Warrior of the Ages (Warriors of the Ages) (30 page)

A handful of blood splattered over the basement floor as he moved back, covering the wet that had been her tears. Ignoring it he continued to reassure.

“It wasn’t just the gas pumps that exploded. Berwick had containers of liquid hydrogen in his truck, and in the basement of that gas station. Those people were all going to die by his hand. You only took yourself out of the equation. How did you roll out the back window of your convertible?” Prompting, trying to fill in the holes and distract her at the same time. The pale face and wide eyes held horror and guilt but she ducked to the laundry basket and handed him a dirty towel to press against his bloody forehead.

Then she hurried to confess everything. “I—sort of—stole an SUV.”

Blood started to seep into his left eye despite the help of the towel and he pressed against it, hard. “You stole a car?”

“Well, as soon as I left here and got downtown, Berwick was on me. I guess I passed one of his men somewhere. I managed to escape the first time, but my convertible was too easy to spot so I—found something else. If it weren’t for Berwick I would have come right back here, but I was trying to dodge them. I thought maybe I shouldn’t—you know—bring them back around here. It’s my fault they killed so many people here in the first place.”

“You are not responsible for Berwick, but why were you were coming back here? I thought you’d run. You bought an airline ticket.”

“To show you, your clan, that I could have left, that I wanted to come back. I couldn’t get past Berwick. It was like trying to dodge The Terminator when I went anywhere in my car. I didn’t know about scanning until it was too late….”

She’d wanted to come back. Why?
Kahtar tried to pull that answer from her by staring. Looking away she nervously tugged her t-shirt down, smoothing it over her thighs.

“I realized I didn’t want to leave here by the time I got about ten minutes down the highway. I want to be part of whatever I am supposed to be part of here. Remember I told you sometimes I get so focused on what I’m doing I forget to look ahead?” Then she looked up at him and scowled. “How could any of you expect me to want to stay the way you did it? You never gave me a choice. You dragged me off and LOCKED ME UP!”

“We hardly locked you up.” They’d done the best they could. Beth didn’t know what locked up was. Memories of iron maidens floated through his mind.

“You trapped me inside a veil!”

A faint huff of laughter escaped him as blood soaked the rag at his forehead.

“You knew you were in a veil?”

“Yes, I knew.” Her eyes narrowed.

“Remember we were trying to keep you safe from Berwick’s clan?”

“You dragged me out of my house against my will!”

“You made me do that, and I told you why at the time. You never asked us any questions. I told you, you could ask me anything.”

“After you took me prisoner! All I wanted then was to get away from you!”

More tears splashed from those blue eyes and she crossed her arms, glaring at him. It hurt. Not the gash on his forehead that would not stop bleeding, but the way Beth had shouted ‘YOU’. The way her heart pulled away. When you were designed, created, and raised to fight men, terrifying women was a given, but still he wished it could be different with Beth. She surely knew how he felt, and now he knew how she felt too. Again he leaned against the beam in the basement, sagging, feeling sick. Yet there was his duty to attend to. Shoving other thoughts out of his mind he again became Warrior Chief.

“Did you tell anyone about us?” Watching her carefully for the answer, he continued to press the towel against his forehead, but it soaked with his blood and oozed between his fingers, running down his arm. The shade of Golgotha pressed against his mind and he shoved it away, focusing on Beth.

“Of course I didn’t tell anyone—they’d have locked me up if I did—which I’d never…. Hey, you’re really bleeding badly, Kahtar.”

Did he imagine the concern in her voice?

“Should I call the police?”

Ah sarcasm, not too concerned.

“Do you think you could drive me up the street? There’s a clinic there. I think I need a doctor.” His own voice sounded canned, far away. He needed to get out of the basement before she did have to call 911. Stumping his way up the stairs, barely aware of the fact that he was leaving a trail of blood he moved woodenly upwards, his heart not aching with pain like it had upon his descent, but aching with rejection as they walked through the shop.

“One sec!” Beth pushed him to sit on a rattan bench by the front door, it creaked with his weight, but held. She yanked The Ramones t-shirt over her head and shoved it against his head. The room swam, he couldn’t see much, but some deep-seated man part of his brain wondered if he’d have looked if he could have focused.

“Let me grab my keys and some real clothes.”

LEANING AGAINST THE wall bought Kahtar time, and photographs clattered to the floor from their post behind him. If memory served they were of paintings of St. Longinus and then, despite his light headedness, the irony wasn’t lost on him. Trying to apply pressure to the wound wasn’t helping much because he couldn’t remember which end of his arm was at his injury. It was a familiar sensation, it meant concussion and on top of that he was bleeding too much now. Thinking of those photos as they continued to bang to the floor he announced, “I’m not a superstitious man.”

