Beyond the Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  The door opened and Cheveyo walked back in. “I didn’t see anything, but I want to get out of here, drive a bit before we leave.” He dropped into the seat and headed back on the road.

  Pope remained standing, and so did she. No one talked for a few minutes, and the silence was driving her crazy. She touched his arm, feeling an odd vibration that made her pull back. “You knew Amy was pregnant long before anyone else did.”

  “I sensed life inside her. She is doing well?”

  “Very.” She pulled out her phone and her fingers flew over the icons as she held it up to him. “The baby.”

  His light eyebrows lifted. Of course, he probably couldn’t tell what was what on the sonogram either.

  “That’s Cheveyo,” he said after a moment.

  She looked at the screen. “Augh.”

  “Why did you take my picture?” Cheveyo asked.

  “To show Amy you’re not a figment of my imagination.” She pulled up the sono and held it up for Pope. “The baby.”

  “Yes, I see legs, head, arms. Ten fingers, ten toes.”

  She pulled the phone back, studying the blob. “No way. You can see all that?”

  “More like sense it.”

  Which brought her to exactly what she’d wanted to ask him. “Can you tell whether it’s a boy or girl?” Yeah, yeah, it was cheating. If Amy and Lucas wanted to wait, fine. She couldn’t. And she’d never tell them, not even a hint.

  “Girl. I felt the feminine energy when we were together.”

  “I knew it!” She spun, her hand on her heart, letting out a joyful squeal. “Frilly dresses, here I come.” Had she promised Amy she wouldn’t buy baby clothes? She couldn’t remember. Either way, she would store them until B-day so as not to spoil their surprise.

  Cheveyo said, “Now that we’ve taken care of the important things . . .”

  “That was important.” She slipped the phone back into her pocket and beamed a smile at Pope. “Thank you.”

  “It’s nice to make you so happy with just a word. Funny how humans respond to something so simple.” Pope looked genuinely pleased, and she felt an odd rush of affection for him.

  “Words are powerful,” she said. “Love, for example. Saying ‘I love you’ can change everything.” She tried hard not to look at Cheveyo. “When you mean it. When I was a Hooters waitress, guys would tell me they loved me. They’d ask me out without even knowing a thing about me. It was so superficial.”

  Pope tilted his head. “What’s a Hooters waitress?”

  Cheveyo laughed. “Yeah, explain that one to him, why don’t you?”

  She sent a hmph his way before turning back to Pope. “Hooters is a restaurant that’s named after a, uh, word for a woman’s breasts.” She made the universal motion. “Big breasts. Since men can’t seem to call them that, they come up with all kinds of euphemisms for them, like boobs, jugs, and melons.”

  “And don’t forget ‘great mounds of joy,’ ” Cheveyo added, though she was pretty sure he was just kidding, given his wry tone of voice.

  Pope said, “I find it interesting how humans use these odd words to describe the act of reproduction or the parts used therein. And yet, they use those words to describe each other and situations, too, mostly in a derogatory way. Once, in traffic, someone called me a ‘dick.’ I explained that my name was Pope, not Dick, and that seemed to stymie him. Later I found out ‘dick’ is another word for a man’s penis, though I don’t understand the meaning of calling someone a penis. It serves two vital functions in life, after all. By the same token, you also use words related to religion. God, Jesus Christ, and hell are used as exclamations, and yet humans are extraordinarily sensitive to the nature of religion. It’s baffling.”

  Petra said, “I never thought about that, but you’re right. When someone’s being a jerk, you call them an ass, not a foot. Goofballs are called boobs. And yet, a woman’s breasts also serve a vital function in life.”

  “As well as being beautiful and not the least bit goofy,” Cheveyo added.

  Pope’s gaze drifted to her breasts, but not in a leering kind of way. “I have to admit, I am coming to appreciate the singular beauty of a human woman’s body, at least what I’ve seen of them.” He met her gaze again, a tiny spark in his eyes. “Like the woman in her underpretties.”

