Blowback, p.8
Blowback, page 8
part #12 of Nathan K Series
He slammed his wrists as he yanked against the cuffs. “That bastard is going to hurt her. Bad. Then he’ll kill her.”
“It was unfortunate but, at the moment, far better than the alternatives. I could not accept our permanent deaths nor could I allow Barrett to take you and I as prisoners. He would still have Robin and Dieter, of course, but he would also have us to experiment on.”
Scrunching his shoulder against his ear, he tried to call Robin.
“I took your ear-comms out.”
His head throbbed again, and he understood. “You knocked me unconscious.”
“I saw no other choice, at that moment. When I made the deal with Barrett — told him he could take Robin and Dieter alive provided he let us go — well, you were being uncooperative and quite mouthy. Even in your condition, it took a few well-placed hits.”
Nathan bit back the desire to curse and kill. Instead, he made a show of sighing acceptance. “Okay. I understand. You can uncuff me now. When we catch up with them, I’ll follow your lead — unless you want to be smart and share your plan for getting Robin back.”
She said nothing. Just drove with her eyes on the road and her mouth a grim line. Nathan jangled the cuffs, tugging against the door. His heart dropped into his gut.
“Octavia?”
“I tried your way out of kindness, but that nearly killed us both forever. I should never have been so weak. You don’t listen. You don’t show our history any respect. You act like you know better than all of us. Well, your time playing around with humans is over. You’re going back to face justice for your crimes against Immortals. When that is concluded, when you have served your sentence — if you have not been forced out of that Immortal body — and all those humans you care for are long gone, then we will begin anew. Retrain you, and do it properly this time.”
His anger threatened to cloud over rational thought, and that wouldn’t help Robin. “Look, we don’t agree on the big picture stuff, but you’ve never been a cold-blooded killer. You don’t just murder people for no reason. You don’t leave them in the hands of gangsters to be murdered. That’s not you. That’s Larkin.”
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know he’s a controlling bastard and that you have some weird misplaced loyalty to him.”
The muscles in her arm tensed, and Nathan expected a backhand to smack him in the nose. But instead, she rolled her head from side to side.
“You changed him,” she finally said. “Before you took over that body, Larkin was a great, admirable man.”
“I’m sure.”
“You arrogant prick. You become an Immortal and strut around like you know everything. How dare you.” She kept silent for another mile. Then: “Before you, Larkin’s focus had always been the wealth and success of all Immortals — even those who did not join us. He saw The Larkin Group as a security force of sorts. We travelled the world protecting Immortals from discovery and protecting humans from discovering. We helped governments manage the Primes, and yes, we had to do the occasional job for those governments — sometimes unsavory jobs — but all in life has a cost. I am not suggesting Larkin is perfect. He has many flaws. His fight with Russo was one. A major one. But overall, he tries to do good in this world for us Immortals, and he tries to limit the harm done to humans.”
“A real angel.”
“Maybe he had been. Until you entered our world.”
“I see. It’s all my fault.”
“From the moment he heard about you, the moment I brought you to his island, you infected him. At first, he saw you as some rebirth of the Immortals. It had been a long time since anybody had to be trained, and Larkin became enthralled with the whole process. As I taught you how to be an Immortal, Larkin monitored your progress like an obsessive sports fan. He kept all kinds of data — stats on your performance, lists of what you ate, any information he could gather. He would have charted your bowel movements if I had been willing to collect the information. Still, it was a lively, somewhat healthy obsession because it invigorated his desire to keep serving the Immortals and helping the world. I know a lot of Immortals don’t like to admit as much, but the surprising truth is that it’s difficult to live forever.”
“Not surprising at all when you’re always hunting me down.”
“That is a problem of your own creation. I refer to the difficulty on the mind. All Immortals reach periods where we aren’t certain we want to go on. It is common enough that we’ve made sure there are Immortals trained in psychology to help during these dark patches. Larkin had been suffering through just such a time.”
