The Lost Scroll of Fudo Shin (5 page)

Vanessa grabbed his hand.  “Time for us to be going now.  Stay close, won’t you?”

They raced down the stairs and broke out of the closet at top speed.  Stealth didn’t seem to be a factor now as Vanessa tore around the corner of the hallway and headed downstairs straight for the front door.  Jimmy slipped and lost his grip on her hand.

She skidded to a stop and turned around.  Jimmy saw the shadow behind her.

“Look out!”
Vanessa dropped as the man behind her opened fire with a mean looking gun.  Jimmy ducked and rolled to the side as the bullets roared out of the gun and bit into the wooden banister, biting off chunks and showering the floor with it.

Vanessa spun and swept the man’s legs out from under him.  He dropped and his gun clattered away.  Vanessa chopped down with the side of her hand on his neck and the man lay still.

She raced and grabbed Jimmy.  “Thanks.”

“Oh, no sweat.”

The brief glimpse of the first floor Jimmy got made him think a bomb had gone off in the house.  But it seemed like it had blown away from the house rather than inside of it.

Weird, he thought.

They zipped down the front steps and Vanessa turned left.  “This way.”

Jimmy followed her around the other side of the house and saw a small garden shed ahead of them.  He hadn’t noticed that before.

Another guy appeared around the corner and as he saw them, brought his gun up to fire.

“Watch out!”

Vanessa threw herself into a diving roll.  Jimmy dropped for the safety of the porch.

The bullets streaked along the ground, kicking up dirt and rocks as they hit.

Jimmy watched Vanessa come out of her roll and launch something small and black at the man with the gun.  It struck him right between the eyes a moment later and he dropped like a bag of bricks.

Jimmy got to his feet.  Vanessa came over.  

“You all right?”

“Was that your-?”

“Cell phone, yeah.  Now I’ll have to get another.”  She pointed at the shed.  “Let’s get out of here.”

They ran to the door, which was coming off the hinges and jerked it open.  Inside, a beautiful shiny black Ducati motorcycle sat with its nose pointed out.  Vanessa plopped a helmet in Jimmy’s hands.

“Put it on.  Quick!”

She slid onto the bike and cranked it.  Jimmy climbed on the back and wrapped one of his arms around her waist while he gripped the hanbo with his other.  The engine throbbed and Vanessa gunned it once before letting the brakes go.

They shot out of the shed.  The shock almost knocked Jimmy off the bike but he held on tight to Vanessa as she caromed over the lawn toward the dirt road that led into the property.

“We made it!” Jimmy shouted.

Vanessa shook her head.  “Look.”

Ahead of them, near the forest, Jimmy saw the vehicles the men had come in.  Two huge sport utility vehicles blocked their way, doors open.

“We’ll never make it!”

Vanessa gunned the bike.  “We’ll make it.”

They shot toward the vehicles.  Jimmy could see the men aiming their weapons.  There’d be no way they could miss when they got closer.

He closed his eyes.  At least the last twenty-four hours of his life had been exciting.

Vanessa shouted at him.  “When I say now, hang on as tight as you can, okay?”

“Okay!”

The motorcycle’s wheels tore through the grass and dirt, spraying it everywhere in their wake.  The flew at the forest now.  It felt like they were going a hundred miles an hour, even though Jimmy knew they were probably going much slower.

As they got closer, Jimmy risked opening his eyes and could just barely make out a small hill that looked more like a speed bump about twenty feet in front of the vehicles.  A thought formed in his mind.  

Nah, Vanessa would never-

“Hang on!”

Jimmy clamped down as Vanessa hit the hill, leaned back and lifted the motorcycle off the ground.  

They went airborne.

Jimmy shut his eyes again.

He could hear the shouts below them as the men scrambled to get into their trucks.  Gunfire erupted but the bullets hit on the tree branches above them.  

He could tell they were coming down.

They slammed into the ground.

The bike buckled and then bounced back on its shocks.  Jimmy blew out a breath.  “Oof!”

Vanessa steered the bike onto the main dirt road.

Jimmy glanced behind them.  He could see the trucks starting up.  “They’re going to follow us.”

