The Walls of Jericho

Confessions

My head hurts. And my body hurts.

Like an uber-b***h.

Even the slightest inhalation sends streaks of pain shooting around my ribcage and into my spinal column. Then—you guessed it—directly into my aching head in the most wretched feedback loop in the existence of humankind.

As if that’s not enough, the entire inside of my sinus passageways feels like mud cracks in the Savana after the sun has baked the water out of the earth for several weeks. Or maybe like I spent twenty minutes or so inhaling sulfur and smoke from an actual fire-breathing dragon.

I don’t really want to think about that just now though. I haven't quite come to grips with it yet.

Around me, there’s a bunch of annoying little blips and bleeps from noisy machines. I’m guessing I’m in a hospital, but I really don’t want to open my eyes and find out. In fact, I think I’ll silence the irritating noisy machines. Then I’ll let myself drift into blissful unconsciousness again.

I’m reaching out with my invisible ability to mute the bleeping and blipping when I hear voices.

“I’m not guessing. I’m telling you we can find it. If we cross-reference the date and time of the last encounter with the dragon and the day and time Jericho was born. Then, map both to a digital image of Crossroads, I bet we can track the exact technological path she took to the new body.”

Nerd-speak. Of all the people who might possibly be hovering over me in a hospital, there’s only one person that could be: Damien.

“That was over twenty years ago.”

And that silky smooth tenor can only be Channing.

The guy who took on a dragon for me. The guy who kissed me kind of senseless.

The guy who’s part of Avernus.

“It was still digital.”

“Let’s just say you’re right. Let’s just say that Jericho’s capable of everything you just said. Right now, she’s inside Avernus. Have you given that any consideration, Damien?”

Inside Avernus, am I? Oh, this just got interesting.

My head still hurts and my body still hurts, but it takes no effort at all to extend my mental technomage fingers and start feeling my way through Avernus and its digital resources. 

“Jesus. Um, Chan? I think she’s awake.”

“Jericho?”

Crap. Busted.

The overhead fluorescent lighting sends a lancing pain directly into my cerebral cortex. Instead of using my technomage senses to go crawling through Avernus' business, I mute the stupid irritating noisy machines and turn out the light.

I crack one eye, then slowly open the other one.

Channing is standing over me and when my eyes open, he gives me one of those lady-killer smiles of his.

“Hey,” he breathes softly.

“At the risk of hurting your feelings, this is the absolute worst first date ever.”

“Ooh,” Damien groans from a rolling stool on the opposite side of the room. “Yeah. I’m just going to step out.” He thumbs over his shoulder to the hallway outside, then skitters through the door. “Glad you’re okay, Jer.”

'Okay'. That might be overstating it a bit. “See ya, Damien.”

Since Damien has vacated the only chair in the room, Channing wheels it over to the side of my bed. He takes a seat and leans his elbows on the thin uncomfortable mattress. “We probably need to talk, don’t we?”

I snort in response and instantly regret it. My nasal passages burn like I inhaled hydrochloric acid and the contraction of my ribs sends another supremely miserable slicing pain shooting through me. My eyes slam shut and I groan in agony.

Lightning quick I feel Channing reach over me. There’s a soft click, followed by a low whirring sound from a pump on one of the machines.  Through the intravenous drip, something warm floods into my body and I suddenly feel like I’m floating on a cloud. The pain doesn’t precisely subside—I still hurt—but not nearly as badly. Strangely, I don’t really care anymore.

“Wow.” I tip my head towards whatever Channing did, but the only thing I can make sense out of anymore is that I’m connected to an intravenous drip. I let my gaze drift back to him. “What was that?”

“Morphine. Here.” He tucks a small cylindrical device into my hand. “Jericho, stay with me. Wiggle your thumb. No, the other one. Yeah. Do you feel that? If you’re hurting, push that button. Okay?”

The morphine has spread throughout my whole body. I’m not they type who likes a ‘drugged’ feeling, but I have to confess, this stuff, it feels nice. “Wow. I am totally relaxed now.”

Beside me, Channing chuckles. “Yeah, I’ll bet. Your eyes are dilated. Are you with me, Jericho?”

“Well,” I pause to collect my thoughts which feel like they’re bounding around inside a BINGO roller cage, “I’m high as a kite, but I think I can manage. Are you going to tell me Avernus is a gang?”

He bites his bottom lip. It’s sexy as all hell. Then he shakes his head. “Nope. It’s not a gang.”

The room gets quiet as if he’s waiting for me to ask another question, but I think he’s capable of explaining better than that. “I’m wai-ting.” It comes out in a stupid sounding sing-song. I’m not really in a place where I care right now, but I’m sure at some point in the future, I’ll regret it.

