“Do you know where you are?” I asked.
“Fire knows well the machine it drives,” it answered. “Is not Fire what man needs to make these Earthen contraptions move?”
“Well, what do you see here? Sixteen, no … seventeen cars, plus some bikes and such. You look hungry, so take them all and feed well.”
“Nothing yet. Just keep your feeding confined to this building. Nothing else but this garage and its contents.”
I put the burning garage in my rearview mirror, speeding down the road away from a life no longer my own.
In Portsmouth I found a pet store that sold just the plastic container I required. Next I stopped at a Catholic church and helped myself to just enough holy water to fill the container and drown the cry of the Silver. That would confuse any who would use it to track me to ground. Avoidance was used to thwart scryers.
Penn Station, the next day … the Rover safely ditched and money wired to an account at Chase Manhattan Bank under an alias I’d established long ago, Jude Oliver. Enough to start me out in luxury. A hard bench beneath my butt offered no ease as I stared at the train schedule in my hands, not really seeing the words printed there. My mind was brimming with chaotic thoughts.
My only problem was deciding where to go. LA? Chicago? Miami? All good places, plenty of people to hide among, but not quite right for the purpose I had in mind. All the major U.S. cities were rife with Sicarii agents. I had to go where no would think to look.
“You look lost.”
I started. A pretty brunette, brown curls covering her shoulders, stood just behind and to the right. Sensible flats, dark no-nonsense skirt and white blouse. A fair face framed with dark horn-rimmed glasses. She had nice dimples, too. “What?”
“I said you look lost. You’ve been sitting there for a half hour staring at nothing.”
My lips curled in what some might call a smile. “I am a bit lost, I guess.”
The woman leaned forward and I smelled … hyacinth. “What are you looking for?”
What indeed? “A place big enough to lose myself in, but not too big. Big enough to have the comforts of city life. Some place forgotten by man.”
Her laughter reminded me of sleigh bells. “Are you running from the law?”
“No, just from Family.”
“Omaha,” she said brightly. “Yes, definitely Omaha.”
“Omaha? You mean Nebraska?” I scratched my chin. “Really? Nebraska?” Who the hell lived in Nebraska?
“See? Even you are surprised at the thought. Don’t worry; it’s a nice, peaceful place, a good place to raise a family, if a bit boring.”
“Nebraska? Omaha?” I rolled the words around in my mouth a few times. Yes, that just might work. I put on my best smile. “Thank you. Yes, that should work. Thank you very much.”
“Don’t mention it,” she said over her shoulder, heading toward the exit.
I called after her. “I didn’t get your name!”
She turned around, walking backwards, and said, “I didn’t give it.” With that she strode purposefully toward the door.
For some reason, as I watched her depart the station, I heard the sound of bells.
I smiled as the last page slipped through my fingers to float gently to the floor. What a story. Angels, Words, Satan, The Silver, everything Morgan had endured and the family that had twisted him. It was amazing that he was relatively sane.
My eyes closed and I fell into the most peaceful, deep sleep I’d had in weeks.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Morgan
Next stop, Omaha, (the irony was not lost on me) where we boarded a private jet. Cain spent the entire trip on the cell, calling several people in what I realized was his huge organization, and by late afternoon we landed in New York, where a stretch limo waited for us as well as plenty of fine food. The ride was smooth enough that we didn’t spill a drop of the cabernet, which went quite well with the venison.
By the time the calamari vanished into my growling stomach and the bottle surrendered its last drop, we had arrived at our destination, an old warehouse in Clinton near the water. Cain led the way in and the limo silently rolled away, sticking out like rose in a compost heap in the former Hell’s Kitchen.
“What do you use this place for?” I asked, following Cain up a steep set of stairs to the second floor.
“Truth be told, I am not sure,” he answered, keys jangling in one hand. During the second leg of our trip his attitude had changed; he had become more commanding, almost imperious and businesslike.
Cain found the right key and inserted it into the lock of a plain white door marked OFFICE. We entered a largish square room roughly twenty feet on a side, containing several old wooden chairs and an oak desk. Sitting at the desk was a youngish man with coal-black hair cut short and a ridiculously cleft chin. His unibrow rose in surprise when he looked first at me then at my companion.
“Cain, thank God,” he said, striding forward to engulf the man in a ferocious hug. “I was getting bored out of my mind.”
“It does my eyes good to behold you again, my friend,” Cain said, returning the hug hard enough that I heard ribs creak. “Come, give a hale welcome to a new friend discovered mere hours ago.” He disengaged to gesture my way. “This is-”
“Morgan,” I finished, shaking the man’s hand. “Morgan Heart.”
That earned me a strange look, but he smiled brightly and in a slight southern twang, “Alan. Alan Mendomer, good to meet you.”
Cain took a seat behind the desk. “Alan is apprenticed to me, a magus of no small talent. He has agreed to assist us on our perilous quest in exchange for a Word.”
Alan snorted. “It’s about time y’all gave me another Word, boss. Been a dog’s age.”
“And earn this Word you will, Alan. But let us attend to other matters.”
I leaned in close to the southerner and whispered, “Does he always talk like that?”
“Ever since I met him,” he whispered in reply.
Cain ignored our byplay and asked, “The supplies that I had ordered en route, have they reached this facility? And where, pray tell, is the lovely and fearsome Maggie?”
“Yeah, boss, they got here an hour ago. I had them placed. As for Maggie, we all got ourselves a gen-u-ine problem.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Maggie?”
Cain nodded. “Yet another apprentice who toils to earn more Words.”
“Maggie’s got herself in a patch of trouble with that ijit crowd she hangs with,” Alan said. “Talked to Haime and he says he’s not givin’ her up. Says she owes big time.”
“She has angered the League? That news bodes poorly for our venture.”
“The League?” I asked.
Alan shot me a glance. “The League of Valhalla. Bunch of damn-fool boneheads who like to dress up as Norsemen, fronted by a bigger bonehead named Haime.”
“Haime? Really?”
“S’what he calls himself.”
