Rook (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #1): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  By then, Revik crouched over Allie, his arms outstretched, protecting her, his eyes glowing a pale white the human wouldn’t see.

  The driver leaned his bulky form out the driver’s side window.

  “Hey! Wiseass! Get your damned girlfriend out of the road, unless you want to scrape her off the pavement with a spatula!” He paused, looking down. “And put some clothes on her, while you’re at it! What the hell do you think you’re doing, with the…”

  Trailing, he took in Allie’s crumpled form.

  Her handcuffed wrists had welts on them from the two days of driving, made worse by her fall down the hill. Her small hands folded together in a neat gesture of prayer. The ripped up uniform with its low-cut blouse and short skirt was now decorated with splotches of blood and caked in dirt, as were her hair and feet. She had a bloody nose from hitting the pavement, fresh cuts and scratches from the fall and she looked pale, and overly thin without her light.

  Looking at her, Revik realized she looked bad. Really bad.

  He was struck again by how small she was physically.

  She moaned then, regaining consciousness slowly. He felt his body react, enough that he had separation pain to deal with on top of everything else.

  “Help me,” she murmured. “Help.”

  It wasn’t very loud, but Revik heard it. He also saw the truck driver watching her moving lips. The man’s eyes widened, as he seemed to put two and two together.

  “What in the holy hell—”

  “Police!” Revik said. He pulled a flip ID with badge from his pocket, miraged it into a local configuration from memory. “Stay in your vehicle! This woman is in my custody!”

  Revik felt the worst of his tension dissipate as the man’s face calmed.

  He had blundered, but he’d contained it. He could still get her back to the car.

  He felt other humans around him start to relax as well, as soon as they saw the badge and heard his words. She had gone from fleeing kidnap victim to suspect fleeing police custody.

  Even so, Revik knew he didn’t have a lot of time. He shoved the ID back in his jacket pocket and bent his knees, crouching down beside Allie. When he glanced up next, the truck driver looked almost blank.

  Something about the expression there made Revik pause.

  Then Revik saw the man’s eyes roll up in his head, flashing with a silver light.

  Fuck.

  Without waiting, Revik looked back at Allie, shoving his arms under her jointed limbs, lifting her ungracefully to his chest before he straightened abruptly to his feet. He saw the truck driver reach behind him as he completed the motion, glimpsed the wooden stock of a worn, pump-action shotgun.

  Seeing that much, Revik bolted.

  He gripped her tight and ran, flat-out for the car.

  9

  ROOK

  REVIK SPRINTED DOWN the sidewalk, holding me against his chest.

  Unerringly rhythmic, his feet impacted the sidewalk as if he counted steps alongside his breaths. He held me close, and that felt calculated too, as if he knew exactly how to hold me so I would slow him down the least. When he reached the gravel-strewn hillside, he vaulted up the steep bank, sliding in its shale folds but not stopping as he fought his way upwards.

  I felt sick, dazed, unsure on which side I lived.

  It becomes clearer as images around me flash in negative… then the Pyramid is everywhere, all around us. Its silver threads shine like bright wires in rose-lit clouds. Tarnished silver entangles the lights of people I can see around us on the sleepy Washington street.

  Red eyes surround me, bodies made of wire.

  Laughter brings my own gaze higher.

  A face hovers below the Pyramid, and I recognize it as a ghostly version of the man from the diner. His handsome face morphs in Barrier wind, distorted by silver light. There is symmetry to those flickers of light, like film stuttering in a projector. The Pyramid’s shifting cells split and reconfigure, moving on gliding rails.

  It reminds me of a carnival fun house; I feel sick from the motion. The crushing weight of the silver light suffocates me.

  I see you! Pretty bird! Do you know who carries you on such swift wings?

  My chest clenches.

  My mother calls me her bird. She has since I was a kid.

  I feel Revik again, his arms around me, the steady beating in his chest. No one has ever felt so much like me.

