Warrior of the Ages (Warriors of the Ages) (27 page)

BETH CUT OFF a Mercedes on the freeway, and the driver flipped her the bird, adrenaline still pumping through her body made her hands shake. She surprised herself and returned the gesture.

Why am I angry? Afraid, yes, but angry?
Glancing in her mirrors, she expected to see Willowyth patrol cars materialize from nowhere. She exited the freeway, certain the first place they’d look for her would be the highway. Adhering to the speed limit, she wound her way through several streets populated with strip malls. Pulling into the parking lot of a pancake house, she shoved the gear into park. Resting her head on the steering wheel, Beth pressed a hand against her bony chest trying to appease her aching heart. She felt sick, and she had no idea what to do now. There was no way she could involve her parents in this, and she had no idea how far the arm of the cult could reach.

In movies this was the part where you called an old friend. Beth had no old friends. She was a professional bridge burner thanks to her inability to control her tongue. The closest she’d ever come to a friend was…Honor. The memory of Honor Monroe telling her that he loved her sneaked into her head, and she thumped her head against the steering wheel trying to knock the image out.

Concentration camp mentality. This is what cults do. They seduce you.
Beth’s stomach gurgled threateningly and she darted out of the car to the door of the restaurant. Her escape plan had a couple of flaws, one of which was churning furiously in her gut.

There are many places to have epiphanies, and folded over the toilet bowl in the dodgy ladies room of a dodgy 24-hour restaurant, was where Beth had hers.
Why did I leave?
Because they kidnapped me, because of what they are: Warriors. Covenant Keepers. Shades. She’d run because they’d given her no choice. The truth was that she was the same as they were. She was weird and scary. The truth was she belonged…with them. No. She belonged with him, and he belonged with them. That answered her question about where she was going.

Beth was going to go back. Right now, before it was too late.

It took awhile before whatever nastiness she’d ingested worked its way through her, before she could get to the sink and clean up. Then in her damp white dress with her hair still wet, she pushed open the ladies room door, and walked into the greasy sweet smell of all you can eat pancakes.

Beth’s heart almost dropped through the floor. A Warrior of ilu stood just feet away. Before she’d known what they were, how had she failed to recognize them? They’d been in her dreams even as a child. Their posture stiff and alert, like a crouching feral cat. Their arms slightly bent, hands positioned to grab a weapon, attentive, on guard, dangerous. Terrifying. Berwick looked like a molting orangutan even in his custom made suit. How had he found her? He stood flanked by two of what were surely his men, and just on the opposite side of the entryway from her, only a crowd of hungry families separated them. He glanced over at her and nodded and it was the singularly most threatening gesture she’d ever encountered.

Beth reacted impulsively. A man in some type of security uniform headed into the men’s room and she grabbed his arm, pointing at Berwick and his men.

“They didn’t pay!” The crowd waiting to be seated turned to stare, and the busy host and hostess immediately made their way towards Berwick. Beth darted from the restaurant, her stomach churning again. Her hands shaking, it felt like it took an eternity to get into and then start her car. She exited the parking lot a bit recklessly.

Beth’s convertible had just pulled onto the service road when a glance in the rear view mirror showed Berwick running out of the restaurant. He pointed right at her as though he knew she watched, maybe he did, her stomach roiled. She had just a minute’s head start to make it back to Willowyth, and banking on the fact that her convertible could move faster than the SUV, it never occurred to her the extent of her problem.

As soon as she merged into the north bound traffic, a black SUV roared past, cut right in front of her, then slowed down. She saw another one coming to box her in seconds before the big black vehicle pulled too close, riding alongside. What Berwick’s men didn’t know was that Beth had learned to drive in Jakarta. She knew how to get out of a box, slamming on the gas pedal and sliding onto the shoulder of the road, she raced in front of the lead car before he could react and then cut across four lanes of traffic. Beth almost got stuck while driving over the meridian, her tires spun and chunks of mud stuck to her car. When she finally entered the west moving traffic, more than one driver made a rude gesture and horns blared.

“Deal with it!” she shouted back at them. One of the black SUV’s tried to follow over the wet strip of grass, and to Beth’s satisfaction it got stuck in the mud. The problem was she hadn’t gone a mile down the road when another black SUV merged onto the highway and raced towards her.

