Night Quest

by Susan Krinard

  She sealed Garret’s wound, her hands trembling on his shoulders. He opened his eyes, and she thought they had never been so bright, so vibrant with life.

  Did hers look the same? Could she ever expect to feel this euphoria again, this magical strength that came from something sweeter than any blood?

  Not with Garret. Never again with him. She must hold true this time. She must not permit—

  Someone loudly cleared his throat. Artemis and Garret broke apart, and Pericles crept into the tiny clearing, looking everywhere but at them.

  “What is it?” Garret said, his voice gruff with frustration.

  His face still averted, Pericles crouched at the edge of the clearing. “Beth’s aunt is outside the stockade,” he said. “She wants to speak to you.”

  Garret’s expression turned grim. “Wait for me here,” he said to Artemis.

  “Something is wrong, isn’t it?” she said, pushing aside her fear. “What haven’t you told me?”

  Hiding his gun under his coat, Garret met her gaze. “I don’t know. But it’s strange that Beth’s aunt would want to speak to me now.”

  “I am coming,” Artemis said. “Beth is as much my concern as yours, and now that it is dark you have no advantage over me.”

  “All right. But please, Artemis...trust my judgment. Stay behind me.”

  With a powerful sense of foreboding, Artemis followed Garret and Pericles toward the colony walls. A small human woman was standing just outside the gate, her arm around a little girl.

  Beth.

  The woman looked past Garret into the darkness, as if she could see Artemis in the shadows. “I am sorry,” she said, tears in her voice. “I thought the colony would accept her back. But there has been something wrong here since Beth disappeared. Certain men of this colony...” She bit her lip and hugged Beth more tightly. “I can’t trust them. I don’t think Beth will be safe here.”

  As if she only half understood her aunt’s words, Beth smiled at Garret and yawned. Garret looked back at Artemis. His anger was palpable.

  “Please,” the woman said, “take Beth away with you. You can find a better place for her, a place where she won’t be the only one of her kind.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I want her to be happy. Please help us.”

  “Why would she come with us?” Garret asked. “She’ll want to stay with you.”

  “But I can’t protect her,” the woman said. She pulled a small packet out of her pants pocket. “I have something to...quiet her down. I’ve already given a little to her, and if you give her the rest, she’ll be calm until you’ve taken her far from here.”

  “We’re going on a dangerous journey,” Garret said. “Do you understand what you’re asking?”

  “You took good care of her. You know how to deal with people who aren’t... Who don’t fit in. I would not entrust her with anyone else but the ones who saved her life.”

  Artemis stepped forward. “We will take her,” she said, glancing up at Garret. “We will keep her safe.”

  Garret met her gaze and took her hand in his. “My wife is right,” he said. “We’ll do all we can to help her.”

  “Thank God,” the woman said, clearly struggling to hold back her sobs. “Please, take her before I—”

  Artemis stepped forward and held out her hand. Beth took it, innocent trust on her face. Pericles joined them, draping a cloak over the little girl’s jacket.

  “Is anyone apt to follow us?” Garret asked.

  “They only want the problem gone,” the woman said bitterly.

  “Then we’ll leave within the hour,” Garret said. “We have a few preparations to make.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said. She pushed a sack into his hands. “These are some of Beth’s things.” Abruptly she rushed to Beth and planted a kiss on the girl’s forehead. “Be good, Bethy.”

  She rushed back inside the wall and closed the gate behind her. Beth stared after her in bewilderment, and Garret looked down at the small packet in his hand.

  “I hope we won’t have to use this,” he said.

  Artemis lifted the girl into her arms. “Let us make sure we do not,” she said. She carried Beth back to the clearing. Beth stirred restlessly and called her aunt’s name once, then dropped into a light sleep.

  Laying the girl down on a blanket, Artemis waited for Pericles and Garret to join her. Garret’s expression was dark, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. Pericles was very quiet.

