Runner: Book II of The Chosen

by Roh Morgon

  I feel embarrassed to be there, an intruder into his secret world, yet privileged to be allowed to witness it.

  Because he’s chosen to let me see this, to see a side of him I suspect he closely guards.

  But why?

  He finishes his song and reverently places the pipe onto a small, flat rock beside the fur. Picking up a smoldering bundle of sage, he waves it gently around his body before setting it back down next to the pipe.

  Then raising his arms straight out at his sides, he closes his eyes and slowly begins to chant once again. His body seems to vibrate, as though seeking to break its earthly bonds and leap into the sky.

  A strange vision of him, of feathers sprouting from his upraised arms, steps from his still form. The ghost of Taz moves out into an ancient dance that predates civilization, its feathered arms waving up and down in long, slow strokes. It begins slowly whirling around the perimeter of the fur in a series of graceful circles, a whispered song tumbling from its lips.

  The translucent specter screeches its ownership of the sky as its dance speeds up, mimicking the steep dives of the falcon. Turning faster and faster, it wheels against the backdrop of the starlit night, long hair flying, until it’s nothing more than a blur of untamed, carefree energy.

  The breath catches in my throat as this magnificent Chosen unveils his true self to me, and a fear sharper than any he’s struck before settles deep into my gut.

  I don’t know if what I’m witnessing is real or imagined, but this raw, violent force of nature, with his lightning-fast mood changes, his mastery over his environment, the sensitivity hidden beneath his harsh exterior, sends the wild part of me into a frenzy. Visions of us running together, hunting together, join his ghostly dance and I fight the heat building within my veins.

  The whirlwind slows, mimicking the lazy drift of the eagle, then it rejoins its earthbound body. With a final shake of his hair, Taz lowers his arms, his profile stark against the rising moon.

  I’m transfixed, waiting, dreading what might happen next.

  The cliff upon which I now stand has nothing to do with the one at my feet.

  Sharp pain in my fists shakes me from my stupor and I stare at the dripping blood, at the nails buried deep within my palms.

  Nicolas . . .

  I… I feel like he’s slipping farther and farther away.

  Swallowing, I open my hands and watch the wounds seal, then take a deep breath and look up.

  Taz is staring in my direction, eyes reddened, his nostrils flared.

  I crouch and scrub my palms against the rough ground, then stand.

  “Want to show you something,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Take off your shoes and socks, but bring them with you.”

  The cliff beckons, and in a moment of feral abandon, before rational thought can intrude, I unzip my boots and slip them off, tuck them beneath my arm, and make the short leap across to the top of the thumb.

  He meets me and takes my things.

  “Wait here.” Taz deposits them at the edge of the fur, beside his own huge biker boots. Though my feet are not tiny by any measure, my boots look as though they belong to a child next to his. His leather jacket and T-shirt lie neatly folded in a pile on the other side of his boots.

  He rejoins me, then points at the ground.

  “Stay on the trail.”

  A narrow path, its smooth surface in sharp contrast to the rough, desert-baked crust around it, winds its way back and forth along the rim of the thumb. Taz turns north, his bare feet padding softly ahead of me, then stops and gestures at the ground.

  “These are some of the Western tribes—Chumash, Miwok, Modoc.” He points to a set of primitive figures carved into the rocky soil, then moves farther north along the trail. “Northwestern,” he says, waving at more figures etched into the desert varnish.

  I try to ignore the physicality of his presence—the way he moves, the long black hair brushing against his coppery skin, his masculine scent—and force myself to focus on his words as we weave back and forth around the mesa.

  Taz seems completely absorbed in revealing his desert canvas, which turns out to be a map of tribal nations as they existed before losing their homes and cultures to the gold miners, settlers, and city builders who saw nothing but an empty land rich with opportunity.

  He talks about some of the tribes, how they lived and how they died, and I begin to understand a bit of the rage that lives deep within his bones. Others he mentions only by name, but the silence that accompanies each of these speaks louder than any words.

