by M H Ryan
Confused, the lizard looked back to its former rider. I used this opening to jump onto its bent knee and launch myself onto its back. The creature felt slick, as it there was a film of mucus over its body. I shook some of it off my hand as I grabbed the crude reins.
An arrow struck a Crultar trying to get onto my lizard, and I spotted the girls getting closer to me. They were throwing knives, spears, and arrows with deadly efficiency.
“Jack, watch out!” Eliza screamed.
In all the fighting, I hadn’t heard the thump from the launch of another fireball. The flaming orb hit my lizard right on top of its head. The lizard collapsed to the ground while fire spread over its body. A chunk of flame landed on my leg, and I smacked it off, sending it to the white sands below.
I touched my reptilian friend and found it still alive, only unconscious.
“Aubrey, can you put out the fire on my lizard?” I yelled out to her.
A gust of wind blew off the fiery chunks smoldering on its head away. I touched it with both hands and slammed my thoughts and command into its mind. It jumped awake, nearly knocking me off its back.
I gripped the reins and spun it around to face the remaining reptilian guards. They had stopped and been forming a line. A good tactic. Smarter to build up a force and attack us at once. There were only a handful of lizards left, and then the Crultar behind them shouldn’t be too much trouble.
That’s when I heard a rumbling sound from around the entire island.
The lizard moved by my command in a circle, and what I witnessed, sickened me. This wasn’t even the main battle force we were dealing with.
This was a trap.
Everywhere we looked, Crultar men poured forth. Many were riding the slimy lizards, while some were atop giant crabs, the same as Shaya’s brother had been. They had filled in the gap between Luna and us. We had no escape path now and we were surrounded.
“Mother fucker,” Aubrey said, turning in a slow circle as blood trickled from her nose.
Chapter 23
“We can take them,” Sherri said, not looking as confident as she sounded.
“There’s got to be a thousand of them,” Kara said, looking around at what was coming.
My mind raced with the possibilities, and none of them were good. The lizards were staying back, for now, waiting for their friends to close in on us from all sides. This was their plan from the start—to draw us near the middle of the island and then flank us. They would converge and crush us by sheer numbers.
I looked up to the red bird, still gliding in a gentle circle high above us.
“Carmen?” I asked as I rode up to her and Emma.
She stumbled back from me, or more accurately, the giant fucking lizard I rode on, but Emma held her firm.
“That’s Jack,” Emma said, giving her arm another tug.
Carmen looked up to me and gave me a blank stare.
“Carmen, we need that bird taken out of this fight, or this is going to get ugly,” I said.
The Crultar surrounding us began to chant, first a quick shout and then another, all in unison. They were getting ready. It wouldn’t be long now.
“This isn’t good, Jack,” Eliza said.
I raised a brow her way. I didn’t need a foreseer to figure out this one.
“Carmen, the bird?”
“I don’t know,” Carmen said, looking terrified and flinching with each synchronized chant from the Crultar. “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?”
“They won’t have to if we can stop that bird.”
“Emma, help the others. I have this,” Carmen said, letting go of her hand.
Emma’s eyes narrowed. “You can do better without me?”
“Yes, just…I need some space, okay?” Carmen said. “Everyone, just give me some space.”
Carmen turned her back to us and adjusted her dark purple bikini top.
“Jack,” Aubrey said, breathing hard and staggering toward me. “I could blast a section of them away.”
A now-familiar thump sound came, and another fireball launched into a soft arch, heading toward us.
“Incoming,” I yelled.
The fireballs hit the apex of its arch and started heading down toward us. The girls scattered except Carmen. She had her eyes closed as she thrust her hand up in a fist and screamed. The bird above screeched and dipped down a dozen feet from its flight path before recovering.
At that moment, I felt the world crashing into my head. The overwhelming sense of a thousand Crultar slamming into my mind, made me fall to my knees.
Carmen did it. She blocked the red bird. I heard it screech again, but my attention was on the fireball heading straight for my beautiful blocker.
“Carmen!” I yelled, moving my lizard toward her, but I wasn’t going to make it in time.
“Shit,” Aubrey said and grabbed Emma.
She thrust her hand out toward the ball, creating a burst of wind that sucked the air right from my lungs. The wind howled, stirring up sand and shaking nearby trees. I covered my ears and watched. The powered blast of air struck the fireball, pushing it off course, where it slammed into the white sands thirty feet away from Carmen.
