He snarled his frustration and started shoving his way through the hundreds of males fighting both for him and against him. Suddenly, he felt the slice of a sharpened blade brought down on his trapezoid muscle, just between his neck and his shoulder. He bellowed his anger and pain and spun to face his attacker. But a roar sounded behind him and before he could even react, a dark flurry of fury descended on the male that dared to attack him dishonorably from behind. The male was not Chireop, as his people were. Then he looked closer as the two males battled, and he realized, yes, this male was Chireop, just as he was. He was just more humanesque. His brother had come to help him ascend the throne. This male defending him was Jamisey.
Tyrisey shifted his sword to his other hand. His right arm was now useless since the muscle had been sliced. He took up a defensive position, his back to Jamisey, fighting off any who dared to attack his brother while he battled. Soon enough, Jaime finished off the male who’d attacked him, and shoulder to shoulder they stood, as they battled any and all they came across as they searched the chaos for their grandfather.
“Are you well, Tyrisey?” Jaime shouted over the noise.
“I cannot use my right arm, but I will not die,” Tyrisey answered with a smirk.
“No worries, brother. I will be your right arm,” Jaime answered.
Slowly, those faithful to Rufussian were overcome, killed, or driven to surrender. Tyrisey and Jamisey had succeeded. They had freed their people from tyranny. They could finally begin to move forward with hope and eventually prosperity.
Together the two brothers stood among the blood and destruction, as Tyrisey’s males rounded up any survivors of the old regime and carted them off to the holding cells in their dungeons.
Jamisey began approaching each of the dead on the floor of the cathedral and using his boot to turn them over.
“Where is he?” Jaime demanded. “I don’t see him here anywhere!”
“Nor, I, Jamisey. He has surely hidden himself away, or made his escape.”
“Leaving his males behind to fight his battle?” Jaime asked, indignant.
“Honor is not a trait he was gifted with,” Tyrisey said dryly.
“We need to find him. It’s too dangerous to allow him to live,” Jaime said.
“Agreed.”
Tyrisey turned to a large, well-muscled male, several years older than he was. “Gregorio! We are away to track Rufussian.”
Gregorio immediately clicked the heels of his boots together and made one single sharp bow of his head. “Yes, Most High Prime. I will continue to oversee the clean up here.”
Gregorio turned back to the males he’d already been not only directing but assisting.
Tyrisey pointed to the pulpit above them. “There, that is the last place I saw him.”
“Then that’s where we’ll start,” Jaime answered. Jaime knew that Ty was carrying his sword in his left hand, his right hand hanging uselessly at his side. He glanced toward it, then raised his eyes to Tyrisey’s, prepared to ask if he was okay. But on seeing the cold glare in Tyrisey’s eyes, he knew his concern would not be welcome. So instead of showing concern, he started toward the pulpit. About halfway there, he glanced back at Tyrisey who followed closely. “You good?” he finally asked.
“Never better,” Ty answered, a thin line of blood leaving a trail on the floor behind him.
They got to the pulpit and there was no trace of Rufussian. They methodically searched every anteroom and secret space off the main pulpit area and still could not find him.
“Surely, he’s got to still be in the colony,” Jaime said.
“I’m not sure. He could have possibly slipped away when he realized the outcome of the battle was unavoidable and the fact that his own males were now fighting against him.”
“You’re right,” Jaime commented, dropping one of the tapestries closed behind him that hid the final anteroom, and following Ty back to the pulpit area of the cathedral.
“Prima!” came the shouts of several males beneath them.
Tyrisey and Jaime both turned their attention to the cathedral floor.
“Ms. Patty?” Jaime said aloud to himself.
“Ms. Patty? Is that how she is known?” Tyrisey asked.
“Yeah, she was my favorite teacher in school. What’s she doing here?”
Tyrisey grinned. “She is our Prima. She elected to leave our colony when our grandfather mandated we could no longer associate with the humans in their world.”
