Not human, the creature wasn’t an animal either. Like the landscape around us, she seemed oddly familiar and yet oddly out of sync. Bipedal, covered with a light sheen of fur, her face was mildly cat-shaped, the eyes distinctly feline, but the nose and the lips were human, and the body shape was long and lithe, but humanoid. By the shape of the breasts, I figured the creature was female, but everything else was lost in the flurry of the storm. She appeared to be wearing a loose jumpsuit of some sort.
I stiffened, hand on thigh ready to awaken my whip. I didn’t want to make a move that could be seen as threatening, but I wasn’t about to face down someone who could be dangerous without a weapon in my hand. Elan slowly eased her bow up but did not aim yet, and Hans straightened his shoulders, hammer ready.
“There’s no need to prepare your weapons,” the creature said. Her words echoed, reverberating before I could understand them.
“Who are you?” I eased my hand away from my thigh, but remained cautious.
“My name is Rasheya. I’m here to rescue you. The storm’s rising. You can’t be out here when the Starklings arrive. They’ll devour you down to the bone, and they come at night, when the storms appear.” She glanced at the sky. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Wait, they come by air? Our friend’s up there!” Something about her told me she was speaking the truth. “He’s a hawk-shifter.”
“Head northwest as fast as you can. Follow my tracks while they’re still visible. There’s an underground bunker near here. Go, and I will take to the air and find your friend.” She turned, and in one swift jump, leaped back into her vehicle. The propeller started and, even in the storm, she lifted off.
I blinked. If the government knew about her aereocar, she’d be in deep shit.
But Hans clapped my shoulder, nodding to the tracks. “Let’s get moving. I believe her. I don’t know why, but I do.”
“She speaks the truth. I can tell. Whoever—whatever these Starklings are, they’re dangerous. I heard the fear in her voice.” And with that, Elan forged ahead, plowing through the rapidly accumulating snow.
I swung in behind her, and Hans behind me. As much as I wanted to stick around and wait for Jason, the urgency in Rasheya’s voice touched tinder to spark and I had no desire to be here when the Starklings descended. But I prayed to Hecate that the cat-woman found Jason before anything else did.
Chapter 13
What we had thought was a storm was actually just a precursor. The real storm hit as we followed Rasheya’s tracks. The snow began to fall in thick, heavy flakes that obscured our sight. I was actually relieved. It was easier to focus when my mind wasn’t trying to make heads or tails of what I was seeing. The surreal landscape slipped into a dreamlike one, and we trekked on, trudging through the endless blanket of white. I blinked, realizing I had no clue of how long we had been moving. I felt swathed in layer after layer of gauze.
How long have we been walking? I can’t remember. When did we enter the Tremble? Was it today? Yesterday?
I struggled to remember, but my memories were vague, shifting with the blowing snow. Every time I thought I had an answer, it suddenly vanished, jarred out of place by another thought and then, suddenly, I couldn’t remember the question and panicked.
“Hans? Hans?” I glanced around, looking for him and Elan. For a moment they seemed to have disappeared, but then I saw them, moving between the flakes, eyes wide. “Hans, I’m scared.”
Elan hurried over to my side and took my hands. “Breathe. Close your eyes and count to ten, and breathe slowly.”
I obeyed. Again, time seemed to vanish, but there was a point where I suddenly felt like I was back in my body. I slowly opened my eyes.
“What?”
“The Tremble. This is a dangerous space for sanity, Fury. Which is why we have to find Tam and get out of here.” She squeezed my fingers, the warmth of her skin flowing through me like a potion as it revived me and washed away the fear. I gazed into her eyes, wondering if she shared Tam’s magic.
Hans exhaled, then sucked in another long breath before opening his eyes. He looked shaken. “I hate this place,” he said. “I hate it and I’m never coming back once we get the fuck out of here.” He scanned the skies, blinking as the flakes coated his lashes. “I wonder if Jason’s all right.”
“I don’t know. I hope so.” I glanced around. I suddenly remembered Rasheya’s warning. “We need to move. Whatever the Starklings are, she said they come in on the storms. I’d rather not find out the hard way just how dangerous they are.”
