“Jaz, you can get anything in prison,” Leo said with a raised eyebrow. “It just costs more than on the outside. But I made it through. I still want the needle sometimes, though, especially when shit like… like this happens. You can’t outrun everything.”
The waiter reappeared, carrying our dinner and some fresh chips. He stared at Leo’s tears as he set everything on the table and the big biker dug into his carne asada without looking up.
The waiter cocked his head at me. Maybe he was giving me the chance to order my margaritas again, but I shook my head. I wasn’t very thirsty anymore.
“Any signs of angelic trouble?” Leo asked me as we headed across the restaurant parking lot in the direction of his motorcycle.
I studied the horizon, half expecting to find the bright spark of Gabriel blazing toward us, but the sky remained dark. For all I knew, the angel was on a bus, knitting in the front seat and dispensing unasked for ethereal wisdom to people just trying to sleep away the miles.
“I don’t see anything,” I said. “And Uriel’s being quiet.”
Leo nodded. “Let’s get on the road before that changes.”
I followed him quickly and hoped that the horsemen were far away, too… I never wanted to meet anything that earned the name Pestilence. The Knights of Hell had done precisely that and I would be having nightmares about what happened to them for years. I could only imagine what Leo’s dreams were like.
He dreams of the coming war, Uriel said.
Oh hey, there you are, I thought. You were suspiciously quiet at dinner.
I have no commentary to make on mortal sustenance, the angel answered. And you refuse to heed my commands to abandon Death.
“Let’s find a motel and get some sleep,” Leo said. “We didn’t rest much last night and I don’t want us making stupid mistakes just because we’re tired.”
Think you could watch our backs while we rest? I asked Uriel.
That is neither my wish nor my purpose, the angel said stiffly.
No, your purpose is to blow up the guy I’m riding with.
You have thoughts of blowing him, too, Uriel countered.
I glanced over at Leo and hoped he couldn’t see the blush that I felt burning in my cheeks.
Not the same thing, I thought. Trust me.
Zamora Canyon was a small town, but it was located in the middle of Cibola National Forest and seemed to do some brisk tourism business. There were a pair of cute motels with wooden clapboarding on the outside… but they were both full of tourists.
“I’ve only got one room left,” the clerk at the second motel told us. “Two beds, if that’s alright?”
Leo had asked for two rooms, so why wouldn’t two beds be okay? The clerk gave us a cheery smirk and a wink that I kind of wished were warranted.
“That’s fine,” Leo answered. “Can I pay in cash?”
“That’s fine,” the clerk echoed.
We accepted a couple of key cards and I unlocked our motel room door while Leo hauled his saddlebags inside. There were a lot more cars and people than back in Arrow, he had pointed out, and wasn’t sure that he should leave packs outside that were full of illegal cash and firearms. Well, Leo didn’t actually say the guns were illegal, but it seemed like a good bet.
Our room was generously sized, though two beds took up most of the space. The carpet was thick and brown, almost the same color as the wooden walls. Cut-out silhouettes of birds and pine cones decorated the curtains and lampshades.
Leo tossed me the cell phone charger and I pried it from the packaging. I plugged the cable into an outlet next to my bed and connected it to my phone, which buzzed and then displayed a battery with a lightning bolt through it on the screen.
“Is it ready?” Leo asked.
“No, not yet,” I said. “It needs a while to get enough charge for a call. And fair warning, reception out here will be shit.”
I gave Leo as reassuring a smile as I could. The biker growled a little, but he nodded. Unable to be still, Leo paced across the room to the other nightstand and inspected an old brown push-button phone under the lamp there.
“No out-of-state calls,” Leo read from a small plastic panel on the side. He picked up the receiver and dialed anyway, then shook his head. “Local calls only, I guess.”
“I don’t think anyone really uses landlines anymore.”
