Apparently Pax’s mudgrubber assessment had been premature.
Beck stood up and walked over to Iris. He reached down and took hold of one of her wings, gently extending the veined, leaf-like appendage while Iris strained against her captors, jets of fury shooting from her eyes.
“Shall we start here?” He positioned the blade of his knife at the point where wing joined frame.
“Beck, stop!” cried Asha.
The leader’s head pivoted her direction.
“Please don’t.” Her eyes moved between Iris and Pax. “It’s cruel.”
“So are they,” he grunted. “But there’s no need for it, if our captain will do as I’ve asked.”
“Just do it,” Asha urged, fixing her gaze on Pax.
He had no intention of letting them dissect his sister; he needed to get a better understanding of his enemy. He’d gotten that, and then some, but this round had gone about as far as it could.
“All right. Take your hands off her.”
“Order your ship to camouflage and power down completely—no more words than that if you want me to put away the knife.”
Pax complied, and Banshee acknowledged and powered down. He took back everything he’d said about Banshee’s recent autonomous impulses and prayed the ship would watch for an opportunity and take initiative.
“Bind their hands,” ordered Beck, “and let’s get going.”
A man with a ragged scar down one cheek took hold of Asha’s arm, and Pax felt a sudden and confusing urge to hurt him. He bit back an angry challenge that made no sense even to him, and fixed a black look on the leader.
“Hey!” protested Asha.
Beck, who was helping to bind Iris, glanced up. “No, Finn, leave her be. She’s one of us.”
The scarred man eyed Asha doubtfully. “You sure?”
“Don’t be an idiot. You see any bug parts?”
“No, sir, I don’t. But I don’t see any on him, neither.”
Tugging another length of cord from his belt, Beck took a couple steps toward Pax. “True enough, but some don’t have them.”
Finn released Asha. By the frowning and head scratching that followed, Pax knew the man had picked up on the circular logic. “If that’s so, how do you know she—”
“Stop thinking and get over here and help me,” grumbled Beck. “You too, Father. Why are you watching the rest of us work?”
“Sorry,” muttered a tall man with shoulder-length, dark hair. His gaze moved from Iris to the leader.
“Not like you is all,” said Beck.
The man was too young to be Beck’s father—no more than forty—and Pax deduced “father” meant holy man.
He and Finn strode over and jerked Pax’s arms into position while another man looped the cord in a figure eight. When his wrists were tightly bound, they dragged him over next to Iris, whose face was flushed with rage. She was afraid, too, but no one but Pax would know it.
Beck and the priest conferred in low voices, while Finn aimed an awkward smile at Asha. Cleary uncomfortable, she glanced away, and the man took the opportunity to rake her body with his eyes. Pax’s blood warmed from simmer to boil.
In Sanctuary Asha would have led a relatively sheltered and civilized existence. She would have had instilled in her from birth all her notions of friends and enemies, and in fleeing Banshee she had made a choice consistent with those lessons.
She probably had only academic knowledge of what men could become when they had to struggle for survival—when every day was life or death. The education she might be in for sucked the anger right out of him, replacing it with a cold, creeping dread.
* * *
The initial relief Asha felt at escaping the Manti—and especially at the discovery of other human survivors—had been churned into apprehension by the violent threats against Iris. What kind of men were these? She eyed the one woman in their company, and found her even harder looking than the others.
Feeling the burn of Finn’s gaze on her, Asha moved closer to Beck and the dark-haired man. Fierce as he looked with his almost-black eyes and corded, ax-wielding forearms, the leader had called him “father,” and she thought he might be a priest. He’d be the first she’d ever met.
“Where are you taking us?” she asked, interrupting their low conversation.
“We’ve a shelter nearby,” replied Beck. “Kylemore Abbey, not much more than a kilometer away by the old road. It’s an easy walk.”
Asha glanced down at the flimsy slippers she’d borrowed from Iris.
Following her gaze, Beck laughed. “Not quite proper footwear for the bog. No worries, love. You’re a tiny thing—I’ll take you on my back.”
Her eyes widened, and she took a step back.
“No need to be afraid of me. But as you like.” He winked and returned his attention to the priest.
She contemplated the rough-looking plants that carpeted the ground around the ship. The numerous pools of still, opaque water—very likely cold and heaven knew how deep. A fat raindrop pelted the tip of her nose, and she hugged her arms around her chest, gazing at the leaden sky.
“Ready to set out, then?” Beck asked as the priest moved away.
She took a deep breath and nodded.
The big man knelt with his back to her. She climbed on like a child, and he rose with her easily, like she weighed no more than one.
She gripped his shoulders, feeling the hard muscles working beneath a shirt that had been mended in at least a dozen places. Her nostrils registered his strongly male presence. Not unwashed, exactly, but there was the sharp, oniony scent of sweat, combined with an herbal smell that she recognized from required rotations in the greenhouse back home.
His arms tucked under her legs, Beck hoisted her higher and walked—not onto the bog as she’d expected—but into the hole that had concealed his party.
“Hey—wait—”
As he splashed into knee-deep water she saw it wasn’t a hole, but a tunnel. Light streamed into the opening at the opposite end. He waded toward it, and the others began dropping into the tunnel behind them.
