Dark Time: Mortal Path (35 page)

Crossing a rise in the land, she got a good view of I–90. Traffic was light, but her eye was caught by a blanket-wrapped bundle lying on the white line between two southeast-bound lanes. Something inside the blanket moved weakly.

Her sense of urgency pulled her toward the rendezvous point with the helicopter, but the blanket moved again, riveting her eyes to the spot. The bundle was large enough to contain an older child, a small woman, a large dog, or just trash blown by the wind that simulated movement.

A car zoomed by, swerving a little, just missing the bundle.

Shit. Shit! Not now! There couldn’t be a worse time for this. A helicopter on the way that I paid big
bucks for, my friends squirreled away in the safe house…everything’s set. I’m on a timetable here.

She continued past the rise and got under the shelter of the trees, blocking the image from her mind.

Then she heard a horn honk and the squeal of a car’s tires swerving.

The situation on the interstate wasn’t going to let go of her. If she didn’t go check it out, she’d read about some poor person smeared all over the road in tomorrow’s paper, and she could have stopped it.

Even if the bundle contained a discarded pet, she would go out of her way to prevent such a cruel death.

Maliha took a deep breath and yanked her attention from the mission. She dropped the gear she was carrying and sped toward the highway. Several cars went by, just missing the bundle. She judged the approach time of more cars and dashed onto the pavement, a black figure slipping a little on a small patch 117 z 138

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of ice. She snatched up the bundle and made a rapid U-turn just in time to be missed by a truck in the far lane.

Frogger. I’m in a damn game of Frogger.

A horn blast from the truck and the wind of its passing beat at her. Facing the shoulder she came from, she could see a string of cars coming. Whatever was in the bundle struggled hard against her, nearly tipping her over.

“Hold still! I’m helping!”

The squirming stopped immediately, and the bundle was dead weight on her shoulder.

A chunk of pavement flew up at Maliha’s feet, and she realized someone was shooting at her. The shots came from the forest preserve.

No fair. There’s no shooting in Frogger.

Maliha took off running as bullets pinged the pavement around her, and cleared the traffic lanes just before the string of cars passed over the position she’d been in. She was off balance when she hit the grass and she rolled, clutching the bundle. She maneuvered to break the fall with her hip and side, sparing the bundle the brunt of the impact.

She took the bundle out of sight of the interstate. Her heart fell when she discovered that it was warm and wet on one side—whoever or whatever was inside had been hit, by bullet or vehicle. Maliha slit the blanket open with a knife. Inside was a teenage girl, nude, with her mouth closed with duct tape and her hands and feet tied. She’d been shot in the side and blood was flowing, but not enough for her to bleed out.

The girl had been left to become road kill, with someone watching with a rifle to finish the job if the traffic didn’t. Maliha cut the rope around the girl’s feet, and then she removed the duct tape.

“Fuck you, Eddie!” the teenager screamed. “You hear me, you rotten—”

Maliha slapped the tape back onto the girl’s mouth and she squirmed in anger. Wood cracked as a bullet split off a piece of tree trunk inches from Maliha’s head.

A shout followed the bullet. “I hate you, Cindy, you bitch! You’re a lying slut! You’re going to die!”

I knew it. I should have kept going. Now I’ve wandered into a foul-mouthed soap opera.

“Shut up, Cindy. Eddie’s got a gun,” Maliha whispered. “I’m going to cut the rope on your hands and I swear if you cause any more trouble, I’ll kill you myself.”

Cindy snorted but held still.

Sleet pelted down the back of Maliha’s neck as she leaned over and cut the ropes. She hauled the girl to her feet, trying to assess the seriousness of the wound.

The girl yanked the tape off her own mouth and shouted. “If you even look at Jennifer again, I’ll cut your dick off!”

Maliha punched her. The girl collapsed like an over-cooked strand of spaghetti.

With Cindy slung over her shoulder, Maliha slipped farther into the woods until she came to the place where she’d dropped the supplies.

Let’s see. Take the supplies and leave, or take care of the girl. It’s a tough choice.

