Arrested in Peace
The Complex
By Jason Halstead
Published by Novel Concept Publishing LLC
©2016
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Chapter 1
Wooden needles sliced through the moist jungle air. They struck the shifting shield the woman held up with her hand, each needle gouging chunks from the shield before they were consumed. Powder fell from the impacts but the shield morphed and healed itself as fast the needles struck.
When the fusillade of splinters ended the woman shifted her left hand to her side, taking the shield with it. "Nymph, give up! Your nature magic can’t harm me. You can’t escape. Make it easy on—"
The woman's words turned to a growl as she sensed another magical surge. She swung her arm back up, barely in time to stop a second volley of the razor sharp needles. Her eyes narrowed as she felt a different sort of magic in the jungle around her and beneath her. She jerked her eyes up and cursed as the ground burst beneath her feet.
She tried to jump away but supple roots caught her foot and wrapped around it with the strength of an oak. She yelped as the living root wrenched her back to the ground and left her dazed by the impact.
"This is my glade, human!" the nymph hissed. Her normally sultry voice was poisoned with hate. "Those who enter it are mine to do with as I will."
The human stretched her right hand out and said, "Not… any… more." The tattoos that stretched down the length of her arm flowed down towards her hand and left her pale skin pink in the faint light that penetrated the jungle. The air darkened in her palm as an object took shape. In the blink of an eye the amorphous mass stretched and solidified into a knife with an edge no more than one nanometer thick.
"I will rend you limb from limb, witchslayer" the nymph cursed.
The woman swung her dagger back and sliced through the roots that held her foot in place. She threw herself forward, raising her shield as she rolled and absorbed the knife back into her arm. She replaced it with the pistol at her side as her roll ended and she found herself on her knees.
"Get it right, my name's Valerie Washburn," the woman declared. She rotated as she tracked the nymph's magic from one tree to the next. She stepped out of the shadow of a tree and drew her arm back to throw more of her wooden spines. Valerie's pistol barked first, passing through the hole in the shield that opened in front of the bullet and then filled flowed back together into a solid mass.
The nymph screamed as the bullet struck her stomach and stuck to her. Ectonic waves from the released alchemical payload radiated through the metahuman and caused her to crumple to the ground in a heap. Valerie rose slowly, taking deep breaths to slow her heart like she'd been trained. The shield collapsed on itself and flowed back up Valerie's arm. The living mud reassembled itself into colorful artwork on her skin and what was left over merged with the vest she wore. She composed herself and smiled, always ready for what came next, that was how she'd been trained and it was how she lived.
"Hurts, doesn't it?" Valerie said as she stood over the paralyzed nymph. "It'll last a half an hour or so, but the pain will start fading sooner. No magic for a couple of hours, I'm happy to say. Long enough for me to take your leafy ass in."
The nymph's eyes followed her and her brown cheek twitched. Valeria knelt down and pulled her restraints free from the clip on her hip. She studied the nymph to make sure she didn't have any hidden weapons, although the nymph's loose fitting green skirt and askew halter top not only offered no place to hide anything, it also failed to cover one ripe breast. "Killer body, I can see why men are so easy to seduce."
She felt the nymph's rage radiating away from her. Valerie winked at her and pulled the nymph's hands together so she could slide the restraints on them. She tapped in her code and smiled as they lit up, generating a low grade ectonic field to further hinder the meta's nature magic.
"All right, I've been told you might have some prisoners in your glade. What say I look around a bit and make sure? I've heard the victims of a nymph are so stupefied by the magic that lures them in they forget to eat or even think about anything else."
The nymph glared but could do nothing.
"Hang tight, treehugger," Val said as she patted the nymph on her hip. She stood and moved through the brush, tracing the nymph's progress through the foliage until she found a small pond. She knelt down next to it and dipped her fingers in it while she looked around.
"Flat ground. The trees aren't too big. The bushes are too low to hide something," she mused while she considered her surroundings. She nodded and leaned forward to direct her gaze into the water. The pond wasn't very big. Enough for her to r reach out with her hands stretched over her head, which was a good length given her height.
What she couldn't see was the bottom. A pond that small shouldn't be any deeper than her hip. Regulations or building codes of some nonsense they put in place when they constructed the Complex.
"I hate water," Val muttered. Her purple hair seemed to sway as though a breeze was tugging it back, except there was no wind. Val's hair was too short to put into a pony tail, so it slicked back against her head. Her clothing tightened, clinging to her body and compressing to hug her figure. She took a deep breath and stretched her hands out before she dove into the pond.
The water was cool but not cold. It still shocked her and made her heart race. She reached out with her hands and kicked with her feet, diving deeper and trying to use what little light reached the depths. She found the bottom with her fingers, plunging them into a cold muck. She knew that wasn't right. The Complex's cleaning systems should have this pond in pristine condition, preventing any rotting sludge in the water.
