The woman pulled back her hand back and whipped it forward once more. Her cord of smoke withdrew, then came for me again, lashing toward my head. I summoned my right firesword and blocked once more.
I took a moment to glance back to make sure Sash wasn’t in trouble. Both shifters clung to the back of the trailer and Sash had started to climb down after them.
We swept out of the tunnel and out onto a long bridge. There, Heff was waiting. The phoenix was circling a section of road, fire billowing from his beak, creating a cloud of fire right in the path of the truck.
The cord of smoke disappeared, and the pickup retreated back behind the truck. With heavy traffic coming the other way, the truck had nowhere to go except straight through the flames. Just as the truck dashed into the cloud of flame, I jumped off the roof of the truck and into the gap behind the cabin, letting my fireswords disappear.
The truck charged through the fire and out the other side. I thought it had survived undamaged, when a pop rang out, loud even over the growling of the engine and the whine of the passing wind. The truck wobbled, then a second pop sounded, then a third. I had an instant to realize that the tires were exploding before the truck twisted onto its side. I was jolted upward, but I managed to grab hold of the ladder on the trailer.
The metal of the truck screeched against the tarmac of the road, spraying a wave of sparks before it. Between the sparks and the remnants of the fire, the night had brightened into a harsh orange twilight. The trailer, still attached to the truck, fishtailed wildly. The truck was heading toward the barrier at the side of the bridge.
Danny, I thought, and I jumped onto of the side of the truck. The door faced upward, and inside Danny lay slumped against the steering wheel, a trail of blood running down the side of his face. I reached for the door handle, then realizing I didn’t even have time to open it, I crashed my forearm into the side window. The window smashed into pieces, showering glass down on top of Danny. I reached both arms into the truck, grabbed Danny, and yanked him upward.
I pulled him up about a foot, then he rebounded back down, the seat belt snagging him. I glanced up. The truck was slowing but not fast enough. It was about to smash into the barrier with the yawning darkness beyond beckoning us. Beelzebub. I dived into the cabin and fumbled around until I found the seat belt attachment and clicked it open.
The truck smashed against the barrier with a horrible grinding noise. I grabbed Danny once more and pulled. This time he came free. I wrenched him out of the cabin.
The front of the truck toppled over the edge, and I jumped. Because the cab was going downward, I had to spring extra hard just to get any upward momentum, especially holding the heavy Danny in my arms. I landed on the thin strip of road between the barrier and the edge of the bridge, making sure I was underneath Danny, cushioning him. I would heal, he might not.
I bounced hard, Danny’s bulk knocking the wind out of me. We rolled and Danny made some contact with the ground, but I protected him from the worst of it. When we came to a stop, I released him and let him fall off me.
I groaned, then turned on my side to see what was happening. The truck had disappeared over the edge, and the trailer was being dragged after it. The back of the trailer swung open, and the two wolf shifters jumped off.
Where is Sash? The panicked thought forced me to my feet. I lurched into a hobbling run, chasing the trailer which slid further and further over the edge of the bridge. Ignoring various hurts, I sped up. The trailer’s progress toward the chasm had no great speed, but it had a resolute inevitability.
As I reached the trailer, the back of it seesawed upward. I jumped and grabbed hold of the back bumper. The trailer dragged me high into the air, and I swayed below it, frantically clinging on with one hand. I clawed upward with my right hand until I had purchase with two hands, then I hooked my left leg up, managing finally to get on top of the bumper. The back of the trailer angled from vertical toward horizontal. It made climbing easier, but it meant the truck was on the verge of toppling over.
I caught a brief glimpse of Sash trying to climb up from inside the trailer, then the door crashed closed on her. I glanced back at the bridge. I still had a chance to jump back onto it, but I couldn’t do that with Sash trapped inside the trailer.
I hope you know what you are doing, Jerome thought.
The trailer picked up speed, sliding downward ever faster. I grabbed the handle of the back door and wrenched it open. The moment I did so, Sash sprang out. I released the door, allowing it to slam back shut.
I looked upward, ready to spring back onto the side of the bridge, but it was too late. The truck was in freefall, already twenty paces below the bottom of the bridge and picking up speed.
Beelzebub.
You need a new curseword, Jerome thought. A stronger one for when you do epically stupid things.
This healing ability of sentinels, do you know how extensive it is?
This is one way of finding out, Jerome thought. Wouldn’t be my choice. But what do I know, I’m just a dumb necklace.
My jacket blew up around my ears as we continued to increase in speed. I forced it back down and looked across at Sash, hoping she had a better idea than me about what to do. Whatever the strength of the wind had been when the truck was driving along the highway, this was a hundred times worse. Even trying to talk was pointless.
She reached a hand toward me. I took it, and she jumped off and away from the truck, bringing me with her. We stayed alongside the truck, though, moving at the same speed. In the valley far below, we were hurtling down toward a forest.
Sash spread her arms and legs wide, adjusting her body so that she was horizontal like a freefalling parachutist. I mirrored her movements, still holding her hand. With our new body positions, the trailer gradually distanced itself, falling faster than us.
