by N. I. Snow
The cruel voice broke into her thoughts, “Which hall?”
Sarah whispered, keeping her eyes from the hall directly across from them, “The one on the left ends with the door to the communications room.” If this Seeker goes down the wrong hall, I could warn the guards to…
Sarah's mind went blank as she tried to get air into her lungs. The knife protruding from her neck prevented her from doing that. She tried feebly to grab at the knife protruding from her neck as Zaharak dragged her weakening body to a small cleaning closet he had been hiding in. Removing the knife from the dead woman's throat, he threw her into the compartment. Placing the blade of the knife between his fangs he savored both metallic tastes as he turned back to the room.
The woman wasn't the only one who could read body language. Zaharak had watched as her body stiffened with hope. He had seen her glance from the communications hallway in attempt to deceive the Seeker. He knew all too well what she had planned to do. Others before her had tried to do the same; he was always twenty steps ahead of them.
Now alone, he gazed at the guard-filled room, the knife, an appalling toothpick, still between his fangs. Then with a twitch of his tail he bounded out into the room bashing together the heads of the guards at the entrance to his hallway. As their bodies crumpled to the ground, another guard to his left was pinned to the wall by the long knife buried in his chest. Only three of the guards managed to get shots off as Zaharak tripped the two at the hall to his right. When they landed on the ground he jumped onto each ones' chest crushing ribs and organs. Another volley of gun fire rang out towards the Seeker, only to harmlessly pierce the walls where he had once been standing. Zaharak ripped the knife out of the dead man and tore a gaping hole through the sternum of the man beside him, who had frozen when Zaharak attacked.
The last remaining guards fired their weapons out of desperation. None of the bullets even grazed Zaharak as he rushed them and stabbed both men through their hearts, one with the knife and the other with a half-buried clawed hand. The Seeker's claws wrapped around the second man’s heart and tore it out of his chest. Removing the knife from the other's body, he stabbed the heart in front of its owner’s dying eyes.
Tossing the destroyed thing to the ground, Zaharak cleaned the knife blade on his jacket, tucked it back into his boot, stood up, and stepped over the dead guards. He had no worries of the security alarms going off. The cameras in the room would still show the guards standing at their posts. In the dark center hallway Zaharak made his way to the secured door at the end. Once he reached it, he pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and removed the brace, set it on the panel next to the door, and pressed a button on the brace. The Seeker waited patiently for the brace to bypass the system. Three standard minutes passed before the door finally slid open. Grabbing the brace, Zaharak stepped into the dimly lit room. Holoscreens filled the room, but only ten stations were occupied by scrawny humans answering calls from distressed citizens. Zaharak made his way to a holoscreen that had been left on. Placing the brace next to the screen, the Seeker pressed another button. On the holoscreen, a bar appeared telling him how much progress the brace had made in copying the data from inbound calls made that night. When it had finished, Zaharak replaced the brace on his arm. As he made his way back to the door, one conversation from a call that had just come in caught his attention. He glided through the shadows until he was behind the speaking man, who continued his conversation unaware of the deadly Tazalian behind him, “Ma’am, I need you to calm down and repeat what you just aid.”
A woman's voice came from the holoscreen, “My name is Shalinda Apetgal. I'm with my boyfriend Jonah Sholtal, who has something the aliens want.”
The man in front of the holoscreen would never answer her; he would never answer anyone. Zaharak quietly placed the man’s body on the ground beneath the screen. He looked back up to find the call had been disconnected. No matter, he had what he needed. The name Jonah Sholtal would not be forgotten by the Seeker. Using the brace, Zaharak erased the call from the database; the humans did not need to know the name. The Seeker turned and hurried back to the doorway. Just as he was about to pass through, sirens began shriek. Looking back he saw the nine other humans standing over their dead companion.
