Part 30 (1/2)

”The car is fine. She's a trooper. She'll take us where we need to go. She may not look pretty anymore, but none of us do. I even started her engine before I set out to find you, thinking you might hear it. She purrs like a cat. A r.e.t.a.r.ded cat, but a cat.”

I still didn't like it. He grew silent as we hobbled together through the forest.

I had to ask, ”Where did I go?”

”Huh?”

”Just now. After the accident.”

”I don't know.” His voice became yielding, pliable. ”I came to with my head indented on the steering wheel. The wasps were gone. Ada was shaking me awake. She had her seatbelt on, thank f.u.c.k, so she was fine. Maybe some whiplash. And you were gone. I don't even know how you got out of your seatbelt. You've not only turned into the Hulk, but Houdini as well. ”

I was so ashamed and so furious with myself for leaving the accident. And causing the accident, when it came right down to it. They were my wasps, weren't they?

”You should have left me here,” I growled.

He stopped. I could see a single beam of light in the distance, probably the car. It made the sticky blood on his face s.h.i.+ne like a frozen pond.

”Perry,” he said. His voice came out thick and raspy. ”You have to accept that this isn't your fault. You didn't ask for this.”

”How do you know?” I cried out. He was sparking some nerves just beneath my sh.e.l.l. ”How do you know what I asked for?! Do you know what it's been like to be me for the past few months? Do you have any idea what I've gone through!? Do you?!”

The non-bloodied skin on his face went an extra shade of white to match the moon. His eyebrows lowered, eyes dropped briefly to the ground. Then he brought them to meet mine and they softened like liquid honey.

”I don't think I'll ever be able to tell you how sorry I am. It doesn't mean I won't try, because you, Perry, you deserve a lifetime of servitude. Eons of groveling. Even then, I don't think I can show enough, do enough to let you see. And that's OK. You have every right to hate me for this lifetime and many others. You have every right to never see me again. To spit on my grave. But tonight, now, I'm not going to give up on you. I'm going to fix you or,” his voice fell with weight, ”die trying.”

I didn't know what to say to that. I opened my mouth and closed it again, letting the gravity of his words sink in. I couldn't forgive him. I couldn't let him die on account of me, either. He needed to go to the hospital. I needed to go to a hospital. But we both carried on in our stubborn little ways, protesting together but apart.

Dex let out a puff of breath and pointed at the light in the distance.

”Just one headlight left. Let's hope we make it till dawn before seeing any cops. I don't think they'd believe our story for a second. Especially since your jolly old father probably has a wanted poster of me down at the station already.”

A minute later we arrived at the car. Ada looked fine except for a bruise on her elbow. She wrapped her arms around me in a lavish, squeezing hug, thinking she might never see me again. I foolishly told her it would be the last time we'd be apart.

Then she started wrapping me up in duct tape. Even in the middle of a car accident, I was still public enemy number one.

We got in the car and after I was carefully belted in, Dex managed to reverse it up the embankment. Luckily, it wasn't as steep as it looked when we went bounding down it. The Highlander shuddered and smoked a bit but she worked and we were soon roaring down the highway again. The night sky was clear as we left the mountains and entered the softly rolling hills, and far off in the distance you could see the sky easing black to blue. The horizon looked fresh and clean and the dying stars twinkled brightest before they faded. Dawn was coming.

Time was ticking.

It was near eight in the morning, when the landscape was sunny, dusty and squint-worthy bright, that I felt a cloak of blackness settle over me like opaque net. It had been waiting to drop all night. I had been waiting to receive it. A net of indescribable evil.

A voice spoke out deep inside my head. That voice from the bowels of creation, one that encapsulated all pain and suffering the world has ever known - and relished it.

Give up, it said. To resist is to bring pain. Pain to your loved ones. Pain to yourself. Give up and you'll be spared. You'll be free.

Try me, I thought.

I raised my chin and looked at Dex and Ada, who were lost in their own thoughts, watching the flat farmlands roll past.

”Guys,” I said, my voice shaking out of my chest. ”I don't have much time left.”

Dex stepped harder on the gas. I didn't know if it would be enough.

