Infused (Book 2 of The Pioneers Saga)

by William Stadler

  “Too late.”

  Uriel backed up into Shauna's view, and Shauna squeezed her knife until her knuckles were white. Uriel turned and ran back to Shauna. Shauna could hear the two men racing after her. “On me,” Shauna whispered.

  The first man appeared around the edge. Shauna pounced on him. He tumbled to the ground, and she drove the dagger into his slender belly. The other guard stopped in stride and ran over to wrestle Shauna to the ground. He looked back at the wall to call for help. Before the words came out, Uriel grabbed him around this neck and pulled him to the ground. His hands iced over, and his temperature dropped. He struggled and gasped for air in her hold. Uriel's skin compressed and tightened from the cold. But she speared him with her dagger through his heart before he could get the upper hand. Her temperature returned, and the guard fell silent.

  Shauna brushed herself off and wiped her dagger on the guard's coat. “Grab the bodies, and lay them next to the building.”

  “What do you think I'm doing?”

  “Just get it done faster. You're slowing me down.”

  “I thought you said you were going to kill them both,” Uriel said as she pulled the man across the ground.

  “I was about to.”

  “Right before I saved your life.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Just come on. We have to find a way inside.” Shauna finished dusting off her sari and crept alongside the front of the building. The temperature rose substantially after the death of the two Polarist guards, and Shauna could pull a few spirits to the surface. She commanded them to keep quiet, so their mouths moved but no sounds came out. Her eyes rolled back as she tried to fall into the Hellstate.

  The spirits cried silently for help. They wanted to be freed from the bondage of the cold. They wanted to be able to roam without the frigid restraints. Looking above the wall, she heard footsteps ascending the stairs behind the gate.

  Uriel stepped back from the wall and pulled her dagger behind her head, waiting for the guard to appear. The footsteps slowed as the man reached the top. She could see his thick bear hat rising over the wall. Upon reaching the top, the guard put his hands on his hips and peered out at the canopy beyond the city. Then he looked down, searching for the guards.

  Shauna’s eyes blackened and her body dropped to the ground. Her spirit ripped in half from within her. Part of her spirit stayed with her body to keep her alive, and the other part entered the man. Her spirit banged against his. She could feel his resistance. This man was solid, but Shauna barged in on him nonetheless. He stumbled as she entered his body, but she made him catch his balance so he wouldn't plummet to his death over the side of the wall.

  His resistance came to nothing. She had taken control. She commanded him to walk back down the stairs, and looking through his eyes she could see dozens of other guards. There were no Spiritualists inside from what she could tell. She forced him to gently raise the temperature so that she could get a firmer grasp.

  Another guard approached the one she was controlling. “You okay, Gy?” asked the other guard.

  “I've had better days,” she forced him to say.

  “Just a minute ago you were laughing, and now you look like you've seen a ghost.”

  “I hate Broughtonhaven is all.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Shauna picked herself off the ground as she maintained control of the soldier. “I've got one.”

  “Good. What now?” Uriel asked.

  “Put on the Polarist guard clothes, and we'll see if we can go inside.“

  “Won't they see that we're women?”

  “We'll use the other guard to shield us once the gate is open.”

  “And what if this doesn't work?” Uriel asked.

  Shauna smiled. “Then we'll end up dead.”

  Uriel rolled her eyes and sighed. They both stepped into the guards' clothes, and Shauna left her sari lying near the bodies. She went to the door and knocked heavily three times just as she had seen the guard do before when the caravan had entered, then she commanded the guard she was controlling to come and unlock the gate.

  The sound of wooden slats grinding together made Shauna shudder as the bolted front entrance opened. The dirt underneath the doors parted, and the bulky man emerged into sight. Shauna prepared herself for the worse. There were other guards nearby watching the gate behind the soldier that she was commanding. Her breathing came sporadically, and she tried not to make a sound.

