Chapter Five

“Through here,” Jericho grunted, nodding his head between two tour buses parked closely together. “I have a plan, but you're going to have to destroy the necklace first,” he instructed through labored breath.

I turned my head and looked at him. A weakened, exhausted man, just seconds free from imprisonment and he was already giving me orders. I wanted to find him obnoxious, but his innate ability to lead, the very quality that was synonymous with breathing for him could not be silenced, especially in our very life-threatening situation.

I pulled the necklace from underneath my rain jacket and held it in my hand, trying to find the willpower to throw it on the ground and stomp on it. My hand was poised above my head and my mind screamed at my heart to let go, to destroy the detestable talisman.

I looked at Jericho, his eyes intent with urgency, and something more, something much like hope. I empathized with his expectancy, his desire to see me free myself from the tangled web I was trapped in. But I couldn't.

My heart betrayed the knowledge that what was done to me was done by the worst kind of monster. My heart, that treacherous, unfeeling organ, I had thought stopped moving when there was no goodness left to beat with, suddenly spoke up and refused to destroy a manipulative gift that led the enemy straight to me.

I glanced desperately at Jericho, wanting him to take it from me and annihilate the stone and every memory associated with it, but it was up to me. He made no movement and I wouldn't have let him pry the black stone from my firm fingers anyway.

So instead of crushing the precious gem beneath my foot, I used my other talents. With the rock grasped firmly in my hands I absorbed the magic into my own bloodstream and whispered a quick prayer that whatever made the stone a tracking device would not stay active once I owned the magic.

I slipped the chain around my neck again and marveled at the now dull, black rock that would no longer shimmer or shine in any different color. Whatever supernatural beauty and mysterious quality the gem once held was gone, it was now just a black stone.

“Ok, the magic is gone, we can go now,” I whispered to Jericho and watched his eyes flicker with obvious disappointment. “What's the plan?”

“Over there,” Jericho pointed to a tour bus reloading its senior citizen passengers.

“How are you at suppressing your magic?” I asked, wondering if his plan would work.

“Not good,” he said simply. “Can you just take mine and then give it back to me later?”

“Uh, no, that would not be a good idea,” I mumbled. “Let's just go.”

We walked carefully between the tour buses, watching our backs and taking our time around corners. A flare in my bloodstream warned that the Guard was getting closer, at least close enough that if I could feel their magic, they could feel mine.

We ran the last few feet to the tour bus, hand in hand and then pushed our way gently through the last of the boarding passengers and onto the bus. I pulled Jericho passed curious elderly tourists and to the very back of the bus where we had a few rows to ourselves.

I had no idea how we would explain ourselves to the humans should anyone demand answers, but I hoped my magic could get us through any real interrogations that would threaten our hiding place.

I suppressed my magic, making it vanish as best as I could. Jericho slumped down, below the tinted window and I followed suit realizing the dark tint would not stop the Titan Guard from recognizing us.

I was closest to the window and so even after Jericho lay completely down on the long row of empty seating, I could not stop myself from peeking through a corner of the window to find out if they had arrived yet.

They had.

Fifty Titan Guard walked slowly and in pairs from around the gift shop building and did their best to blend in among the other travelers. They scanned the crowd and talked back and forth through their wrist watches.

Our bus was still not moving and the sick, twisting feeling in my stomach warned that we were not even far enough away from this dangerous pursuit to have made any progress. One of the members of the Guard walked closer to our bus, his head perking up as if he had found something.

I looked down at Jericho, his head on my lap and his hands still trembling. His magic was going to give us away. They would find us. They would search us out. And they would not let the fear of a scene stop them from dragging our kicking and screaming bodies away from this place.

I needed to do something. I needed to cover Jericho's magic. I slid to the floor and crawled to the middle aisle, before standing up and walking, slouched over, to the front of the bus. I had only pushed magic on a few other humans, on my way to Romania, months before and I never really got the hang of it. But this was another life or death situation and I needed to act.

I stood behind the bus driver, resting my hand on the top of his head rest, pretending to look back at the elderly crowd as if I had an announcement. I brought my magic back slowly and steadily and when the popping electricity was flowing through my blood again, I released what little increments of magic I could and helped the driver decide that it was time to go now.

