Chapter 1

 

The old Camry labored as they took a sharp turn, its speed hardly diminishing. The tires, which Marcus knew from past experience were probably as bald as the man driving, gave an alarming squeal before the car shuddered, swerving across the faded double yellow line a couple times, and settled back into its belabored roar for the approaching straightaway. A small sign, its faded legend, State Road 189, flashed past.

Marcus held onto the overhead handle with a death grip, but could feel the grin stretching across his face despite the fear. Glancing over to his friend he could see the brilliant white of Justin’s answering smirk nestled within the black goatee and mahogany face, almost lost in the deep shadows. Only their headlights reflecting off the road lines, now coming in the staccato bursts of a passing zone, illuminated the interior.

“You’re going to get us killed or arrested if you keep this up.” Marcus strained around to look through the rear window. The running lights cast a ruddy glow into the wall of trees rushing away on either side. There was no one behind them.

Justin flashed a glance into the rearview mirror and giggled with a sound that Marcus had always found jarring coming from his tall, well-muscled friend. Despite the lack of pursuit, however, Justin kept his expensive shoe jammed on the gas, hunching over the steering wheel like a cartoon villain making his getaway.

“Right about now I’d welcome a little visit from Connecticut’s finest.” He shot another look into the mirror. “How’s your leg?”

Marcus shook his leg in the foot well, twisting it back and forth. It still tingled as if asleep, but nothing like the fiery pins and needles that had downed him when the fat man had first shot him back in the casino parking lot.

“It’ll be okay, I think. Still feels asleep.” He turned again to watch their back trail. “What the hell do you think it was, anyway?”

Justin giggled again. “Don’t ask me, I was too busy kicking the guy’s ass and dragging your squealing self into the car to pay much attention. Mother of all tasers, maybe?”

Marcus shook his head. It had been chaos in the parking lot as Justin tried to push him out to the car. The fat man had appeared out of nowhere, blubbering on about being robbed and wanting his property back. Marcus had no idea what he was talking about and was in the middle of saying as much when the big man had pulled something out of his pocket, and then there had been a brilliant blue flash.

The next thing Marcus knew, he was in the musty old Camry rushing down the highway toward home, Justin giggling beside him.

“Well, whatever the hell it was, you owe me. I’m pretty sure that shot was meant for you, asshole.” Marcus settled back into his seat, grinding his shoes into the matted carpeting, trying his best to ignore the foliage as it whipped past at high speed.

Justin gave him a hurt look, immediately dispelled by that lopsided grin. He pulled something out of his breast pocket and tossed it into Marcus’s lap. “I think he was probably after that.”

Marcus picked the object up. It was delicate, but very heavy. There were chains attached to a solid central body, with several smaller items woven into the chains like a web; a strange, elaborate piece of jewelry or something similar. He reached out and turned on the dome light, bathing the interior in its cold, muddy glow. Holding the thing up, he almost dropped it when he got his first good look. At the center of the web of chains was a massive blue gem, star cut and glimmering even in the poor light. The smaller gems were clear, like diamonds, but picked up blue reflections from the central stone. The metal was silver, but polished to such a high shine it sparkled almost as much as the gems.

“What the hell is this?” Marcus breathed. It looked like something from a movie, around the neck of a queen, maybe. “How’d you get it?”

Justin shrugged. “The guy had a streak of bad luck. He was flat, and the hand was winding down. He asked if he could throw it into the pot to go all in, and I let him.” The grin appeared again. “I might not have let him if I hadn’t been sitting on three kings.”

Of the two friends, Justin was the gambler, and Marcus left him to it. But even Marcus knew that it was highly irregular for folks in a high stakes back room game to accept anything like this piece of jewelry into the pot. “That’s not like you.” But he couldn’t keep his eyes off the flashing sapphire jewel.