We were still plummeting at an ever increasing speed though. From the way that Sash had thought to spread herself out, she had likely parachuted before. If only she actually had thought to bring one. My jacket flapped around my head, the zipper cutting against my ear and the left side of my face. The next time I jumped to certain death, I was going to make sure to zip up my jacket first.
I should be feeling terror, or perhaps having my life flash before my eyes; instead random thoughts were popping into my mind. This was hardly the time to be thinking about my jacket.
The treetops came ever closer. I made a yanking motion with my free hand, indicating that Sash should pull the parachute cord. Amazingly, she giggled. I could barely get a smile out of her most of the time, and here we were, seconds away from crashing into the ground at terminal velocity and she giggled.
With a hollow thump, the truck crashed into the forest. I released Sash’s hand and we both coiled ourselves into the fetal position.
Branches whipped against my arms and face. The ground rushed at me, then blackness took me.
Chapter 19
Thursday 04:10
Move, move, move, Jerome thought.
I screamed as waves of agony tore through my body. Leave me alone so I can curl up and die. In the state I was in, I wasn’t sure I could even curl up.
Look up. You have to move.
I managed to get my eyes open. Shadowy tree trunks surrounded me. I decided against checking out my injuries. I didn’t want to find out that I looked worse than I felt. What do you want me to see?
Look upslope.
I twisted my neck, then strained my eyes against the gloom, trying to figure out what I was seeing. A tree trunk cracked, and a looming darkness strained forward. Is that? It couldn’t be.
Yes. The bloody truck is about to squash us flat.
Us? I remembered that the last time I was this badly injured, Jerome had tried to possess me. You aren’t thinking?
Only if you force me into it by just lying there. Now move!
I rolled my body over, unleashing a scream that echoed through the trees.
Not that way, fool, Jerome thought. The quickes
t way to safety isn’t directly away from the path of its fall, but off to the side. Everyone knows that.
I clenched my eyes shut and waited for the worst of the pain to abate, then rolled in the direction Jerome wanted. Another scream tore through me.
I rested to allow me to get my breath back. How is this even possible? The truck fell first, I asked Jerome.
It fell upslope of you, Jerome thought. A gust of wind sent a shiver running through the treetops, and the trunks creaked alarmingly. Among saplings which are not putting up much resistance.
I rolled over again, then again. Each time, a new wave of agony shuddered through me, and my vision dimmed as I threatened to fall unconscious.
I couldn’t allow that happen. I sucked in jagged breaths, then prepared to go again.
With a sound like a whip snapping, a tree broke and the truck rumbled and slid toward me. I covered my head with my arms and waited. When it didn’t fall on top of me, I looked up again. A lower down row of trees had stopped its momentum. It still strained forward, and this row of trees was the last line of defense.
I rolled over again, biting down on the scream, then again.
That truck really wanted to kill me. First on the road, then falling off the bridge, and it still wasn’t done. Paint an evil grin on its front fender and give it a part in a Stephen King horror already, I thought.
Despite the pain, I kept going. I had no choice. I didn’t want to wake up with a face full of grinning truck fender.
I had almost escaped the truck’s shadow when I spotted a flash of red fabric. Sash’s blouse. Beelzebub. I twisted around to get a better look. She lay face down with her body twisted around a fallen tree trunk.
“Sash!” I shouted.
No response.
“Sash, you have to move.” She was sprawled right in the path of the truck. I rolled myself the way I had come, back toward her.
Remember what happened the last time you stupidly tried to save her when she got herself stuck in the trailer, Jerome thought.
I’ve no choice.
Just saying.
The trees shivered again, the truck inching ever closer to toppling.
I grabbed hold of a root and wrenched myself forward, then dug my fingers into the ground and pulled again, my body slithering behind me. My pain had diminished enough that I didn’t need to scream after each movement, instead storing up the screams and unleashing a roar whenever I couldn’t contain it any longer.
I reached Sash and gave her arm a shake. “Sash.”
Her head lolled back and forth. I saw a glimpse of bone sticking out from her thigh, and I dry retched, suddenly glad she wasn’t conscious. I still had to get her out of the path of the truck.
I staggered onto one knee, trying to stand, but fell again. I wasn’t ready for that. Instead I dragged Sash along the ground, ignoring the slash of blood left behind. I crawled forward a pace, then pulled Sash after me, giving her a mighty wrench because a piece of her clothes was caught on a root.
I repeated that again and again. Sash and I both became plastered in mud. My breathing came in heavy gulps.
Finally I decided we were out of range of the truck and stopped. That was easy, I don’t know what you were worried about, I thought.
The trunks of several trees snapped. The truck rolled down the slope and crashed into the dirt where Sash and I had been moments earlier. Dust and twigs splashed over us.
Sure, easy, Jerome thought back.
I didn’t appreciate the mockery, but Jerome did deserve some credit. Thanks for helping me and not, you know, forcibly possessing me.
Does this mean you’ll be nicer to me from now on?
I am nice to you.
You don’t think about what I want, only about how I amuse you.
How could you possibly have wants? You are just a bloody necklace.
No response.
What do you want? Jerome? Jerome?
Nothing. The stupid necklace was giving me the silent treatment. Jerome chose the moment when our mangled bodies were contorted in pain to throw a hissy fit.
