Legacy of Shadow Read online

  Justin jerked his head over to stare in disbelief at him, and then whipped it back to watch the road. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Marcus shrugged, momentum and sense-memory pushing him on. “Keep on driving, keep him behind us. The Mass border can’t be too much farther. Granville’s what, half an hour, max, on the other side? Hell, we drive him straight to the police station if he wants to follow us that far.”

  Justin glanced sideways again, brows drawn low over his glittering black eyes. “Are you insane? We just give him the damned necklace, and hope he doesn’t tase one of us again, and I say we got off light.” He turned back to the road. “The last thing I want to be doing when we hit that old bridge is drag racing with some crazy cracker with a jewelry fetish.”

  Marcus shook his head. Everything Justin was saying made sense, but something within him, tangled up with the hot, painful tightness over his chest, refused to consider giving up the gems.

  Justin began to slow down, rolling down his window and gesturing for the car, now riding their bumper, to pass them. “Give it to me. I’ll toss it at him and we’ll be out of here.”

  Marcus shrank back against his own door, his head shaking of its own accord. Beyond Justin he could see the hood of the chasing car pulling up even with them; the sleek lines of a brand new Prius, gleaming from a fresh wash. The passenger compartment of the other car swelled in the side window, its own window a dark, gaping hole. It was him, of course. That feeling in the air thickened again, and Marcus knew it could not have been anyone else.

  Even in the dim interior of the other car, there was no mistaking the crazed fat man, rolls of pale flesh piling up over his collar and pushing at his tie. The man was glistening with sweat, and his eyes seemed strange, as if they were all pupil. He was screaming something they couldn’t hear over the howling of the engines and the roaring of the wind as Justin reined the Camry in even more. He was keeping one desperate eye on the road and the other on the Prius, and thrust his hand at Marcus, fingers clawing. “Give me the damned thing!”

  Marcus shrank even further against his door, his hands falling to grasp the necklace. He was trying to marshal another argument when, past his friend, he saw the crazy fat man pull something off his own passenger seat and point it at Justin’s head.

  “Stop!” he screamed the word, punching Justin as hard as he could in the shoulder.

  Between the warning and the sudden blow, Justin slammed on the breaks in confusion. Both of them were thrown against their seatbelts, faces precariously close to the windshield, when a gleaming ball of blue lightning flashed over their hood and slapped into the trees by the side of the road.

  Marcus nearly wrenched his neck trying to stare at the impact point as they rushed past. By the sound and feel of the car, Justin had ground his fancy dress shoe back into the gas pedal with terrible force. They were leaping ahead again. Behind them, a flickering orange light in the woods sent a cold, crawling sensation over Marcus’s scalp and down his spine.

  Their erratic maneuvers had sent the other car swerving back into their wake, but now the man had his arm hanging out the driver’s side window, and ball after ball of crackling lightning rushed past them. The energy disappeared into glowing tatters a couple car lengths ahead of them, and Marcus figured that the strange, exotic weapon must have a very short range.

  One of the snapping, spitting orbs caught the rear quarter panel on Marcus’s side and the entire car rang like a rusty old bell. The back window shattered, sending grains of safety glass shooting through the compartment. Tendrils of electricity crawled forward from the point of impact, one jumping from the lock to Marcus’s elbow. He jumped away with a yelp at the sudden, burning pain. The lights of the car dimmed and then surged back, and an alarmingly diffident sound emerged from the engine before it struggled back up to its former roar.

  “Holy shit!” Marcus screamed over the howling wind, slapping at his elbow. Justin struggled manfully to keep the Camry on the road, swerving back and forth to keep their attacker from pulling even with them again.

  “He’s playing for keeps now!” Justin gave the wheel a sharp yank to warn the Prius off, and then jerked his chin at the dashboard in front of Marcus. “Open up the glove box!”

  Marcus looked at his friend in confusion. “What?”