She left her gear and made her way toward the model-airplane field. A mixture of rain and sleet was falling now and she was worried about slipping. Even worse, she had to turn her back on the location where she thought the shooter was, and expected any second to get a bullet in the back or head. If the shooter was good, he’d have figured their general path and would be circling around to get in front of them. She could see the clearing up ahead. That would be their most dangerous time, when they stepped out from the cover of the woods.

She dumped her limp burden at the edge of the woods and ran to the center of the paved flying field.

The downdraft and the somewhat muffled sound of the rotor told her that the helicopter was hovering, waiting for the signal to land. Maliha pointed a bright flashlight up in the air and blinked it twice. Sleet caught in the flashing beam seemed halted in midair. Then she got out of the way. The helicopter settled in the spot the flashlight indicated.

Maliha scooped up the teenager and took her to the copter, expecting to be dodging bullets or taking one. The copter was an obvious target that would attract the shooter’s attention. Nothing happened, though. She wondered if Eddie had been frightened off by the thought of ending up dickless.

C’mere, Eddie, and I’ll take care of that for you.
Mentally she tested the edge of one of her knives.

The sleet let up into a cold, light drizzle. Maliha’s braided hair lay on her back like a heavy, wet 118 z 138

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rope. She was pleased to see that Hound had taken her request seriously and hadn’t shown up. The copter was a black Vietnam-era MD500 with its characteristic teardrop cabin shape.

“My name’s Glass. You’re late,” the pilot said, irritation in her voice. Then she got a look at the nude, bleeding girl. “What the fuck?”

“Shooter’s trying to kill her, if I don’t do it first.”

She boosted the girl into the door opening, and then got in herself. There were two seats in the cabin, and a modest amount of cargo space. Mounded along one side was a jumble of supplies. Maliha extracted a couple of blankets. Spreading one on the floor, she put Cindy on it and covered her with a second one. It was all she could do for now.

“Her name’s Cindy. She’s unconscious and wounded. If she wakes up, expect an earful. She’s mad at her boyfriend.”

“You mean the shooter?”

“Yeah, Eddie. She’s jealous. He’s been lusting after Jennifer. Just get her to a hospital somehow.”

Maliha spotted several pairs of night-vision goggles in the supply corner, took one, and slipped it over her head. “Then come back for me. I’ve got some hunting to do here.”

Glass gave her a thumbs-up, then she was on the radio, arranging for someone to meet her, someone who’d take the girl to the hospital. Glass couldn’t just show up on the hospital helipad, shove her passenger out the door, and leave. If Hound was on the other end of that radio call, the wounded girl would be in good hands.

Once a medic, always a medic.

Maliha went to the door and hopped out, slapping the door closed behind her. She took off for the woods as the helicopter ascended. A bullet smashed into a tree seconds after she passed it.

Amateur. He’s not correcting for my actual speed, which he’s had a chance to observe, only the
speed he thinks an ordinary runner at night should be going. Didn’t try to take out the pilot, or he didn’t
get here until Glass took off. Either way he’s too slow and inexperienced.

She thought about the setup with the girl-bundle on the interstate.

Sick, too. Really, really sick.

Maliha tossed a branch into the clearing. The shooter fired at it, and she picked up the muzzle flash of his rifle, intensely bright in her goggles, about a hundred feet to her right and fifteen feet off the ground.

He’d gone up in a tree, and had his belly flat on a large branch and his thighs squeezing it.

The goggles she was wearing used the small amount of light that filtered through the forest from the headlights on nearby roads and multiplied it. The view wasn’t as clear as it could have been because the fine raindrops in the air scattered light like tiny mirrors. Still, she saw everything well enough, from the rocks under her feet to the roll of duct tape on the shooter’s belt to the fact that Eddie wasn’t wearing night-vision goggles. He’d been expecting to shoot at the interstate, not look for his prey in the woods. She had the advantage.

Maliha crept through the trees, keeping an eye on the location of the shooter to make sure he didn’t climb down and take a new position. He didn’t, even after his muzzle flash had been made. He should have known his position had been marked.

