Relentless (4 page)

How could that be?

A handful of people—those who hadn’t run at the sight of Konrad’s gun—still hovered, watching him. But his attention shifted away from them to a space across the tracks, where a larger group of people were huddled before a round pillar made of solid concrete. A man in a navy blazer shifted to one side, and Grant saw there, sticking out of the pillar, the hilt of his attacker’s knife. The blade was buried deep inside the column.

He hesitated, confused. He couldn’t recall how the knife had gotten all the way over there. He thought back to the fight . . . Grant had closed his eyes only for a second when the headache struck, and when he opened them, Konrad’s hand was empty, his attention drawn elsewhere.

A shot of blinding pain from his leg wrenched him back to the present.

The girl at the storefront—whoever she was . . . She had been right.

He should have bolted when this all started.

Too late now.

He limped in the direction of the stairs leading up and out.

He had to get out of here, find safety.

If such a thing still existed.

‘‘It looks like you’re within twenty meters of the convergence,’’ Lisa said into Daniel’s earpiece.

‘‘Okay, I’ll take it from here,’’ he replied.

She immediately went radio silent. Thankfully.

He liked Lisa. Well, he
tolerated
her, anyway, as much as he tolerated anyone. But if she weren’t whip-smart and an astute lab tech, he never would have been able to abide her endless chatter. He hadn’t known her for very long before he realized that she lacked a filter between her brain and her mouth—she simply verbalized every thought that entered her mind.

She was good, though—really good. She often caught things that he was too impatient to notice, and she had a way of pushing their research along avenues of thought that he might not otherwise have considered.

But the constant conversation drove him batty, particularly in the mornings. He preferred the silence of his own thoughts.

Daniel stood on the downtown sidewalk under the midday sun, which had finally broken through the clouds, holding his small device in his hand. It was a simple instrument he’d built from pieces of a Pocket PC and some other materials. Its panel lit up whenever a shimmer— or the residual energy given off by a recent shimmer—was nearby. The closer he got, the brighter it glowed. Lisa said it was essentially a high-tech version of the ‘‘you’re getting warmer’’ game.

He marched forward another ten paces and glanced at the device. It was brighter here. He looked up. A bus stop faced him across the street.

It had happened right around here, he was sure of it.

But what was he expecting to find? It had taken much longer than he’d hoped for the lab’s past-generation systems to narrow down the shimmer’s position. As his rumbling stomach reminded him, it was nearing lunchtime. Whatever event had taken place here, it was long over.

Daniel walked forward, crossing the street and nearing the bus stop, when a high-pitched squeal in his earpiece brought him up short.

‘‘Doct—! It hap—a—n!’’ Lisa was shouting.

He reached up and massaged his ear. ‘‘Say again?
Quietly
?’’

‘‘It happened again! Another shimmer! Just now!’’ she replied.

He froze.
Two in one day
.

One was unprecedented. Two was unimaginable.

‘‘How big?’’ he shouted, not caring about the people on the street who stopped to stare.

‘‘Hang on, it’s processing now . . .’’

An impossibly long minute passed, and the light changed. A bicyclist squeaked his horn, so Daniel ran out of the street and under the empty glass bus shelter.

‘‘Well?’’ he asked impatiently.

‘‘Doctor Cossick, . . .’’ she whispered, ‘‘it was a
seven-point-nine
.’’

He plopped down on the shelter’s plastic bench, aware of nothing around him save his heart pounding madly beneath his chest.

‘‘Where was it?’’ he finally said.

‘‘Can’t tell yet,’’ she mumbled. ‘‘It’s still triangulating. But
two
of them!
Two shimmers!
Can you
believe
this?’’

‘‘Feed me the data,’’ he replied, pulling out a touch-screen device smaller than a laptop. He tapped the screen and looked at the data Lisa was pouring into it by remote. He focused on the numbers and quickly did some preliminary math on the small computer.

When he was finished, he sat back, dropping the pad to his knees.

‘‘I think it’s near the Library,’’ he said out loud.

He pulled the smaller device back out of his pocket and turned it on.