Justin shrugged again. “Well, to be honest, it was down to just him and me, and he asked, and … well …” Marcus looked over and was surprised to see his friend’s grin turn a little sheepish. “I didn’t know what it was worth, okay? I was embarrassed. The way the guy was acting, it was like he was throwing in his first born. I didn’t want to seem like some rube in front of the other guys. You know how those New York jerks can get when they think they’ve got one up on you. So I played the big man, like I was doing him a favor, and we ran the rest of the game down.” He snickered. “You should have seen his face, though, when I flipped my cards.”

Marcus tried to force himself to lower the necklace, but a sudden flash of blue light blinded him and his whole body tensed. His hands burned as if they held live wires. His vision seemed to vibrate, patterns of light and shadow strobing behind his eyes. He had a feeling, even stunned with surprise and fear, that there had to be some sense or meaning behind the shivering visions.

It ended as quickly as it had begun, and Marcus dropped the necklace into his lap, his breath coming in harsh, desperate pants.

“He was muttering something over and over again about math, shaking that big dopey fat head like he was in a nightmare.” Justin continued, looking over at Marcus’s silence. His eyes widened and the car slowed. “You okay, buddy?”

Marcus shook his head. Whatever had happened, Justin hadn’t noticed. He mumbled through numb, tingling lips, “I hate it when you call me that.”

Justin’s smile returned a little. “Man, you had me there for a second. You looked like you’d seen a ghost or something.”

Marcus looked down again at the necklace, wanting to pick it up, but at the same time afraid. He generally didn’t like surprises, and that one had been nasty. Maybe there was a battery or something behind the big blue stone?

“Oh, damn.” Justin muttered, reaching up to adjust the rearview mirror. “Things are about to get even more interesting.”

Marcus turned, looking back down the highway, and for a moment stared at the oncoming headlights without understanding. As their own car started to surge away, however, he realized what Justin thought was happening. He collapsed back into his seat, checked his belt, and settled in.

“It might not be him.” Marcus said the words because he felt like he was supposed to. There was no conviction behind them, however.

“No, sure. This time of night, on this road, it could be almost anybody.” Justin hunched his shoulders again and the car rushed forward with a hoarse, angry howl.

“Might be Connecticut’s finest, like you said.” Marcus’s eyes were fixed straight ahead, a growing sickness rising in his throat.

“If they catch me, they’re welcome to everything I’ve got.” Justin flicked his eyes into the mirror. “You didn’t see that guy’s eyes, Marc. Back there in the parking lot? There was something going on in there I don’t think we want any part of.”

Marcus was not one to run from a fight, and he knew Justin felt the same. But for some reason, as his guts wound up tighter and tighter, he felt like his friend had the right of it. “Well, what’s he going to do, run us off the road?” He was trying to sound reassuring, but the question came out far too serious and sensible in his own ears, and his stomach twisted tighter.

For almost a minute the two men were silent as the trees streaked past. The old State Road wove gently from side to side here, following some old stream or colonial property line. There was nothing like the turn that had recently tortured so much protest from the tires. Unfortunately, the car creeping relentlessly up behind them was clearly in far better shape. There was no doubt how this chase was going to end.

“Maybe we just give him back the damned necklace?” Justin’s voice was sharp as he spat the words out without warning. “I mean, what the hell do we need with something like that anyway?”

Marcus was nodding, ready to agree, but his mouth clenched shut, and he found himself unable to respond. The knot in his stomach and the burning in his throat moved nearer to each other, settling with a sharp pain over his heart.

He wasn’t going to let the necklace go.

“Marc? How about it, man? We slow down, you toss it out the window, we move on?” There was a tightness in Justin’s voice that Marcus had never heard before. His friend, usually the coolest head in any situation, was close to losing it. There was something foreign in the air that made no sense. When they were younger, the two of them had been in more than their fair share of brawls. Sure, they were a little old to be getting into fights on the side of the road at this point in their lives, especially against strange fat men. But the panic in his chest, and the fear in his friend’s voice, belayed the confidence both of them should have felt.