  Justin lurched across the compartment, one hand still on the wheel, and tore at the handle to the glove compartment. It fell open into Marcus’s lap, napkins and paperwork spilling out, whirling around in the wild wind.

  “Get it!” Justin screamed, wrapping his hands back around the wheel as the road ahead of them began to take a wider turn.

  “Get what?” Marcus wanted to hit his friend again; he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He pawed desperately through the swirling papers, and then began to dig through the rest of the compartment’s contents. A manual, a tire-gauge, and a few bulbs and fuses fell out onto the floor. There was a small box farther back that had to be what Justin was screaming about.

  Marcus pulled the plastic box out and stared in confusion at the embossed plastic box top. There were two words there, but he didn’t recognize either of them. It certainly wasn’t English. Between the swirling wind and the pathetic dome lamp, Marcus doubted if he would be able to read it if it had been in English.

  “For God’s sake, will you just open the damned thing?” There were cords standing out on Justin’s dark neck now, and his eyes were rapidly tightening with frustration.

  Another ball of energy flashed past, this time rolling over the roof. Tiny branches of lightning lashed down to strike the windshield, dancing along the wiper blades and then the hood, sending the lights and the engine into fits again.

  Marcus focused on the small box, trying to pry the lock open with fingers that had gone cold with wind and shock. When the latch finally popped open, something dark and heavy fell out into his lap, landing beside the necklace with enough weight to startle him. A pistol.

  “What the hell?” Marcus looked back up at his friend. “What the hell are you carrying a gun around in your car for?”

  Justin’s sudden smile faltered and his eyes flicked between the road and Marcus’s shocked face. Finally, as another shimmering ball snapped past, he spat angrily. “Just shoot him!”

  There had been a few times when Marcus had fired a gun in his life. Twice at a shooting range while in pursuit of a particularly dark-minded young lady, a few times with friends out in the woods, and at one particularly wild bachelor party that had provided him with several memories he had planned to put to good use later in life. He just hadn’t figured the advanced use of firearms would be one of those lessons.

  “Just put the clip in and pull the slide!” Justin was screaming instructions while Marcus just stared at the gun and the clip, one in each hand. He had done this several times that weekend …

  Another ball scorched past, glancing off the back window, shattering the safety glass and wrapping the driver’s side in tendrils of electricity. What the hell was the guy shooting at them? This time the lights went dark and did not come back on, and the engine seemed to be struggling with itself as Justin shook the wheel with both hands as if he could force the car to continue. After a staggering pause, the engine came back, and they tore away from their pursuer again.

  “Just do it!”

  Marcus turned the pistol around, brought the clip up, a single round of ammunition gleaming in the uncertain light, and slid it home into the pistol grip. He looked at it for a moment, unable to remember what came next, and then quickly grabbed the barrel and tried to jam it down over the grip. It didn’t move.

  Panic once again rose in his chest. Marcus knew that they were going to die, and somehow it was going to be his fault. He struggled to bring the slide back, grunting with the effort. Two more balls of lightning flew past, both near misses that did nothing to calm his nerves. With all of his strength he tried to force the slide back, but it wouldn’t move.

  Justin glared over, lo
oked down in disbelief, and then screamed at him. “The safety, you idiot!”

  Annoyance at being called an idiot was immediately lost in the rush of shame and relief as Justin’s other words registered. He flicked the safety down with his thumb and then easily brought the slide back with a satisfying click. He grinned, lifted it up to show his friend, and then realized what he was doing.

  “He’s back that way, Marc!” Justin jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and Marcus was embarrassed enough to just nod, swing around in his seat, and then try to draw a bead through the shattered rear window.

  A part of him, suddenly breaking away from the noise and the chaos, reflected that it truly was odd that he should find himself in his friend’s beat up old Camry, aiming a pistol through the remains of a window at an angry fat man he had never really met. The sliver of his mind stayed in that quiet place, contemplating the peculiarities of the universe, but a ball of energy struck the trunk a solid blow, lifting the back of the car up while lightning reached out to engulf him, and the rest of Marcus’s mind decided that this asshole had a couple close calls coming his way.

