“That’s great,” I said, but sorrow crept into my voice. “Don’t you want to go home?”
A moment passed before she spoke. “I can go home because my sister’s dying. Satine’s summoned me back so I can take the crown when she dies.”
There was silence as I patted her shoulder to comfort her. She stared ahead, the letter in her hand.
“I want to go soon,” she said, “to see her.”
“I understand. I’ll drive you back –”
I was on the ground, the concrete hitting me hard. Audrey stood over me; she had thrown me to the pavement. The raven lay dead behind her, a black spike protruding from its feathers. Audrey pulled me to my feet.
“She’s here.”
“What? Who?”
“She’s part of the Arakni Klan – Moreinans.”
“The what?”
“The Arakni, they don’t want Alhallra to regain its battle strength. They were afraid I would find the White Stone, so they’ve been hunting me these past years.” As she spoke, she took off a golden ring from around the raven’s leg; I hadn’t even noticed it.
“So you’ve been dodging assassins. What else don’t I know? Where is she now?” I looked around but saw only pedestrians.
Audrey tossed the ring into the air and caught it when it came down. “There’s no gate here.” She put the ring on her finger, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me through the crowds at a pace I could scarcely keep up with.
“What is that ring?”
“A Moreinen gate key. It must be important for them to send a messenger to look for me through a Moreinen gate.”
“Where are we going? Why are we running?”
“I can use this Moreinen key to get back to my world. I don’t know where the Moreinen gates are, but I’m sure Nakada does. So we’re following her.”
“You mean the one who tried to kill us just now? Really, I could drive us to Berk–”
“This way’ll be faster. It would take half a day to drive back to Berkeley, and I don’t have an Alhallren key, which means more messages and more waiting. It could take days. This way, I could be in my world tonight. Trust me. There! She’s heading for the parking lot. Quick, give me your car keys.”
Audrey’s demand struck me. Someone else driving my car. “That’s okay, I’ll drive you.”
We were nearing the Rainforest Café when Audrey stopped. I ran into her with a pain like striking a wall. Audrey was motionless in a manner that silenced me. “She knows we’re following,” she said. Audrey inched forward. The restaurant’s fake jungle décor loomed in front of an immense stretch of parking lot. The mariachi band was still playing to the crowds. Behind them, a pool was dotted with lights and reflections of the Mayan architecture. Trees and fronds lined the shallow waters. Bushes were scattered up a tiered wall.
In an instant, a figure leapt from the waters and fell on Audrey. Audrey’s shield lit in a blaze and the figure was thrown back, crashing against the restaurant, sliding into the pool below. When Nakada rose to her feet, I saw she was cloaked in black. Water dripped from her clothes and ran along her dark skin. In one hand, she held a long blade high, the tip of it curving over her head. Her other hand moved slowly and pulled back her hair; the gesture revealed the arch of her neck, tattooed with tiger stripes along her neckline. Carefully, she reached for something in her hair, her eyes on Audrey.
Audrey’s sword flashed. Nakada’s sword was held to shield her face, a black spike protruding from the blade. She pulled the thin spike from her sword and replaced it into her hair, never taking her eyes from Audrey.
Neither of them moved as they regarded each other. A crowd had gathered. Only the water trickled through the quiet. The mariachi band had stopped playing.
Nakada burst from the waters with a shriek. Audrey repelled her, throwing the Moreinan back.
A whip lashed from Nakada’s hand as she fell, wrapping over the branch of a tree. The whip tightened and Nakada flew on her whip, rounding in a quick circle and kicking Audrey across the face. Audrey was flung against the Mayan walls into the waters. The lights and reflections of the pool slid over her.
Nakada was already on the ground when Audrey stood, dripping. Nakada lashed her whip over Audrey’s head as she ducked. The whip sliced through branches; the severed limbs fell into the pool, bobbing to the surface.
Nakada reached into her hair and threw another spike. It shot past Audrey’s ear, sticking into the wall like a dart on a dartboard. Another spike cut past Audrey as she dodged. When I looked again, a third spike had sliced the first one in half on the wall.
And then Nakada was gone, her black leather coat flapping behind her as she ran.
“Get to your car!” Audrey cried.
I could only obey. We sprinted towards the parking lot as the smattering sounds of applause rose from the crowd.
We hurried into my car and sped away. “Turn here! Turn here!” Audrey shouted at me heatedly.
We raced through several intersections, running the red lights with cars honking at us. Soon we flew onto the 5 freeway, weaving across six lanes of traffic.
“Get into the carpool lane.”
I sped down the highway at record speed, praying no cops were around. “Where are we going?”
“I told you, we’re following Nakada. She’s up ahead. I can see her.”
I swerved around a car, cutting across the double yellow lines; speeding past another vehicle, I cut back into carpool. My tires screeched loudly in protest. I turned to Audrey. “Jesus Christ, put your seatbelt on!” I reached over to pull the seatbelt over her before I stopped myself. “What am I saying? You probably won’t die even if you’re thrown from the car and I run you over. Christ, this is crazy!” She laughed as I swerved again, cars blaring their horns at me. I caught a glimpse of someone flipping me off in my rearview.
“We’re close.” Audrey was at the edge of her seat, looking intently into the red taillights of the highway. I saw Nakada on a motorcycle, lit in brief glimpses by the freeway lights, darting between cars. “I’ll slow her down, make sure she doesn’t get away. Lower your hood,” Audrey said.
“What?”
“Your car hood. Lower it.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to jump.”
“Jump where? What!” I looked to where Nakada was racing on her bike, at a distance that was barely within sight of my vision.
“You worry too much.” She was grinning.
“You don’t worry enough.”
“Just do it. Everything will be fine.”
