Children of Enochia

by Luke R. Mitchell

  “That’s it for now,” Parker said a few seconds later, withdrawing his mouth from the beaker and cleaning his lips with a few wet smacking sounds before offering the container out to Therese. “Administer this to the others once you confirm it’s working in the girl. A few drops per patient should suffice.”

  Therese took the beaker, staring dazedly at the green liquid inside. “A few drops per…” She shook her head. “Alpha, this is so gropped up.”

  She could say that again.

  I was looking numbly from Annabelle to Therese, feeling like I owed someone an apology for all of this, but Parker perked up before I could decide who.

  “They’re moving in,” the raknoth said. “Ground floor. All entrances. I believe they have us surrounded.”

  “Rooftop?” I asked, clicking off my cloaking pendant to feel for myself. Parker shook his head just as my extended senses found the legionnaires sweeping down from above.

  “Northern windows,” Parker said, with what could only be described as a villainous, scud-eating grin. Then he turned and crouched to offer me my piggyback seat.

  “Gropping scudbuckets,” I grumbled, climbing onto the raknoth’s back. I looked back at Annabelle one last time and said a small prayer before turning to Therese, who was watching us with that dazed look, the beaker clutched absentmindedly to her chest. “Sorry to put you through this, Therese. I just hope it works.”

  She couldn’t seem to find her words, so I just waved goodbye.

  “Stay safe, Therese.”

  That, at least, earned me a frantic bark of laughter from the frazzled scientist, which was probably fair enough, seeing as I was fixing to ride a raknoth into battle. And that raknoth was raring to go. No sooner had I said the words than Parker started running, not bothering to tell me to duck my head through the doorway.

  “Be careful!” Therese’s cry poured into the hallway after us—right as Parker began picking up speed, headed straight for the duraglass window at the end of the hall.

  Careful. Sure.

  This time, at least, I had a moment to think about softening the blow for us. I cast my will out, forming a mental construct not unlike my barriers, but exceptionally more pointy in all the right places. Probably, I should’ve communicated as much to Parker, but he wasn’t slowing down to ask questions. If the advance wall of our mini lances surprised him, though, he didn’t show it.

  We punched through the window and emerged from the second floor of the engineering lab like one of those ancient black powder cannon balls. Normally, it might’ve been the kind of exit that would leave even trained legionnaires gaping—at least for a second. The forces surrounding the building, though, had clearly been warned to expect the ridiculous. And there were a lot of them.

  The lot beneath us roared with gunfire, and I felt the smacking sting of multiple slugs testing my armor skin before I got our barrier in place. I almost wished I hadn’t. I was half-unconscious with the effort by the time we crashed down on the next building over.

  “If you could refrain from getting shot so much,” I growled, trying to catch my breath in the ground fire lull, only to be rewarded with a few choice sniper rounds.

  Parker—who wasn’t doing so hot either, judging by how he’d handled the landing—let out a growl of his own and started pounding his way across the rooftop. “I would be happy to explain the limitations of controlling ballistic flight to you once we’re—scud.”

  I saw it an instant after he must’ve heard it, and my insides shriveled.

  They’d broken out the heavy artillery.

  The telltale flare of a missile streaked toward us from the northeastern watch tower, flying faster than even a raknoth could hope to match.

  “Go faster!” I shouted anyway. Probably unnecessarily, as Parker gave up on sprinting and pounced for the end of our building in a low leap that carried us a good thirty yards and landed Parker right on the lip of the rooftop, tensed to spring.

  “No!” I cried. “Not up!”

  But it was too late. We were already sailing skyward in Parker’s highest leap yet. A deafening boom and a slap of hot air from behind silenced my protests. We continued flying upward, high enough and far enough that we would clear the perimeter wall, I saw. High enough, a glance backward confirmed, that my protests hadn’t been unfounded.

  For the next three or four seconds, we might as well have been sitting targets for the ground teams. And they didn’t waste time.

  Another pair of missiles screamed after us from among the legionnaires on the ground, some of whom I could only imagine had been waiting their entire lives to blow a pair of demons out of the sky with a nice, big tracking missile.

  Happy day.

  “Stop them,” came Parker’s voice in my mind.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out which them he meant, staring back at those twin flares of death streaking toward us, tracking our trajectory as we reached the apex and shifted into the long descent. The question was how in the ever-loving scud I was supposed to do that.

  “Overload the electronics,” Parker snapped, apparently sensing my dilemma.

  I didn’t have time to question it. I aimed at a spot between us and the speeding projectiles, and I let loose with the most intense electromagnetic pulse I could channel. Whether it was a good shot or not, I couldn’t say.

  All I know is that the missiles were entirely too close when they detonated.

  14

  Allies

  To say the world became a confusing blur after our friendly tracker missiles exploded halfway up our collective ass would’ve been an understatement. For one thing, it would’ve entirely missed the artfully varied and delectably exquisite collection of pains, aches, and general discomforts that pervaded my body over the next bleary however long.

  For another, it would’ve failed to adequately explain how I eventually found myself once again draped over Alton Parker’s arms like a helpless scudboots, staring up at a dancing canopy of leaves as the raknoth carried me into the forest.