Nathan chilled. “And I brought him out of it?”
“Renewed hope. He saw in you fresh possibilities for all of us.” The growl in her throat returned. “But you spit on all he offered, and that twisted him into this hellbent-on-revenge thing he has become.”
“That’s why you’re bringing me in? Let him hurt me. Let him have his revenge.”
“If I did that, he would never heal. Revenge does not end hatred. It merely shifts it. With the cause destroyed, the hate usually turns inward and eats the person up. I’ve seen it happen. So, no, I don’t want him to hurt you.”
“What a relief. Maybe I’ll throw a party.”
“Can’t you see that it is our duty to fix all of this? Not only for Immortals, but for all the Robins we might care about.”
“Now you care about Robin? So much so that you’ll let her die at the hands of the Barrett brothers.”
Octavia’s hand flashed across the car. Nathan’s head reared back and a thin line of blood seeped from his nose. Driving on in silence, her lips moved as she argued with herself.
The sting up his nostrils could not match the burn deep in his chest, though. He had only argued in an attempt to get her to turn back. Robin needed help. But the taste of blood trickling down his throat was answer enough. Octavia meant everything she had said, and that included taking him to face justice at the expense of Robin.
He closed his eyes. Tried to picture the Darkness pressing in. If he could just call upon it when he needed it, grab hold and ride it when he wanted to, he could turn that energy into a useful strength instead of an unreliable, haphazard safety valve. If he could call it, then maybe he could control it. But the Darkness would not come unless he neared death.
“Fine,” he growled. “If that’s the way it’s got to be.”
He yanked hard on the cuffs one last time. No luck. But the pain digging into his wrists reminded him that he had only one soul. That pain and the empty hunger strengthened inside.
Ahead, coming in the opposite direction, he saw the usual sporadic dotting of cars and trucks. They zipped by — all driving in the direction he wanted to go. Toward Robin. More importantly, they all held potential for him. They promised to bring the Darkness to him.
“Sorry about this,” he said.
Octavia frowned, looking over just as Nathan cranked back his leg and kicked out. She shifted away, but he had not aimed for her. He shoved his foot against the steering wheel and hollered as he forced the car over. They veered into the oncoming traffic.
Watching an eighteen-wheeler barrel down upon them, hearing the deep warning of its horn and the high scream of its breaks, Nathan knew the Darkness would arrive. After all, he only had one soul.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He floated in darkness — but not the Darkness. He knew the difference by the sounds in the air. The Darkness was always empty of sound. Here, in the suspended moment of nothingness, he heard a voice. A hand emerged, and before he saw it, he felt it. Knew it. Her. Reaching towards him as if she could pull him back through time, returning him to that New York City deli, warning him to leave before things turned bad. If he could do that, if only he could —
Numerous cars honked as tires burned into the pavement. Screeching brakes filled the air like an unwieldy chorus. With one hand, Octavia attempted to wrench the wheel and steer the car off the road. With the other, she fought to move Nathan’s foot. He yelled, wedging himself between steering wheel and passenger door, and gaped at the truck mowing down on them.
In the next second, crunched metal. Nathan rose into the air and through the windshield with fireworks of safety glass bursting around him. He could hear them dance on the car’s hood as he floated toward the truck cab. Blood spewed across his vision. When his body spun, he saw that his right hand had been torn off — caught in the cuffs, the wrist tearing under the pressure. Once the hand no longer blocked the way, the cuffs threaded through the doorhandle, freeing the left hand. Pain would arrive soon enough.
He tumbled toward the cab and saw the trucker’s wide-eyed terror. His body had stiffened, arms straight as he clenched the wheel, legs slamming the brakes like metal poles. He wore a green John Deere hat and had instant ramen noodles dangling in his beard. Poor guy must have been looking down at his on-the-go lunch when this started. If he survived, he would spend the rest of his life thinking he had caused the accident.
