by Lila Dubois
“Do you know who it was who your commander called? I want to know who else would be aware of this.”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“I do,” Keith said, “it was the doctor. She came to this facility after the first one of, er, them, was captured.”
Runako let out a breath. The doctor was dead, as was the man they referred to as commander. He looked at the remaining human men. Some of them had participated in kidnapping his sister. They should pay for what they’d done to her.
“Runako,” Margo said. “We need to get him some help.”
Runako looked over his shoulder at Seling, then back to the men.
“Runako, please.” Margo said. The soldiers heard the note of panic in her voice and several of them shifted their guns. They were not pointing them at him—not yet.
Runako spread and raised his wings. The soldiers cowered back. Margo did not. She marched up to him.
“Make a decision. You either kill all these men, who are all former military and trained to obey orders, or we leave. You need to choose.”
Runako took a step back so he could look down at Margo without hurting his neck.
His sister was dead. There was nothing he could do to change that. The people primarily responsible were dead, and now that he knew about this facility it would be easier to monitor the humans.
His sister’s death was in his past, and his future stood before him—looking pissed and carrying a gun.
“We will leave,” he said, and Margo relaxed.
“You can leave me here if you need to get him out first.”
“His wing should have healed enough for him to fly. I’m not sure I could carry him.”
“Then let’s go.”
He lifted Margo in his arms. She cradled the boxes and looped one arm around his neck.
“I have the electronic copies of the information, but there are paper copies. Ideally we would burn this place down,” Margo murmured. Runako nodded, turned and asked Seling a question to which he replied with a nod.
“Ma’am, wait, what are we supposed to do?”
Margo looked back over her shoulder. “Evacuate the facility. You have five minutes. Leave everything. If you have vehicles you’d better get them away from the building.”
“You’re going to…” one asked, but Margo just nodded. “The bodies?” Another asked.
“It will be better this way.” Margo said.
Runako motioned Seling up with a jerk of his head. Seling’s scarlet wings opened, and he was up. Runako crouched and pushed off. With two hard flaps he was through the roof.
With Margo in his arms he circled the facility. The main building was cross-shaped. The hole in the roof was at the center of the cross.
Seling had landed and was testing his wings.
Runako watched streams of humans, a few dozen in all, pour out of the building, prompted by the siren that now sounded. They piled into a second building, and after a few minutes doors rolled up and four vehicles moved out.
Runako set down and lowered Margo to the forest floor.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go back in and look for a lighter and some gas or something. They’ll know this is arson, and when they autopsy the bodies they’ll know they were murdered. Or at least that one was murdered.” Margo worried her lower lip. “Not much we can do about it.”
She headed for the building, but Runako stopped her. He didn’t say anything.
Runako took to the sky and circled the building a few more times, examining the physical structure. He landed near the hole in the roof, the metal groaning under his weight.
Runako crouched, raised one arm, and then tore into the roof, his claws piercing the metal. Sharp edges made shallow cuts in the thick skin of his hands. He tore at the metal until he’d opened a sizable hole. Grasping the edges he lifted, the metal groaned but didn’t budge. He spread his wings and beat them, adding pressure to the metal, which gave. The rivets at the edges burst, and the entire sheet pulled up.
He peeled it back, exposing the framework bellow. The violence he’d forced himself to suppress while dealing with the humans flared to life. He bellowed in rage as he tore another hole, ripping the build apart as he’d vowed to do. He hadn’t killed them, as he’d planned to, because of Margo.
She’d looked at him, expected more from him than senseless killing, and he’d found that he expected better of himself too. He’d always planned to, when faced with the humans involved in Kalona’s murder, destroy them all. But through Margo’s eyes he saw them for what they were—beings neither innocent nor evil, but rather…human.
Besides, Margo had shot the leader and Seling had taken out at lease six including the doctor.
By the time he was done the building looked as though a series of small bombs had gone off within, exploding the roof outward. Runako’s anger was spent, and his arms and legs were shaking from the strain.
He leapt off the roof and walked back to Margo and Seling. Margo was sitting cross-legged on the ground, chatting to Seling, who was lying on the forest floor his injured wing stretched out. Runako hid his pout. Had she watched his masculine and impressive display?
“I heard Chevo talk about the human movies. And a few times when I’ve gone into the human city near home and walked around I’ve see the short movies, trailers you call them? They always pique my interest. I will go to the Captive Caves and watch these movies.” Seling was saying as Runako approached.
“I’m trying to decide what you should watch first,” Margo said. “Where to start. Should you ease into it with cartoons the way humans do? No point really, we only watch cartoons because we start watching movies when we’re young. A classic? Sunset Boulevard? Citizen Cain? Too subtle I think. Action adventure. Batman Begins? That might be good. Okay look for a movie in a black case with a symbol on the front that looks like this.”
Margo brushed aside some leaves and drew a picture in the dirt with her stick. Seling lifted himself on one arm and examined the picture, then nodded.
Margo turned her attention (finally) to Runako. “Are you pouting?” she asked.