We trudged forward again. It was getting difficult to follow Rasheya’s tracks, the snow was filling them up so fast, but we could still see the faint lines created by her aereocar through the blanket of white covering the Tremble.
I glanced at Elan and Hans. “I suggest we walk three abreast. The energy of the Tremble is beginning to affect all of us and we don’t want to lose track of one another.”
My legs were burning with the cold, but the pain took my mind off my sides and arms. I moved to the center to give Elan better latitude with her bariclore. We plunged forward into the storm. We had been walking for a while longer when there was a flutter nearby. I froze, my skin crawling with the same feeling I got when I was near an Abomination.
“Something’s near and it’s bad. So bad.” I wanted to turn and run—I had never felt quite so overwhelmed, but the sounds were coming from all sides now. I slapped my thigh and my whip came off in my hand. Elan raised her crossbow, and Hans his hammer as we turned to stand, back to back, to form a triangle of protection.
A flicker here. A flutter there. A whisper of sound all around. They’re here. They’re here and they’re hungry.
The whispers echoed in my mind as I raised my whip, the light of it glowing with a comforting fire. I unsheathed my dagger with my left hand, poised and ready, all thoughts of the pain gone as adrenaline fueled my body.
And then, they came, swarming in. Birds with razor-sharp beaks, but twisted in ways no bird should be. Their wings beat so fast they were surrounded by a blur of movement, and their brilliant eyes shone, a gaudy candy-colored pink. They were black, like crows, but their heads and eyes were oversized and as they darted toward us, I realized they were trying to peck our faces. Elan shouted as one dove to the side and stabbed her wrist. As the blood began to flow, the swarm of Starklings went into a frenzy, creating a massive flurry that mingled with the snow to blot out everything else.
I raised my whip, pulling away from Hans and Elan so I wouldn’t hit them, and brought it down through the center of the swarm with a massive crack. The fire blazing off the thong met the moisture in the snow and set up a web of sparks that raced through the nearest Starklings. They shrieked as the lightning crackled along their wings, frying them. I let out a battle scream, stabbing one with my dagger that was near enough to reach. As my blade pierced the body, the Starkling exploded, spraying my hand and dagger with a viscous blue liquid that burned like liquid nitrogen.
My first instinct was to drop to the ground. I plunged my hand in the snow, but the cold only made the pain worse. Without thinking, I thrust my hand in the air, pulling every drop of heat I could to me. The faint glow of fire began to surround my fingers, soothing the ache, and as the relief grew, so did the flames. I grew the ball of flame surrounding my hand. As the fireball increased, I turned to the swarm of Starklings. They were attacking Hans and Elan, who were doing their best to shield their eyes while fighting the monstrous birds.
With a sudden fury, I straightened my shoulders and raised my whip, the fire racing from my fingertips through my chest and into my other arm.
I channeled the flame into the whip until it was a blaze of light. Raising it, I began to swirl it around my head, faster and faster. Flames roared off of the lash. And then, I struck toward the swarm, aiming for the central Starkling who seemed bigger than the others.
As the tip of my whip hit the bird I shouted, “Drop and cover
your face!”
Elan and Hans obeyed without question. The resulting explosion covered us with the frozen fire. I had crouched to protect my legs as well, and while a few drops hit my skin, I managed to mostly keep clear.
I glanced up to see a fair-sized hole in the swarm, but we were still vastly outnumbered. I wasn’t sure how long we could keep this up. Eventually, they’d break through our defenses and we’d be so much bird food. As fresh recruits started filling in the hole, it struck me that we might not make it out of this.
Hans let out a roar and the clouds echoed him back with thunder, momentarily stunning the birds, but within a few seconds they recovered before we could escape from them.
“Elan, have you got anything to help?” I could summon more fire but the creatures kept coming and I knew I didn’t have enough reserves to take them all on.
She shook her head, shooting another bird that was far enough away that its deadly blood didn’t spray all over us. Hans clobbered another, and yet another, and I pushed to my feet again, aiming for one at the edge of my whip’s reach.
