Meridian

by Gabbo De la Parra

  Shit, we ain’t alone in some seedy motel room, and I almost show the gold in his girdle-purse.

  “As much as I know that the boys wouldn’t mind the show,” said Ami, with a tiny hint of amusement in her ethereal voice, “and I can see various stages of hardness, I will recommend you two wait until you’re somewhere else to continue your honeymoon.”

  “Sweet Fanaqua,” Bunny groaned, clinging to Tiger’s neck.

  Tiger chuckled and kissed a high cheekbone. “That expression is mine,” he whispered softly.

  “I think I used my allotted amount of swearing for the month already,” Bunny offered with a shrug and a wink. “I don’t even know what it means, but it sounds like a really good alternative to the f-bomb.”

  “I read it in one of my mother’s books when I was a teenager.”

  “Ahem.”

  Right, monsters surrounding us.

  “Gaol is going to put you back on the superhighway, so you can be on your merry way to Mega-Vegas.” Ami looked at Tiger pointedly, as if saying “put the kid down already.”

  “We’re going to let them go just like that?” Deixis and Tats almost trampled each other as they moved to grab Ami, uttering the same words, one in the cavernous tone of the wolves, the other in the crystal ring of the fae.

  Ami waved her hand, and both supras were flung toward different corners of the room, landing with resounding thuds. “Enough of you two. Bunny and Tiger are free to leave. End of discussion.”

  Deixis’s owl flew from its perch to comfort his master with soothing hoots.

  As Bones and Abattoir approached them, Tiger let Bunny slide along his body until he was standing on his own feet. Tiger would analyze the shiver that had provoked later, when they were safe. Both took fighting stances. The supras held their hands up.

  “We don’t mean to harm you,” said Bones.

  “We’re on your side,” added Abattoir.

  “Gaol, darling, take us to the surface.” Ami gave Tiger a nice, angelic grin.

  Before he could reciprocate, all went black.

  ****

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  This time the landing was a lot more dignified. K opened his eyes to find himself alongside Tiger and the supras (if his sense of orientation was correct) in the same spot where they had been captured? Taken into custody? He didn’t know what to name their eye-rolling encounter with this band of supras.

  They were beside the superhighway, the sun at its zenith with no clouds to threaten the oppressive summer heat. The vast, arid nothingness surrounded them in every direction except for the eight-lane strip of blacktop dividing this stretch of desert.

  K turned to grasp Ami’s hand and say good-bye when horrid whistles sounded.

  Great balls of fire came out of nowhere, their long tails of black smoke making them seem like confused comets from a madman’s inferno. The first fell on the middle of the superhighway, tar exploding in every direction.

  “The fuck?” Bones cried.

  “Jump on the motorcycle. We’ll take care of this!” Ami pushed K toward Tiger.

  Abattoir was zipping in his little cloud, dodging the falling bombs and turning them into less dangerous things before they touched the ground: sacks of potatoes, pillows, mattresses, crates of fruits (as if the same spell could not work the same way each time).

  Gaol’s horse emerged from the ground, and he pulled Bones up to straddle the horse behind him. He was casting spells upward, in the direction from which the bombs seemed to come, but K couldn’t see an actual target. He could only see the fireworks-like energy launching from Gaol’s hands.

  “What are you waiting for? Run, boy, run!” Ami yelled. A translucent dome surged around her, and she sent it toward Tiger and K with a violent fling of her arms.

  The shift in the energy around them was palpable, and a hand grabbed his wrist. “Bunny, please!” Tiger urged, and he dragged K away from the exploding bombs since Abattoir couldn’t transform them all quick enough; they were too many.

  “They’re going to die, Tiger. We need to help them!” K tried to wrench his wrist from Tiger’s hold.

  “They have powers. We don’t, Bunny baby. Please!”

  “No. NOOO!” K finally broke Tiger’s grasp, and with his physical scream came an inner scream. He felt scorching heat growing inside him, as if one of the bombs was erupting from deep within his body, turning him into a blazing mass of power. A power that wasn’t destroying him but surging forward like a tsunami, like an avalanche, like a million nukes launched in all directions at once.

