Deathless

by Gaudior

Chapter 8: The Pony's On the Run

The sun is bright, the sky is clear, and the air is warm as Twilight and I bounce along in my trusty old Jeep. We’re in the rough, scrub-brush infested hills just north of Pine Valley, and we’re headed to a tiny cleft in the earth, situated a bit west of Noble Canyon. As locations go it’s unremarkable, aside from the fact that it’s remote, it’s secluded, and the ley line we’re looking for crosses directly under it -- which makes it a perfect place for us to work a little out-of-the-way ritual magic.

Twilight had to start the day under a stack of blankets in the back seat while we drove through town, but once we got offroad we decided it was worth the risk to give her a little time in the sun. She’s laughing as we drive, and the combination of being outdoors in beautiful California weather with being that much closer to finding a way home has her downright cheery. She tells me it reminds her a lot of Las Pegasus, a city she’s familiar with in her own world. Cute, huh? With a nod to Walt Disney, apparently it’s a small multiverse after all, too.

So we drive with the top down and the radio blaring, and Twilight raises her hooves into the air and sings merrily along with the radio. Yeah, it’s probably a little careless of us, but we deserve a little break, and there’s nobody else around to see a purple horse jouncing around in my passenger seat and whooping her little lungs out.

Of course, she’s taking as many opportunities as she can to not-so-casually toss her mane, peer at me when she thinks I’m not looking and brush my arm with her hoof, but she winces every time she catches herself doing it, and I can use the good mood as much as she can, so I don’t call her on it. It’s not like she can help it.

Besides, if I’m going to be completely honest with myself, I have to admit it’s flattering, even if she’s not really “attractive” in the usual sense. She’s been an outstanding companion for the last couple of days, considering I tore her away from her home and her friends and put her in nothing less than mortal danger. She’s got a great sense of humor, she’s at least as smart as I am, she’s easy to get along with and she’s got a will as strong as steel, so even if her affection for me isn’t genuine, it’s impossible to completely ignore.

I glance over to see her humming along to the radio, her mane trailing out behind her and her eyes bright in the California sun. She doesn’t pass for human no matter how hard I squint, but she doesn’t act all that much different. If I could get past the ‘four legs and a tail’ thing for a minute or two, I might even admit she’s cute in a nerdy sort of way. And I’ve learned something new about myself: apparently, all purple in all the places isn’t even a turnoff. Who knew?

Well, that and it’s been eighteen months since I had any. Men, huh? No wonder the Book tells you to stay the hell away from the ladies once you start with purification. Maybe some guys can focus with all those distractions in their heads, but I’m not one of them.

I think I’ll just keep my eyes on the road now.

Before long we find ourselves topping the gully’s eastern ridge, and I slow the Jeep until we roll to a stop at the bottom of the gully. A dry creek bed runs a track roughly north to south, and I hop out of the Jeep, using my phone’s GPS to find a spot no more than a few meters away from ground zero.

“Nudge the duffel out of the back, Purple,” I call out, digging my heel into the hard ground to mark the ley line’s position. “I think this rabbithole’s going your way.”

# # #

Six minutes to noon.

The wards are in place. We’d decided that the ritual to get Twilight home should probably take place during the timeslot opposite the one that brought her here, so the sun is almost directly overhead now as Twilight triple-checks the glyphs and their placement. She keeps bobbing her head up and down as she verifies everything, as if she were checking off some kind of checklist in her head. Finally, she stops her head-bobbing and turns to briefly wink at me before starting the main event.

Five minutes.

Twilight studiously scans the inked parchment square before dropping it, and she nudges it around with her hooves for a bit until it’s in the precise center. A bird calls out in the distance, and I realize how odd and slightly uncomfortable it is to be doing a ritual in the middle of the day, but a quick scan of the surroundings reveals nothing out of place. We’re out of sight here and well off the beaten path. We’ll be done -- and she’ll be home -- before anything crazy can happen.

Four minutes.

Twilight lights the brass brazier and begins the chant, and I notice a drop of sweat on my forehead. Typical inland California day: clear skies, hot temperature, and not much of a breeze. A bit farther north, the brush bends to a light wind, but here it’s as though the ritual has completely calmed the wind. Who knows, maybe it has.

Three minutes.

She drops a lock of her hair into the Circle’s lead receptacle, and my hand reflexively goes to my pocket, where I’ve put another lock just in case we need to repeat this quickly. She’s got an amusing length of shaved mane near the base of her neck, and it makes her look a bit like a punk pony. She wasn’t amused when I told her that, but I was.

I suppose I might also have that lock of hair just in case this all works and I never see her again, but I’m sticking with my other story.

Two minutes.

Without hesitation, Twilight takes up the dagger and slices through the base of her hoof, letting a few drops of blood dribble into the silver basin. She’s in the flow now, the chant is smooth, her actions are practiced, and if I didn’t know better I’d say she’d been doing this for years instead of hours. I really am envious of her raw talent, but in a good way. It’s a privilege to watch someone like her work.

