London Wild

by V. E. Shearman

  Her bare hands, her claws and her teeth were all she had left to deal with her foe. It was true that she could try to just get away. The garage roofs weren’t that high, and she could be across them and out of danger in a matter of minutes. But if she slipped while climbing, she would be an easy target for the human to finish. She had climbed higher buildings than these garages many times before, but she wasn’t willing to bet her life on previous success unless there really was no other way. Also, the garages had suffered a lot of damage. There was a lot of rubble even just by her, and they might not even take her weight now. But the real kicker, the main reason she refused to just run from the situation, was because of anger, anger at the man for having the audacity to shoot at her, anger at herself for getting caught in this alleyway as if she had no more experience than a child, and anger at her laser pistol for letting her down when she needed it most.

  The man had been quiet for a few minutes; then the sound of him unplugging the power pack from the rifle, no doubt with the intent to change it for a new one, echoed around the street.

  February’s ears flickered at the noise, knowing immediately what it was and realizing that if she was going to move, it’d have to be now. This was it; especially in the weak light, the man would probably have to look at was he was doing to attach the new cartridge, assuming he was as green as he had seemed earlier. She doubted she could get to him before he reloaded. But she might at least change her hiding place and maybe get a little closer to him.

  She moved slowly, carefully, making no noise to the wheeled skip. Then she watched him for a second before continuing. He was still fitting the new cartridge, maybe even having a spot of trouble trying to fit it, and had apparently not seen her move at all. From here, she moved across to the left side of the alley. She was now on the same side of the alley as the gunman, but still out of sight thanks to the curvature of the street.

  Once she reached the far wall, she stood very still for a moment, listening to her own heart thumping against her chest. He might no longer be able to see her from where he was, but if he had seen her move, then he wasn’t likely to stay put. She would have to rely on her sense of smell to judge his position. Fortunately the smell of fear was very strong. There was even a chance, despite the fact that she’d hit him with the weakened beam of her pistol, that he didn’t know she was no longer armed. But she couldn’t allow herself to believe that; she had to assume he knew his advantage.

  A very low-powered beam hit the remains of the garage wall where she had been hiding. Low-powered, a very light drain on the energy cells and not powerful enough to kill, but good enough to search the area for the target. Though the beam had a weaker color, those new to the art of street fighting might not have been able to tell the difference and might still try getting out of the way.

  February sighed with relief that he was still aiming at the garage. Obviously, he hadn’t seen her move to the skip or to the side of the alley. She could move closer to the gunman in her own time.

  Someone at one of the windows overlooking the houses seemed to be trying to signal to the gunman and warn him where she was. For a moment February wished she was still armed and could shut the blabbermouth up. One well-aimed shot would’ve been enough, though that would also tell her opponent where she was.

  She got closer and closer, edging along the back of the houses towards the gunman. She made cutting gestures at her throat to the figure in the window, who seemed to either not notice or not care and continued trying to warn the gunman of his danger.

  The gunman opened fire on the garage again: another torrent from the laser rifle set on pulse. It demolished what remained of the wall where February had been standing and cut across the opening of the garage, hitting every shadow and every space where anyone could be. He might have realized that she was no longer there and might have been just making sure.

  February was sure that when he had drained the energy cells on the garage and was confident that she had left the scene, he’d probably go home happy to have fought a Herbaht and survived to talk about it. Well, February was angry with him for even thinking of trying to kill her; besides, she still hadn’t eaten yet.

  As expected, the man lowered his weapon after a minute or two, having destroyed someone’s garage and caused a small fire close to where February had been hiding, showing without a shadow of a doubt that no one was hiding there anymore.

  He advanced slowly into the darkness of the alley again. The scent of fear coming from him was stronger than ever. His rifle was held at the ready, sighted towards the remains of the garages. It didn’t seem to occur to him that she might no longer be in them.

  February watched him as he moved, keeping herself low to the ground until she was ready to pounce. Then she sprinted towards him, hoping that the surprise of her actual location would buy her the few seconds she needed to close the gap.

  The man turned almost immediately, and February saw the barrel of the rifle pointing straight at her. But it was soon clear that her speed and location had caught him by surprise, and he was firing wildly in what appeared to be a blind panic. A bolt from the laser went by so close to her head that it made her hair stand on end.

  She threw herself at him, forcing him to topple over on his back. His arms came up to block her as she lashed out with her claws, so she hacked them to pieces. It was only a matter of moments before she got to his throat. She snarled and growled at him, surprised with herself as she tore him open. She’d never been so angry or, she started to realize, so scared. He’d nearly gotten her.

  She stood up, covered in more blood than she had thought possible, and looked down at the corpse. It was a soldier, his uniform obvious now that she was so close. Somewhere nearby he must have a patrol car. It was probably best to find the vehicle before she tried to move the body. She took the laser rifle; there was always a possibility that if she left it some passerby might decide to try his or her luck before she was clear of the area. She checked its power pack. It had about a third left; at least there would be a spare this time, even if it was currently drained.

