Highland Son (Highland Sorcery: A New Dawn)

by Clover Autrey

  Ethan draped an arm around his shoulders. “He’s so precious when he gets mad.”

  Alexander shook his head. “You’re both morons, you know that?”

  ~~~

  “Jewel!”

  She banged her head on the lowest shelf, dropping a box of bullets. She was taking inventory. They were running low.

  Sheppard stormed toward her and planted his fists at his hips. “I heard you took stew into the strangers.”

  Rubbing her temple, she winced up at his towering figure. “No one else was in a hurry to feed them.”

  “Hungry men make talkative men.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think that tactic would’ve worked on these guys anyway.”

  “I explicitly told Henry not to feed them.”

  Jewel pushed up to her feet and found herself hemmed in to the shelves by Sheppard’s wide stance. “Well you didn’t tell me. Where’d you run off to anyway?”

  “Not your concern.”

  “Dad.” She sighed. “Anytime you leave the motel, I’m concerned. Especially after Lance.”

  The gruff demeanor softened around the edges. “I know. I’m sorry. Hank reported that a group of Sifts were edging in on the south perimeter by the bell tower. We had to check it out.”

  She stiffened. “Are there?”

  He pushed a stray hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. “There was a small group, three alone, but they’ve moved on. We followed them at a distance to be sure.”

  “You didn’t shoot them?”

  “Too close. Didn’t want their stink to draw any more to the area, and we didn’t want to spend the time dragging them out farther. So we let them go.”

  Jewel nodded. It was smart, but she couldn’t help think that any Sifts not taken down where Sifts that could potentially find another group of humans to harm, or even… She squelched down the unbidden thought and looked up at her father.

  “You shouldn’t risk yourself like that.”

  “Would you have me put someone else out there instead?”

  She lowered her gaze. “No.”

  He lifted her chin. “Now about these strangers… I don’t want you going in there again.”

  “I thought the point was to get them to join us.”

  “If they are found worthy of us.” The lines fanning from the corners of his eyes deepened. “But since you recklessly went in there anyway, what do you make of them?”

  “They’re good men, Dad.”

  One brow rose. “You know that after a few minutes with them?”

  Heat flushed her skin. “I can tell they’re loyal to each other. And protective. People who look after each other like that…and trust each other…can’t be all bad. They’re not like any of the other marauders we’ve run into. I think we can trust them.”

  “You’re willing to risk all our lives on your brief assessment?”

  Was she?

  Her gut said yes.

  But she’d been wrong in where she placed her trust before. Deadly wrong.

  “Hesitation?”

  “If it were just me, I’d say yes, but the children… Mae…”

  “Now you’re thinking like a leader.”

  She frowned. “We can’t keep them shut away indefinitely. We either extend a portion of trust or send them on their way.”

  “Agreed.” Sheppard stepped back, giving her space to move around him. “But Jewel…”

  She stopped.

  “I want you to keep your distance.”

  ~~~

  They slept in shifts. No one else came in after the girl—Jewel—left with their bowls and utensils and her fancy silver tray. The entire night and into the early dawn they’d been left to stew in their juices.

  They were supposed to check in with command at the lighthouse in two days’ time, otherwise Chesterfield would have entire squads scouring the area for them. With all the Sift activity near this area Alexander didn’t want any of his men placing themselves in unnecessary jeopardy while out looking for them. This group was running out of time before he opened a rift and hustled Ethan and Dez out of there. Hell, they didn’t need a rift in space. Any one of them could kick down the flimsy door. But that would mean fighting their way out through innocents.

  In the meantime during his watch while they slept, Alexander had taken two of the outlet covers off the wall and had a couple lengths of wire assessable in his pockets before he replaced the covers as though they’d never been tampered with.

  “Time is it?” Ethan stirred, yawning huge enough to crack his jaw.

  “Best guess, around seven.”

  Dez snapped awake at their voices, alert even in sleep, and immediately flopped to his stomach and began push-ups.