I only cared because the lack of distraction forced me to focus on the pain sensors in my body, which were all firing full blast. Although having to move made things worse in one way, it had also distracted me from thinking; I had a purpose. Now all I could do was lie and wallow in the pain.
I had been trying to avoid looking too closely at either of our bodies, but from what I could tell, Sash was in worse condition than I was.
A cold wind swept over us, and I pulled my arms tighter around her.
“Getting your feel in while I’m unconscious, are you?” Even Sash’s voice sounded broken.
“What? No, I never.”
“Don’t freak out on me. I’m not serious.” Sash opened her eyes. “Do you hurt as much as me?”
“Does it feel like a million tiny razor blades are flowing through your veins?”
She nodded. “While each individual fiber of my bones has been snapped into a million pieces.”
“Then you hurt as much as I do,” I said.
“Let’s not talk about it. Distract me,” she ordered.
Without thinking, I leaned close and kissed her.
She gasped as she broke contact. “We’ve just fallen hundreds of feet, and that’s the first thing you think to do. Do you have that much of a one track mind?”
I shrugged. “I’m a guy.”
“That was the worse kiss anyone in the history of humanity has ever received.”
“I thought I was getting better.”
“The last time my lips hadn’t been shredded by tree bark.”
“Perhaps I distracted you from the pain everywhere else in your body.”
She managed a small smile. “Somewhat.”
I smiled back. “I think you are healing. Your face doesn’t look totally busted anymore. Close to symmetrical even, though it’s hard to tell under all that crusted blood.”
“Now that’s a compliment I can get behind,” Sash said.
“You still look like you hit every branch on the ugly tree on the way down.”
Sash’s laugh was cut short by a gasp of pain. “I hit a lot of branches,” she said. “If I’d known where the ugly tree was I would have avoided it.” She considered. “Or maybe not. Sometimes I wish I was plainer.”
I sighed. “Pretty girl problems. You wouldn’t like it as much if you knew life on the other side.”
“Maybe you are right.” She snorted out a laugh. “Tell me something that hurts.”
“We’ve already agreed that everything hurts.”
“Not physical. Something emotional. I want to be distracted, and that isn’t a cue for you to kiss me again.”
I looked at the wreckage of the truck in front of us. “Do you think that’s going to explode?” I asked.
“If it does, then you’ll get out of telling me something real,” Sash said. “Not otherwise.”
“I could throw a fireball at it.”
“By using your magic?”
“For a good cause.”
“I may be in a bad way, but I can still take you out if I have to.”
“You’re a hard woman.”
“The hardest,” Sash agreed. “You were about to say?”
I sighed. “It’s been two months since Alex and Jo stopped staying with me, and they aren’t coming back. Nevertheless, I haven’t touched any of their things. The room where we lived together feels like a mausoleum.” I shook my head; I wasn’t explaining it well. I tried again. “You know how parents often leave a child’s bedroom untouched after his or her death. Sometimes for years or decades after. It’s like that for me, only Alex and Jo aren’t dead, and I obviously am not even a parent to them. Which only makes it more pathetic.”
“You are right. That does sound pathetic.”
“When someone opens their heart to you, you aren’t supposed to stomp on it.”
“Maybe if you manned up, I wouldn’t have to.”
I smiled. I should have known not to expect sympathy from Sash. Still, it felt good to express what had been bothering me. The pain was easing and Sash fit snugly in my arms. “The loneliness of the empty room hurts, but the feeling of vulnerability is worse. I grew up in an orphanage, and learned I couldn’t rely not anyone else. Not the social workers, not the other orphans, not the intermittent foster parents. At a young age, I became independent, both physically and emotionally. My happiness didn’t depend on others.”
“The need to love and be loved is not a weakness,” Sash said. “It’s part of being human.”
I didn’t know what to say to that—it wasn’t the kind of thing I’d expected from Sash. “Your turn,” I said.
“For what?”
“You know what. I opened up to you, now it’s your turn.”
“I was in love once,” she said in a quiet voice.
“If you aren’t talking about me, I’m not interested.”
“Complete, all-consuming love.”
“And you had been giving me the impression you barely felt emotions.” I wanted her to open up, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about her past boyfriends.
“He was older than me, and I was sixteen when we first met. Others didn’t understand, but he protected me. He was one of a kind, the strongest man I’d ever known.”
“What happened? Did he run off with someone younger?”
“He died.”
My grin fell from my face. “I’m sorry. How did it happen?”
Sash shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She eased out of my embrace and stood.
“Wait, you can’t stop there. You haven’t told me anything.”
“We should go.”
“How are you even standing? Your thigh bone was sticking out of your leg only a short time ago.”
“Time heals all things. Let’s climb back up to the road. We can take it slow at first.”
I looked up through the trees. Even with the sky beginning to brighten, the bridge was too far away to be visible. I couldn’t imagine we’d able to climb all the way back up there in the state we were in. “Could we call for...” I touched the pocket which held my mobile, feeling the broken pieces of plastics and electronics. “I guess your mobile is as broken as mine.”
Fire Summoning (The Sentinels Book 2) Page 12