by Godwin, Pam
We stared at one other, paralyzed in time, gazes fused in a war of emotions. I wasn’t sure who moved first, but when we did, we collided, entangled, hugging as if it were our last. Standing there, wrapped in Jesse, invoked a sensation so long anticipated, I felt it from my crown to my toes. I felt safe.
“The Drone got away.” His voice pulsed against my neck, arms banded around my waist.
“I know. But so did I.” I pulled back, met his eyes. “Thank you.”
Footsteps approached. He looked behind me, the moment gone. “We need to go.”
Our cavalcade comprised of the Humvee and two Harley Davidson army bikes. Roark’s eyes narrowed on Cliff, who straddled the enduro that had carried us from Lloyd’s pub that cold night six months prior.
I nudged his arm. “If you wanna ride, kick him off.”
He pinched my chin, gave it a jerk. “Naw, love. I stay with ye.” He pushed me into the back of the Humvee with Darwin and all our gear then climbed in the front with Michio behind the wheel. Tallis mounted the other bike.
The minute the engines turned over, my insides jerked in the toils of vibrations. The pounding of boots neared my open door. Jesse fell in, bow arched, and landed in my lap. “Step on it, Doc. Go, go, go.”
A claw followed him in, attached to his leg. Then the aphid was on us. Its jaw snapped open and the spear shot toward Jesse’s chest. His arrow released, sunk a bulging eye, and exited the back of the head.
I kicked at the torso skipping over the cement with the Humvee’s momentum. It let go and I slammed the swinging door, longing for the safety of the boat.
The whine of the enduros led the way. Aphids scurried from crowded high-rise buildings and spread over the lot. Darwin barked, claws curled against the rear window. Jesse climbed into his own seat and spit arrows out his window. Roark and I used our side-arms to pick off the aphids blurring too close to the bikes.
The bounce of the Humvee over debris and bodies jostled our aim. I needed Yang. Next to me, Jesse’s arm flew in a stream of arrows. His back muscles waved through the movement. It probably wasn’t the best time to explain why he and I needed to remove our shirts and press up against each other.
I switched to the carbine and held it steady at my shoulder. Exhale. Squeeze. Squeeze. Bugs squealed and rolled around us.
When the enduros zipped far enough ahead, the swarm fell back. Gravel shot up from our tires. Soon, the only thing trailing us was a haze of dust. A collective sigh washed through the Humvee.
A few minutes into the drive, I turned to Jesse. “Tell me what happened with the Drone.”
Roark stirred in the front seat. Jesse didn’t budge his head from the feather he was attaching to an arrow shaft.
“Jesse?”
He frowned without looking up. “What do you want to know?”
“You can start by telling me how he got away.”
He tossed the arrow aside and raked a hand through his wavy russet hair. “I cornered him in the chamber at the top of the main tower. His army was barricaded outside. I was feet away, arrow nocked…” He palmed his nape.
I waited several heartbeats then cleared my throat.
“What do you want me to say? He just disappeared. It was dark as shit, but I know there was nowhere for him to go.”
“But up?”
He stared at me.
“You were in my chamber. It has open rafters.” I met Michio’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “He flew away.”
Jesse blinked, his lips in a thin line. “When he disappeared, the aphids scattered, wandering mindless without his control. Maybe one of my arrows hit him after all.”
“He was on the yacht last night.”
His face turned scarlet. “He what?”
“He slipped in while we slept.” Michio’s tone was cool as he walked through the event and brushed over what we knew about the Drone’s metamorphosis.
“And where the fuck were Reynolds and Dilman?”
“The Drone sneaked into the stateroom,” I said. “Came after me while I slept between two capable bodyguards.”
Jesse dug a fist into his brow. “This is unacceptable. I hired them to do a job. Either they do it or I’ll—”
“You’ll do what? While we’re on the subject of threats,” I said, “you need to stop. Scalping, strangulation, castration?”
“They’re not threats.”
I groaned. “I don’t understand you. You’ve been pissed at me since the day we met, yet you spent the last year and a half protecting me.”
