Hellbender - Dana Cameron Page 0,1
louder this time, crawling along the wall until he could stand upright. I took a certain fatigued satisfaction from his appearance; he was tall, dark, and tough as an old root, could do backwoodsman or “in New York to sell his first start-up” with equal ease, but now . . . he was bent over, limping still after I’d kicked his bad leg out from underneath him. His face was crusted with drying blood, his wavy hair matted. There was a wild madness about him, added to the reek of evil and fear. As he reached the end of the alley, he found a discarded bottle. He leaned over, picked it up with some effort, and threw it at me, a noise of fury and frustration coming from deep within him. I automatically scrunched my eyes closed and raised my hand to protect my head. I was just trying to block it, but Buell vanished, as if he’d never been there.
Oh, shit, oh hell, where is he? I thought. Where did I send him?
Barbed wire sliced through every organ in my body. I passed out before I could scream.
When I woke, I don’t know how much later, Buell was still gone from the alley. And it was raining even harder.
I didn’t want to think I might have sent Buell where he’d do more damage. I had to hope I’d blasted him from the face of the planet.
But for now . . . I had only what was in my jacket pockets, which wasn’t a lot. I’d gotten up this morning prepared to do battle—what time was it now? It was dark, but was it evening or actually morning with bad weather? Was it even still the same day? A quick check showed I had my wallet. I had some cash, some change, unhelpfully in Turkish lira, which I hadn’t had time to convert at the airport, as well as some US currency. A couple of credit cards and a couple of phones—
The phone that Dmitri Parshin had given me worked internationally. But had it survived the Battle of Boston, intact and operable?
The screen had a new crack, but other than that, it seemed to be unharmed. I held my breath as I turned it on.
A sharp crackle. The screen fizzed and blurred a moment, and I thought all might be lost. I held my breath as it booted up.
It took longer than I thought possible, what felt like four or five years, but the logo screen came up and went through all its recognizable gymnastics. A moment later, I saw the home page.
One orange pip, the universal indicator of “Make it count, friend, ’cause you got just one shot.”
I had no charger with me.
I wasn’t exactly sure how to call the US, and rather than waste the power on talking to operators, decided to send a text. But to who?
I thought about it hard and quickly. The last friendly person I’d had communication with on this phone would be who I texted. I carefully pressed as few buttons as possible. Adam Nichols’s name came up quickly.
Adam had been a friend to me and recently had been a good deal more than that. I had the silly notion that if he were here, everything would be all right. No, it wasn’t silly. Adam had come to my rescue several times, was smart enough to figure out his own mind, and strong enough to live up to his ideals. It would have been a comfort to have dragged him here, instead of Buell, and we could have—
Was it my imagination or had the screen flickered again as my mind wandered?
With as little touch screen action as I could manage, I typed a message, short, sweet, and to the point: SOS in kanazawa? japan? low batt. SOS!!!
I would have added a few more exclamation points, but prudence prevailed over emotion, and I hit “Send.”
The screen stayed, then seemed to send, then went black. I hoped my message made it through.
I’d done what I could. Now I needed shelter, food, and something dry to wear, maybe something that wasn’t torn, bloody, and stained with gunpowder and demolition debris. I needed information.
I pulled my jacket tighter and prepared to find some place to regroup. I flipped my wet hair out of my eyes, which made my head ache anew.
The train station across the street had amazing modern arches, with columns made to look like drums. The posts in the uprights reminded me of a close-up