Chapter 9: The Great Route Debate
The gravel crunched under boots and sensible shoes as the disparate vehicles formed a ragged, impromptu council of war. The corn whispered around them, a sea of dry yellow leaves under a sky turning the color of a fresh bruise.
Jan’s battered pick-up, Stacy's sleek sports car, and the hulking RV all ground to a halt on the shoulder. Jan, Stacy, and the RV crew piled out onto the gravel, the air thick with the smell of diesel and crushed weeds. Bethany's voice crackled through a speakerphone balanced on the RV's hood, her tone clipped and precise. 'The ley-line convergence is near the old grain silo at the crossroads. You need to approach from the northwest to avoid the Root's detection wards.'
Fatima, arms crossed, shook her head. 'No, the Setting Sun will have the east flank covered. We go in hard from the south, draw their fire, and let Kim and Maryam slip in from above.'
Jan slammed her palm on the hood of her truck. 'You want to use the twins as bait? They're not expendable, Fati!'
'The bait isn't my daughters, it's the Green Moon signature I'll be throwing around like a goddamn flare gun,' Fatima shot back, her eyes flashing. 'Kim and Maryam are the surgeons. They go in, get Mai and the others, get out.'
'And if a Root construct grabs them? Or one of those violet chains latches on?' Jan’s voice was rising, her braid coming loose. 'You saw what that shit does! It doesn't just drain magic, it drains life.'
The argument escalated, voices overlapping, until Godfrey III yapped sharply, a high, piercing sound that cut through the human noise. The little Maltese stood on the driver's seat of Jan’s truck, staring at them all with an ancient, disapproving gaze.
Silence fell, heavy and abrupt.
Calista, her silver hair shimmering in the fading light, stepped forward from beside the RV. She spoke quietly, but every word carried. 'Mom and Dad already left. They said something about "scouting the perimeter" and drove off. Rick and Stacy went with them. They took Stacy's car. They said they'd meet us at the silo.'
Jan's face reddened. 'Those horny bastards!' she shouted, the words echoing off the corn. 'We're about to go into a three-way magical warzone and they're off fucking in a cornfield!'
Bethany's voice, tinny and impatient, cut through from the speakerphone: 'Focus, Jan. We can't wait. We need to move now.'
Calista then triumphantly held up the RV's keys, letting everyone know that, as the lone Williamson present, she was driving the RV, a thought that excited Maryam but made Hank and Fatima a little queasy given Calista's habit of speeding.
“Okay, new plan,” Jan growled, running a hand through her hair. “We move. Now. Becky, you’re with me and Godfrey. We’ll take the truck, come in from the west, cause a happy little distraction. Fati, you, Hank, and the twins take the south like you wanted. Calista…” She looked at her friends' adopted daughter, who was jingling the keys with a feral smile. “Try not to roll the damn RV. Just get it close as a fallback point. Everyone in, let’s go!”
The group scattered, doors slamming, engines turning over.
A quarter mile down the gravel road, hidden by a thick stand of rustling corn, Mike had Casey bent over against the passenger side of Stacy’s parked car. Her jeans were around her ankles, his khakis pooled at his feet. He gripped her hips, his fingers pressing into her soft flesh, as he drove his cock into her from behind with steady, deep strokes.
“God, right there, Mike,” Casey gasped, her forehead pressed against the cool window glass. “Don’t stop, just fucking ruin me.” He grunted, picking up the pace, the slap of his stomach against her ass a rhythmic counterpoint to the crickets. He reached around, his thumb finding her clit, rubbing rough circles as he fucked her. “Come on, Casey, come all over my cock,” he growled, and she did, her inner muscles clenching around him in pulsing waves that dragged his own climax from him with a hoarse shout, his release pumping hot into her depths.
On the opposite side of the road, hidden in another wall of corn, Rick had Stacy braced against the trunk of her own car. Her leggings were ripped down one side, his mouth was on her neck, and he was pounding into her with the frantic energy of a younger man. “Fuck, Stacy,” he breathed, his hands gripping her thighs. “You feel so fucking good.”