“No. Monsters do not pout,” Runako said with dignity.
“You look like you’re pouting.”
“I’m not pouting.” Runako bared his teeth in a snarl.
Margo pulled her lips back and growled. Seling snorted and turned away, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Don’t encourage her,” Runako told the other Monster in exasperation. “She’s human,” he pointed out. He was surprised that Seling was calmly talking to Margo. He would have though that, after what Seling had just suffered, he’d have kept as far away from a human as he could.
“I noticed,” Seling assured him. “Were you concerned about leaving her here with me?”
Margo shifted, hugging herself, and Runako realized that it couldn’t have been a comfortable situation for her at first.
“No,” Runako said. “I did not think you would hurt her, but I was worried that you would not want to be near a human after what has been done to you.”
“She didn’t do it,” Seling said simply.
Good point.
“You feeling better?” Margo asked, pointing to the roof.
“I did not do that out of spite,” he gripped. Seling slowly got to his feet. He wobbled unsteadily for a second, then crouched and leapt into the air. He circled the clearing, keeping below the tree line. He was favoring the injured wing, but after a moment of observation Runako decided he would be safe enough to fly.
“Okey dokey,” Margo said.
“Okey dokey? What is okey dokey?” Runako demanded.
“It means fine.”
“You think I did that for no reason?” he demanded.
“Not for no reason. I think it was something you needed to do.”
“Well I did need to do it,” he replied haughtily.
Seling landed on one of the few remaining sections of roof. Runako motioned for Margo to watch. Seling took se
veral deep breaths, his wings rising and falling, then he tucked his wings into his body and leaned forward.
“Holy crap he breaths fire!” Margo shouted, and Seling blew out a long stream of golden flames.
“Yes. I destroyed the roof to give him access. And because I wanted to.”
“I knew it,” she said absently, staring at Seling in fascination. “Can you do that?” she asked, turning to him, wide-eyed.
“No.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay.” She patted him comfortingly.
“I just ripped through a metal roof with my hands!”
“You sure did. Good job. Can we go closer? I want to see.”
“No we can not go closer,” he muttered. He was having unkind thoughts about Seling, who’d moved to the section of building closest to them.
“Look at that! It’s fire hot enough to melt metal.”
“I could rip out this tree by the roots,” Runako boasted, mentally wincing as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
Margo looked askance at him. The corner of her mouth kicked up in a smile, which turned to a grin. Runako covered his head with his wing. Margo dissolved into laughter.
Her laughter was infectious, and soon he was smiling, then laughing. Margo’s laughter had a brittle note to it, and Runako stopped laughing, instead watching her in concern as Seling continued his methodical destruction of the building.
“Margo?”
“I killed him. I killed a man. I shot him. In cold blood.”
“He was a bad guy,” Runako pointed out.
“Bad enough to deserve death? Maybe all he needed was time, time to understand your people, and then he would have understood what he’d done and repented. I stole that time from him. I killed him.”
Margo turned to face him, and her eyes were wide and dark, her pupils so large Runako wondered if she might not be in shock. Worried now, he shifted to human so he could take her in his arms. Runako dropped to his knees beside her and hugged her to his chest. Her whole body shook with sobs, though her eyes were dry.
“He was someone’s son, brother. Oh God, what if he had kids. What have I done?”
“You protected me,” he said. “If you hadn’t acted he would have killed me. He was intent on murder, on violence. You did it to protect me.”
Runako rocked her in his arms as the temperature in the clearing rose. Soon flames were shooting into the night sky, and metal screamed and bubbled under the supernaturally hot flames. Runako thought about the bodies inside. Fire was a fitting end to any life, and Runako took a moment to pray that the humans ended up in the arms of whatever god or gods it was they prayed to.
Margo’s shaking subsided, and she stared in fascination at the flames. He petted her head. “I think it’s cute that humans are still so primitive that they are dazzled by fire.”
Her head snapped around, her eyes sparkling, mouth open to utter a biting retort. Seeing his teasing smile she relaxed and grinned at him. “Pretty fire,” she said in a singsong voice.
Runako laughed and, as Seling returned to them, radiating heat, he stepped away and shifted forms. Margo gathered the boxes the young doctor had given her, and he picked her up. Seling took off into the air.
“It’s done,” Runako said, looking at the burning building. “Let this be Kalona’s fire.”
“Is that what you would have done? With her body I mean.”
“Yes. We would have put her on a pyre. There are rituals, dances. Things I would have liked to do for her.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe you still can.”
“Without her body there would be no point.”
Margo clutched the boxes a bit tighter.
Runako crouched, leapt.
He climbed into the twilight sky. Seling waited there, riding a current of air. Tucking Margo more securely into his chest he started forward. Seling flew beside and behind him, riding in his slipstream.
Chapter Seventeen
He led Seling back to the mountains his Clan called home. Seling dropped and headed for his cave. Runako took careful note of the position. When Seling had said his name Runako had remembered him, but he did not know where the other male lived. He turned in the air, riding the current that raced down the mountain and then headed on to his cave.
