by T R Kohler
In their place was nothing but a dull buzzing, the air sucked from her lungs, as she watched Kaia’s body go rigid. Her fingers splayed, the whip fell from her grasp, as Micah pulled the knife free.
Covered in a dark and viscous liquid, the tip of it no longer glowed as he drew back, ready for another strike.
As fast as her senses had betrayed her, they returned to Ember. Arriving in one tight bunch, everything about the moment descending on her at once, her focus narrowing to the thin stretch of ground before her. Aiming the front of the Viper directly at Micah, she gripped the wheel in her right hand, her palm sticky with blood.
Her left she kept curled in her lap, tensed and bracing for the coming impact.
An impact that arrived just a moment later.
Micah and the front end of the Viper both crumpled on contact, two entities that seemed to weigh roughly the same thing. The car’s momentum was stopped instantly. Slamming Ember forward, her torso made it to within millimeters of the steering wheel before the airbag deployed. Punching her straight in the chest, it drove her backward into her seat, stars erupting before her eyes.
Just a few feet away, the collision sent Micah airborne, his body twisting once through the air before smashing into the corner of the neighboring building. Narrowly missing the metal doors to either side, he slammed into the far less forgiving cinder block.
The blade slid away as he fell straight forward, landing facedown on the ground, bits of concrete and dust showering over him.
From start to finish, the entire battle had lasted less than five minutes.
When it was done, not a single one of the combatants was left standing.
Chapter Fifty
Ember was the first to come to. Cracking her eyes open, it took a full moment for her to piece things together, recalling exactly where she was.
Her arm ached. Her chest felt like it had been smashed with a sledgehammer, every breath a chore. The light outside was much brighter than it should have been. The taste of copper was in her mouth.
Raising her right hand, she pushed aside the half-inflated remnants of the airbag. Shoving it out of her sightline, she saw the impaled front end of the car she was sitting in. Raised her gaze to notice the cause of it still lying facedown on the pavement a few feet away.
Little by little, the events of the last half-hour, the last day, the last two days, all came back. Starting with waking up in the motel room, her mind rifled through the sequence in short order, almost thrusting her consciousness back upon her.
“Shit,” she whispered, her voice thick. Turning her head to the side, she released a stream of spittle dark with blood. Running her tongue around her mouth, she spat out a second wad, not caring where it landed in the wrecked remnants of the car.
Shoving the driver’s door open, she barely managed to keep her feet under her. Stumbling two short steps, she made it to Kaia’s side, the girl lying on a shoulder, the spot where Micah had stabbed her a gaping hole. Around it was the darkest blood Ember had ever seen, almost black as it stained her shirt, just starting to congeal.
“Kaia, Kaia,” Ember whispered. Hitting a knee, she put a hand on Kaia’s shoulder, using it to roll her onto her back.
The front of Kaia didn’t look much better, the tip of the knife having punched clear through. A small hole was still seeping blood from the right side of her chest, droplets of spatter strewn across her face.
Her eyes were open to no more than slits, unfocused and staring out.
“Kaia,” Ember whispered, giving her a shake. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”
A tiny flicker of movement behind the girl’s eyes was the only form of response.
“Kaia, come on,” Ember repeated.
Raising her gaze, Ember again surveyed their surroundings. The Viper was wrecked. Beside them, the whip continued to flame, lying like a macabre snake on the pavement.
A few feet away, Micah and Jonas were both on the pavement, the former motionless, the latter just beginning to stir.
Giving Kaia one more shake, Ember stood. Running as best she could manage, she made her way to Bob’s VW Bus, blood smearing against the door and window as she fell into it, fighting her way inside.
Tossing her body onto the stiff seat, she ran her fingers over the ignition, finding it empty.
“Damn it,” she whispered, going next to the visor. Flipping it down, she found it empty too. “Keys. Where the hell are the keys?”
“Ashtray.”
The voice was low and frightened, but it was enough to send a jolt through Ember. Adrenaline pulsated through her as she jerked, twisting herself behind the wheel. Balling her right hand into a fist, she turned, ready to lash out at whoever was there.
“Bob, you bastard,” she managed, her eyes focusing on the man curled up on the middle bench seat. Barely large enough to contain his size, he held up his hands before him, his face twisted away, cowering.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything. Just get me out of here. You can keep the thirty-five years.”
Slowly lowering her fist, Ember again turned back to the scene outside.
Kaia was exactly as Ember had left her. Eyes aimed to the sky, she hadn’t budged an inch.
Just beyond her, Jonas had managed to pull a hand beneath his body, making a feeble attempt to draw himself upright.
She didn’t have much time.
“Where’s the box?” Ember asked.
Hooking a finger, Bob pointed toward the floorboards. “Under the seat.”
Flicking her gaze down, Ember could just barely see the front corner sticking out from under the tail of his brightly colored robe.
“Get up here and get this thing started,” Ember said. “Be ready to drive, and so help me, if you even think of leaving-”
Allowing the threat to dangle, Ember made her way back outside. Her mind having cleared a bit from the sudden surprise of seeing Bob, she went straight to Kaia. Resuming her post beside her, she grasped a shoulder, giving her another shake.
