"I want to find us a motel or something, some place we can rent a room for the night. We're near the interstate highway. It shouldn't take long to get safely away from here before we stop. We both need rest and time to let these drugs wear off."

"I'll wait, then," she said. "Before we sleep, though, I'm going to need a needle and thread."

"What for?"

"To st.i.tch up that gash on your arm. It needs to be closed up."

Alex nodded, but he didn't like the thought of having her sew on his arm, at least not without some kind of local anesthesia. He didn't want to stop in at an emergency room, though. They would have questions. He wasn't in the mood to think up answers to questions.

He tested his injured left arm a little. It was beginning to ache in earnest. The pain throbbed with each beat of his heart. He couldn't hold the wheel with his left hand alone. The pressure needed to turn the wheel hurt.

He glanced in the rearview mirror to look back at the fire.

Just as he did, there was a soft thud to the air that Alex felt as a thump deep in his chest. He'd felt that thump before.

In the mirror he saw a dark smudge swirl in the air behind them in the back seat. As soon as he saw it, the indistinct, dark swirl of night changed into a vortex of vapor.

The vapor condensed into a shape.

A man in a dark leather vest and no shirt lunged at them from out of the back seat, from out of another world.

THE MAN IN THE BACK SEAT threw an arm around both Jax's and Alex's necks at the same time, pulling them back against the seat, choking them both. His bare arms were ma.s.sively muscled. Alex's vision dimmed down to a narrow, dark tunnel. The powerful arm was cutting off his blood supply as well as his air. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jax's arms and legs flailing and he knew the man was hurting her even more.

Alex tried to reach the steering wheel. The way the man's arm had him around the throat, pinning him back to the seat, Alex couldn't pull away. Try as he might, he couldn't reach the brake, either.

He was only able to sporadically get his fingertips on the steering wheel. The truck slowly started taking an arcing course across the road, toward oncoming traffic. As Alex brushed the wheel with his fingertips, it started back the other way, toward the right side of the road. He struggled to correct with the wheel to keep them from crashing into a light pole.

He couldn't get a breath. He tried to twist enough to steer with his left hand and pull at the arm with his right, but the fingertips of one hand weren't enough to steer. Alex used his knees to steady the wheel and switched to using both hands to try to pry the arm away. He reached back, trying to get ahold of fingers, but couldn't reach them.

His lungs burned for air. He was starting to have difficulty focusing his vision. He knew that if he didn't do something, and soon, he would lose consciousness. If that happened, it was all over-they would have him.

He could hear strangled sounds coming from Jax as she desperately struggled to breathe. Out of the corner of his eye Alex could see her face turning red. He could also see that her arms were hardly moving anymore.

The powerfully built man growled with the effort of keeping his arms clamped around them both. In the position he was in, Alex had no chance to gain the advantage.

He tried again but couldn't reach the brake. He couldn't reach the gas pedal, either, but since they were going down a slight grade the truck wasn't slowing.

In his rush to get away from the hospital, he hadn't retrieved his gun. He had figured that once they were safely away he would then get it out from under the seat. He had thought that if any of Vendis's men tried to stop them he would have enough time to get the gun out. He hadn't figured on a man materializing in his back seat.

He could think of nothing else but to try to reach under the seat for his gun. Try as he might, though, he couldn't get to it. It might as well have been a mile away.

He abandoned his attempt to get the arm off his throat. He pushed back against the man behind them to force him to change his hold a little. Just as the man loosened and moved his arm a bit to improve his hold, Alex lunged forward with all his strength.

Alex managed to grab the steering wheel with both hands.

He immediately cranked the wheel to the right. They were going slow enough that the front tires stuck and the truck cut violently to the right, hitting the curb and going up over it.

Between the sudden right turn and bouncing up over the curb, the man was thrown hard to the left. He probably didn't know anything about riding in a truck; it didn't appear that he was prepared for such a maneuver. He had such a hold on Jax that as he was thrown to the left he took her with him, pulling her by the neck, half between and half over the seats.

As he slid across the back seat, his head slammed into the metal of the door along the bottom of the window. The blow caused his stranglehold around both of them to loosen a little. He didn't let go, but it was enough that they both could at last get desperately needed air. He could hear Jax gasp several times.

Being pulled up out of her seat as she was, and with enough air to regain her wits, Jax was at last able to reach around and pull a knife from the small of her back. When the man had fallen over to the left, he not only pulled her back, but turned her a little, facing more toward Alex. She brought the knife around and sliced cleanly through the upper ligament of the biceps of the arm holding Alex. Their attacker cried out in pain and rage as his slack arm slipped off Alex.

Alex immediately slammed on the brakes. The man, already off balance, slid off the seat, down onto the narrow floor area. He lay sideways, stuffed into a s.p.a.ce that was too small for him, but despite everything, his beefy arm remained locked around Jax's neck.

Pulled over as she was on her back, between the seats, and held by the throat, she was unable to maneuver. He had pressure on her throat again, cutting off her air. Her movements slowed as she started to lose consciousness. The man was obviously intent on breaking her neck, but being on the floor with her partly on top and somewhat behind him, he was having trouble accomplishing that task. He appeared perfectly willing to simply strangle her.

