Control Point (8 page)

Britton raced into the front parking lot, surprising the other two cops. One was leaning over the other among the flattened azaleas, bandaging the prone man’s bleeding ears.

His partner spotted Britton and shouted. The other cop turned, dropped the medical tape, and fumbled with his holstered sidearm. The magical tide responded and opened a gate between them as the cop drew and fired, the bullet passing harmlessly into the other world. From behind, the gate was a shimmering rectangle of air. Britton couldn’t see the television static surface or the landscape beyond. The gates apparently had a facing—front and back.

He ran for a cruiser, lights still flashing, engine running, and passenger door open. A computer keyboard and screen covered the center console. An empty shotgun sheath stood beside it, blocking Britton’s plan to throw himself across and reach the driver’s seat. He turned to run around the vehicle.

A crack of thunder stopped him.

“And you told me that you turned yourself in,” Harlequin
said. The captain floated above the store’s russet-shingled roof. The wind whipped around him, stripping leaves from the trees. Above Harlequin’s head was a black cloud, out of place in the placid sky. Light churned in its dark recesses.

A sheet of rain shot from the cloud to lash Britton’s face, leaving dry ground just a foot beyond him. The cops stood below Harlequin’s polished boots, looking up in awe.

“Believe me, I’d far rather bring you in,” Harlequin shouted over the gusting wind, “but if you take one more step, I will cook your sorry Probe ass. It’s over, Oscar. Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head.”

Britton backed away from the cruiser, lining up with the driver’s-side door.

The cloud opened like a locket. Boiling light swept out with a deafening crack, shaking the ground. Britton shielded his eyes against the flash and spray of shattered asphalt. When he opened his eyes, the hair on his shins was smoldering. A two-foot crater had rent the parking lot. The smell of ozone lingered in the air.

“Get away from the car, or I won’t miss next time,” Harlequin said. “Knees, damn it. I’m tired of this.”

Britton measured the distance. He couldn’t get to the car, open the door, and get inside in time.

He sank to his knees.

“Smartest thing you’ve done all damn day,” Harlequin said, descending toward him, the cloud trailing. “Hands over your head, Oscar.”

As Britton raised his hands, he caught a flash of black and red in his peripheral vision. He stood and raced for it, clapping his hands and calling. The giant bird-thing froze, its sword beak pointing toward him.

“Damn it, Oscar!” Harlequin yelled. Britton felt the hairs all over his body stand on end as electricity arced around him. He froze, wincing, waiting for his skin to burst into flame.

But the strike never came.

Harlequin blazed in the sky, wreathed in crackling electricity. The cloud expanded, haloing him in gray. “The thing that burns me is that you think I’m the bad guy. You’re the walking time bomb who has already killed one person and now wants a chance to spread more of it around. I’m not the bad guy,
Oscar. You are. And I’m not going to let you hurt anyone else.” He spread his hands, electricity shooting from the storm cloud up his arms to buzz along his fingertips.

He dove.

Britton raced toward the bird, motionless on a single purple leg. Its long neck lowered menacingly, the throat puffing out in warning.

Harlequin’s shadow overtook him, the conjured cloud covering the sun. The Aeromancer shot past him, spinning in the air and touching down on the tarmac between Britton and the bird, one hand and knee on the ground, his body coiled to spring, bristling with blue lightning.

Britton stopped short, scraping his feet, flinging himself toward the cruiser. He heard the electric sizzle as Harlequin sprang airborne behind him, closing the distance like a dive-bomber.

A boom sounded. Britton felt as if a giant hand swatted him. He turned in the air, his back slamming against the car door, shattering the window. The rippling air caught Harlequin, spiraling him into the store’s roof, sending shingles flying. The storm cloud dissipated, drifting apart on a suddenly calm breeze.

The bird took a lurching step, its throat smooth once again, stabbing the air with its huge beak.

Britton scrambled to his feet, ears ringing. He fumbled for the door handle, wincing at the pain in his shoulders as he threw himself into the seat and put the car in gear. Harlequin stirred weakly on the store’s roof. One of the cops helped Cheatham scramble up the air-conditioning unit to reach him. The other ran toward Britton, shouting.

He stopped short as a gate opened in front of him, closed, then reappeared a few feet to one side of the cruiser.

Britton gunned the engine, leaving patches of smoking rubber as he drove the car through the gate, the static light washing over the hood.

The convenience store, cops, and soldiers all vanished behind him as the world beyond bumped beneath his tires.

Britton could hear shearing metal as the uneven ground ripped off pieces of the undercarriage. The radio hissed static. The cruiser bumped to a halt.

Dawn had come to the other side as well. The plain came alive beneath it, sawtooth grass flecked with tiny red and yellow flowers he had missed in the darkness. It rolled out for miles, ending at a line of rocky foothills. Currents of magical energy eddied all around him. He leaned out the cruiser’s broken window, looking behind him. The gate still shimmered. The cop stared through it, gaping.

“You want magic?” Britton shouted at him. “Come and get it, you bastard!”

If the cop heard, he gave no sign.

“Baztaad …commageddit… ?” keened a voice.

Three of the demon-horses sniffed toward the car. One poked at the passenger door with its single tooth, jumping back from the hard surface.

Frustration boiled into anger. “Can I get a damned break?” Britton shouted.

The magic tide swept about him, far more powerful on his side of the gate. Before he knew what had happened, he felt the current snake through the gate to wrap around the cop, hauling him through.

The gate’s light washed over him as he came stumbling, eyes big as dinner plates. The pack streamed around the cruiser toward the easier target.

“Oh, dear God. No,” Britton whispered.

The cop screamed, hauling out his pistol and firing madly, in no danger of hitting anything.