  His cry was the cry of all beasts, of all creatures, of all living things, and the light emanating from K expanded until it was more blinding than the sun above them. The fire bombs disintegrated in mid-air as the radius widened. Above them, the hovercrafts from where the bombs originated became visible, and they saw new explosions. Charred pieces fell in a meteor shower that turned rapidly into ashes by the power of the light still coming from K.

  The supras swiveled, trying to find the source of the unknown power that had just saved their lives, and the masks of confusion and horror when they discovered it didn’t surprise K but made him feel dizzy as self-consciousness tried to seize him. The force pouring out of him squashed this second of doubt, and he stood tall and confident, knowing that he had done the right thing, especially after seeing the fanged-daggers of the Vampire Council etched under the attacking hovercrafts.

  “It’s over, Bunny. You can stop.” Tiger’s voice was gentle in K’s ear as those strong arms embraced him and pulled him flush to the hard chest.

  K nodded and called the brutal ocean of light and heat he had liberated back to his body. Slowly, it retraced its path, eager to return to its master. And as the destructive energy coalesced into him, K understood the origin of the power, the nature of his being. Freeing and overwhelming, the knowledge clarified a thousand things and posed a thousand more questions— not about his past, but about his future.

  Those latter questions were the ones that finally made K sag into Tiger’s protective hug under their weight. “Fanaqua…”

  “Yes. What you did does deserve a whooping, all capital letters Fanaqua,” Tiger chuckled.

  Darkness descended upon K, and the last coherent thing he could grasp was the feeling of Tiger’s whisper of a kiss on top of his head.

  ****

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DAY FOUR

  “Welcome back,” Tiger offered as Bunny opened his eyes.

  Blue eyes narrowed, smiling. “Hey.” Bunny moved his hands over the who-knew-how-many-thousand-threads-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

  “You were out for twenty-eight hours. I’m glad you decided to come back to me.”

  Well, that didn’t come out right.

  Technically, Tiger didn’t have any claim on Bunny, but Fanaqua and a half if that feeling growing inside him didn’t scream otherwise.

  Bunny pushed himself a little upward and took stock of his surroundings. “Where are the supras?”

  “They’re fine. Apparently, Gaol’s transportation spell from their secret cave only takes you back to whatever place they took you from, so we were in the same spot on the superhighway, but after your, er, demonstration…” Tiger paused, not sure how to touch the issue. “After you destroyed the vampires’ hovercrafts, they transported us immediately to the outskirts of Mega-Vegas, away from the West Area limits.” He shrugged. “We’re in a suite of the Ultra.”

  Tilting his head slightly and staring at Tiger, Bunny was silent for a moment. “They didn’t ask why I was unconscious?”

  “There was a lot of fae glamour involved.”

  This made Bunny snicker. He sobered up quickly though. “Sorry I didn’t give you your first half the other night.”

  “What?”

  “You know, your payment.”

  “Oh. That. Well…”

  This wasn’t the conversation Tiger wanted to have at the moment. His priorities had changed a lot in the last twenty-fou
r hours.

  “I understand if you’re horrified by me and just want to be on your way. I guess I can find a way to get to Meridian from here. It’s less than a hundred miles. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “What crawled up your ass, Bunny? Why would I be horrified?”

  “Your face spoke volumes when you said ‘demonstration.’”

  “Are you fuckin’ serious now?”

  “I’d not hold it against you if you just get your money and leave me here.” Bunny did his own nonchalant shrug. “It’s not like I’m helpless.”

  “I thought we’d already established that. What I am doubtin’ right now is your intelligence.”

  “Oh, fuck off, Tiger. What? Am I supposed to believe all the acting we did to get us here was something real?” Bunny shook his head with a sigh. “I might look young, but I’m not a starry-eyed child. I’m a grown-ass man, and I’ve seen a lot. More than you might think.”