Marcus turned, straining against the tight belt, and his lips pursed at the gleaming headlights bearing down on them. Swiveling back, he thought for a moment, and then looked at his friend, putting every ounce of conviction into his voice. “How much gas do you have?”

Justin jerked his head over to stare in disbelief at him, and then whipped it back to watch the road. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Marcus shrugged, momentum and sense-memory pushing him on. “Keep on driving, keep him behind us. The Mass border can’t be too much farther. Granville’s what, half an hour, max, on the other side? Hell, we drive him straight to the police station if he wants to follow us that far.”

Justin glanced sideways again, brows drawn low over his glittering black eyes. “Are you insane? We just give him the damned necklace, and hope he doesn’t tase one of us again, and I say we got off light.” He turned back to the road. “The last thing I want to be doing when we hit that old bridge is drag racing with some crazy cracker with a jewelry fetish.”

Marcus shook his head. Everything Justin was saying made sense, but something within him, tangled up with the hot, painful tightness over his chest, refused to consider giving up the gems.

Justin began to slow down, rolling down his window and gesturing for the car, now riding their bumper, to pass them. “Give it to me. I’ll toss it at him and we’ll be out of here.”

Marcus shrank back against his own door, his head shaking of its own accord. Beyond Justin he could see the hood of the chasing car pulling up even with them; the sleek lines of a brand new Prius, gleaming from a fresh wash. The passenger compartment of the other car swelled in the side window, its own window a dark, gaping hole. It was him, of course. That feeling in the air thickened again, and Marcus knew it could not have been anyone else.

Even in the dim interior of the other car, there was no mistaking the crazed fat man, rolls of pale flesh piling up over his collar and pushing at his tie. The man was glistening with sweat, and his eyes seemed strange, as if they were all pupil. He was screaming something they couldn’t hear over the howling of the engines and the roaring of the wind as Justin reined the Camry in even more. He was keeping one desperate eye on the road and the other on the Prius, and thrust his hand at Marcus, fingers clawing. “Give me the damned thing!”

Marcus shrank even further against his door, his hands falling to grasp the necklace. He was trying to marshal another argument when, past his friend, he saw the crazy fat man pull something off his own passenger seat and point it at Justin’s head.

“Stop!” he screamed the word, punching Justin as hard as he could in the shoulder.

Between the warning and the sudden blow, Justin slammed on the breaks in confusion. Both of them were thrown against their seatbelts, faces precariously close to the windshield, when a gleaming ball of blue lightning flashed over their hood and slapped into the trees by the side of the road.

Marcus nearly wrenched his neck trying to stare at the impact point as they rushed past. By the sound and feel of the car, Justin had ground his fancy dress shoe back into the gas pedal with terrible force. They were leaping ahead again. Behind them, a flickering orange light in the woods sent a cold, crawling sensation over Marcus’s scalp and down his spine.

Their erratic maneuvers had sent the other car swerving back into their wake, but now the man had his arm hanging out the driver’s side window, and ball after ball of crackling lightning rushed past them. The energy disappeared into glowing tatters a couple car lengths ahead of them, and Marcus figured that the strange, exotic weapon must have a very short range.

One of the snapping, spitting orbs caught the rear quarter panel on Marcus’s side and the entire car rang like a rusty old bell. The back window shattered, sending grains of safety glass shooting through the compartment. Tendrils of electricity crawled forward from the point of impact, one jumping from the lock to Marcus’s elbow. He jumped away with a yelp at the sudden, burning pain. The lights of the car dimmed and then surged back, and an alarmingly diffident sound emerged from the engine before it struggled back up to its former roar.

“Holy shit!” Marcus screamed over the howling wind, slapping at his elbow. Justin struggled manfully to keep the Camry on the road, swerving back and forth to keep their attacker from pulling even with them again.

“He’s playing for keeps now!” Justin gave the wheel a sharp yank to warn the Prius off, and then jerked his chin at the dashboard in front of Marcus. “Open up the glove box!”

Marcus looked at his friend in confusion. “What?”