“Hang on!” Britton shouted. “I’m coming!”

He slammed on the accelerator, pulling the steering wheel to run down one of the demon-horses. The thing turned, keening a rumbling imitation of the motor before the grill caught it, its ribs cracking as it slid up the hood to shatter the windshield. Its horselike head lolled toward him, eyeless, the spike tooth leaking blood. Britton punched it hard, jarring it enough to send it back over the hood. The car shuddered as the wheels crunched over it.

The other two demon-horses leapt aside as he guided the cruiser toward the cop. He threw the driver’s-side door open. “Get in!”

The cop backpedaled, his face a mask of terror. He changed magazines mechanically, then raised the pistol.

Britton ducked as a bullet whined through the space where the windshield had been, thudding against the bulletproof divider behind him.

“Damn it, you idiot! I’m trying to help you!”

The cop answered him with another round, slamming into the engine block.

The demon-horses flowed around the car toward the cop. Britton spun the steering wheel and drove away. Another bullet whined off the cruiser’s roof before the cop noticed the pack and turned the gun on them.

Britton spun the wheel again, turning the car back, but another bullet hissed past as the policeman fired blindly at the monsters. Britton heard a coughing bark, the best impression of the gunshot that five more demon-horses, coming at a run, could muster.

You’re no good to him with a bullet in your head,
Britton told himself.
Get out of here.

He swore and floored the accelerator, bumping the car over the plain until the cop and the demon-horses vanished behind him. Assuming the cop had a seventeen-round magazine, he’d already expended at least ten of them. There was no way he could take out the whole pack, shooting like he was.

He’s as dead as your father.

Another gate opened. Through it, he could see deep forest alongside an overgrown trail.

The devil you know is better than the one you don’t.
He drove through.

The cruiser rumbled onto an old logging trail. The car bottomed out over roots and rocks, making it a few feet before the front tires blew out, sending his scraped nose into a half-deployed air bag. He sat with his head against it, numb and exhausted.

He raised his head as the wind wafted steam from the radiator through the shattered windshield. Another gate hovered four feet off the ground. It had opened into an underwater portion of the other world. Shafts of weak sunlight penetrated green depths that stirred with the languid movements of huge bodies. Not a drop spilled through the gate.

“What do you want from me?” he shrieked, pounding the steering wheel. He sank back in the seat, weeping. “I don’t want you…I just want…”
I just want to go home.

And where exactly would that be now?
his mind asked.

“Stop,” he said. “Just stop. Pull yourself together.”

He searched the interior of the car. He found an unlocked gun case under the passenger seat, but it was empty, as were the backseats. The glove compartment contained a plastic first-aid kit, three chem-lights, a pocketknife, and a pack of tissues.
He took them all, stuffed the lot into the gun case, and exited the car in time to watch the gate close on the watery depths and vanish.

What exactly was he planning to do? He’d managed to keep a half step ahead of his pursuers, but that couldn’t last long. And even if he could stay ahead of them, what then?

You’ll just have to figure it out,
he answered himself.
Maybe you can make your way to New Mexico, join up with the Apache insurgency. Maybe you can find one of those Selfer street crews hiding out in New York City.

And fight the government I’ve served?

The government that murdered a confused girl. The government that’s trying to kill you. Live or die, Oscar, make your choice.

You didn’t want to kill anyone. They’ll never believe that, but you know it.
Britton hung on to that thought, repeating it to himself over and over again.
It’s the reason you’re not a Selfer, not like they use the word.

So,
he thought again,
make your choice. What do you de-serve?

Britton choked back tears of relief as he realized that he did not deserve to die. His choice was made. He would run.

Step one, find a place to lie low, get your bearings. Step two, find someone who can help you get control of your magic.
The Green Mountain National Forest was miles from here, but it was big enough to get lost in. Big enough to go to ground while he figured out a way to head south without being spotted. It was a paper-thin plan, ridiculous in the face of what was sure to be a manhunt conducted by the most powerful military in the world.

But it was life. And, for the moment, it was all he had.

“Got to hide this car,” he said. The police probably had some way to track their vehicles. He wasn’t certain where he was but figured that distance on the other side approximated distance in this world. He couldn’t be too far from where he’d stolen the car. A thick carpet of ochre pine needles blanketed the ground, but that wouldn’t cover the cruiser.

The magical tide rose with his frustration. Another gate flashed open, cutting through the car’s front quarter panel. It shimmered there, then vanished, severing the wheel, bumper,
and headlight. Water pooled beneath the sliced radiator. He stared, thinking what a gate would do if it appeared in the middle of a person, and shuddered.

“All right,” he said. “You want to help? Fine, you can help.”

“Magic,” he asked, feeling ridiculous, “you listening? I need you to open up and suck in this car.” He made a pincer motion, sweeping his arms up over his head.

A light breeze gusted over his back, drying his sweat and reminding him of the cold.

“Come on,” he said. “Do it. I command you, swallow the car.”

He motioned again. Nothing. He sighed, looking around at the trees swaying gently in the breeze. Somewhere in their branches, a squirrel chattered.

He threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, God! I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.” He laughed again, the sound strange in his ears. But he felt a little better as he moved into the woods.

Once he was out of sight of the trail, he treated his wounds with what he found in the first-aid kit, using up its entire contents. Nearly every inch of him was covered in gauze, Band-Aids, and antibiotic ointment. He had no water to wash his wounds and used the bottle of peroxide instead, wiping with gauze and a miraculously clean corner of his ragged T-shirt.

His ears rang, but the drums felt intact. He looked at his reflection in the plastic case and saw no blood leaking from them. His calf throbbed. The sock had sealed the wound though blood still oozed through the black crust that had formed on the fabric. His shoulders ached from the impact with the car.