by R. T. Lowe
“Are they following us?” Allison asked a moment later.
Felix checked the rearview mirror just as a black Mercedes sped out of the gas station. “Yeah. They’re comin’ up behind us.”
Felix was driving fast and recklessly, nearly brushing the bumper of a white Subaru station wagon with a back window half covered in family stickers—a mom, a dad, two boys, four girls, two dogs, three cats and something that could have been a bird or a hamster. Main Street was a two-lane road—one on each side—and the double yellow stripes down the center were an unambiguous indication that the local cops frowned upon passing. Felix saw an opening and gunned it. The SUV accelerated past the Subaru like a rocket, hurling them against their seats. They made it with room to spare, but a man driving a gray minivan in the oncoming lane gave him the finger. So did the driver of the Subaru, a middle-aged woman, most likely the mom in the sticker family.
“You know we can’t go to the police,” Allison said, turning to look behind them.
“No shit. I wasn’t going to. I just didn’t… I don’t… I don’t know where… shit! I told you I don’t have a plan.” He didn’t know where he was going; he was just driving, trying to put as much space between themselves and the Protectors as possible.
“They’re just going to keep coming after you, you know. They tried to kill you before. Now they’re back. You can’t keep running.”
He glanced over at her. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Allison bit her lip in thought for a moment before answering. “Let’s make a stand.” Her voice was strong, flowing with confidence. “Let’s fight.”
“Really?” Felix said, startled. “They’ll try to kill us. These people aren’t screwing around. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I can take care of myself. And I have you.” She smiled at him. “I know you’d never let anything happen to me.”
He was breathing a little faster now. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” His palms were sweating. He gripped the leather cover on the steering wheel, clenching and unclenching his hands. He checked the mirror. The black Mercedes was two cars back and trying to pass the car in front of it. This didn’t seem real. It was like a car chase on TV, something he should be watching in the comfort of Downey’s common room; something Vin Diesel should be doing, not him.
“There’s four of ‘em,” Felix said, talking for his own benefit more than Allison’s. “These aren’t regular people. The Protectors are assassins. They kill Sourcerors. That’s all they do. That’s what they’re trained to do. I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can do it,” she said earnestly, watching him. “It’s time to let these assholes know that if they’re going to mess with you they better bring a goddamn army.” There was steel in her voice.
Felix could almost feel Allison’s energy, her resolve. Goose bumps bristled up and down his arms. He thought he might try to run through a brick wall if she pointed him in the right direction. And he couldn’t help but think that maybe she was right; he couldn’t run forever, after all.
“Well,” Felix began, “we… we need to go somewhere, somewhere that’s not out in the open. We can’t let them surround us.”
“I agree. So what’s the plan?”
Felix wracked his brain, trying to come up with something. Then it hit him—from where, he had no idea.
“I got it!” He slapped the wheel. “Cliff Walk.”
“Cliff Walk?” Allison said. “Isn’t that place closed?”
“Yeah. You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but I have an idea.”
Chapter 59
The Cliff Walk
The Range Rover wheeled around the bend. Up ahead, two wooden roadblocks, each painted with alternating red and white diagonal stripes, blocked the road. There was no way around them. Felix floored it. Just when the words CLIFF WALK—CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC came into view, the SUV barreled through the blockade, leaving behind a trail of kindling.
“That’s gonna leave a mark.” Felix glanced up at the rearview mirror. “This is a sweet car, too. Probably ran Bill at least a hundred thousand.”
“A hundred thousand dollars?” Allison looked out the back window. “You sure he’s just a groundskeeper?”
He shrugged.
“I haven’t seen them since the last turn.” She sounded worried. “We didn’t lose them, did we?”
“They’re coming.” He was sure of that. He glanced down at the speedometer. They were doing sixty-two. When they’d turned onto Cliff Walk Road a mile back, he’d noticed a pair of signs cautioning drivers to keep their speed under fifteen.
Felix sped the car around a tight corner, the tires hugging the road. He let off the gas until they were through the turn, then he pressed the accelerator to the floor. The dense, unbroken woods edging the road were a brown-green blur. “Should be almost there.”
“I’ve only been here once.” Allison checked behind them again. “I think it was the year they closed it. When was that? Like our freshman year of high school?”
“Sophomore year,” Felix said. He stared ahead, trying to concentrate, only vaguely remembering the road. He hadn’t been here in years.
The Cliff Walk—just a few miles north of Cove Rock—was a mile-long path along the edge of a 700-foot sheer cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Before the earthquake, a thick plexiglass barrier had prevented careless tourists from getting too close to the edge of one of the highest sea cliffs in the world. But now the barrier, along with large sections of the walkway, was under water, having fallen into the ocean during the cataclysmic natural disaster that had caused fires and flooding from Canada to Mexico.
Felix tapped the brakes and veered sharply into an empty parking lot. The tires screeched as he stomped on the accelerator, steering the car toward a small clapboard structure at the west end of the lot. It came up on them in a hurry. He slammed on the brakes a little too late: The car skidded to a stop, but not before it bumped into a faded sign warning visitors not to stray from the designated walkway.
Felix exhaled sharply.
