Precious Sacrifice

by Cari Silverwood

  She shook her head slowly. “I know I should be crazily upset. I’ve seen enough scifi movies to be thinking that you might, any second, turn into something with eight furry legs and a need to tie me up in a web…” She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re not going to are you?”

  He snorted. “No.”

  “Good. I can’t believe that anyway. Every bit of me just wants to be here, next to you, cuddling you.” She wriggled, huffed. “It’s damn weird with a big W. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I trust you! Is it what you gave me?”

  Truth? “No. At this stage it should make you feel very…” He searched for the word. “Very aroused, but it shouldn’t make us trust each other.”

  “Uh-huh. Us?” She sucked in a corner of her lip and eyed him avidly. “Us? So it’s doing stuff to you too?”

  She was fast.

  “It is. I think.” He thought about elaborating but didn’t. Funny but trust was exactly how he’d sum things up. He trusted her to not hurt him. As if she could.

  “But I can really feel this chemical making me want to jump you.” She poked his shoulder. “So if you do turn green and furry or something I’m going to be totally miffed.”

  He turned down his mouth and nodded slowly. “I will make a note of that and not turn green or furry while you’re looking at me.”

  When her body shook it took him a few seconds before he realized she was laughing.

  “I like that you can make jokes,” she whispered. “I’m sure green aliens would have trouble with that.”

  “Mmm.” He turned over to lie fully on his back and watch the sway of the tree’s leaves and branches. “Tell me more about you.”

  In the quiet, she moved in closer and sighed heavily. He waited. Perhaps she too had secrets?

  “How’s this? My boyfriend died over a year ago. He fell off a cliff. I should have saved him. I seemed to feel him die even.” She ran on. “I never tell anyone anymore about this so this is what I mean. I don’t know, at all, why I trusted you with that. I mean, feeling someone die. It was so awful though.”

  He could hear tears in her voice. “Could you have saved him from death?”

  “No.” She sniffed noisily and her words sounded clogged. “No, I couldn’t have.”

  It appeared as if she was punishing herself over this thing of the past. He pulled her in closer with the arm that cushioned her head. “Then don’t say lies. That is a command.”

  He didn’t expect that to do anything, but it frustrated him that he couldn’t fix her problem.

  “A what. An order? You’re shitting –”

  “No, I’m not. I don’t say lies. You don’t say lies. Don’t blame yourself for something you couldn’t do.”

  “Uhh.” She relaxed and seemed to think a while, shifting her shoulders, looking up at the trees with him. When she spoke again, she had an odd tone in her voice. “This is ridiculous. I feel free of that for the first time. Soon after he died, I told so many people that and all I got was strange looks. But when you told me to not blame myself, it clicked. That horrible feeling in my stomach, that always comes when I talk about him, it went away. I don’t understand. I don’t…”

  “It did?”

  “Yes. Jadd. Damn, I should be scared of you. But I’m still not. That too should be scary.”

  “Don’t be. Please. I don’t understand either, but I meant well. I wanted to help you.”

  She shivered then shook her head, her straying hair brushing his cheek. “I’m good. Just hold me. My head can take a hike with its logic.”

  “Sure.”

  His command had worked. Now he was floundering. Why was this happening? Were earth people especially susceptible to the nano-chem?

  He gave her a ration bar to chew on – laughing when she said it was delicious – then some sips from his emergency canteen. There were distant voices, dogs barking, but no one disturbed them.

  Maybe if they stayed here forever, nothing would ever hurt her.

  He gave in and told her the story of how he came to be on her earth and what Preyfinders did, and how the Hunt was a way of rewarding those who achieved greatness. Of how her people were also being assessed for star-faring capability. Slowly, he inched closer to his terrible secret. The urge to tell her built.

  “If you adapt to the nano-chem, this planet becomes a Hunting Ground. If you don’t adapt, it will be demolished.”

  “Fuck. I feel a sudden need for a tranquilizer addiction.”

