I realized with some surprise that the pain in my foot was almost gone. I was standing again. Not just standing, but put my full weight on a foot that didn’t feel broken any more, preparing for another run at the door.
"Not the foot this time, the shoulder," I shouted. And then I was running and the door was all I could see before I hit it and everything went black.
“Wake!”
Her command was followed by a burst of adrenaline that popped my eyes open. I was laying on top of the door, one of them, surrounded by green shards; the other stood undisturbed. I lay there for a moment collecting myself. A couple of pointed shards were making the floor uncomfortable but I was in no hurry to get up. My shoulder throbbed gently if distantly. Something else broken I wondered? If we made it to this Kailex, would there be anything left of me to arrest him?
"Why do you dawdle? The pain is manageable."
Dawdle? Kat was going to be frustrating to work with. I picked myself up. "Now where?" I was looking down a long hallway that stretched on forever. It was well lit with soft, natural lighting.
"You’re in a corridor and there are no doors. Where do you think you should go?" She sounded exasperated. That wasn't good. I decided to pick up my pace before she threw me in the box again.
"Right, right." I picked myself up and began jogging easily down the corridor. The pain in my foot was gone. Even my shoulder felt fine. Somehow I’d healed in minutes. I couldn't help but feel amazed.
"Faster!" She urged.
My adrenaline levels spiked and I found myself running down the hallway at an impossible speed. My every movement was quicker; more than humanly fast. My breathing was deep but faster. I felt warm and was sweating profusely. I wasn't sure if Kat was helping or hurting me.
“Are you doing this?” I asked. “I feel overly warm.”
“Your Beast helps you. But it’s young and weak still. It heals you, but poorly. It has not learned your body yet.”
I wondered if that was all she was going to give me. It seemed there was more to discuss. I could feel something else moving inside me. It was a part of me but not me. Difficult to pin down. Part of me squirmed at the thought of yet another thing living inside my head. What if it was a real parasite? A worm nesting in my head? I clamped down on that thought right away. I had to concentrate on the moment.
I ran down a corridor that looked like it came from a futuristic movie set. Everything was a pure soft white. Thick, circular ribs every fifty feet provided structural support. Diffuse light emanated from rectangular panels in the supporting ribs. The light was natural and bright. Nothing about the corridor seemed particularly inviting. The overall impression was one of utilitarianism.
“Just how dangerous is this Kailex? I mean, you‘re the local intergalactic sheriff aren't you? You can arrest him and we're done.”
Or zap him with a ray gun, I thought. I did a quick inventory; no ray gun. In fact, no weapons of any kind. What the hell? Maybe Kailex was an accountant gone renegade. Maybe it was what he knew that was dangerous? Maybe. Somehow I knew that wasn't going to be the case.
“Dangerous?”
I heard her chortle like I'd said something funny but pretty much idiotic.
“Your chance of survival was better while you slept. My Beast is old. It can give this body much more than yours, which is young. Now that your Beast is awake, it’s working to build a better body which is why you feel so hot. You will improve over time."
I stopped running, skidding to a halt. The end of the corridor was somewhere beyond my sight line. The building must be immense I'd already covered a lot of hallway. Then reality hit me and I realized I had no clue where I was, or for that matter, what city I was in. I could be anywhere. I was so far down the rabbit hole I couldn't see light at either end. My breathing quickened while I experienced a good old fashioned panic attack.
“You've stopped and your breathing is elevated. Why?”
Her voice was quiet, dangerously so. She was getting ready to change her mind. “Your help so far has been underwhelming.”
“What are we doing Kat? What haven't you told me? And I'm not stopped!” I added quickly. “I just need to know more.”
I needed information. I’d spent a lot of time in the box so I had no real grasp as to what was going on. There was so much I didn’t know. I shook my head in frustration. Why me? I wondered. My life had been good before all this.
My thoughts were interrupted.
“If we had time I‘d tell you everything. But as we've discussed...”