One of the Starklings dove in and pecked my forehead. I shrieked, stabbing at it with my dagger but came dangerously close to stabbing myself. Hans managed to grab the bird and wrestle it away from my forehead, tossing it to the ground where he smashed it with his hammer. The spray of blood hit us full force and I clenched my teeth, trying to ignore the sudden onslaught of pain. We went in swinging, Elan switching to a thin, long dagger when she ran out of bolts.
Then, as the swarm rose up as one, ready to swoop down on us, a whoop whoop whoop sliced through, adding to the cacophony of storm and swarm. Rasheya, in her aereocar. She dove straight through the swarm, scattering the Starklings who apparently decided they’d rather find prey that wasn’t airborne. As the birds circled, then headed back in the direction from which they’d come, I dropped to my knees, feeling totally wiped.
Rasheya jumped out, and I saw that there was a large hawk on the seat beside her. Jason. Thank gods she had found him.
“We need to get undercover before they come back with reinforcements. You’re about two hundred yards from the entrance. Head directly that way.” She pointed to the north. “You’ll find a large pile of rubble under the snow. Look for a trap-door handle. I’ll be right behind you. I’m going to keep watch and make certain you aren’t attacked from behind.”
She jumped back in her aereocar and slowly began driving behind us as we headed toward sanctuary. And hopefully, safety.
The trap door was easy to find with Rasheya’s directions, and by the time we opened it, she had vacated her aereocar. With Jason in tow, who was now back in his human form, she joined us. Up on the Tremble, her appearance had vacillated, but here, she was definitely female, though I still wasn’t sure if she was a shifter of some sort.
The door led to a tunnel that was about twenty feet deep. The ladder down was an easy climb, ending at the start of a corridor. As I looked down the dimly lit passage, it wasn’t hard to tell that whatever this place was, it had been here a long time and probably pre-existed Rasheya and whoever she lived with. The energy was different too, as though the chaos of the Tremble couldn’t penetrate through the layers of earth over our heads.
“Thank you.” Elan was studying the passage as we moved through the ancient brick. “We were almost out of luck.”
“Not a problem. I happened to be on patrol and saw you wandering past. It’s obvious you don’t belong here, so I decided to check you out.” Rasheya’s voice had a cheerful note about it, though it was hard for me to understand how anybody could be cheerful out here.
“Where are we?” Hans asked, looking around. He was covering our back as Rasheya led the way. Elan and Jason were in front of me.
“Welcome to Asylum. This is one of the few safe places on the Tremble. My grandparents discovered the passages. When they realized that the energy can’t penetrate down here, they and their kin turned it into a safe haven. You don’t want to be out in the open during storms. The Starklings wait for them, both rain and snow. They’re quiet in summer so we take advantage of their absence to find and store food.” She glanced back at me. I was getting used to her cat-like appearance, although she still seemed a disturbing blend.
“Are you a shifter?” I decided to be blunt. This wasn’t the moment for subtlety, given the race against time to find Tam.
Rasheya laughed. “No. I’m not. Nor am I Theosian. I’m one of the Mudarani. I don’t think there’s much written about us. We don’t change form.”
As we hurriedly made our way through the winding passage, I wracked my brain for any memory of anything about the Mudarani, but came up empty. And it would have been rude to ask the others if they knew anything about her kind, at least in front of her.
Another few twists and turns through the brick passage and we came to a T-junction, with a door to the right, a door to the left, and a door straight ahead. She turned left and we followed her through into another passage, then stopped in front of the first door we came to.
“Here we are. I’ve brought you to the visitors’ center where we keep all those seeking asylum. I’m one of the intake specialists, so I’ll be taking your story and figuring out where we can place you.”
It was then that I realized she thought we had been exiled here. We entered the room, which contained a large table surrounded by chairs, a sideboard with a water pitcher, a bowl of apples, and a tray with crackers and cheese on it. A large monitor hung on the wall. I gratefully dropped into a chair, groaning slightly as my side let out a twinge.
