Runner

by Roh Morgon

  The grey dawn has melted into palest blue, and as I watch, it fades and begins to glow.

  The glow brightens and turns to golden-white fire as the sharp edge of the sun peeks over the mountain.

  Entranced, I watch as the shining disk creeps upward to claim the day.

  Sunrise.

  I haven’t seen one in over five years.

  My chest near-bursting with emotion, I look across at Taz. The soft smile lighting his face is as bright as the celestial body above him, and he reaches out to touch my lips with feather-light fingers. Peace and joyful calm blossom outward from him to gather me within their gentle folds, and a golden serenity I’ve never known settles over me like the warming rays of the morning sun.

  He then shifts his body to sit beside mine. Together we watch the sun free itself from the mountain and take its place high in the sky.

  After long breathless moments, Spirit-Taz helps me to my feet and we join it, circling once over the pale sand below, and in less than a heartbeat, we’re back in the house. As he guides me to the couch, I’m surprised to see myself already there, deep in the sleep of the undead. I look back at Taz, puzzled, as he lays me down, then with a soft kiss on my brow, he releases my hand and the darkness rushes in.

  MONDAY

  CHAPTER 53

  For the second afternoon in a row, I awaken with a sense of restlessness and confusion, and a yearning for something I can’t quite recall. The only thing I can attribute it to is Taz’s blood. Thankfully its effect seems to be weakening, and I’ll be glad when it wears off, which hopefully, will be sometime in the next couple days.

  But from what he said last night, his blood might not be the only thing I’ll soon be rid of.

  I may soon be rid of him as well, and the thought of that distresses me much more than it should. Worse, I’m not sure if the source of that distress is him—or me.

  It’s shortly after sunset when Taz emerges from his bedroom, shrugging into his leather jacket.

  He stops next to the couch and stares at me for a moment, his expression neutral.

  I say nothing as I try to assess his mood.

  A flicker of sadness darts across his face, then he shakes his head.

  “Pack your stuff,” he growls. Yanking his braid from beneath his collar, he heads toward the garage.

  I quickly gather my things into the plastic bag, slip my jacket on, and follow him.

  Must be taking me to Isaac after all. Unless… unless he’s finally taking me to Alina.

  And suddenly, I don’t want to go.

  Puzzled over my unexplained panic at the thought of leaving, I hesitate as I step into the garage.

  Any further thoughts I have on my fate are drowned out by the roar of the sleek black machine, its chrome gleaming beneath the garage light as it warms up to a steady idle. Taz tosses my helmet at me and revs the engine several times, obviously impatient to get wherever it is we’re going.

  I hand him the plastic bag and he quickly bungees it to the handlebars while I fasten my helmet. I’m barely seated before he hits the throttle. The back tire screeches against the concrete floor as I desperately grab for him and hang on. When it hits the dew-slickened cement outside, the whole bike slews to one side and then the other, spitting tiny rocks in its wake.

  But Taz keeps control of the wild, steel monster beneath us, only backing off the gas a fraction as we tear up the driveway toward the road.

  I close my eyes and press against his back, positive that this time he’s going to kill us both as we race toward town.

  Wherever he’s taking me, he sure isn’t happy about it.

  The tension rolling off him makes me feel as though my arms are wrapped around a nuclear bomb as we wait at the stoplight for the southbound 101 on-ramp. Red changes to green, then changes to red again. Still we sit here, the only ones on the road, the Harley idling impatiently. Taz revs it several times, then lets out the clutch at the next green light.

  But instead of staying in the right lane to get on the freeway heading south, he veers the bike across the road and into the left lane and we take the northbound on-ramp.

  Somehow, I have a feeling that him changing his mind is a not good thing.

  And I have no choice but to hang on.

  We aren’t on the 101 for more than a few rushed moments when Taz exits onto Highway 37 heading east. Skirting the waters and wetlands of a small bay, we join up with Interstate 80 and continue east toward Sacramento.