Probably because of Channing. He seems to be the source of a lot of my problems lately.

Almost like he’s nervous, he scratches the back of his head. “Okay. Avernus is an organization. An underground activist organization. Crossroads is the headquarters.”

“God, you have beautiful eyes.”

Above me, Channing grins.

“Oh crap. Did I say that out loud? Oh my God. I did. Listen, scratch that, okay?”

He shakes his head, still grinning madly.

Note to self: morphine euphoria is not the best place mentally to be having this kind of conversation. “Okay, fine. Underground meaning secret?”

He shrugs. “As ‘secret’ as it gets when there are thousands of people all over the world who are part of it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“And the dumpy side of Crossroads was your first choice for a headquarters?”

Channing laughs and my elation soars.

“Not really,” he replies. “It moves.”

“Moves. What makes a secret organization with thousands of global operatives change its location?”

“We move to follow what we’re hunting.”

“Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere.” I give him a second, hoping he’ll offer the information without my prodding. No such luck. “What are you hunting?”

Those gorgeous blues of his narrow and he peers at me. “Did you give yourself more of that stuff?”

“Ha! No. Don’t try to change the subject.”

Exhaling slowly, he licks his lips and, in my drug-induced euphoria, it seems like something I ought to try next time I get the chance.

“You know what we’re hunting.” He watches me closely for a reaction and I really hope I’m keeping my face blank. “You hit it, Jericho. You knocked it out of the sky. I need to know how you did that.”

“What was ‘it’?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Yeah.” I nod. “I want to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating after breathing whatever that disgusting sulfur-y rotten egg gas was. So what was it?”

“The sulfur smell comes from a gland inside them. It’s the fuel they use to keep their fire burning,” Channing explains. “What you saw was a dragon. Now, will you tell me what you did to knock him down?”

Well, there it is. A dragon. A real live genuine fire-breathing dragon with a gland inside it that smells like wide-open ass. “Just so I’m prepared, does this keep getting weirder?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t started talking about your secrets yet.” Now he looks deadly serious.

“Electricity,” I answer. “I hit it with a huge charge of electricity. You didn’t really need me to tell you that though. Damien’s already finishing an analysis and has figured it out.”

“What?” Channing’s head swivels towards the door, then back to me like he’s watching a tennis volley. “Are you connected to us?”

“Eh.” It comes out in a high-pitched squeak. “I might’ve accidentally snooped a little bit. What’s a percussive blaster, Channing?”

Now he looks flat-out alarmed. “Jericho, you can’t do that.”

“I’m not hurting anything. I don’t have any reason to.”

“It’s not about you hurting something or someone. It’s about you compromising us or yourself.”

“Myself? What do you mean?”

“Information is valuable, Jericho,” Channing says softly. “The less you know about us, the safer you are.”

“Then why did you bring me here? You already knew what I was.”

He shrugs. “Yes and no. We know what you are, but nobody knows the extent of your abilities. I’m not even sure you do.”

He’s got me there. Before tonight, I knew I could manipulate the code inside a Smartphone or tablet. I could power on and off electronic devices. I could pick locks, especially digital ones. I could swing a few other parlor tricks, like interfacing with Channing’s magnificent Ducati.

When the dragon turned up though, my technological connectivity went through the roof. If Damien’s analysis is right, I channeled the electrical equivalent of a bolt of lightning through me. I drew it out of my surroundings, stored it inside myself, then deliberately directed it at something else.

I deliberately directed it at my enemy.

Avernus and I have the same enemy.    

“Okay. I’ve stopped.”

Silence stretches between us. Channing and I stare at each other, into each other’s eyes. I have to admit, it’s exceptionally uncomfortable. I’m sure it’d be worse if I wasn’t high on morphine.

At first, it’s stone-cold and serious. The both of us are watching each other like a matador watches a bull. Then I realize that’s my fault.

I feel a little guilty—well, okay, I feel a lot guilty. I was actually prying, and that’s just rude. Especially when it’s a guy like him, you know. A guy who’s an absolute dreamboat. A guy I’ve secretly nursed a huge crush on for years. A guy who’s been leaving me twenty and thirty dollar tips for a three dollar Coke for years, even when the nicest he gets from me are snarky comments and disdain. Now, I genuinely feel contrite.

And just like that, something softens in his expression. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but as soon as I detect it in him, I relax too. I feel happier. I feel almost giddy. More trusted and more trusting. Not like I shouldn’t have known it before, right? I mean what kind of guy looks as drop-dead gorgeous as Channing, lays in a girl’s bed with her and doesn’t try to make out?

