VECTOR (The Weaver Series Book 3) Read online

  Chapter Seven: Reckoning

  Kara didn’t have her flickering lights back on her beautiful violet surface yet, but we had hope they’d return. Silver assured James she would continue to monitor his sister in the Web if we needed to sleep.

  The cool green light of James’ presence pulsed in worry before he said, “Are you sure she’s going to be okay, Silver? Shiva can’t call her back anymore, right?”

  A wall of surety went up as Silver sought to shore up James’ doubts. “The attachment is severed completely. I’ll even go one step further to cloak us all in the Web. Kara seems to be sleeping right now so why don’t y’all follow her lead?”

  Silver rarely slept unless Mez was around. Most nights she wandered the Web in search of information or sifting through memories. Our body was mostly mine with only a small amount of her DNA included. Some of what my twin sought in her nightly wanderings was answers about us. Had there ever been another Weaver in our situation? So far it had been an unproductive quest.

  James prodded, “You’re okay with this, Cass?”

  “Silver can handle it, James. C’mon.” I waited for James to leave the Web before thinking at my sister, “This is going to sound a little rude but why didn’t the idea to burn out the attachment occur to you? You’re usually the genius here not me.”

  Shame and confusion pulsed at me as Silver replied, “I froze. The sight of Kara that way just made me sick and my mind went blank. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize, Silver. It just threw me, is all. Are you okay?”

  Her wall came up again. “I’m good. Go to bed.”

  One last question. “Are you going to tell Maggie and Gerome what happened? Control may have contacted Gerome already.”

  Silver shoved outward. “I’m on it, Sister. Go. To. Sleep.”

  I pushed a ‘hug’ at my twin then closed my mental eye to concentrate on the physical world. When my lids rose, Kara’s cheek was right in front of my face. My breath ricocheted off of her warm skin and it smelled pretty gnarly. The hum of potent energy was still infusing every cell, and I was ready to break the connection.

  A growl erupted from our stomach with a force akin to the revving engine of a muscle car. Embarrassed, I raised our head to look over at James. Our hand slid out from under his long warm fingers.

  His smile was wide and amused. “Hungry?”

  Blood rushed in a fiery flood up our neck. “Har-de-har. I bet you’re hungry too since you got rid of everything you ate.”

  This time it was his turn to squirm. “Hey! That was your fault, not mine.”

  I reached across to check the burn on Kara’s right arm but it was no longer there. Silver moved fast when she healed. James noticed the red was absent and ran his fingers over the pale skin. At this stage we were both propped on an elbow but still partially reclined on the bed.

  James’ head listed to the side as if he were too tired to resist the force of gravity. “You want me to go grab something to eat?”

  I raised the hand that wasn’t the kickstand for our skull and played absently with a strand of Kara’s fine dark hair. “Yes and no. I think I’m more tired than anything. Maybe I’ll just content myself with dreaming about where we’ll go for breakfast.”

  His eyes flickered. “I feel energized but tired. If I tried to describe this I don’t think I could. When we’re hooked up together it feels like invincibility inundates your skin. After though…the extra juice is still there but…I don’t know.”

  The hairs from my hanging pony tail were rubbing against my wrist, eliciting distracted irritation with my sluggish thoughts. “I hear you.”

  The bed moved in an abrupt dip only to spring back level as James stood, shuffling out of sight. A click came from the direction of the hotel door and I imagined him flipping the throw bolt to keep us safe. Not a second later the lights went off.

  The room slowly materialized in our enhanced vision. A faint luminescence came from the clock on the table but I doubted it would help James navigate the room. My suspicions were confirmed as he bumbled blindly into the edge of the other bed, stubbing his toe and cussing impressively. He shoved my discarded coat aside and threw himself down spread-eagle on top of the covers.

  I turned my back to Kara, stealing more of the pillow we shared until her head flopped gently onto the mattress. It was encouraging when she mumbled and shifted position. Maybe when we woke in the morning I would see some of the old friend I remembered. Even a little spark of her prior vitality was better than nothing.