  The moonlight shined on both her and Uriel, and the anticipation of death stared at them malignantly. The Polarist guards approached the gate, waiting for Shauna to make her request. The guards were still not close enough to see her face through the darkness of the night. The man she was controlling beckoned the two of them to come inside the city. They both walked awkwardly inside. Their enormous boots from the disguise flopped against their heels, and the wooly leggings were too thick, dangling around the two women's thighs.

  How many of these guards were there? Shauna wondered. She had lost count after seventeen, and she was too nervous to focus on the others who walked suspiciously out from the abandoned buildings. What had she done? What had she committed to? How could she have ever thought that she would be able to rescue this baby?

  Refusing to make eye contact with the Polarists, she kept her face towards the ground. The towering stone buildings peered down at them from both sides of the street. Only a few alleyways could be seen because of the proximity of the edifices. Some were bungalows and others had levels stacked on top of each other with markets and inns on each floor.

  Why were these guards watching them? This should have been a routine entry, but for some reason, the guards came from these buildings to monitor them.

  “Payne?” One of the guards walked closer to Shauna, eyes squinted. The man was tall and slender, and his nose stuck out farther than the sun cover of his bear-fur hat. His chin was pointed and it dipped in the center. Shauna turned her face away casually, pretending not to hear the man. “Payne, why are you coming into the city when there's no one outside? You okay?”

  Shauna could feel her control on the man she was commanding tightening. It felt effortless unlike moments before when it had taken all of her concentration to keep him contained. She pulled the man closer to her to block her face from the slender soldier who was still creeping towards her.

  “Payne! I asked you a question.”

  The slender man pushed the guy she was controlling out of the way and grabbed her by the collar. She jerked her head around towards him from the fright. Her blackened eyes widened, still not revealing her darkened pupils.

  He shoved her backwards. “You're not Payne!”

  Shauna's heart raced. She whipped her head around, and all she could see were the Polarists barging in on her. The buildings leaned in towards her, mocking her. Her blood flushed into her face, and her hands tingled from the fear. She collapsed to the ground, and her head pounded against the rocky surface. Her spirit divided into dozens of divisions. Part of her spirit stayed within her, but the split portions scattered and entered the guards who charged in at her.

  Their screams sliced through the air. The spirits from Broughtonhaven surfaced in power like a ghostly infantry. She even had control of Uriel. Shauna rolled over to her back. Her body was nearly limp but completely fatigued. The Polarists stared as they watched her on the ground, waiting for her command. She could hear their spirits thinking and feeling. Their thoughts were cluttered with rage and confusion. But one thought was common amongst them all. They awaited her orders.

  Pulling herself up, she lay back and balanced herself on her elbows. Her eyes were blazing white from the Hellstate, and she had trouble focusing on anyone. She cringed as she felt them resisting her control, but they were under her command.

  Her muscles ached and she trembled from the intense spiritual activity. The apparitions flicked through her hair, and they permeated her body. The hairs on her
skin stood up, and she was mostly unaware of where she was, still fading in and out of sanity. Her focus waned, and then there was the voice, the soft voice that called her back to reality. She honed in on it, and she connected to it. It was Caleb's spirit. It beckoned her. This was the voice that asked nothing of her and demanded the same.

  She shook her head slowly, regaining a more lucid consciousness. Standing to her feet, she mindlessly brushed herself off and looked through the guards. Her eyes set on Uriel, and with the slightest flip of her head, Shauna released her control over Uriel.

  Turning to the Polarists, the rage from the people filled her head and blinded her reason. These men and women had killed so many Spiritualists. And now here they were, staring blankly at her in a chaotic semicircle, waiting for her commands. Every one of them deserved to die.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE DEMANDS

  Next to Kyhelm, Narwine was Caleb’s favorite province to visit. The environment and the terrain were so unique. Even though many areas were rough to traverse, the reward of the mountainous panoramas made it worth the trip.

  Caleb knocked on the heavy wooden door to Jensen's two-story home, and it took Jensen a while to answer. Since their last visit, Jensen had grown a beard which wouldn’t have looked bad if it weren’t knotted and untrimmed. Just a few weeks before, Jensen was in high esteem, but something was different about him.

