Her aura shimmered softly, the visual equivalent of a soft hum. She was in a deep sleep.
How had they captured her? Drugs? A paralysis ray? A mechanical restraint?
I had to get her out of the capsule. I raked my talons across the glass. Didn’t even scratch it.
I tore the metal leg from a nearby table. I smacked the capsule again and again. Carmen remained in her slumber.
A circular contraption the diameter of the pedestal hung from the ceiling directly over us. The contraption was a concave disk dimpled with ridges radiating from a thick glass rod pointing to the indentation of the pedestal.
The capsules must be slid down the tracks to the indentation, and then what? Was this a scanner? To measure psychic energy? A diagnostic tool? What?
In any case, it didn’t look good.
I beat my hands against the glass and shouted: “Carmen. Carmen.” I wanted her to wake up and shine her tapetum lucidum.
Desperation choked me. I roiled with anger. I tried to tear the cylinder from the tracks but it remained fixed in place.
Okay, acting like a gorilla wouldn’t solve anything. I calmed myself and examined the outside of the cylinder. There had to be a way of opening these things. I found a rectangular indentation on the right side beyond the glass front. The indentation was at hip height, low for me but right for someone of Clayborn’s stature.
The indentation protected a series of slots and female connectors. This was where external devices or cables were attached. What devices? What cables?
Heavy steps rushed to the door.
Hurry, Felix.
I looked around for anything that would seem to fit the connections. A collection of devices, small boxes with cables, sat on the closest desk. I ran to the desk, scooped all the devices in my arms, and hustled back to the cylinder.
The front door began to squeal as if it was being twisted apart. The guards would soon make their way in.
I grabbed one device, ran my fingers over the cable to the end plug, and hunted for the correct connection. I turned the plug until it seated square, and pressed it tight.
The device, a blue plastic rectangle the size of a wallet, suddenly flashed a row of blinking lights. I fumbled with the device, trying to make it work. Nothing.
I dropped the device and picked up another. Its plug fit into a slot. This device, the size of a paperback book, had a screen that lit up. I tapped, then pounded on the buttons along its side. Again, nothing.
The front door clicked, the sound of metal snapping.
I rested my cheek against the cold metal of the cylinder. Carmen, I was so close. Please hear me.
Suddenly, there was silence. The guards in the hall had quit moving.
They were about to charge in. I had no choice but to escape. I couldn’t fight them forever. With every passing moment, the guards would gather more reinforcements and greater firepower.
I felt like a coward abandoning Carmen, but if I stayed I’d be overwhelmed and either dead or inside one of these cylinders myself. In a final gesture of desperation, I kicked the pile of devices and cables and scattered them across the floor.
I pressed my hands against the glass. “Carmen, I’ll come back and get you.” I wanted her eyes to flutter, her mouth to twitch, anything, but her expression remained distant and serene.
Escape. That’s what mattered now.
I chose an empty cylinder closest to the door the guards tried to open. I tripped the brake on the dolly. I wheeled the cylinder to point one end toward the door.
The door opened with a groan.
I shoved the cylinder and raced behind it.
Ramming speed.
Gunfire started and bullets pinged off the cylinder in front of me.
Men shouted, “Get back.”
The cylinder rolled to the doorway and smashed into the center of the group. Two men tumbled past me. A half dozen more scrambled to get away. I leaped over the cylinder toward the open door of a stairwell beyond. I levitated over the steps and was out of sight before the guards could yell a warning.
At the bottom of the stairwell, six more men stood, barking orders into their radios. They jumped in astonishment and clutched their weapons.
I ran through the center of the group. I grasped the largest guy by his equipment harness and swung him in a circle to knock the others down like nine pins.
I let him go and sprinted at vampire speed down the corridor. A steel blast door lowered and I dove under it, sprang to my feet, and raced out the basement door, up the incline, and out onto the grass.
Guards on the roof shouted and opened fire. The silencers on their weapons muffled the gunshots to fft, fft, fft.
I dodged left and right. I hurtled over the chain-link fence and landed beyond the hedge. I turned south and raced through the trees of the golf course.
A white SUV, lights flashing and siren blaring, charged onto the golf cart path after me.
I reached the resort boundary and vaulted a fence into the garden behind a row of condos. I kept going into the street. A panel truck pulled up to a stop sign.
I slid under the truck. Down here it smelled of hot metal and grease. I hooked my hands and feet into the frame and hugged the drive shaft. The truck rolled forward. The universal joint of the shaft spun inches from my crotch. I hoped the driver took it real slow over the speed bumps.
A quarter of a mile down the street, the truck halted. From this angle I couldn’t see much, except for the bottom halves of cars and the legs and shoes of people.
The baggy black trousers and boots of a guard came up to the driver’s side of the truck.
“We’re looking for a fugitive. About this tall, black hair. He’s wearing a red shirt.”
“Haven’t seen anything,” the driver replied.
“Get out anyway. We need to search your truck.”
The driver stepped out. He and the guard went to the back of the truck. The latch snapped open and the rear panels rattled.
“Nothing but furniture. Wanna look? Be my guest.”
The man in black climbed inside. His boots scuffed the floor above my face, and it sounded like boxes were being shoved around. He hopped out. The driver rattled the rear doors closed.
“If you see anything suspicious, call this number.”
“Why not 911?”
“No. It’ll be easier if you call the number on the card.”
So the hunt for me wasn’t about law enforcement. Surprise, surprise.
The driver got back in the truck. The guard returned to the SUV. The truck started up again and we drove to Highway 278, over the bridge, and into Bluffton. The odor of exhaust, especially the accumulated fart smell of catalytic converters, made me gag.
The truck passed a golf course and made a left off the highway. I craned my neck to see that no one followed. When the truck slowed at a corner to make another turn, I let go and dropped to the road. I kept myself as flat as possible, to let the differential pass and not conk me on the forehead.
The truck pulled away and the bright sunlight hit me full in the face. I jumped off the asphalt and hustled into the shade of an oak.
I was in an older residential section, mostly cottages with sagging fences and kudzu choking everything. The highway was to the north. The chalices’ mortuary should be south, between here and Buck Point.
I dug into my pocket for my contacts, which I put in. Goodman and that extraterrestrial hoodlum Clayborn were on to me. They had Carmen and they knew I’d be back to get her. Plus they knew I wasn’t human. Both of them assumed that I was another species of alien, which was fine. As long as they didn’t realize the truth, that the undead walked among them.
I had to get Carmen soon, as I didn’t know what plans Clayborn had for her. The familiar clammy hand of panic gripped me. I had to act.