She stopped abruptly. “Wait!” It was a command. I pressed up against the wall and froze. “There’s some kind of gas this body rejects! Our prey has discovered us.”
The corridor was so bright I hadn't noticed the growing whiteness ahead was more than simple light. Down the hall and quickly spreading toward us was a rolling white cloud. Somehow I knew that cloud meant death if it touched me. I turned back and ran the way I’d come.
“Can we survive it?” I asked, already certain of the answer.
“It looks similar to a gas I'm familiar with. On my world we use it to remove waste. It reduces whatever it touches to sub atomic particles. It is very efficient. How are you enjoying our partnership so far?”
For the first time she seemed honestly amused. Great. The thought of being reduced to atoms made her happy. If I died what would happen to her, I wondered? She'd been formless energy when we met. Would she return to that, move on to find another shadow to occupy?
“You sound like a fan of the stuff.” I risked a look behind and saw I was losing ground. I wasn't going to outrun it.
“Efficiency should always be admired. I doubt it will be this that kills us.”
I felt an urge to stop. “What are you doing?”
“You wish me not to compel you?” She sighed. “Then I must point out the obvious. Question less, follow your impulses more. Words are slow. Your Beast is awake and talking to you now. More than anything it wishes to survive. Listen to it.”
That was enlightening.
I tried to decipher what she’d said. Something had made me stop. I had an urge to look up so I did. An air vent above. Possibly big enough for me to crawl through. There was a problem however. The vent was in the ceiling which was fifteen feet above us. I’m tall, about six foot four. To reach the vent I’d have to jump from a standstill at least nine feet into the air. Then I'd need to punch through with tools I didn't have. I looked around; there was nothing I could stand on.
I’d just concluded the vent was not a solution to my problem when I felt my knees flex and I jumped. Immediately I realized my jump would give me more lift than required and threw my arms protectively in front of me. The sheet metal proved to be thin. I went through up to my waist. On the way down I grabbed for a hand hold and got one. I hung there for a moment somewhat stunned by the turn of events before scrambling into the shaft.
“I thought you weren't going to do that anymore,” I said, sounding surprisingly peeved. She'd just saved me from certain death and I was complaining.
“The difference between living and dying is measured in seconds. You took several and did nothing,” was her dry response.
When you're right, you're right.
“Point well taken.”
My lip was bleeding. I must have bit it when I’d jumped. Maybe she was correct. I wasn’t trained for this. The wrong move could get me killed. I didn't think I was up against an accountant anymore. More like an evil genius. How long had she been tracking him? Maybe I was in the way. It didn’t matter. I wasn't going back in the box. I decided to listen and follow my impulses more.
The ventilation shaft was a small corridor in itself. I walked hunched over. Not the most comfortable way to travel but nicer than crawling on hands and knees. Oh yes, the shaft was also white; broken only by thin rectangular light panels that strangely seemed less bright now. A constant draft cooled me for which I gave silent thanks. The speeded up me was also the too hot me. I proceeded do
wn the shaft with as much speed as I could muster until I came to a six way intersection. I could go forward, backward, up, down, left or right.
“What does your Beast say? Let it find what you hunt.”
I tried to listen to what was inside then jumped when something moved. Something that wasn't Kat. It prodded me to go up.
“Up.” I said.
I felt her smile, like she'd taught her pet a trick and it was performing well. I grabbed the first rung and pulled myself up.
Trap! I knew it immediately. Not me. The thing inside me that wasn't me. It moved like a caged animal. Back and forth. Restless. It sensed the trap and howled its warning.
This time it was all me as I dropped and rolled from the open shaft. I felt an instant of pride at my speedy reaction. Then heard the ominous 'thump" of something heavy hitting the exact spot I'd just been. I came to my feet prepared for anything but mostly ready to run. I felt like I could really use a gun or even a dull knife. But all I had was me and that didn’t seem to be enough. Whatever I was hunting, I was doing it with my bare hands and that just seemed stupid.
