Crow - The Awakening (58 page)

Steven was surprised at how far the scorched bushes and grasses went. The apartment itself looked blackened as well but not burned. How could he have slept through that?

"He, uh, he's got a new phone and I can't remember his number." Not entirely untrue, Steven thought. "I have a little cash for gas if that helps."

"Don't worry about it." The man smiled pleasantly. "Just pass it on, okay?"

"Sure." Steven guessed what 'pass it on' meant and figured it referred to doing similar for someone else. He was hoping going to Brandon's equaled doing that, especially if it saved his life.

"I'm Coby, by the way. What's your name?" Coby looked over at Steven.

"Steven. I'm Steven," he replied. Steven almost hesitated, but the guy was giving him a ride. It just occurred to him that he may have just placed Coby's life in danger and he looked out the window, suddenly feeling ill as he remembered all the others that suffered for being near him.

"If you don't mind me saying, you're a mess." Coby looked at Steven. Steven suddenly realized that he was probably a scary sight to behold at the moment. Cuts, bruises, ripped clothing, caked blood and dirt, bullet wounds in his legs combined to give him a living dead look. He was surprised Coby let him get in the car to begin with.

"Uhm, yeah. I was in an accident." Steven really didn't want to go into the details. He felt a lot worse inside than how he looked on the outside. He looked down, waiting for the slew of nosy questions that were sure to come. They didn't, mercifully.

"So, Steven, what do you think of the earthquake this afternoon?" He looked at Steven, realizing Steven's reticence to go into details about his appearance. "Two back to back. California's falling behind." He grinned.

Steven opened his mouth to respond, then thought better of it. Telling him that he didn't know about the earthquake would likely mean divulging that he had slept in the culvert all night and that could get a bit awkward. Instead, he just smiled and nodded. He looked back out the window, instinctively scanning all the vehicles they passed.

"Are you looking for someone?" Coby looked at him as he drove down the street.

"What?" Steven turned around to look at Coby.

"You've been eyeballing every car we pass and any that get behind us. Is everything okay?" Coby raised an eyebrow at him, grinning nervously.

"I hope so," Steven replied, unable to return the grin. He looked back out the window, wondering if he should just have Coby pull over and drop him off. So many people have died and Steven felt it hard to breathe all of a sudden as sadness washed over him.

"Well, don't worry. I'll get you to your friend and everything will be just fine," Coby said confidently.

Steven nodded. "Thanks, Coby." He wasn't nearly so optimistic. All Steven wanted to do was curl up somewhere and return to being a nobody. Someone no one else wanted, no one died for and no one got killed because of who he was, of which he had no idea. So many times he considered just giving up, if for nothing else than to spare others from more death. But something spurred him on every time. He just wanted it to stop and he was getting tired inside.

"Lohet, I've picked up a report of a large fire here." Penipe pointed to the display. "They're saying it was a scorching but they actually found very little open flames when they arrived." She looked at Lohet. Sirel sidled over, looking at the report.

Lohet glanced at Migalo and all four of them adorned themselves in their human clothing and departed without another word.

Sirel landed them back behind the park. The sun was just starting to set, so they were not conspicuous flying overhead. The park was devastated. All the trees looked like they had boiled from the inside out, and were heavily charred. Penipe shook her head as she put her hand on one of them. "They're dead, Lohet."

Lohet looked up. Steven would have been up in one of them. "Perhaps another nightmare."

"In the middle of the day?" Penipe looked around, crestfallen to see the forest so leveled to such desolation. Even the grasses were blackened and crumbled underfoot. She put her shoes on, hating the feeling of so much death.

"We encountered him in the early hours of the morning." Lohet picked through the trees.

Penipe pointed. "He would have gone up this one." She looked up.

Lohet looked at her. She sighed. "I would." The association of instinctual acts with a deviant nauseated her. But it was what it was.

Migalo clawed up into the tree, tasting the air. "The burnt wood smells too strong." He called down. Then he caught a whiff and climbed up higher. Blood. Charred, but still distinct. "He was here." He climbed down a little then pushed off, crashing through the charred branches until he landed with a loud thud, followed by burnt wood raining down around them. "He climbed down."

