In Constant Fear (34 page)

“What?” I whispered.

“Shhhh!”

She just stood there, a frown gathering on her face, her sightless eyes flicking left and right as if panicked by what they couldn't see. My hearing might not be as good as hers, but it wasn't long before I caught it too: the familiar
slurp-slurp
of those bionic legs, Nora Jagger was coming.

I pushed Lena on, trying to get up more speed, but we both knew it was hopeless; how fast those footsteps were closing, she'd catch us in moments. It didn't leave us with a great deal of choice. I wrapped my arms around Lena, held onto her as tightly as I could and dived over the side.

Jesus, the pain as we tumbled our way down . . . I did what I could to protect my leg, but also had to keep hold of Lena, to stop her from crashing into something. At one point the ground leveled out a little, our rapid rate of descent slowed, and I managed to grab this small tree and stop us both—but no sooner did I try to struggle up, the amount of blood in my boot meant my foot slipped and I went over again.

Lena did what she could to stop me, wildly flailing through the air, but couldn't locate me and in the end overbalanced herself;
the two of us dragging each other down, rolling over and over, bumping from side to side and finally coming to a shuddering and painful halt against an outcrop of rock.

“Stay still,” I hissed, though in truth, neither of us was up to moving.

Way up above we heard the Bitch's pneumatic stride, bounding along the ridge as if setting up tremors.
God help us
—a man who couldn't walk and a woman who couldn't see being pursued by that aberration.

We stayed there long after her footsteps had faded to nothing, just in case she returned. “Let's go,” Lena eventually urged, struggling up. “She'll be back.”

She was right, of course, and you didn't have to be a genius to work out why. The Bitch'd been able to track us by the occasional drop of my blood that we'd missed—once she saw there were no more she'd start to work her way back 'til she found where we'd gone over.

Lena took my hands and went to pull me up, but I wouldn't let her. “Wait,” I said. “Leave me. Get back to Thomas.” But she just kept pulling, acting as if I hadn't even spoken. “She's gonna find us. You know she will.”

Lena paused for a moment, sighing as if she knew it was true, that we had to think about this differently. “Maybe we should stop for the night? She'll give up once it gets dark. If we head out before dawn, maybe we can get some idea where we are and get back to the Commune before she's even awake.”

I didn't pass comment—I mean, it sounded a little optimistic, even half-baked, but one way or another I knew I couldn't keep walking. Having said that, she took me on a little ways, presumably searching for a place where she felt secure. Occasionally she'd pause for a few moments, listening, going onto her other senses. It must've been the best part of a mile before she was finally satisfied.

“Describe it,” she told me.

There wasn't a lot I could say, most of it I was sure she already knew: the forest was probably denser than anywhere we'd been. In
some directions the trees were almost a solid wall, with no space at all between. It was relatively flat apart from a dip in the ground over to one side, but that was about it.

“Okay,” she said to my relief, and I more or less collapsed to the ground.

But even then she hadn't finished. She went for a walk on her own, going around in circles, exploring the immediate area, presumably leaving nothing to chance in case we had to make a run for it.

After a while she came back and asked me if I was up to moving a little further. I just did it—without asking why—finding the new spot had a bit of a bluff to our back. Maybe it helped her hear better? I dunno; I had no idea and was too tired to ask. I just lay there, hearing the wind ghosting through the trees, the rattle of the forest's bones, the night slowly cupping its huge hands over us, and somewhere amongst it all I gratefully fell asleep.

It wasn't sound that woke me, it was sensation: I was suddenly aware of feeling cold, that Lena had left me.

I whispered her name into the dark, wondering if she was taking a leak or something, but the forest felt empty, as if she'd gone.

What the hell?
I struggled up, my leg so pained and stiff I almost fell straight back down again. Where'd she gone?

“Lena?” I called into the darkness, but there was no reply.

The trees were so dense, she could've rolled over a few feet and I wouldn't have been able to see her—but there was nothing. I didn't have a clue what to do, whether to lie back down and wait or what, but I had this really corrosive gut feeling that something was badly wrong.