Val turned around and studied the walls. As she twisted she saw a dark spot in one wall. She swam towards it and reached in, finding the darkness was an abyss rather than a shadowed wall. She pushed herself into it and stepped through a wall of water into warm air.
The witchslayer stumbled on the soft ground and knelt down to catch herself in the pitch black environment. She put a hand on the ground and felt the soft and spongy material under her fingers. She frowned and stared down, unable to see anything. Was it moss or lichen?
She needed light, but that would give her position away. Then again, coming through the water hadn't been a noiseless movement. Even now the sound of her breathing seemed thunderous in the confined space.
"Fuck it," she hissed as she reached down to her belt. She twisted the release on the light stick and pulled it out on its retractable cord. She held it up over her head and thumbed the switch tha
t cast an orange light throughout the small lair.
She was kneeling on moss, but that was the least of her worries. Shelves carved out of the rock walls were decorated with eclectic bits and pieces: an amulet here, a ring there. There was more: a pair of shoes, a knife, and even a small pistol were positioned as trophies or keepsakes.
She scanned the small den, taking in everything and committing it to memory as she'd been taught. She processed it slower and kept jerking her eyes back when she realized what it was she'd seen, such as the thicker layer of moss in the corner that served as a bed. A man so pale he looked grey lay snuggled in it, half buried beneath the moss. She studied him as her hand moved to her pistol at her side. His chest was rising and falling, but the breaths were shallow and slow.
Val surveyed the room a final time before lowering the light to her belt and reattaching it. She stood up again and ducked as she stepped forward. She was too tall for the nymph's lair. Even without the inch or so her boots added she'd have cracked her skull open if she'd straightened fully.
Bent over and still holding a hand on her holstered pistol, she moved forward four paces to the sleeping man and stared down at him. The orange light didn't do him any favors, but she could see how pale and frail he looked. It was almost surprising, considering his muscular chest and defined abs. Now his skin retracted against his ribs with each slow breath.
"Not sure you'd have made it another day," Val whispered as she knelt down to the man's side. She let go of her pistol, it wouldn't do her any good anyhow. She'd loaded the ectonic rounds in it, which were a lifesaver against creatures with innate magical powers. Other than that, they left nasty bruises and hurt like being stung by an angry hive of scatter wasps, but caused no serious injuries. If worse came to worse, she'd just have to stab him.
Val reached out and touched his shoulder, resting her fingers on it. He didn't stir. She frowned and pushed harder, nudging him. She escalated to poking and even jostling him. He remained oblivious.
"Fucking nymph," she muttered as she studied the moss blanket that was lying across him. Val pushed the organic blanket back and found exactly what she expected, a fully naked man. Her eyes went of their own volition to see that he was partially engorged. She let out a soft whistle and shook her head. The nymph was a lot smaller than Val— petite, even— and Val wasn't sure she could have handled this guy when he was fully aroused. "More like nymph fucking, I guess," she mused.
Val made sure the moss blanket was pushed back and that there was nothing else connected to or wrong with the man. She slid her fingers under his sides and legs as far as she could, making certain nothing had attached itself to him. She'd never had to deal with a nymph's victim before, but she'd seen some pretty amazing, and scary, shit. Fighting against the metas in the war had been one thing, but nothing compared to some of the things she'd come across once the war ended and she came to the Complex.
"Looks like you're just a big lump of meat I've gotta carry," she muttered. She reached for his arms and then remembered she hadn't checked his head. There'd been one psychotic creature that had been feeding on his victims fears. Directly. By attaching some kind of tube to the base of the victim's spine. Nymphs didn't do that, but better safe than sorry.
Val slid her hands under his neck and picked his head up gently so she could run her fingers through his thick hair. She felt his scalp and noted how normal it was. All good. She was nearly satisfied when she noticed the faint blue lines near his temples. She jerked her hand back, surprised, and then reached out to twist his head and look again.
"You're kidding me," she grimaced. She studied his body again and then reached out to pry open one eyelid. A dark pupil greeted her. She let go and leaned back. "An incubus? Really? Well, I guess that explains why you're still alive. Probably made for a hell of a show too, a nymph and an incubus going at it. If I'd have known that I would have set up some recording equipment and made some money off it."
The incubus slept on, unaware of Val's wish to make a profit off of his misfortune. She sighed and reached down again. If he was an incubus he was going to heavier than she expected. Denser muscles and bones and such. They were tough, what with their metahuman origin and abilities. The nymph had weakened him to the point where the blue lines of energy that curved across his skin like tribal tattoos were faded to near nothing, but that didn't do a thing to shave off his weight.
Val cursed as she dragged him across the mossy floor. She stopped near the iridescent wall of water and glanced down at him again. A naked man, especially with his build and, ahem, proportions, would not be something she should drag around. There was nothing left of his clothes though, or nothing she could see in the small den.
