Wolf of the Tesseract

Chapter 10

Claire exhaled a sigh of relief as Jackie's car cleared the edge of the city. She'd made it past the far edge of the Wisconsin side of the city. Duluth's twin city over the bay, Superior, shrank behind her and the roads narrowed while the wilderness expanded, thickening. She glanced into the rearview mirror, tilting it down so she could look at her incapacitated passenger.

She'd let Jackie out at a tourist trap near the edge of Superior. Her friend had graciously given up her car and volunteered to find her own way back to her parents place. Undoubtedly it would be watched, but they weren't pursuing her; they wanted Claire.

Reaching back, she took Rob's wrist and felt for his pulse. The faint beat of his heart reassured her that he still lived. She stole a glance at him. He still looked terrible, but his color slowly returned. Dark blood splattered Jackie's backseat with stains that Billy Mays would have difficulty removing. Most of the serious wounds had clotted by now. At first, she feared he might have simply run out of blood, but Rob proved tougher than anyone else she'd ever met, and he healed unusually fast, even if the burn marks seemed to fade slower than other damage.

Claire turned back to the road. Her head was a mess and her stomach roiled like a bundle of raw nerves and self-doubt. She wasn't sure why she was even doing this: following some vague clue, the last words of a dying, homeless man. Part of her felt she should just go back and tell her fiancé everything—he would surely understand! My heart tells me that he loves me! This is probably all be Vivian's doing, maybe she's involved in some kind of conspiracy through her government agency?

She pushed the thoughts from her mind. She couldn't make decisions based on her desire to be back in her relationship of comfort... or because she feared the man in her backseat, either. Her thoughts drifted to the recurring dream of the wolf attack. I wonder if the dream is a premonition—a warning? Am I running towards even more danger as I'm fleeing?

There was that self-doubt flaring up again—the words in her head didn't even sound like her voice—she barely knew who she was anymore. Claire didn't know if her sanity was assured, Professor Jecima's hand slap aside.

Rob mumbled something incoherently. Her ears perked up as she tried to make sense of his syllables. She had little desire to listen to the radio, her only other potential distraction.

"...don't understand... Tesseract... Have to tell... know before the end... I love you!" Rob writhed like a man with a fever. He rambled like one too.

The voyeurism made Claire blush. It felt a bit like reading someone else's diary. His fevered state reminded her of a trip to Africa with her father; he'd caught a virus that gave him such a high temperature that he raved like a madman for two days.

"...going to die... Bithia... Everything's going to burn... will always love you. Claire."

Hearing her name, Claire's resolve broke and she turned on the radio. But for most of the next hour, Rob lapsed back into a sweaty quiet.

. . .

The gentle rocking of waves lulled Rob out of his sleep. His eyes fluttered and then opened. He grimaced against the harsh, white sunlight that blinded him as he came around.

Groaning, Rob recognized that he'd returned to the land of the living. He found himself in the backseat of Jackie's car. His voice barely managed more than a whisper, "Where are we?"

Claire turned around from the driver's seat. "On the Island Queen ferry: Halfway between the mainland and Madeline."

Rob pulled up the remnants of his bloody shirt and looked at his chest and abdomen. They still bore bruises and wounds from his battle with the vyrm assassins. Two fresh, bright red burn patches radiated pain through his rib cage. "What is this?"