Victories (2 page)

“I don’t know, but we’re making good time,” Burke joked.

They were all concentrating on trivial stuff, or trying to, and Spirit didn’t blame them. Easier not to talk about the danger, the deaths, the fact they weren’t safe, even now. “Wherever it is, we should be there in a couple of hours, tops,” Spirit said, waving the sheaf of directions. “According to this, anyway.”

“I hope wherever it is it involves thick walls and strong doors,” Loch said. “And maybe landmines. Because I’m pretty sure Breakthrough isn’t going to stop chasing us.”

“Not if Mordred wants them to,” Addie said, shuddering. “I wouldn’t want to be the one he got mad at.”

“Except you totally are,” Loch pointed out. “We all are.”

“Yeah,” Burke said reasonably. “But at least we can run for our lives. I wouldn’t want to be one of his henchmen.”

“I don’t think
Mark
wants to be one of his henchmen right now, either,” Addie said.

“Too bad,” Spirit said venomously. “He had the same choice everyone else got, and he chose Mordred.”

“Yeah, cake or death, great choice,” Loch said. “I’m not excusing him—his so-called ‘security people’ killed our families, as I’m sure we all remember—but he probably never expected the Evil Overlord’s plan to be starting a nuclear war just so he didn’t have to deal with the real world.”

“It doesn’t make
sense
,” Addie said plaintively. “He’s a magician—we’ve all seen how much power he has. Mordred could probably have taken over a country and made himself king years ago. There are thousands of places where if you walked in and said you could cure disease and make the crops grow and could prove it, they’d fall all over themselves to hand you the keys to the kingdom.”

“So to speak,” Loch said, with a wry smile. “Stubborn and stupid is a bad combination, but he’s just like a lot of CEOs my father dealt with. And remember—Mordred isn’t a Reincarnate.”

Suddenly, some of this made a twisted sort of sense to Spirit. Mordred had been Mordred for centuries. He’d never been anyone else. He still thought like a Dark Age tyrant. After all this time, he was probably crazier than a cageful of bats, too, but everything he was, everything he defaulted to, was the man who’d been born in a time when a state-of-the-art weapon was a steel sword or a powerful magician. Maybe he really didn’t comprehend what a nuclear war would
do
to the world. Maybe he just thought of it as burned crops, leveled cities, and poisoned wells on a mass scale.

“He’s still Mordred,” Spirit said, realizing. “He’s never been anyone else. Not like the others.”

“Not like us,” Burke said.

Spirit looked at him in surprise. “Us?” she repeated. “Reincarnates?”

“Oh, come on,” Loch said. “The odds are at least
one
of us is a former
Knight Who Says Ni.
”

“Besides Muirin,” Addie said quietly.

“Yeah,” Burke said, and after that nobody said anything for a while.

*   *   *

“We’re here,” Addie said, pulling the van to a halt.

It was a little after noon. Loch had taken over from Burke, and Addie from Loch: Spirit was the only one who didn’t know how to drive, and seeing the weariness on her friends’ faces that made her feel guilty now. They’d all been awake over twenty-four hours, and to add driving to that.…

“Not where I’d choose to make my last stand,” Loch said, looking around the parking lot and back at the seedy strip motel.

They’d been seeing signs for Omaha for a while—that and Offutt Air Force Base—but where their directions had led them was to a middle-of-nowhere place that was barely a wide spot in the road: gas station, motel, diner. If there was a town anywhere nearby, or even some random houses, they weren’t visible from the Alvo Motor Hotel. There wasn’t even a McDonald’s.

“Well, there aren’t any more directions,” Addie said, waving the last sheet of paper. “But.… We aren’t that far from Omaha.…”

“This is where QUERCUS sent us,” Spirit said reluctantly. “This is where he’ll expect to find us.”

“And what then? What do we do then?” Addie asked, a little shrilly. “Is he going to hand us a magic sword? Or turn us into superheroes? Sure, we’ve got magic—we’ve
all
got magic—but so do they.”

“I know,” Spirit said softly. Addie had always doubted their ability—her
own
ability—to fight back, and Spirit really couldn’t blame her. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

“And we’re all just about out on our feet,” Burke said. “We aren’t going anywhere except off the side of the road if we don’t get some rest. If this is our only option, well, it’s our only option.”

“So let’s go see what’s behind Door Number Six,” Loch said.