  It was a lot of potentially alarming information to take in at once. She was quiet but said nothing more, only nodded, then played with the buttons on his coat.

  At least the thermal profile of the coat made things pleasant and shielded them from the heat. It was one of the few non-human artifacts they were allowed. In a pinch, if he sealed it properly at top and bottom, it could form a rigid cocoon and protect him from anything up to a small and very distant nuclear blast.

  She hadn’t run. What if he said the rest? The need to tell clawed at him.

  Was there something terribly wrong with him? Bonding went both ways, but the male held the control. This was so far outside his mission parameters that he’d probably be fed into the center of the nearest convenient sun if anyone found out.

  Wasn’t it cruel to let her know?

  He could cover his tracks, use a primal look on her, and make her forget. He wasn’t sure why this was important. Just, that it was. For these last days, hours, of life, she should know.

  Speaking the first words was like having a mouth full of poison. “There’s more. Some worse information.”

  Brittany turned to him. “Worse than earth being demolished? That idea’s so crazy it’s still rattling around in my head. What could be worse?”

  Her eyes flicked back and forth as if she tried to decipher his expression.

  “There’s someone stalking you who has killed before. I’m not going to be allowed to stop him. I wish I could but I can’t.” He held his breath, felt the ache all the way down through his chest.

  “Fuck. Now you are shitting me.” She gaped at him then sat up. “No. You’re lying. You have to be.”

  Why had he gone in this direction? The ache became a twist of sickness deep within. “It’s the truth.”

  “No. I don’t believe you. You wouldn’t do that to me.” She shook her head, her brow furrowing. The air went hard and cold and her words distant. “Would you? Jadd?”

  She trembled and he didn’t know whether to hold her, but he wanted to. Then she gathered her legs under her as if to get up and run.

  He pulled her down, took her throat, and paused, staring into her eyes, his hand shaking, uncertain he could do this.

  He had to.

  Against the wishes of his soul and his heart, he used a look.

  Flattened by the mind blow, she went limp. Her reddened face paled. The trace of tears outlined her eyes and he wiped the dampness away, gently. A small wind fluttered against him, blanketing his ears and shoving him sideways as if trying to make him fall.

  Wrong, this was so wrong.

  He bowed his head, wanting for the first time ever, to end his life. If she had to die why should he live? Life as a soldier meant his responses ran on rails. He couldn’t disobey. He couldn’t not allow her to be killed. Because it was an order. His body seemed filled with rusted mechanisms that were grinding against each other, slowing, moments away from shrieking to a halt and stopping forever.

  This wasn’t the way of an Igrakk warrior. Though fumbling at first, he went through a meditation ritual in his head and managed to pull himself back together.

  With his thumb, he stroked the pulse at the base of her neck. When her mind came back he could at least reassure her. He’d used the lowest intensity of the lowest grade of look. It would paralyze her by the smallest amount, remove the memories of her panic, and yet leave what he’d told her.

  He’d done what he thought was right. What seemed the very best of the right things he could do and all he f
elt was this immense gut-twisting wrongness.

  He stroked her again, seeing a fiery indignation surfacing in her eyes. She knew. She knew he had betrayed her. Why had he really wanted to do that? He was lost.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing.” He caressed her cheek, memorizing the contours. “All I know is you matter to me more than it seems possible. I always held Brask as someone I could use as an indicator, as advisor, to tell when I was off course.”

  Brask had never been wrong before, but he was in this.

  “It’s not right to let you die just to punish me.”

  He wiped at his eyes, annoyed at how they watered. All the arguments about the universe knowing when you did right didn’t matter when he had a person in his arms who could live.

  “Come.” He stood and helped Brittany to stand also, though on wobbly legs.

  “Why are you crying?” she asked quietly, leaning on him, happily using him for support despite his treachery.

  Exasperating girl. Trusting girl. She found his weak point unerringly.

  “Don’t your men cry?”

  “No. Not much.”

  He twisted his mouth, frowning. He stared at his wet hand, felt the coolness on his face from the moisture. “Igrakk men don’t either.”

