| Sweet And Sour

It took over an hour, but at last, a dented Ford Taurus stopped for them. A woman in her forties with big messy hair waved them over with a silly grin. She smelled of booze and cigarettes. 'I'm going as far as Daley,' she announced. 'That suit you?'

Ava looked at Jack and he saw a flicker of hope on her face. 'That's clear across Washington State! From there we can take the Greyhound bus.'

'Take it where?' Jack asked as he slid into the back seat after her.

'I'll tell you later,' Ava replied. Then whispered, looking at the woman, 'Trust me. No one else.'

'I was supposed to drive on down to meet up with my husband this afternoon,' said the woman in a sixty-a-day voice, 'only a little party I threw got out of hand.' She cackled. 'You kids been partying too, huh?'

'You could say that,' Ava said wryly.

'Well, I'm gunning this engine all the way to make up lost time,' she said. To prove her point she floored the accelerator, and the tires screeched horribly as the car shot away.

Jack wondered what kind of a sound Marcie would make when she found her son dead, and he and Ava packed and gone.

The car rolled on. The vents swooshed out hot air. Soon Jack fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

*****

The day came and went in drowsy snatches. Jack's eyes opened on beige leather upholstery … a clear blue sky out of the fogged-up window … a Taco Bell drive-through, the waitress's voice squawking out of the loudspeaker … Ava's hair spilling down over her shoulders. Her face turned away from him, staring out of the window.

Then it was dark.

Jack awoke in a strange room. Grimy net curtains swelled into the room as the breeze caught them. The wallpaper was busy with faded flowers.

He was stripped to his shorts, sweating and shivering under a flimsy quilt in a narrow bed.

With a low moan, he rolled out of bed and scrabbled at the sheet, certain of what he would see. But the wolf pelt was not back beneath him. The lumpy mattress was stained but bare. He jumped as a door to his right opened.

It was Ava, her hair bundled up into a baseball cap, wearing a baggy shirt and trousers. She held a brown bag of groceries in the crook of her arm and was looking at him oddly. 'You OK?'

Jack nodded. 'I guess.'

'You've had a fever.' She set down the groceries and started to tuck the corner of his sheet back under the mattress. 'Could be your body fighting against whatever my mother's been spooning down your throat for the last month. Or it could be withdrawal symptoms.'

'Thanks, Nurse.' Jack stumbled over to the window hoping for some fresh air but caught instead a lungful of car exhaust from the busy street outside. 'Where are we?'

'Daley. Delivered as the lady promised.'

He stared at her. 'Already?'

Ava snorted. 'It took forever! You may have been ill, but at least you slept through all her gross stories about swinging parties and stuff.'

Jack grimaced. 'How long was I out for?'

'All day. I've checked us into a motel for tonight.' She pulled out two Pot Noodles and flicked the switch on a battered kettle. 'Hungry?'

He gave her a tight smile. 'If it's vegetarian.'

She read the label. 'Sweet and sour.'

'Sounds like the two of us.' He smiled properly this time. 'Though I guess you do have your sweet moments too.'

Ava mimed sticking her fingers down her throat, and Jack grinned. 'Seriously though. Thanks for taking care of me.'

'Runs in the family, I guess. Just don't count on me doing it for a month.'

Jack turned away. 'You know what? Screw you.'

'Hey.' Ava sat beside him, softly. 'Sorry. I've spent the last three years living in chat rooms. I keep thinking you can see the emoticons when I speak.'

Jack turned to her. 'Huh?'

'You know. "Colon-dash-right bracket" equals a smiley face.

"Semi-colon-dash-right bracket" equals a winking smiley face. You know, "This is me joking so don't take offense".' She pulled the relevant faces for him. 'All that stuff.'

Jack nodded and managed a half-hearted smiley face of his own. But his attention was taken more by the way Ava's pale green eyes seemed to glitter even in a dingy motel room.

The kettle clicked off and she turned away. She poured boiling water into the Pot Noodles, stirred them with a teaspoon, and passed one to him. 'Peace offering.'

They shoveled down the noodles in hungry silence.

When she'd finished, Ava passed him a ticket from her purse. 'Better rest up, sick boy. The bus leaves at five o'clock tomorrow and it's a long trip.'

Jack drained the last of his noodles. 'Where to?'

'New Orleans.'

'But that's about two-and-a-half thousand miles away!' He frowned. 'Why New Orleans?'

'Because … ' She leaned forward, an amused smile on her thin lips. 'JJ.'

Jack met her gaze unblinkingly. 'You know, it's hard to look mysterious when you have a noodle sauce mustache.'

She pulled away and made a funny noise. He realized it was the first real laugh he'd heard from her.

'So what's JJ?' he asked as Ava wiped her mouth and checked her reflection. 'Sounds like it should be a chili dip or something.'

'It is a he. Supposed to be some kind of medicine man or witch doctor,' Ava replied. 'I heard he lives in New Orleans, somewhere. And that he can cure newbloods if they've been turned recently enough. JJ means Jarvis Jones by the way.'

'Cure?' Jack's heart leaped. 'So you weren't kidding me about being able to help? This guy is real? Real?'

'Whoa, there. This will not be a cinch, Jack,' Ava cautioned. 'I've no idea where in New Orleans he's supposed to live – or what he looks like. And we can't exactly go around asking for directions to the local witch doctor …' She sat back, thoughtful. 'He's supposed to be like this Obi-wan type for white witches.'

'Alec Guinness or Ewan McGregor?'

Ava grinned. 'Ewan, I hope. I like my Jedi knights young and cute.'

Jack slumped back down on the bed. 'How did you hear about him, anyway?'

She shrugged. 'Conversations online. Years spent posting to extreme possibility newsgroups, or speaking in chat rooms with people who've lived through all kinds of weird shit.'

'Sounds like fun,' Jack remarked lightly.

'Hey.' Ava's lip had curled down in disapproval. 'I'm sure you're Mr. Totally Straight, but my whole life's been an X-File, OK? Only no cute federal agent is coming to save my day. Pardon me if I need to talk to people who don't think I'm nuts or delusional.'

'Okay!' Jack said quickly. 'Jarvis. New Orleans. Thanks. It's a start.'

Ava nodded. 'We can find a web stack on the way. I can look up some of my old e-friends and try to get the latest on him.'

Jack sighed. 'It's going to take us days to get there by bus.'

'Uh-huh. But it's safer than hitching.' She yawned noisily. 'We don't know who's waiting and watching out there.'

'You want the bed?' asked Jack.

'Yeah.' Her willowy body arched gracefully as she enjoyed a lengthy stretch. 'You thought I made it for you? Get real, sick boy. You get the couch.'

She kicked off her boots and pulled herself beneath the covers fully clothed, without another word.

Jack took a spare blanket and sprawled ruefully on the couch. He watched TV with the sound turned down, listening to her breathing grow deeper, more rhythmic. But he couldn't relax. He flicked endlessly from Cartoon Network to CNN, each time convinced he'd see some headline screaming NEW SEATTLE BOY MURDER: COPS HUNT KILLERS or Marcie Dane's face filling the screen, weeping at a press conference with a big picture of Wesley smiling cutely out from behind her.

Jack sigh and turned off the TV. The moon was up high in the sky, and he could feel himself sweating. He told himself to stay calm. Every minute, every hour, right through the sleepless night.