“Let’s go find out if it’s locked,” Addie said pragmatically.

*   *   *

Spirit blinked at the brightness of the sunlight as she stepped out of the van. Her shoes—the strappy silver sandals Madison Lane-Rider had picked out as part of her Spring Fling outfit—slid on the asphalt, and she grabbed for the doorframe.

“Easy,” Burke said, putting a hand under her arm.

The coat QUERCUS had left for him in the van hung open; the tuxedo beneath it looked jarringly out of place. They were all still wearing their prom clothes under their coats, but at least Spirit’s dress was short. Addie was wearing an ankle-length velvet gown; it caught on something as she slid out of the driver’s seat, and Spirit heard her snarl as she ripped it free and slammed the door as hard as she could.

“At this point I don’t actually care if the Legions of Hell are in there,” Loch said, slamming the back door of the van, “as long as I can sit down somewhere that isn’t moving.”

“Then let’s go,” Burke said. He released Spirit’s arm and walked up to the door. She saw him take a deep breath as he reached for the knob, then he twisted it and the door opened.

The three of them followed him in. The room behind the door matched the outside of the building: worn and shabby. There were two sagging double beds with flowered polyester bedspreads, a nightstand and a lamp, and a dresser. The mirror was cracked in one corner, and there were burns and stains on the dresser top. One of the drawer fronts was slightly askew.

“I’m going to write a stiff letter to the Michelin people,” Loch said, walking across the room to sit down on the bed. It creaked and lurched alarmingly when he did so. “Hey,” he said, shifting sideways. He picked something up from the bedspread, and held it out so they could all see it. “Looks like we’ve come to the right place.”

Spirit took the oak leaf from his hand. It was fresh and green, like the one they’d found in the van. “Is there anything else here?”

“Not in this,” Addie said, quickly opening and closing the dresser drawers. “Unless there’s a secret message hidden in the menu of the Alvo Diner,” she added, waving a tattered paper menu.

“Nothing here but a Bible,” Burke said, closing the drawer of the nightstand. “Not even a phone book.”

“Who could there be in this entire state that anybody would want to call?” Loch asked. “So, what now?”

“We wait,” Spirit said, pulling off her jacket and sitting down cautiously on the other bed. She’d like to kick her shoes off, but the rug didn’t look particularly clean.

“For a while, anyway,” Burke said. He tossed his jacket on the bed, followed it with his tuxedo jacket, and sat down beside her. She leaned into him gratefully and he put his arm around her. “And this is as good a place as any to talk about what we do next.”

“I didn’t know it was open for discussion,” Addie grumbled. She sat down on the foot of the bed Loch was on, plucking her skirts up fastidiously.

“Everything’s negotiable,” Loch said mockingly. “First rule of business. So Mordred’s going to start a war, and we’ve been designated by Spirit’s mysterious benefactor as the people who get to stop him. This would seem a lot more stupid if Mordred didn’t have magic and can scrub the brain of anybody we tell about his nefarious plans. Of course, he could also just kill them. That’d work.”

“Yeah, that’s the point,” Burke said. “We keep talking about ‘stopping’ Mordred and his Shadow Knights. I think it’s time to admit that ‘stop’ means ‘kill.’ Can we do that? This isn’t like the Wild Hunt, banishing demons back to Hell or sending Elves back to wherever Elves live. This is killing people, evil or not.”

“The good of the many outweighs the good of the few?” Loch asked lightly. But he couldn’t meet Burke’s gaze. “I don’t know if I could kill someone,” he said, staring down at his hands. “Not even knowing.…” His voice trailed off.

“I can. I can’t just sit here and say I don’t want to get my hands dirty knowing what the world will look like if they win.”

Spirit’s stomach lurched as she spoke. The sound of her own voice frightened her—she didn’t sound like anyone she could ever have imagined being. Her heart raced even as she knew she’d meant every word. In her mind was the sound of a gunshot, and Muirin falling. To stop that from happening again? Over and over and over—to millions of people?

She could kill.

“Maybe there’s another way,” Burke said, hugging her against him. “But I think we should be ready.”

“Oh, I’m ready for anything,” Addie said bitterly.

*   *   *

They were all too keyed-up to even think of sleeping. There was a little money left from what QUERCUS had left them for gas, so Loch went out to the soda machine and brought back Cokes. After that, there was nothing to do but wait. Everything Spirit could think of to say sounded stupid or useless when she thought about it, and apparently the others felt the same.