The short, large-mustached, Peruvian man jerked forward in his seat, stepping on the gas and shifting abruptly into movement. The elderly passengers swayed roughly with the sudden movement and cried out in protest at the lack of warning.

I ignored the angry complaints being shouted at me and kept my eyes on the now alerted Titan Guard all aware of exactly which bus Jericho and I were on. All at once, the Immortal army moved against the bus working its hardest to gain an exiting speed, but not succeeding.

I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate through the protests and angry questioning. I was desperate to put distance between this bus and the closing Titan Guard and I needed to do it quickly.

I pushed my magic again, this time not at my bus driver, but at all of the bus drivers sitting idly behind their large steering wheels waiting for their passengers to finish their sight-seeing. I didn't know what I was doing, or even if my plan would work. But if I could create a gridlock, a parking lot of chaos, in which every driver felt it absolutely necessary to leave the parking lot that very moment, I could trap the Guard inside for the few minutes we urgently needed to put space between us and them.

My blood boiled with the anticipation of putting my thought to work, the magic electrifying my veins. I felt the magic move through the crowd of people, working its way into all of the different tour buses and against all of the bus drivers.

The seconds it took for my magic to finally find its targets and put my plan into action were the most excruciating moments. I waited with baited breath for one of the Guard to come crashing through the bus door and drag me away by the hair to meet my doom. I knew my plan was taking too long and that the seconds that felt like minutes only felt that way in my head, until I looked up at the angry elderly people and noticed they were all in slow motion.

I time-slowed Machu Picchu and didn't even notice. The Guard was moving at the slowest pace, their menacing figures moving like snails against my bus in a uniformed movement. I watched with amusement as everything around me came to a near stop, and move only in the slowest of increments.

My magic now had plenty of time to work out the details of my plan and find all the drivers. Finally, my bus reached the end of the parking lot and was ready to escape down the mountainside; at the same time I felt the power of the time-slow come to an end and the world begin to catch up to the normalcy of gravity and physics.

When the reality around me finally caught up to the rest of the world, the parking lot was full of buses jumping to go, running into each other and blocking the exits. Our bus, however, merged casually onto the highway that would take us down the mountain away from the temporarily trapped Titan Guard.

I walked to the back of the bus, through the still upset crowd and sat down gently next to Jericho, who had yet to lift his head off the seat.

I picked up his head and set it gently down on my lap, running my fingers through his greasy, matted hair and working my hardest not to wipe away the dirt, grim and filth that accumulated on him during his time in prison.

“Jericho, we need to keep moving, are you up for this?” I asked sweetly, wanting to get off the bus as soon as possible.

He grunted, sounding exhausted and frustrated, but he stood up and started walking towards the front of the bus. Jericho leaned heavily on each of the seats as he walked by and up the aisle towards the bus driver.

“We don't belong on this bus!” I exclaimed dramatically for no one's benefit except my own.

The Peruvian bus driver whipped his head around at the sound of shouting and just stared. I had no explanation for the man suddenly glaring down his nose at me with dark, irritated eyes.

“I'm sorry,” I tried to explain further, “we need to get off your bus.”

When the driver did not immediately pull to the side of the road, I realized that he might not speak English and was working the Spanish words together in my head when he abruptly pulled into a scenic overview type area and forcefully opened the door.

Jericho and I exited the bus with hateful glares and irritated threats behind us. We both searched frantically for the next step in our escape, but I could tell Jericho was waning. I needed to get him to a safe place as soon as possible, or I would be left dragging his unconscious body behind me.

“Are they close?” Jericho asked with a gravelly, strained voice.

“I can't feel them yet, can you?” I asked, wishing I developed stage two of this flight for our lives before we got off the bus.

“I can't ever feel them. That's a Titan trait,” Jericho mumbled nonchalantly.

“Oh,” I paused for a moment, taking in the new piece of information.

A couple on a motorcycle sped to a stop next to us, taking off their helmets and hanging them on the handlebars. They climbed off the bike and paused for a moment to enjoy the breath taking view of the Andes. They stood close to the bike, with their backs turned, the woman resting a casual hand on the black, leather seat.