  The coiled steel beneath my arms slowly relaxes now that he’s made whatever decision he was wrestling with. I loosen my hold slightly, take a deep breath, and let the roar of the motorcycle and rushing wind work their calming magic on me.

  As we approach the outer limits of the city, my nerves ratchet up again in anticipation of our journey’s end. But Taz doesn’t slow, and the overhead freeway signs name a new eastbound destination—Reno and Lake Tahoe.

  Unable to guess where we might actually be heading now, I close my eyes, lean against Taz’s broad, leather-jacketed back, and give myself over to the rumbling serenity of the ride.

  Crisp, mountain air and the smell of pines stir me from my semi-catatonic state. I open my eyes in time to see a green freeway sign flash by bearing the name Donner Pass. On either side of the split highway, trees and rock-studded road-cuts bear a thin blanket of white snow. The east- and westbound lanes weave along the pass like dance partners, drifting apart briefly over the steep terrain before once again reuniting to carry their precious steel cargoes side by side. When we reach the top of the pass and begin our descent toward the Nevada desert, the Truckee River teases us with peeks at its frothy skirt as it attempts to cut in on the asphalt couple.

  Memories and their associated emotions suddenly assault me as the pine-covered mountains and their intoxicating scents whip past us. Yet, as much as I loved my time in the Colorado and Montana Rockies, I can no longer think of those places without feeling the pain that came with them.

  And, as much as I yearn for Nicolas, I’m beginning to wish I’d never left the oak forests and rolling hills of California an eternity ago.

  Because I’m no longer sure it was worth it. I’m no longer sure he was worth it.

  I feel adrift, cut loose from my moorings as the current takes me wherever it wills. And the current right now deftly steers a big Harley through a series of descending curves, and I lean with it, and my rebellious body wants to keep leaning with it, to learn its song and its secrets and its joys.

  Worse, the connection between us seems to be more than just through his blood, and though Taz has done nothing to deserve it, my growing attraction to him is becoming difficult to deny.

  Shutting my eyes once again, I shift slightly to one side, away from the sheltering back, and allow the full force of the wind to rip away my thoughts.

  A loud, popping backfire from the engine accompanies our final descent into Reno. The Nevada desert, though not as cold as the Sierra Nevada Mountains, still holds its own November chill. As we approach the bright lights of the state’s second largest city-that-never-sleeps, I wonder how I’ll cope with the bombardment of sights, sounds, and odors that go along with one of the West’s premiere gambling centers.

  That fear is allayed when Taz blows right through the city and toward the desert.

  A very empty desert.

  The new fear is much worse.

  At the far edge of town, Taz turns off, and within a few blocks, pulls up to a storage facility gate, then jabs his fingers into the electronic code box. We roll through the opening and cruise past several aisles before turning down one and stopping midway in front of a garage-style door that looks just like all the other doors lining the way.

  I slip off the bike and wait while he opens the padlock and lifts the door. A rugged but non-descript tan, hardtop Jeep outfitted for desert travel fills most of the small storage unit. Within minutes the Jeep is outside and the bike is inside.

  “What about my stuff?” I point to the plastic
bag tied to his handlebars.

  “It’s not going anywhere.” Taz holds the passenger door open for me, his expression tight.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  Having no real alternative, I get in the Jeep.

  Taz climbs in behind the wheel and we’re off again, this time under 4x4 power.

  Heading north, we’re soon on a dirt road surrounded by nothing but passing desert scrub beside us and a glittering star blanket above. The moon hasn’t risen yet, but my night-centric vision has no problems making out rock formations and small mountain ranges in both the near and far distance. We forge through the darkness with headlights off, the Jeep groaning and rattling in protest as we bounce down the washboard and pothole-pitted road.

  Taz doesn’t say a word to me the entire time.