“For the love of…” Beth darted in and out of lanes, taking to the shoulder to avoid slowdowns. She tried to ignore the hostility and blaring horns she was generating, and managed to inch her way through the rush hour traffic heading into downtown Cleveland. Several times Beth took exit ramps, only to reenter on the next one. It didn’t help. Berwick’s men had the uncanny ability to find her. The gas gauge pointed to empty, so Beth had to risk getting trapped and caught. She got off in a run-down neighborhood and simply raced in and out of streets, putting as much distance as she could between her and the black SUVs.

PARKED AT AN old gas station, Beth tugged her shoe off and lifted the insole. The money beneath it was wet and she peeled the bills out and tucked most of them into the strap of her dress. The other foot hadn’t fared so well, her driver’s license and credit card had left big bloody blisters on the sole of her foot. The slightly bent credit card wouldn’t work at the pump either, so Beth had to go inside to pay. Stomach still gurgling, she searched the shelves of the mini-mart for anything she dared eat, and emerged with a pint of milk, a roll of Tums and a banana.

Berwick was there waiting, leaning against her convertible. His suit was black, like an undertaker, his ginger hair fuzzy. Unlike the other Warriors of ilu that Beth had seen, he sported patchy facial hair and so did his men who stepped around the shiny black vehicle, parked behind Beth’s convertible. She backed inside the store and turned the lock on the glass door. Racing to the other side of the small store, constructed mostly of dirty windows, she shoved out the far door. An ancient Cadillac sat parked right by the door, the engine running and windows down. Beth tugged the door open, slid inside and clipped an old Lincoln Town Car on her way out of the parking lot.

The big Cadillac couldn’t manage the kind of speed she needed, but she focused on getting lost in the maze of residential streets. Twisting and turning through neighborhoods, she hoped and prayed that Berwick wasn’t making the same twists and turns right behind her.

“Honey? Is you crazy? Stealing my boy’s car?”

Beth squeaked; twisting in the car to glance at an elderly woman dressed to the nines in flame orange, including a pillbox hat with netting and sequins.

“No! I’m not crazy, I’m desperate. I’ll pay for the car.”

“Uh-huh. Why you desperate?”

Beth took a corner far too fast and the car slid, bruising several automobiles parked along the street. Car alarms sounded in her wake, but Beth had to answer the question.

“Because I’m being chased by a gorilla from Scotland and I’m afraid of what he’ll do to my—people—if I go back!”

“Mmhmm. That’s what you say.”

“It’s true!” As if to prove it, a black SUV squealed around a corner behind them. Beth clipped more cars as she turned down another street. “I’ll pay for those too.”

“You know you will. That was my cousin’s Buick. Go in that driveway right there, it cuts through to the next street.” The click of a seatbelt sounded and the old lady scooted forward, pointing. “Now cut through that driveway, and take the alley to the right.”

“Oh my gosh! Put your seatbelt back on!”

“Humpf, don’t you be telling me what to do. Take a left. You wanna double back to the gas station and get yer own car? Otherwise there’s no telling what Clarence is gonna do to you. You stole his baby, and his Mama, girl. You don’t want no part of that.”

“They might be waiting for me there.”

“Humpf.” Beth heard the sound of a cell phone while the lady in orange calmly dialed, she said, “What those boys be wanting with you?”

“They want me to build an Arc.”

“Uh-huh. Turn right there, by the house with the Christmas lights.” The woman’s voice rose as she shouted into her mobile. “Clarence? I’m fine. Shut up and watch your language. Any sign of City Kitty there? Yeah, I know they don’t know where our neighborhood is, but you see any shiny black gas hogs full of gorillas? Yes I took my Coumadin, answer the question.”

Beth decided then and there that she loved this woman. The woman leaned towards her, she smelled like expensive perfume.

“Yer clear. Take a left there, then a right on the highway and hustle. What’s yer name girl?”

“Beth.”

“Well, Good Morning, Beth. I’m Rita. It’s short for Margarita. See the gas station up ahead? You’d better make it quick. Clarence’s liable to go off on ya. ‘Specially when he sees what ya done to his baby.”

Pulling into the gas station on the right and parking beside her car, Beth hurried out of the Cadillac and opened a back door to hug Rita.

“You saved my life.”

“Oh, go on.”

Beth yanked the still damp wad of cash from inside her dress and peeled off the largest denomination and handed it to Rita.

“For your cousin’s car.”

“No wonder those gorillas want you. Is this real? Didn’t know money came that big.”

Beth kissed her, right on the mouth. By the time Clarence came storming towards them, she was sliding her car into drive. He gave her a gesture that she knew he’d be in trouble with Rita over.