by John Conroe
“What did she say, Rory?” I said, bringing him back on task.
“Well, he was really snotty to her, so she’s having trouble finding anything,” Rory said with a gleam in his eye.
“Oh, bad move on his part,” Jonah said.
Sarah, who had the same calm expression she’d had just after beating the piss out of the two football players, glanced at me with raised eyebrows.
“Miss Rosen is like a hundred and forty years old, doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone or any authority except the Principal. If you piss her off, she loses everything you wanted her to find,” I said.
Rory nodded. “That’s right, and I think it’ll buy you some time.”
“Time for what?” Sarah asked, her voice calm for someone being investigated by the Feds.
“To get away. I can take you in my car. Run you to Burlington where your mom is, if you like,” I said, feeling a bit weird about offering but knowing it was the kind of thing my mom or aunt would do.
“You would leave school and drive me away, knowing I might be a fugitive?” she asked, apparently more intrigued by that than the Fed.
“Yeah, we can head out one of the side doors near the lot. I’ll just jack the alarm and we’ll be gone.”
She stared at me for a good fifteen seconds, then looked at each of the others.
“My mother asked me if I had made any friends here last night. I told her I thought so. Apparently, I was right if you’re willing to rush here and alert me,” she said looking at Rory, “—and you’re willing to leave school, disable a safety alarm, and drive a potential fugitive thirty minutes away. And to think my mother was worried I’d be bored here.”
She started the sentence grim-faced but was smiling at the end. It was the first real smile I had ever seen on her face, and it was really kind of amazing.
“How many federal agents did you say there were?” she asked Rory.
“One… how many do you need?”
A look flashed across her face that might have been annoyance but to me looked like she was offended.
At least four or five! I thought to myself. The girl could jump like a cat and didn’t break a sweat beating up big guys. She’d obviously had a lot of fight training. I’ve had a bit myself and I could tell hers was much, much more extensive than mine.
She was thinking it through, looking at a spot on the table while chewing a bite of pizza. It was the same look she’d had on her face when she was taking the Calc quiz… without a calculator.
“Thank you, Rory, for telling me about the agent and Declan for being crazy enough to get in trouble for me. But if it’s just one, I think I’ll just go see what this guy wants,” she said with another smile, this one smaller but just as cute as the first.
She got up, leaning down to get her tray, but Jonah grabbed an apple and Rory snagged her cupcake. Jonah looked apologetic, but Rory was already unwrapping the dessert. “Well, you know, if you weren’t gonna eat it,” he said with a shrug.
She smiled and took the leftovers to the recycle and waste bins. I pushed the other half of my pannini turkey, Vermont cheddar, lettuce, tomato, and cucumber mayo sandwich toward the two boys, who looked at me, surprised.
“I’m gonna see for myself what’s up. Got a study hall next anyway,” I said. The three oatmeal and raisin cookies in a ziplock baggie went into my pocket, though.
I followed Sarah to the office, hanging back and trying to look inconspicuous.
The Fed was easy to pick out, being the only dark-suited guy in the area. About an inch shorter than me—maybe six feet—but built heavier. Ginger hair cut short like military and sharp, light-colored eyes that locked onto Sarah with intense energy. My first impression was military, not law enforcement.
“Miss Rosen, did you need to see me?” Sarah said to the old lady behind the office counter, who looked up, startled.
Her expression changed through dismay to resignation. “This man, Agent Kent, wants to talk to you,” she said.
I slipped into a chair like I was waiting for the Principal or something. The agent man looked at Sarah then down at his smart phone, then back up, like he was comparing a photo.
“I’m going to need to take her into custody, actually,” he said.
“You can’t just take a child from this school,” Miss Rosen said, raising her voice.
Mrs. Jesten, the Principal, showed up at the door of her office. “What’s going on here? What are you doing to that student?”
Agent Kent was spinning Sarah around and handcuffing her wrists together. Sarah didn’t resist, her face blank until she saw me sitting there, then she frowned at me and shook her head a little.
“This girl is not Sarah Williams. Her name is Caeco and she’s a potential threat to every child in this school. And I can do anything I need to with this badge,” he said, holding Sarah’s bound wrists with one hand and using the other to flash his creds again. The gun on his belt, a 1911 type .45, certainly looked legitimate, although it was an odd choice for a federal cop. Darci had taught me a lot about guns, as had Levi. It was actually part of the Krav Maga curriculum at higher levels. Anyway, I knew that the Feds issued Glocks and Sig Sauers, not single action .45s.
Principal Jesten continued to argue with him while Miss Rosen was dialing someone on the phone, probably the sheriff’s department.
I already knew he was going to take her, so I slipped out of my seat and out the front door while everyone was busy.
A Honda Accord with rental stickers on the bumper was parked in the bus loop, smack dab in front of the school entrance. I slipped down beside it and applied a sharpie to the bumper sticker, then hightailed it to my own car.
