The Warrior (31 page)

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

She looked at him as if he'd just lost his mind, then burst out laughing.

“Actually, man of mystery, I am. So feed me something hot and spicy. Then we'll buy our groceries and head for home.”

Now he knew he was out of his league. This woman kept blindsiding him time and time again.

“I know this really good Mexican place….”

“Works for me,” she said, then added, “Just so you know, you have not slipped by this. I just chose not to discuss the fact that I've fallen in love with a man my father's age and didn't know it. And…the big deal is not your real age. It's that you didn't tell me.”

“Fair enough,” he said, and backed the Jeep out of its parking place and headed down the street.

 

The meal had gone down well. The errands had been run. Groceries were on the back floorboard of the Jeep, and, to keep them from spoiling, John had rolled up the windows and turned on the air conditioner for the ride home.

This leg of the journey wasn't as carefree as the first half had been, but even considering everything that had happened, he was still fairly confident of the outcome.

Alicia was reading a story from one of the several newspapers they'd picked up when John suddenly hit the brakes and began slowing down. That brought her attention from the paper to the reason they were no longer driving at warp speed.

“What's happening?” she asked as she looked out the window.

“That car up ahead. It just swerved completely off the highway into the ditch, then back onto the road again. I think the driver is either falling asleep, drunk or sick. Impossible to tell which.”

“Oh, no!” Alicia said, and then gasped as the car began a repeat version of what John had just witnessed.

This time, though, the driver didn't pull back onto the
road or even slow down. The car sailed over the ditch, hit a large boulder a few yards away from the road and then rolled end over end until it came to rest upside down.

“Damn it!” John said.

Seconds later they reached the place where the car had left the highway. He slammed the car into Park and handed Alicia his cell phone.

“We just passed southbound mile marker 123 a few moments ago. Call 911!”

Alicia's hands were shaking as she punched in the numbers, while John jumped out of the Jeep, leaped the ditch and started running.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” a dispatcher asked.

“We just saw a car go off the road, southbound on the highway out of Sedona. We're just past mile marker 123. I don't know how many people are in the car, but it rolled over twice before landing upside down.”

“Is the highway blocked?” the dispatcher asked.

“No. But hurry,” Alicia begged. “The car is starting to smoke.” Then she gasped. “Dear God. It just burst into flames.”

“I'm dispatching fire and rescue services as we speak. Stay on the line.”

But Alicia was already out of her seat and digging through the back of the Jeep. She'd seen a fire extinguisher in there when they were loading up the groceries in Sedona. Shoving sacks aside right and left, she finally found it. Her heart was in her throat as she ran, because just before the car had started burning, she'd seen John crawl inside. Now the flames were blazing
from beneath the hood. Smoke was everywhere, and she couldn't see John.

“John!” she screamed. “John! Where are you? Get out!
Get out!
”

 

The moment John reached the wreck, he saw the driver. The window was broken out on that side, so he dropped to his belly and began crawling inside. He was halfway in when he realized the driver was a woman with short dark hair. She was unconscious, and bleeding from a large number of cuts on her face and arms. She was also dangling upside down, still strapped in by her seat belt.

“Lady! Lady! Can you hear me?” he yelled, but she didn't answer. He began pulling at the seat belt, trying to undo it, but the latch wouldn't give.

He could already smell smoke. There was no time to waste. He pulled the knife out of his boot and slashed the strap in two. The moment she was free, she dropped upside down into his arms. He put the knife blade between his teeth and began backing out, pulling her with him. Suddenly he heard something pop. Within seconds, smoke began coming out from under the hood and sifting through the dash in huge, sweeping billows.

John grunted and kept on pulling. He kept telling himself not to think about what was happening, just to keep moving. Inch by inch, ignoring pain and fire, he pulled them both backward. Blood was dripping in his eyes, fire licking at his skin and clothing as he dragged her through fire and glass. With mere seconds to go before they were both engulfed, he suddenly felt her slide free.

Before he could move, they were engulfed in a new kind of smoke. But this time, instead of burning them,
it was putting out the flames. The knife fell from his mouth as he rolled over on his back, still holding the woman in his arms. Then he saw Alicia standing over them, holding a fire extinguisher. He groaned aloud, violently shuddering from pain.