Vanessa shook her head.  “I don’t think so.”

But Jimmy could see both trucks now single-file racing through the woods after them.  The bounced and bucked over the shallow depressions in the dirt road.

“They’re coming!”

Vanessa glanced back over her shoulder.  Jimmy thought he saw her smile under her helmet.  “That was a mistake.”

“What?”

Vanessa pointed at the handlebars of the motorcycle.  Jimmy saw her press a small red button on it and behind them, a thunderous explosion shook the air.  Jimmy watched as two massive trees fell across the road.

The first vehicle couldn’t avoid the trees and slammed into them.  The second vehicle rear-ended the first.  Jimmy heard the screech of metal crushing metal and looked back in time to see the men clambering out of their vehicles.  There was no use trying to go around the trees; on either side, the road cut through a small but steep valley.  Trying to go through the woods would be impossible.

Jimmy clapped Vanessa on her back.  “That stopped ‘em!”

She nodded.  “Figured it would.”  

But then another man stepped out of the woods, holding a long rifle in his hands.  He seemed to be moving very deliberately.

“Vanessa!”

She shook her head.  “Can’t reach him!  Use the hanbo!”

They flew at the shooter and then Jimmy swung the hanbo at the man’s head.  The impact of the strike took the man off his feet and very nearly made Jimmy drop the three-foot staff.  But he held on as Vanessa sped past the crumpled body and kept shooting forward.

She steered the motorcycle around a bend and then they were out on the side road.  Another two minutes put them back on the highway.  Vanessa brought the bike over to the side of the road and kept the engine idling.

She took off her helmet.  “You okay?”

Jimmy laid the staff across his waist and took his own helmet off.  It felt heavy and wet in his hands.  He realized he’d been sweating profusely.

“Yeah.”

“Nice work with the hanbo.  Another second and that guy would have put a bullet into each of us.”

“I didn’t see him until the last moment.”

She nodded.  “You reacted well.  We have to get out of here now.  Our best bet for staying safe is to get as far away as possible from those guys.  Understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.  Put your helmet back on.”

Jimmy fastened his strap.  “Where are we going?”

“You are going to the airport.”  Vanessa got off of the motorcycle and headed into the dense bushes along the side of the road.  She reemerged a few moments later wheeling an exact duplicate of the bike Jimmy sat on.  She brought it up on to the road and cranked the engine.

Jimmy shook his head.  "Wait-you're
leaving
me?"

Vanessa grinned.  "Two bikes, Jimmy.  Two trails they'll have to follow.  That means your chances of reaching our objective are better than if we stay together."

"Yeah, but I don't even know what's going on."

Vanessa pointed at the highway. "You follow this road for twenty miles.  Take the interstate into the city and you'll see signs for the airport.  Once there, put the bike in the long-term parking area and you'll bump into some friends of mine.  Just play it cool and they'll handle everything.  Do what they say and you'll be fine."

"What if I don't find them?"

"They'll find you, Jimmy.  Trust me."  She gunned her bike.

Jimmy had to shout over the roar of the engine.  "But I don't even know how to drive."

Vanessa slid her visor back.  "Jimmy, stop lying about what you can and can't do.  I know full well that you taught yourself how to ride that motorcycle you stole back in Chicago.  And as long as you keep your helmet on and stick to the speed limit, you shouldn't have any trouble with the police."  She grinned.  "I'll see you again before you know it.  If you get into trouble, trust your instincts.  From what I've seen, they're not half bad."

"Gee, thanks."  Jimmy glanced down at the red buttons.  "I don't suppose you have any more rockets for this thing?"

"They weren't rockets.  That's a garage door opener I rigged to detonate the explosives I'd planted near the trees."

He started to say something but his voice was drowned out as Vanessa cranked the motorcycle again and shot off.  In a moment, she'd vanished around the bend.  

Jimmy sighed, revved his own engine and then felt the tires bite into the road beneath him, carrying him off into the unknown.

Chapter Four

Jimmy kept his head down and steered the motorcycle along the side road for twenty miles.  He spotted the interstate onramp and eased the bike into it, throttling back as he did so.  While he rode, he thought about what Vanessa had told him.

