet would never have any neighbors on that side. Trees and brush blanketed the top of the rocky ledge.
I grabbed my phone and tried Autumn again. I’d called on the way and she hadn’t answered.
This time it stopped ringing immediately. “Sssh,” came the whispered response.
“Autumn?” I asked.
“They’re out front in the waiting area,” she whispered. “I think they know we’re back here, but we locked the inside door, and they haven’t tried to force it. Do you think they will?”
“I don’t know; they’re polite but determined.”
“Wait,” Autumn whispered with new urgency. “Someone’s fiddling with the lock.”
“Is there a back door you can come out? We’re in the parking lot outside. We can get you out of here.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“Don’t park,” I told Temi. “Drive around back. Look for a door.”
Before the car rolled into motion again, Simon hopped out with his MacBook cradled in his arm, the lid still open.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, but didn’t tell Temi to stop. Maybe Simon wanted to sabotage the motorcycles again. I wasn’t sure we should be pissing off our clients, but I didn’t want them chasing us down the highway either.
As we rounded the back of the building, two people darted out of a door by a dumpster, Autumn and a pasty-faced young man with eyes wider than horseshoes. I didn’t know what Autumn had told him, but he looked like he was being chased by the mob.
Without any need for encouragement, they hopped into the back seat Simon had vacated. The parking lot went all the way around the building so Temi continued forward, curling around the corner that led back to the potty area—and the parked motorcycles. We were almost even with the front door when it was thrown open, and two dark figures strode out.
Jakatra’s face was as stern and cold as always, but this time, easy-going Eleriss’s was too. They spotted us immediately and raced for their motorcycles. That sword hung across Jakatra’s back in its ancient scabbard. I envisioned him racing up beside the car like a Mongol cavalry warrior of old, ready to chop off his opponents’ heads.
“Go, go,” Autumn urged, gripping the back of Temi’s seat.
I was ready to urge the same thing, but then Simon jogged into view.
He ran toward the riders, waving his hand and pointing to his MacBook. “Wait, I have your cave!”
The car had reached the end of the parking lot. “Do I wait or go?” Temi asked.
I hopped out. “Go, take them wherever they want to—no, to Phoenix!”
I chopped a wave and ran back toward the other three. Despite Simon’s words, Eleriss and Jakatra had jumped onto their bikes. The motors growled to life. Simon ran in front of the Harleys with his hand up. It might not have been smart, but I raced up and joined him.
“Hey, we’ve got your information,” I yelled, though I didn’t know if Simon had been speaking the truth. “You owe us the other half of our payment. You made a deal with us.” My words came out in a rushed jumble; I didn’t know if they heard them over the engines. Or, if they had heard them, I didn’t know if they cared.
His face like a glacier, Jakatra revved the engine. I bent my legs, ready to spring away, though we were so close that I didn’t know if I would have a chance to get out of the way in time.
A split second before Jakatra took off, Eleriss dropped a hand onto his forearm. Jakatra stabbed his fingers in the direction the Jag had disappeared and spouted a stream of words. Eleriss responded with a single syllable, then repeated it in a lower tone.
I could only guess but thought it might mean, “Later. We’ll deal with them later.”
The riders turned off their engines. I met Simon’s eyes, hoping he had the information they wanted and hoping it would delay them—distract them—for a while. If they could track their own blood, it wouldn’t matter if the Jag drove out of sight. The motorcycles could simply catch u
p. Even breaking the speed limit, it’d take an hour and a half to reach Phoenix, and who knew if Autumn would be able to get in to use that DNA sequencer right away, or how much time it would take for the computer to spit out the decoded genome? Did Eleriss and Jakatra have an inkling of what we meant to do? They must. They’d been evasive all along—they must want to keep their identities secret. Whatever they were, the answer might be in that blood sample.
“Speak,” Jakatra told Simon. His boots were flat on the ground, but neither rider had dismounted. They could leave at any second.
“Where is the cave?” Eleriss added.