This time, the move registered a bit more, the girl’s lips parting as she looked up to Ember.
“The box?”
“Safe,” Ember said. “Come on. We have to go.”
Kaia shook her head slightly, her blond hair shifting under her head. “Can’t.”
“You have to,” Ember whispered. Lifting her focus again, she could see Jonas had now raised his head to stare at her. As unfocused as Kaia, he was blinking rapidly, fighting for his bearings.
“Go,” Kaia said. “Take whip. Take bag. Go.”
“Stop,” Jonas managed, pulling Ember’s attention toward him. Pressing both palms to the ground, he lifted his upper body from the pavement, his damaged leg extended at an angle beneath him.
“Go,” Kaia repeated, her voice more forceful, almost a sigh as it slid out.
“No, I can’t leave you here,” Ember said.
Making it to upright, Jonas shuffled a step toward them. “You’re not going anywhere, Ember. Stay where you are.”
“Kaia-”
“GO!”
Ember didn’t know exactly how fast the car had been going at the time it flipped. She knew that she had been driving no more than twenty miles an hour when the deer appeared. She knew that they had picked up speed as they began to spin.
But she never would have guessed they had gained enough momentum to flip them one and a half times.
The car came to a stop upside down in the middle of the road. Hanging from her seatbelt, an odd assortment of coins, trash, and other detritus dotted the ceiling above her. Bits of it clung to her coat, lodging in her hair.
In the air was an acrid scent, like the engine had blown something and was now piping the odor into the car.
On every side, the roof and sides had been mashed inward, bent out of shape. The front windshield was permeated with starfish punctures, thousands of tiny cracks spiraling out from them, tensile strength the only things keeping it from rain
ing down bits of glass all over them.
Stars flashed behind Ember’s eyelids each time she blinked. Her nose ached, the front of the airbag protruding from the steering wheel stained crimson.
Lifting her hands to her face, she dabbed at her forehead and cheeks, her fingertips coming back sticky with blood.
“Emory?” she managed, her voice little more than a croak. Blinking hard, she opened her eyes wide, turning her gaze to the side.
Less than two feet away, her son hung suspended beside her. Eyes closed, his head sagged, listing to the side. Above him, his shaggy hair reached almost to the ceiling, four inches of blond trying in vain to make it to the ground.
“Emory!” she said a second time, a bit of franticness creeping into her voice. Reaching out, she grabbed him by the shoulder, giving her son a shake.
When no response came, she moved for his face, bloody fingerprints standing stark against his pale skin as she slapped lightly at his jaw.
“Emory! Talk to me, buddy!”
One time after another, she swatted him, each growing progressively harder, the sound swallowed up by the harrowing whine of the music continuing to play.
Hot tears came to Ember’s eyes, spilling from the corners and moving toward her eyebrows. Her breath grew short, each a ragged rasp as she pulled her fingers back.
Her right hand she put against the ceiling, using it as a brace. With her left, she went to the hasp of her seatbelt, giving no thought as she pressed it down, the metal buckle releasing.
Aided by gravity, her weight sagged, supported by her hand pressed into the ceiling and her knees trapped beneath the steering wheel.
“Stay with me, Emory. Listen to my voice. Stay with me.”
Much like the headlights piercing the snow earlier, creating nothing more than a singular tunnel, Ember narrowed her focus down only to the entirely necessary.
Her nose was broken. A persistent pain each time she drew in a breath meant she’d likely snapped a rib.
Those things didn’t matter. All that did was getting out of the car. Making it to her son. Pulling him to safety and getting them off the road.
Right hand still pressed tight against the ceiling, Ember reached out with her left. The first thing she felt was the cool chill of glass, using it as a starting point and working her way down.
A moment later, she found the lever for the door. Pulling it back, she pushed as hard as she could, the metal gate making it no farther than a couple of inches before stopping, the whine of hinges scraping finding her ears.
“Emory, you hear me, buddy? Mom’s coming.”
A hot iron jabbed into Ember’s side as she forced her knees out from beneath the wheel. Pressing them tight to the door, she braced her body against the roof, clenching her core as she pushed out.
For the briefest of moments, it felt like the metal was too mangled to open. Like it was going to fight back against her, keeping her locked inside, forced to try to help her son while trapped in the confined space.
Saliva rolled through her clenched teeth, sliding over the blood already beginning to dry on her cheeks, as she pressed a second time. A deep and guttural moan slid from her diaphragm as she pushed with all she had, bright lights popping behind her lids as she shoved.
Icy chill flooded into the car as the door gave way, falling back from her knees, dropping her body to her side.
Again, she could feel agony pass through her as she worked herself over, rolling onto all fours, her hands and knees pressed into the ceiling of the car. Crawling backward, she inched her way out, wind and snow slapping against the exposed skin between her coat and jeans.
“I’ll be right back,” she whispered, staring across at her unmoving son. “You stay right there.”
Every physiological function Ember had seemed to be off as she pulled herself free from the car. Slush saturated her clothes, sapping the heat from her body as she made it to her feet, the world seeming to be tilted on a side.