Then, from behind him, he heard a whoosh, followed by a hiss.

“Run!” he yelled as he got to his feet, then picked the woman back up. “It's going to explode!”

Alicia gave him a wild-eyed look, then turned and ran, taking comfort in the sound of his footsteps right behind her. They were about fifty feet from the wreck when it blew, knocking them facedown on the ground. When Alicia could think straight again, she rolled over, then got up.

John and the woman were a few feet away. The woman wasn't moving, and John was sitting beside her, holding his arms away from his body. His shirt was charred in so many places that she could barely tell what it had looked like before, and his hands and arms…Dear Lord, they were horribly burned.

“John! Oh my God…John!” she screamed, and rushed to his side.

He was shaking so hard he could barely speak. He knew it would pass, but for now, the agony was almost unbearable. He knew Alicia was panicked, but he was in too much pain to reassure her that it was temporary. When she reached toward him, he quickly withdrew.

“Don't touch me,” he said, then put his head down on his knees, trying to bring the world back into focus. “The woman…see if she's breathing.”

Alicia didn't want to leave his side, but she knew he
was right. She crawled on her hands and knees to the woman, then put her fingers on the pulse point at the side of her neck. There was a faint but persistent beat.

“Her heart's still beating,” she said, eyeing the woman's injuries, which were too severe for any on-site first aid she might have tried. “There's some water in the Jeep. I'll be right back,” she said, and ran as fast as she could across the ditch and up to the side of the road where the Jeep was parked. It wasn't until she began hunting for water that she realized the engine was still running. She turned it off and pocketed the keys before grabbing a newly bought plastic-wrapped case of bottled water and starting back to John's side.

When she got there, he was on his knees beside the woman. He'd undone her blouse and unbuckled her belt, revealing a huge, ugly bruise that was quickly forming in the middle of her abdomen.

“She may have internal injuries,” he said, and then grabbed a bottle of water from Alicia and started pouring it on the woman's face in a small trickle, washing away the grit and blood from her face and eyes, then pouring it on the places where she'd been burned, as well.

Alicia was staring at John as if she were looking at a ghost. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak.

“Hand me another,” he ordered. “She's only got a couple of small burns. I shielded most of her body with mine after the car started to burn.”

When Alicia didn't respond, he turned to see what was wrong. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she'd been running hard. Her face was dirt-streaked and sweaty, and there was a smear of blood on her arm. But it was the look in her eyes that got his attention.

“Alicia?”

“Your burns.”

Damn.

He ignored her. “Hand me another bottle of water, please.”

“They're almost gone.”

“Alicia, the water. Please!”

She blinked as her focus shifted to the task at hand, pulled another bottle out from under the torn plastic wrap and handed it over.

“Open some more…Hurry, baby,” he said.

The urgency of his request finally sank in, so she continued to twist off the caps and hand the bottles over as quickly as he emptied them onto the woman's burns.

It seemed like forever, but they finally began hearing the faint sounds of sirens.

“I think I hear them,” John said suddenly.

“Thank God,” Alicia breathed.

Minutes later, the scene was swarming with firemen and rescue vehicles. Paramedics were working on the unconscious woman, trying to stabilize her for transport. John had moved aside but was telling them all he knew.

“We saw her swerve off onto the shoulder once, then get back on the highway. A few seconds later she did it again, and that time she kept going. She flew over the ditch, hit that boulder, and then went end over end twice before landing upside down. I think she was unconscious before she wrecked. Why she was out of it is your call. She was either asleep, ill or drunk. I looked for a medical alert bracelet but didn't find one.”

The highway patrolman was taking notes as John talked. As John paused, he asked a question.

“Did you see a purse?” he asked.

“No, but then, I wasn't looking for one at the time.”

The patrolman nodded, then eyed John's clothing. “You need to get yourself checked out before the paramedics leave.”

“I'm okay,” John said. “It was just my clothes. Lisa used my fire extinguisher on the both of us before much damage could be done.”

The highway patrolman glanced at Alicia, noted the shock in her eyes and thought nothing of it. It was a typical reaction to witnessing a wreck.

“Way to go,” he said.

