by Godwin, Pam
My chest constricted. “That sounds…final.”
His brow touched my shoulder. “I’m still a priest.” A heavy sigh. “A priest in love with a beautiful woman. I broke me vow. Doesn’t make it go away. I just have to try harder.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. In love? Had I become so greedy as to try to turn him away from his god or prevent him from being the man he wanted to be? But I’d felt his desire, he’d been there with me, every step of the way. “So the ladybugs, the song, the magnetism between us…that means nothing?”
His arms snaked around me, squeezed. “It means everything. Wha’ we have”—his hand pressed against my chest—“this bond won’t go away. I can’t stomach the idea of not holding ye, laughing and fighting with ye, kissing ye—”
I shoved his hand away. “Kissing me?”
“Friends kiss.”
Friends. “So I let you kiss me and paw me and pretend your steel hard dick—which is currently stabbing my back—doesn’t exist?”
He groaned. “Aye right.”
I spun in his arms and raised a brow. “And I can prance around naked, use my bullet in bed beside you as long as fiery, sweaty sex remains off the table?”
A bulge bounced in his throat. “Ye wen’ make this easy, em? The answer’s the same.”
I climbed to my feet, a heaping dose of doubt fortifying my stance. “Problem is, Father Molony, we’ve moved beyond friendship. The little ditty you brought to light—you know, the shivering dance of electricity you feel under our friendly touches?—I can’t ignore that. So, while you’re clinging to your celibacy, remember one thing. I took no such vow. You being unavailable makes me available to others.” The thought made me sick.
His gaze drifted up, eyes insoluble despite the wetness there. “I told ye. I den’ expect the same in return.”
I wasn’t sure if I was more hurt by his rejection or the fact that he accepted me sleeping with another man. The agony of it pivoted my boots, sent me tearing through the pelting rain.
Lightening illuminated a rapeseed field in a golden glow. The protection of the rain ensured no aphids. I took advantage of the respite and ran through the sodden stems, leaves clinging to my jeans. On and on I went. My legs softened and my body shook with chills.
Eventually, exhaustion won and I found myself trudging toward the truck, slumping behind the wheel and fighting sleep as the miserable fucking night forced itself upon me.
Tap-tap.
I shivered awake. Curtained by the night sky, stars speckled through the windshield. The rain had moved out, which meant the aphids would move in.
Hard muscle curled around me. Oh, hell no. How had I not heard him climb into the truck?
I tugged his arm from under my shirt and turned it over to read his watch. I blinked and read it again. Almost sunrise. I tossed his arm.
Though his breaths hiccupped, his rigid jaw—which had been locked for days in resolution—was at ease under the pull of gravity. Whiskers shadowed the perfect sculpture of his face. I reached out. Just one stroke—
Tap-tap. Tap-tap.
A fingernail on glass. I scrambled up Roark’s chest and away from the driver’s side window. Darkness hovered on the other side. I shook his shoulders. “Wake up.”
The smooth pace of his breaths in sleep didn’t falter. I shook him again. “Roark. Roark?” His head lolled against the back of the seat. I turned back to the window. Yellow-green eyes glowed over the door.
Come away, O human child:
To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
William Butler Yeats
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: FLYPAPER
My pulse kept its frantic beat as the glowing discs dimmed and melted into the dark. I hauled the carbine sling over my head and climbed out. Roark didn’t stir.
The black sky fused with the black landscape and seemed to drain the winter chill from the air. My socks warmed against the dry ground. Dry? How could that be?
I called out into the night, “Aaron?”
“Mama?”
I spun back to the truck.
Annie sat on the hood, legs stretched before her. “You came.”
“I-I didn’t”—I swallowed past a burning lump—“Sweetheart, you came to me.”
She looked around. I followed her eyes, scanning the darkness that enveloped the bluff. Beyond the rush of my breaths, there was no twittering of nocturnal critters. No ruffling plumage of ducks hunkering in the wetlands. No wind whispering through the frost-laced grasses. No life.
She shook her head. “You’re in our world.”
