Chapter 8
Evans pays for our drinks and food, and I let him without argument. I have no idea how much money might remain in my bank account, or if the cash in my billfold is all I have in this world.
Evans drives us out of town, stopping at a gas station before taking to the desolate coastal road heading north. With no immediate threat to get my pulse up, exhaustion sweeps in, and before long I’m nodding in my seat.
The dream slips in despite the bumpy road.
A long, subterranean corridor stretches before me, lit by crystalline globes that radiate a cold, blue light.
The remains of murals cling to the stone in flecks of paint, but they’re too degraded to make out clearly without closer examination.
Some sort of hieroglyphs are carved deep into the pale brown rock, and my dream-self recognizes them as signage, pointing the way to various destinations.
I walk down the corridor with purpose. There are others with me, companions of some sort, but I don’t turn to look at them. We have to move quickly. If we’re caught, the consequences—
A particularly deep pothole jars me awake with a start. Night fell while I slept, and rain lashes the windshield and sidecurtains. The only illumination comes from the headlights, cutting feebly through the rain to show glimpses of the dirt road.
I rub my neck, aching from the unnatural position I’d dozed in. “How long was I out?”
“Just an hour. I was going to wake you soon.” Evans squints at the rain-streaked side mirror. “We’re being followed.”
His words jolt me into alertness more effectively than the pothole. “What? Are you sure?”
“They slow when I slow and speed up when I speed up. Right now they’re hidden by a curve…there.”
I twist around to see a pair of headlights appear in the darkness behind us. “Who are they? What do they want?”
“In theory, they could be prohibition agents tailing us to see if we’re rendezvousing with a shipment of booze coming in by ship. More likely, it’s whoever tried to shoot you earlier today.”
“I thought we lost them! How did they find us?”
The headlights gain steadily on us; in their dim glow, I glimpse Evans’s generous lips press together unhappily. “That’s what I’d like to know. I never saw them when I was watching you, and I took a circuitous route out of the city to make sure we weren’t followed.”
“Maybe it isn’t them—” I start to say, when the back window explodes into shards of glass.
I duck, reaching for a weapon I don’t have. “They’re shooting at us!”
“I noticed,” Evans snaps. “Take my gun out of my coat pocket. If you fire back, maybe they’ll slow down and we can lose them.”
“No.” I promised myself to never take up arms again for any reason. “I told you before, I’m not going to kill anyone.”
Our pursuers have no such qualms; a Tommy gun stitches a line of bullets through the roof over the back seat.
Evans’s jaw clenches as he grinds his teeth. “Fine,” he snarls, and presses the gas pedal to the floor.
The Studebaker leaps forward, engine roaring.
I turn forward in time for the headlights to reveal a sharp curve, following a bend in the coastline, and Evans swears as he fights the steering wheel.
Tires slip precariously in the mud, and for a moment it seems as though we’ll go careening off into the water.
Then the road straightens. I look back again to find our attackers have gained too much ground, taking the curve at reckless speed in order to catch up with us. “They’re gaining!”
“I know!” Evans’s eyes narrow in concentration.
Telephone poles whip past in quick succession, and the bumper of the other car creeps closer and closer to ours. The glare of headlights makes it impossible to see driver or passengers; there’s no way of telling how many of them there are or how many guns they have.
Their bumper connects with ours, and the Studebaker briefly loses traction, skidding in the mud before straightening back out. They must want to drive us off the road, then riddle us with bullets before we can flee on foot.
We need to get away. I have to do something; I have to stop them—
Something wells up within me, like an icy current from the darkest depths of the ocean. A howl of defiance, or unremembered rage, tears free from my body along with a wave of cold that turns my breath to frost.
The rain pelting the pursuing car turns to ice, and a sheet of frost instantly coats its headlights, hood, and windshield.
The driver hits the brakes, no doubt blinded by the frost. The car slips on the now-icy road, veering off and into a telephone pole. Steam rises from under the crumpled hood, and the pole wobbles, but remains upright.
I stare out what’s left of the rear window at the wreck, mouth hanging open as it recedes into the distance. A fragment of my mind desperately hopes no one died in the crash, but most of it scrambles to understand what just happened.
It felt as though something came out of me. As if I caused the rain to turn to ice and frost.
No. That’s impossible, against all laws of physics, let alone rational sense. If I believe that, then I might as well turn myself in at the nearest asylum and be done with it.
“What the hell was that?” Evans demands, his shock tinged with an edge of fear.
“I…I have no idea.” My lips are chilled, but warming rapidly. “Some…some localized weather phenomenon?”
“That doesn’t…damn it.” The car slows, and I twist back around in my seat. Ahead of us, the road forks, both options leading north, the right closer to the sea’s edge and the left heading slightly away. The roads appear equally used; either could take us to the vicinity of Hart’s Leap.
“I’ve never driven this way, and I don’t have a map of this area,” Evans says. “Which way should we go?”
“Left,” I say, the memory of almost sliding off the curve and into the water all too fresh in my mind.
The lefthand road climbs slightly, then dips to cross a low bridge over one of the many little streams rushing toward the ocean. Thanks to the downpour, the water brushes the bottom of the bridge deck, but isn’t yet high enough to overtop it, and we’re able to cross without issue.
Evans clutches the steering wheel in a death grip. Air howls through the bullet holes in the roof and the shattered rear window. “What happened back there?”
“I wish I knew. A downdraft of some sort, bearing colder air from high in the clouds?” I shrug. “I’m not a meteorologist, haven’t the slightest clue how the weather works.”
White teeth flash against his lower lip. “That’s…as good an explanation as any, I guess.”
I force myself to relax. I’m a bit surprised I remained…well, not calm, but in control of myself…during the shooting. Either my shattered nerves have healed a bit, or the immediate threat of death forced my mind to concentrate on the peril.
My ego wilts when Evans adds, “And a stroke of luck on our part, since you wouldn’t take the damned gun.”
“Were you in the war?” I ask, though from some of his reactions I can already guess the answer.
“I was. The 369th.”
“The Harlem Hellfighters?” If my memory can be trusted, they’d seen more combat than any of the White units.
“The first Allied regiment to cross the Rhine into Germany,” he says with well-earned pride. “Not to mention the men who brought jazz to Europe. My brother decided to stay in France after the war. Plays trumpet in a cabaret. But we were talking about you.”
My mind tries to stray to Emerson, dying caught in barbed wire.
I manage to rein it back. “I don’t know what I might have done that I can’t remember.
But while I’m in full possession of myself, I refuse to kill again.
If kings and generals and presidents want another war, they can go fight it themselves. ”
He shakes his head. “This isn’t a war, Mr. Caine, this is people very specifically trying to kill us!”
“Well, to kill me, though they clearly have no qualms about taking you with me.” My head aches. “Listen, I—”
We crest a hill, and Evans slams on the brakes.
Too late. In the headlights, I barely have time to see the tree lying across the road before the Studebaker plows into it.