Chapter 11 – West
From his newer, closer vantage point in the bank parking lot across from the school, Mike West sat up as a tall, thin kid came out of the school and hunkered down by Machete’s car.
Nothing had happened for the first fifteen minutes after Agent Machete entered the school, but now a student appeared to be doing something to the rental car’s rear bumper. The kid finished doing whatever he had been doing, threw something back into his bookbag, and took off at a lope for the parking lot. He unlocked an older model Toyota Land Cruiser and climbed in, appearing to settle down and wait. Every instinct West had was screaming at him that this kid was important, but he forced himself to wait like the kid.
Four minutes later, Machete appeared, pushing a teenage girl in front of him. She appeared calm despite having her arms bound behind her. An older woman in a business suit followed them out of the school entrance and made herself obvious as she took pictures of the car, the agent, and the student. Machete snarled something at her even as he unlocked the car and put the girl into the backseat, then climbed into the driver’s side and took off.
Mike checked his tracker and found the blip representing the Honda blinking steadily. He waited as the other agent’s car pulled onto the main road and away from the school. The boy in the Toyota had started his own car, but he, too, waited till the rental was out of sight before pulling out of the parking lot and following. West let the boy get a block ahead before starting out after him. Staying back about four car lengths, he kept one eye on the Toyota Cruiser and one on the iPad tracking screen. Even though Machete was out of sight, the boy appeared to be following him without difficulty, making turns that exactly matched those of the false agent he couldn’t see.
His first sight of the girl had confirmed his gut instinct. She was the reason AIR was here, but the boy also tripped Mike’s switch and now, watching him track Machete without apparent need for sight, Mike was doubly intrigued.
Chapter 12- Declan
The runes I had written in black permanent marker on the rental led me like a faithful hound. I had scrawled Tir, Rad, Ur, and Cen, … the runic equivalent of the work Track. Those simple shapes were all I needed to focus my Sight on the vehicle so that now, I could see every move the car made with my mind if not with my eyes.
The guy
was headed out of town, but not toward Burlington, its tiny airport, or any of the local law enforcement stations. Instead, he was kind of headed into the boonies.
Six miles out of town, he turned down a dirt driveway that was little more than two tracks in an expanse of trees. A couple of minutes later, I pulled up to the same turn and noted two things. One, I had driven this road many times and never noticed this driveway, and two, a real estate agency rental sign had been pulled up and dropped flat on the ground, making it almost invisible.
Checking my mental image, I saw the big agent man pulling Sarah from the car and leading her toward a small, rundown cottage.
Turning onto the driveway, I let the Beast idle itself down the muddy path in first gear. When I got to what I guessed might be the halfway point, I five point turned the Toyota till I was facing back out toward the main road and backed up till I figured I was as close as I could get without him hearing my car. Leaving the car door open and the keys in the ignition, I was happy for once that Beast was too old to have any annoying warning chimes as I started walking stealthily down the rest of the road. The whole driveway must have been a third of a mile long, so I was still several hundred yards from the cottage when I parked, which is why I didn’t hear the fight till I had walked for a bit.
At first, it was just some dull rumbles, but as I got closer, they became distinct bangs and finally the crash of breaking glass. Rushing forward and around the last bend, I found Sarah, clothes torn and ripped, face bleeding, bending over the prostrate form of the agent who appeared either dead or unconscious.
She spun at the sound of my feet, her body tense, her face drawn up in a silent snarl which turned to surprise. She straightened up as I got close, studying me as I studied the whole scene in front of me. The tiny house had one main window which was now broken, the glass glittering on the overgrown weeds and broken concrete path that led to the front door. Lying unmoving in the middle of the walkway was the agent man. It appeared that he had been thrown through the window and ten feet further out to the sidewalk. Pretty good toss, as the guy had to go a hundred eighty or so.
“Did you kill him?” I asked her.
She shook her head as she watched me approach.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride to your mom and you two can get going,” I said.
“How did you find me?” she asked, her expression intent as she continued to study me. Her cuts appeared superficial and her clothes were more disheveled than destroyed, although her t-shirt had a few big rips in it, a black bra showing through.
“I followed you,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”
She shook her head. “I would have heard your car.”
“Heard my car? While you were in another car hundreds of feet ahead?”
“I have really good hearing. How did you do it?”
I paused, exasperated at her delay. It wasn’t every day that I helped a fugitive escape federal custody, and I was more than a bit nervous.
Finally, I waved at the car. “It’s marked with a tracker.”
She looked at the car, glanced back at me, then started a fast walk around the vehicle. She stopped by the bumper sticker I had written on, looking from it to me and back again. Finally, she came to some conclusion, turned from the bumper, and went to the passenger seat of the car, where she retrieved a roll of duct tape. “He told me if I got mouthy, he’d tape my mouth shut. He should have used it on my wrists,” she explained, holding up her wrists. The handcuffs were still on, but the links connecting them were torn apart. She moved to the unconscious agent and rolled him over onto his stomach.