She got close to the tree and put a spike in each of his thighs in rapid succession.

He screamed and fell from the tree. It was an inelegant fall, smacking into other tree branches with the sound of breaking wood, and rolling into the bushes. She hoped it was enough to finish him.

Eddie was still alive when she approached. She pulled away the rifle he was still gripping and yanked out her spikes, eliciting howls of pain. She fastened him to a tree with his own duct tape, his back to the flying field so he couldn’t see what went on there. He had some serious internal injuries, she was sure, but he’d have to wait awhile for medical help. She had other priorities, such as getting on with the night’s mission. If the Grim Reaper arrived during that time, well, it saved the expense of a trial. Eddie was too brutal to go on living. If he’d succeeded in killing Cindy, it would just be easier for him when his next girlfriend gave him some excuse. Or maybe Cindy wasn’t the first.

Maliha backtracked to the spot where she’d dropped her supplies, retrieved them, and went back to the flying field. When she felt the downdraft, she blinked her flashlight. Right then, the carving on her stomach began to move, the balance began to shift, and she bent over in pain. A small figure made its way from one pan to the other. She had to get out of the way of the helicopter, so she forced herself to move while the footprints burned their way across her abdomen. She was panting with the effort by the time she 119 z 138

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reached the edge of the flying field.

Cindy was going to live. A goal scored, with assists by Glass and Hound.

W
hen the pain of the figure moving across her body let up, she went back to the helicopter, got inside, and took off the night-vision goggles.

“That was a good thing you did,” Glass said. “I have a teenage daughter. It could’ve been my girl out there.”

Maliha nodded. She was settling down from the irritation that had gripped her since she spotted the moving bundle on the interstate. It had been a weird episode, but she was back on her timetable now.

She tried to put herself into the role of the mother of the girl she’d just rescued from the interstate. If Maliha hadn’t come along at just that time, the girl would have died, for the principle reason of having made a wrong decision on her boyfriend.

One life lost and parents who would have to live out their lives with the pain of having a child die before them. So many lives had been taken by Maliha’s hand during her servitude to the demon that the losses multiplied into rivers of grief when the loved ones of the victims were considered. The weight of it bowed her head and made her shoulders sink. What she’d undertaken to make up for all of that seemed impossible. The scale had a long way to go to reach balance. She had only one shard and the tablet in her quest to destroy the demons. She could die anytime, with both tasks unfinished.

Minutes ago, she’d been standing out there in the middle of the road with a limp body slung over her shoulder and cars whizzing by. One false step on her part was all it would’ve taken to smear her—and the girl she carried—across the pavement.

It was right to go after her. And if I die, I’ve failed and that’s my problem. The world will go on as
it is, without me. If I’m going to do this and be true to myself, I have to accept the possibility of failure,
and go out there and take risks to save people anyway. I have to live—and love—
and
risk it all every
day.

Once put into succinct words, she could pull the concept around her like a comfortable shawl.

Time to focus.

Maliha needed every ounce of self-confidence for what lay ahead. There was no choice. She had to stop whatever Greg and Subedei were plotting. A handful of people had already died; she had no idea what the toll would be if she curled up and ignored the whole thing.

Her voice was steady as she gave Glass the destination coordinates and asked for a high flyover first.

“Can’t be too high. We’re not on any flight plan, so we can’t get up there with the big guys.” She pointed skyward.

“Whatever you can manage.” Maliha unzipped her gear bag and set out night-vision binoculars.

In a few minutes, Glass said, “Coming up on it.”

Maliha slid the door back, stretched out on the floor of the helicopter, and leaned her head over the edge of the door opening. Using the night-vision binoculars, she studied the compound as the helicopter made a pass over it.

About ten pairs of guards now patrolled the area between the two fences, none out of sight of another at any time. It made the doughnut area look like a giant carousel from the air, with the guards as the horses. Razor wire topped the fences. There was a sniper on the roof—guaranteed to be better than Eddie—who had a line of sight anywhere in the compound. The forest she’d run through on her way from the barn to the outer perimeter fence was saturated with foot patrols.