Alicia nodded, but she couldn't quit shaking. If it hadn't been for seeing John's burns disappear before her eyes, she would have blamed her shock on nothing more than an adrenaline crash. But she
had
seen them, and now she was scared—scared out of her mind.

She didn't want to hear any more about Tibetan monks. There was something going on with John Nightwalker that made no sense. She'd heard of men who carried their age well, but not to the degree that he did. And she knew there were people who healed quickly, but not like this. She'd never believed in UFOs or aliens before, but she was beginning to wonder if she'd been wrong.

“Okay,” the patrolman finally said. “I think we've covered everything. You two are free to go. And I'll tell you now, I don't know what's wrong with that lady, but she's sure lucky you two were behind her when this happened.”

“Glad we could help,” John said, and then reached for Alicia's arm. But when she flinched and pulled back,
he knew his troubles weren't over yet. “Come on, baby,” he said softly. “We can go now.”

Alicia stared at him, wondering if she had the guts to get back in that Jeep with him and drive away. But there was an expression in his eyes that broke her heart—as if he was expecting to be shunned. She sighed, then pulled the car keys out of her pocket and dropped them in his hand.

John reached for her hand, waiting for her touch. When she finally threaded her fingers through his, she felt him shiver. They walked to the Jeep together. John opened the door for her, then waited until she was safely inside before seating himself. He started the engine and drove away—well under the speed limit.

T
he house was quiet when they walked inside. Alicia was carrying an armful of grocery sacks, as was John. They set them on the kitchen counters, then quietly went about the business of putting things away.

John felt the distance between them and hated it, but it was his own fault. There was a reason why he'd never indulged in a serious relationship before, and this was it. Sex for the sake of it was one thing, but staying with one person for a long period of time meant explaining the reality that was his life. And that was impossible. Yet here he was, faced with the inevitable result of his own foolish actions. He should never have let himself care about her, but he had. He wished he didn't love her, but he did.

Once they were done, there was a long moment of uneasy silence. John took a deep breath, and then decided the confrontation had been delayed long enough.

“Alicia…I—”

“I'll bet you're wanting a shower and a fresh change of clothes,” she said. “I know I sure am.”

John sighed. So she wasn't ready for a discussion yet. He couldn't blame her.

“Yes, I would. But when I'm done, we talk. Okay?”

She shrugged.

John frowned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I feel like I've already heard all you have to say. I'm not up for any more bullshit, and I'm sure you can understand why.”

John's chin jutted angrily. “You go do whatever it is you need to do, but I'll be back in the living room in exactly fifteen minutes, at which time I will expect you there. If you're not, I'll come looking for you, and I'm sure
you
can understand why.”

He walked out of the kitchen without looking back, leaving Alicia with the feeling that she'd been the one in the wrong, which wasn't fair.
She
hadn't lied about her age, and she wasn't the one who'd turned out to be some damn chameleon, changing skins and colors on a whim. But she'd seen the look in his eyes, and she knew he was pissed, and she didn't want to be on the receiving end of that anger again. So she headed for her room, trying not to run.

All during his shower, John kept playing one scenario after another through his mind, trying to figure out where to start and how to explain, which always seemed futile. He still didn't know how it had happened. It just had, and he was what he was. He'd learned his skills and weaknesses through accident and error. The Old Ones hadn't sent instructions along with their gift. They'd simply given him his wish, leaving him to figure out the rest.

By the time he dried off and dressed, he was sick to his stomach. He'd seen the gamut of expressions on
Alicia's face. Everything from intense fear to intense passion. He didn't know if he could survive seeing derision or disgust. He dressed without care, choosing a pair of jeans, leaving the rest of himself bare. He wasn't doing it to try to distract her. It was just that it was the closest to how he was most comfortable, and he needed all his wits to pull this off.

True to this word, he was in the living room, awaiting her arrival, twelve minutes later. Just when he thought he was going to have to make good on his threat, he heard her coming down the hall. He stood with his feet apart, his hands on his hips and his chin up, bracing himself for the possibility of an emotional blow.

And that was how Alicia saw him when she walked into the room.
Perfect,
she thought.
I have to get past that body to the task at hand.
Then she sighed.
I suppose I should be thankful he isn't completely naked.

