“Chimera?” she guesses.
Despite the fact that the repugnant beasts have been extinct on his continent for much longer than she’s been alive, she’s well aware of what they are, and that some nations are, sadly, still plagued by them.
Silver nods.
“You’re a hunter?” Ria asks next, completely unaware of how eerily right she is.
But Silver never gets to answer.
Instead, “What the hell?!”
Carmen’s voice jolts them both, and Ria retracts her hands so fast she almost topples over onto the mossy forest floor. Not that she need be worried: Carmen didn’t notice the indiscretion.
Up in the treetops, a rectangular piece of dark green metal is embedded in a tree trunk, the symbol of the Crown clearly painted on it.
It appears to be the cabin door from some kind of aircraft, most likely a helicopter, which rather begs the question:
“Where’s the rest of it?” Carmen spins in circles, looking for more pieces.
“Let’s find out.” Silver gets up off the log, her boots squelching with every step.
As they start wandering into dense tree cover, Ria hastily gathers up her things.
“You really shouldn’t meander off into the forest like this.” She gets up and brushes herself off. “There could be all sorts of creatures lurking out here.”
“Like what?” Silver asks, holding her hand out for Ria to take if she so wants.
“Well, that disgusting thing by the lake for starters.” Ria shudders at the thought of it. “What if there are more of those?”
Silver shrugs that concern away without pause. “They live in water, and that lake’s not very big. The beast I killed was probably a loner.”
Ria slips her hand in Silver’s. “What about bears, then? Or wolverines? I know there are cave lions around these parts.”
“Cave lions?” Carmen snorts cynically. “They’ve been extinct for thousands of years. I think mammoths were still plodding the Earth when those things were alive.”
“They’re not extinct anymore. Don’t you read the news? They were reintroduced into Mercia as part of Authentic England—the same DNA cloning program that brought the wolverines back.”
Carmen’s still not buying it. “Where did they get the DNA?”
“They spliced it from a lion, a tiger, and a lynx.”
“There you go, then.” Carmen completely misses the point. “That’s not a cave lion at all. It’s a … something else entirely.”
“Call it whatever you want.” Ria looks about nervously. “The fact remains that there are a good plenty creatures out here with sharp fangs and claws.”
“So your government makes a habit of tinkering with nature,” Silver muses. “That’s good to know. What do you think our lake dwelling friend is made of? My guess: Chimera, alligator, and some kind of fish.”
“That’s got to be an accident, surely?” Ria hugs herself closer to Silver, trudging further into the undergrowth. “They created a balanced ecosystem out here, and I hardly think that wretched animal belongs in it. What purpose could it possibly serve?”
“You’re right, I don’t think it belongs here. I think it’s a weapon.”
“A weapon?” Carmen trips on a tree root and ends up face down in the dirt, spitting leaves. “How could you use a lumbering creature like that in war?”
“Easy: you deploy it before the war starts. Send in a handful of genetically engineered, reptilian freaks to deplete fish stocks off an isolated coastal city before you invade, and weaken your opponents from the very outset. It makes perfect strategic sense.”
Ria very much gets the impression that Silver’s talking from personal experience, and almost feels compelled to apologize on behalf of the British military, but she never gets to express the sentiment.
“Ugh. It smells rotten out here.” She covers her nose. “What’s that stink?”
Silver and Carmen answer her in unison:
“Death.”
Carmen’s still lying in the dirt where she fell. The hand she used to brace herself is covered in a blackish slime, and as she examines her palm, another drip lands on her.
“What is this?”
She dare not look up, but Silver and Ria do.
Ria only peeks for a split second, takes a sharp draw of breath, then hides her face against Silver’s good shoulder, not seeming to care about the wetness. She wraps her arm around Silver’s middle and snuggles tight, comforted when Silver starts stroking the back of her head.
“Do I want to look?” Carmen’s eyes are squeezed shut.