“Can you drive a motorcycle?” I whispered to Jericho who nodded positively in return. “Are you up for it?” I tore my eyes from the vehicle I was planning on stealing and stared intently at Jericho. I was afraid for him, I was afraid he wouldn't make it any farther than the highway before slipping unconscious and driving us off the cliff. And I didn't know how to drive a motorcycle.

“Eden, I will keep us safe, I promise you that,” he affirmed seriously and then walked casually in the direction of the twenty-year-old bike.

“Would you like me to take your picture?” I approached the couple carefully.

They turned at the sound of my voice and smiled blankly at me. They were not Hispanic, but obviously did not speak English. I didn't have time to figure out how to cross the language barrier, so I pulled my hands to my face and mimicked taking a picture and then pointed at them, smiling the biggest, fakest, and most helpful smile I could muster.

The pull of other magic tugged softly at my blood, alerting my senses that the Titan Guard was on the move. I waited, impatiently for the couple to find understanding and then dug deeper for more as the man walked excruciatingly slowly to me and handed over his camera. He pointed at the button to push and then walked back to his girlfriend at the edge of the cliff.

I snapped a couple quick pictures of the happy couple while Jericho moved into place. I looked at Jericho who was ready to hop on the bike and then swallowed my guilt before tossing the camera high into the air and just over the couple's heads.

They both instinctively turned to grab their flying camera before it fell over the cliff-side and into the unreachable abyss below. Instantly, I sprinted the distance between the bike and me and jumped on the back, throwing my arms around the running motorcycle and a waiting Jericho.

The minute I was on board, he pushed down on the throttle and we were speeding down the winding roads of the mountainside, leaving a bewildered and wronged innocent couple behind us.

We were free for now, moving away from danger at the fastest speed we could. I had not factored helmets into my plan, so my hair, loosened from its ponytail holder, whipped violently around my face. I kept my arms tight around Jericho's waist, feeling his labored breath and wildly beating heart.

I buried my head in his back, protecting my face from the whipping wind, closing my eyes against the danger of the hair-pinned turns and steep drop-offs just a few feet from us, but mostly thankful to be near Jericho. I could smell him, I could touch him, he was really here with me. I wasn't alone anymore.

“Where are we going?” Jericho shouted over his shoulder, taking his eyes off the road for only a moment, but my breath caught in my throat and I clutched him tighter.

“Urubamba, there is someone I have to see,” I yelled back into his ear, the wind assaulting my face.

“Ok, I'll go passed it first, and then we'll head back towards it tomorrow,” Jericho decided and I agreed with his foresight.

I laid my head down against his back and closed my eyes, wondering at his deep knowledge of the Andes mountains.

We drove for hours like that, far from danger and far from Machu Picchu. I worried about Silas and his people with the Titan Guard so close to them. I led the Guard right to them, but I forced myself to trust that Silas could protect his own people. I couldn't go back for them and to check on them would be an insult to one of the only allies I had.

Towards dusk, Jericho drove the old motorcycle up the drive and to an old Monastery that was turned into a hotel. The building was a long white rectangle with a red Spanish roof and a large courtyard in the middle. The rooms lined the inner walls of the courtyard and all had bright blue doors that stood out vividly, even against the setting sun.

I checked us in at the front desk in a quaint lobby, and paid cash for one room with two twin beds. The concierge walked us to our room without saying anything and I wondered if it was because he did not speak English or because of the frantic way our eyes darted about the room and the hushed whispers and distrusting stares we used with him.

Either way, once our door was open and the key was in my hand, the young concierge left quickly, walking back to the lobby and leaving us alone.

Jericho stumbled through the door first, walking into the small room and breathing a heavy sigh of relief. I followed him in, closing and locking the blue door behind me. We were safe. For now, we were safe.

I turned around to take Jericho in, to allow myself to believe fully he was with me. He leaned against the opposite wall and I rested my back against the door and we stood there staring at each other, not a word whispered, not a sound uttered.

His hazel eyes smoldered with hope even while his shoulders slumped from exhaustion and his hands trembled at his sides. His lips turned upwards in the smallest of smiles and I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't bear the separation.

I crossed the room in a moment, throwing my arms around his neck and pressing my body against his. His arms were around my waist in an instantaneous gut reaction that would not let me go, even if that was what I wanted.

But it wasn't.

I would never let go of Jericho again.