Exiles

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  Dante glared at him, more than half-suspecting Galen was amusing himself at his expense, but he headed from the control room to grab a nano-patch from the med-bay. The wound was not bleeding since they had used a laser to open it, but there was no sense in leaving himself vulnerable to infection or further injury when it would take but a few moments for the nanos to bind the flesh and bone back together.

  * * * *

  Frustration and fear filled Nick when he lost sight of Claire and Madelyn as they were swept away by the maddened crowd. When all was said and done, there was very little difference between a stampeding herd of cattle and a panicked stampede of humans. Both were extremely dangerous. If Claire and Madelyn lost their balance or got knocked down, they could be trampled and crushed to death or stomped and seriously mangled. But he couldn’t reach them and could do nothing but struggle against the tide and hope he could get to them before they were hurt.

  Beyond the fear for their safety in the midst of a panicked mob, other anxieties surfaced and increased his need to reach them quickly and get them to safety.

  He hadn’t gotten the chance to get a good look at the berserk angel that had started the stampede, but he hadn’t recognized him, and he thought he would recognize that bastard that had been sniffing after Claire instantly. He didn’t know what the hell was going on—why the alien birdman had attacked without any kind of provocation that he could see—but he was loathe to put his back to the crazed thing—couldn’t focus entirely on finding Claire for watching his back to make sure the damned thing wasn’t gaining on him with that five foot knife!

  Abruptly, gunfire erupted behind him. Nick flinched and automatically leapt for cover, peripherally aware that the gunfire had only added fuel to the fire of the insane terror already driving the mob. They ran faster, falling over one another, stomping anyone that fell.

  He discovered when he searched for the source of the gunfire that everyone hadn’t simply run to escape the thing hacking down anyone in his path. A number of men had run to get guns and returned. Arriving, they’d formed a line behind the protection of cars on the street and open fire.

  For all the good it did!

  The thing seemed to have some kind of invisible, protective field around it. The bullets never penetrated far enough to reach the creature.

  Until the swat team arrived with heavier artillery.

  Nick didn’t wait around to see if the heavy artillery would be any more effective. He used the distraction the arrival of a tank caused to slip from cover and head off in the direction the mob had vanished.

  After about five or six city blocks, he saw the runners had begun to disperse significantly. Apparently, people had been dropping away from the running crowd almost from the first, had reached an area they recognized and had enough presence of mind to escape.

  Hope surged through Nick at first when he saw the crowd was thinning, but when he caught up to the ‘herd’ and began to push his way through, he discovered that neither Claire nor Madelyn were among the stragglers. Unconvinced at first, he kept searching doggedly until he finally had to accept that he’d missed them somehow.

  It took very little thought to realize they would’ve headed back to the Inn.

  Unless they’d been dragged too far away to find their way back.

  Shaking the anxiety that they’d gotten lost, he began to jog back in the direction of the Inn.

  Chapter Seven

  There was a weak link in the shield once they activated it and it didn’t take long to figure out why or where the weakness lay.

  The gulf facility was gone.

  The fortress where Dante had left Claire, believing she would be safe.

  Dante couldn’t breathe for the pain in his chest for several moments. He simply stared at the rubble, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that the facility was lying in ruins.

  Finally, the chaotic pieces twirling in his mind began to fall into place, however, and, as it did, rage began to simmer and then threatened to boil over.

  Military ships had been close by when he had left and all of them had carried the emblem that warrior sniffing after Claire had worn!

  He became convinced in that moment that they had taken her, that they had come for that specific purpose and they had the technology to breach and then destroy the fortress!

  He felt like howling his hurt and fury. Instead, he ground his teeth and struggled to calm the rage so that he could think.

  Where would they take her?

  Nothing came to mind because he knew so little of this time on her world! And although he tried, instinctively, to reach her telepathically, he could not get even a glimmer of a response.

  Frustration threatened to shatter reason once more, but Dante’s mind leapt from the actions of Claire’s government to the one target he thought he might be able to locate. And when he thought of that bastard he abruptly recalled that he had sensed Claire when he had emerged from the sea to respond to the call of the overlords.

  She was near that facility and she was with that fucking bastard that had been trying to claim her since the cave in when he had been awakened and had first seen her.

  She is gone. You must accept that and move on. We have a task that must be attended to.

  Dante whipped around to glare at Galen, restraining himself with a tremendous effort from lashing out at the handy target for his frustration and rage and grief. She is gone. She is not dead and I intend to find her.

  If she is gone and not dead then she may well have gone back to her own people willingly.

  That thought, unfortunately, had occurred to Dante, as well, and it sent a wave of nausea through him, but he saw no reason to leap to that conclusion when it was clear the warriors had destroyed the fortress purposefully. They had made war upon it and they would have taken whoever they encountered prisoner. He was sure of it. Or they may have taken her prisoner, he pointed out grimly. They attacked the camp of her sister. If I had not been a fool I would have moved them to a different place, out of the reach of that fucking bastard! But I had thought they could not possibly have the technology to breach the fortress.