At first glance, he appeared defensive and angry. But she saw past that to the fear in his eyes and felt a sense of relief. If he was scared, then it was okay to let her own fear show.

“I'm here,” she said hesitantly.

“As am I.”

“Now what?”

This was where it got scary, but John had already decided to let her call the shots. He pointed to the sofa. “Maybe we could get comfortable? I don't know about you, but after being deep-fried this afternoon, I'm beat.”

The memory of his skin charred and blistered and hanging in strips made her shudder, as did the fact that the horror was now nothing but a memory.

John sat in a chair opposite her when she took a seat on the sofa, then leaned forward.

“I'm going to swear to you now, by everything that's holy to me, that I will give you an honest answer to every question you ask. I will not lie or try to deceive you. Whether you believe me or not will be your choice, and yours alone.”

Alicia felt a sense of elation. Finally she would understand.

“Thank you, John.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I guess I'm going to start with the most recent of your revelations. Exactly how old are you?”

He groaned. Nothing like starting with the hardest thing to explain.

“We didn't keep a strict sense of time then the way we do now, but at my best guess, I'm about five hundred and twenty-nine years old.”

Alicia's lips parted. Her heart started hammering so hard she thought it would burst. She jumped to her feet.

“Damn you! Damn you to hell and back, Nightwalker! I am done with this. You keep treating me like some blithering idiot. Do I look like an idiot to you?” By now she was screaming. “Why did I think you would be honest? Why did I set myself up for this again?”

John sat without moving, waiting for her to run through her rage. Either she would get it over with or she would be gone. There was nothing he could do to change the outcome. But he couldn't stop his own reaction. Alicia's face had become a blur.

She was so lost in her fury that she didn't notice John wasn't moving—that he wasn't defending his statement
or trying to explain why he'd said it. And when she finally did look at him, she was shocked. Right between one angry breath and the next, she spun, her finger pointed at his face with a curse on the verge of being born, and realized he hadn't moved.

Then she stopped. Were those tears in his eyes? She took another breath and shifted her stance, rearranging her thoughts in preparation for another angry round, when a tear rolled down his cheek.

The breath went out of her so fast it felt as if she'd been sucker punched. She paced back and forth in front of him, muttering to herself, then stopping and starting a half-dozen different sentences, until finally she sat back down and stared.

“John.”

“What?”

“You don't expect me to believe that.”

“Was that a statement or a question?” he asked.

“You expect me to believe you are five hundred and twenty-nine years old?”

“It was a faint hope, but an obviously misplaced one.”

She leaned back on the sofa, exhausted from her rant, and confused beyond belief.

“You were serious?”

He nodded.

“Have you ever talked to anyone about this…delusion?”

The corner of his mouth twitched, then turned down. “You talking about a shrink, baby?”

“Well, there's nothing wrong with seeing one. Mental illness isn't anything to be ashamed of.”

“You think I'm nuts.”

“What would you have me believe?”

“That I told you the truth.”

“Oh, for the Lord's sake,” Alicia sputtered.

“Ask me something else,” John said.

“I don't know if I dare,” she said.

He waited.

“Okay…old man…If you're so old, and you claim my father is the man who killed your family, then I'm assuming you want me to believe my father is also an immortal.”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what—exactly—is it? Did he kill your family, or didn't he?”

“Do you believe in reincarnation?”

She swiped her hands across her face in frustration. “I asked you a question. You don't get to ask me one back until you've answered mine.”

“I can't answer unless you tell me. Do you believe in reincarnation?”

“I don't think so.”

“Then we're back up shit creek here, baby, because what I'm going to say hinges on that being a fact.”

“Just spit it out,” Alicia said. “I'll reserve judgment.”

“It's a long story.”

“I'm free for the evening. Do continue.”

“My village…the village in which I was also born, was on the coast of what is now Georgia. The house where I first took you is built on the bluff that overlooked our village. The village of the Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya, also known as The People. I had seen twenty-nine summers and had taken White Fawn for my woman years before. We'd been together for fifteen of your
years when I began to have visions. You would call them dreams. In the dreams, I kept seeing everything in flames, with blood all around and White Fawn dead at my feet. It's a dream that still returns from time to time.”