The answer is: a guy who’s a gentleman. A guy who cares about you. A lot. A guy who's noticed every horrible freckle across my nose and still thinks I'm cute. A guy’s who’s been trying to tell me that he cares about me in little ways for literal years.

Little ways like coming into Esteban’s crappy diner and eating his crappy food nearly every day. Little ways like leaving the aforementioned excessive tips. Little ways like tailing me home in secret, just to make sure I get there safely.

God. I’m such an i***t.

Unbidden, a new thought pops into my head.

The morphine in my system tells me it’s a great question and I ought to ask it right now. At the same time, a quiet rational part of my brain tells me it’s a bad idea. Since the morphine and I are kind of close at the moment and me and the rational brain aren't, naturally, I blurt it out. “Do you know Eric?”

The ‘Eric’ I’m talking about is the park bench that I gravitated to every time I found myself homeless after my parents died. But in my mind, ‘Eric’ has always been a safe place. Someplace I felt warm even when it was freezing outside. Someplace I felt watched over and protected even when I was alone. Someplace—dare I say it?—I felt wanted and loved.

That question makes him break our eye contact.

A sappy sort of embarrassed smile pulls up one corner of his yummy-kissable mouth and I actually think he blushes. Just a little. “You mean ‘Eric’ the park bench?”

This time the warmth that floods into me doesn’t make me feel loopy and like I might want to go to sleep. It doesn’t make me feel like I don’t care. In fact, it makes me feel like I care a whole lot. A whole lot about Channing. 

“We have a whole bunch of stuff to talk about now, don’t we?” he says softly.

“Yeah,” I admit, equally softly. “Maybe we ought to start with: who’s looking after Mr. Adriani while I’m wherever I am?”

Channing’s brows flick up and casually, he replies, “Oh. Ferdi is.”

The notion makes me cringe. “Ferdi?” I gasp in horror. “For real?”

Shrugging with a little nod, he gives me a reassuring smile. “Yeah. Ferdi’s not all that great with adults. Except maybe girls he wants to sleep with, but only until he sleeps with them.” He pauses, almost like he’s lost his train of thought. “Actually, that’s probably not really great with girls either. But never mind that. Ferdi’s great with little kids, kooky old people and anything with an internal combustion engine.”

I roll my bottom lip into my mouth and consider what he’s just said. “Not much of that was comforting. Actually, none of it was.”

Sliding one muscular arm out from under him, Channing reaches towards his back pocket. Then his face twists in a pained grimace and I remember I’m not the only one who got hurt.

“Oh my God. Your back! The dragon raked you. That had to hurt like hell!” I lift my hand with the dosing button. “Why aren’t you on one of these?”

He lifts his other hand to wave my concern away and pulls his phone out of his back pocket gingerly. “It did hurt, but I’ll be fine.” He holds the button for the voice activation on his phone and says, “FaceTime Ferdi.”

While we’re waiting for it to connect, he eyes me. “The last time you had my phone, you went right through the security with your ability, didn’t you?”

The question doesn’t justify a response because of course I did, but I nod anyway.

“How often do you do that?”

I shrug. “You’re the first. I’m not usually that nosy.”

That scarred eyebrow of his lifts incrementally and he gives me a lazy smile that kick starts my heart. “I hope to be the first in a lot of ways.”

Before I embarrass myself by sputtering out some stupid answer, Ferdi answers. Thankfully. Almost. The Spencer Davis Group’s Gimme Some Lovin’ blares out of Channing’s phone and we both flinch.

Oh God. It’s more Richard Simmons.

“Hang on!” Ferdi shouts. “Hey! Hey! Adriani! Yeah, we have to turn it down! Nah, don’t look at me like that! It’s only for a minute! Yeah, turn it down. Thanks.” Now that the background noise is gone, he damands of Channing, “What do you want?”

“What are you doing?” Channing chuckles.

“What do you mean ‘what am I doing’?” Ferdi replies defensively. “You told me to look after Mr. Adriani. I’m looking after him.”

“Yeah. But what are you doing?”

“Oh.” The change in his voice is remarkable. “Adriani’s into Sweatin’ with the Oldies. Some exercise thing with this curly-haired guy. It’s not bad.”

“So he’s okay?”

“Of course. He’s great. Here. Look. Adriani, come here. Say ‘hi’ to Channing.”

Channing’s face splits into a dopey grin. “You have to see this.” He turns the phone so I can see.

There’s Mr. Adriani and Ferdi. In the background, the DVR has been paused on the big screen television and there’s Richard Simmons with his perpetually wide smile.

