by Lisa Beeson
“Three days later, a fishing boat picked me up, dehydrated and suffering from exposure. Eventually they sent me to a hospital back in France. No one believed my story. Everyone thought I was making it up as a way to process the trauma. They kept saying that it had to have just been a freak storm that sunk the ship. But I knew the truth. I was so insistent on what really happened, and got so angry and prone to violence when no one believed me, that my Godparents ended up putting me in a mental hospital. I was convinced it was some kind of a conspiracy against me, and I would have spent the rest of my life in that hospital if Lothan Kael hadn’t come. He didn’t just believe me, he knew that it was true. He explained what he was and what had really happened to my family and why. Then he told me what I had to do to get myself out of the hospital, and promised that he’d pay for all my schooling and training if I would work for him when I was older. I gave him my word and he kept his. I owe him everything, so I did whatever he needed me to do. And now I’m here to go with him to Anu, so I can find my family and set them free.”
“Oh…,” Cam said, taken aback. He remembered Kael saying something about the Karno coming and snatching up humans, but it hadn’t seemed real until now. No wonder Roche was such a colossal asshole; his whole family had been kidnapped right in front of him to be sold into alien slavery.
“That’s rough, man,” Cam said after a long awkward silence. “But I gotta say it…” He hated being that guy, but, “You know the odds of actually finding your family there are like a gazillion to one.”
“It’s better odds than I’d have staying here.”
Touché, man… touché.
Bloodcurdling screams pierced the night a second before the sound of loud crashes echoed through the jungle, causing birds and animals to scatter away in fright.
Cam dashed up to the others ahead, Roche trailing behind him.
“What was that?” Cam asked in a harsh whisper.
Kael hushed him with a violent jerk of his hand.
More spats of gunfire and screaming rent through air.
Closing ranks around Ari. Everyone except her and Jean-Baptiste had their guns out scanning the area around them.
No more than half a mile ahead, the jungle burst into flames with chill-inducing shrieks. Something was attacking Mara’s people and it wasn’t them. Wyatt hadn’t said anything about any large predators on the island, so what could it be?
The jungle was too dense to see very far, and he dared not focus-in and debilitate his panoramic view. Cam’s heart thudded in a painful march as a primal fear awoke in him – every sense on alert.
“Do you think it’s that beast that was helping us take them out before?” He asked quietly, as the group moved cautiously forward.
“No,” Jean-Baptiste said. “That was me. This is something different.” His uncertainty did nothing to alleviate Cam’s fear.
Ari gasped, her eyes round with fear, making everyone halt with a catch of breath. “Claudia and Zachary are dead, and Asa’s gravely injured, he’s barely holding on,” she breathed out before sifting away.
Kael cursed before sifting after her.
With a bright flash of light, Jean-Baptiste transformed into a ginormous eleven-foot-tall bear. Cam had the impression of long claws, sharp teeth and dark fur before the bear galloped off after Kael and Ari, barreling his way through the jungle.
After a frozen moment of stunned silence, Reid bellowed, “Well, c’mon lads. Spread out and converge. Go, go, go!”
*****
Ari stopped short, a wave of heat and acrid smoke billowing towards her from a fire crawling up a couple trees to her right, Zachary’s charred remains near its edge.
Ari’s gaze flit from the shredded corpse of one of the guards; to a Suit’s headless body; to the cracked open, hollowed-out ribcage of another; to the torn flesh and jagged bone shards where Claudia’s right arm and left leg were savagely ripped from her body.
One of the Jeeps was smashed straight on into a tree, the dead bodies of the driver and Scar-chin still inside. The other guard and the small body of Petra’s brother pinned beneath the other vehicle, flipped over on its side. Unfamiliar, inhuman energy signatures crisscrossed the scene, then took off after Mara, Gregory, Petra and the younger boy’s signatures.
Kael sifted in beside Ari, putting a protective arm around her shoulders as he took everything in.