  Hm, this was getting interesting. But there was something she was curious about. “What do Callorians look like? Cheveyo said, sort of human.”

  “In form and general characteristics, yes, a lot like you. We have been conditioned to think of humans as a separate species, a disdained species. In truth, some scientists suspect we started out the same, all living on the surface. Many thousands of years ago, for an unknown reason, a large group descended to live beneath the surface. The theory is, because we lived so much closer to the Earth’s magnetic field, it changed the characteristics of our energy, and thus our bodies. We lost the density of the human form, including the outer shell of skin. The meat suit, as it were.

  “Because our energy vibration runs higher, some can change their form or use that energy in different ways.” He held out his hand, probably thinking of the laser beam he used to harness. “Emotions were suppressed even back then.”

  “So you don’t fall in love?” Petra asked. “Or marry?”

  “We have unions based on common goals or other strategic reasons. Because of my service to the C, I never married.”

  “Or fell in love,” Petra said, feeling both sad and envious for him.

  “The words love and hate are also thrown around here, and yet they are supposed to signify deep emotions.”

  She slid a glance at Cheveyo. “Unfortunately, love and hate are baffling to all of us.”

  Cheveyo’s mouth twitched, but he gave away nothing more on his thoughts about love and hate. Several minutes later he pulled off the road again and looked at Pope. “She’s all yours. Once you hear the bike leave, get out of here.”

  He probably wouldn’t take the time to jump her, but she was ready anyway as they made their way toward the back.

  It hit her, that this was how Cheveyo had to be all the time when he was on the hunt. Living on edge. Ready to kill. Ready to die.

  She jumped on the back of the bike, gripping his chest as the gate lowered to make the ramp. He started the bike and gunned it out. When she expected him to continue on, he spun around and watched the gate go up. Once it latched closed, he rode next to the Tank as Pope pulled away, speeding ahead, turning, and coming back toward it. No sign of anything unusual.

  They took off in the opposite direction, hoping to catch Yurek.

  Baal held tight, tucked into the tight spaces of the undercarriage, the pads of his paws protecting him only slightly from the heat. He had quickly learned that the two pipes got very hot and had to reposition himself. When the RV had stopped, he suspected the hunter might have become suspicious. He’d jumped down and run into the woods.

  What he’d wanted was to kill the hunter. Saliva pooled in his mouth at the thought of it, his primal instinct hungering to slice through flesh with his teeth, to consume him. But Yurek would not be pleased if he ruined this chance to capture Pope, especially now that the hunter had ridden away. He wanted to please the Callorian, an odd place to find himself. Yurek was the first Callorian to ever treat him with something other than disgust and hostility.

  Yurek was a hunter, too, sanctioned by the Collaborate. If Baal didn’t give in to his animal, he could show Yurek that he was valuable as a partner. Equal. Not even his own pack had treated him as such. Alphas ruled their packs with viciousness, and any member thought to be too submissive or too aggressive was expelled. Or killed.

  He had found freedom in the Earth dimension. The pack part of his nature, though, was lonely. His pack nature wanted to please Yurek.

  As soon as the RV slowed, he would jump down and climb back on top, where he could alert Yurek of their position, and his prize: Pope, all by himself.

  Cheveyo parked the bike just o
ut of sight off the road leading to his cabin. They ran parallel through the woods to his long driveway, and he cringed at their loud footsteps. Of course, Yurek would sense them anyway, but he didn’t want to give away their exact location.

  Crickets filled the air with noise, which helped. He tuned his senses to his surroundings but picked up no trace of another being. Yurek had to have come here. He wouldn’t have set up the elaborate ruse if he didn’t have a lead on Pope’s location.

  They reached the clearing, bathed in moonlight. One light shone inside the house, on a timer throughout the night to welcome him home if he returned after dark. He had no electronic security system, just as his father had none. His senses would alert him if trouble were near. Baal, however, didn’t send off as much of a signal since he was both animal and human. Yurek would, but where was he?

