by Louise Cole
I tried to gather my thoughts. I needed to understand what was going on.
“You said you could feel them,” I asked. “Downstairs. I feel terrified whenever they’re near. Not like normal terrified but like something’s crawled inside me and is destroying me from the inside out.”
Ella sipped her coffee and grimaced slightly, her glossed lips puckering. She had the most mobile mouth. It was always moving, as though chewing on words she’d never say.
“Ella?” I said. “Is that what it was like for you? Just now?”
She smirked at me, the twist of her mouth somewhere between sarcasm and pity. “Callie, don’t worry. We’ll be all right.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
Yet it was what I was feeling, I realized. Downstairs she’d seen that I fancied Jace in a split second. No way had I been that obvious. Was she an expert in body language or something?
“You’re pretty perceptive, aren’t you?” I asked. “Not nice necessarily, but perceptive.”
She gave a short, hard laugh. Perhaps I’d won a little respect. I ran through the last few minutes. If she’d worked out how I felt, had she predicted what these Cadaveri things would do, and how they would think? I remembered her face, the sudden blanching of her skin at the door. No, it was more than realization.
“You knew they were there. How could you feel them when I couldn’t?”
“I’m not just perceptive,” she said quietly. “I’m empathic.”
“You can feel what other people feel?” A little sliver of disgust, of distrust, wormed inside me. I felt like I’d been wronged, violated, without knowing it. “That’s . . . creepy.”
She must have registered my reaction, but she ignored it. “I’m sensitive to people’s emotions. Even theirs,” she said dryly. She pushed a coffee toward me. “It isn’t quite the same as what you feel. The Cadaveri magnify most people’s worst fears or emotional pain, make them overwhelming. The closer they are, the worse you feel. I experience their emotions first-hand.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple,” she said. “You feel you. I feel them.”
“Oh. Is that like a psychic thing?”
Ella shrugged. “I don’t think of it that way. I think I’m just very, very good at feeling emotions, the way Stephen Hawking is very, very good at math.”
I blew on the hot liquid for a moment, unsure what to say. It was kind of bizarre hanging out in the coffee lounge with an empath, sipping bad lattes, while waiting for a couple of soldiers to come and rescue us from fear-inducing demons. I put down my cup carefully. It was important to phrase this right.
“Ella, this is nice and everything, and I’m grateful for your help. But can you please tell me—what in freaking hell is going on?”
At that moment her phone buzzed. She snatched it up and started talking right away. “Rear doors . . . Except my car’s out front.” She grinned suddenly. “You know, once in a while, Portman, you really earn your money. Second floor. West side window. Keep it quiet, OK?”
***
Cyrus knew the Reader and her companion wouldn’t come out the main doors now. They realized the Cadaveri were there. He whistled once and gestured to the back and side doors, hearing his signal repeated around the circle.
It would be folly to attack in a public place. Such a thing had happened before, he knew, and the authorities’ fear had led to the annihilation of every Cadaveri who could not get into hiding. Countless vagrants as well, he guessed. He didn’t know if the deaths had been the result of policy or panic, but it didn’t matter either way. Cyrus doubted the enforcement agencies knew who they were hunting or what, but if an armed police unit or soldiers found a Cadaveri, their fear level would soar and bullets would fly. Did the dead care whether people understood their cause? Called them Cadaveri or monsters? They would be dead, and the horror would never stop.
Perhaps not even for him. He pondered that for a moment. If there was a soul, would his continue to be tormented?
He pushed the thought away. It was a distraction. They could not risk being hunted down by superior numbers and superior weapons, that was the point. They would creep and crawl through the night like animals if that is what it took to stop the girl. To stop the reading.
They just needed to follow the girl. When the time was right, they would take her out.
***
Ella snapped the phone shut. “OK Callie. This is the abridged version, because in about two minutes we’re going to be running for our lives. So drink up. OK?”
I took an obedient sip.
