Ariel (20 page)

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Shaughnessy nudged me awake. "People," she told me, stopping me in mid-stretch and yawn. "Over there." She nodded toward the overpass. Four men stood at the guardrail on the near side, all armed and wearing backpacks. As I watched, they stepped over the guardrail and started down the bank, keeping their knees bent to avoid slipping on the slope of dew-soaked grass.

"How long have they been there?"

"Barely a minute. Ariel hid; she doesn't think they saw her. I woke you up."

I nodded. "I'd better wake up George—" I stopped, remembering. "Never mind. Shit. All right, let's get ready for a scene, but keep it calm. You're my girlfriend. Stay close to me and look helpless and harmless. We're headed to Florida from, uh—"

"Canada," she suggested.

"Okay." I reached for the Aero-mag, keeping Shaughnessy in front of me to block their view. I broke it down—it separates midway down the length—and gave her the mouthpiece half. "Can you use one of these?"

"You aim this end and blow into this one, right?"

"Right. Blow hard. And be sure you inhale
before
you put your mouth to it." I handed her two more darts. "Stick these point-down into the back of your pants. Put your shirt over them. Yeah, like that. If it comes down to it, aim toward the chest; it's easier to hit." I watched them coming our way. Three of them carried swords. One wore a rapier, one a cutlass, and one—I frowned—a samurai sword. The last man had a double-bladed axe slung through his belt with the business end resting at his hip. They stopped in front of us and one of them, a short man with thin blond hair and a slightly darker beard, nodded to me. "Morning."

"Hi," I answered.

"You wouldn't happen to have a map we could sneak a peek at, would you? We're headed north a little ways and we want to make sure we've got our bearings straight."

"Sure, I've got a road atlas you can look at." I looked at Shaughnessy. "You want to get it from my pack, babe?"

She smiled, a wonderfully vacant look in her eyes. "Sure thing." She held herself very straight as she walked, trying not to reveal the broken-down blowgun tucked under her pants and shirt. It didn't show unless you knew it was there in the first place.

"Headed far?" I asked, trying not to watch Shaughnessy too carefully.

"We were thinking of maybe seeing what Washington's like. Heard anything about it?"

"Not a thing. We're headed Florida way, ourselves."

He nodded.

The one with the samurai sword jerked his chin toward Fred. "That yours?"

Time to dumb it up—"Yeah. I've only had it a little while. Never had to use it or anything. I used to have a cutlass like yours—" I indicated the one on the blond man's hip "—but it broke when I was cutting firewood. Cheapshit thing." I felt I ought to be chewing on a length of straw.

Shaughnessy brought the road atlas and stood close to me, beaming. I put my arm around her waist and handed the atlas to the cutlass wearer. The two darts at the small of Shaughnessy's back pressed against my forearm; the blowgun rested against the bend in my elbow. I'm sure we looked the perfect Christian couple.
Take the picture now, Henrietta.

"Yeah, if they're tempered wrong, the blade gets brittle," he said, thumbing through the atlas. He shrugged. "Happens."

"Mind if I see your blade?" asked the samurai swordsman.

My grip tightened against Shaughnessy. "No, go ahead." She cast me a quick, cautioning glance. I smiled down at her.

He went to Fred and picked it up. He held the scabbard at his hip beside his own and drew the blade.
Flash:
it caught the sun as it sped out.
Fast.

He looked at me. I smiled. He nodded, then put his hand on the blade. I gritted my teeth, still smiling stupidly. "Is it a good sword?" I asked.

He studied me briefly before replying. "Yes, it is. Very good. Where did you pick it up?" I had the strong impression he thought I wasn't worthy of it. The way he weighed it in his grip, obviously trying to look casual with it—he wanted it. I wondered if he would try to take it. "It was weird," I answered, thinking fast. "A couple days north of here we came across this mess. It looked like about five men; I really couldn't tell. They were all dead. Looked like they'd cut each other to pieces." I watched his face while trying not to look as if I were watching his face. "There was even a dead dog in the middle of them."

He glanced at his friend holding the road atlas. "No shit?" he asked.

"Really. There was this one guy, dead as hell, still holding onto this sword. I'd just lost mine a few days before, and so I just counted my blessings and took that one. I figured he didn't need it anymore, you know?"

The man with the rapier—short, squat, and looking like anything but a skilled fencer—spoke for the first time. "Do you remember what he looked like?"

"Sure I remember. It wasn't pretty, was it, hon?" Shaughnessy shook her head. I could see she hadn't the slightest idea what I was doing. "He was cut up pretty bad in a lot of places. Looked like he may have bled to death more than anything else. I couldn't make out his face; it was like  .  .  . well, like I said, pretty bad."

"Hnh." He scratched the scraggly black growth on his jaw-line, then returned my sword to its sheath—without looking—and put it back beside the pack. Shaughnessy pretended not to notice my long exhalation.

"We'd best be on our way. We have a sort of deadline to meet." He looked at the leader with the cutlass. "Right, Chuck?"

Chuck closed the road atlas and returned it to me. "Yeah. I guess we found out all we need to know. Thanks."

"Sure," I said.

"Where'd you say you folks were headed?"

"Florida," said Shaughnessy and I.

"Long trip."

"We aren't in any hurry." I looked at Shaughnessy affectionately. "We just want to find a place without too many people, maybe an abandoned farm, and settle down, you know?"

"Yeah. Well, be seeing you."

"Sure thing. You all be careful on the road."

They turned away. The one with the samurai sword turned back to me as the rest walked away. "Your sword—would you be willing to trade it?"

I pretended to think about it. "I don't know," I answered slowly. "It's the only weapon I have. I think I ought to hang on to it."

"Would you trade it for another weapon?"