Aubrey groaned and fell the ground with Emma. Emma struggled to get to her knees while Aubrey didn’t move.
I jumped off the lizard, sending a thought for it to stay still. I rushed to Aubrey and Emma, as the other girls did.
Emma grabbed Aubrey and rolled her onto her back. Blood smeared over her face, coming out from both nostrils.
“Aubrey?” I said, kneeling next to my wife as an entire army of Crultar descended on us.
I felt them all. They were warriors, ready to die for their king. The confidence oozed from them, and why wouldn’t it? They outnumbered us a hundred to one, but all I cared about at that moment was my sweet, kick-ass Aubrey.
“Is she…?” Emma asked on a sob, not finishing a sentence that would have been too tough even to hear.
I put my head on her chest and heard the beat of her heart.
“She’s alive.”
“Jack?” Benji said, sounding scared.
I kept my attention on Aubrey’s face.
“Aubrey?” I asked again.
If she was hurt…I slid my hand behind her head and kissed her forehead.
“Jack,” Benji said. “They’re coming. All of them.”
“Kara, stay with Aubrey,” I said as I gently placed her head on the soft sand.
“Where are you going?” Kara asked as she knelt next to Aubrey.
“I’m going to end this now,” I said and reached for Emma’s hand. “Carmen, keep that bird down.”
Carmen glanced down at me and nodded her head, keeping her fist pointed at the bird.
“Emma, I’m going to need everything from you,” I said.
“Jack, you have my everything,” Emma said, looking into my eyes.
The Crultar chanting ended, and the yelling began. A battle cry from a thousand of them deafened everything else as they rushed toward us. Most had weapons in hand, the long curved blades that would cut through us like Aubrey’s wit. Others carried spears and mixed in it all were the ones riding the beasts.
They’d be on us in less than a minute. I wasn’t sure if I could do it, but I knew I was ready to die trying.
I closed my eyes and gripped Emma’s hand. She knew every thought and emotion that I felt, and I hoped she wouldn’t think lesser of me for what I was about to do.
“I won’t,” she whispered. “Do what you need to do to protect us.”
A thump sound came from the smoke cloud, and a fireball emerged, heading straight for us.
“Another fireball,” Benji said, looking around at us, barely able to stand on her own. “I think I… I got this one.”
Benji pulled out an arrow and pulled it back, groaning from the effort that she usually did with ease, and fired. She held out her hand, dropping to one knee, and sent the stone-tipped arrow hurtling at the fireball. It impacted
with an explosion that sent ash and sparks spraying across the palm fronds. A large fragment flew from the fire and smashed into the red bird above. It caught fire and fell from the sky, glided for a way before falling gently into the ocean.
“Nice shot,” Cass uttered.
“That was my last arrow.”
Benji fell forward and ended up on all fours, reeling from the drain of her powers. She had looked tired before, but now she looked…defeated. The girls had pushed themselves to the end, and I wasn’t going to let that go in vain.
I gripped Emma’s hand, and I felt hers tighten over mine. I wished I could feel her in the way she felt me, but instead, I felt the ones that wanted to destroy us—or me. With Emma, I knew they weren’t going to kill the women. They would suffer a fate worse than death and be handed over to the king. If I had an urgency before, it doubled.
I closed my eyes and reached out to the Crultar. Not all of them, there were too many, but I found the weakest of the group, perhaps a hundred of them, and singled them out.
They were close now, and their screams were trying to deafen me. The girls were yelling as well, but I had to concentrate.
Emma squeezed my hand tighter.
I inhaled and built up the strongest thought I could think of. The idea that the Crultar next to them were the real enemy. I hammered the notion into them that the ones next to them were going to kill their men, take their women and enslave their kids. I balled all of that vile emotion into an arrow of thought and fired.
Then it slipped. None of it penetrated their minds. There were too many. I didn’t have the strength. Panic swelled in me, and I start picking just a few. I crashed the thought into them and it worked.
The thoughts around those changed, but only briefly.
Oh, shit. I couldn’t stop this. I opened my eyes and they were close now. A hundred feet. Seconds away.
“Try again,” Emma said and stood in front of me, holding both hands.
I nodded as I felt a blast of sand hit me. Benji, on her knees, screaming with both hands out, sent a wave of sand over an advancing section of Crultar.
Benji fell the rest of the way to the ground.
I wanted to go to her, but we’d all be dead if I didn’t figure this out. I closed my eyes, knowing I only had the time for one more try.