Grabbing both arms, she proceeded to demonstrate just what she was talking about by taping the crap out of his wrists and forearms. Half a roll later, she tore the tape and sealed it to his arms, then moved to his ankles, which she wrapped just as completely. A final piece went over his mouth, and she tossed away the mostly depleted roll. She really scared me when she unbuckled his belt, but it was just to get the holstered .45 and double magazine carrier off it, as well as the handcuff key from his pocket.
“Alright, let’s go. Just so you know, I think you’re an idiot for getting involved in this,” she said, but her tone was much softer than her words.
“It might shock you, but I’ve been accused of idiocy before,” I replied. “Ah, is he gonna die like that?”
“Would that matter greatly to you?” she asked, studying me a moment before going on. “He’s Juiced. That tape won’t hold him more than a few hours before he manages to rip his way free.”
“Juiced?” I asked.
She hesitated before answering. “He is an agents in rebus operative. Blacker than the blackest ops. His government ID would check out as real, but it isn’t. AIR agents take supplements, a special formulation of drugs that make them faster, stronger, and dulls their pain receptors. He’ll tear himself free, losing much of the skin on his forearms and hands in the process, but he’ll get out.”
“Are you juiced? Is that why you can jump four feet in the air and beat up steroidal maniacs?”
“Do you know what they say about you in school? That your aunt is a real witch and that you are too?” she countered, stuffing the gun and mags into her bookbag, which she retrieved from the car.
So there it was. It had always been just a matter of time before we got there.
“I’ll tell you what. You answer one of my questions and I’ll answer one for you,” I said, watching as she went back to the man and pulled a folding knife from his front pocket.
“I have a lot more than one question,” she replied, moving toward the car and flicking the blade open one-handed.
“Me too. So we go back and forth,” I said.
She jammed the blade into the front right car tire, deflating it completely.
“Okay, so are you a witch?” she asked, voice casual as if it was a common question.
I moved over to the hood of the car, placed my right palm on the still warm surface, and concentrated. A moment later, sparks flashed out of the engine compartment, followed by smoke, which dissipated and drifted away after a moment.
“Yes,” I answered. “Are you Juiced like him?”
She was staring at the smoke over the car as she answered. “No, I’m different. I don’t need drugs.”
I waved one hand toward the driveway, toward my waiting car and she nodded, moving up beside me.
“What is a witch?” she asked, which I found interesting. The few times I’ve gotten this far with people, they always asked if witches were real, even after a demonstration like the car engine. But she was looking for a definition.
“Humans lost the arms race against the rest of the animal kingdom right off the bat. Instead, our ancestors went for brain power, which, as it turned out, was the right move. Part of what came along with our problem-solving capability was a group of mental abilities that allowed us to survive despite our crappy senses. Most of those abilities have withered from disuse, but they are present in a latent kind of way in most humans. More in some than others. The modern world tends to label them as psychic abilities when it acknowledges them at all. Science can’t figure them out or replicate them in a lab, so it says they aren’t real. Yet countless examples happen daily. The mother who knows her kid is in trouble, the teenage girls who call each other at exactly the same time, the businessman who seems to have a sixth sense for negotiating. Some people and cultures haven’t forgotten these abilities. Some actually work to develop them and maybe even choose mates to concentrate them.”
We rounded a curve, and my car came into view.
“So your aunt and your parents were all witches?” she asked, seeming to have no problem with the concept.
“Nope, no fair. My turn for a question,” I answered.
“But your answer was incomplete,” she protested, climbing into the passenger seat of the Beast.
“Hmm. You have a point. Yes, my aunt is a witch, and so was Mom. I don’t know much about my biological father, so I can’
t answer for him.”
“He died when you were little?”
I waved a finger back and forth. “Un uh. My turn,” I said. She nodded grudgingly.
“Is your name Sarah or Caeco?”
That surprised her. I didn’t know what she thought I was going to ask, but that was obviously not it by the way her head pulled back as she flashed a look my way.
“It’s Caeco,” she said, now looking down at the dashboard. I waited for her next question, taking the time to grab a couple tissues and a bottle of water from the gear I keep in the back of the Beast. I also grabbed a clean t-shirt from my get home bag. I handed all three things to her. Apparently, she decided she wasn’t done answering my question.
“It’s an acronym. Chimeric Adaptive Enhanced Combat Operator. It’s actually my designation, but it became my name.”
She was quiet for a moment, which was good because I was trying to understand her answer. She had a designation, not a name? A hundred more questions flooded my brain as I thought about her name.
“So your dad… did he die when you were young?”
“I don’t know. He could be alive for all I know. See, my aunt and my mother were both raped. They fled Ireland and came here, where Mom had me. I’m the product of rape,” I said, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal, like I was born prematurely or something. My eyes were on the bumpy driveway as I put the car in gear and headed out. No matter how many times I said it, it still sucked.