“How did you tunnel under all this wet ground?” she asked, squinting into the darkness of the tight enclosure.
“It’s not an honest tunnel. More like a ditch.” He waved at one wall. “This is an old turf cutting—the peat bricks for our fires come from here. It was started generations ago. We just connected it up to this dry stretch, and covered it so it wouldn’t be visible from the air.”
“Looks like it was a huge amount of work.”
“That it was.”
“Why did you do it? You couldn’t have known the Manti were coming.”
“Ah, but we did. When the first ship came down we figured eventually someone would come along looking for it. Did you notice that old cottage at the edge of the bog, next to the thicket?”
“Yes, I saw it.”
“We’ve had rotating watches there for weeks, keeping an eye on this ship.”
“Do you know what happened? Why it came down, I mean?”
“Mmm. She came down in a storm. We picked up her crew the next morning, trying to cross the bog.”
This was an interesting new concept for Asha—the idea of luring and ambushing the enemy. In Sanctuary they tried to ignore the enemy flyovers, and hoped the enemy would return the favor.
“Where is the crew?”
Beck’s body stiffened under her. “Dead.”
She stiffened too, thinking about Iris and the knife. “Did you kill them?”
She yelped as Beck lost his footing, and water splashed up her legs and back. But he managed to right himself before they slid into the water.
“We gave them a choice,” he replied, bumping her back into position. She clutched at his shoulders to keep her balance. “They could have taught us to fly that ship.”
“What did you want with the ship?”
“To find other survivors. We have to band together if we’re going to fight them.”
&n
bsp; Asha lifted her eyebrows. “You’re serious?”
He chuckled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, it’s just that—” Indeed, why?
She considered a moment and continued, “Where I come from, we talk about that all the time. But I’ve never heard of anyone doing anything but talk. Not since right after the war. I never knew there were other survivors.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Where do you come from, love?”
“Sanctuary. It’s in Utah, in the desert.”
“How many there?”
“Nearly a thousand.”
Beck whistled. “That’s very good news.”
“There are many more of them though,” she pointed out. “I mean we assume so, based on their numbers before the war.” Multiple births were common among the Manti, and reproduction was almost a religion for them at the time negotiations collapsed. Just like it was a civic obligation back home.
“What you’re telling me is you don’t think one ship will be enough for a resistance.” She could hear the grin in Beck’s voice.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Good thing we have two, then.” He laughed, and his laughter was contagious.
“Serious now though,” he continued, “that’s a useful bit of information. You have more like that?”
She bit her lip. “Quite a lot, actually.”
He gave a decisive nod. “Let’s get you someplace warm and dry. Then the two of us will have a long chat.”
Though still wary of Finn and the others, Asha was beginning to trust their leader. Gradually she was distancing herself mentally from the pair who’d brought her here. Paxton was her enemy. Beck and the others were her people. Until now she’d believed the whole of humanity consisted of the thousand souls at Sanctuary.
Yet she was also conscious of a sense of uneasiness about Paxton—uneasiness that had nothing to do with the threat he represented. She had flinched at the rough way they’d treated him and Iris, and the information about the other crew made her worry about what Beck had in mind for them.
“Do you know anything about the bugman who captured you?” asked Beck. “Or the woman?”
Asha had all but forgotten what she’d learned about Paxton in the moments before they’d discovered the Nefertiti. It now dawned on her that, considering what Beck had told her about his plans, it was a very powerful piece of information.
Wait, a voice inside her warned. Not yet.
“I know they’re brother and sister,” she said. “And their ship is familiar to everyone in Sanctuary. The Manti have watched our city since the end of the war.”
Nodding, Beck said, “The ships pass over here as well. We assume they’re looking for survivors. As far as I know, we’ve kept off their radar.”
Moment by moment, a new world was opening up to her. A world where other landscapes existed. A world where there were pockets of humanity who hadn’t submitted to their enemy.
“The existence of this city of yours perplexes me,” he continued. “But we’ll save that for later.”
They’d reached the end of the ditch, where light streamed through a slightly askew, final section of roof.
Beck reached up and grasped the wire, his shoulders hardening as he shifted the section to one side. Then he stepped onto a ledge cut into the turf, grunting as he hoisted them both out of the hole.
He eased her down onto hard-packed earth. “Stay on the path here and you won’t get wet—it’s bog all around. The path will take us to the road. Pavement’s a bit broken up, but I think you’ll manage.”
The others seeped out of the bog around them, and Beck motioned to the priest. “You take the lead, and I’ll bring up the rear. Finn…?” The greasy little man strode over to join them. “You and Alice are in charge of the prisoners. Don’t let your guard down for a second.”
“Will do, boss,” replied Finn, managing another lewd smile her direction before he turned to his charges.
* * *
Pax remained on alert, watching and waiting. He knew the best strategy was to keep quiet and cooperate until his captors began to relax their vigilance—as much as it went against his nature. He also knew better than to underestimate them, despite the unlikelihood any of them had military training. But it was only a matter of time until their inexperience loosed an opportunity.