  I stabbed words at the darkness. “You know most of the germs in hotels are on the bedspreads right? We’re all lying down on the nastiest parts to sleep.”

  James mumbled into his pillow, “Don’t care. If I get some rare disease you’ll heal me.”

  My thoughts started to shred as the stress of the evening evaporated in a cloud of exhaustion.

  From the faded dark came his hesitant almost disembodied voice. “Cass?”

  My vocalization vibrated sleepily up the column of our throat. “Uh-huh.”

  His voice grew firm in curiosity. “What did Silver mean when she told Shiva y’all have two lovers?”

  Faint hunger pains fled before molten needles of anxiety. The ceiling had cobwebs and a daddy longlegs anticipated dinner on high.

  “Cass?”

  “Perhaps you should ask Silver.”

  “Perhaps I’m asking you.”

  His words hung in the air like a glass balloon.

  I spoke in a rush. “Silver fell in love with someone. I’m happy for her.”

  Another guest slammed a door in the hall and feet tramped by our door. I studied the inside of our eyelids, waiting for his reaction. Sleep started to swamp me so I pushed myself through the sticky sucking mud of exhaustion straining our ears for his response.

  Eventually James said, “I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you, Cass. You changed, became more sexually aware, so suddenly. I thought you were…with someone…over there. I guess you were in a way.”

  Relief flowed ice water cool under our skin. “Silver overlaps with me so much sometimes it’s confusing. We got it figured out but it took time and mistakes. Don’t be sorry, James. It is what it is.”

  “You’re not mad?” His words were soggy with fatigue.

  “At first I thought I should be and then I realized I wasn’t. Go to sleep.” Now I sounded like Silver. It didn’t take long for James’ breathing to become even. Behind me Kara rolled on the bed to throw an arm over our side. Our fingers wove between hers automatically, making some tension inside release. One moment I was wondering and worrying about my abused friend, then in the next, my mind had traveled through the other side of a black hole into oblivion.

  Warm pulses of faint urgency flared in my mind. The first thing I sensed was the terrible taste of bitterness in our mouth. Our lips felt dried and cracked at the corners.

  Kara was snuggled against our back and I could feel her warm breath under our ponytail, moving tiny hairs. The room was peaceful. No other hotel guests were stirring and the first light of dawn was peeking through the drawn drapes.

  Silver nudged me again. “We should get going. Gerome said get back to him A.S.A.P. I’ll tell him in the Web when we get on the road so he can meet us at the gate.”

  “He’s doin’ okay right?” I asked.

  Silver chuffed with derision. “That man would drag himself from the grave if he wanted something badly enough. Maggie’s keeping a close eye on him.”

  Kara groaned, then a pitiful whimper followed. Her arm squeezed us so tightly it felt as if she were trying to fuse our bodies together.

  My twin’s emotions flipped from confidence to dread.

  “Nightmare.”

  Carefully I pried our friend’s arm from around our middle then rotated on the bed. Kara’s eyes were circling rapidly under their lids. Her face was twisted with fear. With combined intent we raised a hand to stroke her cheek murmuring soothing nonsensical words.

  A
s a sob escaped her tightly clenched teeth, Kara’s eyes popped open like broken blinds. She screeched at our proximity then launched herself backward in a maneuver that dumped her on the floor when she ran out of mattress.

  We heard a groggy, “What the—” behind us as James woke to the noise.

  In an emotionless tone I tried to reassure our frightened friend. “Kara. Kara it’s us. James is here, too. Do you want James?” Her hair was the only visible part of her body from our vantage point. Tremors were making the individual strands dance to an invisible wind.

  James moved into the edge of our sight at the foot of the bed. His position and height allowed him to see his sister’s huddled form.

  Silver took over our mouth. “I think we scared her being so close when she woke.”

  His nose turned white around the nostrils and his chest rose as he inhaled sharply. “Kara-mel? Are you okay, Monkey Girl?”