  She provoked extraordinary reactions from him. For her, he’d dive into battle with weapons blazing. Why and when he’d decided this he wasn’t sure. Sometime during these past few hours. It felt good. He’d never wanted to protect anyone as much as he did her.

  “What’s the word you use when something happens that’s sort of unexpected? Something you thought might be bad?” Was there such a word?

  “Sucks?” Her voice trembled too.

  He hugged her to him, kissed her hair. “Sucks. I like that word. Everything sucks. But I plan to make it not suck.”

  “Good plan,” she whispered. “Jadd. I don’t want to die.”

  “I know.” He swallowed down past the lump in his throat. He picked her up, feeling like a death merchant delivering a corpse. She was his. But she wasn’t. Not really.

  The little dog followed them to her car and leaped in when he opened the door, even before he could get in. Then the dog sat on the seat panting at him. He’d observed it before in archived images from the reconnaissance of Brittany’s apartment building. It had been ever so ancient in those. Now it seemed like a bouncy young creature. Was that an anomaly? He shrugged. Clearly, he needed to study earth animals more.

  The sparrow bird just circled them, and when he drove off, in the rear view mirror he saw it fly away.

  What was it with earth people and their creatures? How had he missed seeing the section about them having so many creatures as pets?

  What he saw as he went past another car made him wonder if he had acquired some odd Earth illness where people could reach in and twist his intestines with their evil thoughts alone.

  The killer was here, sitting at the wheel of that car. His lean silhouette and beak nose turned as they slid past, as he watched them. How quiet everything had become, like the killer had thrown a cloaking device over them.

  Was this his role in her life? To mate with her, discard her, and hand her over to become some toy for this human excrement to play with and pull to pieces?

  No.

  He’d bleed for her from a thousand wounds; he’d kneel before the winds of an oncoming firestorm. He’d lay down his life before he’d let that happen.

  *****

  Jonathan Two stood beside his car. Normally he’d leave them be. It was the woman he wanted. But for the first time in days, he heard the voice. Follow, follow, follow.

  It suited him. Perhaps the man would go. Perhaps he would kill him with the knife. Either way was fine. As long as he got her in the end. Where to do this? Her apartment was on the upper floor and at a corner and would have fewer people to hear any noises she might make. Good.

  *****

  Was the killer drawn to his fatalistic thoughts? As Jadd slammed the car door with his boot, the man had stepped from his car. He’d parked behind them. They’d locked gazes for a second, before the man slid his downward to focus on Brittany where she lay quietly in Jadd’s arms.

  He pulled her in closer.

  Brazen.

  What destruction he might smite this creature with. If only. If only he could.

  He took a few deep inhalations and resisted pulling out a shotgun and blasting him away in the middle of this busy street.

  With Brittany lapsing now and then into unconsciousness, he had to carry her up the stairs to her apartment. After rounding the first landing, he heard other footsteps below. The killer still followed.

  As he used Brittany’s key to unlock her door, the man emerged from the stairwell.

  Kak. Possibilities gnawed at him. If he left her now, this thing would get her. If he did anything to him, he’d fail the mission. He’d be punished properly this time, as befitted a commander who had harmed one of his men. Execution or, if he was lucky, a decade as a worker on a prison planet far away from Earth.

  He left the door of the apartment open. After laying Brittany out on her bed, he listened. His augmented hearing let him detect the smallest noises. Quiet footsteps came nearer, then the sound changed, echoing yet muffled, as the killer walked on the apartment’s carpeted hallway. Perhaps the killer was struck by how insane this was for Jadd heard him open the sliding doors and hide somewhere on the balcony.

  He intended to kill her soon.

  Jadd bowed his head. There were two roads he could take. And he’d decided already.

  He left his weapons in their holsters and carefully buttoned his coat.

  “Goodbye, sweet girl.” He bent over the bed and kissed her forehead, drawing one long breath to keep her scent in his memory forever. Though her eyelids flickered open and she smiled adorably, he straightened.

