Page 51 of Concluded
Silence filled in the room until Achilles huffed.“Do you have any more bombshells to drop, Chief?’Cause I’d like to get this over with.”
“Okay.Let’s?—”
Tenrael startled all of them by whirling toward one of the doors.Grimes spun too, hand inside his jacket and, no doubt, on a weapon holstered to his chest.Achilles didn’t have any weapons—they’d disappeared during his encounter with Ashley Dunn—but he leapt to his feet and tensed himself in readiness.If he had to, he could throw dishes or use his fists.Dee shrank back in his seat, looking bewildered.
Three aliens burst into the room, all speaking rapidly in their own language.They were clearly upset, but it took Tenrael a few moments to understand them.“Vehicles approaching,” he finally translated.“Not likely friendly.”
Shit.
Fortunately Achilles and Dee were dressed and ready to go, and neither had any personal items to worry about.They abandoned the kitchen and rushed after Grimes, followed by Tenrael and the aliens, down a hall and out a door into the glaring morning sun.A black Jeep was the only visible vehicle and their apparent destination.They climbed in and, without even a chance to thank their hosts, they were off.Eschewing the road, Grimes piloted them straight across the desert, bumping over rocks and roaring down hills.It was not a comfortable ride.
“Are they safe?”asked Achilles, referring to the aliens.
It took a few moments before Grimes responded.“Maybe.They have tunnels.And I suspect that right now, the four of us are more interesting to our foes.”
That would need to be reassurance enough since there was little that any of them could do to protect their hosts.Achilles imagined masked men in ICE uniforms swarming the place—demanding papers from people who were definitely aliens and likely undocumented—and unsympathetic to explanations that they were refugees.A ridiculous scenario, yet eerily possible.
“Townsend promised to help them,” he said, knowing it was hopeless.
Tenrael turned his head to look at them.“They understood the risks and they know the forces that oppose us.”
Maybe Achilles would have argued about this, but Dee, who was looking out the back window, made an alarmed noise.“They’re following us.”Sure enough, two dark shapes were barely visible through the dust kicked up by the Jeep’s tires.
“I’m aware,” Grimes said, driving faster and more erratically, zooming over ridges as if he didn’t think gravity applied to him.
Achilles held onto the grab bar for dear life.The jostling was uncomfortable to his wounds and his ears were ringing.“We could wish ourselves somewhere else,” he suggested.
“No,” Dee said firmly.“I don’t trust my ability to be a transporter beam for four people and a Jeep.I don’t know where we’d end up or in what kind of shape.And I need to save my battery.”
Fair enough.Achilles didn’t want to end up like that scientist inThe Fly.And he wanted to get into the black hole and back out again.But he also didn’t want to fall into Dunn’s clutches again.“Where are we going?”he shouted over the roar of the Jeep’s engine.
Grimes didn’t answer, which could have meant he was too busy to chitchat or he didn’t think Achilles needed to know.Or, less happily, it could have meant that Grimes himself didn’t know where they were going.Perhaps he was just speeding aimlessly through the desert until they crashed, ran out of gas, or got overtaken by their pursuers.Tenrael didn’t say anything either, and he looked tense, although that could have partly been discomfort from his wings being squashed against the car seat.
Which got Achilles thinking about Grimes’ wings, or lack thereof.It had never occurred to him that Grimes might once have possessed them, but now he wondered what past trauma those scars represented.Unlike Dee, Grimes must have grown up knowing he was different, that he was something… not quite human.But both of them must have felt isolated.As had Achilles himself, even though, as far as he knew, his DNA was one hundred percentHomo sapiens.
That thought brought the idea that Dee could have his DNA tested—if he wanted—if things ever got back to normal.The Bureau had those capabilities in the Northern California lab.It might answer at least a few of Dee’s questions and would likely also prove interesting for research’s sake.
All of these thoughts were convenient ways of distracting himself from current facts: his body hurt, the Jeep didn’t seem to be getting anywhere but deeper into the desert, and the two dark shapes behind them were now considerably closer.
Dee leaned close and spoke just loudly enough to be heard.“Are you used to things like this?”
They slammed together as Grimes made a sharp left-hand swerve, and then bounced high enough to bash their heads into the ceiling.“I guess,” Achilles answered, rubbing his scalp.“Not a ton of high-speed off-road chases, but uncomfortable near-death adventures, sure.”
“Let’s just hope it’s only near-death.”
As if on cue, somebody started shooting at them.Bullets shattered the rear window, spraying them with pebbles of safety glass.Dee yelped, and Achilles shoved Dee’s head as low as his tall frame and the enclosed space allowed.
“Anyone hit?”Grimes shouted as he continued his evasive maneuvers.
Dee shook his head, and Achilles was about to answerno, when another bullet grazed his right shoulder and burrowed into the seat in front of him.Tenrael made a pained grunt.
“Ten!”Grimes didn’t sound panicked—quite—but he certainly wasn’t calm.
Tenrael gave Grimes’ leg a quick pat.“You know I am very difficult to kill.”
“But not impossible.”
This was true.Achilles tried to rally his brain to recall exactly how durable demons were—he’d certainly been trained on the matter—but realized his shoulder stung.A quick inspection indicated that even though he was bleeding, he wasn’t in mortal danger.Also, his arm remained fully functional, which was important.