  Ethan stretched his arms above his head and rolled his neck. “Stupid chickens clucked all night.”

  “Maybe they’ll cook you up one for breakfast,” Dez grunted between lifts.

  Ethan’s eyes lit. “Or eggs. Think that gal will bring us some eggs, scrambled maybe?”

  “I’m sure you can ask,” Alexander drawled. “They’re all about hospitality here.”

  Even as they spoke, the lock turned in the door. Dez and Ethan rose to their feet, taking up stances in front of Alexander.

  Two guys came in, rifles trained on them, followed by the leader, Sheppard.

  A fourth man followed them in, carrying a stool which he set down.

  Sheppard sat and folded his palms over his knee. His gray hair poked up in unruly tufts. To the untrained eye, he’d appear weaponless, but the lines of a shoulder holster beneath his jacket and the way the bottom of his pants bunched around the top of his left boot suggested otherwise.

  No one spoke, everyone gauging one another’s measure.

  Finally, the big guy broke the silence. “I’m Sheppard. I’m in charge of our little group. You’ll forgive our wariness, but we’ve been through a lot together.”

  “Understood.” Dez nodded. “Can’t say we’d do differently, but if it’s all the same to you we’d like our equipment returned and we’ll be on our way.”

  “See, that’s where it gets a tad bit tricky. How can we be sure you’re not marauders, part of a bigger group, preying on smaller groups such as ours? You’re well-equipped for three men on your own. How do I know that after I let you go, you won’t lead your pillaging friends right back to us?”

  Dez scratched the night’s growth of stubble on his chin. “You’ve had us here overnight. Have any of these friends we are supposed to have come looking for us?”

  “No. However in my experience, men of that ilk often leave their people behind. No honor or loyalty among thieves. Survival of the fittest and that type of mentality. You see my dilemma? Truth is, it would be easier to just take you out back and slit your throats, if I’m speaking candidly.”

  “You could have let the Sifts do that.” Dez shifted back to lean casually against the wall. “We’d never have known of your existence. Yet you used precious ammo to save us and then bring us here. Without the ruse of blindfolding us. I think you need good fighting men. Once you make a determination about us we’ll either be convinced to stay or we’ll be taking that walk out back with you.”

  Alexander edged closer to Ethan’s side.

  Sheppard didn’t miss a beat. “Direct. I appreciate that.”

  Dez nodded.

  Sheppard turned his head and called out the door. “Richards.” Then to Dez, “We’re going to have an open honest conversation. Ah.” He took the anti-rift canister that Richards brought in. “First, you’ll explain the purpose of these.”

  Alexander met Dez’s eyes. They’d already decided on the truth as the best course. Most of it.

  “All right.” Dez pushed away from the wall. “We aren’t marauders. However we do belong to a larger group. Much larger. One that gathers hold out groups, like yourselves, for the purpose of protecting and preserving the human race.”

  Sheppard’s dark eyes narrowed. “Where? There would be rumors of
such a group.”

  “The Californian coast. We’re eight hundred strong and growing.”

  “Eight hundred?” Sheppard shook his head. The other men with the rifles glanced at each other uncertainly. “California, you say?. Would take an enormous amount of supplies to sustain that large a group.”

  “It does,” Ethan said. “Were not without resources, much as you yourselves have planted, keep goats and chickens, we’ve done the same—on a larger scale.”

  “There’s safely in numbers,” Alexander piped in, wanting badly for the children to have a safe place to live and grow. Have a chance at normalcy. “We have a few boats and ships where we can provide a lot for ourselves from the sea. We’ve also sent vessels to make contact with others along the coasts. Come with us. Bring your children to a safe haven.” Alexander made the plea as heartfelt as he knew how.

  Sheppard rubbed a wide palm down his weathered face. “There is no safe haven, not in a world overrun with monsters that can vanish through a rent in the fabric of air.”

  “But we have—“

  Dez nudged in front of him, a silent order for Alexander to quit drawing attention to himself. “You asked about the canisters. They are what’s going to rid us of our monster problem.”

