Chapter 17 Shopping Trip
Shopping Trip
At first Cass thought they were going to rob a Bi-Mart, which would be another novel experience for her—those were crowding fast and thick these days, and she was having trouble keeping any sort of balance.
Emotionally, or physically.
Bern was near-fanatical about keeping Cass and Trille out of bank jobs or knockovers. Leave it to the combat troops, he’d growl, and that was that.
In daylight, she was finding it difficult to believe she’d reached him and Apoc at all.
There was simply no way of verifying, and she couldn’t try again until…
when? It sounded like her kidnappers planned on driving through the night, if they could steal another car.
The very thought was exhausting; she ached all over, withdrawal from both nods and bumps fighting in her bloodstream and tissues.
The crowded parking lot on a sunny day throbbed before her like a too-bright movie screen.
Nothing was real. The idea that perhaps she was in a vivid, endless nightmare or a time-looping scenario gone wrong simply wouldn’t leave her aching, swollen-feeling head.
“Ammo and fresh transport,” Nigel said. His ring glinted, the stone oddly dull even in bright daylight. “Do not step outside safety.”
“No fear of that.” Ed, dark eyes half-closed as if he found the sunshine painful, studied the front of the store. “Don’t suppose you’d get me a belt with one of those big shiny buckles.” A slight twitch to one corner of his hard, pulled-tight mouth; between the two, he was far more expressive.
Nigel was unquestioningly in charge, and endlessly patient.
“If you wish to make that region of your body a target, certainly.” The line was delivered flat, with dry irony, yet there was the faintest tinge of amusement to his tone; the verbal shading shifted to respectful as he turned to her.
“Ma’am, you’ll need to stay close. It’s easy to blur security cameras, and we shall pass unnoticed so long as there’s no physical contact with any ordinaries.
I would ask that you speak softly, if you can. ”
She weighed the odds and utility of screaming as soon as they were inside, attracting as much attention as possible. “What if we’re noticed?”
“Then we’ll leave quickly, and acquire supplies elsewhere.” Nigel’s mouth firmed, his bright blue gaze piercing, and she got the message.
Go ahead, make noise. See what happens.
They could fight bogeys and move at superspeed; she was at a distinct disadvantage. Now that the blue sedan was stationary, heat accumulated inside despite open windows.
Play along. For now. Cass nodded and reached for her seatbelt buckle.
Nigel’s hand arrived first, covering the catch.
“Wait for Edward to open your door,” he continued.
“When we reach the entrance, we’ll separate.
He has his own task, and you’ll move with me.
Anything you need or want, simply let me know—but please, try to stay close.
There’s little risk of shadowbeast attack in broad daylight, but we must be cautious of other dangers. ”
At least he made it sound like giving information, instead of overtly threatening her. “We’re not going to hurt anyone, right?”
Nigel’s eyebrows rose slightly, the merest hint of surprise. “Not unless they endanger you.”
“They won’t notice us at all.” Ed was clearly trying to be comforting, glancing at her in the rearview—or checking behind their parking spot, far out in the lot’s boondocks. The trek to the front door was going to be awful.
Or so she thought. Once outside the car, they seemed to move in a bubble of reasonably cool air. Plus, the blasts of random emotion and strange echoing mental almost-words from regular people in the vicinity were oddly muted.
Cass could still feel the pressure, sure.
Yet an invisible wall held it at bay. She was tempted to give the protection a mental shove, testing its sturdiness, but the relief was so new and surprising she didn’t dare.
She also couldn’t help flinching every time a car passed, expecting a shout, a blast from the horn, someone noticing two scarecrows in rags and a wild-haired, trembling woman with criminal written all over her in neon.
And all three strolling into a Bi-Mart. If this was a dream, it was the kind that ended up with a schoolkid naked and missing their homework, in front of a class full of bogeys.
Air-conditioned comfort and the smell of capitalism burst around her as automatic glass doors whooshed open. Ed veered away, moving with swift long strides, his head up, jacket-tatters fluttering.
And nobody paid any attention.
Even the elderly greeter, standing on a worn foam pad just inside the entrance, didn’t chirp a hi there howareya, though she did glance at the doors with faint puzzlement and just as quickly looked away as a man carrying a bouquet of daisies wrapped in crinkling plastic passed within two feet of Cass…
…and hurried out into the glare, his forehead thunderously wrinkled, nearly visible scarves of anxiety simmering on empty air behind him.