  The patrol car was sitting with its lights on at the corner of this road and the next. She moved carefully towards it, her natural feline stealth making it relatively easy to cover the distance silently on the smooth road surface. The man she had killed might have a partner, though she felt it unlikely that one would wait in the car while the other risked his life. Perhaps the first had had a personal grudge against the Herbaht and had made some excuse to go alone, or the second one had simply not wanted to get involved. It was also possible that the second had been calling for backup while the first had tried to keep her pinned down in the alley. She would need to move quickly.

  The road was clear, the car empty. It was unusual for a soldier to be alone whilst on patrol, but it was always possible that he had seen her whilst making his way home or on leave, or perhaps he had been running an errand for a superior officer when he had seen her. When she thought about it, there were many reasons why the soldier might have been alone. Whatever the reason was, February was only too happy not to have to deal with any other soldiers this night.

  She moved quickly now. If he had called for help before confronting her, they would probably arrive shortly. Less than a minute later she was wedging the soldier’s bloody corpse unceremoniously into the rear storage compartment of the patrol car. It was an area so small that she could only get him to fit by tucking his knees up under his chin.

  She then ripped the identification badge off of the soldier’s bloody tunic and pinned it to her shirt. It should be enough to fool the vehicle’s inbuilt security devices that she had a right to drive it.

  After closing the compartment, she climbed into the driver’s seat, but before she started the engine she wanted to see what other equipment the soldier might have had at his disposal. Usually a patrol vehicle’s armory would be locked with a pass code, not that that would’ve been much of an obstacle for February. On this occasion, though, the so
ldier had recently accessed the armory himself in order to tackle her and had left the otherwise secure compartment unlocked. She had hoped that she might find a replacement pistol in the compartment. Pistols were so much easier to conceal than rifles; unfortunately the army knew this too and rarely issued them to their troops. She’d probably have to find an officer in order to get one. Perhaps someone at her regional headquarters would have a spare. The thought seemed unlikely to her, but it might be worth a look. She was probably overdue for a visit anyway, but then she didn’t like to go too often.

  The only other thing that seemed to be in the vehicle’s armory was a second laser rifle and an extra spare cartridge for use by a second soldier, had there been one. Then, as she was getting ready to close the car’s armory, she noticed something hidden under a loose canvas. A quick investigation revealed it to be a pair of bombs. They were quite versatile and could be thrown like a grenade, triggered by radio or set with a timer. There was also a pair of radio transmitters, one for each, resting on top of them. She didn’t have time to study them or worry about why the soldier had brought them with him for now, though; she wanted to be away in case help had been summoned to the area.

  She turned to face the front of the vehicle and ordered it to start. The vehicle’s dashboard computer made a quick scan of the badge she’d taken from the dead man, and the engine flared into life. Since patrol cars could often be reassigned to a new driver at a moment’s notice, the security on these vehicles never even required so much as a thumbprint to start. To counter this apparent lack of security, they did usually have an erroneous thumbprint reader, which would send out an alarm to the vehicle’s headquarters if anyone ever placed their thumb there. They would then imprison the would-be thief until someone came to collect him. Not that anyone intent on stealing a vehicle so equipped was likely to try and use such a device, but it might stop that thief from looking further.

  2

  The Bodyguard

  When, according to the Herbaht religion, the great Goddess sent her two only begotten daughters, it was in order to spread the love and knowledge of their mother all about the world.

  They did a good job at least as far as London, where the belief in the Goddess spread faster than they had expected, even amongst the human population. The Church of the Goddess was considered by many non-believers to be nothing more than a designer religion. Its members officially believed that if they were found worthy enough of the Herbaht Goddess, then she might repeat a minor miracle that she had supposedly performed shortly after her daughters first came to the planet. Back then, two humans had been altered by the Goddess in order to turn them into suitable mates for the two daughters. Another reason people joined the church, and quite possibly the more realistic of the two, was the hope that by following the same Goddess as the Herbaht, they might somehow make themselves immune to the hunters.

  The two daughters took on the mantels of Matriarch, the elder sister calling herself the Greater Matriarch and the younger sister taking on the title of the Lesser Matriarch. In contrast, it was the younger of the two who, with her ‘altered’ husband, seemed to have done the most to advance the belief in the Goddess.

  The other main source of belief in the Goddess was obviously from the Herbaht. All of them could claim a lineage back to one or the other of the two Matriarchs, although since it had been nearly a thousand years since the Matriarchs first came to the planet and the life expectancy of the average Herbaht, barring accidents, was little more than forty years, most non-believers, including those that existed among the Herbaht, doubted that the Matriarchs were still the same as the originals.

  The Herbaht actually had no official name for their religion; they just believed. There were no regular meetings among the faithful, nor was there an official holy book or any relics of their faith; they simply believed.