“Harder, Rick,” she commanded, her voice a smoky rasp. “I’m not made of glass. Fuck me like you mean it.” He obliged, his hips pistoning, each thrust burying his full length inside her wet, gripping heat. She reached back, her nails digging into his denim-clad ass, pulling him deeper. “Yes! Right there, baby, give it to me!” Her orgasm hit her silently, a full-body shudder that clenched around him like a vise. He lasted three more strokes before groaning, spurting into her, his body slumping against her back.
Afterwards, Mike and Rick emerged from their respective cornstalks first, adjusting their clothes. They met at the hood of the car, not looking at each other, the sounds of zippers loud in the quiet.
“So,” Rick said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “This plan of yours. It any good?”
Mike leaned against the fender, catching his breath. “No,” he said plainly. “But it’s the best one we have. Cause a big noisy fuss so the quiet ones can slip in. Classic misdirection.”
Casey and Stacy emerged a moment later, both looking thoroughly worked over and satisfied. No words were exchanged. They all just piled back into Stacy’s low-slung sports car, the interior suddenly smelling strongly of sex and sweat. They waited.
Soon, headlights appeared in the distance, followed by the distinct, nausea-inducing purple glow of Setting Sun sigils. The cult’s garish van swerved around the bend, having clearly broken off from the barn fight, drawn to the potent, lingering sexual energy hanging in the air like perfume.
Stacy’s grin was predatory. She punched the accelerator. The car’s engine screamed as she shot directly toward the oncoming van, swerving at the last second to race past it, leading the pursuit away down the long, straight farm road.
Meanwhile, Jan’s pick-up, leading the RV from a different route, bounced into the open area near the colossal, rusting grain silo. The scene was bedlam. Green Knight energy blasts scorched the earth where Root adepts had just been standing. A faceless Urger construct was being casually batted aside by Flamewing’s spaded tail, the dragon looking more annoyed than enraged.
“Now!” Jan yelled to Rebecca. The professor, clutching Godfrey, focused on resistance as Jan let her magic loose. A wave of pure, unfiltered Green Moon magic—the feeling of a breathtaking first kiss, the thrill of skin on skin—washed over the battlefield. It didn’t harm. It distracted.
Knights and Root alike stumbled, their focus shattered by sudden, unbidden arousal. Jan sprinted for the silo’s access door, yanked it open, and found only dust, old machinery, and the faint, fading scent of hay and sex. Mai was long gone.
“Damn it!” Jan spat, running back to the truck. The distraction was failing. Combatants were shaking off the sensual fog, their attention now turning to the new arrivals.
Calista leaned precariously out of the RV’s driver-side window as the bulky vehicle skidded to a halt. “Aunt Jan! Mom just called!” she shouted over the growing din of renewed battle. “Yukio, Ben, and Bruce got Mai! They’re gone, heading for some coordinates. Mai thinks Mandy, Felicity, and someone named Agent Kay have the real artifact!”
Jan swore violently, kicking the pickup’s tire. Then, the crackling comm system in the RV squawked with a new, frantic voice. “—anyone, this is Dale! We’re lost in the goddamn woods! We found the van, Mandy and Felicity were in it, a Green Knight had them pinned. We engaged, but then the trees… the trees came alive. The Knight fled, the trees stopped, and now we’re lost. Does anyone copy?”
Jan swore again, a long, creative stream of profanity. Flamewing, with a final disdainful snort of smoke, beat her great wings and ascended into the darkening sky, leaving the humans to their petty squabbles.
Hank, peering out from the RV’s passenger seat, saw dozens of hostile faces now turned their way. “Jan, we gotta go. Like, right the hell now.”
“Fine! Fall back!” Jan yelled. She, Rebecca, and Godfrey dove for the pickup. Jan turned the key. The engine coughed, sputtered, and died with a final, pathetic click. Absolute silence under the hood.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Jan whispered. Then she swore one last time, a single, vehement word. “Move!”