Leo tossed the telephone receiver back and forth between his hands a few times before replacing it in the cradle. Damn, the guy was really in a hurry to call Carlos… But after his story at dinner, I understood a little better how much his uncle meant to Leo. And if Carlos had a solution for my brain-angel problem, he would mean a lot to me, too.
My cell’s battery indicator was still in the red, so I stretched, groaning and pushing my palms up toward the ceiling. My spine popped loudly in several places. Leo had his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans now, and watched me closely.
“How was the ride today?” I asked.
Leo blinked, then looked up to meet my eye. Had he been checking me out?
“My bike,” Leo said. “Yeah. Kind of a wrestling match, to be honest. I don’t think the Packmaster is very happy with me. It feels… pissed off.”
“Want me to take a look at it?” I offered.
Leo considered, but then shook his head. “We know what the problem is, right? It’s me. Because there’s something inside of me.”
“Inside me, too,” I said. “And I’m the one your motorcycle doesn’t like.”
The biker shifted his weight between his feet and ran a hand through his hair. He hadn’t removed his leathers and I caught a glint of the gun under his jacket.
“Jaz, I’m sorry for dragging you into all of this,” Leo said. “I just thought my motorcycle was having mechanical problems. If I hadn’t stopped at your shop, you would be safe in Crayhill.”
I crossed my arms. “No, I’d be at home trying to explain to my parents and then probably a psychiatrist about the angelic voice in my head. And what about you? What if you had been with your friends when Pestilence found them?”
“Then maybe they would still be alive,” Leo answered.
That is unlikely, Uriel said. Death would have gained strength from the presence of its brother. It is likely that Death’s vessel would have destroyed his own companions.
It took me a second to make sense of that, but then I frowned up at Leo.
“I think Uriel’s telling me that you might have just killed the Knights yourself,” I said.
Leo’s face went suddenly pale. “What?”
“If you were there when Pestilence came, Death would have taken over… Like Uriel did when Gabriel touched me,” I said. “And I don’t think these things inside us care a whole lot about human life.”
Leo pressed his fingers against his temple, then raked them up through his hair again. Eventually, he nodded.
“Thank you, Jaz,” Leo told me. “Really. I couldn’t do this on my own.”
He stared at me with need burning in his brown eyes and my heart sped.
You are producing adrenalin and your body is preparing itself for action, Uriel said. You wish to throw yourself at Death and I am ready. This battle was decreed before time began. We are called to it!
Uh, it’s not a call to battle, I thought desperately to the angel. Trust me. Maybe action, but…
Leo made a rough sound like a growl deep in his chest and sat down on the edge of his bed with an obvious effort.
“We actually have some time,” he said. “Do you want to take a shower or something?”
I pinched a black curl of hair that had escaped my bandana. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
I went into the washroom and shut the door, then peeled myself out of my clothes while I waited for the water to heat up. I unwound the bandage from my hand to inspect the cut Leo’s cursed Packmaster had sliced into it. It hurt like hell at the time, but after everything else that happened last night, I barely felt anything.
Did you do that? I asked silently.
I do not yet have full control of your body, Uriel said. But when I do, I wish it to be intact.
…So that’s a ‘yes’?
Yes.
At least there was one tiny upside to all this bullshit. When the shower was warm enough, I climbed in under the spray and set to work rinsing out my hair. And untangling the curls, which was more of a challenge, especially without my own shampoo. My relatively uninjured hand made the job a little easier, but by the time I was done, the hot water was gone and I glared at the shower head.
“I wanted to shave my legs, you know,” I said. “Stupid thing.”
I sighed at myself. All my toiletries had gone up in smoke with the Arrow Lodge and now I was complaining to inanimate objects. Days of Uriel in my head was clearly taking its toll.
“Jaz?”
I jumped and only barely managed not to scream, but the voice was Leo’s and he didn’t sound particularly alarmed. Heart pounding, I peeked out around the motel shower curtain to find Leo’s hand thrust through the bathroom door and holding up a t-shirt.