  There were two types of disguise that the Herbaht would wear, depending on what they were planning to do that day. The most popular involved little more than the blending of colors with the Herbaht’s own skin tones in order to hide the stripes. The more complex involved creating an actual mask, which was a lot more complicated and still needed to be blended in to match the Herbaht wearing it, but it had the advantage that supposedly not even the most alert human, not even a member of the Elite Guard, would recognize a Herbaht wearing such a disguise.

  Myajes Conjah was wearing the latter type of disguise, and yet, walking through the center of London as he was, surrounded almost constantly on all sides by those he thought of as herd, he was nervous. Few members of his race would come to a place like this unless they really had to. And as he walked the streets, trying not to look too suspicious, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he could have achieved his goal in a part of the city that wasn’t so crowded.

  As well as his disguise, he was dressed in casual clothing: tight gray jeans which did little to hide his tail bulge and a loose black synthetic leather jacket which helped a little more. He wore a pair of black casual shoes and carried a plastic shopping bag, which contained a few things he had purchased whilst shopping. Under his jacket, hidden carefully in a specially-made pocket, was a small laser pistol, though on this sort of excursion the last thing he expected was to have to use it. At least he hoped he wouldn’t; surrounded as he was by so many of the herd, the use of the weapon would most likely also spell the end of him.

  Myajes really wasn’t keen on the city. There were too many humans. The smell was too rich with their sweaty bodies and too crowded so that he felt jostled constantly as he tried to walk along the streets. He always did his best to ignore the attitudes of the herd here; as much as he might like to assert himself, it would be only too easy to slip up and give himself away.

  According to the real religion and not the human version of it, the closer your relationship to one of the Matriarchs, then the more divinity you had. Myajes was the son of the daughter of one of the sons of the Lesser Matriarch and Patriarch. Not that he really felt all that much more divine, but being so close to the spiritual leaders of the race did perhaps allow him to be better informed as to the actual history of the Herbaht religion—secrets that only those among the highest ranking would know, though, of course, it was still wrapped in a religious coating and liberally sprinkled with hyperbole.

  Thanks to his relationship to the Matriarch and his supreme physical capabilities, Myajes was granted one of the coveted positions of bodyguard to the Lesser Matriarch. It was a great honor to hold such a position, although all it really meant was that it was his job to delay the human soldiers long enough to buy the Matriarch and her husband time to escape if it should ever come to it. Other than that, he was little more than a glorified servant, doing odd jobs about the house and running the occasional errand.

  The particular errand Myajes had been sent on this time was really more than just an errand. Lara, the youngest daughter of the Lesser Matriarch, had been captured by the Elite Guard a day or two ago and was now residing in a small cell in the prison camp known simply as the Cattery.

  It had been more luck than anything that a Herbaht, out hunting, had seen Lara as she was taken, struggling, from the house in which she had been living for the last two years. Indeed, she hadn’t been in contact with her parents except through the occasional couriers. Lara didn’t trust the human phone system, postal system or even the internet, and would use them only when in the direst of need.

  The first step in the rescue was finding the camp. It wouldn’t be easy. The herd were well aware that if the location of the camp was common knowledge, then the Herbaht might try an attack in force and attempt a rescue of all the prisoners. Myajes knew that the camp was sited somewhere to the west of London, probably just outside its outskirts. Most likely, it was on some road that could be easily bypassed to prevent people from accidentally straying upon it, and then hidden in plain sight, pretending to be something it wasn’t.

  The problem was finding a map of the area. The herd seemed to be so protective of th
e area that even a map of just the roads that passed through the forest to the west of the city were virtually impossible to come by. Those that would drive those roads tended to use GPS pathfinders to direct them. And even they wouldn’t allow a close examination of the area in question, as they usually would for practically everywhere else in the country.

  He paused for a moment at a bookstore. Bookstores usually sold both paper and computer versions of books. They would also have readers for the computer books, small and fairly cheap mini-computers, no bigger than a paperback, into which the cartridge for the book was plugged and could be read. Paper was still the most popular way to read a book, though. He peered in through the windows; there was a stack of maps on a shelf in the corner of the shop, but they were the same ones that he had seen everywhere else. What he really needed was a specialized map. Even if it didn’t point out the Cattery, he might be able to make intelligent guesses. But obviously that was why finding such a map seemed next to impossible.

  The natural light was virtually gone now, replaced by big, heavy-duty street lights that illuminated the street more clearly than the sun had. Myajes felt that he was getting nowhere. He could head west and hope he’d be lucky, but with the amount of forest he would have to search, it could take all year. Lara would be dead by then unless they found out who she was. And if they did discover her true identity, she’d probably be taken to somewhere even more secure than where she was now, if such a place existed.

  As Myajes reached the next intersection, he noticed a large shopping mall right opposite. Above the main entrance was a large screen; most of the time it was used for advertising, but today it seemed to have been hijacked by some authority. The screen was cycling through the country’s ten most wanted.