She knew that he'd stolen a motorcycle in Chicago.  But how?  He frowned.  That time in Chicago had been when he was feeling at his worst.  He hadn't wanted to be at that foster home and the father had smacked him around once or twice.  The family wanted nothing to do with Jimmy unless it was to get their monthly check from the government for being a foster family.

They'd lived on the outskirts of the city in a rundown split-level house with vinyl siding that had been caked over with green mold.  The whole house stunk of cigarette smoke.  He'd been forced to share a room with the baby, and the place reeked like putrid diapers.

Jimmy had started stealing initially to feel like he had some measure of control back in his life.  But later, he saw it as a means of escape.  If he got into just enough trouble, then perhaps they'd send him elsewhere.  Or at the very least, his foster family would decide the money they got for taking care of Jimmy wasn't worth the frustration of making frequent trips to the police station.

He switched lanes, guiding the Ducati over to the right.  He loved the way the bike handled.  Not that he was totally adept at driving it, but he felt like he could have opened her up and easily gotten into the airport a lot faster.

But that would have defied the ground rules that Vanessa had laid down and potentially exposed Jimmy to police scrutiny.  Something he most definitely did not need at the moment.

He wondered if there were reports on the news about the orphanage.  He felt a lump in his throat start to swell as he remembered the brilliant flames that had decimated his home.

And his friends.

"I'll get the bastard responsible for this," he said to himself over the roar of the bike.

The sign for the airport came up sooner than he thought and Jimmy glanced down to find that he was traveling at almost seventy miles per hour.  He applied the brakes and brought his speed back down.

A giant jet thundered overhead.

And Jimmy almost missed seeing the black Escalade converging on him, its silver grill grinning like a lion about to feast on its prey.  

Any ideas that it might just be another car on the road went out the window as he saw the driver leering at him through the windshield.  The Escalade sped up.

The enemy.

Jimmy gunned the throttle and shot away even as the Escalade came thundering at him.  It had the weight to crush him into a bloody smear.  But Jimmy had maneuverability and he used this now even as his heart thundered in his chest.

So much the bad guys not knowing where I'd be, he thought with a frown.  Vanessa was wrong.

They split up
, said the voice in his head. 
Vanessa knew that would happen but you have fewer enemies to worry about now than if they had stayed together.

Wonderful, thought Jimmy.  I don't suppose you have any ideas?

But the voice stayed silent.  Jimmy nodded.  Thought so.  He saw two signs ahead, one for the straight route to the airport and another that would take him into a neighborhood close by.  He chose the neighborhood, thinking he might have a chance to lose the hulking truck.

He shot left at the end of the exit ramp and immediately found himself in a working class neighborhood of old row houses and alleyways.  Jimmy aimed the Ducati at a narrow alley and shot through it.  The Escalade followed behind him, crushing garbage cans under its bulk.  Litter shot up in all directions as the massive truck barreled closer and closer.

Jimmy slid to the right and gunned the engine to put some space between him and the Escalade.  But the big SUV engine growled and shot after him.  Jimmy put the bike up toward seventy again and hoped it was enough.

Where are the cops?

He felt the bump from behind and glanced back to see the Escalade nudging him with its front bumper.  Jimmy poured the gas on and saw the chance to turn coming up on his left.

But in order to make the turn correctly, he'd have to brake.  But if he slowed down, the Escalade would run him over.

Jimmy's heart pounded mercilessly in his chest and he knew he'd have to take the chance that he could make the turn without killing himself.

At the very last second, he jerked the handlebars and the Ducati seemed to almost fishtail him on to the street to his left.  The Escalade screeched on its brakes and attempted the same turn at speed, but couldn't manage the maneuver.

Jimmy hung on for dear life and threw his weight to the other side of the bike, willing it to stay upright. 

He felt the wheels scrambling for purchase on the road but then he got the bike back under control and glanced back in time to see the Escalade trying to get itself turned into his direction again.

Jimmy didn't wait.  He revved the throttle and shot away.

He needed to lose the Escalade.  But how?  There was no way they'd let him reach the airport alive unless he took them out.  But all he had was his hanbo.