  My own brain fills the void with question after question. I don’t know what to think. He was clearly against doing as Redd suggested, and his apparent relief in his decision at the freeway on-ramp in Mill Valley indicates that he’s following his own game plan now—whatever that might be. I don’t know if he’s hiding me or planning to kill me. If it’s the latter, why take me clear out into the desert to do it? He could do it anywhere in the Bay Area, where there’s plenty of deep water in which to dispose of my body.

  CHAPTER 54

  Our wild ride takes on the character of a whitewater rafting trip when he slows, veers off the road, and cuts across the raw desert, leaving dust and flying stones in our wake. I tighten my harness—simple seat belts would be a joke in this beast of a Jeep—and hang on to the inner roll bar as we careen madly through grasping brush and maneuver around crouching rocks.

  He’s gone from trying to kill us on two wheels to doing so on four, and somehow it’s even more terrifying.

  After a breathless airborne moment ends with a jaw-shattering impact that would’ve obliterated any lesser machine, I catch Taz stealing a sly glance in my direction and realize our mad dash may not be as fueled by rage as I thought. But his expression quickly shifts into his normal glare and leaves me wondering just who I’m dealing with tonight—monster or schoolboy.

  As we approach the base of a small, flat-topped mountain range, he yanks the steering wheel to one side. We slide sideways in a flurry of dirt and debris and come to a sharp halt just a few feet from the edge of a steep drop into a ravine. As the dust cloud settles down around us, Taz looks over at me.

  I just stare back, speechless that we’re still in one piece.

  He chuckles, releases his harness, and gets out.

  Insane. Taz is one-hundred-percent, certifiably insane. And I had to be stupid enough to get on his bike the first time we met.

  “You gonna to sit there all night?”

  With a sigh, I unfasten my harness and climb out.

  He balances on the rim of the gully. As I step beside him, he turns his head to study me a moment, then gestures across the thirty-foot gap.

  “Ready?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he grabs my wrist. When he pushes out into the air, I have no choice but to leap with him. It’s that or have my arm torn off.

  Taz releases me as we hit the ledge across from the Jeep and takes off in a steady jog toward the mountains. I run behind him, unable to ignore the way his long strides eat up the ground with a grace you wouldn’t expect from someone so big. But he is a Chosen, I remind myself, and I haven’t encountered one yet who lacked total mastery over their body.

  Nearing the base of the mountain, we begin to ascend the lower slopes, continuing along the gully until it goes no farther. Without missing a beat, Taz darts up a game trail on the side of the formation and we keep climbing. The desert below us disappears as we head around a bend toward a hidden canyon.

  Though I should be pretty worried about his plans for me, nothing in his demeanor indicates he intends any harm. In fact, the violence he wears as a second skin seems to slough off with each step he takes, revealing an inner calm I’d not thought possible for him.

  The ravine far below ends in a box canyon. Ahead of us the terrain changes from steep, scree-filled slopes to a wall of vertical rock.

  Taz doesn’t even break stride as he shifts from sure-footed mountain goat to fearless desert lizard and heads straight up the wall. I try to use the same ledges and handholds, but his reach is much longer than mine and I slow to seek my own path.

  At one point when I cannot find a good grip with which to pull myself up, his hand shoots down from above me. I glance at him as I take it and am surprised at the smiling light in his eyes and the soft, upward curve of his lips.

  He slows his pace then, offering help even where not really needed, and together we make our way up the imposing face of the mountain.

  When we reach the top, I’m amazed at the sweeping view of the desert in the distance, its flat terrain interrupted by long spines of mountain ranges running north and south. The stars above nearly outnumber the black spaces between them, and to the east the half-moon peers over the horizon. The cold air is still, the surrounding night silent, and I experience the strange sensation of being on an alien planet.

  Taz’s dark silhouette stands out against the starlight, a part of the landscape like one of the surrounding mountains, and my sense of otherworldliness increases.

  How can something so unnatural fit so easily into a natural environment?