Nigel kept walking at the same unhurried pace, somehow never passing close to customers or employees while leaving a spot to his left for her to scuttle along inside.
Cass couldn’t help staring, her eyes probably the size of dinner plates, as other people’s gazes simply skipped over her and the tall ragged man with a freaking sword on his back, incurious.
Like they weren’t even there. She was invisible.
“Not invisibility,” Nigel said softly, indicating the women’s wear section with a brief, economical motion. Cass flinched again—had he read her mind? “A very minor sorcery. They don’t expect to see us, ergo, they will not unless forced to. Perhaps we should have taken a trolley.”
We’re not in San Fran. Wait, did he mean a shopping cart? “Where are you really from?” She watched a pair of women browsing the clearance racks nearby, but neither made any indication of hearing her or Nigel.
“You mean my accent. I’ll try to speak American, if you prefer.” He stopped next to a multicolored display of cotton T-shirts, arranged in apple-pie order. If she picked one up, would it appear to be hanging in midair?
Breakfast turned to an iron lump in her stomach, but Cass was so used to nausea the sensation actually managed to be faintly comforting. “N-no, I just wondered.” She felt like a kid caught passing notes in class. “They really can’t see us?”
“They just don’t consider us important enough to look at. Please pick out some items, ma’am. We’ll try to make you as comfortable as possible.”
Like that’s going to happen. “Okay, what’s the budget?”
“Budget?” Fluorescent lights made the grey streak at his temple glitter almost vengefully.
“Yeah, how much are you looking to spend?” Cass knew how to shop bargains for her boys; a high hard pinch behind her breastbone was the thought that she wasn’t ever going to see Trille grin again when she handed over a pair of cargo shorts in his size, Grik nod thoughtfully when she scored the undershirts he liked, or Bern duck his head and press his lips together, fighting a smile when she ceremonially presented a violently ugly Hawaiian shirt for his collection.
What had happened to the RV? Impounded, maybe, after being peppered with bullet holes. It wasn’t the first time she’d lost everything she owned, but it still stung.
“Just choose what you need.” Nigel’s surprisingly wide shoulders stiffened, and for a brief moment he looked almost ashamed. “I apologize we cannot do more, but the moment we’re over the Divide and in contact with the Sons, anything you want will be brought.”
So that’s really where we’re going. Cass filed the information away.
Even by her standards this was supremely, utterly weird.
Unreality mixed with fatigue made the entire store spin, a nastily vivid Technicolor whirl.
The temptation to lie down on rough, industrial carpet and let the world do what it wanted without her was overwhelming.
But if Bern and Apoc were really alive, she had to keep going. Which meant cooperating with these guys so far as necessary.
Until a better idea happened along.
“My lady?” Now Nigel sounded worried, and he was now standing so close a hazy warmth touched her right arm.
The strange protection keeping all the noise and chaos of regular-people minds and emotions away was coming from him. Whatever else these guys were, she had to admit they knew more about the weird shit than anyone else she’d met, even some of the veteran bogey-hunters around Los Angeles.
Veteran being a relative term, since the job definitely wasn’t one with a retirement package.
“It’s Cass,” she heard herself say, dully. “Just Cass. I’m fine, I’m okay. Let’s see about getting you and Ed some clothes that aren’t ripped to shreds.”
* * *
The sensation of being trapped in a hallucinatory parallel universe was already overwhelming, and only intensified as the day wore on.
It became clear why Nigel told her not to worry about the budget, since he just walked right out the door with an armful of clothes.
Apparently the ‘sorcery’—and God how her brain hurt calling it that even though magic was a better explanation than any other—also kept shoplifting alarms from going off.
She couldn’t tell how he’d done it, either, though he said ‘dreamers’ could with a little practice. Your own kind will teach you, delivered with a tight little smile.
The moment they were outside a white Honda SUV pulled up, with Ed in the driver’s seat.
Tinted windows, air conditioning going full-bore, and the very faintest lingering tinge of new-car smell all added up to some poor stranger getting a nasty shock at the end of their shopping trip, and Cass’s conscience twinged hard.
Again. And uselessly, as usual.