“Jace and I work for an organization called the Order of Sumer. We help stop global disaster and world wars by using the book.” She stood, walked to the west window, and peered out. She took out a small torch from her bag and flicked it on and off twice. From somewhere below was an answering flicker. “The book needs a Reader. That’s you.” Ella snapped the catch on the window, opened it, and threw her car keys out into the night. “The Cadaveri hate the world, like wars, loathe the Order, kill Readers, and prevent readings. Got it? Good. Let’s go.”
We hurtled along the empty corridors and down the far stairwell.
“We’re heading for the north doors at the back of the hospital. Look for a blue Porsche. If anything happens to me, you keep going. Understand?” Ella panted as our feet pounded down the stairs.
“What if we get there first?” I asked, swinging around the landing and launching myself down the next flight.
“Trust me. J and Miles could fight their way through a legion and still be faster than us.”
We reached the bottom, and the fire doors were ahead of us. Ella ran at it full tilt, and we burst out into the night.
Chapter 7
The pickup swung into the hospital parking lot. Jace slowed, and Miles dropped out the passenger door, rolling as he hit the ground. He ran quickly and silently through the parked cars, keeping low. Second floor, west side. He flicked his torch at the window and briefly searched the shrubbery for the keys. Pushing them in his pocket, he sidled along the edge of the building until he saw them. Richie had stayed to finish the clean-up, but Miles wished now he had come. Getting the girl out was more important than sorting her damn rug.
Two, no, make that three Cadaveri hid by the west entrance. He walked through shadow, automatically stilling his mind, breathing so light it was barely there. Two steps. The first didn’t even see him approach, collapsing soundlessly as his neck snapped. The others spun around regardless, and Miles sank his weight into his back foot, loose but still, ready to use his opponents’ mad rush against them.
Thirty seconds later he was racing back through the parking lot pressing the electronic lock on the keys. The Porsche lights flashed. He leaped into the driver seat and revved the engine to a purr. He swung the car through the other vehicles, lights off, a high-speed slalom, and raced to the corner of the north entrance. The door was tucked into the intersection of two walls. He punched the brakes late, and the wall stopped the car with a metallic crunch. He grimaced. Ella would kill him.
He flicked the passenger side door open before he leaped out. Ella and a slight brunette girl slammed through the fire doors a moment later.
“Go!” yelled Miles. “Engine’s running!”
The girl ran around the back of the vehicle, stumbling before she reached the passenger door. He pulled her to her feet and shoved her into the vehicle, almost slamming her left hand in the door.
From the corner of his eye, Miles saw Jace leap from the truck to cover his back.
Two Cadaveri charged forward, but Jace engaged them before they got to the girl, killing one and smacking the truck door into another’s head as Jace launched himself behind the wheel. Ella was already reversing fast in a spray of gravel.
“Go, go, go!” yelled Miles, leaping onto the running board of the pickup and wrenching the door open. Jace took off after the Porsche.
Miles glanced at the side mirror. “Think they’re following?”
“Well, I would. I can’t see them yet, but, yeah,” said Jace.
Miles sighed. “What do you propose?”
“Let’s get to the crossroads on the other side of Lifley. It’s a single-track approach. Tell Ella to stick with us until then, and, when we’re sure we know how many are with us, you and I will block the trail, and she can floor it.”
Miles flicked open his phone. “Is your driving always this bad, Ms. Thompson, or was it the effect of our unwashed friends back there? Convoy until the Lifley crossroads. When you get our signal, standard escape and evade, baby girl.” He clicked the phone off.
Jace raised an eyebrow. “She’s gonna hate you. You know that, right?”
Miles settled back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Yeah. It don’t worry me none,” he drawled, affecting Richie’s Southern accent for a second. “I’ve been hated by far hotter women than Ella.”
***
“Goddamn marine patronizing bastard,” said Ella, as she threw the phone into the footwell. She glanced at me. “Put your seat belt on if it isn’t. There is a reason I hired a fast car.”
