by Ken Rivers
She turned, and her eyebrows lifted in surprise but she still avoided direct eye contact. I grabbed the sheets that had been pushed into a ball at the edge of the bed and threw them on the floor. “So, get back over here and finish what you started.” I said, staring down at the blood-engorged cock she had given me and smiled.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, crossing her arms and looking back outside to the escape she must have fled to countless times.
“Look at this, will you? This thing can’t lie.” I presented my rock-hard cock to her. “I assume you know how these things work. This means I fucking WANT you. I’ll show you how beautiful you are if you just give me the chance.”
She finally took a step towards me, arms hanging limp at her sides, a flat expression on her face but eyebrows still raised, head cocked to the side. It was like she hadn’t seen a human or a cock before.
“Lana, let me love—”
She covered the distance to the bed instantly, dust flying in her winged wake. Pushing me onto my back, her pussy dripped on my swollen balls and rigid erection.
Slipping it inside of her without hesitation, her thighs quivered while she clenched down on me. Her cheek brushed against mine, her whisper swirling along the grooves of my ear. She smelled like the spring breeze back home.
“I can’t promise this will change anything between us when we are done,” she said. “My duty binds me to Tawa in ways you can’t understand. But, I can’t leave without knowing if you speak the truth…”
That was the first time she hadn’t called him brother.
My hands slid up her body and over her breasts, nipples not giving an inch under the push of my hands against them. “Right now, there is no world, it’s just you and me. I’ll take you away from it all.”
She pulled back and looked down at me, “I want to believe that, at least once in my life.”
I pulled her head toward mine and her kiss was as cherry-sweet as the promise of our time together. She hugged me close the rest of the night, never taking her eyes off me. Her emerald-green hair fell around me, blocking out the world and becoming an alien sky just for us to share.
13
A cool breeze blew in through the open window over my naked body. Shivering, I reached around for the blankets. Fog tinged the edges of my vision. The blankets were in a pile on the floor. Down filling slipped through my fingers from the shredded mattress. Her empty pillow lay untouched next to me.
I had lost track of how long we rolled around together. I could still feel the slip of her feathers on the tips of my fingers. My thumb rubbed against them in the light of the stubby candle and the false dawn outside my window. The cavern was a little less dark.
To me, the light’s origins were a mystery , like so many other things since arriving as uninvited guests. The glow of the Life-Tech she’d placed on my arm reflected in the window.
Why did she want this on me? Was she merely doing her brother’s bidding? Was this all a trick? Blackmail? I didn’t fucking know. I could’ve taken it off right there if I wanted but the pain in my side was gone. I didn’t feel my organs boiling, either. I felt a little relief looking at it—a piece of familiarity I could put my faith in.
My thoughts returned to Lana. Nobody shakes and grinds like she did if they aren’t completely taken with you. In need of you. Nobody goes through that and comes away uncompromised. Whether I was merely a one-night stand or not, she had enough resolve left to leave my offer of love on the tattered bed. Did she look back at me before she left?
I wondered then what would happen if Tawa Yen found out that I had slept with his sister. Imprisonment for the girls, some horrible drawn-out death for me, and any number of Levani-type social shaming rituals and punishments for Lana. Maybe he knew exactly what his sister would do. But if he didn’t, to see the look on his face would be priceless.
Three light taps on my door sent me scrambling for my clothes. I threw the Swiss cheese blanketing back on the bed and slid into my pants.
B called through the door, forceful as ever. “They brought us breakfast but won’t fucking leave until we all sit down at the table together. Come down.”
I froze. I might have made a little too much noise last night. “Be right down!”
I threw my shirt and jacket on and slid the sleeve over the device. I wasn’t worried about the girls seeing. I had experience with black-market tech and this shit was on another level. But the basic rule of thumb never changed, the fewer people who knew about it the better.
Out the door, down the stairs, and into the dining room I hurried, where Pusi, B, and three Jian-Di stood.
“Where’s Yari?” I asked.
Pusi cleaned her coat, dragging the back of her hand over her ears. “Gone. Early morning. Say it fine. Say she want time by self.”
Shit. I hoped it wasn’t because of last night.
B sat at the table, looking at the guards and buttering some toast. “So, how was she?”
“That loud, huh?” I smiled, awkwardly.
“Not really. I can sleep through anything, which is why I had to be up to make sure the recorder was working.”
“Seriously, spy cameras, again?”
“Obviously, that’s the best option, but I had to settle for audio this time. She sounded like she had planned to fuck you for a while. I asked you how it was because I hope you blew her mind enough to thwart whatever shit she is probably scheming with Tawa.” She coughed. “So, how was it?”
I felt the Life-Tech quietly regulating away, matching with my heartbeat but manipulating the flow as well.
“It wasn’t all bad.”
“That’s not good enough, Mark.”
“I mean, if she wasn’t totally into it, she fooled the shit out of me.”
“Yet, she didn’t stay. She rustled around in the room before leaving though. Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?
“Come see for yourself.”
We walked up to the room and from the window could see one of the guards had gone outside to keep an eye on us.