"You owe me," she muttered as the laces on her armored vest pulled apart and left it hanging open on her shoulders. She slipped it off and managed to slide it under the incubus's butt before she rested her hand on it and focused her thoughts. The nanobots slid down her arm in a cascading wave that made her flesh look like it was flowing and melting. They swarmed over the vest and began to tear it apart one molecule after another. The material was reshaped in a matter of minutes, turning it from a vest into a skirt.
Val backed away and inspected her handiwork in the yellow glow of her light-stick. She kept her hand on the man's hip over the skirt while the nanobots bonded it together and then retreated back to her body. She sighed. "Sorry about this. We'll call it a mini-kilt so it sounds more manly."
The incubus remained oblivious.
With her work finished she positioned herself above his shoulders and reached down to cup her hand over his nose and mouth. The nanobots flowed again and formed a cup, allowing him a few precious breaths. Val dug her heels in and leaned back, pushing her head and back into the water. She pulled the incubus with her and glanced back and down, getting her bearings so she could kick up towards the surface as fast as possible.
She hesitated when the orange light played over the murky bottom of the pond. The silt had mostly settled, giving her a better view of it. Bits and pieces emerged from the muck, casting shadows across the bottom. She squinted in the water, studying them, and then recognized the ball joint on the end of one of the shapes. She was staring at the remains of a femur.
Air burst out of her mouth and nose. She kicked hard, willing herself up and out of the pool as fast as possible. The incubus in her arms dragged her down but that only made her struggled harder. The nanobots on her legs flowed down to her boots and extended into flippers that helped her flight. In seconds she erupted from the surface of the pool fast enough to flop halfway onto the damp ground. She dragged herself out and pulled the incubus after her with a strength born of panic and disgust.
Val rolled over and gasped for breath. Her heart was hammering faster than she could remember. To be immersed in a cess pool filled with decaying flesh... She turned over so she could cough and gag. It served to clear the water from her nose but it did nothing to cleanse the revulsion she felt. She'd been the best of the best and specialized in turning the living into the dead, but once they were dead she wanted nothing to do with them. She'd never been good with the dead, even going back to when she'd used any excuse to avoid going to funerals.
She wiped her eyes and then stared at her fingers. They'd been in the water too. She'd touched the same water that hid and slowly liquefied the corpses of countless men. It was enough to make her shudder and retch, emptying her stomach into the bushes on the bank. She hugged her arms to her body, shivering from the sudden chills that raced through her.
Once the worst of the chills passed she looked down to her pants and boots. They were soaked through with the same water. She gasped and started fumbling with them, tugging and scratching her skin in her attempts to get the contaminated clothing off.
She scooted backwards across the ground and stared at her discarded outfit as though it might rise up and throw itself on her. She wiped the tears from her eyes and began shivering again. It wasn't the cold, it was the irrational fear
of death that had gripped her ever since... She shuddered and shook her head. That had been years ago, this was now. She was safe and so was the incubus. The nymph though.. she would pay for what she'd done. To the poor bastards she'd killed and to Val just now.
Val looked at her pants. Her gun and her tools were there. She needed those. Clothing was optional. Not because she'd be welcomed walking around naked in the Complex, but because her nanobots could double as clothing when she wanted them too. Her problem was touching the contaminated tools. She didn't want to.
Several deep breaths later, Val inched closer to her pants and reached out slowly. The nanobots surged to her hand and finger, weighing her hand down as thousands of them accumulated. She clenched her teeth touched her finger to the pistol. The swarm raced down her finger and spread across the pistol, covering it in a moving layer that made it look like it was shimmering.
The nanobots scoured it clean, scraping the water away from every part of the pistol before they spread out and repeated the deep cleanse across the entire belt. Her pants were destroyed by the nanobots, disintegrating the belt loops and the waistline so the belt could drop the ground. As it dropped the nanobots fell with it. The connection to Val's finger was broken, causing them to go inert and collapse on the ground in sprinkles of dust.
Val cursed again and grabbed the belt in her hand. It was dry and the metal parts shone like they were new. The tiny machines she touched were revitalized and came back to life. They reached out, finding more and more of the miniature robots. Her miniature minions retreated back up her arm and took their place on her body while she fastened the belt around her waist.
She placed her finger in one of the piles of dust, reactivating the machines and spreading her instructions to the other piles of sleeping nanobots. Within seconds they were assembled and spreading across the ground to swarm across her discarded clothing. She waited patiently while they deconstructed the material and left nothing more than piles of dust behind. Out of the piles new nanobots arose, freshly constructed. They joined the ranks and became one with the millions of symbiotic machines that Val shared her body and her life with.
Arrested in Peace (The Complex Book Series) Page 1