They abandoned the truck, scrambling for the RV. The side door hissed open, they tumbled in, and it slammed shut just as a blast of emerald energy shattered the pickup’s windshield. Calista didn’t wait for a seatbelt check. She threw the massive vehicle into reverse, spun the wheel, and floored it.
The RV’s tires spewed gravel and dirt as it rocketed onto the road, lurching like a panicked beast. Inside, everyone was thrown into walls and seats. Rembrandt the Maine Coon yowled from a cabinet. VanGogh dug his claws into the couch.
But Calista’s speedy, reckless driving came in very handy. They fishtailed onto the blacktop and accelerated, leaving the silo, the warring factions, and Jan’s dead truck shrinking rapidly in the large side mirrors. The only sound was the roaring engine and the collective, shaky exhalation of nine people, two cats, and one very unimpressed Maltese.
The only sound was the roaring engine and the collective, shaky exhalation of nine people, two cats, and one very unimpressed Maltese.
The reprieve lasted seventeen seconds.
“Uh, Calista?” Kim’s voice was tight from the bench seat behind the driver. She was staring out the large rear window. “You might want to go faster.”
Barreling down the road behind them, gaining with impossible speed, was Jan’s pickup truck. Its headlights were a blinding, malevolent green. Coruscating emerald energy crackled along its rusted frame like electrical currents, and it rode an inch above the asphalt, shedding chunks of dirt and magic.
“That is not possible,” Jan breathed, scrambling to the back of the RV to look. “The engine was toast! I felt it die!”
“The Knights are remote-piloting it!” Rebecca shouted, clutching a seatback as Calista swerved. “They’re using it as a battering ram!”
The enchanted truck surged forward, its grille striking the RV’s rear bumper with a deafening CRUNCH. The whole vehicle lurched, sending everyone staggering. Hank slammed into a cabinet. Van Gogh yowled, digging his claws into the carpet.
“They’re trying to run us off the road!” Maryam yelled, bracing herself against the kitchenette counter.
“No shit!” Calista snapped, her silver hair flying as she wrestled the shuddering wheel. The RV, never designed for evasion, groaned in protest. Another impact, harder this time, shoved them toward the ditch. Gravel sprayed against the windows like gunfire.
“Can’t you lose it?!” Fatima demanded, her knuckles white on the headrest.
“In a building on wheels? Not a chance!” Calista shot back, her voice pitched high with adrenaline. She floored the accelerator, but the pickup matched it, a relentless, magic-fueled predator.
In the chaotic darkness of the sports car’s backseat, miles away, Mike’s hand was working between Casey’s legs. Her head was thrown back against his shoulder, his other hand shoved up her shirt, pinching her nipple hard as she ground down on his fingers. “You’re so wet,” he growled in her ear, his voice rough. “Always so fucking ready.”
“Just for you, baby,” she gasped, her hips moving in frantic circles. “Now shut up and fuck me before the bad guys show up.” She yanked at his belt, freed his thick cock, and guided him inside her with a single, slick motion. She sank down onto him in the cramped space, a low, satisfied groan tearing from her throat as he filled her.
Rick, in the passenger seat, stared determinedly out the window. Stacy, driving with one hand, reached over and squeezed his thigh. “Don’t mind them,” she said, her voice dry. “It’s how they cope with impending chaos.”
“I’m aware,” Rick muttered, his face flushing. The wet, rhythmic sounds from the back were unmistakable. Casey’s moans, the slap of skin, Mike’s guttural encouragements. “Just… deeply aware.”
Mike’s thrusts became harder, deeper, shaking the car. “That’s it, take it all,” he grunted, his hands vise-like on her hips. Casey bit down on her own fist to stifle a scream as her orgasm ripped through her, her inner muscles clamping around him in pulsating waves. He followed seconds later, a harsh cry against her neck as he emptied himself inside her, his body shuddering.
As they untangled, breathing heavily, the first purple headlights of the Setting Sun van pierced the darkness behind them. It was closing fast, its garish sigils painting the road in sickly light.