  Cheveyo leaned close to Petra, smelling her heat and fear. But he didn’t need to say anything, he realized, didn’t need to make a noise that might alert Yurek.

  Petra, I’m going cat so I can see and hear better. Stay with me.

  Her eyes widened at his sudden intrusion into her thoughts, but she only nodded.

  He had communicated psychically with her before, when they were physically apart. He handed her his phone. Phones didn’t take the change well either, and he had to replace them once a month.

  He didn’t like going cat in front of people. It wasn’t embarrassment, but that it separated him from his humanity. Being cat was the edge he walked. He rubbed his ring, feeling the twist in his stomach, and then changed. His vision and hearing sharpened a hundredfold. He heard movement in the woods but knew the sounds belonged to real animals. Occasionally he let his cat free to roam the forest and hunt. The thought of eating raw flesh sickened his human side, but his cat craved the gamey taste, the blood that made his teeth slick. It was that base animal instinct that made him reign in his control even more.

  Those hunts, though, made him intimately familiar with the sounds, scents, and habits of the creatures that belonged in his woods. That the raccoon hunted and the owl soared overhead meant they hadn’t picked up an intruder, at least until they sensed Petra.

  He circled the house, bracing his paws against the walls to peer through the windows. Nothing inside looked disturbed, and he picked up no change in the energy signaling that someone had gone into his territory.

  Once he completed the circle, he felt sure Yurek wasn’t there. Either he hadn’t found this place or left once he figured out Pope wasn’t there. This was different than how he’d felt earlier at the Tank.

  He changed back to man. “It’s clear.”

  She was staring at him, obviously having seen him morph. She didn’t look horrified, which was a good thing. Or maybe not. She was apprehensive, though.

  “Something’s bothering me,” he said. “I can’t figure out what it is.”

  “But you just said it’s clear. Being a cat, you’d know if something wasn’t right here. So there’s not, like, someone hiding in the edge of the woods or—”

  He touched her shoulder, stilling her outpouring of panicked words. “It’s clear.”

  “Sorry, I’m just jumpy. You’re a beautiful cat, for a jaguar that can tear things apart with its teeth. I try to remember it’s still you.”

  “It’s me.” His words felt heavy in his chest. Still him inside, still human.

  “It’s fascinating. Scary but fascinating. How does it feel when you morph?”

  “Natural. I feel my essence stretch, pull, but not painfully.” He liked that she was interested. Which was not good—her interest or his warm feeling over it. “I enjoy being in my cat body. I can swivel my ears to hear better, my senses are more alert, and my muscles have rubber band flexibility.”

  “When you changed to cat earlier, how did you climb up the ladder?”

  The warm feeling vanished. “What do you mean, ‘when I changed earlier’?”

  “When you went out to check the Tank, I saw your black fur glide by.”

  In the moonlight he saw her eyes widen again at the same time he felt dread smack him in the chest.

  “You didn’t change to cat, did you?” she asked.

  “No. You saw black fur?”

  “Just a flash of it. I assumed it was you because it was so graceful, and how could that thing be graceful when it looks so ugly and—”

  “Give me my phone.” He was already walking back to the bike. “Pope, everything all right?” he asked as soon as Pope answered.

  “I’m following your route and getting acclimated with the way the vehicle handles. Something is wrong?”

  “I think Baal hitched a ride, probably back at the festival. Since Yurek’s not here, I’m guessing he’s on his way to wherever you are. You’re going to turn around and go the opposite way.” They synched up their locations and where they would rendezvous as he and Petra reached the bike.

  “How can I get rid of him?” Pope asked. “Drive under the low branch of a tree? Swerve?”

  “You watch too many movies. Just keep driving. I’ll take care of Baal.” He disconnected and swore. “I should have turned cat when I checked the Tank.” He looked at her. “Are you ready to drive the bike?”

  “By myself?”

  “Yeah, but only after I’ve jumped off.”

  She gripped his arm. “You’re going to jump off the bike while it’s running?”

  “I’m not actually going to jump.”

  She blew out a breath. “Thank gawd.”