  Tiger took Bunny by the shoulders and gave him a shake. “Listen, you idiot…” But words would not do it. He pulled Bunny to him and kissed those tempting, rosy lips hard.

  Bunny went stiff for a heartbeat. A heartbeat that seemed an eternity, but then teeth bit Tiger’s lips, and they became all snarls and growls and bites and clashing tongues.

  The moment Tiger flung the covers aside, Bunny disentangled himself from Tiger. “Wait! I heard you talking in your sleep about going to live with the werewolves and find yourself a nice big beast to share your days.”

  Me and my big-mouthed sleep-talking.

  “That was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before I learned your value.”

  That came out wrong. Pull it together, man.

  Bunny narrowed his eyes again, and this time it wasn’t a pretty gesture. “Do I need to give credit to Deixis’s words?”

  “Deixis is a giant fae hemorrhoid. You shouldn’t trust him to tell you the color of the sky even if he says it’s blue and you’re seein’ it with your own eyes.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.” Bunny shrugged away from Tiger’s embrace. The headboard stopped him from moving further.

  “You said it yourself, you ain’t helpless. You could easily defend yourself if I try to pull a fast one on you.” Tiger winked, intent on lightening the mood and taking them back to nearly-clothes-ripping madness.

  “That’s true.”

  “Would you trust me?”

  “I want to.”

  “What’s stoppin’ you?”

  “I don’t trust anyone.”

  “Then we both need to work on our trustin’ skills.”

  “Sounds like a reasonable enough goal.”

  “I hope so.” Tiger took Bunny’s hand in his and made circles on the space between thumb and index finger. He smiled, not sure what else to say to ease Bunny’s distrust.

  “Can we go back to kissing?” Bunny’s grin was unexpected and abso-fucking-lutely welcome.

  “Just kissin’?” Tiger grinned back.

  “For now.”

  ****

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Was there something worse than a companion withholding sex when he really, truly wanted it as badly as the man he was holding onto?

  They sped toward Meridian many hours after K awoke from his destruction-induced coma, with night approaching sluggishly toward them. He seriously needed to get naked and personal with Tiger, but he had decided to wait until they were within the limits of the human-controlled city. That way, if things went awry, he could ensure closeness to his freedom once he had finished using his newly discovered powers. This was his pragmatic side asserting its supremacy over his wishful side, which hoped that Tiger was feeling the same things he was feeling and would agree to stay with him in Meridian. Everything pointed to that scenario, but they still hadn’t had a discussion about K’s nature, and that was the third, ugly party, rubbing its hands sinisterly in one corner of K’s mind and watching the turmoil with a nasty grin like some perverse villain in an old-fashioned movie.

  What if Tiger couldn’t live with what K was?

  K himself wasn’t sure what his purpose was. This knowledge was too new, too shiny, to be fully grasped and assimilated. Were there others like him? Should he try to find them? There must be others since he wasn’t a mutation. Perhaps he could be called an aberration, but he was not going to start putting tags on himself. He was here, and he believed that everything had a reason, even if it wasn’t evident from the get-go.

  Squeezing Tiger’s waist tighter than before, K wondered if his nature was what had pushed his parents to move to the West Area. Had they wanted him to be studied by the vampires? Was he squashing his parents’ last wish by fleeing?

  Tiger let go of one of the handles of the bike and moved his hand backward to touch K’s helmet above his cheek. It was a comforting gesture; perhaps he had sensed K’s distress through the squeeze. It was beyond stupid to torture himself with these silly interrogations. He could not know what his parents wanted or thought; they were out of reach and unable to give him guidance.

  There was no other option than to accept the counsel of his own instincts, and those were telling him he had done the right thing by coming to Meridian. K would settle down there, and after he had found some rhythm in his new, populous city, he’d find a way to figure out the power and its purpose. Now, figuring out Tiger was more important, even if it implied trusting, and that notion was as alien as his new-found powers to K.