“We can’t be certain it’s the cave you’re looking for,” Simon said, “as you gave us so few parameters.”
Jakatra’s already suspicious eyes narrowed further.
“But I’ve found something that may be worth investigating,” Simon went on. “My survey shows a pocket under the northeast side of Lake Watson. It’s hard to judge the size, because of the tons and tons of solid granite there, but there’s definitely something.” He turned his laptop toward them.
Curious, I craned my neck to see the screen too. It was hard to make heads or tails of the monochromatic display—it reminded me of those pictures of babies in wombs—and the riders raised their eyebrows, perhaps equally unenlightened.
“It’s a cross-section,” Simon explained. “Not the real thing, but a graphical representation created, based on the data that came back on the...” Perhaps noting the blank stares, he stopped his explanation and simply pointed. “The lake would be up here, off the screen, and this black band—it’s about seventy-five feet down—represents a non-solid chamber. It may be filled with water, but it’s there.”
“Show us on a map, please,” Eleriss said.
The please sounded promising. Simon turned his laptop back around and command-tabbed to another application.
“Here it is.” He’d brought up a terrain map of the city and the surrounding area. He pointed to the Granite Dells framing the eastern end of Lake Watson. “There’s a popular hiking trail nearby, and that lake gets kayakers and all sorts of visitors, so I’m sure the cave would have been discovered long ago if there were access to it. But I guess that’s not a problem for you two.”
The riders exchanged looks but did not refute his comment. They launched into a quick dialogue in front of us, one we couldn’t understand of course.
“If you need a guide,” I said, “we’d be happy to take you over there.”
“You will go nowhere near the site,” Jakatra said.
“We’ll place security measures on the trail to ensure we’re not followed,” Eleriss told him, clearly choosing English so we’d understand.
So long as they went straight to their cave and left Autumn alone...
“You can keep your cave to yourself,” Simon said, “but we’ll be needing the second half of our payment for finding it for you.”
Jakatra’s chin came up. “We must verify that this is the correct cave, if there even is a cave.”
“Fine, then go verify it. We’ll wait.” Simon pointed at the asphalt at our feet.
Jakatra looked like he had another comment lined up, probably something along the lines of they’d pay us whenever they felt like it, but I looked Eleriss in the eyes and spoke first. “It would be impolite of you to make us wait if you find that we have indeed located your destination for you.” I thought about threatening to unveil what we knew about them if they weren’t prompt, but decided to see if a plea for propriety worked first. All along, Eleriss had struck me as the peacemaker, someone who didn’t want to ruffle feathers or do the wrong thing and stick out. Besides, making threats to someone wearing a sword wasn’t usually a good idea.
“Very well,” Eleriss said. “We will check to see if the cave is there and if it is the one we seek. If so, we will return with your payment.”
Jakatra muttered something in his own tongue.
Eleriss made an upward motion with his hand that wasn’t familiar to me, but the gesture had a placating feel, and Jakatra desisted. Once again, I wondered what their relationship was. In the beginning, I’d assumed Jakatra was in charge, but perhaps they were equals, or maybe Eleriss was even the leader. I’d believe Jakatra was the bodyguard if someone suggested it. Despite the shared hotel room with the single bed, I’d never gotten the lovers vibe from them.
It didn’t look like they were going to stick around to explain anything to me. They revved up the motorcycles again. This time, Simon and I stepped aside, and the riders tore out of the parking lot. As soon as they disappeared from sight, I pulled out my phone and called Autumn.
She answered on the first ring with, “They after me?”
“I hope we convinced them to prioritize something else,” I said, “but you should get out of town anyway.” It crossed my mind to tell her to toss that blood in a garbage can somewhere and distance herself from the danger, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. I wanted to see the results from the DNA sequencer. I hoped I’d bought her the time she needed to run the sample, and that I wasn’t endangering her further.
“Working on it. Had to take that vet tech home first.”
“Are you still with Temi?” I asked.
“She dropped me at my car and drove off. She said she’s heading back to get you two.”
“Good. Thanks. Keep in touch, will you?”
