edg | Don't Look Back chapter 2

Like the subject says, I've got another chapter this morning. I don't know what's making me this prolific, but I hope I can keep it up!

Don't Look Back
Chapter 2: Flight
(1,425 words, total 3,860 words)

Kurt was the first to speak. "Damn it," he said, his jaw clenching. "Damn it!"

Nat tore his eyes away and looked at Kurt. "What now? We can't redeem her without a Tether, can we?"

Kurt shook his head. "A Tether isn't necessary, but it sure helps a lot. But redeeming her wasn't the only reason we were coming here. Damn it. I hope Iguriel's all right."

"Iguriel?"

"The Seneschal. He was a friend," said Kurt. "Got me my first job, in fact. Hold on." He yanked the wheel around and gunned the engine. Nat had just enough time to brace his arm against the door before the car spun around into the empty opposite lane. "We're heading for the next-closest Tether I can think of," said Kurt. "It's a ways away, and they're not exactly friendly, but they ought to help us out."

"Not exactly friendly?" Nat was still braced, but looked away from the road with effort. Kurt's eyes were firmly attached to the pavement ahead of the car.

"Their boss doesn't like ours very much. I'm told it's a trust issue. It happens sometimes - Superiors can't use their innate abilities on other Superiors, so that much-vaunted Seraph truth-telling power isn't of much use in establishing lines of trust."

Nat nodded and looked back. Lauren was calming down as they raced away from the destroyed Tether, but she still didn't look very happy. "What happened back there?" he asked.

"I didn't do it," she said, her voice strangely calm despite her distress. "And I don't know who did. That wasn't part of our plan."

"No," said Nat, "I don't expect that it was, but what I meant was why did you start crying? It isn't like blowing up divine Tethers is exactly anathema to demons, is it?"

"The disturbance," she said, shivering. "There was so much of it, and it hurt so badly." Her voice trailed off as she clenched her eyes shut.

Kurt nodded, catching Nat's eye. "Stands to reason," he said. "It's sort of like the way Calabim work. She gets to use that scream - and damn, but I would love to figure out how that works, and what its limits are - and excessive noise that she hasn't made bothers her. Especially Symphonic noise, I bet. No idea how she gets dissonant, though. Maybe failing to fill a silence." Kurt shrugged. "Maybe we'll never have to find out."

They were merging onto the freeway now, headed away from the center of the city. "How long until we hit the Tether?" asked Nat.

Kurt glanced down at the clock on the dashboard. "Maybe ten minutes. Depends on traffic. Without anybody else on the road, I could make it in seven. This time of day, it might be fifteen or twenty. We'll see."

Nat watched an ambulance scream past in the other direction and sighed. The stress was draining from his mind and body, but he still wasn't in a happy state of mind, and he was sure that it showed. "I can't believe someone would burn down our Tether."

"Believe it," said Kurt, waving as another driver let him shift lanes. "This sort of thing doesn't happen all the time, but it's pretty regular. This is a war, after all."

"Yeah, I know," said Nat. "It's just... you never think it's going to happen to you." He laughed quietly, and a little more stress boiled away. "Besides, it's not like I have your countless years of experience."

"Yeah, yeah," Kurt said, taking a hand off the wheel and swatting Nat again. "Pick on the old guy. I know how it is." He pointed with the same hand. "Look, you can see it from here - the Armory. We'll be there in a couple minutes."

Nat turned and looked at Lauren in the back seat. She was sitting, now, with her hands folded in her lap, leaning her head against the window-frame and watching the traffic. "Feeling better?" he asked.

She didn't look over. "A bit. I miss home."

"You mean Hell?" asked Nat, and she nodded. "Why?"

"It's where all my memories are," she said. "It's where my Heart is. I miss my Heart. I never wanted to come up here. It was my Superior who thought it was a good idea."

Nat laughed. "They usually do."

She looked over at him. "It isn't funny. You two... calling me 'it', calling me 'creature'. I didn't think Heaven's servants could be as cruel as my master." Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes. "I've never been a person in my entire life, but at least in Hell I was a not-person with somewhere to go at the end of the day. I had something warm to curl up with when I got tired of the teasing. Alone out of everything else in all of creation, my Heart loves me, and I want to go home!"

Lauren was actively crying now, and Nat was taken aback. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't know." He sighed and looked around the car; Lauren's hands were at her face as she sobbed quietly, and Kurt was looking stony and impassive. "I... don't know what to say. It wasn't just of me to treat you that way. It wasn't right. I'm sorry."

"Here we are," said Kurt, and the car pulled up to a guarded wire-and-pole gate. He rolled down the window as one of the guards approached the car. "I'm Kurten. He's Nathaniel Davis. The girl in the back is a redemption candidate. We're-"

The guard interrupted him. "We heard about the Library. Go on in." He grinned - Nat felt that he was showing a few more teeth than were really necessary - and gestured; the second guard did something that nobody in the car could really see, and the gate began to slide smoothly open. Kurt nodded to the guard and drove through the gate, which began closing as the car's rear bumper passed through it.

The Armory was a large brick building that looked as though it dated back to the 1950s, with white trim and an angled black roof. As Nat watched, troops began filing out of the main gate, and they surrounded the car as it pulled up. "Can I help you?" asked Kurt to the nearest soldier.

"Kurten, Nathaniel, redemption candidate?" asked the soldier, leaning down to look into the car.

"That's us," said Kurt.

"Step out of the car."

Kurt frowned. "This isn't procedure. What's going on?"

"You're charged with the destruction of the Library Tether. We've been instructed to bring you in. Come quietly, and nobody's going to get hurt." The soldier smirked. "Well... maybe somebody."

Kurt's grip tightened on the steering wheel. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked. "We found out maybe ten minutes ago when we came by to-"

"Shut up and get out," said the soldier, growing visibly impatient.

"No," said Kurt, "I don't think we will," and he yanked the car into reverse and hit the gas. Two soldiers behind the car were knocked down, but they were far enough to the sides that the tires didn't hit them - or, at least, Nat didn't feel the bumps that he imagined usually came with running someone over. Kurt was looking over his shoulder, driving with one hand. "Get down," he growled, as the first bullet hit the front bumper. Both Nat and Lauren complied immediately.

The gate guards were firing as well, and the gate itself was well and truly shut, but Kurt didn't appear to pay that any mind; one round bounced off of the rear window, followed by a spattering of impacts, and then the car hammered into the gate with a scream of disturbance and burst through. Kurt pulled the wheel to the side, threw the car back into the forward gears, and pressed the gas pedal to the floor, throwing Lauren and Nat back against their seats in rather uncomfortable positions. Scattered gunfire followed them, but it soon fell silent as the car moved into heavier traffic. "Thank God for rush hour," Kurt muttered. "Okay, you can get up again."

Nat slowly resumed a more natural position, while Lauren remained huddled on the bench seat in the back, still crying. "What the hell?" he asked, looking between Kurt and Lauren with wide eyes.

"They think we burned down the library. As soon as they get Seraphim on the case they'll know, but in the meantime..." He shrugged. "We find somewhere to hide."