  A first for everything, right?

  The inspection point neared. K didn’t know what he had expected— at least a barbed wired fence, not the solitary almost shabby structure beside the road. It brought to mind a giant, abandoned shoebox; one only knew it was an active setting because a buzzing force field between two posts on each side of the superhighway blocked the path. A holoboard showed the steps to follow.

  They parked the bike, dismounted, put away the helmets, dusted and straightened their jackets, and K adjusted his backpack. “Do you think it wise to have braided your hair like that?” K asked Tiger, who had tiny braids pulling his temple hair away from his face in a very fae fashion. K had to admit the style suited Tiger, and he also had to admit it wasn’t helping to keep his libido at bay.

  “Ain’t nothing bad with embracin’ your eighth. It’s not like they can deny me entrance. I’m not fully fae.”

  Since the light was slowly fading outside, the harsh glare inside the building was startling. “Welcome to Inspection Point 25, boys!” A perky woman in a lavender uniform, and sporting blue-black hair in a myriad corkscrew curls, approached them, a bounce in her step. She had big, violet eyes and seemed so happy to see them, her cheerfulness was overwhelming. “My name is Jaye, and I’ll walk you through the admittance process. Identifications, please!” IDs were shown, and she asked, “What’s your purpose for visiting Meridian?”

  K opened his mouth, but Tiger stopped him, intertwining their fingers. “We’re a couple, and we want a fresh start in your marvelous city.”

  “How lovely,” she said in her spring-like, giggly tone. “Well, this is the part where I’m supposed to check you with my reader, but you see, that’s pointless.”

  Huh?

  Both Tiger and K were ready to scratch their heads in confusion.

  “The force field over the superhighway is a formality, sort of a visual reminder.” She punched some buttons on her clipboard. “The thousand miles reserved over the 100th meridian are bordered by all kinds of spells and incantations that prevent anything that is supra from crossing its limits. So even if you were able to cheat the reader, the boundaries will turn you into dust.” This time she openly giggled, and it was seriously disturbing.

  But not more disturbing than the information they had just received.

  Tiger snickered with her. “We’ll be fine then, won’t we?”

  “Of course, sweeting.” Her trillion curls bobbed as she nodded enthusiastically. A bell ding. She retrieved two plates that had emerg
ed from an official-looking machine and handed one to Tiger and the other to K after inspecting the names on them. “Here you go. Have a lovely life!” She turned around, walked to a door and disappeared behind it with a resounding bang, leaving them baffled and speechless.

  “What now?” K’s eyes searched Tiger’s for reassurance.

  “We test the boundaries, Bunny. Ain’t nothing else to do.”

  Outside, the stars were out and the force field was gone. They neared the bike. Tiger pulled K to his chest and kissed him, deep and needy. When they surfaced, because they needed to breathe, Tiger grasped K’s face with both hands and whispered, “You wanted proof that you could trust me. If we survive the boundaries, I’ll stay by your side as long as you want me to be.”

  It’s a start.

  “Thank you.” K opened his lips slightly for another kiss. Tiger kissed his forehead. “Back to that?” K huffed.

  With a chuckle, Tiger turned him around and guided him to the bike, his hand possessively grabbing K’s ass.

  They climbed on the bike, donned their helmets, and K circled Tiger’s body, pressing his frame and pouring all his feelings into the action.

  The bike roared to life.

  It veered onto the superhighway.

  They crossed the boundaries.

  ****

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Nothing happened.

  Tiger threw his fist in the air triumphantly. K laughed happily, like he hadn’t laughed in years.

  Thirty minutes later the expanse of Meridian was visible by the lights competing with the starry sky. Tiger stopped the bike on the top of a hill, the city at their feet welcoming them. He waved a hand toward the vista and said happily, “All yours to eat it up.”

  “There’s only one thing I want to eat right now. But before that, I need to tell you what I am.”

  “I don’t care if you’re the spawn of Cthulhu himself. There ain’t nothing able to make me see you differently.”