Ari followed Asa’s trail to the far side of the flipped Jeep, his xjaasa weak and close to fading out. Why isn’t he healing himself?
Sifting over, she found him gasping in shock. His torso propped up against a tree, while the lower half of his body was gone. Just gone. His entrails spilling out in steaming, stinking piles, as he futilely tried to scoop them back into his body. He’d have been long dead if he hadn’t been forcing his heart to keep beating.
Ari knelt down beside him, her roiling stomach threatening to violently expel her last meal, but her focus was too sharp and her shock too strong to allow it. “Asa…?”
He was too far gone to hear her. Ari connected to his fading xjaasa. Asa… there’s no way to heal this. It’s okay to let go.
His hands stilled, while his chest still spasmed and his mouth gulped in air. My kids…, he frantically thought to her. Save them… I’ve already lost three … no more…
What? What are you talking about?
Little Max… then Blake… now Isaac… No more. Save Petra and Paul… please.
Ari knew Asa had a son who died during the war, but her mind had a hard time accepting the fact that he was Blake, Petra, and the other boys’ father as well. That he had been an active part of the Cause’s Selective Genetics program. That he had forced Anita to bear his children.
Forgive me… Everything I did… all of it… was for them…
She had to mentally shake herself to bring her focus back to what was important right now. Okay…, she promised the dying man. I’ll try to save them.
Children were malleable, she justified. There was still a chance for them not to be evil sociopathic little monsters – given the right environment.
The light in Asa’s eyes faded as his head slumped to his shoulder and his xjaasa dimmed to nothing.
“No! Wait! What attacked you? …Asa!” But it was no use, he was already gone.
Ari’s scalp tingled painfully as an inhuman cackle followed by a dry clicking sounds echoed off in the distance to the left. It sent every hair standing on end. She had never heard that sound in real life before, and she never thought to ever hear it on Earth.
Kael stilled beside her. She turned to meet his stricken gaze.
“Kodja…” they both rasped in horror.
Jumping up, she and Kael went back to back, slowly circling, searching the jungle around them. There was a cackle from another location, a dry clicking from another. Ari felt multiple kodja coming from all directions, surrounding them, hedging them in. If Vrahnon, a Magrah trained in Tahrunai, had barely managed to beat just one of these things, what chance did they have against several?
Panicking, her skin and muscles tightened, as her breathing and heartbeat began speeding out of control.
“Steady…” Kael cautioned, as they continued to circle. “Use the fear to help you, not hinder… Focus on what to do, not on what may happen.”
She felt one slinking in closer to their left. Too close. She dared not look, because that was what it wanted. It wanted to draw her attention away from the real threat.
She was preparing to put up a shield, when a thunderous roar made the kodja scatter away like cockroaches.
With a sigh of relief, Ari could feel Jean-Baptiste barreling towards them, but she knew that it was only a short reprieve. Kodja were clever. They would regroup, and after going after some easier prey, they would be back.
“It’s Jean-Baptiste,” Ari said to Kael, a moment before a gigantic bear came bursting through the foliage and ambled straight towards them, his breath chuffing through a large spittle-flecked muzzle.
Well, t
hat explains the eagle and the bear in Alvaro’s visions, Ari thought with a small wry grin, her humor breaking through her fear to preserve her sanity.
Cam and the mercenaries came running into the clearing from all directions, accompanied by a whispered chorus of curses, as they all took in the carnage around them. Taking a quick head count, Ari realized that two of them were missing: Wilson and Ryker. She felt the sting of guilt at how grateful she was that it hadn’t been Cam, Reid or Tauber.
As Adam soared down, he dropped the mangled corpse of a kodja to the ground, causing everyone to jump back in revulsion. Changing back into a man, Adam warily looked down at the beast as he walked over to stand by Ari.
“I found it feasting on Wilson,” Adam said, his silver eyes haunted. “I was too late to save him, and I couldn’t even find Ryker.”
