Nirvana Effect (33 page)

The
lab
was situated just as she had left it.  She went to the back corner of the basement, behind a particularly long work counter, and knelt down to unlock her safe.  She was so
angry
.  It seemed as though she finally had gotten what she wanted, only to have it all taken from her.  She just kept thinking over and over about seeing Edward as a corpse.  She gripped the safe. 
Edward.

She grabbed th
e cash and her passport
.

Footsteps.

They were clear and unmistakable.  Not her imagination.

She slowly rose, until she could see him over the countertop.

Edward ran.
  He had to
escape that
thunder of feet.

He reached the doorway of the temple and cracked the nose of one of the guards with the butt of his palm.  He moved too fast for either
opponent
to react.

The
guard
jerked back.  Edward wrenched
the guard’s
staff from his hand.  It was a hunting staff, a heavy, bludgeoning weapon. 
It was weighted carefully,
fast and strong.

Edward lashed out twice with the stick.  Both guards dropped.  Edward had simply chosen a path for his weapon that neither Onge had a chance to block.

He turned around. 
Forty
armed Onge were charging the temple.  They saw him drop the guards. 

Edward tossed the stick down and started running again. 
He
could outpace them.

At the jungle’s edge, near the trading rout
e, Edward spotted a trail
.  It would serve his purposes, helping him to transform the mob into a more manageable line. 

The path snaked him through the jungle. 
The pounding feet of the Onge drew closer. 
As the path curved more and more intricately, he began to doubt his choice.  He
heard some tribesmen up ahead
taking the more direct route through the brush.

One leaped out from the
foliage
ahead of him, spear in hand. 
Without breaking stride, Edward sidestepped the Onge’s weapon and buried his elbow into the native’s face.  The Onge just dropped, and Edward swiped his
spear
with a spin move
.

Edward saw two more
Onge
through the foliage on his right, closing in on him through the woods.  He kept running.  One stopped to throw a spear.  Edward ducked it and rolled, relentless forcing his body ahead.  The second tried to tackle him.  He spun around him, whacking him on the back of the head with the spear handle without giving up his pace.  Edward sensed he was losing those Onge that were on the path.  He didn’t see any
more in the woods. 

After several minutes of all-out sprinting, Edward reached a clearing.  Fifteen cars were parked in a semicircle, all facing a newly cut path which could fit a car one way. 
Probably leads to the road.
  Several muddy divets in the clearing marked where cars had once taken up the semicircle.  It seemed a few vehicles had peeled out in a hurry.

One thin Onge stood stunne
d and unarmed amidst the cars, gaping at the white man.

Edward stopped and let his eyes rest on each vehicle for a moment.  He chose the Jeep far to the right.  It was bright orange, but he wasn’t picking it for its looks.  The key was already in the ignition, as he suspected.  He cranked it up.  He glanced over at the Onge.  He had backed even further from Edward
.

The rest of the tribe, however
, was
starting to reach the clearing.  Edward threw the Jeep into gear and kicked it out to the path.  He heard the Onge rev up cars behind him.

The four-wheel drive let Edward really tear up the muddy path and hang the curves without sliding.  The Jeep bounced
over
huge holes in the road and kept
right on
rolling.
  Finally,
Edward
reached a flat part of the jungle, and it seemed that about a kilometer down the path he could see the road, or at least a clearing.  He stood and looked over his muddy windshield. 
Definitely
the road.

A red car pulled onto the path from the road.  It was directly in his way, moving
slowly
toward him
.

Edward stood up again.  He saw the car was low to the ground, some sort of sports car, and it definitely didn’t seem to be made for the rough jungle terrain.

Edward glanced behind him. 
He could hear a few of the vehicles pursuing him
, but none
were
in sight.  He was definitely outpacing them.  Of course, a road race in
his
Jeep would be a different story.  The rain had stopped, and he knew it would only be the matter of an hour or so before the road dried up.  His Jeep would be a disadvantage, then.  They’d catch him
in a race to Lisbaad
.

He focused on this vehicle ahead. 
First things first. 
Unless the path unexpectedly widened, there
was
no way around the red car.  He’d either have to try to go over it or seize it.  Edward started being able to see its occupants. 

The driver was definitely Onge.  A white man with slick black hair sat in the passenger seat. 

The car was a Corvette.

Dr. James Seacrest’s head hurt.  His wrists
ached
and itched.  The sunlight burned his eyes, and he had to make quite an effort to open them.  He felt ill, and the bull-like jostling helped little.

When his eyes adjusted, he screamed.  He also tried to throw his arms
up
, but he couldn’t manage it past the ropes which bound his wrists.

A huge bright orange Jeep hurtled directly at him and his car. 
He wasn’t driving his car.  Rather, it was being steered by a dark-skinned man in a loincloth.  He looked dirty.  He shouldn’t be sitting in the Corvette dirty like that.

James did a double-take on the dark-skinned man
before he
remembered what had happened.  His head started hurting worse.  That Jeep didn’t look like it was stopping.  The dark man threw himself out of the Corvette.  James felt neglected as a hostage. 