Then the thing that had made the noise slithered into view and my mind blanked out. In front of me was a snake-like creature, fifteen feet long and perhaps two feet wide. Its skin was covered with a thick armor plating like an armadillo’s that clicked as it moved. I couldn't see its head until it rose from the body, obviously searching for me; Pink tongue darting out, flicking as it tested the air. The head was tiny. It made no move towards me and had no eyes I could discern.
“What the fuck is that?”
“A Tik.” Kat's tone was calm, cold, reassuring. “In my world we make the things we need. Kailex has been playing,” she added. “He’s made a watchdog. A tengi. Be careful of the tongue. Its poison is too deadly for even your Beast to save you.”
I wondered if now was a good time to bring up the fact we were weaponless.
“Should we run?”
There was a moment of silence. “Of course not. Kill it and move on.”
I was about to say something sarcastic when the tengi made what I wanted irrelevant. It sprang towards me, a move that caught me completely by surprise. I had expected it to act like a snake, move like a snake, but it wasn't a snake and didn’t attack like one. I barely managed to catch its head as I fell backwards with it on top of me. I held it a little more than a foot from my face. Abruptly the tongue erupted from its black jaws, only missing me because I turned my head at the last second. I pushed the head farther back. After a couple more attempts at poisoning me it began moving its body up and around mine like a boa would. Now it was fighting like a snake. Then the coils tightened. We rolled and thrashed about for several long minutes while I tried to stop it from killing me. Finally we stabilized with me on my back staring up at the tiny head, the thick tongue stabbing the air repeatedly in front of my nose.
Standoff. Until I took a breath. To take a breath you let the old air out collapsing your lungs. With each outgoing breath the tengi tightened its hold, making succeeding breaths smaller. Despite my body‘s advancements I doubted it could survive on zero oxygen. This wasn’t good! Not a standoff after all.
“Kat, a little help here!” I shouted.
“You’ve put yourself in a bad position. Stay calm. Continue holding the head. Try not to breathe,” was her advice.
The creature was incredibly strong. It was taking a lot of effort to hold it back.
“In case you've forgotten Kat, humans need to breathe. Especially when they're fighting something that shouldn't fucking exist!”
I took a quick breath and let out a grunt of pain when the tengi tightened its hold. I was getting very little air now and starting to see stars at the edges of my vision. As well, the skin of the tengi was covered in hard scales that were digging into my ribs and cutting up my fingers and hands. I took another breath and felt a rib crack! This was death by a hundred breaths. Furiously I began twisting the head. While the body was thick, the actual head was small; breaking its neck was my only chance. I ground it back and forth, stretching the tendons and was rewarded when the creature let loose with its own whistling shriek of pain. I was hurting it but the stars I'd been seeing were everywhere now. This wasn’t going to work in time. Already I felt my grip faltering. This Frankenstein creature was seconds away from killing me.
Suddenly two enormous yellow eyes appeared behind the tengi. Leathery claws snatched the head from my grip while massive teeth tore through the hard scaling. A moment later the head flew over me to roll lifelessly into a corner. The tengi’s body relaxed. I could breathe again. I shoved it off me and struggled back to my feet, eyes carefully locked upon this thing that had appeared. It looked much more dangerous than the tengi.
“Good girl, Belliah!” Kat's voice crowed.
An image of Belliah eating the tengi appeared in my mind. It was gory and amazingly realistic. I felt myself gag. This was a form of communication different from Kat's. This creature used images instead of words to communicate. I hoped she understood the difference between me and the tengi. It was meatier. I was a skinful of bones, comparatively.
Belliah was big. Her appearance partially answered the question as to why I didn't have any weapons. No one in their right mind would want to get on her bad side. She resembled a raptor from prehistoric times except she was lower to the ground and more massive around the shoulders and neck. She also had snail-like red antenna on the top of her head. They moved sinuously, their tips constantly testing the air. She looked down at me. The edges of her mouth pulled back in what might have been a smile but all I saw was teeth. I swallowed. Maybe she preferred bony to meaty.