“You lost all your clothes,” Leo said from outside. “So if you want to wear something clean…”
“Yeah, thanks,” I answered, raising my voice.
Leo flicked his wrist and tossed the shirt over the edge of the sink, then closed the door again. I turned off the water and dried myself with a faded green towel. When I wasn’t dripping anymore, I pulled my underwear back on – too bad Leo didn’t carry any spare pairs of those – and then the new t-shirt. It was black, with the Knights of Hell flame-crested helmet stenciled onto the front.
I glanced down at my jeans. I had been wearing them all day. Did I need to put them on again, or could I wait until tomorrow morning? The shirt was fairly long and Leo didn’t seem to mind the view.
It will kill you regardless of dress, Uriel told me.
Leo’s not going to kill me, I thought. I hoped.
Death will.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror… Leo had admitted to some rather murderous feelings at dinner. Even without a voice, Death was somewhere inside the biker. I took a deep breath and put on my jeans.
“The hot water’s all gone,” I said as I emerged from the bathroom. “Sorry about that. There wasn’t much to begin with and this hair takes some work.”
“Hey, it’s worth the effort,” Leo assured me.
He gave me another lingering look that started up at my face, then moved slowly down my body. Leo was good at eye contact, I realized, and when he actually let his gaze wander, I felt it. Leo brought his eyes quickly back up to mine.
“Don’t worry about the hot water,” he said. “I could use a cold shower.”
My heart began jackhammering all over again. Leo was dead sexy and even in the middle of this weird apocalyptic shit show, I had noticed. Had Leo noticed back? I fished for something to say, something I could lace with smooth innuendo.
A shadow moved outside the window.
“Shit!” I shouted.
The flimsy motel room door slammed open, banged against the wall and ripped off its hinges. I jumped behind the nearest bed and Leo threw himself down on top of me. I really wished that I could enjoy that more, but I screamed in terror as bullets punched craters into the wall where we had just been, hurling cedar splinters and pink fiberglass insulation up through the suddenly smoky air. Gunfire chattered and the mattress above us erupted into a cloud of stuffing. A framed picture that was probably scenic Cibola National Forest vanished into shards of glass and shreds of paper.
What the hell…? I shouted inside my own head. Is this one of your people?
I didn’t see Gabriel or anything angelic, but it wasn’t like I had that much experience with them. Was it the horsemen? Had Pestilence finally found us?
No, these are mortal weapons, Uriel answered. We fight our own battles, and with far more powerful forces.
Oh, that made me feel better. Bullets could still kill me just fine.
But they will not harm me, Uriel said. The angel’s voice rang in my skull. Give me control of this body, vessel, and these… bullets… you fear will mean nothing.
Not a chance!
“Jaz!” Leo shouted. “Are you alright?”
My voice came out muffled against his chest. “Yeah, I’m okay. You?”
The sharp, repeating thunder of automatic weapons turned into the ratcheting of reloading. Leo’s weight was suddenly gone from on top of me as he jumped to his feet, shedding dust and broken glass. The biker stood over me and drew the snub-nosed revolver from his jacket. He aimed and then pulled the trigger twice. There was a shout outside that sounded human.
Cursing myself for an idiot, I peeked up over the ruined bed to see a man in dark clothes and body armor slumped in the doorway, sliding slowly down as he clutched his stomach. He wore night-vision goggles and held a matte black submachine gun. There was no blood where Leo had shot him – that armor must have been doing its job – but the guy didn’t look good.
Who the hell was attacking us like this? I didn’t see POLICE or SWAT stenciled across the man’s armor, no badges or insignia. When we found the Knights of Hell, I had dismissed the idea of the government or military, but what if I was wrong? Uriel said this wasn’t the angels, and I doubted the other horsemen would have been taking pot-shots at Leo. Was this the cops? Or something bigger? Everyone just wanted to kill Jaz and Leo – murder gone viral.