“Those will be your famous last words.” But I pressed the button and lowered the hood. The Los Angeles air swept over us in a gush of noise. Wind whipped against our ears, and all I heard was air and traffic. Audrey leapt onto the top of the windshield like a cat onto a bookshelf. She perched there deftly, the wind throwing her hair wildly; she was like a hawk perched on a cliff edge, the wind blazing through its feathers.
I tried to speed up, closer to Nakada, but my foot was already flat on the accelerator. Audrey flew off into the night, rising gracefully. She went over the rushing cars before descending neatly, barely visible in the distance, behind Nakada on her bike. A gleam of silver flashed on the motorcycle as Audrey deflected a blow from the Moreinan.
I pressed the accelerator even more firmly as I whipped through traffic. I glanced at people in their cars as I sped past. Some appeared bored, as if they hadn’t noticed anything; others looked curiously in Audrey’s direction and I could almost read their minds: Huh, are they filming a movie? I rolled my eyes.
Nakada’s bike was slowing. I could make out the black sweeps of her sword as she bent to swing it behind her, her back arching in poised curves as she struck. She swerved her bike dangerously across the lanes, trying to shake Audrey off.
A vibration on my leg surprised me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. “Kevin,” my sister’s voice squeaked. “Where’ve you been? Mom’s gonna kill you if you’re late for dinner. What’s
taking you so long? Are you still eating the pre-dinner dinner? What’s all that noise? Are you driving with the hood down? Can you hear me!”
Ahead, Nakada was striking Audrey’s shield so hard that Audrey was forced farther back on the seat. “This is a bad time!”
“What? Why?”
“It’s –” Audrey punched Nakada across the face. “It’s just – girl stuff.”
“Mom wants to know when you’re gonna get here.”
“I don’t know if I can make it down this Christmas. I really don’t know what’s gonna happen. If I’m not there, start without me. Look, I gotta go.” I hung up and pocketed my phone. The skyscrapers of Los Angeles rose from the darkness. A sign flashed past: the 101 North. We were almost in Downtown LA already. How fast had we been going?
Beside Audrey and Nakada, a freight truck pulled into the adjacent lane. Nakada leapt from her bike and landed on top of the truck. She sprinted down the length of the vehicle. Audrey took the handles of the bike and cut in front of the truck. She turned, riding backwards, before she leapt into the air just as Nakada jumped from the truck’s roof. They clashed against each other in mid-air, the force of Audrey’s leap sending them both crashing onto the truck. The motorcycle sped wildly, unmanned, along the lane beneath them.
Above the traffic, Audrey and Nakada fought across the top of the truck. Nakada swung her sword in a circle over her, her back arching, before she threw herself forwards and swept the blade out in a brutal motion. Audrey dodged. Nakada drew her whip, repeating the same arcing move; the whip smashed against Audrey’s shield, hurling her off the side.
Audrey flipped in the air and landed back on the swerving bike. Nakada followed, jumping onto the bike, balancing in front of Audrey on the handles. Nakada kicked out, but Audrey caught her foot before Nakada used her other leg to strike Audrey in the face. Nakada leapt from the motorcycle and pushed off the truck’s side to rebound in a kick that threw Audrey from her seat. Nakada landed back on her bike and sped away.
Audrey fell hard onto the roof of a speeding car, clinging to it. I wove through traffic until I was as close to her as I could get, still several cars behind.
She lost her hold, flying backwards over the cars, heading towards me. Reaching out, she grabbed the top of my windshield and pulled herself down into the passenger seat.
She looked breathless but cheerful. Her hair was a tangled mess. It still whipped across her face, but I could see her content expression underneath. “Why are you so happy?” I felt I had been more traumatized just watching her fight. “You almost got killed.”
“Oh, I’ve been through worse.” She craned her neck to look around the traffic. I thought it was over, but to my dismay she cried, “I see her! Hurry, she’s exiting.”
I shifted the car as fast as I could towards the exit despite myself. Something inside of me groaned.
As we sped out of the exit, the skyscrapers of Downtown LA climbed above us in mountains of steel and concrete. I drove down Grand Avenue, turning through several streets before Audrey told me to pull over, pointing ahead into the dark. I leaned forward and saw Nakada running across a sidewalk, her unmistakable black coat flapping beneath the street lights.
Nearby, the curb was plastered with signs saying ‘no parking’. I pulled my car into an illegal park and got out. I cursed; I could see the ticket on my windshield already.
A complexity of high-rises stretched far above us, each building lined with its own set of glass doors. Everything was dark and quiet. Only in the distance the sound of traffic hummed.
“Kevin, over here.”
Audrey had opened one of the doors. I followed her inside a closed office building, its hollow halls expanding long and deserted in every direction.
“How’d you get in?” I whispered.
“Super-strength,” she said. “Breaks me through most doors. Just have to be careful not to trip any of the alarm wires.” She gave me a little wink.
Looking down, I noticed a security guard lying unconscious at her feet, half-hidden behind a desk. “Did you punch out –”
“He’ll be fine,” she said. She rummaged through his pockets, retrieving his keys and security card.
She used the security card to gain access to the elevators. As we stood in the hall, a light blinked from the dimness, moving across the floor numbers above the elevator doors. The light stopped on the number 42. We both looked at the number. “There she is,” Audrey said.
As though on cue, another set of elevator doors opened and the ‘up’ button on the wall blinked off. I moved to follow Audrey into the elevator, but she stopped me with a look. “Kevin, you don’t have to come.”
I thought about it briefly. “No,” I said. “I want to.”
“It’ll be dangerous.”
“Driving in LA’s more dangerous.”
She smiled, and I stepped into the elevator before she could say anything more.
Chapter 19