  Waving me over, Taz starts walking toward the other side of the table-topped mountain. I catch up to him, only to be brought up short by a sudden drop-off that appears at my feet. A flash of imbalance is steadied by a strong arm blocking me from the edge and I hastily step back.

  What appears to be part of the mountain we’re on is actually a separate mesa, its wind-scoured top over sixty feet away. The black, yawning chasm between the two seems bottomless and I shudder at the thought of toppling over into it.

  “Think you can make it?”

  “What? Jump across that? Are you crazy?”

  “Do it all the time.”

  “What—crazy? Yeah, that I can believe.”

  Taz snorts, takes a step back, and launches across the darkness, landing with at least ten feet to spare.

  “Come on, newborn. You can do it. If you’re worried, just get a running start.”

  He’s nuts.

  But I start sizing up the jump anyway. I haven’t really tested my full-Chosen abilities, not like this, but I guess if he thought I couldn’t make it, he wouldn’t suggest it.

  At least, I hope not.

  With a sigh, I take several strides back, then take off into a dead run. At the edge I leap and feel myself soaring like a bird, only to find the opposite side rushing at me faster than I’d prepared. My landing collapses into a tumble across dirt and rock until I hit something solid and come to an abrupt stop.

  I open my eyes to stare at a black boot and denim-covered leg just inches from my face. Disgusted with myself, I roll away and scramble to my feet, though not much more gracefully than I’d landed.

  A deep laugh explodes from the broad chest behind me. I refuse to look at him as I brush the dirt from my clothes.

  “Bear killer, huh? Did they die from laughing?”

  Asshole.

  But I hide my mortified smile as I think about how ridiculous I must’ve looked. And how much more I prefer the teasing schoolboy over the sullen monster.

  Shaking his head, he turns and walks toward the other side. I fall in behind him, determined not to repeat my mistake. When we reach the edge, he stops.

  Before us is another mesa, though much smaller. It can’t be more than about a hundred feet wide, and stands out like a little thumb surrounded by the thicker fists of the tabletops around it. Rock and soil from the gap detaching it from our mesa litter the ground far below.

  Taz stares across the opening, his cloak of serenity ruffled by what appears to be a momentary unease. He takes a deep breath, then another.

  “Wait here,” he finally says, and vanishes over the edge.

  I p
eek over its lip to see him leap across the gap and land on a narrow ledge of the thumb-shaped mesa. He sidles toward a boulder as tall as he is and, pressing his back against it, shoves. It reluctantly gives ground, revealing a dark opening behind it. Taz reaches in, the entire upper half of his body disappearing into the rock, and emerges a moment later carrying a large, rolled-up fur and a smaller leather-wrapped bundle.

  With both tucked beneath an arm, he works his way around the boulder and follows the ledge until he’s lost to my view around a curve. I continue to watch the tiny trail, waiting for his signal to follow.

  After several long moments, I dust away the rubble from beneath my feet, then take a seat on the rim and let my legs dangle out into space. A soft, cool breeze springs up and plays around my face, bringing desert scents unknown to me. In addition to the earthy smell of sand and soil, I catch fragments of the dried brush, rodent, and reptilian odors that make up the bulk of the life out here in this harsh environment.

  Combined with the lack of cover, this is the last place someone like us would want to be, and I wonder at Taz’s attraction to the area.

  A new scent reaches me—burning sage. Movement, along with a soft, low singsong chant, pulls my attention from the trail on which Taz disappeared and to the top of the thumb across from me. Taz is once again framed by starlight, shirtless and barefoot now, with long hair unbound and waving in the breeze, and standing with his arms upraised in offering to the sky. He holds the ends of a flute between his hands—no, it’s a long, Native American pipe—and turns toward the east. His muscular back to me, he repeats the chant, then faces south and again the soft words of an unknown language reach my ears.

  Except—the rhythm of the words seems familiar, like I’ve heard it before.

  When Taz turns in my direction, his gaze is far away, his face serene as he communes with his gods.