“That’s unsettlingly thorough,” B said.
I pointed to the damage. “It looks bad, but the sex was great.”
“No, I mean our friend outside. They’re making sure we don’t leave without them knowing.”
I stepped toward her and pulled up my sleeve.
She didn’t flinch when she saw it. “Strange play. And you’re not melting to death. Why?”
“That’s what I thought. The pain in my side has subsided as well.”
“Maybe they’re trying to get rid of you? Easier for them to bring her into the fold if we leave. I don’t like it. Can you take it off?”
“I can. But then there’s the whole death thing. I thought I’d just keep it on until Yari can work on me.”
“But, they can track you with it. At least, CONTROL should be able to.”
“I don’t think the Jian-Di are worried about that, anymore. They’ve been able to manipulate the tech without expertise or training. It’s inconceivable. Even you couldn’t learn what I know regardless of how bad you wanted it.”
“Don’t underestimate a girl with drive,” she winked. “But, you’re right. Tawa wears one and he’s the most invisible guy on the planet. CONTROL would give anything to find someone as dangerous as him, but they can’t.” She looked out the window again. “Keep it on for now. I want to see how this plays out. It might give us some insight into how such a psycho has remained totally off the criminal map and hidden from the Enforcers for so long.”
“I’ve been so fucking weak since this all started at the temple. I feel good for a change. I might be worth something in a fight, now.”
“Don’t forget, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. Let’s get out of this room before they start some horrible rumor among the Jian-Di about you and I doing something inappropriate.”
“I’m not averse!”
“Shut up, lover boy.”
We met Pusi downstairs and finished up breakfast before heading out. The guard escorted us back through the geometric street design to Tawa’s meeting hall. Inside, Tawa stood with Yari.
“See, dear sister, a man of my word. Your friends have arrived unmolested.”
“You definitely have a way with words, Tawa.” I looked to Yari. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, Mark. Thank you,” she said, but she was being purposefully flat-toned.
“Go ahead,” Tawa said, “ask him.”
“Ask me what?”
Tawa stuck his nose up at me and gloated, “Oh, it’s nothing, really. Just an in-house act of childish impulses. My spies tell me a little bird flew in through your window last night. I do hope you enjoyed her.”
“So, it’s true?” Yari had her hooks in me and she wasn’t letting go.
“Yes,” I said, “I made the kind of love to her that a Levani could only wish for last night. It was obvious to everyone that this dickhead here would try something to drive a wedge between you and us. If Tawa—”
She set her jaw and cut me off with one quick breath. “Show me your arm, Mark. You know I don’t care about that at all. She needs love more than most. I’m happy she found some with you. I was pretty sure I had, too.” She swallowed hard and locked those beautiful emerald eyes on me. “What I’m asking is, why do you have the device on? Why haven’t you taken it off? You doubt my promise to heal you that much?” the hurt in her voice was clear.
“What!? Not at all. My pain is gone, so it works. I’m a dead man walking. You should understand more than anybody how fucked I am.”
She was fuming. “Have you been fucked since I saved you? Fucked means dead in the dirt last time I checked, and you don’t look dead to me! So how fucked are you!?”
I tried to calm her down. Tried to smooth out the mistake I didn’t even know I’d made. “Yari, it’s a bandage, nothing more. I still need you to heal me. I still need you. You don’t know that already?”
“I pledged my life to help you. A life debt! But here you are, taking the help of another over mine. You don’t even know what you did but I’ll tell you. You threw away all I gave you when you accepted that woman’s device. You should’ve cast it to the ground. You don’t know how long it will keep the black at bay. I was here giving everything to you, giving you my heart and soul and hope and you just… Can’t you understand me a little?”
Tawa put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s as I told you, you shouldn’t expect him to understand our ways. He is a creature of simple habit and short-sighted thought. Maybe with time, he could study and understand our ways. But as you can see, he hasn’t even tried.”
“Yari, don’t listen to this dickhead,” I said, “he’s just using you.”
She shoved me hard, “And you’re not?”
“Please, Yari. I wouldn’t have left it on if I knew you would react like this. I’m stumbling in the dark here with all this culture shit. Don’t you know how I feel about you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t. You say you care for me. But the thinking that led to that shit on your wrist says you don’t. Because you don’t think things through. You don’t do the most important thing we Levani find so simple. How can you possibly know how you feel for me if you can’t do such a simple thing?”
I was flat-footed. “Why can’t you give your human half a chance? Get out of your mind about all this and just go with your feelings. For me?”
Tawa came down the steps from his seating area and his shit-eating grin engulfed the room like some sightless maw swallowing up feed. “It’s clear that we all have a lot to think about. Yari needs some time to come to her own conclusions. Trust me, human, she’s too hot to handle right now.” He looked around, admiring his work. “My dear, I must speak with your friend alone. You don’t need to decide everything all at once. We can talk when I get back.” The words oozed through his grin.
I had to give it another shot. Maybe if I pushed just a little more, she would see. “Yari, my love comes from here, see? My heart. Not my head. If you could just—”
“No, Mark. Genetically, I’m half-human, but epigenetically I’m Levani, and you have to respect that. I think I deserve the time to figure out if you can actually do that or not.” She turned to Tawa, “Thank you.”