  With halting shuffling steps James moved closer to his distraught sibling. He squatted to rest his thighs on his calves before peeking around the comforter. A fist shot out, wild, almost connecting with James’ jaw and he ended up on his ass, legs akimbo. The guests below us weren’t going to enjoy their early morning wake up call.

  Silver thought at me, “To hell with this!”

  My twin dove into the driver’s seat with desperate resoluteness. We launched off the bed to land on Kara, knocking the breath from her body with an audible gush. Even as her lungs gasped frantically for sustenance she continued to claw and scratch our exposed skin. Each direct hit stung but those small pains couldn’t compare to the horror in her eyes.

  Silver managed to get her arms pinned and work our mouth so close to the shell of Kara’s ear it felt like she was trying to exhale air into her brain. “I promised you once I’d keep you safe in the Web. I failed. It’s only you in your head now, Kara. We burned him out. He’s gone. Concentrate.”

  Time seemed to rubber band stretch as the room narrowed down to the sound of Kara’s breathing and nothing else. The tremors running through her quivering muscles under the full weight of our body began to ease.

  A faint whisper issued from beneath us. “Get off me.”

  James must have heard his sister because the next thing we knew his hand was in our face offering a lift up. Our sweaty fingers slid into his cold dry ones as Silver tried not to jab an elbow or knee into Kara anywhere during the awkward extrication. Once free, we leaned against the desk with James to give her space to regroup, at least as much as the hotel room would allow. Each cut on our face burned with tingling itchy purpose as my twin healed our injuries.

  Back still turned, Kara muttered in a dead voice, “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”

  Silver’s voice took on an emotionless edge to match Kara’s hopeless one. “You don’t know. We can only tell you Shiva’s gone from your mind. What would make this feel more real?”

  Out of nowhere a sound like water being forced through twisted pipes erupted from James midsection to taper off into the more normal gurgle of hunger. Kara’s head and upper body turned in disbelief. Her eyes were lit with astonished curiosity for a bare moment before they fixed on us beside her brother and began to cloud with confusion.

  To avoid seeming bossy I looked a question at James. “We need to get back to the compound per Gerome via Silver. I’m guessing drive through on the way back?”

  James leaned away from the desk to hide his embarrassment then headed toward the entryway. “I’ll go check us out.”

  A muted astonished squeal from another hotel guest in the hall was our only warning before the door got hit from the outside, almost splintering with the force of the first assault. The top hinge burst from the frame, causing toothpick slivers to litter the air briefly.

  James backpedaled, arms flung out for balance, then reached down to grab Kara from the floor, half-dragging her closer to us. Silver hissed as we moved further into the room, grabbed our coat from the bed and swirled it around our back to slide our arms into the tubes of the sleeves. We didn’t have time for the boots. As James and Kara came even with our position a second ram collapsed the top part of the door inward to dangle by the throw bolt, finally revealing our intruders.

  All black tactical gear and reflective face masks boiled into the narrow rectangular hotel room after the threshold finally cleared of debris. Their shiny helmets glittered in the dim light like the carapaces on a swarm of beetles. Every bullet proof vest was emblazoned with FBI in white. The handguns they held extended didn’t look ordinary.

  Their failure to identify themselves before entering our room was a blaring alarm in our thoughts. The urge to flee warred with the slight chance these men were legitimate officers of the law. Could we chance the exposure by ‘porting out? Silver looked in the Web but failed to see any of their presences reflected.

  One man pushed through the center like Moses parting the red sea to stop and remove his mask. Though our recognition was internal and we allowed no emotions to be betrayed on our face a gong of dread sounded throughout our body.

  Silver reached out to entwine our fingers with James and Kara’s. The circuit of power snapped into place, then hummed and pulsed in our flesh to wash away our involuntary shock response. James squeezed our fingers so tight the individual joints ground together. Silver noted the bruises she’d have to heal later in irritation.

  Our voice came out as if forced from our diaphragm. “Declan?”

  It wasn’t possible this was our father. We’d seen his body staring sightlessly into the nothingness of death. The memory was vivid and flawless, diamond clear.