He steepled his fingers over the bridge of his nose and stared at the back of Michio’s head.
“Then you told Tallis I was…” What would I accomplish by embarrassing him?
“Breathtaking,” Roark supplied from the front seat.
I softened my tone. “Breathtaking. Is that what you think, Jesse?”
He closed his eyes.
Fine. I’d break down that wall another time. “What are you doing with Darwin?”
He dropped his hands and met my glare with his own. “When you left West Virginia, I followed you by car to Boston, but I knew I’d be tracking you on foot. I brought Darwin to help.” He scratched him behind the ears and Darwin nudged his big head into Jesse’s lap.
The shared affection tightened my chest. I wasn’t sure if I was envious of the dog or of Jesse. “I never saw anyone following me in the states.”
“You wouldn’t.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why did you follow me?”
He gathered up the maps at his feet. “Doesn’t matter.”
“What’s your job?”
“To keep you alive.”
“You’ve invested a lot of energy in this. In me. I want to know why.”
“No. You don’t.”
“Yes. I do.”
Silence.
“Who do you work for?”
“No one.” He put his nose in the maps and turned his back to me.
“What’s your problem?”
Darwin’s heavy chuffs ticked off the passing seconds.
“Wow, you know, I realize I owe you my life,” I said to his back, “but would it be so hard to work on your approach?”
Nothing.
“Forget it. Just one more question then I’ll leave you to your arrogance. Where are we going?”
“We’re meeting my pilot at Aéroport Lyon Saint-Exupéry.” The vowels rolled off his tongue as if French was his native language. He tilted his head, gave me his profile. “My pilot knows his way around the airport and the grounds will be easier to defend.” He grabbed the arrow he was making, stabbed the point in a map and shoved it at me. “We’ll spend the night in the valley of the Arc.”
The arrow head pierced a green-shaded area surrounded by a white blotched mountain range. Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne labeled the nearest dot.
“Tomorrow, we’ll fly from Lyon and go anywhere you want.” His tone was void of emotion.
I gave Darwin a pat on his head, climbed over the wheel space and settled in Roark’s lap. Michio watched the road, but must have felt my stare, because he reached across the space between us and settled a hand on my thigh. I held his hand there with my own and looped my other arm around Roark’s neck. “Well?”
Roark’s brow bunched. “Ye heard him. He’s offering a vessel to save yourself, those ye love, and perhaps…humanity.”
At least Roark and Michio agreed on something. And as much as I wanted to go home, I knew I never would. “Next you’ll tell me we’ll be boarding this vessel in pairs.”
He held my glower in earnest. “Think on it, love.”
I already had. “We’re going to Iceland.”
A clement breeze teased through the cracked window. Satiny pastures swallowed the shriveled husks of vineyards. The stone archways and blond skeletons of Tuscan homes littered the rolling horizon.
Several hours later, the hills steepened and the trees stood taller. A pebbled trail branched from the road and with it came a stinging sensation behi
nd my breastbone.
Roark’s arms wound across my midriff. “Evie?”
We passed the trail and the pinch in my chest inflamed. A pinch I hadn’t felt in months. “I don’t know. I feel something…here.” I raised his hand, placed it over my heart.
Michio cut his eyes to me. “Aphids?”
I shook my head. “This is different.”
Roark’s big hand circled over the twinge, his brogue soft. “Ye babes?”
I nodded, hope swelling inside me.
Jesse angled out his window and released an arrow. It wobbled in the trunk of a cone-bearing tree marking the entrance to a side road. The enduros turned off and we followed. The pull in my chest vibrated.
Wider than the path, the Humvee shoved through the heavy brush of larches. Foliage and fuchsia sprayed the windshield. Several kilometers in, we broke through the trees and emerged on a high plateau.
Snowcapped mountains layered the landscape. We bumped along trickling ravines and descended to the mouth of a river. The blue water glimmered under the dipping sun, swaddled by jutting crags and frothy waves. A single ranch-style cabin waited at the bottom.