  “Jumping would push the bike back. When we catch up to the Tank, I’m going to grab hold of the ladder and step off.”

  “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  They reached the bike. “I never kid about letting someone else drive my bike.” He gave her a quick rundown on the mechanics of driving, then said, “Ready? We need to move out now.”

  She nodded and gunned the engine, sending them lurching forward. Her fear pulsed through him. Was she afraid to drive the bike, or afraid he’d get hurt?

  They caught up with the Tank in ten minutes, which was why he had kept Pope in the general vicinity.

  She shouted, “There he is!”

  Baal was in human form, holding onto one of the air vents attached to the slanted roof. Cheveyo hadn’t taken time to grab their helmets when they hauled ass out of the Tank. If he was thrown off the roof and hit the pavement, he’d be a goner.

  He called Pope. “We’re right behind you. I can see Baal on the roof.” A head lifted. “It sees us, too.”

  Petra turned to say into the phone, “The nut is going to jump on the Tank and fight it on the roof!”

  “Just be aware that I’ll be up there,” he said and disconnected. “Ready?”

  “No! But I’ll do it if I have to.”

  He felt that stir again, the way he did whenever she grew into her strength. She was going to discover one of her other archetypes before long, and then she would be dangerous—most of all, to him. She pulled up to the rear corner of the Tank.

  “Get closer,” he said. He had to do this carefully so he didn’t knock the bike off balance. Baal was already inching toward the rear, ready for him. “I’m going!” he told her, and a second before his muscles released, the roar of an engine made them both turn around. The trident, coming at them fast.

  “Oh, hell,” they both said in unison.

  Cheveyo was already in midair. Couldn’t stop. He latched onto the ladder at the rear, his eyes on her. She held onto the bike after his departure, though it wobbled. Her face was a mask of tension, lower lip clamped between her teeth. He knew she wouldn’t be able to evade Yurek, who was aiming right at her.

  “Give me your hand!” he called, reaching out. “Aim the bike toward the shoulder and let it go.”

  She reached toward his hand, her eyes scared-rabbit wide, and twisted the handlebars to the right. The car closed in just as the bike veered off the road. She shrieked, dangling, banging against the side of the RV. Their hands were locked together bu
t her other hand slapped along the edge of the window, trying to find a hold.

  He smelled the dog a second before he felt the swipe of its claws tear into his shoulder. Baal’s face leered over the edge, its forelegs bent around the top handles of the ladder. It snarled, swiping again. Cheveyo instinctively ducked, which loosened his grip on Petra’s hand.

  He held on tighter. “Give me your other hand!”

  She reached toward him. He’d have to pull her to bring her closer to the ladder.

  Baal’s claws raked his scalp this time, and blood poured down into his eyes, blinding him. Damn scalp wounds bled like a bitch. He could hear Baal’s nails scrabbling as it tried to keep its balance.

  She uttered a strangled gargle. He couldn’t let go of her. Yurek was right behind them, headlights casting them in a fierce glow. If she survived the fall, he’d run her down. He blindly reached for her hand, grabbing onto her fingers. The blood made his hand slippery and he couldn’t get a good grip.

  She reached past him and grabbed the bar next to him. Her feet found the lower ladder rung and she banged into him as she brought herself close. She whispered his name, a whimper. Now that he didn’t have to hang onto her, he wiped the blood from his face.

  “Looks worse than it is,” he said, trying to breathe through the stinging pain.

  She reached down and in a second had her knife as Baal swiped down again. It yelped when she stabbed the blade into its paw and backed out of sight.

  “Nice,” he said in a strained voice.

  The Tank jerked with the sound of a crash as Yurek rammed his car into the rear of the vehicle. Luckily, the sports car he’d managed to procure was too low to inflict any damage on them or the RV, which had reinforced bumpers for this very reason.

  Giving up on that, Yurek swerved to the left and came up beside them, slamming the car into it. He obviously didn’t care much about the car or his furry buddy up on top, who skidded when the RV shifted.