Even in the rising midday sun, it glowed ferociously.

4

Grant walked as far as he could before the pain in his leg grew unbearable. It needed dressing, and he had to find someplace safe to hide, get his bearings and consider his options. He’d crossed 110 on West 7th and guessed he was now a mile or so west of the Wagner Building. He’d never been in this part of the city before.

Konrad would wake up soon. Grant wondered if he should have done something more. Perhaps he should have tied Konrad up and thrown him onto one of the moving trains or something. But the people standing around, who’d witnessed the entire fight, had watched him carefully after it was over. Add that weird knife thing to the situation, and he just wanted to get out of there.

He wasn’t equipped to deal with what was happening on his own, that much was clear. For that matter, he didn’t even know who he was. He’d never heard of this ‘‘Grant Borrows.’’ The most likely scenario, he decided, was that somehow, he and this Borrows person had exchanged . . .
lives
.

However impossible that sounded.

He hailed a passing cab and asked the driver—an elderly woman with thin, wiry hair and large horn-rimmed glasses that had lenses set to a high magnification—to take him to the closest drugstore. At the strip mall where she stopped, he handed her three of his crisp hundred-dollar bills, and asked her to please wait. She didn’t reply, but her huge eyes got even bigger when he placed the currency into her hand, so he wasn’t concerned.

Grant staggered into the store, trying hard not to pass out, and drew expressions from patrons and employees that ranged from puzzled to downright spooked. Most backed away at the sight of him.

Shuffling his way down various aisles, Grant’s thoughts lingered bleakly on how he hoped to be waking up any minute now. He picked up a small, brown bottle of peroxide, a roll of gauze, a bottle of Tylenol, and a few snacks. He paid the clerk—whose fearful eyes seemed to silently call for a co-worker to come handle this situation—and asked if they had a restroom.

Once inside the tiny room at the back of the store, he locked the door and rolled his pant leg up to get his first look at the wound on his leg. Or rather, whoever’s leg this was. It wasn’t a limb he recognized.

It was worse than he’d thought. Much more than a graze. The bullet had torn through one side of his tan, muscular calf and exited straight out the other. He couldn’t believe it. There were two holes in his leg. His rear end smacked the floor as he slid down the wall, then he leaned back, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

He stayed that way until his breathing slowed.

He eyed the ring on his finger, and timidly touched it with a finger on the other hand. The metal was smooth and warm, and while not exactly store window material, it looked quite old.

Suddenly he tugged at it, alarmed. It wouldn’t come off.

He pulled harder.

It wouldn’t budge.

At first he thought it was merely stuck, that his finger had swollen. But the ring didn’t wiggle
at all
. It was affixed to his finger, as if bonded directly to the skin.

That’s why he was going to use a knife
, he thought, remembering his struggle in the subway.
Konrad couldn’t take the ring off, so he was
going to take my whole finger
.

He propped his injured leg up over the open toilet seat, and after a moment’s hesitation, poured the peroxide over it. The pain was excruciating, acid bubbling up around the wound and pus pouring out. He turned his leg over and did the same to the other side. He repeated the process several times, until satisfied.

Finally, he stood and popped a few Tylenol in his mouth, then began winding gauze around his leg. Wrap after wrap after wrap.

His mind wandered again, watching the white wrap go round and round. It twisted like the snake in his mind. A pure white snake intent on strangling him . . .

When I woke up this morning, I was Collin Boyd.

Now I’m Grant Borrows.

‘‘My name is Grant Borrows.’’

‘‘Grant Borrows, nice to meet you.’’

The white snake spun around its victim again and again. Grant’s eyes glazed over, watching it curl and fighting a growing shortness of breath.

I stepped off a bus, found out I was no longer myself, and now I’m
cleaning a gunshot wound inside a drugstore bathroom, and there’s a
ring on my finger that won’t come off
.

How did I get here?

A few wraps of medical tape would hold the gauze securely in place. He limped painfully to the tiny sink and gazed wearily into the mirror above it.