“There’s more of them,” Leo said in a tight voice.
The fallen man’s gun was pretty big, but even the magazine on that thing wasn’t enough to perforate our walls like that. Leo was right – there had to be other guns out there.
As if summoned by the thought, two new figures in identical tactical blacks charged the door. One of them brought up her gun to aim at us while the other grabbed the man Leo had shot and pulled him back out of sight. The woman in the doorway tensed and Leo fell to his knees behind the bed just before she pulled the trigger.
I threw myself down flat against the floor as bullets riddled the beds and walls and nightstand and everything else in the motel room. Leo snarled something in Spanish and kicked the remains of my bed toward the door, briefly interrupting the submachine gun, then leapt up. His first and second shots impacted Kevlar, making the woman grunt. She doubled over and Leo’s next bullet whizzed through the open door.
I didn’t know guns half as well as I knew motorcycles. How many bullets were there in Leo’s gun? Five or six?
Was I feeling lucky, punk?
The woman stepped back as another man in black charged the door, shouting something in a language I didn’t recognize. Leo aimed his gun down at the man’s knee and fired, but the hammer clacked hollowly. Only five shots in that little revolver, apparently.
But Leo didn’t hesitate. He vaulted up and over the shattered bed, tackling both of our assailants before they could get their guns trained on us again.
“Jaz, run!” Leo shouted.
Uh, where exactly did he expect me to run? The motel room door was full of Leo and thrashing armored limbs. The window was only about three feet away from the brawl.
Do something! I cried inside my head.
Do what? Uriel asked.
Something… angelic!
Give me control of this vessel, Uriel said.
No!
Leo drove his elbow into the woman’s stomach, right where his shots had doubtlessly bruised a few ribs, and left her gasping for breath. The man swung his submachine gun around like a black metal baseball bat. Leo ducked and the gun smashed into the doorframe hard enough to splinter the wood.
Alright, Leo was a bona fide badass and wasn’t freaking out about being shot at. Hell, this probably wasn’t even his first gun-fille
d rodeo. Leo didn’t need my help or Uriel’s, right?
I ran to the window and ripped open the curtains. Literally ripped… the window glass was shattered and the drapes so full of bullet holes that they were nearly lace. Maybe I could just jump through and make a run for it.
But I stared through the broken shards of glass. A big black panel van was parked sideways outside, hemming in the scene. The driver’s side door of the van burst open and I saw another armored silhouette inside. Leo might have been holding his own against the two in the doorway, but they were about to get reinforcements.
Uriel, help us! I thought.
Then give me control, the angel demanded.
My hammering heart clawed its way up into my throat and I jumped back from the broken window.
Okay… just a little, I told Uriel. No blowing up motels like your buddy Gabriel did. Just get us out of here!
Destroying this building serves no purpose. All I desire is to rejoin the others… but I cannot do that if my vessel is destroyed. Very well, I will aid you.
I took a deep breath and ran toward the door. There were people with guns and I was counting on a voice in my head to somehow stop them from killing me.
Leo was on top of his two attackers, punching one of them. The big biker’s knuckles were bloody and the woman yanked a collapsible baton off her belt, snapping it out to full extension. She swung the metal baton at Leo’s unprotected head, but I dove at her.
I was trying to football tackle her off of Leo, but I had never actually played football and my aim was off. I missed entirely and the baton impacted against my outstretched arm. I shrieked, ready for the sick pain of my bones shattering… but it never came. The steel rod hit my arm with a flash of light and then bounced off.
“Ange!” the woman gasped.
I was pretty sure that was French for angel. She knew what I was… or at least, what lived inside me.
Time for those reinforcements. Another man in assault gear leapt out of the van’s open door and swung a powerful-looking rifle around to brace against his shoulder. A laser sight lit up the sheetrock dust and falling puffs of mattress stuffing in a crimson line that pointed right at my head.
400 Horsepower of the Apocalypse Page 11