“Depends.” Silver keeps her head tilted upward, morbidly fascinated by the sight. “Are you squeamish?”
“A little.”
“Then I’d advise against it.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Purge fluid has been dripping onto the forest floor for weeks. The pilot was alive when he evacuated from his aircraft and parachuted down, and he was alive when his parachute caught in the uppermost branches of the trees, leaving him suspended twenty feet in the air. He was still alive, but slightly nervous, when he pulled out his knife and attempted to release himself from the caught chute, then he was alive and fucking petrified when the knife dropped to the ground.
Seven days later, he was dead.
A week after that, he started to leak.
Now, his skin is black and ready to slough off.
And Carmen looks up. She can’t help it.
When she realizes the black goop on her hand is liquefied human organs, her stomach doesn’t just turn upside down, it tries to leap out of her throat. She bends over by the nearest tree and empties her guts.
“I told you we shouldn’t have come in here.” Ria keeps her face hidden against Silver’s shoulder. “The woods aren’t safe.”
She’s hugging Silver so tightly that her shirt is soaking up the moisture from Silver’s wet camisole. She doesn’t seem to notice—or care—but Silver can’t resist the opportunity to make her blush again.
“I’m making you wet,” she says quietly, keeping her voice low so that Carmen won’t be able to hear over the sound of her own retching.
“You’re so naughty.” Ria tightens her grip around Silver’s waist. “Is it customary to be such a flirt where you’re from?”
“Sometimes.” Silver leads her away from the dead pilot. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“How beautiful the woman is.”
Ria allows herself to be led a few more yards. She tramples over decomposing tree branches, skeletonized leaves, mushrooms, millipedes the size of a baby’s forearm, and deer poop, and doesn’t give a single thought to where they’re going. A whole pack of cave lions could rush upon her right now, and she wouldn’t bat an eye. All she wants is for Silver to pull her into the darkness of the trees and lay kisses on her lips, but …
“Wait.” She digs her heels in and holds Silver back. “We can’t leave her alone.”
Somewhere behind them, Carmen finishes tossing up her insides.
Silver searches for her over Ria’s shoulder. “Hey! Carmen, are you coming?”
Carmen stumbles out from behind a tree. “Uh-huh.”
“It’s your own fault.” Silver has no sympathy for her. “Why did you look? I told you not to look.”
“It touched me.” She grimaces at her filthy hand, wishing she had some water.
“I think I hear a brook nearby.” Ria beckons her southward. “Perhaps you’ll be able to wash.”
Ambling down a small ravine, following her ears, Ria does indeed find a shallow, babbling brook weaving through the woodland—and that’s not all. Not far beyond it, several trees lie smashed and broken, their leaves withered and dry. The trunks are splintered, the upper branches completely severed: evidence of a crash.
In the area of worst destruction, a crashed military helicopter has found a mossy grave, half covered in fallen tree limbs, its nose buried in the dirt where it took a dive into the forest.
<
br /> Its propellers are bent and broken, its fuselage buckled and cracked. The cockpit has been almost completely obliterated, along with much of its rear. The damage was most likely caused by two or three rocket propelled grenades, which seems perfectly plausible to Silver. She saw two of the Crown’s Sea Harriers taken out that way when a handful of disgruntled Amaranthians decided to put up a fight during the British invasion of her city. If you have a good aim, and the aircraft’s flying low enough, anything’s possible.
Like the site of the pilot’s demise, this place reeks of decay.
“Mmm.” Silver breathes in deep. “Flesh rot.”
She takes one step toward it, but Ria clutches at her upper arm and keeps her back.
“I’m not so sure you should set foot in there.”
Silver can see in her eyes that she’s frightened, but there’s no opportunity for reassurance.
“Holy shit.” Linx appears behind them, taking a good gander at the helicopter. “This must’ve been shot down by the Chester militia. We’re only three or four hours away from there. How’d you find it?”