Nathan’s somersaulting body flipped again, giving him full view of Octavia. The front of the car folded together and the dashboard lurched into her. Blood coughed from her mouth. For a fraction of the seconds all of this transpired, she gawked at him — incredulous at what he had done. Perhaps a bit understanding, too.
His back slammed into the truck, his spine cracking upon impact, and he ragdolled along the hood toward the cab. The metal burned from the hot sun and engine. Nathan’s neck bashed into the corner-bracing that framed the windshield. Tossed aside, he reversed over and hit the glass-strewn pavement face first.
He teeth shattered, shredding his lips. Ending on his back, he saw the sky above and smelled the burned diesel, burned brakes, burned tires, burned lives. A gray mist passed over him — Octavia’s second soul. And while it left, the Darkness arrived.
Before it could reach for him, tug his soul loose and reel him into its cold emptiness, Nathan poured all his focus into the heat. The pain. The desert breeze. Anything to keep him awake, aware, and alive. He reached back at the Darkness. If he failed this time, he would die forever. But that bothered him less than what would happen to Robin.
The Barrett brothers had her, and she expected Nathan to help her — he wouldn’t dare think the word save. To think that he tried to save Robin — she would kill him. But she had to know he would be trying. He could picture the anticipation in her eyes. If he died now, she would go on waiting. They would beat her, and she would still hold that look, that belief that he had not given up on her. They would starve her, and she would still hold that look. Even when they finally killed her, she would die with hope in her eyes.
Cold enveloped him as he lifted from the hot pavement. The world shifted. He saw it. Clouding in like an impending storm. The Darkness. With an experienced hand, he snapped out his thoughts, his soul, and he rode the Darkness. It swirled around him like a living full-body cast as he sped through the air. His soul-hungry body sniffed out Octavia’s second soul — its mist far above. Shooting higher, Nathan dashed over it and opened his eyes.
He took in that soul, held it deep inside, clamping it down, but it refused to remain still. This soul had served its purpose once already — twice, really — and it demanded to be free. But Nathan refused to let go. Just a little longer — until the Darkness understood it could not claim him yet.
Like a pouty child, the Darkness threw him down. He flopped onto the ground, spitting blood into the air. As the Darkness receded, Nathan convulsed in the dirt. Through blood-crusted eyes, he saw the wrecked car and truck — a few hundred feet off to his left. The Darkness had thrown him far. Wounds seared his body. Each movement of his limbs sliced through him, until thankfully, his heart stopped. He gasped before letting go. His second soul burped out as if freed from a cage.
And the healing began.
Over his relatively short time as an Immortal, Nathan had endured the healing and regrowth process a substantial number of times. Several of those involved massive injury to his body, and each one of those experiences made him think he had reached the peak of what pain could offer. Once more, he discovered he was wrong.
The snapping of bones back into place, the burn of torn muscles knitting back together, the sizzling of skin zipping back into one — all of it hurt but had been nothing new. However, when his severed hand regrew, Nathan learned of a fresh sort of agony. He had regrown torn limbs before, but nothing like this.
He had no idea why this time would be different — perhaps the lost limb in conjunction with the other traumas to his body — but the snapping and knitting and sizzling happened simultaneously. Rather than rebuilding his hand in stages as had happened in the past, this time, his body thrust forth a new hand all at once.
Nathan wailed.
It lasted only a few seconds. Seemed like an eternity. But with a loud click of new bone fusing into old, the entire process ceased. At least, it did for the hand. The rest of him continued its steady healing.
Sweating hard and breathing heavy, he rested his head on the dirt. With each passing second, he felt stronger, more complete. At length, he propped up on his elbows. Though his legs continued to twitch and parts of his skull continued to rebuild, he knew he neared the end.
But not fast enough.
He still could not stand, and Octavia stormed away from the smoking wreckage, heading straight for him. She held her CZ at her side, and though her dark face was difficult to read at this distance, her body language spoke loud enough. She wanted to kill him. Permanently.