When we arrived outside the small, reservation town of Lapwai, I was a complete write-off. There was no hope left for me. I pushed and tried and projected and did what I could to get control back but I was too tired and too weak to be any threat. I spent the entire car ride trapped in my body and under the demon's rule. I spoke in tongues, I writhed and screamed and tried to bite Ada and Dex until she was stealth enough to put a piece of duct tape over my mouth. She then proceeded to tape me down to the actual seat, using all three rolls of the tape they'd purchased from the gas station.

It was good timing that as soon as Dex navigated the Highlander up to a desolate rancher on the sage-brushed outskirts, the tape began to come loose from the seat and my thras.h.i.+ng was at an all-time high. Any longer and the thing would have propelled me into Dex and taken the car off the road again, for the final time. You only get to cheat the devil once.

Dex slammed the car into park and he and Ada jumped out of the car while I remained writhing inside. The rusty door to the small house banged open and a tall, slim native man in jeans and an old, grey San Francisco Giants sweats.h.i.+rt stepped out. He was surprisingly young, you know, for an exorcist, maybe a few years older than Dex. Dex shook the man's hand vigorously and then, as the man shook Ada's, someone else emerged from the trailer.

It was Bird. Stoic Bird from Red Fox, with his dusty denim jacket, weather-beaten face and imitation Raybans. Aside from a quick slap on the back, and Bird motioning to Dex's head wound with concern, there was no time for a reunion. Dex pointed at the car and they all came running for me.

I tried with all my heart to get the creature away from me, to be able to act as myself to Bird and to tell him how much I appreciated him for trying to help me once again, but I couldn't. If anything, my attempts made it push me back even farther. A layer of film settled over my vision, like I was looking through a thick piece of laminate, and all sound came at me as through underwater channels.

Dex opened the door and the exorcist and Bird peered down at me, sussing me out. I puffed in and out the piece of duct tape instead, tried to wriggle myself free and uttered supernatural groans.

The man, who I a.s.sumed was Roman, shook his head defiantly and started muttering in his native tongue. Then he began yelling at Bird in that language, pointing at me and frowning. Bird laid his hands on Roman and answered him back calmly, still in another language.

Finally, Dex asked, ”Excuse me but what's the problem?”

Bird looked at me and then at Dex with a tight-lipped smile. ”Roman's upset because I didn't tell him how bad she really was.”

”I didn't know,” Dex said to him, then he turned to Roman. ”I didn't know until last night. You speak English, right?”

”Yes, I speak English,” Roman snapped. He gestured at me without much concern. ”She's too far gone; this is unfixable.”

If I had a heart that still belonged to me, it would have been shattered wide open.

I was unfixable.

I was going to die.

Dex grabbed Roman by the front of his sweats.h.i.+rt and brought him right up to his face.

”You're going to fix her,” he snarled, his dark eyes sparking as they bore holes into Roman's. ”She's a lot stronger than she looks. She is still in there and you're going to help her, or so help me G.o.d.”

”You'll need your G.o.d if you think you're going to win this battle,” Roman said. He exchanged a measured look with Bird and then gave a short nod. ”OK. Let's see what we can do. Just, please release me.”

Dex stared at him intensely for a few seconds, the dried blood down the side of his face making him look borderline homicidal, before he backed off and unclenched his hands from the sweats.h.i.+rt. He took a quick look at me and then walked away, shaking his shoulders, trying to cool off.

I was foaming at the mouth, the spillage leaking out underneath the duct tape. Roman brought his face in deeper to mine and started muttering in his language again. Even though he was Nez Perce, it sounded like Navajo to my faraway ears and would explain why he and Bird could talk to each other.

Bird nodded and replied back. Then as Roman started to undo the duct tape, Bird's warm face filled my line of sight as he leaned close to me.

”Perry,” he said gently. ”I can see past these eyes. I know you're in there. I know you can hear me. I know you must be scared right now but we'll need you to listen to us. You must do what we say. This is going to be very complicated. But it's not impossible. You must have faith. You must call on your faith. Faith in G.o.d, if you still believe. Faith in the universe if you don't. Faith in love. Faith in yourself and faith in others. Faith will give you courage and grant you hope. Use that.”

Roman said something else as he ripped off the duct tape from my legs.