Ria tenses, but doesn’t release Silver’s arm. She’s more intent on preventing Silver from entering the helicopter than she is concerned about how Linx will react to their closeness.
“Were you following us, you little creeper?” Silver picks a wandering leaf bug off Carmen’s shoulder and flicks it at Linx.
The bug hits Alex instead.
He steps down into the ravine behind Linx, still shirtless.
“Oh, no, my mistake,” Silver amends the accusation. “You were having a romantic stroll.”
Alex tightens his jaw. Ria’s arm is still looped through Silver’s, and he can see the fondness in her expression, gazing up at his wife, pleading with her not to go inside the wreckage. Some good that’ll do, he thinks, privately mocking her naïveté.
Aware that he’s glowering at her, Ria eventually becomes self-conscious and drops her gaze, mentally chastising herself for being too free with her eyes. Silver slips away from her anyway, preparing to explore the old flying bucket.
First, though, she employs Carmen’s services.
“Keep an eye on the kid for me. If she even so much as looks at Ria funny, you have my permission to fuck up her other elbow.” She glances down at Carmen’s mucky palm. “Or wipe your hand on her face.”
Fuming at Silver’s use of the word ‘kid’, Linx purses her lips. “My dad’s going to kill you when I tell him what you did to me.”
Silver is unmoved by the threat. “Your dad’s on border duty for a month. You’re not gonna tell him shit.” She starts toward the helicopter, looking over her shoulder at Alex. “Am I doing this alone?”
If it weren’t for his own burning curiosity, he might let her. Instead, he follows her inside the broken metal shell, hoping, at the very least, to find something worth looting.
Once they’re out of sight, Carmen abandons the assignment to babysit Linx and dashes to the edge of the brook, eager to wipe human soup off her skin. Almost immediately, Linx sidles up to Ria and sniffs her, standing on tiptoe to reach her neck.
“What do you want?” Ria angles her body away.
Grinning, Linx leans closer. “I can smell your cunt,” she hisses in her ear.
Ria pushes her off. “Get away from me, you vulgar little girl.”
“What’s the matter?” Linx laughs. “Don’t you want to know?”
“Know what?” Ria bites.
“If she’s as hot for you as you are for her.”
Ria tries not to let Linx get to her, but she hates having her feelings made so public. Especially given the severity of the punishment for such inclinations. All it would take is one tip-off to the Crown Prosecution Service and she could be hauled away for execution.
“Mind your own business,” she says at last, roping in her emotions.
Keeping her eyes trained on the helicopter, she wills Silver to reappear in the cabin doorway and return to her side. Alas, time seems to be moving agonizingly slowly.
Inside, Silver is prying open a crumpled metal shipping container with a crow bar.
“What do you think you’re gonna find in there?” Alex snatches the crow bar off her and takes on the task himself. “Whatever was being transported, I think it’s safe to say they’re dead.”
To prove his point, he scrapes the toe of his boot against a puddle of dark fluids oozing out from the edges of the container.
“No shit.” Silver peers inside a second container that must’ve broken open when the Chinook crashed to earth. “I want to see what it looks like, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“You recognized that thing by the lake, right? It was the same thing we killed on our honeymoon. Do you know what that means? It wasn’t an accident. The British army brought those things to our shores deliberately.”
“So? We can’t do anything about that now. Amaranthe already became a subject of the Crown.” He puts all his weight against the crow bar. “It’s too late to accuse the Brits of playing dirty.”
“Amaranthe’s fucked, I know. But look at this shit, Alex.” She motions around the cabin. “What they did to us, they’re doing to other people. Cities like ours are suffering just like we did.”
Boom!
The damaged hinges on the container snap, and the end of it swings open, hitting the floor of the cabin with a loud, thunderous clap. Blood and guts pool out, releasing the pungent odor of rotting intestines.
“Fucking hell.” Alex reels back. “That’s nasty.”