“Well, you’re a man who’s just ruined and, therefore, purchased six identical photographs. Oh Heavens, you’re bleeding worse!” Beth was there then, her arm wrapped under his shoulders, it felt thin. He could smell her in the darkness, she used lemon shampoo and it was sweet.

“Come on, get up. Lean on me.”

“No.” Certain that his weight would make her buckle beneath him, he leaned anyway, there was no choice. She was stronger than he would have imagined as she hauled him over the porch and down the steps. Then they were in the convertible, the feel of leather through his uniform familiar though he’d only driven in the car once. The roof was off and Beth’s hand pressed something against his forehead. The night air blew over him, at first cooling him, then making him shiver. Beth’s voice sounded from far away.

“I’m taking you to the police station.”

“No. Go east on Main. There’s a clinic on the edge of town…”

“Oh, I’ve seen it. Cobbson? Kahtar? Stay with me. Oh no, you’re bleeding so much! God, please, slow Kahtar’s bleeding. Please, slow his bleeding….” Her voice sounded repetitious and echoed painfully in his head with the wind blowing. Her prayers weren’t enough and it felt like the wind was blowing the wound open wider, his arms fell limply to his sides, and hot blood surged over his face.

Beth pressed the blood soaked towel back against his face as she drove, her voice shaking.

“Stop bleeding. Please stop.”

She sounded panicked, and he whispered at some point.

“Head wounds bleed a lot, ‘m okay.” Then he passed out.

BETH HAD NOTICED the sign for the clinic when she first came to town. She remembered a gated entrance, guarded. The convertible raced down the road, going as fast it could with the gas pedal all the way to the floor. Weren’t there any police on duty tonight? After all the speeding tickets they’d given her, all for going less than four miles over the limit, now there was no one. Her prayer faded to a shaky, “Please, please, please.” Blood soaked the thick Egyptian cotton towel she pressed against Kahtar’s head, it was thick and that meant a lot of blood loss. Too much. It ran down her forearm and dripped steadily off her elbow. Some annoying part of her brain tried to measure how many cups of blood now soaked the interior of the convertible.

“Please, let him be all right. What a stupid way to be hurt! After all Berwick did to him, and he was fine, now he bumps his head! Please, please, please. I snuck up on him on purpose too! I knew he didn’t see me! I just wanted to see if I could! If he was really human. Oh, God, he is! Please, please, please!”

The clinic sign was not lit at night, and the compound sat on a stretch of roadway with nothing else for miles in any direction. Something sparkled off to her right, or Beth would have passed it. She slammed on the brakes, the car fish-tailed and the tires squealed as she swerved onto the bricked drive. Several men hurried out of the guard shack as she drove towards the gate, they stepped boldly in front of her car. Blessedly she managed to stop before hitting them and she wondered again if at least some of these people were immortal. Yet the blood sliding down to her elbow told her they were very much human. A guard leaned towards her, in a brown uniform with a name tag that said ‘Frank’.

“We’re a private clinic ‘Mam. Would you like me to phone an ambulance?”

Even by his speech, before he had come into view of her headlights, she’d known he was Warrior of ilu. They all walked the same, enunciated each syllable in a similar fashion, as though they were trying to hide the fact that English wasn’t their native tongue.

“Let me in! It’s Kahtar! He’s bleeding badly.”

Several warriors rushed the car then and put their hands on him, muttering in a tongue that was vaguely familiar to Beth. A latent memory poked at her and her brain immediately sought to decipher words.

One warrior shouted into the darkness, “Old Guard!”

Another ran a hand down Beth’s bloodied arm and she knew he was searching her for injury. “You’re fine. Are you Clan Huron?”

Finally she understood what that meant. A woman from another clan, they knew she wasn’t from their own clan. It must be small if they all knew each other.

“I’m Beth White. I’m the Orphan of the Inquisition.” Honor had told her often enough, and she hoped it made sense to these men.

They all stilled as one, their uncertainly thick in the air.

Someone whispered, “I thought she was dead.”

“It could be why the Old Guard don’t come, though.”

They did know who she was!

“Obviously I’m not dead! You let me in to see a doctor or I’m driving straight through those gates! Kahtar needs help! You’re just going to lock me up afterwards anyway, so don’t you dare let him bleed while you fuss about protocol!”