We didn’t
ride lightning in; that was too conspicuous. We glided in while cloudstepping
under the cover of night. Fortunately, there were no crowds, so we didn’t have
to worry much about being spotted.
Natalie and
I landed, the jolt sending fresh pain through my thigh and hip, and it felt
like my stitches popped again. I reached a hand over the wound, and felt at
them. Two stitches had come free, but the rest held, and I didn’t start
bleeding again.
Natalie
also groaned, her free hand clutching at her ribs. Her other arm had been
immobilized by improvised splints and a sling made from a tee shirt. We both
could use actual medical attention instead of the poor first aid patching we
had done, but there wasn’t time, and there was no way to know if it was safe.
I leaned on
her as much as she leaned on me because the crazy amount of painkillers were
making us fuzzy-headed. We hobbled our way toward the yellow sign of Andersen’s
Truck Stop, featuring both hotel and diner. Inside, we rang the bell for the
night service while we leaned against the counter. A cheery guy named Willis
came up.
“We’re here
for the conference,” I said. “We need a room for the two of us.”
“Of course,
sir. The storm chasers, right?”
I nodded.
“Y-yeah.”
He started
typing away at the computer, taking all the information I fed him. Next to me,
Natalie coughed hard into her hand, and I could see the pain on her face. I
also caught sight of the red spray into her hand. Fortunately, Willis didn’t.
She quickly
wiped it on her jeans as I slipped my card to Willis, trying to keep him from
seeing how bad a shape we were in.
“Well,
you’re all set Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins. You’re in room 212.”
“Thanks,” I
said, taking the hotel key cards. I tried to walk more erectly, tried to
support Natalie more, but I wasn’t too successful.
“Did you
tell him that?”
“Tell him
what?”
“That we’re
married.”
“No. He
just assumed, and do we really care at this point?”
She gave a
slight shake to her head.
We both
wanted to ride the elevator up to our rooms where we could get some sleep and
lick our wounds, but there wasn’t time. Instead, we shambled past to the bank
of elevators down the hall to the conference room. We knocked in no specific
pattern.
“Private
party,” said someone on the other side.
“We’re here
for the Dailey Special,” I said.
“The what?”
“Not what,
who.”
The door
opened to reveal a disheveled Wally, whose normal three-piece suit was scorched
on the left side. A chunk of suit was missing over his ribs, showing burned and
bubbled skin.
“Reilly,
Natalie. Shit, we thought you two were dead. Get in here.” Other than the burn,
he still seemed like Wally.
Only eight
other people were in the room. Delphine, Kate, and Rich were the only ones I
recognized, but everyone looked wounded. We took up chairs at the big table,
there were plenty. Fortunately, someone had the foresight to order pizza,
complete with soda. I pulled a couple of slices over, beginning to devour them.
The food would help the healing.
“So,” Wally
said, “we got our asses handed to us. So bad we had to call a safe harbor. I
sent word for some reinforcements, but it’s going to be a little while. Anyone
got any ideas on what to do about all this?”
No one
spoke for several minutes.
“This is
really good pizza,” I said, finally.
A murmur of agreement came from the
others.
I reached for another slice,
feeling another stitch pull.