As the man fought to gain his balance and get up, Alex yanked the syringe from his pocket and popped the cap off with his thumb. In one swift movement he turned and thrust the needle down into the side of the man's bull neck. He pushed the plunger home.

The man kicked and bellowed in rage, struggling to get up. Alex stabbed the gas and slammed on the brakes, jerking the truck to keep him off balance. With his injured arm, he still managed to grab Alex's hair in his fist. Alex could tell that he was slowing from the drugs, his movements becoming less coordinated.

Still, Jax was in desperate trouble. She, too, was hardly moving as she lost consciousness.

Alex stripped the silver knife out of her hand. He pulled away from the fist holding his hair, turned, and leaned over the back of his seat to stab down at the man. As the man came up from the floor he met Alex's blade on its way down. Alex added all his strength to thrusting the knife through the side of the man's throat.

By the sudden spurts of blood, Alex knew that he'd hit an artery-the same one he'd managed to hit with the syringe. By the sounds of the man's breathing, he knew that he'd also hit the windpipe. The heavy volume of blood pumping from the severed artery flowed down into the deep gash and into his lungs as he gasped for air. The man started drowning in his own blood.

In the grip of the drugs and the throes of death, he finally let go of Jax. She gulped in air. Even as she was gasping and regaining consciousness, she took the knife back from Alex. As the man's arm flailed weakly about, his hand trying to grab her, she stabbed it. He reflexively, slowly, pulled the hand back and pressed it against the gaping wound in the side of his neck and throat. It appeared he was trying to stop the bleeding.

Alex was sickened by the messy act of killing a human being. It was a difficult, gruesome task.

As the man's struggles slowed, Jax began cutting symbols in his forehead. She wasn't waiting until he was dead. He managed to get out a gurgling curse as she gouged the lines of the design into his flesh.

Alex turned his attention to getting the car off the gra.s.s and back on the road before anyone came to see what was happening. With all the police cars in the area that was all too real a risk.

He didn't see what Jax did, but the burbling curses died out in m.u.f.fled grunts.

In mid-grunt, it suddenly went silent inside the Jeep. A glance back between the seats confirmed what he thought: The man was gone, along with all the blood.

Jax let out a huge sigh as she flopped back into her seat. She held her throat as she coughed.

"Dear spirits, that hurt," she said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

Alex had the Jeep back up to speed.

"Stop!" she suddenly cried out. "Stop the truck right now!"

Alex, surprised by her screamed command, slammed on the brakes. The Cherokee slid to a stop. He pulled off the road onto a thinly graveled parking area on the shoulder.

"What? What's the matter?"

"I'm an idiot!" Jax growled.

"What are you talking about?"

Jax reached up, grabbed the rearview mirror, and twisted it until it ripped off the windshield.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

She threw open the door and heaved the mirror into the bushes. "Saving our lives."

She retrieved her silver knife from the floor and used the pommel to smash the gla.s.s in the side mirror on the truck door. The gla.s.s broke into a spiderweb of cracks. She bashed at it over and over with the b.u.t.t of the knife handle until all the pieces of gla.s.s were knocked out. A black socket with an adjustment cable was all that remained.

She ran around the front of the truck and did the same thing to the driver's-side mirror. When she had finished she rushed back around and got in.

"Let's go," she said as she slammed the door shut. "Get us away from this last spot they saw us! Go, go, go!"

Alex checked over his shoulder and then dumped the clutch, spinning the wheels in the gravel as he pulled the Cherokee back out onto the street.

"You think they found us by the rearview mirrors?"

She slumped back in her seat, comforting her neck. "How else?"

He turned to look out the back window to make sure they weren't being followed.

He saw a big man in a leather vest running after them from the graveled parking area.

With a cold wave of shock, Alex realized that the man must have arrived in this world right where the Jeep had been only a moment before. She had told him once, in the driveway of his house, that they usually arrived in pairs. That was the partner of the man they had just killed and sent back.

Alex stepped on the gas. The next time he looked back, they were too far away for him to see the man. He would never be able to follow or find them on foot. Alex let out a sigh of relief. He gripped the steering wheel tighter to try to stop his hands from shaking.

Jax, also watching the man vanish in the distance behind, looked over at Alex out of the corner of her eye, as if to ask if he understood, now.

"That was close," he admitted. "But how am I going to drive without mirrors?"

"Would you rather drive with new pa.s.sengers arriving from my world every few minutes?"

"I guess not," he admitted. He glanced over at her. "Are you all right, Jax?"

Her brow wrinkled as she fought back tears while rubbing the muscles in her neck. "I think I will be after I get some sleep."

"Close your eyes," he said in a gentle voice. "I'll wake you when I get us a room. Sleep until then."

She didn't answer. He didn't know if she'd fallen asleep or if she had pa.s.sed out.

Alex looked back over his shoulder. The road behind was empty. He wasn't much comforted.