"So he wasn't chased." Lohet stood out of the way as Migalo tasted the air and continued the hunt.

"No," Penipe said, looking up. "He would have gone through the canopy there or there if he was being chased. Lohet looked up, seeing how the trees once connected close enough to jump from one to another.

"Then he wasn't captured," Lohet postulated, relieved. It was paramount they acquire Steven before these humans. While they could predict what the Sadari would do with Steven, they had no idea for what purposes the humans desired Steven. They couldn't possibly know of his true nature. If they did, they would surely kill him outright.

"Still too much chatter," Sirel said, glancing at her computer display. "They are still looking for him."

"Here." Migalo waved them over. He was by a culvert. The other three walked over.

Penipe gasped, looking at the pond. She stepped out onto the pond bottom and felt the caked soil with her hands. "It's bone dry, and recently. This must have been the epicenter of the incident."

Lohet looked down into the culvert and saw a bottle and a wrapper for a burger. Standing up, he looked at Sirel and she giggled and crawled in to retrieve the objects.

A man called to them and the three of them looked over. Lohet had hoped he would just walk by but they had been noticed.

"Hey! Are you with the insurance company?" the man called to them. "I'm Fred, the chairman of the board for this property."

"We're here to survey the damage," Penipe said, walking up out of the pond.

"You guys gave me the act of God crap on the phone. What gives?" Fred asked, irritated.

Penipe glanced up at Lohet. It was an act, but most certainly not of God. "We just want to cover all bases." She looked around. "Did you see what happened?"

"Yeah. Look." Fred pulled up his shirt and then some bandages. He was heavily burned, but as if by laying in the sun much too long. "I was nearly cooked and there was no fire."

Penipe looked closely at the wound. "Looks like steam burns."

"Yeah, but the steam didn't come until after," Fred said. "I'm telling you, this was crazy weird. Like a secret weapon or something."

Lohet frowned. "A secret weapon deployed... here? At this apartment?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Wouldn't be the first time the government experimented on its citizens," Fred said, scowling at his burn.

Sirel crawled out of the culvert with the bag and water bottle and Fred looked at her. "Well, aren't you just a cutie."

Sirel looked up at him and giggled innocently then went over to Migalo, handing him the objects she retrieved.

"You had her crawl into the culvert?" Fred asked Penipe dryly.

"I can't keep her out." Penipe played the mother role that the man had assumed and grinned.

"Yeah, my kids are the same," the man sighed, looking at the diminutive girl that was not a girl. Then he noticed Migalo. "Good Lord man, you're huge." Fred didn't mean to say that out loud but couldn't help it.

Migalo bulged in his shirt even though it was the largest they could find and he had to do his best not to flex to keep from ripping it. He looked around then back at Fred, trying hard not to show his canines. Fred shook his head. "Insurance agents on steroids? What will come next?"

Migalo scowled at him. Fred got nervous all of a sudden, and his legs felt heavy. "Hey, just kidding. But... wow!" He returned his attention on Penipe. Fred wished she would remove her sunglasses. It was evening, after all. "Listen, I've got to have something to take to the board. Is there anything you can do?"

"We're just surveyors," Lohet said curtly.

Penipe looked at her commander then at Fred, "We'll do our best, of course," she said, touching him on the arm. The man winced a little and she let go. "Sorry." Penipe looked at where she had placed her hand. Her hand print was white on what was a rather pinkish arm. Penipe wondered if he had suffered internal injuries.

"That's okay. My skin is really sensitive all over." Someone called from the parking lot and Fred turned to go. "Give me a call, okay? Your office has my number."

Penipe nodded as he walked off. She looked at Lohet. "I didn't see Steven. But the pond was boiling then flashed into steam." She closed her eyes, trying to make sense of the man's memories. He had been terrified and was running and screaming in pain. "Everything was smoking. A grass fire started there." She pointed to a patch. "But everything else just smoked."

Migalo looked back at Fred then turned, letting his canines show. It was hard for him to conceal them for so long. He sniffed the wrapper and made a face. "People actually eat this junk?" He held it out as if he was holding a soiled diaper.