“To put distance between you and goddamn patronizing bastards?” I ventured.
She smirked. Now that we were away from the Cadaveri she had lost the mad-eyed stare and the sheen of sweat which had troubled me as we first drove away—mainly because I wasn’t entirely sure she could see the road properly. She wasn’t exactly relaxed now, but her fingers had a looser grip on the wheel, and her shoulders had lost some of their rigidity.
We drove for another few minutes before Ella announced, “This is it. Hold on.” I looked around, wondering what was going to happen, and almost got whiplash as she stamped on the accelerator. The car shot forward like we’d been fired out of a cannon.
Behind us I saw the pickup swing violently to the right, almost ending in the hedge and blocking the road completely, before they were lost in the gloom. Ella took a left which sounded like it burned the gravel beneath us and powered forward, only slowing slightly to take a right and then, within moments, another left.
“I didn’t think there were many turn-offs on this road,” I gasped.
“When you’re doing ninety they come up fast,” she replied, navigating the tight bends like a rally driver.
I couldn’t bear to look. The trees rushed toward us like angry soldiers, and the hedges which grew up on either side meant there was nowhere to go if another car appeared in our path.
“Slow down!” I screamed. “You’re going to kill us!”
“Almost,” she replied altogether too casually for my liking.
Almost what? Almost kill us, or almost slow down? It occurred to me she must know how terrified I was—a regular person would have to be deaf and blind to miss it, let alone an empath.
A lumbering tractor appeared to my left from a farm gate, rolling slowly into the road.
“Ella!” I cried.
Ella swerved right, the branches of the hedges clattering off the driver’s side like a barrage of stones as we cruised past it.
“He has no business being on the road at night,” Ella scolded. “Really, people should be more careful.”
My mouth dropped open, but then I caught her mischievous smile. Her foot eased off the accelerator.
“We’re clear,” she said.
My adrenaline left me like someone had pulled the plug, leaving me nauseous and shaky, limbs weak with fatigue. “Clear?” I asked.
“We’ve lost the tail. I’m pretty sure we lost them when J blocked the road, but there’s no way they followed us on our little Grand Prix.” She glanced at me sideways from under long blonde lashes. “How you doing there, Callie?”
I barely knew how to reply. My mind was on overload. Questions about the book and this Order of Sumer thing and the Cadaveri spun around in my thoughts. I kept coming back to one thing, which fluttered in my gut as much as my head.
“I need the book,” I said.
Ella looked at me curiously. She gave a half-smile. “What?”
“The book. I left it in my room. It’s not safe. We need to fetch it.”
“It’s taken care of.”
I sagged back against the seat with relief. Almost immediately, another thought struck me. “What about my dad, Ella? He’ll be wondering where I am. Oh God, the bodies, Ella. What about all the Cadaveri in my room?”
She scanned her mirrors thoroughly before pulling on to a narrow, wooded lane. “Your father thinks you are staying with a school friend, and our crew cleaned up at the house before he got home. That’s what they were doing while you were being checked out.”
“So my dad won’t find anything?”
“Shouldn’t think so. They’re pretty slick.”
She looked too tiny and perfectly manicured to be an expert in body disposal. “How are you so good at this stuff, Ella?” I asked.
“What stuff?”
“Cleaning crime scenes? Lying? That kind of stuff.”
“Oh, sweetie,” she said, pulling up outside a small house almost buried by trees. “We’ve had a lot of practice.”
***
“That was disappointing.” Miles relaxed against the truck, watching Jace sheath the long thin sword he loved so much. “You can’t even get a good class of terrorist these days.”
Jace laughed. “You can’t blame them for running away. They were trying to follow her, is all. Most of these guys don’t seem to be trained fighters.”
“You noticed that too, huh? Why is that? You’d think they’d have camps like Al Qaeda or something. Turn out warriors.”
