“Don’t we pay you or show you a license or anything?” Marcus asked, wondering just how aware Heather was of her special powers over the male species.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, that’d be a good idea. The license part. The payin’ part’ll be a bit different since this is kinda’ a unique situation and all. The guy droppin’ off the car will have paperwork for you to sign. He’ll take care of all that.”
Ian removed his license from his wallet and presented it to Harold, who barely even glanced at it before nodding his approval. After all, once Heather got behind the wheel, the car would just take flight anyway.
Heather smiled her thanks, a bit of relief settling into her face, and then she asked, “Is there something wrong with the car?”
Harold looked confused.
“I’m sorry. I just overheard…it sounded like something was wrong.”
“Oh, no! Nothing wrong with the car, miss. It’s just that they found it abandoned in a shopping mall seventy miles away, no sign of the customer. Turns out he gave us fake information. Well, not ‘us’ per se, but another branch out of Colorado. Police found the vehicle deserted and traced it back to us. It just showed up yesterday and, like I said, there was an accident with one of our guys and it hasn’t been cleaned or anything. It runs fine, it’s fueled and ready to go, just the cosmetic stuff hasn’t been gotten to yet.”
“Well, we appreciate it so much,” Heather said.
Ashley rejoined them. “Signal keeps cutting out. Can’t get through.”
Her voice attracted Harold’s attention, and he looked up over the top of his glasses to see a shorter, paler version of the woman who already had his heart doing jumping jacks. Even with her short hair dyed black, there was no mistaking Ashley’s relation to Heather, and Harold’s heart was suddenly in overdrive.
“We got a car,” Heather said to her excitedly.
“Great.”
They moved out of the line, aware that people waiting behind them were staring at them with envy. They waved to Harold, and he waved back. Ian wondered what Harold’s diary would read come tomorrow morning.
They stepped out onto the curb and joined the row of others that were intent on braving the five hundred and forty-mile drive out of the mountains rather than risk spending the holidays stranded in the small regional airport.
“Did he say there was snow coming in?” Heather asked.
“Snow?” Ashley looked up to the heavy clouds. “Sure feels like it.”
Marcus zipped his leather jacket all the way up, shivering. Then he put an arm around Ashley and squeezed her tight. “‘Here is a good searching question for a man to ask himself as he reviews his past life: have I written in the snow?’”
“What?” Heather asked, crossing her own arms against the frozen gust pulling her hair off her shoulders and tossing it behind her. She was wearing a dark V-neck with lace sleeves beneath a white, wool-cashmere peacoat.
Marcus continued, “‘The boys inscribe their names in capitals in the snow, and in the morning’s thaw the writing disappears; will it be so with my work, or will the characters which I have carved outlast the brazen tablets of history? Have I written in the snow?’”
“Another Charles Spurgeon quote?” Ashley asked, her eyes rolling above a thin smile.
“Mama always loved quoting the Prince of Preachers,” came his usual reply.
Ian laughed. “I’ve written in the snow.” He bent his knees, leaning back and thrusting his hips forward.
Heather hit him. “You’re gross. And don’t you dare do anything like that in front of my parents, or you’ll—”
“Or I’ll what?” He’d been raised as a Methodist himself, but the tragic death of his brother had destroyed any faith he had in all that stuff.
Ashley leaned into Marcus’ chest. “You sure about our luggage? I could really use one of my sweaters.” She had only a layered black, white, and gray T-shirt with three-quarter sleeves and a scoop neck beneath her puffer-styled jacket. None of them were really dressed for the elements, having only anticipated heated cabin air at ten thousand feet. Had they known what was to come, Ashley would have replaced her black and teal dance Pumas with boots, Ian would have worn his Timberlands instead of his black Oxfords, and Marcus would’ve preferred something more insulated and waterproofed over his red-swooshed Nikes.
Ian took Heather’s hand. “Your parents are expecting us for the big Christmas party tomorrow, and if we wait for our luggage, we could miss it. Don’t think they’d be all too happy about that.”