“Yeah, yeah, I gotta go if I’m going to get out of here.”
“Wait, what’d you tell that vet tech anyway?”
“That secret government agents were trying to keep me from discovering The Truth and sharing it with the public,” Autumn said.
“And he bought that?”
“He was wearing an old X-Files T-shirt under his lab coat. Of course he bought it. He’s convinced that monster out there is an alien. He was even talking about this blog that’d been posting pictures of it... Know anything about that?” An engine rumbled to life—she must be ready to drive out of town.
“Not a thing,” I said innocently. “Stay safe on your trip.”
“I will. Later.”
When I hung up, Simon was watching me, his eyebrows elevated.
“Our ride is on its way, and your blog entries are becoming famous,” I said.
“Things are looking up.”
“For the moment. Did you really find a cave, or did you send those two on a fool’s errand? Because if it’s the latter, they’re going to be irked when they catch up with us again.”
“I found a cave,” Simon said.
“Oh, good. Maybe they’ll be too busy exploring it to think about their blood for a while.”
“That was my plan.” His smirk was on the smug side.
“Too bad we can’t follow them again. I’d love to see a secret cave that nobody else has been in for a long time, if ever.” Though I’d be even more intrigued if there were signs of prehistoric habitation. The Hassayampa River cavates had been interesting, and I certainly planned to write an article on them, but what else might we find in a subterranean cavern beneath Prescott? Something cool enough to get me an invitation to write for one of the big archaeology magazines? “Enh, perhaps it’s just as well that we can’t follow them,” I said. “Our predator keeps showing up wherever they go.”
“Not until night fall though, and that’s a long ways off.” Simon arched his eyebrows. “As for the rest, why can’t we follow them?”
“Uh, did you miss their comment about booby-trapping the trail?”
“No, but there’s that lovely little kayak rental place on the other side of the lake...”
CHAPTER 21
Like most of the other businesses in town, the kayak rental place was closed. While Simon tried the handles on the equipment lockers, I observed the scenery across the water, wondering if Eleriss and Jakatra were already out there, burning holes in rocks. Ducks floated in the shallows near the wetlands end of the lake, calm and undisturbed. I took that for a promising sign. At the other end of the lake, lumpy
gray mounds of granite rose, the ancient bedrock eroded by wind and water. I’d called the mounds boulders, because I lacked a better word, but many of the formations would dwarf the buildings downtown and some loomed tall enough to entice eagles to roost on the tops.
Simon wandered over to investigate the building, though I’d already tried the doors and found it as locked as the library. Temi’s silver Jaguar was the only car in the parking lot. She leaned against the door, waiting for us. She was too polite to say, “Which one of you college-educated geniuses thought the kayaks would be lying out for anyone to take?”
According to Simon’s tracking app, the motorcycles were on the other side of the lake. The riders had driven past the parking lot over there and onto the no-motorized-vehicles-allowed trail, then stopped somewhere behind the formations. They had a head start on us; before driving out, we’d popped into one of the few open stores for rope, deciding duct tape might not be sufficient for this endeavor. We’d also stopped back at the van to pick up food and water along with our flashlights and my whip and bow. Taking the weapons made me feel silly—like I was my RealmSaga character, ready to travel into some monster-infested dungeon—but who knew what might be down there?
A jangle sounded, and Simon jogged into sight. He waved a keychain. “Here we go.”
“How’d you get those out of the building?” I asked.
“I downloaded a lock-picking app.” Simon stopped in front of an equipment shed and started trying keys.
“It taught you how to pick a lock in five minutes?”
“No, it showed me how complicated lock-picking is in five minutes, so I walked around the building and tried all the windows until I found one open. I wiggled inside, let myself out of a stinky bathroom, and found the keys.”
“You’re a real MacGyver, aren’t you?”
Simon winked at me as he pulled open the now unlocked door. “You’d be lost without me, admit it.”
“Only if you admit you’d be more lost without me.” I peered inside the windowless shed where rows of kayaks leaned against walls and racks.