Their world? My thoughts traced back to the day I saw them by the pool. The day I cremated my father. The day I woke to discover Joel’s death. In those moments, when the absence of life weighed on me, wasn’t it an unbalanced ecosystem? Was I treading outside the world of the living? How was that possible?
I moved to the truck’s window, pressed my face against it. Roark’s chest moved up and down, his eyes closed.
“You brought him here. I like him,” Annie said, her smile forever missing the same two teeth.
Aaron climbed onto the hood and plopped beside her. “I liked the ladybugs bestest.” He clasped his hands to his chest. “Will you bring them again, Mommy?”
Annie elbowed him. “Not now. We got her across the big ocean. She doesn’t have time for ladybirds.”
My legs wobbled. I gripped the side mirror. “What do you mean?” My hand went to my chest, where the tug used to be. “That was you?”
Chin raised, she tapped the toes of her tennis shoes together and hummed.
Aaron huffed, “I help.”
The burn in my throat worked its way to my nose and spread behind my eyes. “Why?”
Their heads swiveled toward the windshield, their eyes locked on Roark.
“Him?” I asked.
“Your fixer.” Annie grinned.
“Fixer?” I stepped toward them until my legs bumped the front tire. “What does he fix?”
She cocked her head. “He fixed your ouchie.” Her finger drew a circle over my heart. “Now you care.”
My throat closed, strangled my voice. “Care?”
“You’ll save them, Mama.”
Them? The nymphs? I couldn’t ask. I wanted to protect my A’s from the world they left. I wanted to spend that time holding them and telling them I would never stop loving them.
I opened my arms, reaching. The vapor that shaped them waved, slipped through my fingers. They didn’t seem to notice.
A choke escaped my lips. I pulled back and tucked my clenched fists under my arms. The blaze in my sinuses swelled. After a lifetime of dry eyes, maybe I would finally cry.
A gasp returned my attention to Aaron. His eyes were wide, staring at the lea beyond the bluff. “He’s here.”
“Who?”
A tremendous roar whooshed from above. The truck wobbled back and forth on its frame.
The sky opened up and peeled away the night in a flash of light. The wind tunneled toward Annie and Aaron, spun their bodies, and carried them away.
I pounded my hands on the hood. “Nooo.”
My screams chased the vortex into the blinding rays of the sun. The saturated ground soaked into my socks. The crisp air penetrated my bones, bringing with it the sudden orchestra of chirping birds, the pushing of water between the banks of River Tweed, and the buzzing of aphids. The truck’s door slammed.
“Evie. What’s wrong?” Roark’s hand brushed my cheek. Then he stilled. “Do ye hear that?”
“Aphids.” Their buzzing amplified in volume and complexity. I raised the carbine and followed the vibrations to the edge of the bluff.
The hum became more deafening, like the buzz of a million flies breeding on ol’ Hurlin’s stallions.
At the edge of the bluff, his hand found mine. Hundreds of aphids corralled below. In the center, two human boys clawed and kicked for their lives.
Could we save them? Distract the bugs somehow?
He tugged my hand. “Too many. We need to get away from this cliff. To the van—”
Scraping footsteps crept over my shoulder. We spun, his sword outstretched, his other hand shoving me behind him.
Aphids encircled us. Carbine leveled, I stepped around him, picking them off, counting down the rounds. Thirty…twenty-nine…twenty-eight…
Buzzing numbed my ears. Beside me, his sword thrashed side to side to stave them off.
The carbine tapped my shoulder. Nine…eight…
There were too many. I needed ammo from the truck, which had vanished behind the quivering swarm.
Two rounds left. The dozen or so remaining aphids shuffled closer with ravenous purpose. We backed to the edge. Their food had nowhere to go.
The buzzing ceased. Roark wrapped his free arm around my waist and mantled me with his body.
A gap opened in the center of the swarm and the mutants calmed. A dark haired man emerged from the parting.
Roark risked a quick glance at me. I shook my head. Not the Drone. Still, the man’s tawny complexion and ominous eyes were familiar.