With some trepidation he landed on the rock ledge outside his home and lowered Margo to her feet.
She set down the boxes she carried, staring at the handmade pots filled with mountain flowers on either side of the cave entrance.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“My home.”
“Just you, or do other people live here?”
“Just me.”
“Who planted the flowers?”
“I did,” Runako said defensively.
Margo smiled, and the smile turned into a grin, which dissolved into tears. Runako let go of her, and Margo sat down on the wide lip of one of the pots. This smiling-turned-to-crying bit was not good.
“Uh, what’s happening?” he asked nervously. Her sobs had turned into laughter.
“I’m just…I don’t even know.”
She sneezed twice, hiccupped and then dissolved into tears once more. Runako patted her on the head. She sobbed harder. He jerked his hand away.
“I was so scared,” she sniffled. “I was afraid we were going to die. Then I was afraid you were going to kill everyone. Each second I was expecting someone to ask a question I wouldn’t have the right answer to, or for them to figure out I was lying through my teeth. Now we’re safe and you have flowers outside your front door, which makes me want you more, which is going to make it so much harder when you tell me ‘thanks but no thanks’.”
“What am I saying no thanks too?”
“No seas estúpido. Entiendes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Liar.”
“Woman you are infuriating,” he said, growing more frustrated by the second. She’d been fine when they were in the clearing, happily chatting with Seling, and then she’d been upset about killing the human, which was only right, but she’d recovered. But he had no idea what she was crying/laughing about now.
“You’re an ass,” she snarled, then burst into sobs.
“Why are you angry with me?” he demanded.
Margo jumped up, mouth open to scream at him, but a sudden gust of wind whipped down the mountain. His home was situated several mountains away from the Captive Caves, and lower down, so it was warmer, though there was snow only a hundred meters up the slope.
Margo shivered. He could invite her in, but in her current mood he wasn’t sure what would happen. Taking her captive had worked before.
Runako scooped Margo up and flipped her so she dangled over his arm.
“What are you…” she sputtered.
“Kidnapping you.”
“¿Otra vez?”
He carried Margo through the zigzagging tunnel that kept the cold and wind out of his home. The passage was wide and tall, enough to allow him to move easily, but his steps slowed as he approached the main cave.
He was nervous. Not about kidnapping her—that was hardly new—but about showing her his home. What would she think?
The warmth and familiar smell of his home enveloped him, two steps before the passage ended. Runako set Margo down and stepped back, shuffling his feet slightly.
It was gorgeous. Margo rubbed her stomach and looked around. His home was a cave, like the one they’d been in, but different in a million ways. The walls were smooth and polished to a high gloss. The furnishings, what few there were, were dark wood, and heavily carved and gilded, almost baroque. Lit candles hung from huge circular candelabras, and squatted in bowls created by rocks that had been split to show off their quartz-lined interiors. The floor beneath her feet was wood—made of wide planks of dark timber.
It was beautiful, stunning, and the artistry involved in the pieces—hey, wait…
“How are the candles already lit?”
“Oh, uh, they’re a
ctually gas. There’s a trigger in the passage that turns them on and off.”
“Ha,” she shouted, pumping her fist in the air.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Because you’re using gas heating, a human invention.”
Runako raised one brow. She hadn’t really noticed that he had eyebrows in this form, but he did. “Gas piping and heating aren’t a human invention?”
“No.”
“Crap.”
“What do you think?” he asked, shuffling side to side, dipping his head. His wings drooped. The snarky comment she’d been about to make died on her lips. Margo cleared her throat. “It’s beautiful. It really is. The furniture, the walls, the gas-powered candles. You have a beautiful home.”
“Thank you,” he said, so visibly relieved she wondered if he was pretending.
Margo wandered over to the couch-like item. It was very low to the floor and the arms were massive, each as long as the main section of the couch and slanting gradually from the base. She sat tentatively.
Runako followed her and took a seat. She watched him sit with interest, as the fact that his knees bent back fascinated her. He folded down, sat on his lower legs, tipped to the side so that the majority of his weight was on his side and stretched out his legs. He extended one wing, curled it around her and pulled her closer to him.
Margo curled up next to him, resting her arm along his thigh and propping her chin on her arm. His thick rubbery skin was cool under her fingers. She shivered as she touched him. She’d stopped seeing him as either Human Runako or Monster Runako, but she would never forget how very different he was in this body.
“What you said…before we faced the men,” he said.
“Yes?” Margo asked, tensing up. Her stomach was already in knots from the emotional roller coaster of the day. She honestly wasn’t sure there was anything left in her, emotionally speaking. That was probably a good thing as she wasn’t really looking forward to being told she was “a really great girl but…”
“I, well. The thing is, uhhh…”
Runako shifted uncomfortably, which nearly sent Margo tumbling to the floor.
“Sorry,” he muttered, steadying her with his hand as his wing wrapped around her. She tensed as the rubbery membrane touched her, but settled down after a moment. Too bad he didn’t have feather wings. Maybe some of them did have feather wings, she’d have to ask Jane about it.