Justin lurched across the compartment, one hand still on the wheel, and tore at the handle to the glove compartment. It fell open into Marcus’s lap, napkins and paperwork spilling out, whirling around in the wild wind.

“Get it!” Justin screamed, wrapping his hands back around the wheel as the road ahead of them began to take a wider turn.

“Get what?” Marcus wanted to hit his friend again; he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He pawed desperately through the swirling papers, and then began to dig through the rest of the compartment’s contents. A manual, a tire-gauge, and a few bulbs and fuses fell out onto the floor. There was a small box farther back that had to be what Justin was screaming about.

Marcus pulled the plastic box out and stared in confusion at the embossed plastic box top. There were two words there, but he didn’t recognize either of them. It certainly wasn’t English. Between the swirling wind and the pathetic dome lamp, Marcus doubted if he would be able to read it if it had been in English.

“For God’s sake, will you just open the damned thing?” There were cords standing out on Justin’s dark neck now, and his eyes were rapidly tightening with frustration.

Another ball of energy flashed past, this time rolling over the roof. Tiny branches of lightning lashed down to strike the windshield, dancing along the wiper blades and then the hood, sending the lights and the engine into fits again.

Marcus focused on the small box, trying to pry the lock open with fingers that had gone cold with wind and shock. When the latch finally popped open, something dark and heavy fell out into his lap, landing beside the necklace with enough weight to startle him. A pistol.

“What the hell?” Marcus looked back up at his friend. “What the hell are you carrying a gun around in your car for?”

Justin’s sudden smile faltered and his eyes flicked between the road and Marcus’s shocked face. Finally, as another shimmering ball snapped past, he spat angrily. “Just shoot him!”

There had been a few times when Marcus had fired a gun in his life. Twice at a shooting range while in pursuit of a particularly dark-minded young lady, a few times with friends out in the woods, and at one particularly wild bachelor party that had provided him with several memories he had planned to put to good use later in life. He just hadn’t figured the advanced use of firearms would be one of those lessons.

“Just put the clip in and pull the slide!” Justin was screaming instructions while Marcus just stared at the gun and the clip, one in each hand. He had done this several times that weekend …

Another ball scorched past, glancing off the back window, shattering the safety glass and wrapping the driver’s side in tendrils of electricity. What the hell was the guy shooting at them? This time the lights went dark and did not come back on, and the engine seemed to be struggling with itself as Justin shook the wheel with both hands as if he could force the car to continue. After a staggering pause, the engine came back, and they tore away from their pursuer again.

“Just do it!”

Marcus turned the pistol around, brought the clip up, a single round of ammunition gleaming in the uncertain light, and slid it home into the pistol grip. He looked at it for a moment, unable to remember what came next, and then quickly grabbed the barrel and tried to jam it down over the grip. It didn’t move.

Panic once again rose in his chest. Marcus knew that they were going to die, and somehow it was going to be his fault. He struggled to bring the slide back, grunting with the effort. Two more balls of lightning flew past, both near misses that did nothing to calm his nerves. With all of his strength he tried to force the slide back, but it wouldn’t move.

Justin glared over, looked down in disbelief, and then screamed at him. “The safety, you idiot!”

Annoyance at being called an idiot was immediately lost in the rush of shame and relief as Justin’s other words registered. He flicked the safety down with his thumb and then easily brought the slide back with a satisfying click. He grinned, lifted it up to show his friend, and then realized what he was doing.

“He’s back that way, Marc!” Justin jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and Marcus was embarrassed enough to just nod, swing around in his seat, and then try to draw a bead through the shattered rear window.

A part of him, suddenly breaking away from the noise and the chaos, reflected that it truly was odd that he should find himself in his friend’s beat up old Camry, aiming a pistol through the remains of a window at an angry fat man he had never really met. The sliver of his mind stayed in that quiet place, contemplating the peculiarities of the universe, but a ball of energy struck the trunk a solid blow, lifting the back of the car up while lightning reached out to engulf him, and the rest of Marcus’s mind decided that this asshole had a couple close calls coming his way.