Flanked by several aphids, he swaggered closer. His xanadu-tinged uniform stretched across his puffed out chest and squared shoulders. He stopped a few feet before us and tumbled a chuckle between puffs from his cigar. “So, you’re the menacing little chit who’s been shooting up my soldiers.”
His hair shined as black as his enlarged pupils and clipped close to his skull. A thick scarlet scar zagged his forehead and begged me to sight it with the carbine. I obliged.
“And you are?” I asked around the carbine.
“The Imago.” He rolled the vowels.
I laughed. “The Imago?”
“Yes. A title I’ve earned as the leader of the aphid army.”
“These mutants are your…soldiers?” Roark asked.
“Impressive, yes? And this is just a small battalion. There’s more to see.”
He swept his eyes to the aphids closest to us. “Bring them.” He turned, put his back in my scope. I squeezed the trigger.
A streak of green blotted my sight. I lowered the barrel. Black blood coursed from the aphid at my feet. A bodyguard.
I returned to high ready, sighted the Imago’s back. One round left.
Roark’s sword clanked on the rocky ground. Beside it, he bowed his head, a speared mouth angled at his neck. His captor’s hunger tore through me in waves.
I dropped the barrel, fought my panic. “Imago. Call off your fucking bug.”
The Imago’s soulless eyes appeared over his shoulder. “Relinquish the gun.”
“Den’ give it,” Roark said from his bent position.
Outnumbered, I shrugged out of the sling and offered it to the aphid at his neck. Spit dripped from the sharp beak of its mandible, its pearly orbs hypnotizing. Snarls wheezed past its jowls.
It released Roark and snatched the gun from my hands.
All at once, the buzzing resumed. Roark lurched to my side, arms suffocating me against his tense body. “Ye wreck me nerves, woman. I’ll be dealing with ye in a severe and violent manner after this.”
“Such optimism.”
The aphids pushed us forward with mere intimidation. When we reached the valley, Roark crushed my face to his chest. The boys’ transitional cries fractured the icy air. Their mutation had begun.
The Imago prowled through his brigade, chuffing and tapping his cigar. The biceps embracing me went taut every time the Imago cast a look in my direction. I wanted to fight. Or run. I wanted to do something besides stand before that mad man and await our fate. How did he control the bugs? They crowded us shoulder to shoulder. I could feel their hunger as if it were my own. But not one made a move to bite.
The Imago staked his post before me and sucked from his cigar. With a gloved hand, he lifted my chin. “My brother is here and he will be pleased.”
He squinted at the cliff. Whoomp-whoomp-whoomp clapped down the rocky crag, a sound I hadn’t heard since the outbreak. Then the helicopter emerged in view.
Our hair and clothes lashed around us as it landed. My heart banged on my ribs. Roark enfolded me like body armor, his mouth at my ear. “We’ll get through this. Den’ lose your head.”
The first man disembarked the chopper. Black curls wound over a sable cape. His onyx eyes narrowed on me. The Imago’s brother. My nightmare in flesh. Cold sweat trickled between my breasts.
Roark’s lilt was low. “Is he…”
He craned his neck and found his answer in my eyes. My wrist ached under the pressure from his fingertips.
A claw caught his arm. An insectile mouth pressed under his white collar. Still, he hung on to me as the Imago pried me from his arms.
Roark was one stab away from infection. All it would take was the slightest pressure from that speared mouth. I didn’t dare fight back.
With the aid of his aphid army, the Imago made quick work of binding and gagging us. I twisted my arms against the knots on my wrists. Remembered pain gurgled up. With it, came bile and tremors.
The Imago’s brother approached with the second man from the chopper. The brothers exchanged a clasp of hands and the Imago said, “The human boys were like sugar on flypaper. Our little fly”—his eyes lingered over me—“buzzed right to the cliff, unable to flee our sweet trap.”
The man with the onyx eyes towered over me. “Eveline”—my name rolled from his tongue like a French wine—“it is a pleasure to meet you. I am the Drone.”
Roark’s breathing at my side reminded me that crunching the Drone’s nose with my head would hurt Roark. They would use him against me, the only reason they kept him alive.