Zaharak shrank back into the shadows and slipped out as the doors slid open and a group of soldiers hurried in. He flew through the halls like a sinister wind. And like an unseen wind, the guards and agents he passed never knew he was there. He continued through the path to the hangar he had memorized. When he came to the secured doors, not only did he use the brace to unlock them, he reset the security cameras to return to real time. He could only imagine the pandemonium that would ensue when the humans saw their dead friends appear on screen. As he passed through the doorway, he pressed another button on the brace. Down in the labs another alarm went off, this one coming from the handgun taken from him. The human scientists only had seconds to realize what it meant before the entire lab erupted into flames.
The explosion in the lab gave Zaharak another diversion for his escape as he made his way to the hangar. By now the entire agency was confused by his maneuvers. Zaharak entered the hangar to find that Lieutenant Connell and his men were still there. They had been resting and restocking their supplies when the alarms went off. Now on alert, they had their weapons at ready. Zaharak made no effort to conceal himself from them.
As the gray-scaled Seeker stepped out into the hangar, the man with the once injured hand raised his weapon at him. “Well, look who showed up.”
Connell looked at Zaharak with surprise. “How the hell did that thing get out?”
“Hey, buddy,” yelled the man that had taken his hat earlier, “I want that hat back. You got that?”
Zaharak took off his hat and smashed it between his hands. “You want it?” When the hat finished changing into the deadly disk, Zaharak raised it up. “You can have it.”
As the disk flew through the taunting soldier’s body, the Seeker lunged at one of the pilots. Holding the man down with one hand, he caught the returning disk with the other and sliced the man’s head from his body, then leapt out of the way as bullets riddled the corpse he had been standing over. In a blur of scales, Zaharak returned to the shadows where he reset the hat onto his head.
“What the hell was that?” yelled the wounded man, “That can't be the same creature we brought in.”
Zaharak sneaked around to the back of the soldiers. In another blur he had the last pilot in his arms. With a single twist he threw the screaming man out the open hangar door. The last two soldiers whipped around and fired at him, but he was already gone. From the shadows he watched as the wounded man's nerves began to fail him, while Connell remained calm and collected.
“You are doing a fine job at not showing your fear, Lieutenant Connell,” Zaharak's voice rang out from the shadows. “Had you been born on Tazal, you could have been chosen to become Seeker.”
“I suppose I should take that as a compliment?” Connell called back, trying to pinpoint where Zaharak's voice was coming from.
“It is the highest any will hear from me. Only one other creature has heard it before you,” his voice came from a new direction. Zaharak remembered that encounter briefly. The Seeker had carried out the assassination of a Thifta king by the order of Salianos. The dead king's royal guardians had the misfortune of being between the Seeker and his ship. He had been impressed by the captain of the Royal Guard. As Zaharak had torn through the Thifta guards, the brute of a captain remained composed, striking at the Seeker with keen precision that would have killed the Tazalian had Zaharak been any normal soldier. The Thifta did not even cry out in pain when Zaharak had severed one of his arms from his body. This captain was the first creature to live after an encounter with the Death Shadow.
“What are you doing, Lieutenant?” cried the wounded man, “That thing is trying to kill us.”
“How is that hand treating you?” Zaharak asked from close by.
The man ra
ised his weapon, “You son of a…”
“Wait!” Connell ordered.
He was too late. Zaharak had the man disarmed before he had the gun fully raised. The man's arm broke with a loud snap, his hand dropping the weapon into the awaiting claws of Zaharak. The Tazalian Seeker released a single shot into the man's forehead, killing him instantly. Turning he brought the weapon around to face Connell. The Lieutenant had already done the same.
Zaharak's impassive gaze looked into Connell's burning auburn eyes. The Seeker said a single word, “Valkyrie.”
Puzzled, Connell continued to look at Zaharak. A gust of wind blasted into the hanger from the engines of the jagged ship that seemed to appear from nowhere. A ramp lowered from between the engines, waiting for the pilot to board. Zaharak never glanced at the ship, his eyes remained on Connell. The lieutenant remained just as motionless
“You want to tell me what all this was about? You seem to have gone through a lot of trouble for something,” Connell spoke first.