  “Come in,” he said, as he opened the door and turned away without greeting them.

  Sarai looked at Caleb to see if Caleb understood why Jensen seemed bothered. Caleb shrugged and went inside. The house wasn’t as well-kept as it had been the last time that Caleb was there. There were cobwebs lining the ceilings while dirt and clods of mud lay slopped over the polished wooden planks in the floor. When they entered the lab, glass beakers were strewn about, and unknown fluids leaked off of the tables which themselves had once been neatly aligned. Now the tables were out of place, shifted as if they had been kicked. The laboratory was a wreck, smelling like rotted plants hoisted within a humid and musty room.

  “Jensen, what happened to this place?” Caleb asked. He was half-joking, but he wasn’t sure what Jensen’s reaction was going to be so he tiptoed around the question.

  “It’s a lab. Lab’s get dirty.”

  “They do. But not your lab. You’re neater than this, almost to a fault,” said Caleb.

  Jensen pointed to himself, and there was no smile on his face. “Am I not allowed to make mistakes? Am I not allowed to have a messy house every once in a while?”

  “Of course, you can. That’s not what Caleb’s saying. We just didn’t take you for being messy. It’s a compliment,” Sarai said.

  “How’s that a compliment? You look at this trashed house, and then you think that it’s a compliment to address what I already know.”

  Caleb touched Jensen on his shoulder.

  Jensen snapped as he yanked his arm away. “Get off of me!”

  “If this is a bad time, we can come back,” said Sarai.

  “That’s not true,” said Gardiv, not willing to cower underneath Jensen's tantrum. “We came because we needed to check to see if you figured out how to make the serum. This is urgent.”

  “Urgent?” Jensen tossed his hands in the air. “You have a need, and it’s urgent, and it’s my fault? My responsibility. Whenever someone needs something, they come to me. And somehow it’s always urgent. But what about when things were urgent for me? No one came. Not even you, Caleb. You claim to be this loyal guy who supposedly cares about his friends. Why was the death of my wife not urgent?”

  “I did come to you. I visited you at least once a month, and I asked you how you were doing every time I came. You always said you were fine, so I didn’t push you.”

  Jensen laughed. “Didn’t push me? My wife died, I flippantly said I was fine, and you believed that? Obviously you don’t know what it’s like to have the person closest to you be murdered.”

  Caleb put his hands on his hips and looked around. “Did you really just say that? There’s a line, and you just crossed it. You want to sit in here and feel sorry for yourself. That’s fine. You want throw things around and smash up your lab equipment. It’s your house, and it’s your gold. But don’t you ever accuse me of not knowing what it’s like.”

  “Oh, so your woman gets attacked by some birds, and you want everyone to pity you?”

  “My woman’s name was Anise,” Caleb said shaking his finger at Jensen. “And I know you’re upset about Vanessa, but to go as far as scorning my loss really makes you look like a heartless pig.”

  “I don’t care what it makes me look like! That’s the point I’m making. I’m tired of caring what things make me look like. I’m tired of putting on a face that everyone expects me to wear just so they don’t have to deal with Vanessa’s death. When I act normal, they can act normal. I can’t keep pretending like she meant nothing to me. Not anymore. People ask, ‘Jensen, can you make this or that or help with this task?' No, I can’t. I’m tired of producing. There’s nothing left in me but grief. A grief that people like you don’t even give me time to feel.”

  Caleb waited for the words to sink in before he responded. “Two years ago, Anise was killed...by birds, as you so kindly put it. And two years ago, people expected of me what they expect of you now. They wanted me to just drop it. To get past it, like she and I had never been married. They just wanted me to forget. To wash it out of my memory and move on. I tried then, and I still try now, but nothing works. Do I need to move on? Yes. But will I ever stop loving her? No. I can’t pretend that I never cared for her.” He looked at Sarai, and she turned away.