Making it no farther than a single step before her feet began to slide beneath her, Ember leaned her weight against the upturned car. Using it as a support, she worked her way around the front door, her feet cutting trenches through the precipitation covering the ground.
This was not how things were supposed to be. Her marriage wasn’t supposed to have ended, putting her out on this country road in such conditions. Her son wasn’t supposed to have been told he was getting a new mother, meaning she wasn’t paying attention the way she should have been.
Every possible thought, every fear, that Ember had as a mother raced to the surface. Flashing through her mind, they caused the tears to grow thicker, the moisture freezing to her eyelashes as she stumbled past the passenger headlight.
Sliding to her knees, she could feel jabs of frigid cold pass through her clothes as she clutched the outer handle of Emory’s door. Gripping it in both hands, she jerked back as hard as she could.
A sound just as ugly as the one made by her own door screamed out, bent metal rubbing against itself as she clamped her teeth and pulled back.
Making it no more than a foot, she gave up on tugging any further. Twisting herself to the side, she slid a shoulder in through the gap, her face just inches from her son.
All air slid from her lungs as Ember saw the right side of his face for the first time. Unlike her, which had taken the impact head-on, crumpling her nose against the airbag, the angle of the car had pulled him to the side.
Impact had been right at the temple, leaving a divot almost a quarter-inch deep, dark blood streaking down out of it, matting his thick hair against his skull.
“Oh, no,” she whispered, the urge to vomit rising in her stomach. “No, no, no.”
More moisture came to her eyes, so thick she could barely see. Leaning forward, she put her nose against her son’s, a hand rising to his opposite cheek, touching his still-warm face.
“You hang in here, buddy. I’m going to get you out of here, and I’m going to get us help.”
Blinking hard, she ran her gaze over the mashed and cluttered interior of the car, searching in vain for her phone.
“Help,” she whispered. “Please, God, Buddha, Odin, Krishna, Lucifer, anybody. Help.”
Chapter Fifty-One
More than a day had passed since Typhon had managed to do much more than stare at the phone. Sitting in the center of his desk, it had served as the center point for his focus, the ringer turned all the way up, his nerves firing every time the slightest sound was heard, sending him lurching for it.
The situation was bad. One of the worst he’d experienced in decades, fast approaching the incident that had landed Kaia on probation to begin with.
The fact that she was now attached to this one as well was nothing more than a bad coincidence. A small step up from her usual assignment, even giving her that much was because his other people with her level of seniority were already busy.
And he had a curiosity about his newest recruit that he wanted an experienced hand’s thoughts and observations on.
If he had it to do over, he would have bumped somebody else. It would have been ugly, would have definitely ruffled some feathers, but it would have been worth it.
For sure, had he known a Seeing Eye was the root of it all.
Pacing back and forth across his office, he had lost count of how many trips he made. His hands clasped behind his back, he was working through next steps, conjuring and discarding ideas as fast as they arrived.
Nothing seemed plausible.
And nothing made him angrier than feeling helpless.
The instant the phone sprang to life, Typhon quite literally leapt for it. Bursting off his back foot, he covered the ground to it in a single bound. Giving only a quick glance to the name plate, he pressed it to his cheek and said, “Please tell me you’ve got that damn thing.”
A sigh was the first response.
“I’ve got that damn thing.”
The words were what Typhon wanted to hear. The problem was with
the voice delivering them.
Pulling the phone back, he looked down to the screen, again checking the name scrawled across it, before returning it to his face.
“Who is this?”
“You ought to recognize it, we just met a couple nights ago.”
Raising his focus to the opposite wall, Typhon let his eyes glaze over. Aside from the other side having secured the Seeing Eye, this was about as bad of news as could be expected.
His people never handed over their phones.
“Ember,” he whispered.
“Yep.”
“Where is Kaia?”
A sigh was again the initial response. “She sent me away with the box.”
Skin folds appeared around Typhon’s eyes as he listened. “The box?”
“Yeah, with the mirror in it. Or the Seeing Eye, I guess.”
“And you have it?” Typhon repeated.
“You know, you seemed a lot quicker the other night when you were bartering for my soul.”
Rising to full height, Typhon felt his features harden. Much like he might have seemed a bit sharper, she seemed a lot less combative while standing on the side of the road.
“Yeah, well, I remember that working out alright for you,” Typhon said.
On the other end, Ember let out a pained groan. A series of footsteps was next in order, followed by, “Relax, I didn’t call to bust stones. I just got my ass kicked, my arm sliced open, and watched my partner get stabbed by some damn glowing Knife of Death.
“Forgive me for being a little light on the decorum right now.”
Opening his mouth to respond, angst lined up and ready to be fired, Typhon pulled up short. Focusing on the words she’d said, he superimposed things onto what he knew, his breath drawing tight in his chest.
“Tell me everything from the point you guys left with the broker forward.”
In short order, Ember did as instructed. She began with the negotiation with Bob, followed it up with their trip to the storage facility, securing the Seeing Eye and walking out to find Jonas and Micah waiting for them.
By the time she was done sharing the tale of their fight, he found sweat was lining his upper lip and the small of his back. His nerves stood on end, his nostrils flaring.