Ari knew what the loss cost him. Like herself, Adam carried his guilt like a penance.
He had managed to twist the beast’s head around, its neck bones jutting out at sickening angles. Even though it was dead, Ari still couldn’t help the spike of fear that ran down her spine as she looked at it.
It was much smaller and thinner than the kodja in Anu. This one was only the size of a large dog instead of the size of a horse like the ones back home. But it had the same black, soulless eyes. The same pale, elongated face that ended in a vicious maw of serrated teeth, with more jaw strength than a crocodile. Its hairless hide was as thick as rhino skin, crowned with a sparse main of dank black hair hanging in stringy clumps down its face and neck. Exposed scythe-like spines erupted from its back, which curved down into its strong gambrel jointed legs. Its long arms ending in fingers tipped with talon-like claws that could slice through metal.
“What in the bloody hell is that thing? Reid asked.
“Chupacabra…” Cam breathed out, his face losing color.
“It’s a kodja,” Ari corrected, sounding braver than she felt. “It’s from Anu.”
“What is it doing here?” Obasanjo asked, his eyes still scanning the jungle around them, trigger finger ready. “And why are they just now attacking everyone?”
“It was the explosions,” Kael said with a scowl, having already worked it out. “They were locked up down in the ruins, left to guard the gate, and all the explosions must have created a way for them to get out. They hate sunlight, so they waited for nightfall before coming out to hunt.”
“I can’t imagine what they’ve been eating all this time.” Ari said, fighting the nausea in her roiling belly. “We must look like a feast to them.”
“Then we should go now,” Roche urged, eyeing the spreading fire warily. “If those things are out here, then the way to the gate should be clear, right?”
“Let’s hope,” Reid mumbled.
Johnson pointed just past the growing wall of fire. “The ruins are that way.”
Ari glanced at Kael, to see if he noticed that Mara, Gregory, and the kids’ signature trails were heading that way as well. He nodded that he did, both of them knowing that the four of them were leading the kodja right back to the ruins.
“Jean-Baptiste, stay as you are for now,” Kael ordered. “Adam can you make a portal to the ruins?”
Adam looked to Johnson for a second – most likely asking him to show him the exact point to portal to – then his eyes met Kael’s and he nodded.
Raising his hand, Adam’s ring, tattoos, and eyes began to glow. The portal opened to show a stream leading into a cave carved with a stylistic aesthetic to look like the awaiting jaws of some massive mythological beast.
Ari could hear Cam’s sarcastic mumble of, “Awesome,” and nodded in agreement.
Jean-Baptiste-bear went through first, with the rest following close behind him.
As they ran through the shallow water, Obasanjo grabbed a large ChemLight from his pack, illuminating the cave with an orange glow. Ari couldn’t help seeing the stalactites and stalagmites jutting from the rock as rows of teeth as they traveled deeper into the throat of the beast.
Walking deeper into the cave, the stream ended in a small pool. The rocky beach beyond it led to a set of stone stairs stylized with the same artistic motifs as the entrance. The stairs curled up the rocky interior to a ledge with an ornate doorway.
Ari’s skin prickled with panic as she felt the heat rising within her. She managed a strangled, “Adam! Jean-” before the heat overwhelmed her with a white-hot discordant scouring of her nerves. A scream tore from her throat as an intense surge of power exploded around her, and everything went dark.
Chapter 34
Cam flew back with a great wave of energy, practically hydroplaning over the shallow water.
The cave shook with a massive rumble, causing stalactites and chunks of rock to break off and fall all around them. There was a gargled scream and a large crash, as Cam’s ringing ears cleared. Struggling to right himself, while dodging falling debris, Cam managed to twist away and tackle Roche out of the way of a falling rock to the relative safety against the cave wall.
