کتاب 06-05

5

In the first instant of seeing it, the light was so intense, Harper was half blinded and could not make out any features of what was falling upon them. It was simply a blaze of red glare, plunging toward the stretch of road between the WKLL van and the Dodge Challenger.

It was thirty feet above the road and still dropping when the bolt of flame opened wings to reveal the blazing, monstrous bird within. The heat deformed the air around it—Harper saw it through a blur of tears. At the sight, she was struck through with wonder, with terror. The people who had witnessed the mushroom cloud rising from Hiroshima could’ve felt no less. It was twenty-four feet across from burning wing tip to burning wing tip. Its open beak was large enough to swallow a child. Feathers of blue and green flame, yards long, rippled from its tail. It made no sound at all, aside from a rushing roar that reminded Harper of a train passing through a subway tunnel.

Time snagged in place. The bird hovered less than a dozen feet above the road. The blacktop beneath it began to smoke and stink. Every window on the street reflected the bonfire light of the Phoenix.

Then it was moving—and so was Harper.

Its wings lashed at the air, and it was like someone had thrown open the hatch to a great furnace. A withering billow of chemical heat rolled down the road, and the Dodge Challenger shook in the gale. Harper was crawling around to the driver’s-side door.

The Phoenix launched itself at the white van. One wing stroked a hedge and the brush ignited, became a wall of flame. The Phoenix flew into the open side door of the van. Harper had a glimpse of the gunman behind the Browning shrieking and raising his arms in front of his face. The front doors were flung open. The driver and the passenger toppled into the street.

The massive bird of flame hit the van so hard it went up on two tires, tilting toward the driver’s side, threatening to overturn, before crashing back onto all four wheels. The interior boiled with fire, with threshing wings of flame. A bullet went off with a metallic spow! Then another. Then .50-caliber ammunition was exploding like kernels of popcorn, blam-blam-blamming inside the white van, flashing as the shells went off, bullets bonging off the roof, the walls, deforming the vehicle from the inside.

Harper hoisted herself behind the wheel of Ben’s Challenger, sat on broken glass. The keys were in the ignition. She stayed low, just peeking over the dash, while she started the car.

Up the road, the Freightliner turned in a slow circle, tires chewing up the snow and dirt in front of 10 Verdun.

Harper threw the cruiser into drive and stamped on the gas. She only went a short distance, though—less than five yards—before slamming one foot on the brake. The Challenger shrieked to a stop, close to where Jamie was crouched behind a telephone pole. Jamie broke and ran, crossed the open blacktop, and dived into the passenger seat. She was saying something, shouting something, but Harper didn’t hear and didn’t care.

Up the road, the Phoenix emerged from the side door of the van, stretching its head out on a comically long neck as if to scream triumphantly into the night. The van continued to shake and jump on its springs while the ammo popcorned inside the wreck. The windshield exploded. Someone was screaming.

Harper launched the Challenger up the street, swerving across half-melted rubble to pull alongside the shot-up police cruiser. Ben flung himself out, hobbled across the space between the two cars, and tumbled into the backseat facedown, his legs hanging out the door. The air reeked of burning tires.

The Freightliner roared and leapt up the street at the van and the Phoenix. The plow struck the side of the Econoline with a shattering clang and tossed it aside as if it were an empty shoebox. The van rolled, spraying blue sparks, the roof collapsing. The Freightliner charged after it, hitting it again, flipping it to the far side of the cross street, Sagamore Avenue. The Phoenix exploded from the gaping windshield and streaked into the sky—much diminished, Harper saw. Minutes earlier, it had been the size of a Learjet. Now it was smaller than a hang glider.

Her foot found the gas pedal. The Challenger jumped forward hard enough to shove her all the way back into her seat. Ben’s legs were still hanging out the rear door. He had wrapped seat belts around his hands to keep from being tossed out, was kicking his feet to try and pull himself farther into the car.

She looked out as they launched themselves past Nelson Heinrich on his back in the street, legs splintered and smashed, folded at improbable angles. The defibrillator sat on the dead man’s chest, the plastic black with scorch marks, a bullet hole the size of a fist in the center of it. At least she thought he was dead. It was only after they were well past him that Harper wondered if Nelson had turned his head to watch them go.

The Freightliner filled the road before them. Harper swerved toward the parking lot in front of the burned-out CVS. The Challenger jumped the curb. Harper felt herself lift weightlessly off the seat. The car hit the lot with a spray of sparks and Ben howled, still hanging on.

They slewed onto Sagamore Avenue and Harper gave it all the gas it would take. A bronze light lit their way from above. The Phoenix escorted them for a quarter of a mile, a brassy blaze that made headlights all but unnecessary—and then it soared out and ahead of them. For a few moments it was gliding this way and that in front of the car, a vast kite of bright fire. At last, with a final dip of its wings, it left them, rose in a sputtering rush into the night, and was gone, disappearing over trees to the east.

An especially hard piece of glass or steel was jabbing Harper in the butt, and she reached under her to get rid of it. It turned out to be the cell phone Mindy Skilling had used to call 911. Without really considering it, she pushed it into the pocket of her snow jacket.

No one saw.