On Tenterhooks (42 page)

Chapter
3
8

By
mid-afternoon
of the next day, they were growing restless
.
They
had
ordered breakfast in
,
and the room
had begun to shrink more
with each passing hour
.
Despite their fear of Preacher, they each heard and saw the tourists and stores on the ground beneath
their window
.
Steve
was ready
to
break
out of what had become a prison
for them
.
He
and Abby
took turns watching the tourists in the streets below,
looking for a glimpse of Biker. There was no sign of Preacher.

Martin spent most of his time
lying
on the bed, watching TV and
trying to
instill some small sense of normalcy in
to
their unpredictable situation
.

“Why do they have to talk so darn fast?” he complained.

“It’s not fast to them,”
Veronica
responded
.
“What do you want to know? I’ll translate.”

“Naw,
that’s okay
.
I’ll just watch and learn.”

Steve and Abby were struggling to get the room’s single window to open wider
.
They both wanted to feel the fresh air.

“Too bad these rooms don’t come with a balcony,” he said, grunting
as he pushed up on the window.

There was a loud knock
at the door.
Martin muted the television and
sprang
up from the bed.
Veronica
stood back from the door with the gun pointed as Steve opened it from the side.
Biker stood in the doorway smiling down the barrel of
Veronica
’s gun.

“
¡Buenas tardes
!” he said
smiling
.
“Fajitas, my treat
.
Let’s go.”

He turned and walked away
,
whistling to himself
.
Veronica
looked at Steve, who shrugged.

“Fajitas sounds good to me!” said Martin
.
He turned off the TV and
followed
the others out the door.

Two hours later,
they sat on the terrace of a fajita grill
.
They had just finished a
massive
platter of sizzling beef and shrimp fajitas and rice, beef nachos and a dessert of cold flan
.
They’d shared a large pitcher of sangria and
,
for a few moments, all of them were able to relax and enjoy the scene and the company.

Th
e sun
lay
low and large across the horizon. T
he cruise
-
ship
tourists
had returned from
their shore excursion
s
and were sailing to their next destination
.
The crowds were thin,
with
just the
locals and vacationers who had flown in
.
The air had chilled a bit but Biker
had
insisted that they sit outside
.
Each of them scanned the area, always watching for Preacher hiding behind a nearby bush or building corner.

“Guys, he’s gone, for now,” Biker assured them.

“How do you know for sure?”
Veronica
asked.

“Well, h
ave you ever seen how the different poles of a magnet repel each other?”

“Sure,” said Abby, “it’s b
asic physics
.
We covered that
a couple
of
years ago in science class.”

“Right, w
ell, we’
re like that
.
We can’t both be in the same space at the same time
for very long
.
I can’t get ne
ar him
,
and he can’t get near me
,
except for maybe a few seconds at a time
.
”

“What happens if you do?” asked Martin.

“It would be very, very
messy,
f
or us and anyone anywhere close to us. If we were to go toe
-
to
-
toe, I’d
probably
be able to
whup up on him and
send him straight back to hell
.
But if that happens, his boss’d be pissed
.
And
,
believe
me
, there are things much, much worse than death
.
So
Preacher wouldn’t risk it.
I don’t want to take that chance either
—
a wounded herder ain’t gonna do much good keeping
the wolves away from the flock. Besides, I have my orders.”

“So
,
what are we supposed to do then?” asked
Veronica
. “
Hang out with you for
the rest of our lives?”

“No, that won’t work,” said Biker
.
“Actually,
you
are gonna have to confront him
.
And
,
if possible,
you
are
gonna
get rid of him yourselves
.”

And there it was.

Abby
had been
right
.
Steve
looked over at
her
.
She was attentive, but didn’t look scared anymore
.
Sad
,
maybe, but not like she had been yesterday when they’d
first discussed the possibility.

“Seriously?” asked
Veronica
. “You just told us that you’d be worried about your chances going
toe-to-
toe with
him
,
and you think we’re gonna be able to do any better?”

“No,
I didn’t say ‘better
.
’
I just said you’d have to face him.”

“Why?” asked
Veronica
.
“If it’s your job to protect us, why can’t you just do that?”

“Because it’s just not working anymore
.
Everything I told you yesterday
—
he's outflanking us left, right and center. The tide is getting too high
,
and humanity seems to be working against us.
We try to be more and more creative, but it still feels like we’re running to
keep from falling further behind
.

“If this doesn’t change soon, we’re predicting that the positives will all begin to stray and fizzle out, which is about the worst thing that can happen
.
W
e’ve looked at and analyzed it from every angle.”

“So we’re like guinea pigs
in some cosmic experiment
?” Steve asked.

“No. G
uinea pigs have no choice
.
You do. My purpose here is to lay all the cards out on the table
—
tel
l you the good, the bad and
the
ugly
bad
.
You’d be the first, a vanguard of sorts, to participate in a new
self-defense
plan
.
But
it’s
your option. No bullshit, no guilt trips
.
Just
me with the facts
,
and you with a decision to make.
We’ve never made contact with the positives like this in the past, so if we can prep you for it and tell you what to expect, perhaps you can find a weakness or at least a different approach, something we haven’t
tried
before.”

“Sounds like a
last-
ditch gamble to me,” said
Veronica
.

“That’s a mat
ter of perspective, I suppose.
I consider it to be more like a calculated risk, a change in strategy that is desperately needed.”

“So what is it that we’d have to do?” asked Martin.

“
Yeah, w
hat do you suggest?” asked Steve. “Just walk up and shoot him?”

“No.
First off, a gun isn’t gonna destroy him
.
Nothing on this earth that I know
of
is capable of doing that.”

“Then why did you have one?” asked
Veronica
.

“Because
it’ll
probably slow him down for ya.
You have to send him back,” said Biker
.
“It’ll ensure that he loses his momentum and his strength
.
It’ll take him years to get back here.”

“If we do that,”
asked
Abby
,
“
will
he leave us alone?
Will we stop having the nightmares?
”

“I don
’t know that for sure, b
ut I think so, yes
.
I
t will throw him off your trail for a good bit.”

“Can he be killed
?” asked
Veronica
.

“No.
At least, I don’t think so
.
He is not from here, so guns, knives, bombs and all that stuff don’t scare him
.
He is blending in now because he wants to. They play dirty
.
They sneak around in the shadows and strike at ya with sucker punches
.
That’s how they operate.
The trick is,
you
gotta convince him to come after you, all at once.
”

“But you won’t be there?” asked Abby.

“No,
I
can’t,” said Biker
.
“Like I said
,
we’re
mutually
repellant.
As long
as
I’m here
, he won’t show up.
I am gonna do my best here to set you up, but when it goes down,
you
will
be in the driver’s seat.”

“So
,
how are we
going to
convince
him to come after us like that?” Martin asked.

“Well, you’re
gonna isolate
yourselves in a r
emote spot and just sit there.
To him,
you’ll look like chum in the water
—
easy targets
.”

“I don’t get it,” said Steve
.
“You just told us that the whole reason we’ve had to go through this is because he
can’t
get to us directly.”

“That’s true, to a degree. Like I said, early on,
we saw that you
were destined for something Good
.
So
,
in a sense,
God
put shields up around you and sent people like me to look after you
.
Well, the plan is to have those shields lowered, so that he’ll come for ya.”