  “They would harm a child?” Artemis demanded. “Even though she is half human?”

  “They wouldn’t harm her,” Garret said, “but her life wouldn’t be a happy one.”

  “In other words, this is another case in which humans and Opiri cannot live together in harmony.”

  He sidestepped her statement. “The important thing is that we must find a safe place to take her.”

  “Your own colony,” Pericles said hesitantly.

  Garret closed his eyes. “Another two hundred miles to the south,” he said. “Timon—”

  He didn’t finish, but his despair was a living thing in the air between them.

  “There must be a place to the north,” she said. “What of the human Enclave of SeaTac? I have never been so far north, but perhaps they would take her in.”

  “A long and difficult journey,” Garret said. “And there’s no guarantee that they would accept her.”

  “There’s another place,” Pericles said. “It’s still in the north. But it’s on your way to the river crossing into Canada.”

  “What is this place?” Garret asked.

  “A compound on the Willamette River in the old city of Portland.”

  “Portland?” Artemis said. “I heard that the last human settlement there was destroyed ten years ago.”

  “They built a new one. Chares talked about it. It’s guarded by strong walls, nothing like this place. The people there are very well armed.”

  “A militia compound?” Garret asked. “But Beth is half Opir.”

  “Chares said the Portland compound uses mixed Opiri and human patrols. They coexist peacefully.” Pericles hesitated. “There’s only one problem. They hate Freebloods. Chares said they’ve been under siege by rogues working for the Bloodlord in the north, so he wouldn’t go anywhere near them.”

  “Beth is not a Freeblood,” Artemis said.

  Garret’s expression softened as he looked down at Beth. “I don’t want to leave her in a place where such prejudice exists,” he said, “but you may be wrong, and I can’t put off finding Timon any longer.” He met Artemis’s gaze. “I won’t let either one of you fall into their hands. If you’re still willing to come with me.”

  “How do we get to this place, Pericles?” Artemis asked.

  “I don’t know exactly where it is,” Pericles said, “but I know it’s on the river in the old city, close to a bridge they can guard easily.”

  A little of the tension went out of Garret’s body. He pulled the map from his pack. “So we return to our previous route and continue past Salem along the Willamette until we reach Portland. Once we’ve seen to Beth, we’ll continue northeast to the bridge over the Columbia at Government Island.” He folded the map. “We’ll still have to pass Oceanus, but our luck held the last time. It’s our only option.”

  Pericles nodded. Artemis stared at the map. It would be a long walk to this other colony, but at least they would be going in the right direction. Garret needed that goal now, the belief that he would finally find his son.

  But she would have to fight doubly hard against feeding from Garret now that she understood the consequences of what had happened between them at the last blood-taking. It would be painful and unpleasant, but there was still a chance to break the cord before it became too strong to sever.

  “If we’
re ready...?” Garret said.

  Lifting Beth into the sling on his back, Pericles nodded. Artemis donned her own pack.

  None of them looked back when they left the walls of the colony behind.

  Chapter 11

  Garret’s hopes were fulfilled, and twelve days later, footsore and weary, they reached Oceanus’s northern border without incident. Their road had taken them back to the winding Willamette, and they had agreed to keep to the east side of the river as they approached Portland.

  For most of the journey Beth had been quiet and cooperative, seemingly content to be with her rescuers and only occasionally calling out for her aunt. Between them, Garret, Artemis and Pericles kept her clean, comfortable and well fed with meat and any edible plants they could find. Pericles remembered several games from his human life, and Garret told her stories he’d once told Timon. Artemis made it her business to hold Beth as often as possible, as committed to Beth’s welfare as any mother would be.

  As Roxana would have been.

  But it was not Beth who Garret was worried about. As each day passed, he had noticed changes in Artemis’s appearance and energy. After a few days’ travel, her face began to look drawn. Halfway to Salem, she began to stumble occasionally, and by the time they reached their camp south of Portland, her eyes were clouded and her lips pinched with discomfort.