  James spoke in a near sub-vocal tone. “Cass, we need to go.”

  The man with our father’s face motioned with a raised hand and two of the weapons discharged, with a wine cork pop. James jerked to the side in a subtle burst of speed causing us all to list drunkenly. Kara yelped. On our right shoulder, close to where our neck had been seconds before, there was a dull impact as if a pebble hit our coat at high velocity.

  Silver pulled the image of the motor pool into our mind but this time the fade wasn’t as effortless. I shoved energy into the link and looped it to imitate a particle accelerator until the speed evaporated whatever resistance was hindering our escape. The hotel room didn’t crumble or pixilate around the edges in our sight—it just simply ceased to be between one blink and the next.

  The dome of the sky over our heads was still navy blue to the west and we weren’t in the compound by the familiar motor pool. It took Silver and I a second to get oriented but we’d been here before, when Gerome had gotten Kal’s help to ‘port us out of our prison cell.

  Flat cultivated farmland stretched off in every direction. Our sock-clad feet were ankle deep in soft brown dirt. A faint breeze tickled the inside of our right ear.

  James’ voice sliced through the sounds of nature around us. “Where are we?”

  Kara severed our power circuit to contort her arms into an almost pretzel shape trying to reach for something on her back.

  Her voice squeaked. “Get it off, get it off!”

  Silver reached out our arms to turn Kara’s body by its bony shoulders. Nestled between her shoulder blades a thin metal disk about the size of a poker chip was adhered to her t-shirt. My twin swatted Kara’s fingers out of the way and snarked, “Stand still, Mighty Mouth.”

  The dull metal was warm to the touch and striated scorch marks fanned out all around the edges. It looked to be poorly imitated Axsian tech used to affect teleportation. Benders used these sorts of disks to carry an extra rider or prevent ‘porting all together in prisoners. It was fried to a crisp now, though. Finally we were able to separate the foreign device from Kara’s clothes without tearing a hole. Tiny hinges enabled the disk to collapse in a vaguely bullet-like shape when squeezed. James walked up to our back and Silver turned us in an about face to grab his hand and slap the object in his palm. Surprisingly his complexion wasn’t green.

  I blurted, “How come you aren’t sick
?”

  Kara chimed in, “Hey, Dynamite, you’ve got one on your coat, too.”

  Silver shrugged off our coat and sure enough on the right shoulder another crispy fried disk waited to be pulled from the leather.

  James put a hand to his stomach as if to reassure himself it was still there. “I’m not even slightly motion sick. In fact I feel freaking fantastic. What did you do and why aren’t we at the compound?”

  Silver chose to answer while I picked at the device on our coat. “We ramped up the energy level in a loop. I’m thinking it changed our frequency to a level that overloaded these little doohickeys they shot us with. Maybe the faster speed is better for your body, James? I just don’t know. As to why we aren’t at the compound…I don’t know that either.”

  Internally I jabbed at Silver. “My only thoughts when we ‘ported after they shot at us were about getting us somewhere safe. What if that’s what threw us here like in Ghostbusters when Dan Aykroyd’s character thought of the Stay Puff marshmallow man? That could get tricky, Sister.”

  Kara raised her hand as if we were in a classroom. James snorted in amusement and stuffed the disk he held in a back pocket.

  She ventured, “I think I believe this is all real now.”

  Fingers splayed, James extended a long muscular arm and dragged his sister through the furrows into a full body hug by the back of her shirt. We half expected Kara to resist based on her little breakdown earlier but she melted into her brother like sliced cheese on a hamburger and leaned her head on his shoulder.

  Finally the last bit of tacky glue-like substance peeled away from the soft black surface of our coat and we donned it again. The wind picked up, blowing some dirt up from the ground. The air carried the promise of heat before the sun even reached its zenith. Distantly, in some adjoining fields, we could see irrigation framework moving slowly through newly planted sections. The main crop around here was usually cotton which got planted in spring and harvested sometime in August or so. Our field was tilled but fallow, maybe they were trying to let the earth rest.