Bai’s gaze went back to the road ahead. The minivan was following a large vehicle that had once been a package delivery truck. It had been repainted, the old logos covered over. The truck disappeared around a sweeping curve for a moment, then reappeared as Bai guided the minivan around the same curve.
Bai glanced at Chad. “We are almost there, Dogshit. Are you ready?”
Chad grunted. “No. Not really.”
Bai’s smile became a smirk. “Typical American weakness. No wonder your country isn’t what it once was.”
Chad chose not to reply. She was just baiting him again. Should he open his mouth and say the wrong thing, he could get his nose broken for his trouble. Or lose another tooth. He looked out the window on his side and watched the flashing, denuded trees. Several moments passed and Bai seemed content to let the exercise in verbal humiliation lapse. Chad felt a bitter gratitude.
Then the line of trees began to thin and soon after that the minivan began to slow. Chad could now make out the twisting line of a narrow dirt side road and, beyond that, the small, dark shape of an old house sitting atop a gentle rise. The house was dilapidated and surrounded by acres of forest on all sides. Its seclusion triggered memories of another house, one high in the mountains of east Tennessee. This added to the already strong sense of déjà vu he was feeling. He’d done this before. But this time was very different. He felt no righteous sense of purpose. This time he was nothing more than a helpless puppet along for the ride.
He looked at Bai and said, “I have to ask something before we do this. I realize you probably won’t tell me, but the hell with it. What’s the deal with you fucking Order people?”
Her brow creased slightly. “I don’t understand.”
Chad just managed not to roll his eyes. “What is your purpose? What function does your organization serve? Why go to such lengths to exact revenge?”
Bai smirked. “You could never understand. These are not things for men of low nature to comprehend. All you need to know is we are an ancient Order. Our lives are sustained through centuries through the ritualized sacrifice of innocent lives. And foremost among the codes that govern us is an unswerving loyalty to the Order. When one of us is cut down, it is an attack against us all. To not exact revenge, as you put it, is not an option.”
“Wait a minute…low nature?”
“Unpure. Unclean.” Bai smiled. “And stupid. Low.”
Chad thought about that a minute. He was too used to Bai’s insults to be overly offended by the “low” comments, but something else she’d said triggered a faint association. He puzzled over it a moment. Then he had it and his eyes went wide. “The Master did the same thing. Was he of the Order?”
Bai shook her head as she twisted the minivan’s steering wheel and followed the package truck onto the dirt road. “No. But he had a close association with us, as he practiced many of the same rituals. It is how Evelyn Wickman came to be in his employ.”
“Huh.” Chad settled back in his seat and felt a strange sense of completion steal over him. Learning this small piece of the puzzle after all these years meant very little in the larger scheme of things. Ms. Wickman was dead and gone. But that small sense of satisfaction was there regardless.
It didn’t last long. The package truck reached the top of the driveway and rolled to a stop. Its brake lights came on, then turned off. Bai guided the minivan to a stop several feet behind it and switched the engine off.
Chad felt a lump rise into his throat as his pulse quickened.
This is it, he thought. The end.
But no, that wasn’t quite right. The true end of his journey lay beyond the frail-looking wooden door on the other side of the house’s rickety porch. Chad tensed and the fear began to steal over him. It was about to begin. The noise. The explosions and gunfire. The screaming and the death. He wasn’t ready for it. Could never really be ready for it. But it was happening anyway.
He sucked in a startled breath as Bai reached behind his neck. Then the pressure around his throat was gone. She tossed the collar and leash to the floorboard and said, “This is your chance. Fight and emerge victorious. Then freedom will be yours. It is up to you.”
She held his gaze for an intense moment and he felt that familiar tingling behind his eyes, as if she could see into his brain and know his every thought. Then the moment was over and she was turning away from him. She opened the door and stepped out of the minivan.
Chad allowed himself another moment to compose himself, then did the same.
The back of the package truck was open and the store of weaponry inside was being rapidly unpacked. A man clad in camos thrust an M-16 and ammunition into his hands. Chad numbly began to load the weapon as he watched other men haul out two cylinders that vaguely resembled the bazookas he’d seen in old war movies. But he recognized them as AT7’s, shoulder-launched antitank weapons. Jack Paradise had schooled him on the subject.
The men with the AT7’s were setting up to begin the first thrust of the assault even as the remaining caravan vehicles rolled up behind the minivan. A Jeep at the end of the column swerved around the van ahead of it and skirted the edge of the dirt driveway as it rattled toward them. Chad felt a knot form in his stomach as he glimpsed Allyson at the wheel. He frowned. He was sure there’d been two paramilitary men with her in the Jeep, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Allyson stomped on the brake and emerged from the Jeep a moment later. There was a handgun tucked in the waistband of her jeans. She wasn’t wearing the heavy jacket she’d had on earlier. She looked Chad in the eye and strode purposefully toward him.
Bai’s lips pursed as she observed Allyson’s approach. “Where are the men who were with you?”
Allyson pulled the handgun from her waistband and thumbed the safety off. “One of them bailed. Kept talking about how he didn’t want to die for something he didn’t give a shit about. He ordered the other guy to pull over at gunpoint. Far as I know he’s making his way back to that podunk little town on foot. The other guy, he lost his nerve a little later. Maybe his buddy taking off got to him, I don’t know. He blew his brains out with this thing.” She waved the gun around and Chad flinched, expecting to see the flash of Bai’s sword at any moment. “I could’ve run after that, but you already know I’m not going anywhere without Chad.”
She said all this fast, as if she’d been frantically rehearsing it in her head for the last leg of the journey. He was sure there was only a small thread of truth in it. She had the determined air of one on the cusp of a brave and dangerous act. He couldn’t fathom why she would’ve killed the men rather than allowing them to bring her here as planned.
Bai’s expression was openly skeptical. But then she smiled and said, “No matter. The time has come. You will fight with us.”
Allyson didn’t bat an eye. “You bet your ass I will.”
Bai spun about on her heels. She unsheathed her sword and waved it at the sky. “Begin.”
Suddenly free of Bai, Chad hurried to Allyson and leaned close, whispering frantically, “What the hell’s going on?”
Allyson touched his face. “I love you. I’ll do anything for you.”
Chad frowned. “But-”
Allyson leaned closer, her lips grazing his ear. “It’s simple. We’ll follow them in. We’ll fight and stay alive, hanging back at the rear, staying close to each other. Then as the others press on we’ll get the hell out.” She inclined her head very slightly toward the Jeep. “Then we’ll take that thing and r un for our lives.”
Chad didn’t know how to reply to that. Her plan was dangerous, but maybe it could work. Hell, they didn’t have a lot of other options. Then Bai was shouting again and he looked her way, half-expecting her to have somehow heard their muted conversation with her super ninja hearing. But she was facing the house and waving her sword around.