As they made their way along the ribbon of broken road, he tried to view this cold, damp place through Asha’s eyes. Her departure from Sanctuary had been equivalent to stepping onto an alien world. She was wet and muddy and must have been cold, but she hugged herself for warmth and kept moving, gaze constantly shifting to take in everything. Budding oak trees, moss-covered stones, early spring blossoms … it must seem a riot of growth to a child of the desert.
When they reached the turnoff for the abbey—clearly marked by rusty but still intact signs in both English and Gaelic—Beck and his people stopped to confer. Iris cast Pax a warning glance as he took a couple slow steps toward Asha. He was risking refreshing his captors’ watchfulness, but this was important. And it could be the only chance he would get.
Alarm flashed in her eyes as he approached, and he watched her gaze scan toward the leader.
“Don’t trust him,” he said in a low voice.
Her gaze snapped back to his face.
“Get away from her,” ordered Finn, waving a blade as he returned his attention to the prisoners.
Pax stepped back toward Iris, whose scorching gaze was eloquent: What the hell are you doing?
He’d followed his instincts. Iris didn’t know he’d told Asha who they were, which made an alliance between Asha and Beck dangerous. If he could insert a sliver of doubt, it might stop her from telling the man everything.
That much made sense to him. What didn’t make sense was the fact he also felt a real concern for her safety—concern that served neither him nor his sister.
But these people would not have survived on squeamishness. Beck’s charm was calculated to relax Asha’s guard. To earn her trust. No doubt his next move would be to assess how they could best exploit her.
It might not mean they would hurt her. But then again it might. And enemy or not he wasn’t okay with that.
But as she’d chided him on Banshee, she wasn’t stupid. He’d paid close attention to her conversation with Beck. Beck had asked her a direct question about Pax’s identity, and she had evaded. This would make it much harder for her to tell the truth later. It suggested she had doubts of her own.
They followed the road through a series of car parks, over a footbridge, and onto a paved walk that rounded a lake en route to the abbey. The building was picturesque, designed to look like a castle though clearly built in more recent times. The gray granite façade included crenellations and little towers, but there was nothing defensive about the rows of large ground-floor windows.
The setting was romantic in the extreme, with the abbey reflected in the still, dark surface of the lake. Trees lined the path, twisting to bow at water’s edge, and hills loomed on all sides like silent sentries.
Visible signs of human habitation were subtle. An empty bucket left beside the path. A shirt caught in the branches of a tree. A dozen peat bricks left in a jumble on the overgrown lawn. Nothing that would have attracted attention from a Scarab. They were more concerned with actual activity on the ground. Smoke, or signs of agriculture.
As they approached the arched entry doors, propped open with stones, the cry of an infant pealed forth, stamping the silence irrevocably—here is life.
“Take the prisoners and secure them with the other one,” Beck said to the priest. “I want you to keep watch on them personally.” The priest nodded. “We’ll question them later.”
“What about the human woman?” asked Finn.
Pax noticed Asha moving subtly closer to the leader. Beck fixed the scarred man with a look so severe it made him shuffle back a step. “She’s not a prisoner, and she’s not your concern.”
“Let�
�s go,” the priest said to Finn.
Beck started across the section of pavement in front of the abbey, motioning Asha to follow. Her gaze flickered to Pax before she turned, and he didn’t miss the flash of uncertainty.
Good. It’ll make her careful.
* * *
Asha followed Beck around the end of a wall dividing the abbey from the lake, and they scrambled down a short, grassy slope to the main path. The asphalt walkway had been riven by time and tree roots, and rough-edged hillocks made it impossible to walk without watching the ground.
At the path’s end was a small chapel tucked in the shadow of a rocky, near-vertical slope. Constructed of stone, the structure was neat and perfectly preserved, down to its pretty arched window.
“What’s this building used for?” asked Asha.
“My quarters. No one will disturb us here.”
Beck held the door for her, but she hesitated. One corner of his lips crooked up. “You haven’t gotten over being afraid of me.”
She leveled her gaze at him. “I know almost nothing about you.”
“True enough,” he agreed with a nod. “We can talk outside if it’d make you more easy. But the weather’s taking a turn.”
Beck moved into the chapel and picked up a couple of oblong, earthy-looking bricks.
“If you come in I’ll get the fire going. It’s against the rules before dark, but with the wind and rain picking up I think we’re safe enough.”
He tossed the bricks into a stove that looked to be a recent addition. It rested next to a window, its rusted pipe fed through a broken pane, with cloth stuffed around it to keep out the draft. The stove door was missing.
As he worked on the fire, Asha hovered near the doorway, scanning the compact building’s mostly empty interior. Where the congregation would have sat there was now a long table and two remaining pews. A mattress rested on the dais, and next to it was a nightstand constructed of books. Three stubby candles had been placed on the top volume, and Asha winced to see wax had pooled and run over onto the spines of a half-dozen others.
More boxes of books had been shoved against the back wall, under the biggest window. The glass panes were clear rather than stained, and would let in the morning light. She had no experience with preservation of physical books, but she knew it was not an appropriate place for storing them.
The Ophelia Prophecy Page 5