“Information.”
With that Zaharak fired a single round at the lieutenant's chest, then dashed to the awaiting ramp. In a single bound he spanned the four-foot gap between the ramp and the hangar floor. Zaharak looked back at the wounded lieutenant, who had grabbed at his shoulder. The Seeker did not miss. In fact, he made his target. He predicted that Connell would try to dodge the bullet and he had aimed so that the shot would hit the man's shoulder.
And so Connell became the second being in the galaxy that the Death Shadow allowed to live.
Zaharak walked up the rising platform into the panel-filled holding room. As he walked through the room and into the study he ordered the ship’s A.I. to take it into the upper atmosphere. Ignoring the upward pitch of the ship, Zaharak took off the brace and placed it next to the holoscreen, where he pulled up a map of the Western quadrant. Humans had installed tracking devices into themselves as children. Any missing person could be found the moment the person was reported. For a Seeker, this made the hunt much simpler.
“Valkyrie, locate the human named Jonah Sholtal,” Zaharak's guttural voice ordered.
Within moments a single light appeared in the Western quadrant, “Subject Jonah has been located in the city Neapolthia, area Westgate,” replied the A.I..
Zaharak smiled cruelly. Now to claim his prize.
Three
Unable to push on any further, Shalinda sat down and leaned against a wall of a nearly destroyed building. For once Emma had to agree with the woman. She sat down on the sidewalk with Jonah following suit. All were winded. As the girls rested, Jonah pulled the holopad from his shoulder bag to double-check the telepad in Westgate was still operational. Then he checked the status of the invasion.
“Oh, great,” he murmured looking at one of the news stories.
“What?” asked Emma, sitting up.
“Q.D.I is on high alert. One of their prisoners managed to escape from the underground interrogation rooms about an hour ago.”
Shalinda sat up as well. “You mean the Q.D.s can't even keep one of these things?”
Emma looked at her with contempt, “And you wanted to hand the relic over to them.”
Jonah placed the holopad back into the bag. “All the more reason we need to get to that telepad.”
He stood up and stretched his weary limbs. As Emma pushed herself up onto her feet, Jonah helped Shalinda to hers. They trudged on once more through the desolate streets, hope slowly draining from their fatigued minds. They were too tired to make it to Westgate in one night; but if they stopped, there would be a chance that the telepads would not be functional when they finally did arrive. Unsure of the right decision they tried to push on.
As they crossed from one street to another, they could hear the roars of serpent Dohma growing louder. The small group picked up its pace, but the shadow following them stopped and watched the large metallic head of the serpent reared up above a group of buildings ten blocks away. At the sight of the shadow, Dohma ducked back down. This was not one of its targets. The shadow watched the automaton disappear before continuing after the group of humans.
The three exhausted humans were halfway to their destination when they came upon a collapsed roof from a nearby building. The ruins obstructed their route completely with no way around. Jonah surveyed the wreckage. It seemed stable enough and Emma was already ahead of him. Finding footholds, she began to climb the debris. Jonah centered the bag over his back and helped Shalinda up the wall first before beginning his own ascent onto the roof. As he climbed the rubble, he helped Shalinda whenever she lost her footing. Emma had long reached the top before them. Jonah chuckled despite himself, my sister the cat.
The top of the wreckage was wide enough for them to stand and catch their breath at the peak. When they were ready, Jonah began the descent first, Shalinda followed second. Before Emma began her climb down, she looked back the way they had come to make sure the metallic monster or enemy soldiers were not following them. When she found nothing, she started down. She was near the bottom when a clawed hand grabbed the collar of her dusty vest.