When the cave finally settled, he heard Roche mumble, “Merde…,” and saw with a pang of horror, Obasanjo speared through the chest by a stalactite no more the ten feet away from them. Adam and the man-form of Jean-Baptiste were huddled protectively over Ari. Then Jean-Baptiste straightened with her limp and unconscious body in his arms.
“What the hell was that?” Johnson asked, a gash on his forehead leaking blood down the road-rashed side of his face.
“She’s transitioning,” Kael answered, standing up. “We have to get to the gate as fast as we can. The episodes are only going to get worse.” His eyes scanned the cave. “Where’s Tauber?”
“Over here,” Reid’s pained voice called out from behind a large chunk of rock.
Kael sifted, as Cam dashed over to the other side of the boulder. Cam fell to his knees when he saw that half of Tauber’s body was crushed under the rock, his head cradled in Reid’s lap, his eyes wide with shock.
“No, no, no, no…” Cam said as he grabbed Tauber’s hand, needing it not to be true, begging the universe to take it back – Tauber was his mentor, his badass battle-buddy, his surly father figure; he was family.
Kael turned to Adam. “Can you do anything? He’s still alive, can you save him?”
Adam walked over and slowly shook his head. “There’s too much damage, and moving the rock would only make things happen faster. He doesn’t have much time.”
A child’s scream echoed outside of the cave, followed by frantic gunshots.
“And neither do we!” Roche said from where he’d been extracting Obasanjo’s pack from around the stalactite. He tossed Johnson another ChemLight as they both aimed their weapons towards the mouth of the cave.
“Go,” Tauber said in a weak command. “I’ll keep them off,” he rasped, reaching for his gun.
Kael grabbed his riffle and placed it in the man’s shaking hand, making sure his grip was strong and his finger near the trigger.
Cam squeezed Tauber’s hand, feeling completely helpless and lost in a dazed fog. Tauber let go to grab his arm in a desperate grip. “Don’t you dare let her carry this,” he said, staring daggers into Kael and Cam’s eyes. “This is not her fault; don’t let her think it is.”
“We won’t,” Cam promised as Kael nodded.
Visibly relieved, Tauber’s eyes began going in and out of focus. “Good. Now go.”
“You’re one of the best of them,” Kael said with a fierce look and curt nod as he stood up.
Reid took off his vest and gently laid Tauber’s head down on it. “Rest easy, my friend.”
More gunshots sounded from a different direction.
“Enough of this maudlin shite, just go, before it’s too late,” Tauber panted out with a weak smile. “If you make my death a bloody waste, I’ll make your next lives a living hell. I promise you that.”
“Whatever you say, mate,” Reid said, standing up, his smirk quickly morphing into a grimace as he turned his shining eyes away from his
dying friend. “See you in the next one.”
“I have no regrets, so no tears for me,” he said to Cam with a pat on his arm.
Swallowing his tears, Cam nodded as he got up to follow the others up the stairs, pushing the pain away so he could keep going. At the top, he spared one last glance before heading through the doorway at the man crushed beneath the boulder, bravely aiming his rifle at the mouth of the cave, giving his friends a chance to live as his last act before dying.
I can do this… I can do this… Just keep going.
Surrounded by stone, Cam’s night vision was severely handicapped. But by the orange glow of the ChemLites, he could see that the space was large enough for three men to walk side-by-side, and at least a fifteen foot high ceiling. The walls were dusty, with the barest hint of reliefs carved into them.
“Reid, Roche,” Johnson called back, taking a gas mask from a chest next to the wall and putting it on. “Take one of these and put it on. Touch nothing,” he barked out in warning as Cam’s hand came close to brush the dust away from the wall to see the relief better.
Cam stepped away with his hands up as Roche and Reid grabbed masks of their own, and adjusted them to hermetically seal around their faces.
“Do not detour from this path,” Johnson said, his voice muffled through the mask, as they began to descend a steep set of stone stairs. “All the off shoots lead to the tombs of the last inhabitants’ monarchs, and every one of them is booby-trapped.”