Jaime just stood there, his mouth hanging open, watching the woman below them ordering the males about on the removal and destruction of the bodies, and instructing the females following her in how to best clean the blood from the cathedral.
She raised her eyes to find Jaime and Tyrisey both standing on the pulpit looking down at them all. She smiled at them, winked, then raised her voice for all to hear. “Most High Primes — I bow to your will. It is the prophecy come to life. Together you will reign over us as we rejoin the outside world.” She held her hands out to her sides as she performed a perfect deep curtsy. The other females did the same, bowing their heads after calling them Most High Primes. Then each male bowed his head and pledged his loyalty to both their Primes.
Jaime raised his eyebrows and looked questioningly at Ty. “I’m not a Prime. I came to help you take the throne for yourself.”
“Have you not read the prophecy, brother? We are to rule together. As one. If I am Prime, so are you.”
“I… But… I don’t want to live down here…” Jaime confided, leaning closer to his brother to speak in hushed tones.
“That’s merely a detail… We shall work it all out. For now, our people have hope. Let them have it.”
Screeches, screams and bellows broke their moment. Both jerked their attention to the roof of the cathedral. “Where is that coming from?” Jaime shouted.
“The spire! Hurry!” Tyrisey answered, running back toward the anterooms they’d just searched.
Chapter 23
Jaime ran as quickly as he could, following Ty back and forth through a zigzag of maze like twists and turns that had been cut into the rock.
The noises of several different people shouting could be heard louder and louder as they ran in the direction Ty led them.
Jaime started shaking his head as he ran. He knew that voice. He knew that scream. In fact, he knew several of them.
“Hurry, Ty,” Jaime said with his heart in his throat. “That’s Ruby’s voice. And Clarence’s!”
“And I hear my Pearl, as well. If she’s injured I shall spank her myself!” Ty snarled, growling as his right shoulder banged into the jagged edge of a wall as they finally entered a large chamber, empty save for the moonlight shining down through an opening in the top.
One male screeching in his high-pitched voice, fighting a net that had been tangled around his wings, fell toward the floor from three stories up, just as they entered the room. He landed with a thud. Tyrisey rushed over and flipped the injured male over with his foot. “Sarcas!” Tyrisey spat, before lifting his sword and sinking it into the male’s chest.
“Who was he?” Jaime asked.
“Our grandfather’s personal guard.”
A deep bellow sounded from above, along with a string of curses from Pearl, followed by a feminine grunt and Clarence’s voice instructing them to, “Hit him again!”
“Come, Jamisey!” Ty said, unfurling his huge leathered wings.
Jaime embraced him on the left so that he wouldn’t cause Ty any further pain to his right side. Ty flapped his wings only a couple of times, and they found themselves just cresting the opening at the top of the chamber.
A net was thrown over their heads as they rose above the opening, exiting the chamber below. “There’s some more!” Clarence cried, then someone started beating them with a baseball bat.
“Die you winged fuckers!” Pearl screamed, slapping at their knees with her billy-club.
“You stupid bastards! Where’s my man?!” Ruby
screamed at them, swinging her bat at their feet as Ty struggled to keep them aloft with the fishing nets thrown down over his wings.
“I’m right here, you crazed woman!” Jaime screamed at Ruby, pulling his feet away from her reach as she swung her bat at their legs as Ty and Jaime hovered above them.
“Jaime!” Ruby screamed. Throwing her bat behind her and lunging for them as Ty managed to set them down safely beside the opening in the top of the spire.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jaime demanded.
“Ty!” Pearl screeched, “Oh my god! You’re bleeding!”
“Of course I’m bleeding! We’ve been in a battle! What do you think you’re doing up here?” Ty shouted.
“We’re helping! We’re catching any who try to get away! Look, we caught one! And another fell back down below!” Pearl said, excitedly, her eyes dancing with pure joy. It was a bit too happy for what they’d been doing, and it frankly, concerned Jaime. Ty, however, seemed amused to see her so thrilled with their brutality.