Shit—"No, I don't think so," I said firmly, momentarily out of character for the idiot I was portraying. "I really like it, for some reason."

He nodded curtly. "If you're going to keep it, then treat it with respect. Clean it." He looked at me contemptuously. "Don't let anybody touch the blade. It's a good blade, a good weapon.

"Oh." I left my mouth open for a second. "Okay."

He turned away. They climbed up the embankment and onto the overpass, then headed north. When they were gone I dropped my arm from around her waist. She dropped hers a second later. "Whew," she breathed, rubbing her forearm against the hip of her jeans to wipe off my sweat. "I get the feeling that was a close one, and I don't even know what the hell was going on."

"They thought I might be somebody else," I said. "Somebody they're looking for."

"Who?"

"You've heard me mention Malachi Lee?"

"A few times, yes."

"Him. They saw the sword and thought I was him. Christ, I'm glad I played dumbshit. I just hope they believe that story I fed them. If they do, then they'll believe Malachi is dead. Mentioning the dog seemed to clinch it for them; Malachi has his Chow with him."

"I'm confused. Who is Malachi? Are you following him, is that why we're heading north? And who'd send somebody out after him?"

I rolled my eyes. "Malachi Lee is somebody we met in Atlanta. He's going to New York City to try to kill a man who rides a griffin who killed a friend of ours. The griffin rider serves a kind of sorcerer in New York called a necromancer, who offered a reward for Ariel's horn. Ariel and I are following Malachi to New York. Our reasons keep changing, but I guess we're doing it to help Malachi and to somehow get the price off Ariel's head. Does that make sense to you so far, because it doesn't to me."

"No."

I sighed. "Okay, let's try again. In order." I gave her a capsule description of most of what I have told so far, stopping with the Great Shopping Mall Raid of Tuesday Last. Or whenever the hell it was.

"I see," she said. "So they saw the sword and thought you might be Malachi Lee."

"That's what I said before."

"Yes, but it didn't make sense that time. So why didn't they kill us?"

"Some things didn't fit. No dog. I was headed the wrong direction, if they were to believe me. There was a woman with me." I shook my head. "They must know some things about Malachi, though. The way that fucker touched my blade—Malachi wouldn't have stood for it. Hell, he wouldn't have let him see it in the first place. I wish I hadn't." I frowned. "Damn."

"I take it you don't touch a samurai sword."

"No." I didn't bother explaining why not.

"But how would they know that about him?"

"I don't know." My frown deepened. "In Atlanta I had the feeling that Malachi and the griffin rider had met somewhere before. Maybe that would explain it."

Shaughnessy pulled the Aero-mag and darts from beneath her clothes. "Here. These are sticking me in the ass." I took them and put them into the belt case.

"Boo." Ariel had come back, silent as ever.

"Anything?" I asked.

"A little. I listened from behind a billboard."

"They didn't see you, did they?" asked Shaughnessy.

Ariel shot her a blank look. "Madame, if I do not want to be seen, I am not." She looked back to me. "They think you were lying."

"Shit. About Malachi?"

"Parts of it. They think you were really part of a group that attacked him and got wiped out. They figured you looked stupid enough to get hungry enough to attack someone for his food. Your friends got cut to pieces, you ran away with your girlfriend until it was over, then came back and took his sword, his food, and some other things."

"Why do they think that?"

She tossed her head. "Your story wasn't convincing. They wondered why you'd be lying and that's what they came up with."

"But they think he's dead?"

"Yes."

I rubbed my hands. "Well, that's good, at least. I hope we did him a favor. Maybe now they'll haul ass back to New York and tell whoever sent them—Shai-tan's master, maybe, or the necromancer—that Malachi's dead. It ought to take some pressure off him."

"Something I don't understand, though, Pete." She slid a front hoof along the concrete. When I was little I used to take those disposable lighters and turn them so that the striker was bottom most, then I'd race them across the floor. The sparks they sent looked something like what Ariel did with her hooves. "Why didn't they seem to be looking for us, too? You'd think they would have been."

"I wondered about that myself. Either the necromancer doesn't know we're coming, or he's sent another bunch after us."

"Possibly. But why not tell these people, too, in case they came across us? Wouldn't that make sense?"

I shrugged. "Maybe he had his reasons for not telling them."

"That's what bothers me—what are those reasons?"

I saw what she was getting at. I'm slow, but I get there. "Oh. I see. What we wondered before: maybe there's no one after us at all—because we're saving them the effort by coming to them instead."

She nodded.

"So what else can we do but keep on going? We can't turn back because of that. They win either way."

"We keep going," she said, "but we keep a good lookout. No walking by blind corners and stuff."

I bobbed my head, lips pressed together tightly. "Shit. That's my word for today, I think." I turned to Shaughnessy. "Well, I told you things would get more interesting."

"I'm not complaining yet."

"You'll probably never have time to. Don't go looking for adventure; you might find it."

"What if," Shaughnessy went on, unfazed, "Malachi is only a day or so north of us and that group does hurry back to New York? You just sent them his way; they might find him."

"I suppose there's the chance they will. What do you want; I was making it up on short notice. But Malachi's good at keeping himself scarce. I'm sure he'll see them coming. It's a lot easier for him to not attract attention than it is for us."

"Which is one reason," commented Ariel, "he didn't want us coming with him."

"Sue me. We'll meet him in New York come hell or high water."

"I'm sure we'll have plenty of both, and more, before we get there," she said wryly.

We packed quickly and got the hell out of Richmond, anxious to make up for lost time. I was worried we might run into our four merry men, so I diverted from I-95 to U.S. 301 until we were out of town. It was a shorter route through the city anyhow.

I spent an hour cleaning the fingerprints off Fred. If only things had been different.