What was there to talk about? Muirin was dead, Mordred’s Shadow Knights were hunting them, and they were here because they were trusting someone Spirit had met in a secret chat room. And the worst part was, there wasn’t anything else they could do.

She was dozing on Burke’s shoulder when the sound of the door opening brought her joltingly awake. Loch was already on his feet, and as Spirit rubbed her face with her hands—she and Addie had washed off their makeup as soon as possible—Burke stood as well.

If the woman in the doorway was the rescue party, her looks didn’t inspire confidence. She was stray-cat skinny, her frayed jeans and worn parka looked like dumpster treasures, and her brown hair was short and unkempt. Her expression when she looked at them seemed to say she’d expected to see anyone else here but them, but she covered it quickly.

“I’m Vivian,” she said. “I’m here to take you to the one you know as Quercus. Let’s go.”

“Of course,” Loch said fulsomely. “Because we’re so willing to leave with the first person who shows up with the secret password?”

“That’s right,” Vivian said evenly. “What choice do you have?”

“Well,” Loch said, as if he was considering the matter, “we could stay here. Or you could tell us why we should trust you.”

Vivian huffed in exasperation. “Because no matter what you think you know, rich boy, some kids
did
escape from Oakhurst. I did—twenty years ago. Your parents did, too,” she added, looking at Burke.

“My parents were murdered by Mordred’s
Mafya
hitman,” Burke said, taking a step away from Spirit and toward Vivian.

“By Agravaine. Yes,” Vivian said, nodding. “But I’m talking about your birth parents, the people who left you in a church, hoping that holy place would protect you, and went willingly to their deaths, knowing they were leading the hunters away from you.”

“You knew my parents?” Burke demanded. “My other parents?”

“No,” Vivian said. “But Quercus did.”

“That’s disturbing,” Loch said after a moment. “Considering he apparently couldn’t protect them.”

“You’re a chess player,” Vivian shot back. “You’re aware of the concept of sacrificing a piece to gain the victory.”

“Funny,” Loch said. “On my planet we call it ‘hanging your friends out to dry.’ And we’ve seen a lot of it from the Shadow Knights lately.”

“Good for you,” Vivian said, sounding even more irritated. “But I don’t intend to stand around here all day dispelling your ignorance. I’m here to take you to Quercus. Now get moving. Or don’t, and wait for them to catch up with you. Your choice.”

Addie glanced from Loch to Vivian, her mouth set in a thin line of resentment. Spirit looked up at Burke. He was frowning, but he looked more confused than angry.

“Come on,” Spirit said with a resigned sigh. “We don’t have a lot of choices. If she was a Shadow Knight, she’d already have tried to kill us. Or something.”

“If—” Addie began. “I—”

“Move it,” Vivian said. “If you want to hang around outside here like idiot bait, I don’t.” She turned around and walked out, leaving the door open.

“Nice lady,” Loch said, but he was already reaching for his coat.

When they got to the van, Vivian was already in the driver’s seat. “Back’s open,” she said.

They looked at each other. “I’ll ride up front,” Loch said. “That way we can find our way back here if we have to.” Loch’s primary Gift was Shadewalking—the ability to move silently and undetected—but he had a secondary Gift of Pathfinding: the ability to always know exactly where he was, and to find his way unerringly from place to place. He climbed into the van on the passenger side, and the rest of them went around to the back. Burke helped Spirit and Addie up into the van and closed the door.

“This is our only vehicle,” Vivian said, over the sound of the engine. “I’ve been in the area since last night. I wanted to make sure they weren’t using Scrying Mages to set up an ambush. We’re good, though. I’m guessing they don’t want any of their people getting a peek at the endgame.” She backed and turned the van, and then they were heading down the road again.

“If the van is your only way of getting around,” Addie said, “and you left it for us, how did you get back here?”

“Hitchhiked,” Vivian said. “If you were expecting G.I. Joe and his secret underwater base, think again.”

“‘Knowing is half the battle,’” Burke muttered, quoting. He sounded worried.

They drove for another hour. Vivian ignored all of their attempts to find out anything about her, about QUERCUS, or about what was going to happen next. They stayed on the back roads, and the countryside looked even more deserted, if possible, than what they’d driven through to get here. If Omaha was somewhere around here, it was doing a good job of hiding.