The handsome man he’d first seen in the store window that morning was still there, looking back at him, but he was a horrible mess now. Bruises on his cheek. Dried blood beneath his nose. His bottom lip was split. Hair disheveled. Eyes dark like a raccoon’s. He ran a hand around the back of his head and felt more dried blood, from where it had smacked the concrete wall.

No wonder the store clerk had been terrified. The sudden notion that she might have called the police increased the urgency of his movements.

He poured peroxide over his ring finger where it had been cut, and bandaged it as best he could. He put what remained of his meager supplies in his inside jacket pockets, then washed his hands and face, which provided only a minor improvement. His clothes were still a bloody mess, but he couldn’t do anything about it now.

He had to keep moving. He’d stayed in one place too long already.

But where to go?

Grant thought again of the barefoot girl and her warning to keep moving. And he thought about Konrad and the last words he’d uttered.

‘‘If I can’t kill you . . . I’ll settle for those you care about most.’’

He gasped, and for once, it wasn’t from the pain.

Oh no
.

He slammed open the door to the bathroom and ran back out to the cab as best he could, adrenaline surging through him once more as the sun waned on the horizon.

If he knows who I really am, then he knows . . .

About
her
!

‘‘Where to, honey?’’ the cab driver’s squeaky voice intoned.

‘‘UCLA campus,’’ he replied breathlessly, shoving two more hundred-dollar bills into her hands. ‘‘Take Wilshire and run every light you have to!’’

Amid the panic it occurred to him that however scared he’d been before . . . it was
nothing
compared to what he was feeling now.

Every hair on Julie Saunders’ arms and neck stood on end. It was late as she stopped, all alone in the UCLA faculty offices, to lock her office door, the darkness closing in around her.

She had no idea how or why, but she
knew
she was being watched.

Julie made her way quickly down the hall, breathing fast, eyes darting all around. The only sound came from the keychain jangling in her hand.

The feeling was suffocating, as if the air were made of syrup. She trembled visibly as she exited the building and walked out onto the campus grounds. Once outside, she stopped for a moment and collected herself, taking several deep breaths.

The outside air brought some comfort. The lights in most of the dormitories were still on—but that was no indication of the time, considering how late college students stayed up. The outdoor lamps were also on and she could see the front end of her car peeking at her from its perch atop the adjacent parking garage. The little teal Saturn appeared to be all alone up there.

The sense that she was being watched had not gone away.

Just get me home safe, and I’ll never stay at work past sundown
again
, she thought, her heart pounding. But she knew she’d had little choice besides putting in the extra hours. Recent events had put her behind on everything, most especially grading mid-term papers.

Julie wound the stairs to the top of the garage. Beside her car, she fiddled awkwardly with her keys, hands trembling until she found the right one. Once inside, she locked the doors. Starting the engine made her feel better.

As she quietly backed out of her parking space, her pulse began to calm.

Hundreds of feet away, high atop one of the twin bell towers of the campus’s auditorium, Konrad lay on his stomach, cradling a sniper rifle that was propped on the brick ledge. His right eye squinted into the telescopic lens as Julie’s car slowly shifted into drive and turned toward the downward exit.

The car turned left, and now the driver’s side of the car was facing him. Konrad’s mouth stretched into a tight smile. He was going to enjoy this just a little more than usual.

He zeroed in on Julie’s head and tightened his grip, waiting patiently. He could make the shot while she was in motion, he knew, but the distance was further than he preferred. So he decided to wait.

The hunt was the best part, no doubt. But it failed to provide the divine
thirst
that waiting brought.

A ramp led from the garage to the nearest street; she would have to stop there, before turning out onto the main road. And he would be ready.

Inside the car, Julie glanced at the dashboard clock as she spiraled down the exit ramps.
10:43
P
.
M.

She sighed. So late, and she still had a long drive ahead on the 405. She was going to need help staying awake that long.

Julie passed through the garage’s gated entrance and tapped her brakes until she stopped at her exit onto the main road. She leaned into the passenger’s side floorboard to find a CD in her purse. She was only halfway over when the glass in the driver’s-side door shattered.