One minute.

Twilight’s voice grows louder as she prepares to end the chant, and once again the electric sensation from before begins to suffuse the area, making the hairs on my arm stand on end. The ground seems to waver strangely, as if deciding whether to stay a solid or not, but as she nears the chant’s end --

“That will be enough.”

Twilight stammers at the unexpected words, barely keeping the chant going, and I turn to see a man and a woman in hiking gear and daypacks cresting the gully’s rise behind me. There are trails out here, but we’re not near any of them, so I’m more than a little surprised at their appearance.

“Hey, this is a private --” I start, moving to block their view and trying to quickly think up an explanation for a midget purple pony as I talk, but then I stop when I realize the woman has a pistol aimed at my chest.

“We know what this is,” the woman says, and she jerks the gun slightly upwards in the universal sign for ‘get your hands up in the air like they do in the movies.’

I indulge her, seeing as I’m a little light on projectile weapons at the moment. “Twilight, you’d better keep going,” I say, forcing a smile at the woman as her companion walks towards me. “We have guests, and they’re not taking no for an answer.”

“Just one more --” Twilight replies, and then there’s a stupendously loud crack, and dust flies at my feet, and I leap and probably yelp a bit in surprise as the sound of a bullet’s ricochet echoes down the dry gulch.

“No more,” the woman says, the hint of an eastern european accent coming through. “You will stop now, alicorn, or I will aim higher.”

“Twilight, don’t you --” I start to say, but my fuzzy buddy has already stopped her chanting, and the air and the ground have quickly become mundane again. I risk a glance backwards; for a split second I swear I can see a tiny rune hanging in mid-air, but when I blink it’s gone, and there’s no other evidence the ritual did anything but fizzle.

The woman’s silent companion moves behind me, and without a word of warning he yanks my hands behind me and secures them with something. Whatever it is, it’s too tight and it feels about the width of a piece of twine, and I grit my teeth a little. I’m about to ask if it’s really necessary to tie it quite that tight when quiet guy steps on my foot and shoves me forward. With no balance and no arms, I obligingly topple face-first into the dirt.

“You probably could have asked,” I say, spitting what I hope is grit out from between my teeth.

“What are you -- hey, stop that! ” I hear Twilight yell. “You don’t want him, you want me. Leave him alone.”

“You,” the woman says, turning her attention to Twilight while her companion stands watch near my head. “My friend will stay with your friend, and you will come with me. If you do as you are told, your friend will live to see the sunset. Do we understand each other?”

I wince. This just gets better and better.

Twilight nods, casting a desperate look in my direction. I nod to let her know it’s okay, even though I have no idea if it’s okay. I don’t even know how in the hell any of this happened. This was supposed to be a gate-opening party, not a cartel kidnapping simulation.

Helplessly, I watch as the woman marches Twilight away, down the creek bed. Eventually they turn down a bend in the gulch and pass out of sight.

I pass a few idle minutes lying there and trying to keep an especially industrious ant from getting up my nose, and then finally the silent man pulls a cell phone out of his pocket and hits a speed-dial number. He turns away from me and walks a few paces away, out of my view but not far enough for me to miss what he’s saying. I suspect that’s not a good thing.

“Ellis, sir. The subject is in protective custody and should be on the way to you shortly. No, no complications. No, he wasn’t an issue. Of course, the usual protocols. No, the ritual wasn’t completed, we stopped it in mid… yes, I’m certain. Yes, I’m… well, no, not exact... no, sir, I didn’t personally… yes. Yes, sir. I’ll -- it’s right here, sir. I’ll look right now, sir. I’ll call you back immediately,” he finishes irritably.

“Or not,” comes an unexpected but welcome voice. A dull metallic ringing follows almost immediately, and something drops to the ground like a sack of wet rags.

“Bobby?!” I say, coughing with the dust in my mouth. “Bobby, is that you? What the hell are you doing here? What’s going on?”

“Hey, Harken,” he says, coming into view and smirking at me, a tire iron dangling casually from his left hand. Reaching down with his right, he hefts me into a sitting position and quickly slices through whatever was binding my hands with his pocketknife. “Good to see you. We were a little worried.”

“We?” I ask, but then I see Twilight coming into view from behind the nearby scrub brush, and a sense of relief floods through me.

“I thought --” I say, and she stops me, hoof to lips.

“It’s okay,” she says, an odd smile on her face. “We’re okay. There’s nothing we could have done. Your friend here is pretty good.”

“Pretty lucky,” he corrects Twilight, shaking his head as the smirk leaves his face, replaced by worry lines. “Won’t happen again.”

“So what the actual fuck, Bobby?” I say, rubbing my wrists and standing slowly. “Not that I’m not grateful, but you’re the last person in the world I expected to pull my ass out of this particular fire.”

“You were expecting someone else to pull your ass out of it?” he asks, his brown eyes briefly sparkling with humor.

I frown. “I didn’t even know it was a fire until a few minutes ago, pal. How did you know?”