“Are you injured? I can call a medic.” Rasheya seemed so open that I felt like shaking her. I knew they were probably cautious, and she most likely had somehow pinpointed us as friendly sorts, at least to her. But I wanted to warn her not to be so open and helpful.
“Thanks, I have salve for my injuries. I’m just sore and likely to be that way for a while.”
“Why did the Devani exile you here? What crime did you commit against the Conglomerate?” She pulled out a tablet, surprising me.
“Does that work here? I thought electronics didn’t work out on the Tremble.”
“We’re below the Tremble now. The magic that permeates the space only saturates the ground to a depth of about five feet. That’s why Asylum is underground. We’re actually out of range of the magical effects that distort reality aboveground, and down here, tablets and phones work, though we have them all routed through an intranet rather than linked to the outside. All news is brought in via a server that’s proxied to hell and back. We have to avoid the authorities tracing any feeds back to us. We need the Corporatocracy to remain oblivious to us or they might try to come in and shut us down. At this point, they believe we’re all a scattered bunch of the Broken.”
I glanced at Jason, then let out a soft sigh. “We’re not exiles. We’re actually here on a rescue mission. We’re looking for a friend of ours who was caught in a raid. The Devani sentenced him to a year’s exile and dumped him here. We had no clue what to expect once we crossed the borders. None of us had ever heard of the Starklings, let alone the Mudarani.”
Rasheya paused, her assessing stare sliding over us. After a moment she nodded. “You’re telling the truth. Now and then the Devani sends in a warlock to infiltrate.”
“I’m no oath breaker,” Jason said. “I’m a magician, but I’m no oath breaker.”
“I know. I hold my position as an intake officer because I can sense lies. And I sense nothing but truth from the four of you.” Rasheya pushed aside her tablet. “Tell me who you’re looking for. He might have come through here.”
“Tam O’Reilly, the Prince of UnderBarrow.” I told her what had happened, and how Hecate had discovered what the Devani did with him.
She smiled softly. “He’s your mate, isn’t he? I can tell.”
I blinked. “Yes, we are lovers. And I’m worried sick about him. We all are.”
“Let me go through t
he files to see if anybody reported him coming through here. Meanwhile, I can’t invite you into the heart of Asylum unless you join us, but you are free to stay here and rest and eat. The door there leads to the bathroom,” she said, pointing to one of two side doors. “I’ll be back in a little while. You can’t go looking for him while the storm is raging, anyway. The Starklings are thick during winter, and they always come with the storms. In fact, I think they’re created out of the energy.”
As she left the room, I rubbed my head, once again trying to figure out how long we had been out here on the Tremble. Time ran differently, much like in UnderBarrow. I leaned my head down on my arms and closed my eyes, wanting nothing more than to take a nap.
“How long have we been searching?” Hans asked, sounding as weary-worn as I felt.
“Hours, I guess. It was near midnight when Kython found us in the NW Quarters. I have no clue how long it’s been since then,” Jason said. “I can’t read time right here. Usually, I’m a pretty good judge, but the moment we crossed the border, all that went out the window. The distortion that permeates the area also plays havoc with our senses.”
Rasheya appeared again. “I think we found your friend. We have him here. I should warn you, he was injured by the Starklings and he’s still pretty out of it. But come, see if you can identify him.”
My heart thudded in my ears as I jumped to my feet, my weariness forgotten. “How injured?”
“Follow me.” She wouldn’t say any more as she led us through the other side door. We hurried along yet another brick corridor almost indistinguishable from the one through which we had entered Asylum. I noticed numbers were located near the ceiling every ten yards or so. They were four-digits, and in descending order. We were under 2832.
“Locations?” I pointed to the numbers.
She nodded. “We have to keep track, given there are miles of tunnels in Asylum. We keep to belowground mostly. When you get out on the Tremble itself, reality starts bending rapidly, and it’s easy to get lost. Those of us on the Recon-Team have trained for years to be able to handle it. But down here, it’s easy to get lost just because of the labyrinth of tunnels. So, we have a detailed location system.”
Fury's Magic (Fury Unbound Book 2) Page 14