  Trying to get a two-handed grip on the gun despite the headrest that now pressed against his left shoulder, Marcus settled the aiming fin at the end of the stubby-seeming barrel back between the glaring headlights of their pursuer, then raised the gun up to where he could just make out the dark, shimmering windshield. Justin was slewing the car back and forth, probably trying to keep them alive, but it made it very hard to aim. He almost asked his friend to stop swerving, but then more lightning streaked past them, and he thought better of it.

  Resting back against his seat as best he could, Marcus focused, brought the gun up, tried to steady it, and jerked the trigger. The sound within the confines of the passenger compartment was deafening. Justin screamed, flinching away, his shoulder rising as if to protect his ear. Marcus’s own ears were ringing; all sound replaced by a constant, painful whine. The car behind them showed no ill effects from the shot.

  “I’m sorry!” Marcus yelled, and then fired two more shots. This time the pain was nearly intolerable; his head pounded. Justin glared at him, but one of the Prius’ headlights had flared out. The car swerved slightly. For the moment, there was no return fire.

  “I think I scared him!” Marcus fell back into his seat, not even trying to hide the wide smile on his face. “He might—”

  There was a deafening crack, like the loudest clap of thunder either of them had ever heard. Loud even over the dull whining in their ears. A bar of light flashed past the driver’s side window, striking a tree far ahead. The tree detonated, throwing fire, splinters, and chunks of shattered wood in every direction. In a moment they were passing the toppling trunk, bits of burning tree hitting their car with a rush of fluttering impacts.

  Justin screamed something Marcus couldn’t hear over the ringing in his ears, but he could guess the meaning well enough from the context of the moment and the wild look in his friend’s eyes. He struggled with his seatbelt clamp and wrestled his way clumsily into the back seat, careful not to point the gun anywhere he shouldn’t. He fell into the cramped seat, scrambled up amidst the broken glass onto his knees, and braced the pistol against the seat back, his arms outstretched through the broken window. He half expected to get hit in the face with a nightmarish bolt of lightning at any moment.

  With a battle cry that would have done his ancestors proud, Marcus aimed at his target’s windshield and pulled the trigger with abandon. He felt as if his ears were bleeding from the painful battering, but he didn’t care.

  Sparks flew off the other car’s hood, a hole appeared in its windshield, more sparks from the roof, another hole, closer to the driver, and then, far too soon, the gun made a dry, plaintive click, the slide locked back, and the weight of the gun seemed to mock him.

  He took a breath, looked down at the empty gun, turned to look at the back of his friend’s head, then down at the gun again. After a hesitant moment, he tapped Justin on the shoulder.

  “What?” The road here was starting to meander more aggressively, forcing Justin to pay closer attention.

  Marcus was pleasantly surprised that he could make out Justin’s words despite the constant whining ring. His ears must have grown accustomed to the detonations. Or else he was getting used to interpreting through the incessant buzzing.

  “Do you have any more bullets?”

  Clearly Justin was having a hard time deciding whether he should keep driving or pivot around to try to strangle Marcus. The angry disbelief on his face was fierce in the tumbling flash of light and shadow. “I have three more clips, but they’re all in the trunk! You’re not supposed to need more than a single clip in real life!”

  Marcus looked at Justin, wondering now if he was hearing him correctly. “What?”

  “You’re never supposed to need more than one clip in real life!”

  “Says who?”

  “Says everybody, you asshole! If you need more than one clip, you’re screwed!”

  Marcus nodded, sitting back against the cushions of the seat. “Well, they were right!”

  Justin glared at him through the rearview mirror. “Who?”

  “Everybody! We’re screwed!”

  Another beam shot past them, grazing the roof over Marcus’s head. The interior of the car was lit brighter than midday for a moment before darkness returned, bright bars haunting their vision as they both blinked to clear them away. The metal was cut cleanly where the beam had touched it, the edges glowing an angry red.