She was placed on the ground and turned roughly to face five, tall, armed, alien soldiers. Two green-scaled aliens held onto a struggling Jonah as he tried to fight them off. The other two, one bronze-scaled and the other red, stood at each side of a crying and weak-kneed Shalinda. The taller violet-scaled lizard stood in front of Emma, his gun trained at her chest. Its gold eyes bore into her gray eyes. She tried with difficulty to catch her breath. She had seen what they did to the other civilians. Any moment that rifle in its hands would end their flight for good. The gun motioned to Jonah, however.
Emma blinked and looked at the lizard with confusion, “What?”
“Search the satchel that one carries,” the soldier's low, gruff voice spoke in Earthnan.
“Do it yourself,” Emma spat out trying to be brave. She did not have time to question how it knew their language.
The soldier pointed the gun back at her. “Cute. We can kill all three of you and then search the bag ourselves, but we prefer to have live hostages.” He motioned once more at Jonah. “Now search it.”
“Emma, do what he says,” cried Shalinda, tears coursing down her distorted face.
The soldier smiled coldly, “Listen to the nice lady, little girl.”
Emma held up her hands and walked over to Jonah. “Okay.” Her heart pounded. How was she going to hide the relic? Turning her back to the taller soldier, she grabbed Jonah's shoulder bag and removed the holopad and the relic. She quickly pocketed the relic in her vest before turning back to face the soldier. Showing him the holopad, she said, “This is all that's in there.”
The soldier's sight was keener than she anticipated, “What did you put in your pocket?”
Emma tried to act like she didn't know what he was talking about. “Nothing.”
The soldier was swift, he had the relic out of the pocket of her vest before she could move. When he removed the pyramid-shaped relic, a glint appeared in his eyes. “Well, well. Seems old General Kodian has found a relic. This will be a nice slap in the face for those accursed Seekers.” He looked at the three humans, a cruel smile on his face. “We won't be needing you anymore.”
He pointed the gun at Emma's head. Beyond frightened, Emma closed her eyes to hold back her tears. Just as the general's claw touched the trigger, a spine chilling shriek pierced the air. The phantom that had been following the group sprang to life from atop the rubble. Kodian lifted the rifle to face the figure, who until then had been one with the shadows, only to have the weapon knocked out of his claws by the phantom's tail. The other four soldiers moved to intercept the interloper, only to be killed by knives thrown from the depths of the of the phantom’s long, black cloak. Kodian ran towards the warrior and sent a kick at its head. The phantom ducked smoothly out of the way and sent a blow from a clawed hand to Kodian’s own head.
As the general spun to the ground, his opponent ripped off its cloak revealing
blue-green scales that shimmered in what little light there was. Scars shown through the ragged shirt and pants the newcomer wore. Its tuft of green hair hung loosely around its gaunt-looking head. White spikes ran along the creature’s spine, some broken. The new lizard's red eyes regarded the general, as the latter’s yellow eyes showed a mixture of rage and surprise.
“Kahluna!” the general growled darkly.
The creature didn't reply. Instead, it ran towards the general. With a single kick from its booted foot, the newcomer broke the general's skull. As the general’s eyes rolled back into his head, the newly arrived lizard reached down and snatched the relic from his dead claws. The three humans could only watch the events in shock as the creature stood up straight holding the relic tightly. Turning towards them, the tall reptile tossed the relic to Jonah who almost failed to catch it. The alien spoke in a cool, female voice, “Next time, guard that better. I may not be around to save you again.”
Jonah looked from the relic to the female lizard, unable to find his words, “Wha…? Why?”
The female picked up Kodian's rifle from the ground. Pulling the weapon's strap over her head she began walking towards the streets adjacent to where the group was heading. “We can answer questions later; right now we have to move.”
“Wait? You just expect us to trust you, only because you came running in at the right time?” questioned Shalinda as Jonah placed the relic back into the shoulder bag. “You're one of them aren't you?”
The female stopped and turned to face them, her red eyes grazed Shalinda. “You do not have much of a choice now, do you?” She pointed at the dead soldiers. “As for them, they may be Tazalians, but they are not Seekers.”