“The Arc River.” Jesse reached for the door handle. When we skidded to a stop at the porch, he jumped out. “Looks abandoned. Stay put while we sweep.”
Roark and Michio followed him. I reclined in the seat and concentrated on the nudge inside me. Like an unseen hand, it had a hold of me, pulling me back toward that trail.
Tallis poked his head in the door. “All clear.”
I shuffled after him, into the house. Passed a couch, a chair, a bed, more chairs. The one-room space was large, with an equally large fireplace, which is where I found Jesse talking to Michio and Roark.
He watched me approach, expression unreadable. “Your guardians just filled me in on your connection with the aphids.”
My guardians. “Then I’ll save your boys some time. This area is free of bugs.”
“Yeah, we made sure of that, but it’ll be a damn nice security feature to have going forward.”
My chest tugged, pulled my bones with it. “I saw a trail on the way here I need to check out. I’ll take a bike and won’t be gone long.”
I could have sliced the dead air with my dagger.
Jesse’s face transformed into an iron mask. “The answer is no.”
My smile was brief and not a smile at all. “Good thing I didn’t ask a question.”
His lips pulled away from grinding teeth. “You stumble onto one, two, five aphids, yeah, I’m sure you got that, no problem. What happens when you run into a swarm? You carry enough ammo to escape that?”
“Watch and learn, Lakota.” I spun toward the door, toward Roark’s enduro, trusting my internal radar to alert me long before I encountered more than I could handle.
Since my hair had grown halfway to my waist, I looped it up in a ponytail. Carbine strapped on the bike’s mount, I jumped on and fired up the single cylinder. The vibration seeped through my body and carbonated tingles to my fingers and toes.
Jesse stood over me. “Scooch.”
“Get your own bike.”
Muscles jerked under his scowl.
Behind him, Roark tucked his hands in his pockets. “Remind me to tell ye about the time she threw herself from that bike onto a street full of snarlies.”
Jesse grumbled something inaudible and stalked to the other bike.
Roark’s face filled my horizon. Droves of demands burned in his jade stare.
“Need a cage for that canary?” I asked.
“Do wha’ ye have to do, love, but if you’re gone long, I’ll come after ye with a whole flock of them.”
I ran a finger down the buttons of his cassock. “You think I’m a wanker.”
His sun-kissed face ruptured in a smile. “If you’re a wanker, I’m a wanker. Just keep your eyes up.” He brushed his lips over mine and stepped back.
Michio squatted on the porch, scratching Darwin’s muzzle. His eyes rose to the sky and flicked back to me. Unlike the others, he wouldn’t argue or hover. He was too sneaky for that. No doubt he planned to trail us, stealthfully protecting me from myself.
I gave him a smile he didn’t return. Hmm. My tongue made a slow swipe over my top teeth. Ah, there it was. The world’s rarest smile.
Jesse rolled next to me. “Stick to my side.”
I punched the gas, fueled with expectancy. By the time I hit fourth, my heart fluttered with the bike’s purr and my top curled up my back. I followed Jesse along a ravine and though a grassland curtained by electric green hills and valleys. When we hit a straight stretch, I revved ahead. A flock of Greylag geese cackled above us. The wind whistled through my hair in a bouquet of grapes and loam.
Several acres ahead, a cement water tower rose above the meadow. Tattered fabrics flapped around a small form bound to the ladder. I sucked in a breath. A body? I’d come across bodies everywhere I’d traveled, but few were human and even fewer were children.
Jesse flanked me and we gunned it, slipping our tires over the gravel.
A tiny torso came into focus. My muscles locked and my skin bumped up. I skidded the bike sideways and rolled from it as it toppled over. My legs staggered through each step toward the tower.
Strips of denim hung from protruding bones and baked skin. Chunks of matted brown hair pasted a ghastly head. And tucked in the elbow of an ashen arm was a lovingly-worn teddy bear.
Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery, teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition,
my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit.
Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my sacred space and love beyond my fear,
and thus walk in balance with the passing of each glorious sun.
