The Enchanter by Jon F. Merz

Author:Jon F. Merz [Merz, Jon F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-06T22:00:00+00:00

20

Consciousness managed to poke its way back into my life hours later. I had no idea of how long I'd been out. The last memory was of Esmeralda staring at me, a knowing grin splayed across her lips.

That bitch had some serious power.

The engine beneath me groaned; the entire frame of the truck seemed to strain as we bounced over what must have been about a million potholes. But we couldn't have been on any streets that I knew of.

Not here.

Brilliant sunshine poured through the windows, threatening to turn me into a lobster. I look much better with a tan.

I squinted and tried to rise up so I could get some sense of where we were. But with my hands tied behind my back that was difficult. Plus, my back hurt. I hadn't been beaten up by anyone, just the ride. We bounced again and my head hit the side of the truck and then came down hard.

But I'd managed to steal a glance.

And I didn't like what I'd seen.

We were zipping across an open savannah. All around mountains rose up and seemed to hem us in, but the truck drove like he knew exactly where he was going. And I guessed that it wouldn't exactly be a good thing for me.

I tucked my head back down. I didn't think the driver had seen me, and as far as I'd seen, he was the only other person in the truck with me.

Hjelm and Esmeralda were gone.

Probably off getting ready to unleash whatever their plans happened to be.

And here I was, no step closer to figuring it out than I had been at the start. Back then, Zero had taken lead on what should have been an easy termination assignment. Get in, get out. One rogue plugged and gone.

Easy.

But Zero was still in the shit and now so was I.

And somehow, I didn't think my instructors back at the Fixer Academy in Vermont would be too impressed.

I frowned. I was stumbling through this assignment far too passively. Things were happening to me instead of me making things happen. I remembered what the instructors drilled into us from the moment we stepped of the bus.

"Get it done."

And I hadn't.

The truck's constant rumbling and bucking carried us over pockmarks in the landscape I couldn't even imagine existed. If the driver didn't imagine that I might wake up, he must have been dreaming.

But then the engine throttled back and we started to slow.

And I had another decision to make: ambush the driver or keep my head down and try to figure this out.

The words of my instructors still fresh in mind, I took the non-obvious approach. I'd pretend to still be out of it until the last moment. Maybe I'd get lucky and actually get a clue to what the hell was going on.

Maybe.

The truck rolled to a stop and I clamped my eyes shut, forcing all the tension out of my body so I was completely limp.

Just another mindless victim of Esmeralda's power.

The driver jumped out and slammed the door behind him.

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