As he groaned and grunted through the last of his healing, she stepped over him and waited. The smell of gasoline and burning plastic drifted across, and Nathan could picture some of the fumes coming off Octavia instead. Waving with a placating hand, he managed to bumble to his feet. When he finally stood, she decked him.
He flopped into the dirt. As he rolled to his back, she straddled him, her CZ aimed at his chest. “You should be dead right now.”
“Guess I lucked out.”
She pressed the muzzle until he gasped for air. “You only had one soul. You wouldn’t have steered us into that truck, if you thought you would die forever.”
“I wasn’t sure what would happen.”
“Reckless. Stupid. Childish, too. You’re not getting your way, so you throw a tantrum?” She rolled her eyes up toward the sky.
Nathan did not let the opportunity vanish. He shifted his hips to spin her off while assisting with a punch to the jaw. As she went down, he followed through, rolling atop her and fumbling for control of her weapon. He pointed the CZ at her forehead. Gesturing back to the thick clouds of black smoke pouring up from the truck, he said, “That’s more than a tantrum. That’s a desperate man taking a desperate action.”
“Bull.” She shot her knee up, sending him off balance. With a rapid motion, she seized her weapon and popped to her feet. “You knew you could survive. How?”
“I took a chance,” Nathan said, rising to his feet with his hands up.
“How could you possibly even think you had such a chance with only one soul? That’s something the Cardinal could do, but you’re not like him. Your body has had several owners. I’ve known a few of them. You’re not a Prime. But no regular Immortal could do that. What are you?”
Nathan picked at his ripped and bloodied shirt. He couldn’t answer her. Not honestly. Not when he could see in her eyes exactly how things would play out. If any Immortals learned that he had pulled off a Prime trick or two, they would want to lock him up and start testing.
Aside from that ugly possibility, Nathan had more pressing matters to discuss. “You need to secure that weapon and stop lying to me.”
That caught Octavia. “I have not lied.”
He wanted to run, forget this debate, and get to the work of finding Robin. But his legs still wobbled and Octavia could easily shoot him before he managed four steps. The bullet would be carefully placed — enough to stop him but not kill him. That bloodlust anger within her had dissipated, leaving behind a practical, experienced Immortal. He needed a better opening against her. “Stop pointing that at me.”
“Not until I have answers.”
With an aggressive snarl, Nathan stepped forward, pushing his heart against the muzzle. If she shot now, she would kill him. Her obvious counter was to step back and make room. When she did, Nathan’s hands chopped down on her forearms. He banged her tendons, forcing her fingers to clench and release. She dropped the weapon.
Nathan kicked it away. When she crouched to retrieve her CZ, he whipped out Maggie. He didn’t have to worry about her attempting a hero move. She had more sense than that. She knew how to read a situation. Raising her hands, she held still as he eased back several steps. No way would he let her pull the same trick against him.
“You say that you want to fix all the mess of this world,” Nathan said, “the problems I’ve created and more, all so we can make things better for Immortals and for people like Robin.”
“That is the truth.”
“Except you’re not willing to help me get her free from Barrett. You’re okay with Robin dying.”
“People die for causes all the time. Not everyone can be saved when changing the world. Or repairing it.”
“Doesn’t mean we don’t try.”
She jumped to her feet with a frustrated yell. “You are the most stubborn student I have ever known.”
“I’m not your student anymore.”
“You’ll always be my student. Considering how slow you are to accept my lessons, I might have to keep teaching you for a few hundred years or more. Or you can do us both a favor, and listen to me this time — you are not human. Not anymore. Holding on to what you once were will not bring you anything but sorrow.”
“You keep trying to convince me that being Immortal means sacrificing my humanity, but I think you simply want to justify the loss of your own. It’s not that Immortals need to make the sacrifice, it’s just that you all have done so, and you can’t stand the idea of another not joining in with the cult.”