  And then we’re at the center of the mesa, beside the fur.

  He turns to me and the histories filling his golden eyes slip away, and what’s left behind makes my breath stop.

  “Close your eyes.” The quiet words carry a hint of his earlier song.

  “I…”

  “Just close them.”

  My throat tight, I close them.

  If he touches me, I… I’m out of here.

  I say it to myself again and again, knowing that it will make little difference.

  “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. I want you to feel something.” A long moment goes by before he speaks again. “Stop thinking. Just feel the earth beneath your feet—really feel it.”

  Trying to ignore his body standing only a dozen inches from mine, I do as he says.

  The ground is cold, and rough. Little grains of broken and wind-scoured rocks dig into my soles. I concentrate, trying to figure out what it is I’m supposed to be feeling.

  “Become part of the earth. Listen to its heartbeat. Feel its heartbeat.”

  I focus on the bottoms of my feet, and what’s beneath them. My other senses finally relax and step aside, and I scarcely breathe. Time loses meaning as I stand there for long minutes, or maybe it’s hours. And then I feel… something.

  A vibration. Like a low hum, pulsing against my feet, its heat and energy slowly rising up my legs.

  My eyes fly open and I stare at Taz in amazement.

  He steps closer, his normally harsh expression soft and filled with longing.

  I should move away. But I don’t.

  “Feel it?” Taz reaches out, his rough fingers gentle against my face, his eagle eyes peering deep into mine.

  All I can do is nod.

  He takes my hand and places it on his chest. Over his heart.

  “Then feel this. Know this.” He steps closer. “I… I exchange blood with no one. But with you, I would.”

  As his words sink in, I again see a vision of us running and hunting together. Of us moving and loving together, and of an eternity spent gazing up at the stars and living close to the earth.

  The familiar pain of myself splitting in half—the same pain I felt when I left Nicolas—rips through me head to toe.

  No . . .

  Please no. Not another choice.

  Bloodtears blur my vision before I can stop them and I quickly shut my eyes, then turn away from him. Hugging myself, I open them to stare out at the pale eastern horizon as full-scale war erupts within me.

  “Sonya…” Taz steps behind me. His hands caress my shoulders as his cool breath whispers across the top of my head.

  He abruptly freezes.

  “Aw, hell.” His hands slide away as he steps back.

  I inwardly cringe, fighting against the urge to turn around.

  “We gotta go.”

  The urgency in his voice jars me back to the here and now, and frowning, I turn to see him gathering his clothes and boots.

  And then it dawns on me. I spin back around to the east.

  The dawn. And it’s fast approaching, and we’re in the middle of the desert with absolutely no cover for miles.

  Though I no longer burn, the idea of baking all day, unconscious beneath the desert sun, still triggers an instinctive fear I cannot control.

  As I turn back to Taz, he shoves my boots and socks at me, stuffs the pipe into its leather bag, and slips the strap up over his sh
oulder.

  “What about the rest of your things?”

  “Leave ’em. We’ll put our boots on over there.” He gestures toward the next mesa. “Let’s go. And watch where you step,” he cautions, and we take off for the western edge of the rim.

  I’m not sure I’ve ever run, leapt, and scrambled so fast in my life, but I can barely keep up with him. He stops several times to wait, to help me, before once again leading our downward rush.

  We reach the Jeep in a quarter of the time it took to climb to the thumb. He throws his gear into the back and we’re bouncing across the desert before I’m even all the way in. I grab the swinging door and slam it, then fight the buckle in the harness as we careen across the brightening landscape. The sky begins to fade from grey to pale blue.

  “Hell. We’re not gonna make it. Shoulda stayed at the gully. Better hope no one finds us.” Taz jams on the brakes and bails out of his seat. He opens the tailgate and I watch, fascinated, as he yanks hinged steel plates down from the ceiling to cover the windows. My view of him is cut off as he drops a third one down between the driver’s compartment and the back.