American Indian Lakota Prayer
CHAPTER FORTY: MIND, BODY, AND SOULFUR
“Aaron?” Jesse said, frozen at my side. “Aaron, wake up.”
I unholstered the USP and spun. “What the fuck did you say?” I shoved the barrel in his face.
He held his hands up, eyes on mine, blank and cold. “Put the gun down.”
I stepped back, gun trained at his head. “You see him?” My voice cracked. “You can see my boy?”
My feet tangled in dried vines. Branches snapped. I stumbled but kept my footing. The gun shook in my hand as Aaron’s hollow-eyed face ripped out my heart.
“We’re here because he has something to show you.” Jesse’s voice scratched at my back.
I swung the pistol around. “Don’t fucking talk about him like you know him. Stay back. I mean it.”
Vines twined through the sunken torso and bound him to the ladder. Bark gnawed into gangrene skin. His head lolled to the side, eyelids stretched and dusty. I clawed one-handed at the woody stems, pulled at his body.
“If you only look with your eyes,” Jesse said, “he’ll be forced to use that.”
Miasma burned my nose. I freed the unnaturally bent arm and Booey tumbled to the ground.
Scrape. Scrape-scrape.
Eyelashes broke off, dusted his gaping shriveled lips. A bulge moved under the lid of one eye. The dry skin splintered. A needle-like leg punched out. Then another and another. A spider wiggled free from the socket with a wet suction sound. Its body was all-white, Aaron’s all-white eye. A tiny pupil dotted its back.
My throat closed up. My arms wouldn’t work. Spiders crawled out of the torn collar of his shirt and covered him in a boil of shiny black bodies.
Not real. Not real. Not real. My heart pumped at a dangerous velocity. Still, I couldn’t pull myself away.
“Aaron, we’ve seen enough.” Jesse was closer, his voice stern.
Aaron’s remaining eye snapped open. A dark bead welled in the corner and painted a crimson stripe down his cheek. The yellow-green iris darted between us and the orb-bodied spider on his shoulder.
The spider teetered, legs twitching. Then it popped in a hiss of smoke. A succession of smaller pops followed as the remai
ning spiders exploded with tiny sparks.
My pulse beat a wild tattoo through my veins. “Oh Jesus, how do I not look with my eyes?”
A firm hand clasped mine. “Look with your heart.” Another hand gripped my jaw, turned my head. Copper eyes imprisoned mine. “It’s time to leave this world. We’ll go together.” His voice was authoritative, echoed with power. My knees buckled.
He caught me around the waist and sat me in his lap on the ground. His fingers curled around the pistol and yanked it from my fist. The tug at my thigh told me he holstered it. I laid my head against the muffled thump of his heart and lifted my eyes.
The weathered corpse of a nymph sagged in the bindings where Aaron had hung.
“I’m fucking losing it,” I whispered. “You must be too, since you saw…”
“Aaron’s spirit.”
“How—” I shook my head. “It wasn’t real.”
He shifted, settled me deeper into his lap. “I’m a spirit walker. Just like you.”
“You sound like Akicita. I don’t believe in that shit.” A lump filled my throat. “No offense.”
He cupped my head against him. “Your othersense, what you see in the spirit world, is a gift, the consciousness of the Great Mystery. It’s up to you to discover the meaning.”
I pushed his chest. His iron grip tightened.
“They’re hallucinations.” I rubbed my temple. “There’s something wrong with me.”
“The spirits show me things, too.” He sighed. “They brought us together in West Virginia. I followed them to you.”
My body stiffened. “You followed who, Jesse?”
“The energy from memories of those who have passed can give spirits a tangible form in the spirit world. Annie and Aaron’s memories are potent. Their spirits are strong.”
I jerked and his thighs and arms formed a cage around me. The way he looked at me made me want to break eye contact. I didn’t. “How do you know their names?”
“I’ll tell you, but don’t pull away.”
I nodded.
“Annie’s ghost visited me the day after the outbreak. That was the first time. When did she die?”
Blood roared in my ears. I lowered my eyes, just an inch, to the sharp line of his cheekbone.