  The forest?

  The Arkonian Forest to the northeast of Haven, my missile-shaken brain offered. Right. That made sense. Because they’d be chasing us, right? A glance past Parker’s shoulder said yes. Especially since that indeterminable stretch of dazed, disoriented world-blurring had apparently only lasted a few minutes, tops.

  We were barely fifty yards into the trees.

  Close enough that I could still see bits of Haven through the trunks and branches and brambles. And close enough that I could just make out the first of the tracker’s skimmers hovering up from the distant landing pads—most likely on their way to come see about that traitorous Demon of Divinity and his dastardly new ally figure, Alton gropping Parker.

  All great reasons to run.

  But there was something else, too. A voice echoing over the tall perimeter walls from the base-wide amps of Haven. A voice that lit a fire somewhere between my chest and my kill button.

  “Auckus,” I growled, rolling out of Parker’s arms.

  He didn’t try to stop me, nor did he try to catch me when I collapsed straight to my knees, my head floating on thick waves of dizzy nausea.

  “If you’re done now,” Parker said, “we really must be going. I don’t think those skimmers are coming to say hello.”

  I held up a hand for silence, trying to listen in more closely. The sound from the amps carried well enough that I felt like I should’ve been able to make sense of it, but between the trees and competing echoes, the overall distance, and the steady ringing in my ears, Auckus’ voice only came to me in snippets.

  “—relieved of command… light of… including heresy and high treason, just to… interim, the high command… acting High General until such a…”

  “Is he saying what I think he’s saying?”

  “To know that, I believe I would have to know what you think he’s—”

  “Parker,” I growled.

  He sighed. “It sounds as though High General Auckus has had qu
ite an ambitious day. Perhaps we shouldn’t allow him to add bagging our heads to the list of achievements.”

  Then I hadn’t misheard.

  High General Auckus.

  I felt sick.

  “Glenbark.”

  “Sounds to have been peacefully relieved of duty, pending trial.”

  “We have to go back.”

  He said nothing, just stalked over, clearly intending to scoop me up again. I scrambled to my feet and woozily staggered away.

  “Don’t be a child, Haldin. We have zero chance of doing any of your friends any good back there. We need to…”

  But I was barely listening, busy instead with opening my palmlight, which thankfully still functioned, and swiping up my messages.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Elise’s name there, and then another one as I read the message.

  <>

  I read the first word over and over, trying to calm my breathing. Safe. She was safe. And with Johnny, James, and Franco? Probably. Clearly she’d been in a hurry in sending the message. That only made me wonder what Phineas had told them, and if he and Therese would be safe as well—not to mention Four and Eight, and Glenbark herself.

  Sweet Alpha, how had this happened?

  “Answer,” came Parker’s voice from just behind me.

  I looked at him, feeling off balance in a way that had little to do with my explosion-rattled brain. In the distance, I could feel the trackers approaching—not in my extended senses, but somewhere deep in my gut. Coming for us like the monsters in the dreams where you can never look back, only run.

  “Answer her,” he repeated, “and then we go, no palmlights.”

  It was downright annoying, how often he was right about these things. I knew for a fact the Legion could easily track my palmlight. There was no way I could bring it with us. For that matter, it seemed a slim shot that Elise had held on to hers once she’d sent that message, so I made sure to direct my reply to her public ID rather than to her specific device. Franco and Elise would both know more than a few ways to access it without getting themselves caught.

  It was only once I had the blank message open and at the ready that I realized I had no idea what to say. What could I possibly say? I certainly wasn’t safe. And after seasons of fighting to protect Enochia and dig ourselves out of the hole we’d landed in when the raknoth came, our entire world had just come burning down without warning.

  “Haldin.”

  I looked at Parker, knowing that we had to move, and swiped out the basics.

  <>

  Alton was already holding out his hand for my palmlight. I stripped the bracelet off and handed it over. He crushed the device in his bare hand like it was made of cheap plastwall.

  It was only as I watched my palmlight bend and crack to useless scrap that I realized I wasn’t even positive where Elise had meant by where we first met. Not Franco’s old place. No way. Because that would be suicide if they were looking for us. It had to be somewhere else. Somewhere—

  “Let’s move,” Parker said. I turned to find him facing me, arms held out, offering to carry me. Beyond the dense green canopy, I could just make out the sound of approaching skimmers.

  I considered Parker’s offer, then turned for the heart of the woods and started running.

  “Too often, you confuse stubbornness for moral righteousness,” came his voice beside me as he fell in, keeping effortless pace.

  For a second, I considered channeling the energy to tap into the speed I’d discovered in Humility and remind him that I wasn’t just another hapless human, but I was at least coherent enough to recognize how petty and pointless that would be. Especially since my stomach threatened to void its contents at the simple thought of channeling at all.

  “Call it what you want,” I grunted between breaths. “I need to know what’s in your head, but I’m not gonna let a monster pretend like he’s the good guy just so I can rest my tired legs.”