  Terian’s laugh rises. I could tell you such stories about your new friend! Do you know what he used to like to do for fun?

  Images start to coalesce, movies that start once I focus directly on them. They draw me in, until I cannot help but look. I feel Revik there, and I know a part of my fascination comes from him. He and Terian stand in a cell-like, windowless room.

  On the floor sprawls a young girl with blond hair and inhuman, gold eyes, a beautiful face and Revik is watching her, his own eyes hard, calculating.

  The predator is there, but here he lives in silver light––

  A jarring contact met my head and back.

  I gasped, groaning as pain brought the physical world back into focus.

  Staring down at me is Revik’s sweaty face. His eyes are still glass shards, but the silver light is gone. The predator is gone, too. Fear lives there instead, faint but visible. It hit me suddenly, where we are. He’d set me roughly on the hood of the GTX.

  My back hit the protruding air vent on top, snapping me out, hard enough that I wondered if he’d done it on purpose.

  Either way, the pain yanked me away from Terian’s mind.

  I struggled to sit up as Revik walked to the rear of the car, opening the trunk with the keys and pulling out a black gym bag filled with something heavy. He reached inside the driver’s side window to unlock the door.

  “Allie!” he said, jerking it open. “Now!”

  I rolled over the top of the hood to the passenger side while he leaned over and opened my door from the inside. By the time I got in, he was already ripping open the black nylon bag. It struck me that the line of cars behind us had resumed honking.

  I watched Revik jam the key into the ignition, holding a gun against the steering wheel.

  “Put on your seat belt!” he said.

  I fumbled with the strap as the GTX’s engine rumbled to life.

  I couldn’t quite work the seat belt with the handcuffs. Revik put the car in gear. Then a voice emerged above the sound of the car’s motor. It took me a second to realize it was real. It wasn’t his, or something from inside the Barrier.

  “What in the name of Mary’s tits…”

  Jerking my head around, I forgot the seat belt and crouched down, looking past Revik and up through the driver’s side window. Two cops stood there. Behind them, a black and white slanted down the bank beside the fisherman’s truck.

  The cop who’d spoken stared at the gun in Revik’s hand.

  “You got balls, buddy,” the second cop said, unholstering his sidearm. He raised the gun, aiming it at Revik’s face. “Toss it out the window. Real slow.”

  “Sleep,” Revik said. “Now.”

  Both cops collapsed on the onramp without emitting a sound.

  I sucked in a breath, shocked at the clean indifference of the act.

  I didn’t have time to think about that, either, though. In the rearview mirror, I saw movement in the space by the fisherman’s truck. I turned my head right as another policeman emerged.

  My voice burst out of me.

  “Revik!” I yelled.

  The third cop pulled his sidearm. I saw the brown eyes flash silver as he raised the gun.

  “Seer!” I yelled.

  “I know,” Revik growled.

  His hand clamped roughly around the back of my neck, forcing me down past the bottom of the seat and under the windows. He took his foot off the brake in the same instant and the car lurched forward as the cop squeezed off his first round.

  The sound of the shot seemed to come late, a second after the soft plink as the b
ullet went through the rear driver’s side window. I turned my head, staring at the hole in the upholstery until Revik shoved me down even further on the seat.

  I crouched on the mat when I heard the GTX’s engine roar back to life.

  Revik threw the car into reverse, slamming into the truck behind us. Aiming the handgun, he fired at cop number three. The sound of the gun filled the car, making me wince as it exploded overhead. He hit the cop in the chest on the second shot, knocking him backwards into the police car so that the man’s arm and shoulder broke the passenger side window.

  The cop’s partner emerged, firing wildly.

  Screams erupted on the street below.

  I peered over the edge of the window, watched people run in fear, eyes wide, and for a moment, I see them through Revik’s eyes, a flock of birds scattering. Revik swiveled the gun towards the fourth cop, narrowly missing the man’s head.

  I felt him go deeper into the Barrier, and that time, either I am too close to him with my mind, or something else drags me in right along after him.

