I, Jequon: Part One of the Nephilim Chronicles Page 15

  “Stay back.”

  Mercy’s still in front of the truck beside the unconscious driver, surveying the roadway between us and the roadblock, weighing her options perhaps. At least she’s out of the way.

  I give the spool a final push. The massive wooden cylinder falls off the trailer and hits the asphalt with a thud. It wobbles for an instant, settles, and slowly starts rolling down the nine-degree incline like a medieval weapon of war. I chase after it, grab the free end of its braided steel cable, and give the giant wheel another push to get it moving even faster. As it builds momentum in the passing lane, I tie the cable around the nearest light post. Mercy’s retreated to the concrete lane divider, arms crossed, trembling. I run over to comfort her as the spool continues depositing its metal rope onto the roadway, picking up speed like a gigantic runaway yo-yo.

  She won’t look at me. She’s staring hard at the un-welcoming party blocking our escape. They’re almost too far away for a regular human to see that they’re brandishing guns. No matter. When they start shooting at us, she’ll figure it out. Still, she’s so terrified I’m starting to worry she wants to turn herself in.

  “It’s never as bad as you think it’s going to be.”

  She still won’t look at me.

  “You promise you’ll help me find Cynthia?”

  “I don’t waste time making the same decision twice.”

  “Then I’m cool with ignoring the voice of reason in my head telling me to stay put until the cops come.”

  I doubt they’re cops. Then again, the flashing dash lights do scream law enforcement. Of some kind. FBI. ATF, maybe. I don’t know. I always figured the SOJ’s love of secrecy would keep them from partnering with government agencies. But I’ve been wrong about a lot of things lately.

  “I know you’re scared.”

  “You have no idea.”

  I hold out my hand. She just looks at it. “Wait a sec’. I want to say a quick prayer.”

  She bows her head and folds her hands together. Closes her eyes. We so don’t have time for this. “Mercy…”

  She ignores me.

  “Mercy! Come on. We can’t stay here.”

  Her lips mouth a silent supplication. Punctuated with what I can lip read to be, In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

  If Mercy and all the other Christians had been alive two-thousand years ago, I doubt they’d hold J.C. in such high esteem. But what do I care about her ignorance of history? Whatever the denomination, at the end of the day it’s still the same deity. And He still wants my people to die.

  “Okay. God will watch over us now.”

  Over you, maybe.

  The wooden spool is finally empty, and having veered a little off course, rests against the guardrail about midway between us and the roadblock. The free end of the cable stretches to within a yard of the next light post down from the one I secured this end to. Best guess: it’s a-hundred to a-hundred-and-twenty feet between each lamp post. Not the full two-hundred feet between us and the water, that’s for sure. We’ll be high and dry, at the end of our rope. Death by cliché.

  “So what’s with the cable?”

  “I thought you’d have it figured out by now.”

  “Uh, no.”

  “We have to jump off the bridge. Both ends are blocked off…” I tilt my head in the direction of the bay. “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

  “When hell freezes over and Ben Laden builds an icehouse to fish for Nazis. Why don’t we just turn ourselves in?”

  I pick up the cable. It’s as thick as a beer can. Perfect for what adrenaline junkies call a pendulum swing. “They’re not cops. They’re trying to kill us.”

  “Kill us? Or kill you?”

  The way she says it, it makes we wonder if she knows something I don’t. “They want me dead bad enough that a little collateral damage won’t be an issue.”

  I put my arm around her waist. Turn her around so her back is to me. Coil our lifeline around my forearm for a better grip and back us up to the edge. Her hair smells amazing.

  “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “You can. For Cynthia.”

  “Yeah. For Cynthia.”

  “Ready?”

  She nods, then shakes her head. “No.” Her body quivers against mine, rigid, vibrating like a tuning fork. I press my lips into her hair and whisper reassurances. Hug her a little tighter.

  We both flinch as a bullet strikes the barrier and punches loose a fist-sized chunk of concrete. I can see a sniper setting up on the hood of a car down at the roadblock. He won’t miss with a rifle and scope.

  “It’s now or—”

  “Just jump already!”

  We don’t fall straight down. After the first twenty-five feet or so, the friction between the cable and the rough lip of the guardrail acts as a fulcrum, adding a horizontal component to our descent, and a substantial braking force as the contact point between the bridge and the braided steel grinds its way uphill toward the lamppost. It’s the exact opposite of the effect experienced by water skiers leaning into a tight turn.

  That’s the good news.

  The bad news? Gravity has over a hundred-feet to overwhelm these otherwise favorable laws of physics. While I’m holding Mercy with one arm, my other arm strains to keep us attached to the cable. At the bottom of our arc, it’s not just our combined scale weight I’m fighting. It’s a three-or-four G multiple of it. A thousand pounds or more linked to our lifeline by four fingers and an opposable thumb. I thought I could manage. I was wrong.

  I let go of the cable just before we start swinging back up, still a good seventy feet or so above the water. It’s a potentially fatal height for most humans unless they go in the water perfectly: toes pointed, legs and torso locked straight, arms overhead with hands clasped. Not even close to our angled trajectory.

  We’re going to bounce like a ground-rule double.

  Water doesn’t compress. It can only displace, which it doesn’t readily do when struck by objects moving in excess of eight-five miles-per-hour. Fortunately for Mercy though, ribcages, pectoral muscles, and other parts of me do compress. I twist our bodies so we face skyward and press down on her forehead to stabilize her neck. Impact? Like getting bitch-slapped by the Statue of Liberty. Twice. Because we skip. The next thing I know, I’m treading at the surface, still holding Mercy around the waist and still breathing. “You alright?”

  She manages a “yes” between coughs to clear the salt water from her lungs.

  “Are you a good swimmer?”

  “Better than average.”

  I let go of her; verify she can keep her head above the water. “Good. They have rifles, so we need to stay submerged as long as possible. I want you to hold onto my shirttail while I swim us to shore. Take deep but quick breaths and tap my leg when you need another. Don’t blow bubbles. Understand?”

  Instead of answering she slaps me hard across the face. “That’s for almost getting us killed.”

  She scissor-kicks herself closer. I deserve whatever abuse she wants to dole out, so I don’t move away.

  She stops kicking. Wraps her legs around my waist.

  Kisses me.

  Kisses me hard and violent. Softer now—a feint—punishes my lips, parts them with her torpedoing tongue. We’re ten feet under water before I remember I’m kicking for both of us.

  It’s like this when you cheat death. You want to damage things. To laugh. To scream and cry. To fondle and fuck. But more so with Mercy. I could drown inside her right now.

  We come up for air and she finally pushes me away. “That’s for almost.”

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  Thanks for reading I, JEQUON - Part One of THE NEPHILIM CHRONICLES. Part Two will be available the first week of June, 2014.

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