Alicia shuddered. It was so close to what she'd dreamed after being stung by the scorpion. How was that possible? Had she somehow locked into his nightmares as he'd slept?

“I was second chief and felt the burdens of my duties strongly. And because of my visions and fear for my people, I began to stand watch over the village from the bluff. One day a storm began to approach, and as it came, it also brought strangers to our shore. I know now that they were Spaniards, but you can imagine my shock, seeing this huge canoe with what looked like great white wings, and seeing men with white skin and hair on their faces. Seeing their bodies covered in strange garments, some of them metal, although we had never seen anything like that before, so I didn't know what it was at the time. They came ashore, and I still don't know why they did what they did. We had nothing of what I now know would have been of value, but they came anyway, led by a man of great greed and evil. That same man's soul is now in your father, Richard Ponte.”

Alicia covered her face. She was in love with a madman. “You blame my father for something that happened five hundred years ago?”

John felt her panic, but he couldn't help her. All he could do was explain himself.

“A man dies, but a soul lives on…and sometimes it's reborn. Sometimes quickly. Sometimes not for many decades. I always know when his soul has been reborn.
When that happens, I live with what amounts to a constant physical pain. The closer I am to the soul's incarnation, the worse the pain. I have chased his soul across the continents and the centuries, yearning for revenge, needing to find my rest.”

Alicia felt sick. This was crazy, but she had to ask. “What happens if you finally find his soul?”

“Nothing—unless I'm the one who ends its current body's life.”

Her head was throbbing. This was beyond ridiculous, yet she heard herself asking yet another question. “And if you ever did kill the body in which the soul resides…do you die then, too?”

He shrugged. “Obviously I don't know, because it hasn't happened. But I do know that no matter how many times I've been hurt or wounded, I heal almost immediately. You've seen that for yourself. I can't die until I've avenged my people.”

She closed her eyes momentarily, trying to regain her sense of self, then remembered she'd interrupted him in the middle of his tale.

“So what happened after the ship sailed into the bay?”

“I sensed this was the danger that I'd been dreaming about and started running back down the bluff, trying to get to the village. I could hear screaming and war cries. I heard what I thought was thunder from the incoming storm, but later I learned it was gunshots. I smelled smoke mingling with the wind and the rain. By the time I got to the village, it was burning, and the Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya were dead…all of them. Including White Fawn.”

Alicia didn't know what to believe, but the drama of the story had gotten to her. When he mentioned White
Fawn, she went still. What was most telling was the tremble in John's voice and the tears now running freely down his face. Whatever torture John believed was happening, it was hurting him badly. She tuned back in, listening as he spoke.

“There was a man standing over her. He had her medicine pouch in his hand.” Then he paused, sensing she would need an explanation. “A medicine pouch was something each of us wore. It contained things sacred only to us. No one else knew what we chose, but it was vital to our lives. And he'd taken it from her without care for her soul or her life.” He shuddered, then cleared his throat softly before the next words would come out of his mouth.

“He'd cut her throat.”

At that point he stopped and scrubbed his hands across his face, as if trying to wipe the images from his mind. He took a deep breath, then began to talk again, and this time the emotion was gone from his voice.

“I tried to kill them all. Such a rage was in me that I can't even explain. I can tell you now what happened, but then, I didn't understand it. They tried to shoot at me, but their powder got wet from the rain. They were no match for me in hand-to-hand combat. I killed them as I came to them. Sending my arrows into their bodies, picking up a dropped spear and putting it through a man's chest. Any weapon I found as I ran, I used. Even their own weapons I used against them. When they saw they couldn't stop me, they began to run back to shore, then into their boats. They rowed away into the bay before I could get to them. I was alone on the shore. I was all that was left of The People. I couldn't live with the knowledge that I'd failed to avenge them. I didn't want to live without White Fawn. I began
cursing and screaming, telling my people that I would not die until I'd achieved justice for the deaths. I said it over and over in a fever of a rage. Then suddenly there was this great light, and I thought it was lightning from the storm. Now I would die. Now I would join my people. But it wasn't to be. Instead, I was bathed in a light from the Old Ones and given what I'd asked for. I was told I would not die until I had avenged the deaths of my people.”