  REVIK HEARS TERIAN’S laugh before he locates him among the glowing bodies.

  Terian throws another cluster-fuck of silver, spinning lights at Revik’s head that same instant, a Barrier structure that makes the orange sleeper Revik lobbed at me earlier look like a blown kiss. Revik makes his energy flush with the background and disappears, something he can do even with a part of himself operating on the ground.

  He melts sideways and reappears, too late for Terian to redirect.

  The silver spinners disappear into the empty nothingness of Barrier space.

  I’ll kill her, Revik tells Terian.

  No, Terian says. You won’t. That’s the beauty with you, Dehgoies. By the end of this, we will have not only her, but you as well. You’re only a half-step from falling willingly, my friend. We can be brothers again.

  Revik focuses on me.

  He knows I am with him, somehow, but he can’t see me here.

  You will help us train her, Terian says to him. Breaking in newbies was a particular talent of yours, as I recall. Especially the females.

  Terian sees Revik starting to withdraw and calls after him.

  I will let you have her, my brother!

  In that heartbeat of Revik’s hesitation, Terian lobs another cluster, this time of images, sensations. In it, Revik sees my body under his, our lights merging as I open to him. That pain worsens, growing unbearable as he imagines himself inside me, imagines me wanting him there. It is a mirage––the whole thing is a lie––but it catches both of us off-guard and briefly, he is forced to untangle it.

  He snaps the connection and is met with another liquid surge of… separation pain, he calls it… that nausea I’ve been feeling with him, what I struggled with just that morning.

  Unlike with me, the feeling is familiar to him. It is something he understands.

  It bothers him, though. It bothers him that he should feel it with me. He shouldn’t, he thinks. The realization that he does, even after all this time, angers him. It creates a resonance with some younger version of himself, a place and time he wishes to forget.

  That anger briefly suffuses his light, until he replaces it with reason.

  He’s simply let it go too long, he thinks.

  He will remedy that, in Seattle.

  At the thought, heat flushes his belly, a flicker of sensual memory. I glimpse bare skin, a seductive smile. This time, it has nothing to do with me.

  The Rook laughs. You lie, Revi’! I know you… even if your clan friends do not! I see how empty this new life of yours is! Terian’s smile turns friendly, and Revik recognizes that too. You can do better than unwillings, my brother. Or have you forgotten?

  I feel the part of Revik that succumbs to that pull.

  Memories war there. A place and time when Terian was his friend.

  She will be my gift to you! the Rook calls out. Do you think your clan elders would offer you such a prize? Access to their precious Bridge? Do you, Revi’?

  There is only the barest pause.

  When it ends, Revik makes his light disappear, but Terian’s laugh follows him out of their connection.

  I saw you thinking about it, brother! I saw you!

  The clouds fade as Revik wills himself back.

  Back to the car, back to me.

  I SAW HIM come out of it.

  Crouched on the floorboards of the GTX, I watched him warily, wondering how much of what I’d just witnessed had really happened.

  My handcuffed wrists rested on the seat in front of me. I watched his face as he fired out the window again, his light focused on his targets. I heard the crash of breaking glass, felt him hit something he’d aimed for.

  I wondered why he wasn’t driving away. Even as I thought it, he slammed his foot on the gas, his hand holding the gun falling to the manual gear shift.

  Once more, his eyes phased, but it was gone as soon as I saw it, leaving only a tension around his eyes, a quick glance at me. The GTX leapt forward, throwing me into the edge of the seat. I heard more shots and peered back between the seats.

  I saw the cop in the road, firing steadily at us.

  “Get your head down!” Revik barked.

  Before I could react, he caught hold of the chains between the handcuffs, yanking me down forcibly. I crawled back below the seat to the floor.

  “Was that Terian?” I looked up at him, panting. “The guy from the diner?”

  Revik gave me the barest glance. “Yes,” he said.

  “How is he alive? I saw you kill him!”