“Company,” Stacy announced, her voice going flat and professional.
Mike quickly zipped his pants, his expression shifting from sated to calmly analytical. He looked at Casey. She met his gaze, wiped a sheen of sweat from her brow, and gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. They had done this dance before.
“Pull over up here, by that stand of trees,” Mike said, his voice eerily calm.
“What? Why?” Rick twisted in his seat.
“Just do it, Stacy,” Casey said, already straightening her clothes.
Stacy complied, swinging the car onto the soft shoulder beneath a canopy of oaks. The van screeched to a halt twenty yards back, its doors sliding open. Figures in deep crimson robes emerged, their movements jerky, violet energy coalescing around their hands.
Mike opened his door. The interior light made him a perfect target.
“Dad, what are you doing? Get back in!” Rick’s voice was sharp with fear.
“Buying you time,” Mike said simply. He leaned down, kissed Casey hard and quick on the mouth. “See you at the rendezvous.”
“Don’t let them bore you to death,” Casey replied, her eyes sparkling with fierce pride. She then looked at Stacy. “Go. Now.”
Stacy’s jaw was clenched, every instinct screaming to fight. But she saw the logic, cold and brutal. She hit the gas. The sports car tore away, leaving Mike standing alone in the glow of the van’s headlights.
Rick watched in the side mirror, horrified, as the robed figures descended on his father. Mike didn’t raise a hand. He just put his own hands up, a gesture of mock surrender, and started talking. Even from a distance, Rick could see the confused hesitation in the cultists’ movements. Mike was already annoying them.
“He’ll be okay,” Casey said from the back, but her hand was gripping the seat so tightly her knuckles were bone-white. “It’s Tuesday.”
Back in the RV, the situation was deteriorating. The enchanted pickup rammed them again, this time clipping the rear corner. The RV slewed wildly, tires screeching, and for a terrifying moment, it balanced on two wheels. Calista fought the wheel, screaming a curse in Elvish, and it crashed back down.
Fatima was calmly rummaging through a duffel bag. “Where is it, where is the damn—aha!” She pulled out a fist-sized orb of polished brass covered in tiny, intricate dials—a Golden Wand thermal-lux dispersal unit, Jan had stolen from Bethany years ago. “Rebecca, open the rear window! Just a crack!”
Rebecca, understanding, scrambled to the back. As Calista steadied the vehicle, Rebecca cranked the small emergency window open a few inches. The roar of wind and engines invaded the cabin.
Fatima twisted the dials on the orb and hurled it through the opening. It didn’t explode. Instead, it emitted a silent, blinding pulse of pure white light and concussive heat directly into the pursuing truck’s front sensors.
The green aura flickered and died. The truck dropped onto its suspension with a jarring bounce, swerved violently, and plowed into the ditch, rolling twice before coming to rest in a cloud of dust and steam.
Silence, again. This one was deeper.
“You… you just killed my truck,” Jan said, her voice hollow.
“It was already dead,” Fatima reminded her, panting. “They turned its corpse into a weapon.”
It was then, as they slowed to a stop, that Kim pointed out the other side window. “Guys… look.”
Down a long, intersecting county road, under the harsh glow of the Setting Sun van’s lights, they saw it. A semicircle of crimson robes. And in the center, being shoved roughly into the van’s open door, was Mike. His hands were now bound behind him with glowing violet chains. He turned his head, looking directly toward the distant RV for a split second before the door slammed shut.
Inside the RV, Jan let out a slow breath. “Okay,” she whispered. “Now I’m pissed.”
The van and the captive RV sped off in opposite directions. In the sudden, heavy quiet, the artifact’s call, which had been a background hum in all their minds since the barn, spiked into a painful, gold-tingled throb. It was a compass needle suddenly snapping to true north, and the direction was where the van had disappeared.
Mai’s voice, faint and strained, seemed to echo in their skulls, a psychic impression from miles away: It’s consuming his calm. It’s feeding on his defiance. Hurry.