  Within seconds, he’s opening my door.

  “Come on,” he says as he hits the lock.

  I hesitate. I haven’t burned since before completing the Change. Since Nicolas and I shared blood. My earlier panic was strictly left over instincts.

  I think.

  But before I can explain, Taz grabs me and propels me toward the rear of the Jeep.

  “Get inside.”

  The storage area has barely enough room for one, let alone both of us.

  “But—”

  My legs are scooped out from under me as he picks me up and unceremoniously dumps me into the back of the Jeep. As I twist to fight my way out, the heavy weight of the sun bleeds all my strength from me.

  Taz fills the opening at the back of the Jeep as the first rays break the eastern horizon behind us.

  “Move over,” he slurs as he yanks the tailgate shut and cranks up a steel plate covering the back window.

  I try to squish myself against the far end, but there’s just not enough room in here for two of us, and my muscles are no longer responding.

  Fading fast, I feel myself pulled and turned and then enveloped by his huge body as he curls himself around me.

  The last thing I hear as I drown in the sun’s darkness are his words whispered into my ear.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll never let anything hurt you.”

  A soft, low chant caresses my ear. I wake to the cramped interior of the Jeep as Spirit-Taz runs his spectral fingers down my arm to lace them with mine. We take to the desert sky just as the sun bursts from the eastern horizon in a halo of soft coral and palest rose.

  I want to swim in it, to bask in its beckoning rays and drink in the kiss of its warmth, but when I try to pull my hand free, Taz grips it tighter and shakes his head no.

  Three mesas rise from the desert floor and we head for the smallest. As it appears below us, morning shadows etch an ancient map into its flat, wind-scoured surface. Drawn stick figures hunt and fish and camp amid forested mountains and scrub-covered deserts, along rivers and lakes and seas, their lives woven with buffalo, deer, and horses.

  Taz heads us downward to the center of the world carved from stone and we come to a rest upon a dark-colored fur. A slight breeze whips his hair around his head as he turns to me.

  He’s even more translucent than I remember. An image of him appears in my mind, his hand outstretched to me as he slowly fades into nothingness. Sadness paints his ghostly face, and I have the sense this may be our last time together in these forms.

  His sadness becomes mine as well. But he smiles and shakes his head no, and a song of joy flutters from his lips to drift and curl around our bodies. He reaches out and touches my hair and it falls free from the braid binding it. The breeze lifts it to join his, and the strands intertwine like lovers discovering one another for the first time.

  Taz moves closer. He raises our clasped hands to his lips, and with his other hand, reaches up to my face and touches mine.

  I lean into his fingers, gently kissing each one.

  The soft fur is now beneath my naked body, and Taz’s above.

  We make gentle love under the rising sun as it climbs higher and higher into a bright turquoise sky.

  Human love, for our spirit-selves are human.

  No fangs, no blood, no violent taking from one another.

  Just giving and touching and sharing, and we give and touch and share until the sun is falling into the western mountains.

  Taz’s song fills me with light and warmth, then fades away into peaceful silence with our last kiss. He stands, his hand still clasping mine, draws me to my feet, and faces us toward the setting sun.

  Then we run, and when we reach the mesa’s rim, we dive from its edge, two falcons in freefall, and the desert rushes to greet us. At the last possible moment, we pull up, our bodies arching to taste the sky one more time.

  The Jeep’s roof blossoms from the sand below. The mountains are devouring the sun when we finally slip inside.

  As Taz settles me back into my sleeping body, I want to ask him something, but no words are able to escape my mouth. He sadly smiles and his lips touch mine, and his soft chant is the last thing I feel before the darkness swallows me whole.

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER 55

  The sun slowly releases its grip on me and I try to take my first breath of the day, but my chest cannot rise against the cold weight clamped tightly around it. Vein-screaming panic arcs into every cell and I snap awake to find myself encased in darkness as black as a tomb. I shove arms and legs outward, only to meet solid resistance just inches away.