  Garret knew the signs. She obviously wasn’t getting enough blood from animal sources, but she refused to ask him for what she needed. He’d thought she was over that particular inhibition after Coos Bay. Instead, it seemed to have gotten worse.

  Still, he kept his thoughts to himself as they forded the Clackamas River and found a sheltered area where the remains of a bridge disappeared into the forest on its way to the ruins of a string of towns, suburbs and small cities stretching in an almost continuous line toward the Columbia River. Pericles set Beth down under a tree, and Garret removed the girl’s food from his pack.

  “We have somewhere between ten and twelve miles to go,” he said, giving Beth a carefully harvested handful of late blackberries.

  “We should hunt,” Artemis said. She gathered her bow and checked her arrows.

  “Let Pericles go ahead,” Garret said. “I’d like to speak to you.”

  Her face took on the stubborn look he knew all too well. “It is better if we hunt while it is still dark.”

  “I’ll scout for game,” Pericles said, slipping into the trees.

  Garret held Artemis’s gaze. “I know what’s wrong with you,” he said bluntly. “You’re starving yourself again. Why?”

  “I don’t know what you—” She broke off and jumped to her feet. A second later Garret’s more limited human senses alerted him to movement in the trees. He dropped his pack and scrambled for the pieces of the partially assembled VS.

  The muzzle of an automatic rifle pressed into his skull from behind.

  “Stand down,” a soft, cultured voice said.

  Garret released the VS. He knew the rifle’s wielder was Opir and that his chances of bringing the Nightsider down were slim. He looked for Artemis. Even as he watched, a woman—clearly dhampir, dark-haired and stocky, with the typical “cat eyes”—and a male Nightsider of indeterminate rank dragged Artemis out of the woods. All three of them bore the marks of a vicious scuffle.

  And they were not alone. Garret’s Opir guard grabbed the sections of the VS and tossed them to someone out of the range of Garret’s sight.

  “There’s a kid here,” another voice, rough and human, said from Beth’s direction. Garret pulled his hunting knife from its sheath and twisted to sink it into the Nightsiders leg. The Opir kicked the knife away, grabbed Garret by the throat and slammed him against the tree.

  “Back off, Varus,” the human said. “Don’t hurt him.”

  Without argument, Varus let Garret go. A whip-thin human with a short wiry beard and several scars appeared in front of Garret, and others closed in around him: a mix of humans, Opiri and dhampires, all armed and clearly working together. Garret managed to catch a glimpse of Beth, who was sitting up and staring at the human woman kneeling close to her.

  “Leave her alone,” Garret said, calculating the best angle of attack. “Who are you?” he asked the thin man. “What do you want?”

  “My name’s Cody,” the man said.

  “Why did you attack us?” Artemis asked, the dhampir’s pistol poking into her ribs.

  “We don’t plan to hurt you,” Cody said, meeting his stare. “But if you try to attack one of us again, we might have to.”

  Unwilling to risk Beth’s or Artemis’s safety, Garret raised his hands above his head. The human woman bent to pick Beth up, but the little girl jerked away and ran toward Artemis.

  “Where’s Pericles?” she cried, grabbing Artemis around the legs.

  “Are there other people with you?” the leader demanded.

  Thank God, Garret thought, that Pericles had taken his small pack with him. “Pericles’s her stuffed toy,” he said, cautiously meeting Artemis’s gaze. “She lost it.”

  Artemis stroked Beth’s hair. “If you touch her—” she began.

  “Let the girl go to Rachel,” the thin human said, indicating the woman who had been talking to Beth earlier.

  “What do you want with her?”

  “The question is what you’re doing with her.”

  Garret forced himself to relax. “My name is Garret Fox. We’re trying to take this child to safety. If you’re what I think you are, you’ll either let us go or help me.”

  “Take her to safety?” the dhampir asked. “From what?”