“Not here,” he says, gesturing for Twilight and I to go with him. “We’ve got to get you two out of here before the local Magister shows up.”

“Local Magister? What’s a -- okay, fine, not here. Twilight, can we can finish this up pretty quick?” I ask, turning to her. “The circle’s already set up, we just need to --”

“Sorry,” she says, grimacing. “I got through enough to find out what we needed to know. There’s definitely… what we’re looking for is here, but it’s not nearly enough.”

“Well, shit,” I say, grumbling. “Okay then, Bobby. What’s your plan?”

“You need to go east, right?”

I frown. “How exactly do you know all this?”

“Take my rig,” he says, ignoring my question and tossing me the keys to his beat-up green pickup. “It’s just over that rise there. Meet me at the Motel-6 in El Centro in two hours; it should only take you one to get there, so get a room for us. I’ll explain then. Don’t use your real name, and use the cash in the glove box for the room, not a credit card. And give me your phone.”

“My phone?”

“Yeah, they’re tracking you with it,” he says matter-of-factly, and I boggle at that revelation for a second. “I’ll lose it somewhere creative before I catch up to you.”

“Bobby, I --”

“Look, man,” he says, his expression clearly apologetic, “there’s no time. I know you don’t understand what you’ve gotten into, but you’re tangling with some bad dudes. Zip ties and kidnapping are the nicest things in their playbook, you know?”

Twilight stepped forward, frowning. “Look, we both… appreciate your help, but all I know is you showed up just in time to club a couple of people on the back of the head. I’m glad we’re not their prisoners, and you certainly seem helpful, but it all feels a little too convenient. Why should we trust you?”

“Little lady, you should absolutely not trust me, or anyone else in this world” he says, glancing down at Twilight with an odd expression on his face. “That fellow there with you, he probably knows enough to get you back home, and if I’m right about him then he even wants to help you do it, but he doesn’t even know how deep a hole he’s in, let alone how he’s supposed to get out of it.”

“So how deep is it?” I ask.

“You’re heading for UVG-17 now, right? You won’t get a hundred meters past the port of entry at Lukeville,” he says, looking directly into my eyes. “They’ll take you both right as you pass into Sonoyta. If they’re feeling generous they might leave you alive in a gutter, but after this little episode I don’t think generous is on the menu. And even if it is, you’ll never see her again.”

I toss Bobby my phone. “He knows enough,” I say, partly to Twilight, partly to myself. “If he’d wanted to stop us, he would have done it already. Let’s get to El Centro. And Bobby, we get answers at the Motel-6, right?”

“All will be revealed,” he says, his trademark smirk returning. “Catch you then, man.”

# # #

“So you’re sure Bobby’s an okay guy?”

Twilight is curled up on the passenger seat under a Budweiser beach blanket and looking vaguely annoyed as a result. Bobby’s pickup is a pretty big beast, but there are truckers on the highway that could peer through the passenger window under the wrong conditions, and the last thing we need is to draw any extra attention right now.

I glance over at her and frown. “Actually, no. I’m not sure at all,” I say slowly, considering the question. Yesterday I’d have said yes, but yesterday I obviously didn’t know a lot about him.

I return my gaze to the road, not that it needs me much. Route 8 between Pine Valley and El Centro doesn’t do a hell of a lot, really, and once you’ve passed the Golden Acorn by it’s a long, boring slog through low, rocky hills, scruffy desert and tiny forgettable villages. We’ve had the windows shut and the air conditioner blasting since we passed the Kitchen Creek overpass, but it’s not doing much for our overall comfort.

“Do you think we can trust him?” she asks, cocking her head as she looks at me through the folds of her beach blanket.

“Up until now he’s been a good friend,” I say, trying to ramble my way to an answer. “He’s kept secrets, but so have I, and he saved our asses back there. He didn’t have to.”

“That’s not really an answer,” Twilight says, wrinkling her snout at me.

“Yeah, I know,” I reply, reflexively squeezing the pickup’s plastic steering wheel. “He seems to know what’s going on and he isn’t trying to drag you off at gunpoint yet. That counts for something.”

“But why was he there at all?” Twilight asks, and I frown again, nodding to myself in agreement. “How did he know where we were going? How did he know someone else was looking for us, and that they’d find us? And isn’t just a little strange that I didn’t freak him out? I mean, not even a little? I’m a talking purple pony for crying out loud,” she says, shaking her head.

“And all this time I thought you were a fuzzy alicorn,” I deadpan.

“Jerk,” she chuckles, leaning over to reach into a small red cooler with both hooves. Gingerly, she pulls out a bottled water and lifts it towards me. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” I say, reaching over to untwist the bottle’s cap while Twilight holds it. “And I don’t know if I trust him, but he’s right about one thing: I have no idea how to get us out of what we’ve gotten into. If there’s a chance he knows, well, anything, then meeting him is probably worth the risk.”

“Yeah,” Twilight says, taking a long drink from the opened bottle. “I think you’re right. But he’d better have some really good answers.”