  Revik jerked the wheel sideways. The tires thumped up over a curb, bounding me high enough to pass the armrest.

  “Put on your fucking seat belt!” he snapped.

  “I can either stay down, or wear a seat belt… pick one!”

  He didn’t answer.

  When I realized I didn’t hear any more gunshots, I slid carefully back up the seat, peering out over the dashboard past the plastic statue of the saint.

  Still holding the gun, Revik gripped the steering wheel with his other hand, edging it hard and soft as he maneuvered us across a pit of gravel towards a field that stood between us and the main freeway. I looked back at the onramp. He’d bumped us over the curb to avoid the line of police cars heading for us on the frontage road beside the freeway entrance.

  Slamming his foot on the gas once he cleared the gravel, he bounced us across a weed-choked stretch of grass dotted with broken bottles, plastic bags and scrub brush. I glanced at the speedometer, saw it edging towards sixty, then glimpsed a large rock and cried out, but Revik already jerked the wheel to clear it, jumping us into oncoming traffic.

  “Jesus! Revik—”

  “There are things I haven’t told you,” he said, over the screech of tires as he straightened the car out from a skid. For the barest instant, his eyes glinted silver. “About me. About Terian.”

  I swallowed as his eyes faded back to clear.

  “Is he here?” I said. “In the physical?”

  Revik barely looked at me. “No.”

  I glanced over as he wiped his nose. I didn’t notice the blood until his fingers came away covered in it.

  “What happened?” I said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. I’m losing light.” Reaching into his pocket, he dug something out and tossed it at me. Small and bright, it landed on my lap. It was a key.

  “I'm not chasing you anymore,” he said.

  I snatched the key off my leg just before he swerved again. Revik rammed the GTX over the path of an eighteen wheeler, sliding past as the man honked. Still watching the road, I unlocked the cuffs from around my wrists, dropping them to the floor.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He nodded curtly, not looking over.

  10

  MORTAL PERIL

  MY SEAT JERKED sideways when something crashed into us without warning. I heard a loud screech of metal grating on metal.

  I glanced ou
t my window and flinched back, seeing a truck driver in a blue flannel shirt staring down at me, a shotgun resting in the crook of his arm. His eyes looked manic, not quite at home, and I sensed more than saw the silver flicker of light that lived there.

  He aimed the shotgun down at the hood of the GTX.

  Before I could make a sound, Revik hit the brakes, slamming us abruptly into the car behind us and making me cry out. He created enough space to slide the GTX behind the bigger rig, pulling us out of range of the crazy guy with the shotgun.

  Taking a breath, I gripped the armrest under the side window and stared at the blurring trees, flinching at the view out the windshield.

  He spoke up as he weaved between cars.

  “We don’t have much time,” he said. “There’s a safe house in Seattle, but if we lead them there, it won’t do us much good.” Clenching his jaw, he glanced at me. “Any ideas?”

  I gripped the dashboard, not looking at him. “Do I have any ideas? Don’t you have a contingency in place for this kind of thing? Someone you can call?”

  He gave me a grim look. “You would not like the contingency, Allie.”

  Before I could respond, he swerved again, causing another car to slam its brakes too hard and swerve off the road.

  I watched through the rear window as that same car veered into a metal guard rail past the gravel shoulder, stopping so violently, the rear of the car rose in the air. I looked to my right, saw the truck driver pacing us from a few lanes over, the driver glaring at us from the other side of the cab. I couldn’t help wondering if he’d wake up tomorrow and wonder why the hell he’d been shooting at two total strangers, or if he’d simply not remember any of this.

  “I am keeping them out of your light,” Revik said, loud over the wind from the broken windows. “If something happens to me, they will try to take over your aleimi, Allie. You won’t have much time.” He gave me a hard stare, and I realized his nose was bleeding again. “If I pass out, hit me. Hit me hard… as hard as you can. Pain can sometimes snap us out. If the body perceives itself in mortal danger, the light will return.”