“This is my partner, Dr. Michio Nealy. He is going to help you relax for our trip.”
If Dr. Nealy hadn’t been pulling a syringe from his bag, I would’ve admired the chary almond shaped eyes and smooth complexion of his Asian heritage. But as he dripped solute from the hollow point, I fantasized using it as a skewer to pluck those eyes from his head.
The Drone glanced at Roark. “I fear you won’t behave when we separate you from your priest.”
I bucked in the Imago’s grip as he canted, “Nighty-night. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
Roark’s gaze steadied me. I lobbed him a silent demand. Stay alive. Promise me. Then I lunged against the arms that held me and pressed my face against his. He exhaled a resolute breath around his gag. He willed me to be strong.
A sting pricked my neck. Warmth tingled through me as the sedative pumped from the needle.
The V of Roark’s brows, the stretched muscles in his neck and his peeled-back lips exposed the wrath that consumed him. His teeth ground his gag, the whites blurring to black.
I held onto the vengeance in his eyes as the ground rose up and slammed into my face.
Rust grows from iron and destroys it;
so evil grows from the mind of man and destroys him.
Buddha
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: L’ISOLA DEL VESCOVO
My ears perked to the low hum of white noise, air whispering through a vent. The vibration and whine of engine fan blades indicated transit. The helicopter? Too quiet. Quiet enough to hear breathing. I wasn’t alone.
Eyelids, weighed down with sedation, refused to let in light. I willed them open and blinked through the drug-induced fog.
The Drone slid a haughty smile from across a foldaway table. The doctor perched beside him, his nose in a book.
Clouds whisked by tiny windows lining the narrow cabin. Straps over my neck and arms held me firm against one of four leather seats, two facing two, the table between.
Ivory gauze draped my body toga-style from shoulder to bare feet. The knot in my gut tightened. Whose hands touched my body while dressing me? What else had they done while I was at their mercy?
Gloved fingertips slithered along my arm. I jerked as much as the shackles allowed. The Imago hovered a breath away. The black of his eyes
matched the lashes feathering his lids. He ridged his forehead, the scarlet scar defying the folds. My fingers curled into the armrest.
Surrounded by three monsters—still men in form, but monsters all the same—what were my options? Without the carbine, it couldn’t be solved with a three pound trigger pull.
I pointed my glare at the man molesting my arm. “Which one are you in the trifecta? First, second or worst?”
The Drone’s discomfiting laugh rattled the cabin. “Seems my brother is besotted.” His tone lowered. “While his attentions linger on your mouth, he forgets the affliction it may volley.”
What a douche bag. I showed none of the symptoms. Whatever. Letting them think I was a nymph would discourage rape. I hoped.
He picked up a spoon and stirred a powder into his tea cup. “Only a few more hours, brother, and we’ll confirm our suspicions.”
Or until I could free him of that spoon and gut them one by one with it. “Where’s the priest?”
The Drone’s cruel eyes were at odds with the delicate manner in which he placed the tea cup to his lips. “He’s en route to Malta.”
“What?” My organs crashed into one another in a frantic pounding. “What’s in Malta?”
As if on cue, the pilot announced our approach to the archipelago off the coast of Italy. The Drone turned up his mouth. “Your new home.”
“Release the priest. He has nothing—”
My tongue collided with the scratchy cloth of a gag. The Imago tightened the tie at the back of my head.
When the plane landed, I remained tethered to the Imago’s side. His eyes stalked me as I gnawed at the fabric that desisted my questions.
He tossed me into the backseat of the SUV, an arm stretched across my thigh. Oh, the things I would do if I had a dull knife. I would start at the elbow in my lap, sawing the serrated edge back and forth. A flap of skin. A strip of muscle. And when only the bone kept it attached, I would snap it over my knee and regift the appendage in his very own sodomy—
“Welcome to Manoel Island,” the Drone chirped from the front seat. Darkness swallowed the mainland behind us as we crossed a bridge, the doctor driving, the Drone narrating. “This island, l’Isola del Vescovo was once home to seven thousand Maltese. Now only those under my command occupy its shores.”