They couldn’t have announced their presence at the park more conspicuously; anyone coming into the lot couldn’t possibly miss Bill’s Range Rover. Okay, he thought. So far so good. He opened his door and shouted “Let’s go!” but it wasn’t necessary—Allison’s door was slamming shut before he could get the words out. They spilled out of the car and raced across the beaten blacktop toward the tottering little building that up close looked like a converted storage shed. A sign above a window blocked up with a sheet of particle board read TICKET KIOSK.
It was warmer than yesterday, but still cold, and the day was beginning to deteriorate. The air was bitter. Clouds ringed the horizon, thin and high, moving in fast like a tightening noose.
On the other side of the kiosk were tourist information signs with colorful photos of the Cliff Walk and facts about the volcanic activity that had formed the cliffs millions of years ago and a picnic area where families once ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and salt water taffy while admiring the majestic ocean views. They tore past the benches and tables and hurdled a rusty anchor chain strung between two weathered posts. The Cliff Walk’s nautical-themed entrance was a little campy, but fitting, considering the park’s location.
“I guess we don’t need a ticket!” Allison shouted as they ran along the rock path worn smooth by weather and time and the shoes of innumerable visitors. The ground was wet from yesterday’s torrential downpour, the puddles rippling in the wind.
Felix remembered coming here with his parents in the seventh grade. The wind had gusted so violently that day he was afraid it would lift him up and blow him right off the cliff. He remembered being scared, and his mom telling him he was safe—that the Cliff Walk was the safest place in the world.
He pounded ahead, keeping his eyes on the path, feet hammering on stone. Allison matched his every pace. On one side of the walkway there was nothing but open air and a 700-foot drop to the sha
llow waters and gray rocks below; the path simply disappeared. On the other side, signs reading KEEP OFF THE EMBANKMENT were staked into the ground at the base of a steep but scalable slope
The path was mostly intact for the first fifty or sixty yards, then it narrowed and widened at varying intervals in a zigzagging pattern. They clung to the foot of the embankment as the path shrank to sidewalk-like proportions. They didn’t slow down. Felix could hear Allison’s footsteps behind him. With only a bare strip of rock between them and the ocean directly below, Felix felt like he was running on air, keenly aware that death was literally just inches away. All it would take is one slippery rock, or a simple misstep, and that would be the end of their adventure.
The sound of tires squealing on pavement pierced a hole through the howling winds.
“That’s gotta be them!” Felix shouted and the wind seemed to blow the words right back in his face. The path opened up. Not much, but enough to lessen the sensation that he was balancing on a tightrope. “They’re in the parking lot.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
He kept running until they came to a long stretch of path that expanded to about the width of a two-lane road. He slowed to a jog, and Allison caught up with him. This was what he was looking for. He stopped.
“This should work,” he panted, wiping the sweat from his face.
Allison placed her hands on her hips, her eyes flitting all around as she breathed in the salty ocean air. “Here? Why here?” Her breath puffed out white and trailed instantly away.
“We need to get to the top.” He pointed at the slope. They’d talked about his plan in the car, but only for a minute, and he hadn’t gone into any level of detail because it wasn’t terribly complex. “But I want to see this first.” He tilted his head toward the ocean.
Allison nodded, the relentless winds whipping her long hair across her face. Felix turned to her as she took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. A single deep breath—the only indication that she’d just sprinted flat-out for five minutes. He stared at her, suddenly feeling closer to her than he’d ever felt before. Then he noticed something.
“You have freckles on your nose,” he told her.
“Did we just meet?” Allison laughed, a faint blush creeping into her cheeks.
Felix smiled back at her.
They stood there and grinned at each other, feeling the soft slanted sun rays on their faces, listening to the wind, the birds, and the rainwater from yesterday’s storm trickling along some unseen channels heading to lower ground. Felix felt no sense of finality. If this was the end, if they were going to lose (his mind, out of habit and past experience, continued framing everything as though it was a game), then wouldn’t he be feeling something? A dark sense of forewarning? Some sort of premonition?
Felix reached out with his hand and she held out hers, the fabric of her jacket snapping in the wind. He took her hand, and together, they walked over to the edge and peered straight down. The face of the cliff was almost perfectly flat. They didn’t need a sign to warn them that falling off the Cliff Walk meant certain death; there was no safety net, nothing to grab onto on the way down other than an occasional passing seagull.
The ocean was calm for the moment, no sounds of rushing water or crashing waves. The color of brushed nickel, the water was foamy and studded with whitecaps that appeared no bigger than drops of rain. Enormous salt-bleached driftwood trees sprinkled the tide line; they looked tiny, like twigs a bird might make use of to fabricate a nest. Felix watched the waves gently rolling across the vertical rock columns that poked their heads above the surface of the water near the base of the cliff. As the waves receded from the shoreline, seafoam surrounded the rock formations—the fluffy white stuff always reminded Felix of whip cream.
“Wow!” Allison took a step back, wide-eyed. “Good thing I don’t have vertigo. I don’t remember it being this high.”