  Sheppard snorted. “From what I saw, it didn’t kill them. It didn’t do anything but confuse them with the mist for a few seconds.”

  “It does better.” Ethan smiled. “Takes away the flubbies’ ability to rip holes in the world.”

  The statement hung in the air. The guards’ jaws went slack. Their fingers shifted along the stocks of their rifles.

  Sheppard looked like he wanted to drop the canister. “This rids them of their magic?”

  Alexander felt himself nod in sync with Ethan and Dez.

  “But I saw one open their godforsaken holes and come out right behind you.” He pointed to Alexander.

  Ethan and Dez unconsciously shifted to block him from view.

  “One did, yes,” Dez confirmed. “The formula works, but the range is limited. We were in the process of testing exactly what the canister’s range is when you came upon us.”

  “That’s why you were firing at their legs,” one of the guards spoke up, a bald headed fellow with a sharply angled nose. “To give them a chance to open their holes. If you can take that magic away from them…” Light eyes narrowed in disbelief.

  “They’ll have nowhere to escape,” Sheppard finished. “No holes in the air to flee into. We can kill them all, right here and now.” His pallor had turned an ashy gray. He tapped the canister in his palm. “Is this magic?”

  “No,” Dez said. “Science.”

  Sheppard’s eyes flicked up. “Science. How does it work?”

  Alexander could rattle off the compounds in his sleep. He’d worked years to figure it out, studied overtime in college in the labs, discussed hypothetically with some of the top scientific minds... The truth was there was magic involved. Or rather, the specific DNA coding of a magical wielder, his uncle Shaw, the Moon Sifter, the man whose magic originally created the first Sift from a poor babe he was trying to strengthen from a possible miscarriage within the womb of an insane witch. He’d saved the unborn infant, yet created a monster, first of its kind. Shaw couldn’t have known how terribly, terribly his magic mixing with hers would cost the world.

  A shake of Dez’s head regained Alexander’s attention. Dez frowned. “We’re just the grunts assigned to test the formula out in canister form. Our scientists in California will have to fill you in on what went into making it.” This was the part where they lied, keeping Alexander’s vital role out of it.

  Though he hadn’t been foolhardy enough to go out in the field without leaving the formula in good hands with the group of scientists and doctors. If anything were to happen to him now, it wouldn’t change anything. Not anymore.

  He was as expendable as anyone else. Though in his mind, every life was precious. There were too few humans left.

  Sheppard stood, shaking his head. “None of this is possible. A way to stop the ill-bred monsters from creating demon-spawn holes in the world? It’s a ruse created to trick us.”

  “You have the canisters.” Ethan shrugged, unconcerned. “Test it on the beasts for yourself.”

  Sheppard stared down at the aerosol can in his hand. It was once a simple can for spray paint though the label had long ago faded, even more as Alexander reworked the canister to carry the anti-rift serum. Sheppard’s brows collided over stormy eyes. “I intend to.”

  The entire exchange seemed to have deflated the man. Alexander watched carefully. It was clear Sheppard didn’t trust easily, but usually the news of a way to defeat the Sifts was met with more enthusiasm, more hope, often tentative and disbelieving at first, yet still discernable. Whatever Sheppard was thinking, hope had nothing to do with it.

  Chapter Three

  They let them out of the room though each was shadowed with a guard and instructions to remain within the motel or inner courtyard and away from the storerooms, weapons or otherwise.

  Ethan clapped his palms together. “So where’s the kitchen?”

  “This way,” the skinny guard with the trucker hat flicked his twelve-gauge muzzle toward their left.

  Alexander scanned all the people in the courtyard, hoping for a glimpse of Jewel. There were a couple of women pouring water from pails on the fledgling crops down in the swimming pool bed while a teenage girl and boy went back and forth taking the empty pails from those below and refilling them with rain water collected from an industrial-sized plastic barrel.

  A few young girls playing jacks with assorted objects paused to look up at them. One of them, a girl around seven with bright red braids, started following them. “Hey misters.”