Trying to get a two-handed grip on the gun despite the headrest that now pressed against his left shoulder, Marcus settled the aiming fin at the end of the stubby-seeming barrel back between the glaring headlights of their pursuer, then raised the gun up to where he could just make out the dark, shimmering windshield. Justin was slewing the car back and forth, probably trying to keep them alive, but it made it very hard to aim. He almost asked his friend to stop swerving, but then more lightning streaked past them, and he thought better of it.

Resting back against his seat as best he could, Marcus focused, brought the gun up, tried to steady it, and jerked the trigger. The sound within the confines of the passenger compartment was deafening. Justin screamed, flinching away, his shoulder rising as if to protect his ear. Marcus’s own ears were ringing; all sound replaced by a constant, painful whine. The car behind them showed no ill effects from the shot.

“I’m sorry!” Marcus yelled, and then fired two more shots. This time the pain was nearly intolerable; his head pounded. Justin glared at him, but one of the Prius’ headlights had flared out. The car swerved slightly. For the moment, there was no return fire.

“I think I scared him!” Marcus fell back into his seat, not even trying to hide the wide smile on his face. “He might—”

There was a deafening crack, like the loudest clap of thunder either of them had ever heard. Loud even over the dull whining in their ears. A bar of light flashed past the driver’s side window, striking a tree far ahead. The tree detonated, throwing fire, splinters, and chunks of shattered wood in every direction. In a moment they were passing the toppling trunk, bits of burning tree hitting their car with a rush of fluttering impacts.

Justin screamed something Marcus couldn’t hear over the ringing in his ears, but he could guess the meaning well enough from the context of the moment and the wild look in his friend’s eyes. He struggled with his seatbelt clamp and wrestled his way clumsily into the back seat, careful not to point the gun anywhere he shouldn’t. He fell into the cramped seat, scrambled up amidst the broken glass onto his knees, and braced the pistol against the seat back, his arms outstretched through the broken window. He half expected to get hit in the face with a nightmarish bolt of lightning at any moment.

With a battle cry that would have done his ancestors proud, Marcus aimed at his target’s windshield and pulled the trigger with abandon. He felt as if his ears were bleeding from the painful battering, but he didn’t care.

Sparks flew off the other car’s hood, a hole appeared in its windshield, more sparks from the roof, another hole, closer to the driver, and then, far too soon, the gun made a dry, plaintive click, the slide locked back, and the weight of the gun seemed to mock him.

He took a breath, looked down at the empty gun, turned to look at the back of his friend’s head, then down at the gun again. After a hesitant moment, he tapped Justin on the shoulder.

“What?” The road here was starting to meander more aggressively, forcing Justin to pay closer attention.

Marcus was pleasantly surprised that he could make out Justin’s words despite the constant whining ring. His ears must have grown accustomed to the detonations. Or else he was getting used to interpreting through the incessant buzzing.

“Do you have any more bullets?”

Clearly Justin was having a hard time deciding whether he should keep driving or pivot around to try to strangle Marcus. The angry disbelief on his face was fierce in the tumbling flash of light and shadow. “I have three more clips, but they’re all in the trunk! You’re not supposed to need more than a single clip in real life!”

Marcus looked at Justin, wondering now if he was hearing him correctly. “What?”

“You’re never supposed to need more than one clip in real life!”

“Says who?”

“Says everybody, you asshole! If you need more than one clip, you’re screwed!”

Marcus nodded, sitting back against the cushions of the seat. “Well, they were right!”

Justin glared at him through the rearview mirror. “Who?”

“Everybody! We’re screwed!”

Another beam shot past them, grazing the roof over Marcus’s head. The interior of the car was lit brighter than midday for a moment before darkness returned, bright bars haunting their vision as they both blinked to clear them away. The metal was cut cleanly where the beam had touched it, the edges glowing an angry red.