  Galen considered that for a moment. If that is the case, then she may well be safer to stay where she is for now. We are about to have a war on our hands with both the overlords and the humans if what we discovered at the main base is true—and I am certain that it is simply because I do not believe the gods would have been able to resist the mind probe—they would certainly have lied and attempted deception otherwise. The humans will almost certainly hold all of us accountable for whatever mayhem the changelings wreak and consider us as their enemies, particularly if we do not move swiftly to prevent more destruction. We must focus on capturing them so that we can negotiate an alliance with the humans. Otherwise, we might all be doomed.

  It is doubtful that we would have a force sufficient to overthrow the overlords if those bastards had not turned a goodly portion of our people into puppets. We certainly do not have the numbers we need now!

  Dante ground his teeth, but he did not take orders from Galen—or in fact anyone now that they had played their hand with the gods. I will find Claire and see her to a safe place and then I will help to round up the changelings.

  Galen glared at him angrily. Do you even have an inkling where to begin the search?

  Yes, I do. I will leave you at Hy-Brasil and I will find her and take her to that facility and then I will join the search to round up the changelings.

  Galen refused to be dislodged from the ship, however, and although Dante considered his intrusion a threat and was tempted to beat him senseless and leave him at Hy-Brasil, he felt a more overpowering need to locate Claire as soon as possible.

  He could sort through the problem with Galen at a later date.

  They discovered the very moment their ship appeared near the island nearest Hy-Brasil that they had already become the enemies of the humans. Human airships appeared in a swarm and began to bombard their ship with such ferocity
that there was a very real possibility that they might breach the shields.

  Unnerved more at being the target for such a vicious attack than from any particular concern for their personal safety, Dante immediately reversed their trajectory and shot toward space once more, leaving even the most determined behind near the edge of space.

  Thankfully, they had not mastered the technology to follow them that far!

  “They have been attacked,” Galen stated the obvious.

  Dante glared at him. “You think?”

  Galen narrowed his eyes at the other angel, but since it occurred to him that his comment had been completely unnecessary, he refrained from knocking Dante’s teeth down his throat.

  “Cloaking,” Dante ordered the computer, and then descended once more.

  They thought for many unnerving moments that the humans might have mastered the technology to pierce their cloaking abilities, but they managed to elude the aircraft and dropped to a height that would allow them to survey the streets of the first city they came upon.

  Without surprise but with a great deal of dismay, they discovered the source of the humans’ anger near the center of the city—a great swathe of destruction that was clearly the results of a major battle. The changeling, they saw, was dead.

  “Aeon’s balls!” Dante cursed.

  “Aeon damn them!” Galen echoed his sentiments. “That is Dion they have slain!”

  It took an effort to tamp his own outrage. “Well, unless they are very bad marksmen, he avenged his own death ten times over,” Dante responded reluctantly.

  Galen whipped a furious glare at Dante. “He was friend! He did not deserve this! He would never have willingly committed such acts of violence!”

  “I know that and you know that. They do not! They know they were attacked and they exercised their right to protect themselves with deadly force. The overlords owe us for his death!”

  Galen shook his head. “Do you see, now, why I insisted that we must find the angels the gods have tampered with and capture them as soon as possible?”

  “My understanding is not faulty or weak!” Dante snarled. “I completely understood the situation immediately. And this is why I will see to it that Claire is safe! She is my responsibility. I chose to bestow my guardianship upon her. You did not! Leave me here. Take the ship and go upon your search while I continue mine!”

  Galen considered it for several moments and finally shook his head. “It appears to me that a path of destruction follows her. I will stay with you.”

  Not for one moment did Dante believe that Galen’s determination to stick to him had to do with anything beyond a personal interest in Claire! But even he believed that was an irrational suspicion based upon irrational emotions and he decided not to voice the jealousy spawned suspicions.

  Instead, after studying the carnage for many moments trying to collect themselves, Dante took the ship to the countryside beyond and settled it in a clearing.

  Under the circumstances they agreed that it would be best to leave the ship cloaked and to shift forms before they encountered any humans since it seemed unlikely the humans would behold them with awe or admiration or humility.

  Frustration settled in Dante’s belly and built as they trudged back toward the city. It was as well that it took them hours to make the journey on foot. Dante’s rage had time to build to the boiling point and settle back to a low simmer before they reached the fringes of the city. He began mentally searching as soon as he was close enough he thought he should be able to communicate with Claire. Fear began to erode his lingering anger when he couldn’t find her, not even the faint trace that he had felt before.

  Refusing to consider what that might mean, he focused after a while on trying to find a trace of Dominick DiCarlo.

  That attempt bore fruit very quickly, but he felt no triumph for as soon as he managed to pick up Dominick’s thoughts he caught the fear, anger, and frustration boiling inside the other man.

  They caught up to Dominick as he exited the Inn where he had clearly been staying with Claire.

  Dominick was distracted.