  Alexander turned back and felt Dez and Ethan and their guards stop ahead of him.

  “Are there really a lot more peoples out there?” Her hands knotted in the edge of her overlong T-shirt. “More than here?”

  Alexander nodded. Word of their news traveled fast in the small community.

  “Do you ‘spose…” She shifted from one foot to the other. “Is my momma there? She got lost.” Large pleading eyes looked up at him.

  Heart sore, Alexander crouched to her level. “I don’t know.” It was more than likely that her mother had perished like so many others.

  “Oh.” Her lips twisted. “Maybe you saw her?”

  Sheppard’s group had to be the most people she’d been among in her entire life. How could he explain to her how difficult it would be to know everyone in a group of hundreds? And how cruel would it be to not leave her any hope. “Maybe. But I didn’t know to look for her.”

  Her smooth forehead crinkled in thought. “I could draw you a picture.”

  Throat tight, he nodded. The empty hollow place in the pit of his gut expanded a little bit more. Seemingly satisfied she ran off, presumably to find paper or crayons or whatever they had for children to make drawings of missing mothers. Deithe! His hands curled into fists.

  He couldn’t bring back dead parents. But he could give this child a world free of the monsters.

  Dez’s palm landed on his upper arm and pulled him up.

  Ethan shook his head. “Kids. They get you right here.” He pushed his knuckles against his own sternum.

  Yeah. Alexander stared at the room the child had disappeared into.

  “Food.” Dez steered him toward the front of the complex where the original motel’s check-in and restaurant or bar would have been. Never knew when you’d get another meal, his unyielding silent message conveyed in his grip, although Alexander’s appetite had fled with his inability to help that little girl. A few people were at the tables eating some kind of oatmeal mixture.

  Once again he found himself seeking out Jewel among the faces. Their escorts led them toward the back into the small kitchen area where a few people were drying and putting away dishes. Heat washed over them. The back door was ajar where the crackle and smoke of a fire
steamed the opening like a screen of fog. Ah. The cooking fire.

  “Jewel.”

  Alexander’s head jerked at Ethan’s greeting.

  “Here. I got it.” Ethan took the large pot from her as she came in from the fire area outside. “I’m disappointed you didn’t come visit us again.”

  Jewel blew out a breath, causing a strand of hair that had come loose from her cap to dance in front of her nose. “So they’ve let you out then? And just in time. This is the last of the oats. Grab those bowls over there, would you, Henry?” she said to the skinny guard. “Have you guys eaten?”

  “Earlier before our shifts,” the young twig of a guy answered.

  “You might as well all finish this off together. There won’t be enough left to make patties out of later.”

  “But…” Henry hesitated.

  “I said there won’t be enough anyway,” Jewel’s voice grew stern, then immediately softened. “You may as well all get your fill.” She glanced at the man and woman putting the dishes away. “No one in here will say anything.” She looked at them pointedly until they both nodded.

  “Thanks, Jewel.” After dishing up portions for Ethan, Dez and Alexander, the men attacked the rest of the mush as though they hadn’t had three squares in a while.

  Rationing was one thing, but by the looks of the boxes and crates of food storage they had gathered just in the kitchen area, there was enough to feed a group of this size for half a year. Which made him wonder if there were more people in this group than they had seen.

  “Not hungry?” Jewel stood in front of him, staring at the bowl in his hand. He’d barely managed one bite so far. “The next meal isn’t until this evening. We lick our plates clean around here.”

  He nodded and took another bite just to make her happy. This close to her again, the scent of cherries filled his senses. He frowned. He had too much to worry about without occupying his mind with why a blasted woman smelled of cherries. But damn him, she smelled good.

  She smiled up at him, the same way his mom had when he’d eaten his peas, but the feelings churning in his gut were far removed from how he felt about his mother. And when Jewel’s lashes lowered, charcoal tips over pale skin, his throat closed on his last bite and he had to force it down to avoid choking.