A blue Saturn pulled up alongside the curb, and a young couple got in. The car drove off.
“Are we getting a driver, too?” Heather wondered.
Ashley answered, “He’s probably dropping himself off back at the rental place before handing over the keys.”
They stood silent for a few seconds, squinting into the frigid air.
“How’s your wrist?” Marcus asked Ashley, reaching for it.
She’d hurt it the first day they’d taken to the Canadian slopes, falling awkwardly off her snowboard. “It’s fine.” She moved it around, trying to keep the wince from showing on her face.
Heather was a high school English teacher in Fairfax, and the rest of them had all decided to use their vacation days in accordance with her winter break, going to a ski resort in Quebec. The plan was to be back at Heather and Ashley’s parents’ house today, a day before the party and three days before Christmas. It appeared as if they might make it after all.
Five hundred and forty miles. Ten hours. No problem.
Ten minutes later and the last ones left standing on the curb, the red Taurus appeared.
The day looked promising. A long drive to Maryland could be fun, and Heather would be better off in the car than in a plane, if only because they could pull over and get her some air if need be. Yeah, perhaps this would even be better…a true blessing in disguise.
They slipped into the car, and the man sitting behind the wheel pulled away from the curb, leaving the airport behind.
Two
Jonathan is not his real name but the name he’d taken for himself just before the Brotherhood recruited him. He hasn’t heard his real name uttered by human lips since he was a child, since the night he’d killed his father and run away from home.
He sits on the icy road, waiting. He knows it’s closer. He can feel it,
sense
it.
Snowcapped mountains poke the skyline ahead, and he watches thick, gray clouds move toward them from the east. He taps his gloved fingers against the steering wheel. He closes his eyes, listens.
The voices. They come to him and speak his name, not his real name or the name the Society knows him by, but his
new
name. The name given to him by the demons. The mere mention of this name transports him elsewhere, and everything around him vanishes. He is now in their embrace. They comfort him. They damn him. And what seems like mere seconds is actually hours, the mountains completely invisible beneath the closing curtain of ill weather when next he opens his eyes.
He smiles, a twisted smirk that spreads his colorless lips and pulls at the scarred flesh surrounding them. He reaches over to the seat beside him and lifts mirrored sunglasses to his eyes. They are his shields, his defense against the Lookers, the agents of Light who wish a glimpse of his heart. He can feel them sometimes, peering through the veil and studying him, but he will not let them see into his soul. Where the theory of this particular precaution originated, he cannot recall, only that he has been adhering to it for years. He knows of no sacred text that instructs mirrors over the eyes as a means to divert an angel’s gaze, and yet he doesn’t question the practice. It has simply become part of his routine.
He pulls the visor down and glimpses his reflection in the small mirror. He barely notices the scars anymore, but today he is more than aware of them.
The Secret Society from which he was expelled had contacted him. How they found him is a mystery unimportant in light of the message delivered. The ring is
missing
. It is out in the world, free from the security that had kept him separated from it for so long. They need him because only
he
can find it. Of course, he is wise to their method, of the true plans they have for him once he has found it. But they underestimate him and the power the ring gives him, and telling him of its disappearance will be their undoing. Not that the demons wouldn’t have told him themselves. After all, it is they who wish him to have it. They tell him this now.
His mirrored eyes still in the rearview, he continues to behold himself down the long corridor of endless reflection. He spends a moment pondering the different aspects of reality before turning his focus away from his replicants and to the tattoo now flickering above his collar. The red petals of a rose wave at him. They grow on a thorny vine, spreading out from his skin and brushing against his neck. The petals begin to bleed as the flower wraps itself around him, red droplets plunging onto his black trench coat and setting it on fire. The flames engulf the car as the rose continues to grow.
The voices sing out in a loud chorus. He welcomes them, and he sees. Sees into the dancing flames, to the vague shape of an emerging car.
He is getting closer.
He blinks, and the fire is gone, the rose just a mark on his skin again. The voices are silent, the world beyond the windshield still. Snowflakes begin to flutter from the sky.