I must've stayed there for a minute or two, waiting, listening, straining to see out into that dark, empty world. Then finally I heard it, dug up by the wind and thrown in my direction—just for a moment, then a few moments more. Jesus Christ—

The Bitch was approaching!

My first thought was to turn and hop away as best I could, even crawl if I had to—but where the hell was Lena? Again I whispered
her name into the night, and again there was no reply.
Lena, what are you doing?

Those familiar footsteps were constant now, fast approaching in my direction, that sucking
slurp-slurp
as if she was extracting life with every footprint and leaving nothing in her wake. I could just make out a faint glow, not a flashlight, much less imprecise, and finally I realized it was some kinda screen, that she was using its light to guide her.

I tell ya, I was utterly at a loss. What the hell was going on? Was the disappearance of Lena linked to the arrival of Nora Jagger?

She stopped around about the place where I'd first flopped down, waving her screen back and forth, by the look of it, crouching down, and I guessed she was looking for bloodstains.

And that was when I finally knew where Lena was—and why. Suddenly something came out of that dip in the ground at great speed, leaping at Nora Jagger and knocking her over, the screen flying through the air. There was a cry, a half-mouthed expletive, and I realized what was going on.

I began to hobble over, it occurring to me as I did that I'd unknowingly been part of setting the trap, that where I'd lain before I'd left blood for Nora Jagger to discover, that Lena had been lying in hiding, waiting just for that. I could hear a struggle going on, a lot of swinging and missing maybe, but apart from that first blow, no one appeared to have really landed one yet.

The one other thing Lena had going for her was that just like the kids, she was fast (as I've found out to
my
cost on a couple of occasions). Once she's made up her mind what she's gonna do, it happens in the blink of an eye. Neither the Bitch or the Bodyguards were that quick, presumably 'cuz of the prosthetics, 'cuz they were built for strength rather than speed.

As I got closer I could hear Nora Jagger goading Lena, calling her
little maid
, telling her to “take her best shot,” and almost immediately I heard the first full-blooded blow from what I guessed was a branch. The Bitch started to laugh, probably just to prove she hadn't been hurt, though I wouldn't've minded betting she had been.

I couldn't see exactly what was happening but I had this sense it was pretty much what I'd imagined: power against speed. You could hear the swish of the Bitch's leg through the air, then nothing—as if she'd fired a blank—but immediately after there would be a sudden retaliatory smack where Lena got in her reply.

I got to within a few yards of them, close enough to be able to make out these two dark shapes facing each other, dodging and ducking, Lena with her stick held high, the Bitch repeatedly leaping and slicing through the air with those lethal legs.

I was about join in, see how I could help, when Lena stopped me. “Go back!” she shouted, and Nora Jagger chuckled as if I'd made a tactical error and I retreated as fast as I could.

As much as I wanted to, the truth was, not only was I injured, not only was this an environment that suited Lena and not me, more than anything, she plainly saw it as
her
fight. Her revenge for what the Bitch had done to us all: threatening Thomas, enslaving me, killing the Doc and Gigi, all those other people she dispensed with, including, of course, little Arturo—though did she but know it, what she was so desperately trying to do was to extinguish that little guy's heart all over again.

There was another flurry of blows and a real hard smack, like God clapping his hands, and I saw the bigger of those two shadows staggering backward, losing her balance and falling over.

I could've almost let out a cheer. Lena was on her in a moment, ramming her knee into the Bitch's gut, wrapping her fingers around her neck, determined to get this over with. She'd somehow managed to pin one of those powerful arms but not the other, and I winced a couple of times when she took really heavy blows from the free prosthetic. Still she managed to maintain her grip, just the same way Sheila had, pressing down, slowly choking the Bitch.

But she got hit again—and again. And I began to see that no matter how determined she was, she couldn't hold on, that in the end Nora Jagger would just smash her to pulp.