“This is crazy,” Felix muttered, pulling her away from the edge. He stopped for a second, checking to see if there was any activity on the path, then they ran to the other side, ignoring the KEEP OFF THE EMBANKMENT sign, and started climbing. Time and the elements had taken their toll on the slope: the surface was as smooth as an agate. It was also slippery from yesterday’s rain. They scaled it quickly, dropping to all fours to get up the last few feet.
When the ground finally leveled, they stood and looked off at the forest spread out before them, growing thick and wild in the distance, merging with the mountains looming above the coastline. Nearer to the embankment, a field of tall spreading ferns flourished unchecked among clusters of evergreens and stumps wreathed in moss. The park’s employees must have been waging a war against the advancing woods; the casualties now reposed next to the stumps where they had fallen, limbless and cut into shorter lengths to be carried away.
Lying on the ground next to one of the stumps off to his left Felix noticed a section of tree with ends of equal girth, taller than Felix and as thick as a telephone pole. A chainsaw had cleanly shorn off its branches. The log wasn’t unique. There were others just like it littered across the field, but for some reason, this particular log gave him an idea. He pointed, silently willing the log to come to him. It advanced through the underbrush, creating its own path through the ferns which bent low and sprang back once it had passed as if bowing respectfully at the strange sight. He let it drop next to him and it crashed down on the rocks, settling in among them.
Allison’s eyes lit up. “How do you do that?”
“I don’t know.” He really didn’t.
“What’s it for?”
“Backup plan.”
She gave him a questioning look.
“C’mon, they should be here any minute.” He scampered up to the top of one of the larger rocks to get a better view of the path.
No one was there. No movement. Nothing out of the ordinary.
He jumped off the rock and flattened out on his belly, inching toward the edge of the embankment in an army crawl. “How’s this?” He looked up at Allison. “Can they see me?”
Allison ran around to the south side—the side the Protectors would be approaching from. She shook her head. “You’re good there. Those rocks”—she jerked her thumb at the bare outcropping Felix was concealing himself behind—“hide everything but your head.”
“Okay. Good. Get over here.”
She settled down on her stomach and wriggled her way forward until she lay down next to him on the cold, damp rocks. “So this is your brilliant plan, huh?” She nudged him with her elbow, smiling sarcastically.
Felix smiled back. “I hope it works.”
“Sometimes simple plans are the best plans. As soon as they walk by, you’ll…”
“Push them off the cliff,” he answered simply. Sounds easy. But was there an even easier plan? A better plan? He glanced down at his palm and thought about Inverness, and the lock. And the fire that sprang from his hand with a thought. But he’d only used fire—intentionally—that one time. Could he do it again? Could he control it? Or would it explode out of him like a tempest and incinerate everything—including Allison. He calmed his thoughts for a moment, and keeping his gaze leveled on his palm, tried to create a flame. Nothing happened. He let out a discouraged breath and focused harder, forcing the dull heavy sensation to take root deep in his gut. He felt it, finally, but no flame appeared. He choked down an angry outburst to hide his frustration from Allison (and to avoid alerting the Protectors to their location). He knew why it wasn’t working; he was holding back, afraid the single tower of flame might turn out to be a wall of fire as long as the Cliff Walk itself. He was too unsure of himself, and too distracted, to use fire. His original plan—the simple plan—would have to work. It worked on the Faceman. It would work on the Protectors. He hoped.
Allison craned her neck to see the path, her expression troubled. “Felix, um… hey… if this thing goes sideways, can you do something for me?”
The corners of her mouth dipped lower. “Promise me you won’t give up.”
“It’s not gonna go sideways,” he said earnestly, shaking his head. “And I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She placed her hand on his, squeezing it like she was trying to steal his warmth. “You promise?”
“I promise.” His voice sounded small and empty in the echo-less space.
They waited in silence.
He stared at the path, wondering if he could make good on that promise or if it was just another hollow commitment. The minutes ticked by. “What’s taking ‘em so damn long?” he grumbled.
Allison spoke in a rush, as though she’d been preparing a response in her head. “No way they missed the car. They had to know where we were going. You plastered the roadblocks. They must’ve seen that. And there’s nowhere to go around here but the Cliff Walk. I mean, the road ends at the parking lot entrance, right? And didn’t we just hear their car? That had to be them.”
He nodded. His stomach felt tight, cramping up like he hadn’t taken in enough fluids during a hot mid-August two-a-day session. He forced himself to breathe deeply and some of the tightness eased up.
“They don’t use guns, right?” she asked with forced liveliness.
“Nope.” He kept his eyes on the path. “Knives and garrotes.”
“Old school assassins, huh?”
Felix nodded, trying to stay calm, to control his breathing like Bill had taught him. He checked his watch. Then he checked it again. His eyes scoured the path below and the tree line above, but the horizon didn’t change. There was no sound except for the wind whistling over the rocks and hissing through the evergreens, stirring their stiff limbs.
They waited. The shadows cast by the late morning sun grew longer, stretching out over the wet ground. The wind bit through the thin material of Felix’s jacket and the sweatshirt beneath it, blowing all the warmth from his body. The sun seemed to be moving slower than normal, sticking to the same point in a sky that was turning misty and gray. The clouds were advancing, beating back the sun, draining the light from the sky.