  He just shook his head at that, so condescendingly that I could’ve punched the glib bastard, but at least he didn’t start prattling out loud about how a foolish little hatchling like myself couldn’t possibly hope to understand the complexities of his superior experience and morality.

  In fact, thinking about it as we plunged through the forest side by side, it almost seemed like a small kindness, the way the raknoth had bade me to answer Elise before the admittedly necessary act of destroying my palmlight. Almost like he cared. Almost.

  Devious.

  That was all I could think, ducking branches and vaulting fallen logs, the raknoth beside me every step of the way. Alton Parker was a devious serpent, and I’d be a fool to forget that his every breath was carefully calculated.

  Still, this was all going to be for nothing if those trackers brought a legion down on our heads. It was hard to ignore the baying of the hounds back at the edge of the forest, maybe half a mile behind now, or the silent weight of the skimmers I knew would be overhead, making slow sweeps with their thermal scanners.

  “This is foolish,” Parker said a few minutes later, drawing to a pointed halt beneath a stony outcropping at the side of a burbling stream. “They’ll be on us within the hour at this rate. Sooner.” He extended his arms, offering again. “Do not be a child. There is far more at stake here than your pride.”

  So there it was. We’d made it about a mile before the shots at my intelligence and naivety came out. But there was no sense fighting it. He was right. I wasn’t getting any less tired, he was a physically unparalleled alien being who was, by all appearances, indefatigable, and the hounds were getting closer by the minute.

  Honestly, I was surprised he hadn’t just attempted to snatch me up and make a break for it yet. Whatever he might think of my cognitive capacity, Parker at least seemed to be cautious of risking direct conflict with my abilities. Or maybe that was just what he wanted me to think.

  Either way, we were running out of time to argue.

  I pointedly stepped past his extended arms and hopped onto his back instead. Call me a stubborn human, but if I was going to ride a villainous raknoth through the woods, I was at least going to do it on my own terms.

  If Parker took qualm with the small defiance, he didn’t say anything. He just shifted to settle me in, told me to hold on, and took off up the stream bed like the Great Demon himself was nipping at our heels.

  “So did you have a plan?” I asked some hours later, trying to hide my labored breathing as I stopped to tighten my boots. “Or were you thinking we’d just keep walking around in the woods until I starve, or those trackers finally catch up with us?”

  Parker looked back from the rocky bluff overlooking the river we’d just reached, his usual smirk firmly in place. “Do I look like a man with a plan?”

  “Only if I’m comparing you to Auckus and the High Cleric and whoever else was responsible for whatever the scud just happened back there. In which case, yeah, I’d say you look exactly like a… person with a plan.”

  It was the first either of us had spoken in a long while. After escaping Haven, Parker had carried me for at least an hour, maybe more, and we’d shared little but insults throughout. Insults, and Parker’s steady insistence that we should go a bit further before slowing down. I estimated we’d covered a good twenty-five miles of woodlands at his daunting raknoth pace before he’d finally declared it safe for me to proceed on my own two feet.

  My jostled hips and chafed thighs had been grateful for the news. The rest of me, on the other hand…

  “So where are you taking us?” I asked, finishing with my boots and fixing him with a hard stare.

  It’d seemed all along like he’d had some destination in mind. I just couldn’t figure out where, especially not once we’d turned southeast a few miles back. Parker, of course, was being Parker about it, and saying only that he was trying to keep us out of the path of the trackers.

  Had I not
been on the run from the Legion and pretty much everyone else, with nothing but the clothes on my back and a shifty raknoth at my side, I probably would’ve put my foot down sooner. As it was, now seemed the perfect time.

  Parker frowned at me and strolled over to sit on a smooth gray boulder before answering. Below, I felt the river flowing by, out of sight but still present in the roar of its waters and the refreshing kiss of the cool, misty air wafting over from the bluff’s edge.

  “I’ll admit,” the raknoth finally said, “I have been holding something back.”

  “Imagine my surprise.”

  He flexed his fingers, and I tensed a little to see his claws emerging. “Forgive me for not tripping over myself to share my every thought and secret with a child who bickers at even the simple thought of being carried. The information was not relevant until we’d cleared the trackers.”

  I held his gaze, refusing to flinch or rise to the bait. “And you’re sure we are clear?”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t heard a hint of our pursuit since we changed bearing. As for your earlier complaint, if your poor body requires nourishment, perhaps you should go catch a hare and tend to that. I’m sure it’s within your capabilities. This may take me a few minutes.”

  I wanted to ask him what the scud he was up to, but I was pretty sure he’d just enjoy the verbal exercise. Frustrating as it was, though, in some twisted way, Parker’s slithery abrasiveness was almost comforting. As long as I knew we were still only a few short words away from a fight at any given moment, it almost felt like the world wasn’t coming to an end around me. Almost.

  “Parker.”

  He surfaced from whatever thought he was having and turned a serious look my way. I listened to the rushing water below, searching for the words, and not particularly wanting to find them. Would that I could simply relish the wonderful peace of this place instead.

  “Was it you?” I finally asked.

  His face gave nothing away as he cocked his head in question.