  A large rectangular sign loomed up out of the night and flew past them. Latching onto any mundane detail, Marcus came up short as his mind provided him with an image of the sign. He turned back to Justin, grabbing a fistful of his blazer and screaming directly into his ear. “The bridge!”

  Fox Brook Bridge was an old iron truss bridge, its metal dark and corroded. Its rivet-studded flanks had always reminded Marcus of a stronger, more certain time, when things had been built to last, and looked it. The single-lane bridge spanned a wide, shallow river filled with tumbled granite boulders in a ravine that was deceptively deep.

  As the bridge loomed up ahead of them, its yellow lights flashing their persistent warning, Marcus could only think of the ravine and the jagged rocks below.

  “I’m going to shoot through the bridge, hope for the best!” Justin screamed back at him.

  Marcus nodded. “Sounds good!” They weren’t going to make it. There was no way they could make it. On their way southward a couple days ago they had taken that bridge at about twenty five miles an hour, and even then Marcus had felt a little crawling sensation in his gut as the rusty steel slid past. Now, at night, going by the feeble starlight and the erratic dancing illumination of the single headlight of the car chasing them? They weren’t going to make it.

  For the first time that night, despite the fear that had burned through him since the confrontation in the parking lot, Marcus felt a cold certainty grip him. They really were going to die.

  The looming web of iron reared up in front of them, coming out of the shadows like a monster ready to swallow the car whole. The Camry’s engine screeched beneath the hood as if it, too, could sense their impending doom. Marcus fell into the back seat and scrambled for the seatbelt. After several desperate pulls he had the belt across his chest, but his frantic search for the lock amid the broken glass proved hopeless, and he could only stare through the cracked windshield as the bridge grew larger. He thought he heard a screech beneath the constant ringing of the gunshots, but he couldn’t be sure.

  At the last minute, Justin brought the Camry around in a vicious arc, the tires screaming like the damned and the engine giving out a throaty roar. The bridge slid past the passenger-side windows, close enough that Marcus could see the pitted surface. He slammed against the door, the strap of the seat belt rough on his chin as he struggled uselessly to hold it tight. And then they were still, the car rocking back and forth, the engine panting like an exhausted
animal. There was a plaintive creaking from various parts of the car. Pings sounded off as the engine of the tortured old Camry began to cool down. Justin was rigid in his seat, both hands clasping the wheel. Light from the approaching Prius gleamed off his scalp as he let his head fall forward.

  They were facing back down old State Road 189, smoke and steam rising up all around them. The single headlight of their pursuer drifted closer and then came to a gentle stop, its hybrid engine inaudible. Dust and smoke danced within the beam of the headlight. The windshield was dark except for a series of small craters dashed across it, occasional branching cracks connecting them. Nothing moved within the shadows.

  Marcus forced his hands to unclench and leaned forward slowly, as if he was afraid to draw the attention of the fat man surely regarding them through that shattered glass. In the front seat, Justin’s breath came in heaving gasps barely audible over the remnant buzz of the gunshots. He looked up from beneath his lowered brow to stare into the darkness opposite them, his cheekbones twitching.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was soft. “I couldn’t do it.”

  Marcus gave a slight shake of his head, his own eyes locked on the other car. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t look like I’ll have too long to hate you for it.”

  A light winked on within the Prius’ passenger compartment and both men flinched. A blue glow flashed rapidly on and off, its color reminding Marcus of the balls of energy the over-powered taser weapon had been throwing at them.

  With a creak they could barely hear over the exhausted sounds of their own vehicle, the driver’s door of the other car opened, rocking back and forth from a forceful push.

  Again, an eerie stillness settled over the scene as they waited for the man to emerge. The area around the bridge was kept clear of trees. There was nowhere for them to run or hide. Behind them was the granite-lined lip of the little canyon of Fox Brook.

  Justin looked back at Marcus from the corner of his eye. “Well, this is going to suck.”