Pain and confusion followed her out the front door and we were left with the reason why showing us his perfect teeth.
He beckoned for us to follow. We walked out through the houses and over to the side of the cavern walls where he opened a door leading down into the rock that was well-lit with torch fire.
“I don’t think you should go,” whispered B.
“What choice do I have?”
Tawa glided over to me. “I don’t give you much of a chance with Yari at this point, she’s a woman with her own opinions mixed with a calling to her people that you can’t really ever imagine. But nevertheless, if you wish to see her or my Lana again, human, come with me. We have much to discuss.”
I followed him down the smooth steps into a long hallway hewn from the rock of the floating island.
He spoke to me freely as we walked. “I’ve been alive for a long time. Like these floating islands, so much is left hidden unless you dig. Some of it is wonderous and some of it forgotten, left better for dead…” He headed deeper still, down a second set of stairs.
“I have to hand it to you, I’ve never seen Lana so happy. While I’m sure you’ll take some pleasure in that, the sad truth is that humans tend to make women a more complicated matter than they need to be. Dirty business, I know, letting my sister think she was doing something without my knowledge. But, with the desired result achieved,” he tapped my Life-Tech, “trust me, you’ll see that I’ve done you a favor. I am not one for diplomacy, especially with women. They have a role to play, as do I. But in certain situations, with certain timing, they have more value than I wish to admit. Yari, in particular, is one of these certain cases. If you play your cards right, you’ll walk out of here alive. Keep up now, I have something to show you.”
We entered a room with a flat stone wall. It looked almost machined in its smoothness. Tawa snapped his fingers and the rock sank into the ground, revealing a massive domed structure that stretched out into the blackness. Glass separated us from the inside, where I saw that the mists were heavy against the walls.
“I’ve been working on a lot, for longer than you would believe.” He placed his hands together and his black arm turned from grizzled hardened skin to a flowing obsidian liquid. The floor shook with a belching roar from the mists. A mass of black limbs and silver skin burst forth from the fog. The dome was barely enough to contain the monster that orbited by us. It slammed into the wall and slid down in front of the glass until one great eye stared at us, its bone-white iris marked with a dilated and veined red pupil focused on Tawa.
He stood bathed in the crimson and black of the Kaiju’s eye. “I love the big ideas,” he said. “Ideas like ‘forever’ and ‘immortal’. They have so many meanings. For you and your ilk, it means littering the ether of space with meticulously designed trash, so much so that it touches the lives of every species in the galaxy. So much so that it deforms cultures and peoples to look less like themselves, and more like you. You see it as a triumph. All I do is live to disagree with you, every second of every day.”
He slipped his cloak off, unbuttoned his tunic and unsheathed his ravaged arm. The quiet rhythmic pulse of the Life-Tech spilled red onto his chest.
“There comes a point, if you’re a man of action like I am, where speaking of right and wrong becomes nothing more than a useless prayer to some disinterested god. When a father,” he choked up and had to catch his breath. His chest puffed outward and his shoulders swung back in reverence. “When a father sees the inevitability of a course of action, he moves past all obstacles. Always forward. And the children follow.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
He touched the glass and the creature�
��s purr rumbled softly through the walls. “Yari will choose to stay with us. You will agree to not interfere with that, and I will let you and your friends leave in peace. She must think she chose this for herself.”
“What if she chooses us?”
“In such an unlikely event, she will join all who have come before her in the embrace of our Mother. She will have the rest of her life to live in peace among the mists. In short, you can trust that I will offer her freedom… You needn’t worry about her.” His whole being stood locked in front of the unstoppable gaze of the monster and the deep pride he felt for his ideas. “Which brings me to your wound and the Life-Tech. Do you know what happens when Levani blood magic bypasses your so-called technological genius?”
I felt the trajectory of the conversation veer quickly. I still needed time to smooth things over with Yari but Tawa was trying to shut the door on that forever.
Like the ubiquitous sales-men who slimed their way to countless sales over the centuries, I gestured to the monster like I would if I was trying to sell a new rail-bike. “I never thought I’d see a real Kaiju. It’s impressive.”
He was more than eager to talk about his prize. “It will be…in time. So much has been sacrificed to get to this point. This is only a—”
Tawa’s silhouette shifted as I watched the Kaiju’s eye turn from him and focus on me. For the first time in addressing me, he looked completely baffled and lashed out at me. Bands of unseen steel twisted around me and held me fast up off the floor. His arm had turned all to spikes and jagged edges.
“What are you?” he hissed.
“Just your neighborhood handyman.” I felt the Life-Tech device crush under the pressure and the pain flooded back into my side.
He hurried from the chamber, dragging me in his wake.
My boots and bones ricocheted off the descending walls and floor. We exited the hallway onto a ledge overlooking a black pit. The same mists that swirled around the gorge we traveled into, and that the Kaiju lived in, hung thick all the way to the edge on the other side of the hole.