  Then he walked out into the living room, turned on his heel, and headed for the balcony. The curtains furled and unfurled in the cool breeze. Brittany’s sparrow flitted past and did an acrobatic dive at the flapping cloth while madly cheeping. When he thrust back the curtains the man was revealed, alert face, and a hand with a knife already plunging toward his stomach. The blur of metal driven by strong muscles. The glee on the killer’s face.

  Jadd let the shining sliver snap point-first into his coat. The blade turned on the armored material and slid. It clattered to the floor.

  “Surprise!” By then, he had hold of the man and was forcing him back. He took two long strides toward the edge. When the killer’s back thudded into the railing, the metal rang.

  Jadd welcomed the mutual grip on his coat. Four stories down. They’d both perish. Good. If he died, the partly forged bond would snap, she’d be free.

  It could be his final gift to her.

  The man said nothing, only grunting, with eyes wide and bright, as he wrestled. Hand met arm, smacked again in counter-strike. Kicks were blocked and re-attempted. His reactions were extremely fast for a human. Perhaps he was on drugs? On the verge of that last leap to take them both past the point of no return, Jadd heard a sound behind him. Her voice. Her tiny feet stumbling as they negotiated the rug. He chanced a sideways glance.

  His marks on her and the fear showing on her face. It broke him. He couldn’t do this.

  Jadd did a body twist and surged into full combat velocity. Hands blurring, he thumped up under both the killer’s arms to loosen the grip on his coat then tossed him over the railing. He sailed upward and out, arms flailing then fell. The building a few yards opposite had only five open windows. None had people in them. The creature plummeted headfirst into a shrubby poorly tended garden and vanished among the leaves. No screams.

  He swallowed. If it wasn’t for the best, it was done. He’d use every influence, call in favors, whatever he could. Anything.

  Now to look after his girl.

  She waited for him in the living room. As he came to her, she retreated a step or two. Intelligence filled her eyes. If
she’d seen the killer go over, it hadn’t impacted on her yet.

  “Do you know who that was?”

  She blinked. “Was it him?”

  “Yes. It was your stalker. He’s gone now. Dead.”

  “Why? I thought you couldn’t interfere? I thought it meant you’d be punished. I don’t want that.” Her words sounded thick, as if pushed past tears. “And I thought you were going over too.” These last words wrenched out of her as violently as a hook pulled from flesh. “You scared me. And I don’t know why. But I don’t want to lose you. Jadd?”

  “I know. I know” He gripped her arms, tightening and relaxing his circle of fingers then he pulled her in close. “I’m sorry. I almost did go over. I couldn’t. I saw you and I couldn’t do that to you.” Her heart thumped against his chest. “I couldn’t. Things…have changed.”

  “You…almost killed yourself?”

  He nodded.

  “This is so screwed up.” When she drew her hand back and made as if to hit him, he caught her hand.

  “Not wise.”

  She made a disgusted sound. “Please, tell me you’ll be safe. Please.” Her furious blinking spoke of inner turmoil. “What do you mean? What’s changed?”

  She cared for him as much as he did her. His balls tightened. His heart danced – if it got any bigger, it would burst. The marks on her body spoke truth. It mightn’t be enough to sway his superiors, but it had stopped him.

  “I’m safe. For now. Your dress has fallen from your shoulder.” He put a hand to her waist, supporting her. He’d removed her bra at the park and the dress had fallen below her breast, so she was bare to him. With the fingertips of his free hand, he traced a slow curve beneath, smiling at the color of her areola. “Look.” He cupped her breast, lifting it to display her nipple.

  Brittany looked down. “Ohmigod. Wow. I’m going red. Really red.” She glanced at his cheek grooves then back to herself and added in a whisper, “I’m…like you.”

  “We’re matching up. This is a little early. I’m not sure why it’s happening. If you were given the last dose, it would all be red which would mean you were mine. My pet.” He lowered his head and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Your lips are changing, Brittany. You’re probably matching me elsewhere too.”