Holding her breath, Silver peeks inside the container where the creatures have been fermenting for weeks. The corpses are gassy, bloated, and discolored, but Silver can still make out some of their features. They’re quadrupeds, like Chimera in form, but with a thick coat of hair all over their bodies.
“How much do you wanna bet these guys were destined for somewhere with a cold climate?” Silver turns away from the mess, shaking her head. “This isn’t right. They can’t be allowed to keep doing this.”
Her words set Alex on edge. They’ve known each other for twenty years, and that hint of stubborn determination in her voice is both familiar and frightening.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.” She locates a first aid box and smashes the lock with the hilt of her hunting knife. “I only had one thing on my mind when I let them ship us out to this country, and that hasn’t changed.”
“Please, tell me it’s the health and safety of our unborn child?”
He knows it isn’t, and she can’t claim otherwise.
“Jesus, Silver.” He ruffles his hands through his hair. “You know why I came here? Because they were going to execute you for murder and I couldn’t let that happen. I accepted their offer of asylum so that we could raise our child together, not so that you could go off on some harebrained quest for vengeance by assassinating their King.”
“They destroyed our home, Alex. My father is dead because of them.” She raids the first aid supplies out of the case. “How many more families are going to be torn apart by these people? How can this not sicken you?”
“You know what sickens me? Your blatant disregard for the life we created. You’re so obsessed with what you’ve lost, you can’t spare a thought for what the future holds.”
Silver’s silenced, staggered to see him holding back tears.
“Do you forget that you’re pregnant? Or do you simply not care? Answer me truthfully.” He rubs his palms over his eyes, forcing the tears away. “Because I’m sure I can find a flight of stairs to push you down if that’s what’d make you happy. It might be quicker.”
Silence.
Eventually, “Alex, I—”
“Never mind. Don’t bother saying anything.” Alex shakes his head, despairing of her. “I don’t think I wanna hear it.”
He turns his back on her and jumps out of the cabin, finding Carmen lurking there by the doorway. Stunned and lost for wor
ds, ashamed that she didn’t walk away when she heard them arguing, she falters.
“I … I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to …”
He doesn’t stick around to listen while she fumbles her way painfully through an explanation. He strides off, leaving Silver to deal with it alone.
“I heard a bang,” Carmen says weakly, intimidated by Silver’s fierce eyes. “I came to see if everything was all right, and I … I should’ve left, but didn’t.”
“Not a word. You understand? To anyone.” Silver’s voice is laced with warning.
“You’re planning to commit treason.” Carmen looks terrified. “That’s why you want to go to London. I can’t let you—”
“What’re you gonna do, ex-Magistrate?” She puts emphasis on the ‘ex’. “What I do is none of your concern. Are we clear? We go to London, we part ways, we never see each other again. That’s all there is to it.”
Carmen looks down at her feet, knowing better than to argue.
“And in the meantime”—Silver hops out of the helicopter—“we play nice.” She pats Carmen on the shoulder and spins to face Ria on the other side of the brook. “Look what I found!” She slaps a smile on her face, wielding the first aid supplies triumphantly.
Ria re-dresses Silver’s wound in front of a campfire made by Bold. Most of Silver’s clothes are drying beside the roaring flames, including her boots. Her jeans are still wet, clinging to her uncomfortably, slowly drying—there’s nothing much she can do about that—but she had a clean camisole in her saddlebag, and Alex gave her a spare shirt to wear over it, along with a clean pair of socks to keep her feet warm.
Even when he’s mad at her, he still manages to be caring, although she suspects it probably has more to do with concern for their unborn baby than it does for her. He hasn’t really looked at her since they arrived back at the campsite. Right now, Linx is showing him how to whittle new arrows for her bow.
The others are equally preoccupied. Tomkin is sound asleep, and has been since Bold set him up with a bedroll beside the fire. Luka is cleaning Silver’s gun after it was submerged in the lake, Carmen is sulking at the edge of the campsite, and Bold is tending to the horses.
Lex Talionis Page 17