  Jensen backhanded a beaker off the table that smashed against the side wall, spilling its green fluid down to the floor. “You think that you and I have something in common? You don’t understand what I’m going through. You don’t know what it’s like to have people beating down your door for answers to questions. Questions that just don’t matter. Not to me anyway.”

  “You’re right, Jensen. I’m sorry for coming here and asking you about the serum,” said Caleb. “I wasn’t thinking of you. I was only thinking of Broughtonhaven and the Spiritualists. Sometimes we become so concerned with people as a whole that we tend to forget about the individuals themselves. And for that, Jensen, I apologize. Forget about the serum. There has to be another way to drive out the Polarists. One that doesn’t require you to have to do this to yourself. Because one thing's for sure, you’re more important to me than any of this. What you did to save my life is something that I’ll never forget, and I don’t take that lightly.”

  With that, Caleb grabbed Jensen’s shoulder and squeezed it. Jensen hung his head, leaning forward with his hands on the lab table. A flask rolled off the table and shattered. Pieces of glass flew underneath the tablecloth. Caleb knew that Jensen had pushed himself too hard, and no man should have to endure what Jensen went through. None at all.

  Caleb motioned to the others to leave Jensen to grieve, and they stepped outside the house into the light of the sun. Jensen didn’t escort them out, but Caleb understood. Even with all the words said, there was no way to remove the pain of having his wife snatched away from him.

  “Where to now?” Sarai asked, sighing and fixing her braid. Caleb stared at the ground, and then he looked at her. She didn’t look away this time. There were so many words that needed to be said.

  =====

  Jensen cried uncontrollably after he heard the front door of his house shut. He knew they were gone, and he just let it out. His shoulders jerked as his body retched from the sobs. He missed Vanessa. The accent. The smile. The sassy remarks. Everything. Everything about her he loved. And in her moment of weakness, Wex took advantage of her. For years she kept a secret from him so that she could spare his life. That was just like her. She would take on burdens so that Jensen wouldn’t have to deal with them.

  But the way she died was harsh. She couldn’t even fight. The woman whom he loved. The woman, who ba
ttled every chance she got, died without a fight. No words except the fear that Wex would kill her. Was Jensen upset about what she did — the way she let Wex connect with her spirit so that she could protect Jensen? Of course he was upset, but not to the point of death. They could have worked through it. And now Wex was dead, and Jensen had nowhere to channel his anger. The ball of wrath that stirred in his heart had no outlet.

  He picked up one of the beakers full of the green Naturalist Anaerobia and turned it over in his hand. “Jensen can you make this for me,” he said aloud. “No!” He slung the beaker against the wall, and the glass ricocheted back to him. “Can you research this?” He picked up another one. “No!” he yelled and slammed another against the wall. “Jensen? Can you have this done by next week?” He yanked a flask off the table. “Never!” It smashed against the wall.

  In a flurry of outrage, Jensen snagged more items from his table and flung them against the wall. Shattered glass spun around on the floor as fragments broke off from the equipment. Anaerobia from each of the provinces colored the room in eerie splashes of angst. He caught hold of the side of the lab table and capsized it, screaming in pain. The clinkering sound of glass tingled throughout the chamber, and the rattling of the metal table reverberated through the hallway.

  He fell to his knees, pressing his palms against his forehead and bawling into his hands. Vanessa left a hole inside of him that nothing could fill, not the anger nor the pain. The madder he got, the more his heart hurt for her. How was she able to suffer through all of those years of manipulation? How had the cumbersome weight of Wex’s hand dictated her every move?

  No wonder she didn’t want him to go to Broughtonhaven to spy on Wex. It made sense now. She had compromised her integrity to the point of letting Wex connect with her spirit, and for what? For Jensen. It was for him. She did it for him, and he selfishly went to investigate Wex and almost got himself killed. Vanessa must have been heartbroken to see him leave. If he had only known, he would have done everything in his power to stop it. But he didn’t know, so there he sat, crying into his hands, surrounded by broken glass.