The Jeep skidded to a stop on all four tires, fishtailing out.  It stopped
just before impact.

A
crazy white man in priest robes
leaped out of the Jeep and jumped the native.

James tried to rub his head. 
It was all so much to take in. 
He couldn’t
rub his head
because of the damn rope.

The white man hit
the driver in
the face and the stomach, but the native recovered quickly by rolling with the punches
.  He counter-attacked with fists and elbows.
  The white man twisted to the side
in response
, bracing himself on James’s precious Corvette to land a kick.  The native swept back to dodge it, and the white man, still spinning, planted a high kick onto the native’s chest.

Amazingly, the native was pushed back, but did not fall.  He didn’t even seem shaken. 

James heard the roaring of engines.  Far down the path, he saw cars
and trucks approaching
single file.

The native charged the priest.  The priest sidestepped him again, but this time the native came at him with a fist he couldn’t dodge.  The white man took it straight to the gut.  James was shocked to see it didn’t even seem to wind the man.

The native hesitated and muttered something in a foreign tongue.  He must have been shocked, too.  He lunged again at the white man.

The priest’s back was to James.  He was only a meter away from the Corvette.  The priest dodged the native’s fist, then grappled him by the hair and arm and sent his head crashing into the side of the Corvette.  James felt the sickening thud reverberate through the precious car.  He hoped it didn’t mess up the paint job.  A dent was easier than a paint chip.

The native’s head didn’t jerk back like it was supposed to when he hit the car.  Instead, he just dropped.

The lead pursuit cars skidded to a stop behind the parked Jeep.  More
dark men
poured out of
their
vehicles before they had even stopped moving.  The priest jumped into James’s Corvette
and
shifted
into reverse.  He was using mirrors to keep to the path, launching back up the trail.  James eyed the speedometer.
  It only read zero.

The natives were tilting the Jeep.  They were rolling it off the path so they could get through.

“Hello,” said the strange white man.

“Uhm, hello.”  James debated which driver he liked better.

“Dr. Seacrest, I presume?” asked the priest. 

James wanted to scratch his head.  He made up for it by squinting.  “Yes, I’m Dr. Seacrest.  And you are?”

“Edward Styles.”  St
yles extended his hand to shake
and then
put it back onto the seat when he saw James wouldn’t be able to reciprocate.

“Father Edward Styles?” asked James.

Styles scowled.  “Just Edward Styles will do fine.”

“All right, Edward Styles.  Mind untying me?” asked James.

“In a minute.  Got my hands full right now.”  T
he cars in pursuit loomed larger in their vision
.  Styles revved the engine.

“If you push it too much it’ll…” James started to say.  The car suddenly shook and jerked sideways.  “…bottom out,”
he finished
.

Styles kept the car
zooming
. 
Five cars chased after them
, at least twenty men
, all
less than a hundred meters away.

“Oh, God,” said James.  On
e of the natives leaned out of
the lead SUV with a shotgun and trained it on the Corvette.

“About fifty meters away,” shouted Edward over the high whine of the engine in reverse.
 
“
We’re okay,” said Styles.  “You don’t have a gun, do you?”

James braced through another jolt from the road.  “Under the seat,” answered James.

“What seat?”
 

“My seat,” said James.  Edward sighed.

“Can’t reach it.”

“Me either.”

“Duck,” said Edward matter-of-factly.

“Beg pardon?” asked James.  He wished he’d heard more clearly, because the next moment his head was between his legs, forcefully shoved there by Edward’s hand.

The shotgun
sounded
like a thunderclap. 
The tinkling of shattered glass rode the echo of the shot.

James felt hot glass on his neck and cried out.  Edward did not react. 
James jerked his head up and saw that his
windshield was shattered. 

“Stay down!” shouted Edward.  He shoved James down again
.
This time the shot flew high. 

James looked up again
careful. 
James had been in some tough scrapes before, but never had this much harmful intent leveled at him in one sitting. 
They’r
e literally trying to kill my ar
s
e
with a shotgun! 

The SUV was only twenty meters away.  James
glanced back
and saw they were only a hundred meters from the road.

“DUCK!  DUCK!” screamed Edward.  This time James reacted quickly enough.  He saw a puff of uphol
stery and interior where Edward’
s head had been situated only a moment before.  “Stay down!” shouted Edward.  “Just stay down.”

Edward was staying down, too.  “How are you driving the car?” asked James.  Edward ignored him.  “
Styles
?  What’s going on?  Don’t you need to see the road?”

Edward had closed his eyes.

The car revved faster. 

“Oh God!” shouted James.  He envisioned
his Corvette wrapped around a tree
. 
A huge bump jostled him down to the floorboard.  He could only watch Edward, now, with his closed eyes.

Edward jerked the steering wheel.  They bumped over a small tree.  They were on the road.  Edward rocketed up into his seat and jammed the accelerator all the way down to the floor.  They rocketed down the paved highway. 

James thanked God for a miracle and cursed the priest.