"Was it Steven's?" Lohet asked. Migalo nodded. "Steven must have slept in there."

Penipe looked into the culvert then shuddered. "I can't imagine what would have motivated him to crawl in there."

"He could have been trapped. Nowhere to run," Migalo grumbled.

"We must remember that he is still a kid who is acting impulsively," Lohet said. "Where did he go from there?"

Migalo tasted the air. "That way."

They followed behind as Migalo walked down the path to the parking lot. "His trail ends here." He knelt down by a parking space, tasting the air. "His blood scent is pretty strong here. He is heavily wounded."

Lohet looked at the parking space and noticed that it was numbered. "Sirel, find the parking allotment for this complex." He looked around, noting that Sirel was already on it. She giggled and winked at him, and Lohet couldn't help but smile at her.

"Coby Brenham," Sirel said. She pulled up the car manifest and information. "There." She pointed to an apartment. They went to the apartment and Migalo and Lohet stepped out of view. Penipe knocked on the door and a woman answered, a toddler on her hip.

"Is Coby home?" Penipe asked. Sirel doddled by her side looking like a bored child. The woman looked suspicious at first, but Sirel's cuteness distracted her.

"No. He left half an hour ago." She looked at Sirel who grinned at her and winked. The woman smiled back. "Why?"

"Oh, he just helped me with a flat tire and I came to thank him," Penipe said, smiling.

"That's my Coby. Always the helper," Coby's wife said, smiling, beaming with pride.

Penipe nodded. "If he returns, could you have him call me? It's been a while and he may not remember me. I'm really sorry it took so long to get over here."

"Sure." The woman put her toddler down and grabbed a pen and paper. Penipe wrote a name on the paper and the phone number she was using and scribbled a pretty 'Thank You' on the paper for good measure. "Here. I really appreciate it."

"No problem... Sally." The woman looked at the paper. "I'll have him give you a call as soon as he gets back."

Penipe grabbed Sirel's hand and walked off the porch and out of sight where she met up with Lohet and Migalo. They also grabbed Sirel's hand and in an instant they were gone.

"Sally, this is a huge risk," Jonah said as they entered into the outskirts of Seattle. "They are still looking for us." He looked at Sally then at his rear view mirror, wondering from where they would come at them.

Sally fumed, not happy with the discussion. It didn't help that she was also terrified. But she was more afraid for her son.

"They could have set this up. We could be walking right into a trap," Jonah continued, glancing at his rear view mirror again. Everywhere he looked he imagined the enemy jumping out of the shadows and descending on them.

She glared at him, then back at the highway. She expected him to resist the idea of going to Seattle. But now that he was, she was still angry. How could he not want to pull out all the stops and look for his son? Especially now that they knew he was in danger.

But she took solace in the fact that in spite of his protests, he continued driving. She looked at him. He was worried. Not just for Steven, but for all of them. Her only thought was Steven. His thoughts were for her as well. She looked down, feeling a little guilty for her anger. "I can't let him go this way, Jonah. I just can't," she said softly, looking out the window as she wondered where her son could be and if he was suffering out there somewhere.

Jonah glanced at her then back to the road. "We may not be able to stop it." Lohet and the team were a formidable force in their own right. Then there were the Sadari who now held Steven's blood parents. Who were they to stand up against any of them? But Sally would not be put off. Jonah worried that this may be the end for all of them.

Sally shook her head. "I'm done playing it their way, Jonah. He's my son and I don't care what they say."

Jonah looked at her then at the road, sighing. "He's our son." He was afraid for Sally, but was just as determined to find him as she was.

She looked at him, tearing up, and grabbed his free hand. He glanced over, then back at the road. "We'll find him, Sally. We'll put things right. It's time for Steven to come home." He had no idea how, and even less of an idea of what would happen after that, but they were a family and they would face that together.

Sally smiled and wiped her eyes, looking at her husband, so thankful she was not alone in this. "Thank you, Jonah."

"But it could still be a trap." Jonah scanned the highway for any car behaving suspiciously and kept an eye out for any roadblocks. They got lucky the last time they had to flee. He wasn't convinced their luck would hold out a second time.