Jaime lifted a hand toward Ruby and she flew into his arms from where she’d hesitated when he screamed at them. “I was so worried,” she said, with a hitch in her voice.
“I’m safe, Ruby. I’m fine,” he assured her as she hid her face in his neck, and he felt her tears coursing down his skin.
A thunk sounded, getting their attention. Everyone looked at Clarence.
Clarence grinned, his foot resting on the shoulder of the male he’d just knocked out with the baseball bat he had balanced over his own shoulder. “What? He was waking up,” Clarence defended.
Tyrisey looked down, peering more closely at the male Clarence had just knocked out again. “It’s him!” he said. A laugh escaped him. “Jamisey! They captured our grandfather!” he said on a laugh.
Jaime laid a kiss on Ruby’s forehead and set her aside so he could approach the male lying unconscious, wrapped in a soccer net. He knelt down and shoved Rufussian over onto his back. “Wake up, old male!” he shouted. “Where are my parents, you fuck?!” Jaime screamed in his face. “Where?!” Jaime insisted, shoving at the male.
“He can’t hear you, Jaime,” a calming voice said from a short distance away.
Jaime spun around to face the owner of that voice. “I want to know where my parents are! I want to know why I was left to die in the desert and separated from my brother! Why?!”
Ms. Patty approached him. “I know you do. And you deserve answers. Both of you do,” she said, looking from Jaime to Tyrisey, who was being loved and fretted over by Pearl.
“Are they still alive?” Jaime asked, his voice cracking.
“I don’t know. But I’d be surprised if they were. Someone would have seen them by now,” Ms. Patty answered.
Jaime stood, kicking Rufussian in the gut before facing Ms. Patty and Tyrisey. “I want to know where they are.”
“We’ll find out, Jamisey. There is no one standing between us and the answers we seek now. We’ll find them. No matter where they are, alive or dead, we’ll find them,” Tyrisey pledged.
Jaime nodded and started to speak, then he was falling. Tumbling into the opening at the top of the spire that lay between himself and Tyrisey, Ruby, and Pearl.
It was as though it was happening in slow motion, but it all happened so fast.
Rufussian reached out a clawed hand to wrap around Jaime’s ankle, yanking it toward himself to cause Jaime to fall face first down into the entrance of the spire. Jaime screaming as he fell face first toward the floor three stories down. Ruby screaming his name and lunging toward him, Pearl screaming Ruby’s name and grabbing Ruby to pull her back. Ms. Patty’s pretty, perfectly coiffed blonde hair and makeup shifting into a deep reddish brown, leathery skinned, bat-woman, and sinking her claws into Rufussian. Tyrisey, diving into the opening and following his brother down though his wings were still partially tangled in the fishing net their mates had attacked them with on thinking they were trying to escape the battle. And the scent of seared flesh as Ms. Patty ended the threat that was Rufussian once and for all as her hands caused his flesh to bubble, melt away then finally fall into ash on the top of the spire.
Pearl was using all her strength to hold Ruby back from the edge of the opening in the top of the spire. “You don’t want to see, Ruby. You don’t need to see,” she murmured over and over again.
Clarence hurried over and dropped to his knees, shining his flashlight down into the chamber. “Oh!” he panted. “Oh, my goodness! You about gave an old man a heart attack!” he shouted.
The flaps that could be heard getting closer, let the women know that someone was flying up toward them.
Ruby was sobbing, Pearl was near tears, but trying to maintain control.
Then, Ty with Jaime in his grasp, cleared the top of the spire. “Why is everyone so upset. Did you truly think I’d allow my brother to die? I just found him. I’m not even angry with him, yet!” Ty announced, setting Jaime on his feet near Ruby.
Ruby stood, shaking her head. She opened her mouth to try to speak, but couldn’t form any words. Jaime was quick to pull her to him. “I know,” he whispered to her. “I know. It scared the hell out of me, too. I thought I was a dead man.”
Ruby nodded, still unable to speak.
Jaime was holding Ruby so tight there was no chance of anyone separating them any time soon.