“No time to eat. Hunt!” The command was sharp and clear.
Belliah gave the tengi an appreciative sniff and vanished the way she'd come. I stepped past the grisly remains while a knifing pain told me I'd heard correctly earlier. I could add at least one broken rib to the injury tally. This was turning out to be really fun.
“Your injuries are draining your strength. Exercise more caution or you’ll need to feed,” said Kat. There was no emotion in her voice. This was business. As I said, she was a practical girl.
“What do you mean ‘need to feed’?”
For some reason it didn’t sound like she was suggesting I stop for a ham sandwich.
“Food should be a concept you’re familiar with.” She laughed and I realized a part of her was enjoying this. “Though you may think differently soon.”
“Your compassion is underwhelming Kat, as is your advice.”
“Remember Nicholas, you asked for this. I would have shielded you from it.” Now she just sounded smug and that made me angry.
“Listen.” I wanted to say "you bitch from hell!" but I held that back and moved on, “I never asked for any of this! All I know is what you've told me. Kailex is dangerous to my world. If he's putting things like this tengi together he doesn't belong here. You’ve convinced me. He’s fucking dangerous and should go back where he came from. Right now that’s my dream. He goes home, you get out of my head; I get my life back! So don’t worry. We’re on the same page.”
“An admirable goal. Yet to be accomplished.” She was getting good at witty retorts.
I picked myself up and hobbled down the shaft. Somewhere up ahead was Kailex. All I had to do was catch him and I could have my life back. That's what she'd agreed to. That's what needed to get done. I wasn't the only one who was going to have a crappy day. His was about to go south.
Chapter Two
This time was like all the others. She was nothing and everything. Around her, a maelstrom of energy surged but she was indifferent to it. It couldn’t touch her. There was nothing physical for it to grab onto, nothing to tear apart, though it reached with hungry fingers anyway. She simply was; suspended in the middle of enormous power. She reached with imaginary fingers for her shield, felt it vibrate into life at the touch of her will. She pinged it, got an answer in return. The sound was high and crystalline. S
he smiled. The sound was right. It meant she was here, but not there. All that was her existed in a moment that was not this moment; so she was safe. She was a mote in an infinite ocean, her mental shield, transparent, curved around her completely.
Lightning forks thicker than her body passed by in a constant on off rotation of spiking energy. While drawn to her the lightning avoided her, as if confused by this bit of life floating in its midst. It was attracted to her power. She‘d been told this as a youngling. For the longest time that had frightened her. To be the center point of so much energy. But no longer. She'd learned to appreciate she was one of the few who could do this; bend time and space with her will alone. She’d been created for this. Only a Hunter could experience this moment, let alone control the transition between dimensions. A sense of pride filled her followed by sadness. This was her three hundred and thirteenth world, none had ever made it so far. The feelings of sadness intensified. Why was this? she wondered.
A Hunter's life was short and hers had been long. She should be grateful. Grateful for emptiness? The thought startled her. Where had that come from? She was not given to maudlin thoughts. Survival depended on strength of mind as well as body. Anything that took from that was to be avoided. Angry with herself she shoved the thought away, began concentrating on the mental exercises that would restore calm and allow her to do what came next. Her pulse quickened despite her calming exercises; what came next was difficult and could even kill her if her thoughts wandered.
A different sound filled the void's brilliant blue. It was deep, like the roll of a drum. The way was opening. On HomeWorld giant machines were ripping a hole into the dimensional gap where she drifted. She gathered her will, waiting. It was important that she timed her response correctly, two lives depended on her exacting actions. She saw the hole; it began as a red swelling to her left. The hole changed colors; red, yellow, green. When it turned green, a thick round projectile exploded out towards her. Deftly she extended her shield outward, at once grabbing hold and protecting it. With effort, she pulled the projectile to her. Good! She sensed the two lives contained within were well, but had thought to confirm before proceeding.
The God Hunters Page 2