ALEX LEANED TO THE SIDE A LITTLE, trying to balance Jax's weight with his right arm and hip as he used his aching left arm to try to unlock the door. In her semiconscious state, Jax did her best to stand, but her legs kept giving out, making his hand pull away from the keyhole. He at last managed to turn the key in the lock. The door swung open.

He used his foot to shut the door, then swept Jax up in his arms and carried her into the room, following the well-worn track across the beige carpeting. It hurt his injured arm to hold her like that, but he figured it would be easier than trying to get her up off the floor if she pa.s.sed out completely.

In her groggy state, she let out a soft moan as she put her arms around his neck. She laid her head against his shoulder as he carried her into the dark room. It made him imagine the innocent, feminine little girl she once had to have been.

A long rectangle of light from signs for the truck stops shining in through the window beside the door fell across the double beds. An older TV sat on the long counter where it could be watched from bed. A tiny table with two wooden chairs sat under the front window beside the door. It smelled a little musty, but he wasn't about to complain. At that moment the small room looked like a presidential suite to him.

Outside, semitrailer trucks constantly rumbled past on the interstate. He could hear a TV on in the room beside theirs. Still, it was a relief to have what appeared to be a safe place to stop, a place hidden away from all the people hunting them.

Alex gently laid Jax on one of the two beds.

"The mirrors, Alex," she mumbled.

"I know, I know."

He went into the bathroom, flicked on a buzzing fluorescent light, and draped the white bath mat over the mirror. He brought a towel out and hung it over the mirror on the wall beside the TV. He adjusted the towel to make sure that not the tiniest part of the mirror could peek through. He felt like his mother, draping things over mirrors.

Alex pulled the cord, closing the heavy, ugly blue drapes, shutting out the garish light of the truck-stop signs. Once the drapes were closed, he turned on the lamp on the taller section of the long counter. The dark fake-wood veneer was chipped along the edge of the counter from people hitting into it as they lifted their suitcases up to lay them open. The bedspreads were the same blue as the curtains, with bands of burgundy designs that matched the valence above the window. It was tacky and cheap-looking, but it was a place to stop, to rest, to hide from the people hunting them, and for that reason Alex was delighted with the room, already thinking of it fondly as home, at least home for the night.

Jax sat up, blinking slowly at him, as if the single lamp he had turned on was too bright.

"Lie down," he told her.

"I can't. My bladder is going to burst."

"Oh. The bathroom is right there," he said, pointing.

He put a hand under her arm and helped her up. Using her legs after the stress of stretching up on her toes all night to breathe followed by the heart-pounding escape left standing almost more than she could manage. Without the spur of terror, her muscles were giving out and her legs wobbled unsteadily.

As he was helping her to the bathroom, she said, "I need a needle and thread. I need to sew up your arm."

He left her at the doorway into the bathroom. "We'll worry about that tomorrow."

She gripped his shirt for support. "Now, Alex. We need to wash it and do it tonight or it will become infected."

Alex sighed. He had an idea.

"All right. You go use the bathroom. Wash up for bed if you want. I'll go get what we need and be right back. I'll leave you the gun."

"No. I'm hidden inside. You will be out there where people can see you. You have no way of knowing who might be looking. You take the gun. I have my knives."

He couldn't imagine that she could fight very effectively in her condition, but he didn't want to argue and she did make sense. "I'll be right back. I'll knock twice, pause, and knock twice again before I open the door so that you know it's me coming back."

Alex locked the door and checked it before jogging across the parking lot. It was starting to drizzle. The inky blacktop reflected the bright light of signs off its slick surface. The spotlights pointed up at signs for interstate travelers illuminated the otherwise invisible mist drifting past.

The cross street was busy, even late at night. People were coming off the interstate for gas, to get something to eat, or to stop for the night. Trucks were pulling in and out of a nearby truck plaza.

The convenience store had half a dozen truckers and other travelers inside. Alex carefully checked each one for potential threat as he picked up a basket and went to the coolers. A memory of the first time he'd met Jax flashed through his mind. She had looked at everyone that same way, checking for threat. Now he understood it so much better.

He pulled a handful of packaged turkey slices off a peg in the cooler and threw them in the basket. He grabbed some ham as well, along with a variety pack of sliced cheese. He picked up a couple of six-packs of bottled water and a variety of other small items he thought they might need.

As he kept an eye on a big guy with long, greasy black hair and a beard, he stopped at the section with first-aid supplies and picked up the things he needed. As far as Alex was concerned, the man looked a little too much like a pirate. But in the end it seemed he was buying far too much beer to be a tracker from some distant world hunting the last Rahl.

Nonetheless, it was comforting to have a Glock only a twitch away. After the brawl in his truck had ended, he had quickly retrieved the gun from under the seat. It was a relief to have it handy. The next time someone from another world showed up, he vowed to be ready. They had been fortunate and survived a number of surprise attacks. He didn't want to be caught unprepared again.

At the checkout counter he asked the clerk for two of the prepaid cell phones on the rack against the back wall. Alex paid for everything with one of the hundred-dollar bills Sedrick Vendis had used to buy Alex's six paintings.