A large rectangular sign loomed up out of the night and flew past them. Latching onto any mundane detail, Marcus came up short as his mind provided him with an image of the sign. He turned back to Justin, grabbing a fistful of his blazer and screaming directly into his ear. “The bridge!”

Fox Brook Bridge was an old iron truss bridge, its metal dark and corroded. Its rivet-studded flanks had always reminded Marcus of a stronger, more certain time, when things had been built to last, and looked it. The single-lane bridge spanned a wide, shallow river filled with tumbled granite boulders in a ravine that was deceptively deep.

As the bridge loomed up ahead of them, its yellow lights flashing their persistent warning, Marcus could only think of the ravine and the jagged rocks below.

“I’m going to shoot through the bridge, hope for the best!” Justin screamed back at him.

Marcus nodded.  “Sounds good!”  They weren’t going to make it. There was no way they could make it. On their way southward a couple days ago they had taken that bridge at about twenty five miles an hour, and even then Marcus had felt a little crawling sensation in his gut as the rusty steel slid past. Now, at night, going by the feeble starlight and the erratic dancing illumination of the single headlight of the car chasing them? They weren’t going to make it.

For the first time that night, despite the fear that had burned through him since the confrontation in the parking lot, Marcus felt a cold certainty grip him. They really were going to die.

The looming web of iron reared up in front of them, coming out of the shadows like a monster ready to swallow the car whole. The Camry’s engine screeched beneath the hood as if it, too, could sense their impending doom. Marcus fell into the back seat and scrambled for the seatbelt. After several desperate pulls he had the belt across his chest, but his frantic search for the lock amid the broken glass proved hopeless, and he could only stare through the cracked windshield as the bridge grew larger. He thought he heard a screech beneath the constant ringing of the gunshots, but he couldn’t be sure.

At the last minute, Justin brought the Camry around in a vicious arc, the tires screaming like the damned and the engine giving out a throaty roar. The bridge slid past the passenger-side windows, close enough that Marcus could see the pitted surface. He slammed against the door, the strap of the seat belt rough on his chin as he struggled uselessly to hold it tight. And then they were still, the car rocking back and forth, the engine panting like an exhausted animal. There was a plaintive creaking from various parts of the car. Pings sounded off as the engine of the tortured old Camry began to cool down. Justin was rigid in his seat, both hands clasping the wheel. Light from the approaching Prius gleamed off his scalp as he let his head fall forward.

They were facing back down old State Road 189, smoke and steam rising up all around them. The single headlight of their pursuer drifted closer and then came to a gentle stop, its hybrid engine inaudible. Dust and smoke danced within the beam of the headlight. The windshield was dark except for a series of small craters dashed across it, occasional branching cracks connecting them. Nothing moved within the shadows.

Marcus forced his hands to unclench and leaned forward slowly, as if he was afraid to draw the attention of the fat man surely regarding them through that shattered glass. In the front seat, Justin’s breath came in heaving gasps barely audible over the remnant buzz of the gunshots. He looked up from beneath his lowered brow to stare into the darkness opposite them, his cheekbones twitching.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was soft. “I couldn’t do it.”

Marcus gave a slight shake of his head, his own eyes locked on the other car. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t look like I’ll have too long to hate you for it.”

A light winked on within the Prius’ passenger compartment and both men flinched. A blue glow flashed rapidly on and off, its color reminding Marcus of the balls of energy the over-powered taser weapon had been throwing at them.

With a creak they could barely hear over the exhausted sounds of their own vehicle, the driver’s door of the other car opened, rocking back and forth from a forceful push.

Again, an eerie stillness settled over the scene as they waited for the man to emerge. The area around the bridge was kept clear of trees. There was nowhere for them to run or hide. Behind them was the granite-lined lip of the little canyon of Fox Brook.

Justin looked back at Marcus from the corner of his eye. “Well, this is going to suck.”

Marcus could only nod, staring at the swaying door, cold fingers of terror sliding up his neck and over his scalp. No doubt about it. This was going to suck.