No matter what Lena'd said, I couldn't hold myself back any longer—but I was too late. The Bitch managed to shove her off,
for a moment just lying there, getting her breath back, giving her impacted windpipe a chance to recover, while Lena, maybe fearing it was all over, tried to crawl away. Seconds later Nora Jagger was up and striding after her, kicking her so hard it must've felt like she'd got in the way of a discharging cannon.

I shouted out in protest, tried to follow after them, but I was limping so badly, I couldn't keep up. Lena managed to get to her feet, stumbling across the forest floor with the Bitch chasing after her, intent on finishing her off. I could feel the tension, the world cringing every time another blow was struck, the wait to see if it would be the last. Lena made her miss a couple of times and got in a couple of kicks of her own, but there could be only one end to this contest—or so I thought.

I don't know how it happened exactly—I guess Lena had become completely disorientated. The Bitch kinda leaped at her, there was a bit of a struggle, and suddenly they both disappeared.

I couldn't have been more surprised if night had turned into day. For a moment I just stared, then slowly made my way over to where I'd last seen them.

I should've guessed, what with the more varied terrain, the sheer drops: the two of them had gone over a bit of a cliff and were now lying in a clearing some twenty feet below, neither of them moving.

It's amazing what the human body can do when it has to, when it throws off the restraints of common sense and lets blind instinct take over. I was in so much pain there was no way I could make it down there—but I did. I went over to the side where it wasn't quite so steep—it wasn't exactly an easy way down, but it was a damn sight better than the sheer drop Lena and the Bitch had gone over. All the time I was calling out to Lena, hoping for some sign of life, but there was none.

Just over halfway down I came to a point where I had no other choice but to jump. Jesus, I'll tell ya, I landed on my good leg but you wouldn't have known it. It gave way beneath me and I collided with the ground, my left knee smashed, my right leg in pulsing agony.

I struggled up and hobbled over to the pair of them, grateful that in the clearing at least there was some light. I went to push aside the heavy bulk of the Bitch, to get those damn prosthetics as far away from Lena as I could, but suddenly it wasn't her I had to worry about, it was
me
. One of those huge hands shot out and grabbed me around the neck, pulling me toward her so my face was almost touching hers—gazing into the eyes of the wolf, the grin of the crocodile.

“I said I'd make you pay,” she snarled, “and I
will
. First the little maid, then you.”

She brought her elbow up and slammed it into my face so hard I thought for a moment I was gonna pass out. I think she was trying to subdue me, to reduce me to a state where I'd offer no resistance and she could do what she'd threatened: kill Lena as brutally as she could, then do something even worse to me.

It went through my head that I might've had some slight cause for hope, that after fighting with Lena and taking that fall she might be weakened, but as soon as I started to tussle with her I knew I was wrong. It was like trying to stand up to an avalanche: rocks and boulders pummeling into me, smashing my outer shell, squashing out my innards. I did everything I could to fight back; despite my leg—despite my
age
—I swear I hit her as hard as I've ever hit anyone in my life, but still she kept coming. For sure, since that last time I'd crossed her she'd had further modifications done. There was this sense that she didn't have
any
weakness anymore, that the human part of her was almost the equal of the prosthetics.

Just as before, she picked me up, gave a triumphant roar as she lifted me over her head, like she was the Queen of the Jungle, and threw me across the clearing to bounce off the cliff face. Jesus, the last time I weighed myself I was two hundred and twenty-seven pounds, but I felt like a ragdoll being tossed around by a Great Dane. Before I could recover, she was at my side and once again kicking me, grinding her heel deep into my wounded leg, trying to cause as much pain and damage as she possibly could.

I hollered so loud, I damn near frightened myself, but she just ignored me, picking me up and throwing me at the cliff-face again as if trying to stick me to the wall with my own blood.

I tumbled to the hard ground and this time stayed there. The Bitch stomped away into the night, giving me a few moments of precious respite, but within seconds I heard this scuffing noise and turned to see her dragging an unconscious Lena across the ground by her hair.