  That was most likely why he slammed into Dante’s fist without any inkling it was there until he did.

  He hit the dirt and bounded up again. Uttering a snarl of rage, he charged Dante.

  Galen sauntered to one side and propped his shoulders against the wall of the Inn to watch.

  I thought we were traveling incognito so as to refrain from drawing attention to ourselves. If I had known that was of no importance, I believe I would have fucking flown the last ten fucking miles rather than make blisters on my feet walking!

  It was unfortunate for Dante—fortunate for Nick—that the comment sank home and he whipped a look around for evidence of having garnered unwanted attention just as Nick swung at him. Nick caught him off guard when he slammed his fist into his chin and Dante staggered back several steps.

  Galen used that moment to separate them. Moving from the building where he had propped himself to the space between them in the blink of an eye, he planted a palm in the center of each of their chests. “There are better places to settle this,” he growled.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Nick snarled.

  Galen sent him a look. “I am Galen,” he responded coolly. “I assume you are the human bastard who has been ‘sniffing’ after Claire?”

  Nick narrowed a look at Dante, his jaw tightening into a hard line.

  “Where is she?” Dante growled.

  The temptation to smirk and taunt Dante was nearly overwhelming. But he was afraid for Claire and he knew he had run out of options for finding her and freeing her. “They got her.” He shook his head. “I’ve searched everywhere. They must have.”

  “They who?” Galen demanded before Dante could.

  “The Feds. Government goons.”

  Dante and Galen exchanged a look of utter confusion.

  Nick looked around and noticed that the gawkers they’d attracted weren’t showing any signs of losing interest. “I think we need to move. Any minute the cops or the militia are going to show up and I don’t fucking feel like trying to explain things to them. Aside from that, I can’t afford to be picked up. If they run a check, they’re going to find out my passport is bogus and I won’t see daylight for the next fifty years.”

  Galen and Dante both turned to look at the small crowd of onlookers.

  “I vote speed over caution since we have not practiced discretion,” Galen said pointedly.

  Dante hesitated, but he already knew that Claire was not nearby. “Agreed,” he responded, shifting instantly into his natural form. When Galen had shifted, each of them grasped one of Nick’s arms and took flight, carrying him between them.

  Shouts followed but they had cleared the roof of the two story Inn before the gawkers had the presence of mind to search for missiles to lob at them and were well out of range before they began throwing bottles and bricks.

  Unfortunately, that was not also the case with the aircraft, but they managed to keep low enough to avoid becoming targets of the airships while they were over the city. Once they cleared it, they immediately descended into a wooded area and shifted forms again. Emerging on the other side before the planes could make another pass and drop a bomb in the middle of the woods, they moved briskly to the ship they had left cloaked and disappeared inside.

  “Now!” Dante growled. “Where is Claire?”

  Nick eyed the two angels with a mixture of wariness and grim determination. “I’ll have your word that you’ll take me before I tell you a fucking thing.”

  * * * *

  Fear, Claire discovered, was a difficult emotion to maintain, or at least difficult to maintain at the highest level because it was exhausting and drained one of energy. She didn’t see that she needed to anyway once she was sure that it was federal agents who’d captured her and Maddie and that their destination was the U.S.

  They wouldn’t say where they going. They, in fact, pretty much acted as if they
were deaf and dumb.

  But Claire figured they couldn’t be in much trouble. Regardless of the way the government had behaved toward them so far, they were U.S. citizens. They had constitutional rights! They hadn’t done anything!

  The agents hadn’t caught Nick and she knew he would do what he could from the outside to get them out even if the government did try to make them disappear at Gitmo.

  She wasn’t entirely convinced they were on the way to Guantanamo anyway. Of course, as far as Nick knew, that was the original destination, but the men that had picked them up in Ireland weren’t attached to the military. They were government agents—spies, she supposed. It seemed to her that they must be taking them to Washington—maybe Quantico.

  Boy was she going to scream about having her rights violated when she got the chance!

  Bastards!

  It wasn’t as if she or Maddie had broken any laws!

  Well, she supposed being in Kuwait without a passport ….

  But wouldn’t that be a violation of Kuwait laws?

  Not that she wanted to argue about that! She had no desire to see the inside of a foreign prison! Especially one in the Middle East!

  Fortunately, that didn’t seem likely. The men that took them carried them straight to a landing strip. They were hustled onto what looked like an outdated cargo plane that should’ve been retired a quarter of a century earlier and chained up—handcuffed—like ax murderers in the back. The flight took hours. They landed once, apparently to refuel, and then took off again.

  Claire had been too exhausted by the time they finally landed and removed her and Maddie from the plane to feel a great deal of fear.

  Or even alertness. They were shoved into another black SUV and carried into what looked like a desert landscape in the headlights of the vehicle and then went into what looked like a tunnel. Instead of traveling through, though, and out the other end, the SUV parked in a cave –like parking garage, dragged them out of the vehicle and shoved them into an elevator.