  “We found her amid the bodies of Freebloods and humans who’d slaughtered each other. She was the only survivor. We were looking for a settlement willing to take her in and care for her.”

  “And where would that be?” the thin human said.

  “We heard that there was one in old Portland, on the Willamette River,” Artemis said.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Far south of here, from a colony where humans and Opiri live together in peace,” Garret said.

  “Why didn’t you take the girl back to your own colony?” the dhampir asked Garret.

  “We were much closer to Portland,” Garret said. “And we’re looking for another child, taken from our colony by rogue Freebloods.” He glanced at the dhampir. “I have no reason to lie.”

  “You would if you’re one of the humans selling children to the packs,” Cody said.

  Given what had happened to Beth, Garret was far less shocked than he might have been. Still, he felt bile rise in his throat at the idea that other humans might do the same thing...and that he was being accused of it.

  “He hasn’t sold any children,” Artemis said with a scornful laugh.

  “You’re a Freeblood, are you not?” Varus asked.

  “Aresia is a Bloodlady from Oceanus who has found a new life in our colony,” Garret said, giving Artemis a quick and meaningful glance urging her to play along. He didn’t want anyone recognizing her as a Freeblood now. “She has nothing to do with those rogues.”

  Hard, unblinking eyes examined him as if he were one of the ubiquitous and immense yellow slugs that lived beneath the leaf mold. Garret looked from one suspicious face to another. There was no chance that he and Artemis could fight their way out of this one.

  But if these people were concerned about kidnapped children, they wouldn’t hurt Beth, whatever they might think of him and Artemis.

  “If you are who I think you are,” he said, “you’re what we’ve been looking for. Will you help Beth?”

  “He asks if we’ll help her,” the dhampir woman said with a twist of her mouth.

  “Can it, Sonja,” Cody said. “You,” he said to Artemis, “let the girl go, or we’ll have to hurt
your friend.”

  “I have good things to eat,” Rachel said, holding out a crisp, firm apple to Beth. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”

  Artemis knelt and held Beth gently by the shoulders. “These people are going to help us,” she said. “You go on to that lady there. She’ll take care of you for a while.” She looked up and fixed Varus with a severe gaze. “Don’t be afraid of these Nightsiders. They aren’t like the ones who took you.”

  “I’m not afraid.” Beth thrust out her lower lip. “Where’s Pericles?”

  “I’ll find him for you. I promise.” She released Beth to Rachel, who gave Beth the apple.

  “Both of you,” Cody said to Garret and Artemis, “turn toward me.”

  With a quick shared glance, Garret and Artemis did as they were told. Rough hands wrenched Garret’s arms behind his back. Artemis’s body was coiled and ready to spring, but she knew as well as he did that they had to go along until fighting, however doomed, became their only option.

  “Good,” Cody said. “Keep cooperating and we won’t have any problems.”

  “The child we’re looking for is still out there,” Garret said. “The longer you hold us, the longer he’ll be alone with those monsters.”

  “You’ll get to speak your piece when we get to the compound.”

  “How far?”

  “You should be able to figure it out, if you really were looking for our colony.” Cody turned away, and the muzzle of a gun prodded Garret in the back. Sonja gathered up Garret’s supplies and stuffed them into his pack, while Artemis’s Nightsider guard threw her hooded daycoat over her. The other full-blooded Opiri put on their own. Keeping Garret and Artemis apart, the patrol spaced themselves out to cover all possible angles of attack and keep an eye on their prisoners at the same time.

  As they moved northeast through the overgrown suburbs and low, forested hills, the Willamette River always to the west, Garret watched and listened for Pericles. He would find out soon enough what had happened, if he didn’t already know.

  Garret hoped for the boy’s sake that he would stay well away from them and their captors. He managed to catch Artemis’s eye from time to time when their guards moved slightly out of formation. He knew that she was looking for Beth. He was, too, occasionally catching glimpses of the girl’s dark hair.