9.
John’s car was functional, and that was about it. Another of Europe’s ubiquitous shoe cars, it had the virtue of at least being not too old, I guess, though I suspected from the smell it had been used to haul livestock, however one would manage that with only enough passenger space to carry a lamb if it had been butchered first.
I took the winding roads east, following the map, having found the destination immediately upon getting my hands on it. I’d quickly sketched out the route, which was pretty much back roads the whole way. I had it spread out on the seat next to me, giving myself plenty of time to get where I was going. And it was good thing I did, too, because the airfield was not on this map, so I was basically going by my recollection of what I’d seen on the phone screen before I’d broken it.
That was fine, though; I had time to drive in circles around the area I knew it was in, tracking it down. It was out on a kind of half-ass peninsula north of the Firth of Forth. Bordered to the east by the North Sea, and with St. Andrews up north of it, I had a solid idea of where I was going—roughly. I’d caught the name of the town of Lochty, and the road the airfield was on, and from there I just drove until I got to that locale.
The cloud cover was heavy overhead for most of the trip. I tried to stick to back roads, which slowed my progress but helped me avoid any police entanglements. In fact, I didn’t see a single cop anywhere along my route. Looking at the nature of the car, I didn’t have to worry about GPS tracking or LoJack in the thing, for which I was also grateful. I turned on news radio and tuned it out for the most part, listening to the continuing excitement over the fact that Sienna Nealon was in Scotland, which was apparently the most thrilling thing that had happened since the Haggis disaster of ‘07 or whatever passed for major news around here.
The hilly countryside was pretty, and I was lucky in that although there were a lot of blind corners coming around hillocks, I didn’t run into any police roadblocks along the way. I was slightly tense as I drove, the maddening silence inside my head chipping away at my resolve. Until today, it had been a while since I’d actually driven a car, and I’d never done it on the wrong side of the road.
My mind settled into a steady rhythm as I got on a long straightaway, and finally my thoughts veered into a territory I hadn’t wanted to contemplate: my missing souls.
“Dammit,” I muttered under my breath. This silence was killing me.
I hadn’t even known another succubus could steal my souls, but in fairness, I hadn’t exactly dealt with many of them. My aunt Charlie, my mom, and myself—those were the three succubi I’d known before Rose came into my life. I cursed myself again for not having listened to my suspicions about her, the same suspicions I get for everyone, but damn! I mean, she was a good actress. I’d been around a lot of criminals, and I’d yet to meet one that could perform like her. That was some classically trained stuff right there, and I didn’t wonder that hard why actors from the UK ended up so famous lately. Maybe she’d been in theater when she was young.
My thoughts wandered back to my souls. I knew what a succubus could do to a soul if they wanted to apply pressure. Agonizing pain was a tool at your disposal, if you wanted to break one of your captives. You could basically turn your brain into a 24/7 torture dungeon for them, if you had a little help.
And based on the number of powers Rose had, and the number of corpses she’d left behind…I guessed she had a lot of help at her disposal.
Every single soul she took was another centurion in her personal, mental army. I’d seen it happen on a very small scale with my own souls when they’d taken a run at Harmon one night when he’d first arrived in my mind. There was a horrific, howling noise as they jumped him, one that had woken me out of a sound sleep with the horror of the screaming. I’d put a stop to it, of course—Bjorn claimed it was just hazing, but I’d heard what I’d heard, and Harmon, though quiet about it, had been less insufferable for a few days afterward. That told me that no matter how fine he said he was, whatever they’d hit him with—their combined wills, near as I could suppose—it must have hurt quite a lot.
That was six against one. Rose could have thousands of souls ready to pour the fire on my few.
Wolfe could take care of himself, I knew. He’d probably been through worse.
Then again, when I’d killed him…he’d screamed and begged just like anyone else would. He probably wasn’t used to taking pain anymore, having become the guy who more often dealt it out.
Bjorn, Eve, Bastian, Gavrikov…they all were pros who knew the score, like Wolfe, a little, in that regard. Harmon, too, to a lesser extent. Pretty much every one of them had been in meta battles at some point, and they’d be familiar with the way things went, with the way of the world, really. Might makes right, and Rose had a lot of might on her side.
I wasn’t under any illusions about this turning out “right,” though.
My arm was rested against the window, the warmth of the sun feeling pretty good against the skin, a far cry from the fiery feeling I’d experienced when Rose had put her hands on me and ripped the souls out of my body. I shivered a little at the thought, hands shaking on the steering wheel until I got myself back under control. No one had dominated me like that in a long time, and it felt…
I nudged the car to the side of the road for a moment and took long, steadying breaths. I was fine. Physically, I was fine. A hundred percent, even, for my own powers.
But if that were true…why did it feel like a huge chunk had been carved out of my flesh?
I was keenly aware of that missing space inside, a hollow center that made me feel like Rose had cut me open and ripped out a few internal organs. Sure, maybe I could survive for a little while without them, but sooner or later I’d keel over dead without what was missing. It was a gaping, empty hole within, a painful cavern inside me that echoed every time I spoke, resonating with a kind of agony that I hadn’t fully experienced, even when all my friends had betrayed me and the US government had turned on me.
It was the feeling of being…alone. Actually, truly, completely alone.
“You bitch,” I said in a voice that sounded very, very small.
I imagined her face in front of me, and right there with a desire to punch it, squarely, in its freckled paleness, was another desire—to not hit her. To quail away, to turn and run.
I hated that feeling, and the shot of worry that it sent rushing through my veins. It was a physical reaction to the thought of Rose, a sense of fear that was like a hobble fastened to me, cramping my desire for action.
She’d made me fear her. That made me hate her even more.
I spent some time composing myself. Not a single car passed me during that interval, which made me feel like I’d picked the right roads to traverse. I wiped my eyes, cursing the fact that I was actually despairing, alone, in a damned European shoe car, on the side of the road in Scotland. I felt so wretched I could barely put words to it, and I was on my way to a rendezvous that would see me fleeing this country for safer ground.
I think I hated that worst of all.
It took a while to get myself back together, but I finally did it. At least I hadn’t full-on ugly-cried, I thought to myself, reveling in this one small victory as I nudged the vehicle back on the road, my destination bleary but visible in the map next to me. I’d held it in, for now, keeping all this fury and sadness and loneliness and isolation buried inside.
I resolved I’d keep it buried until the next time Rose and I crossed paths, when I was ready for her.
And then…I’d find some way to make her give me back what she’d taken from me.