“Hey, Jericho. How are you feeling?” Ferdi asks.

Before I can answer, Mr. Adriani waves like a little kid who’s consumed a double shot of espresso, a five pound bag of jellybeans and some methamphetamine. “Hi Mom!”

“Yeah, okay. See? He’s fine.”

“Ferdi, are you doing Sweatin’ to the Oldies with Mr. Adriani?” I ask slowly, trying to wrap my head around the concept of Ferdi—huge, buff guy, shaved head, covered in scary tattoos, Sweatin’ to the Oldies with a half-crazy old man wearing swim fins and a five quart saucepan on his head. 

“Don’t get smart with me, sister,” Ferdi warns. “They’re great workouts. You should do some. Beef you up a little bit. By the way, are there any more of those fin things around here somewhere?”

Channing turns the phone away. “She just wanted to make sure the old man was okay. Thanks, Ferdi. Have fun.”

“Bedtime’s at eleven!” I add before he disconnects the call.

“See?” He tosses the phone aside on the bed. “I told you he was good with kooky old people.”

“Never, in a thousand years, would I have expected that.”

“So back to the discussion about ‘firsts’—.”

“Nooo.” I shake my head. “Back to the thing about percussive blasters.”

“Are you sure you don’t need another dose of morphine?”

I give him a flat stare. “Percussive blaster. Details, please.”

Heaving a dramatic sigh, he explains. “In their natural form, dragons are armored. Impenetrable. The only weak points are their eyes and when they open their mouths.”

“Back up. What do you mean ‘natural form’? They have more than one?”

He nods. “They’re shapeshifters. They can assume a human form.”

A flashing barrage of images hits my brain. I flinch against the pain, squeezing my eyes shut. The memories move so fast the only thing I can make out is a man. Tall. Strong. With black hair.

The dragon.>

The dragon. It’s not just that he’s good-looking. Handsome and charming and intelligent. There’s a magnetic quality about him. A charisma. He has presence. Overwhelming hypnotic presence.

“Jericho? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m good. Dragons. Armored. Shapeshifters. I got it.” I open my eyes. “They’re weak in their human form.”

“Did you get that from our data repository?”

“No.” I meet his eyes. “You know where I got it.”

There’s no missing the hurt in his blue eyes. To his credit, he only nods and says nothing more on the topic. “If we’re lucky and can distract them, sometimes we can land a suppressive round in their mouths. A fire retardant foam. They’re still dangerous, but without dragonfire, they have to get a lot closer to do damage. With modern weapons, it’s too risky for them. That’s where the percussive blaster comes in. If you can hit them hard enough to knock them out, they slip into their human form.”

“And you can kill them.”

He nods. “In theory.”

“What happens if you get something inside them?”

“We’ve tried. Never gets past their gullet.” Channing shakes his head. “The dragonfire is too hot. Burns everything up within seconds.”

“Electricity penetrated its hide and it doesn’t burn.”

“Yeah, that’s new for us. I’m sure Damien’s already brainstorming ways to use it. You knew he was here, didn’t you? That he’d come to the southside. How did you know?”

“You knew he was here too. How did you know?”

“It’s different for me. I have a more sensitive nose. I can smell him.”

I’m tempted to snort but I remember that didn’t go so well last time. “I could smell him too.”

He shakes his head. “You knew before you could smell him. How?”

“I’m not sure how.” I struggle to find the descriptive words. “I could just feel him there.”

Channing nods. He doesn’t look happy at all about that answer.

“What aren’t you telling me, Channing?”

He looks like he doesn’t want to answer. He even turns away and I get the distinct impression he’s not going to answer. “He knows you’re here, even if he doesn’t know what you look like. Working with Avernus, you’re a danger to him. Working with him, you’re a danger to Avernus. There’s no way for either of us to stop you.”

“He came to try and he seems to think killing me will do the trick.”

He looks me dead in the eye. “We both know it won’t. Not anymore.”

“So what are you going to do? Kill me?”

“No!” Channing’s brows draw together in an angry scowl. “If I wanted you dead, I could’ve let the guys from the street gang get you.”

“But you didn’t. Why?”

“You know why.”

I shrug. “So tell me anyway.”

“I want you to choose the right thing this time.”

The ‘right’ thing.

That’s a complicated thought. Morals are entirely too easy to warp. It’s as simple as a twist of perspective.

Channing and Avernus want me to help them against the dragon. To help them kill the dragon.

The dragon wants me to help him destroy Avernus and Channing. Or at least not prevent him from doing so himself.

“The last time, the dragon betrayed me. Right or wrong, this time, I’m paying him back.”