Jace swung back into the pickup and waited for Miles to close his door before slowly shunting the vehicle back and forth to clear the hedge. “Well, what they lack in training they make up for in commitment. I don’t get the feeling they’ll back off for long, do you?”
Miles shook his head. “They won’t stop until she’s dead. If we knew more about where they came from we could tackle this another way, but as it is, we’re—”
“Babysitters,” Jace finished for him.
Miles grimaced. “We’re seriously lacking in intelligence here. It bothers me.”
Jace quirked a smile. “Speak for yourself. I go to Stanford.”
“Yeah, how’s the comedy working for you these days?” Miles grinned at him briefly. “It’s not like in the Corps, is it? I didn’t realize it would be so different working for civilians.”
Jace shrugged. “Not so different. Just different challenges. We still have our orders.”
Miles ran his fingers through his cropped blond hair, tufty with sweat. Letting it grow an inch had been a major concession to civilian life. “And how are you doing with that? You going to be OK with what happens next?”
Jace let out an exasperated sigh. “Back off, Miles. When I flake out, you can gloat. Until then, shut the hell up.”
Miles threw his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey, you know I respect you, J. You’re a great soldier. I just worry about you on this one. You think too much.”
“And you don’t think at all.” Jace gunned the engine down the single-track road. “You coming to the safe house?”
“No. I dinged up Ella’s car pretty good. There are some fights even I’ll avoid.”
“You’re not the only one who’s going to lose his hire deposit, huh? I’ll drop you off in town.”
Miles tried to smile. He waited a beat, then said, “That’s the difference between you and me: I don’t need to think, J. I just do what the man says.”
***
I woke during the night to find myself in a strange room. The shadows were all wrong on the walls, and the sheets smelled nothing like home. Then I remembered I was with Ella and probably safe.
Probably.
I shivered down under the covers and squeezed my eyes shut. I was more awake than ever. Something landed on the end of the bed with a thump, and I leaped and screamed. A tabby arched
its back resentfully and spiked its tail before turning around and settling on the duvet. Footsteps thundered on the stairs.
Mr. Portman burst into the room. “You OK?”
“I’m sorry. It was a cat.” Heat bloomed across my face.. “It woke me,” I lied.
“That’s OK. I’d rather you screamed at a cat than you died in silence.”
He hovered in the doorway. His hair was wet, and I realized with another hot flush of embarrassment that he was only wearing boxers and a T-shirt which clung to his chest in patches as though he hadn’t dried off properly. Yet somehow, I couldn’t look away.
“You know that’s not exactly comforting, right?” I said. It came out gruff.
“Sorry,” he said with a soft smile. “I haven’t had much practice with civilians.” He leaned against the doorpost, one ankle crossed over the other.
“Well, I guess you’ll have to learn fast as a TA.”
He laughed. “I’m not a teacher, Callie. I only took that job to get close to you. I mean, to protect you.” His voice was suddenly weighted with embarrassment. It was too gloomy for me to see if he was blushing. “Obviously,” he concluded.
I shivered from fear, or adrenaline, or the thought of Mr. Portman getting close to me. Anything but the cold. Silence hung between us.
“Goodnight,” he said at last.
“Goodnight Mr. Portman,” I replied.
He caught the door just before it closed. “Callie, I’m not that much older than you, and I was never a teacher. It’s Jace. Really.”
I snuggled back under the duvet. “Goodnight. Jace.”
I’d woken up scared, and my heart was still skittering like hail on pavement. Although, after talking to Mr. Port—Jace—my rapid pulse wasn’t entirely the result of panic. Fear and excitement were far too closely linked for comfort, I reflected.
This man is dangerous, I told myself. Eye candy for sure, but not someone you want to get any closer to. Scrumptious eye candy. A knot of energy tightened in my belly, and I wriggled under the covers. My mind might disapprove of Jace, but my body wasn’t listening. Anyway, the last guy I had liked turned out to be a pathetic boy.
Oh, please. Like he would even notice some schoolgirl. Jace isn’t a boy. He’s a man.