  I am in a tomb.

  Choking with fear, I try to claw through a network of webs entangling my fingers. It covers my face as well, and spitting, I fight free of it and seek to tear away the restraints holding me down. My hands encounter skin and muscle and… an arm.

  Memory floods in as my brain fully engages.

  Taz.

  He’s wrapped tightly around me, his hair covering me like a blanket. And as I struggle to get loose, he only hangs on tighter.

  “Taz. Let go. You’re going to break my ribs.”

  I stop fighting and wait a moment. His hold eases, just a little.

  “Taz… Let go of me.”

  But nothing. No response. No movement, no whisper of breath, nothing.

  He’s dead to the world. Literally, I suppose.

  I try to lift his arm, but it once again clamps around me and my ribs shift ever so slightly.

  Crap. I’m stuck here until he wakes up. And based on the last couple days, that could be hours from now. All earlier attraction to him is now buried beneath seething resentment at finding myself trapped within his arms.

  Yet, they feel familiar, like they’ve held me before. I can’t seem to shake this feeling of knowing him in another time, another place.

  Confusion swirls within me, as though the blood of Nicolas is at war with that of Taz’s.

  Once again, my body is a battleground.

  Very carefully, so as not to trigger Taz to tighten his hold again, I brush his hair away from my face and settle in to wait, my conflicting emotions the weapons in a new campaign for my soul.

  An eternity later, he takes a half breath and freezes. His stillness now is not one of the sleeping undead, but that of one awakening and assessing its surroundings before moving and revealing itself to potential danger. A few seconds pass, and then he groans and presses himself even closer to me, shifting his hips against mine.

  I nearly explode from his arms when I feel a hardness I don’t want, and where I don’t want it.

  “What the hell! Get off me!” I slam an elbow into his ribs and he releases me.

  Silence fills the tiny area inside the Jeep, only to be broken by his bitter chuckle.

  “That’s not the reaction I usually get from women who share my b
ed.”

  I twist around and bare my fangs at him.

  “Touch me again and you’ll lose any reason a woman might have for sharing your bed.”

  “Like to see you try.” The red flash in his pupils underscores the mocking challenge in his dark golden eyes, only inches from mine.

  “Let me out. Now.”

  “Can’t do that yet. Sun’s not quite down. Don’t want to blister that delicate white skin of yours.”

  “I don’t burn. Let me out.”

  “You don’t burn? But you sleep. I felt the sun take you away.”

  Tired of arguing, I try to reach over him and grab the latch on the tailgate. He knocks my arm aside.

  “Well, you might not burn, but I do. We’re staying put until I say it’s time to go.”

  Fuming, I cross my arms and push away from him as far as the tiny compartment will let me—which is all of about six inches.

  The smirk on his face slides away, and in its place rises a smoldering anger.

  Taz takes a breath as though to snarl more words at me, then his jaw snaps shut and he rolls onto his back to stare at the ceiling. His bare chest rises and falls several times.

  “Fuck this.” He cranks down the steel covering the tailgate window, turns the latch, and kicks the tailgate open. He slides his half-naked body out into the fading light of early evening.

  “You want out? Then get out.”

  I slip past him, shove my hands into my jacket pockets, and start walking west.

  After several long moments, the Jeep’s engine starts. Tires crunching against the rocky ground, it passes me on my left and stops. The passenger door flings open.

  My hesitation only lasts a second or two before I climb in, fasten the harness, and once again clutch the roll bar.

  Our trip back to town ends the way it began—in total silence. Only this silence is heavy and definitely laced with anger, and the drive back determined rather than exuberant.

  I wait outside the storage unit while Taz parks the Jeep and pushes out his bike. He starts it and leaves it idling, then gathers his hair into a ponytail, quickly weaves it into a braid, and winds an elastic band around the end. When he’s finished, he jerks a cell phone from inside his jacket and, moving away from the noise of the bike, thumbs the keypad and raises it to his ear.