“He won’t threaten anyone anymore,” Ms. Patty said.
Jaime looked over Ruby’s head back at the pile of burned flesh and ashes. Then he realized. “It was you! You were the one who burned him when he tried to take me from the playground that day.”
“It was. I was too far away to touch him, but I used my other talents to cause him injury. It wasn't enough to kill him, but it certainly made him let you go. He glared at me as he flew away — he knew it was me that caused him to burn. I got a certain pleasure out of that.”
“How?” Jaime asked.
“Pyrokineses, dear boy.”
“You’re kidding?” Clarence asked.
“No, I am quite serious. I use it for many things.”
“Like what?” Clarence asked.
“Like making my peaches grow sweeter than any you’ll find anywhere else,” Ms. Patty answered.
“Hey!” a voice called. “What’s happening up here?”
“Francis! We over here!” Clarence called.
Pretty soon Francis appeared over the outer edge of the hill the spire rose from. “Ya’ll leave me to guard the damned hole in the ground, and everything happens up here. I didn’t even get to shoot anybody!” he grouched, lifting his rifle in the air to show them. “All’s that ran past me were a few females. No bad ones at all!”
He got a good view of what was left of Rufussian on the ground. “What the blazes is that?” he asked.
“That’s what happens when you mess with Ms. Patty,” Clarence declared.
Francis considered the pile of flesh and ash for a moment. Then he raised his eyes to Ms. Patty. “Ms. Patty? I always have had a thing for you. And now, I’m even more impressed. Would you do me the honor of having dinner with me one evening?”
Ms. Patty smiled shyly. “I’d be flattered and very happy to have dinner with you, Francis.”
“Only you would invite a woman to dinner over a charred body,” Clarence grumbled.
“She said yes, didn’t she?” Francis answered.
Clarence leaned over and picked up his bat and started to make his way down the spire and the hill the spire rose out of, still talking to Francis about the right time for things like this.
Francis turned toward Ms. Patty. “Do you need help getting down from here, Ms. Patty?” he asked.
“No, thank you, Francis. We’ve quite a lot to see to still. I’ll get down the same way I got up here.”
“And how’s that?” he asked.
Ms. Patty lifted her wings and shook them a bit.
“Ah, yeah, of course. Okay. I’ll see you, then. I’ll be in touch to find out what evening you’d like
to join me for a meal.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Ms. Patty answered.
Ms. Patty turned to Jaime and Tyrisey. “Boys, are you ready to present a unified front?”
“Let Tyrisey have it,” Jaime said.
“Perhaps eventually he can take the lead. But for now, you need to be seen as one governing unit,” Ms. Patty explained.
“I don’t want to live down there. My life is up here,” Jaime said firmly.
“And it will continue to be. But now, some of our people may venture out. It’s been many years. They’ll need guidance and acceptance up here as well. You could assist those who want to come into the light so to speak, acclimate, you know.”
Jaime smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, I could do that.”
“And maybe just pay a visit to the colony from time to time, rather than living there. Tyrisey could do the opposite. Together you two will balance all the needs of the colony.”
Tyrisey held out his hand for Jaime to shake, Jaime shook his hand and hugged him.
“You two descend together. I’ll bring your women down. It’s important that they see you as one. And it will help your females be accepted when your people see them arrive with me,” Ms. Patty said.
“Are you ready?” Tyrisey asked.
“I am,” Jaime answered.
Tyrisey grasped Jaime again, and together they descended back into the spire, to address the group of people who had begun to accumulate there.
“And you ladies?” Ms. Patty asked.
“Hell yeah! I can’t wait to see what all this is about!” Pearl answered, grinning.
Ruby, still shaken up just nodded. “Yes. I want to be where Jaime is.”
“Come, Ruby,” Ms. Patty said, holding her tightly as she lifted her wings and delivered her to Jaime’s side.
Jaime immediately put his arm around Ruby, bringing her into his side. He lifted her hand and kissed the ruby sitting on her finger. “Mine,” he whispered.
Wings Page 19