Before flipping the visor back, he pinches the wide brim of his hat with leather fingers and pulls it down, covering his scarred face with its shadow.
He turns the key. The engine comes to life with a roar and then lays down, purring in wait. He pushes a boot against the gas pedal, and his chariot growls, rocking on its wheels. He puts it in gear and pulls out from behind the rocks that conceal him. The wide tires smooth the grass as they roll off the road’s shoulder and back onto the asphalt. Once the car is on the two-lane road, he whispers to himself his new name, “I am the Crest of Dragons.”
He pushes the accelerator all the way to the floor, heading east into the coming storm—though he knows that the real storm is within him. The true storm
is
Him. And he is coming.
Three
Standing on the curb that skirted the rental office, the staff member sent them off with a wave. Whether that was how it was always done at Adirondack Regional Airport (the rental employees picking up their clients in the rented cars and then swinging by the office before handing over the keys) or whether the storm coming was incentive enough to rewrite policy so as to avoid being stranded in the airport over the holidays, they didn’t know. Their only concern was that any such snowstorm held off long enough for them to escape its reach.
Flipping a coin to determine who’d first be piloting the Taurus through the wilderness roads of upstate New York, Marcus had laughed heartily when the face of a dead president exonerated him from the task.
And so they were off, Ian behind the wheel, Marcus beside him with his iPhone already mapping their course, and the two girls reclining comfortably in the back seat. The heat was on, the tank was full, and there was nothing but an open road through the forest ahead of them.
“We take 186 west until it turns into 30,” Marcus said, tracing his finger over the face of the phone.
Nodding, Ian unbuttoned his gray peacoat, revealing the white T-shirt beneath, and leaned over to turn on the radio. The car’s interior filled with a blast of static that made the girls screech from the backseat, the rear speakers right behind their heads. “Sorry,” he said and turned it down. “See if you can find something, Marc.”
“Sure thing.” Marcus slipped the phone into his jacket pocket and took over at the center console, flipping through symphonies of static.
Ashley looked out the window and up at the passing pines. “Wish I had my bag. We could listen to some Nat King Cole Christma—”
The static suddenly fell away, uncovering the crystal-clear sound of a Christmas album recorded long ago. “
Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices, Oh night divine
—”
Nat King Cole sang triumphantly through the car’s sound system, an unnatural quality to his voice that seemed to surpass the old recording and its rebroadcast over the airwaves.
Marcus slowly turned his head to look back at Ashley, mouth open in disbelief.
Ashley raised her eyebrows. “That was weird,” she whispered.
The legendary baritone sang them back into a thousand Christmas memories, each one unique and seeming so long ago. They sang along, laughing and punctuating their lines with exaggerated hand motions.
When “Oh, Holy Night”
was over, Nat handing the mike off to Dolly Parton (who wasted no time in getting down with “Jingle Bells”), Marcus turned the radio down. “Okay, here’s where 186 turns into 30.” He pointed ahead. “We’ll be on 30 for twenty minutes or so.”
“Hey,” Heather called up to the front, her eyes on her phone. “I just uploaded you snowboarding.”
Marcus turned in his seat, knowing she was talking to him since Ian had decided to stick to his skis on this trip. “You got me snowboarding?”
“Yup.”
Marcus clapped his hands, smiling wide as Heather leaned over and let her sister watch the video.
“You put
that
one on?” Ashley laughed, covering her mouth with her hand.
Marcus’ smile faded. “What are you talking about? What one?”
“That’s low,” Ashley said, shaking her head.
Heather chuckled.
“What?” Marcus fished his phone back out of his pocket. After a couple finger taps, he was on Heather’s YouTube channel and watching himself land on his head. “Are you serious?”
They all laughed.
“Oh yeah?” he said, spinning back around in his seat. “Two can play at that game.”
Heather leaned forward, sudden concern rising on her face. “What does that mean?”
But Marcus was already sharing his own video on YouTube. “Remember the first night we got there?”
Heather’s face dropped. “No.”
Marcus nodded, and Ian let loose a whistle.