“You got this,” Emma said.
Maybe I had been trying the wrong thing. The attempts at pushing my power into them, through them, just slid off so many minds. It didn’t need to be that complicated.
I took a deep breath and reached out to hundreds of minds. Their battle cries washed over the girl's screams and protests.
Ignoring everything but the minds of the Crultar, I pushed against them all, feeling the rubbery surface that seemed to surround them all. I drove slowly at first, making sure I didn’t slip off this time. I moved in, pushing further and increasing the pressure I applied to them.
The stretchy surface resisted more with each inch I pushed it, but I also felt it getting thinner, much like a finger through a deflated balloon. I shoved hard and felt a point where I might break through, the surface paper-thin now but as strong as a concrete wall.
A panic started building in me as I shoved and stabbed at this last moment, but I couldn’t break through. The Crultar had to be within striking distance now.
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. It pressed against me, and a feeling of rage, hate and vileness that I hadn’t experienced… it all washed over me, followed by a burst of raw power. I used this boost and screamed out, feeling the blood spilling into my mouth. And I broke it. I not only broke it, but I ripped through it like football players bursting through a paper banner. The whole rubber sheet blew apart and leaving them as exposed as a newborn hamster.
Stop, I commanded then opened my eyes.
Emma stood directly in front of me, eyes wide open and looking stern but scared. Not ten feet behind her stood a Crultar, hand raised, gripping a long, curved dagger.
The hand on my shoulder slipped away, and Carmen fell to the sand behind me. Her hand opened up, revealing the black stone. Her brow dripped with sweat as she stared at the sky.
All around us, the Crultar froze. Some were on their beasts, weapons held high, ready to cut through us.
“Did someone freeze time?” Kara asked. “ ’ Cause that would be kind of kick-ass if one of us could.”
“It was Jack,” Emma said, hunched over and breathing hard. “He did it. I thought we had about as much chance as a fly catching a catfish...but he did.”
“Jack, you’re bleeding,” Sherri said, getting closer to me.
I wiped my nose and looked at the blood on the back of my hand. “I ain’t got time to bleed.”
“Predator,” Benji said as she struggled to get to her knees. “That’s from the movie Predator.”
“I know, just making sure you were still with us,” I said. “You okay?”
“Yeah, how the hell did you do this to so many and still be standing?” Benji froze, looking terrified as she spotted the stone in Carmen’s hand.
“She has a stone,” Benji said, pointing and struggling to crawl toward Carmen.
“I know,” I said. “But, Benji, let it go for now. We have a girl to save still, remember.”
“Hanna,” Eliza said. “I have a good feeling about her.”
“She’s amazing,” Emma said.
Benji stopped and sat on her heels, arms crossed and glaring at Carmen. “For later then,” Benji said.
“Are we sure they aren’t going to… reanimate?” Kara asked, looking at the Crultar surrounding us.
“They won’t,” I said.
I kneeled next to Carmen. She blinked and glanced up at me. Then she realized the stone had been exposed in her hand. She snatched it up with a clump of sand and held it tight against her chest.
“You okay?” I asked, brushing back some of the hair from her face.
She looked terrified because she knew that I knew. The stone that she had somehow hidden from us all, including Benji, was known now. I wasn’t sure where she got it, but I knew from personal experience, the stones wanted you to find them.
“The bird,” she said, looking to the sky.
“It’s gone. Benji shot it down,” I said.
I grabbed her wrist and pulled her up to her feet. She eyed me suspiciously as she brushed the sand off her body.
Benji fumed near Carmen, and I didn’t need my extra sense to feel the heat coming off her.
Another thump sounded. This fireball went wild, hitting a palm tree several hundred feet from us. Flames ignited on the tree, turning it into a giant matchstick.
“I thought you stopped them all?” Emma said.
“That isn’t a Crultar,” I said and knew now who was sending the fireballs. “That’s Hanna.”
Chapter 24
Aubrey leaned on me as we all walked through the frozen Crultar. Many were still snarling, holding their weapons, ready for the kill. They were muscular males, all with the signature square tattoo on their chests. While the skin colors were all in the blue to gray ranges, the patterns on their body seemed to be unique to each one.
I glanced back at Shaya, who hadn’t spoken a word since I stopped them all. They weren’t dead—she knew that—but I hadn’t expressed my plans for them either. Soon, they would all know, and the weight of that responsibility made it hard to breathe.
First, we needed to get our girl.
After about a thirty Crultar deep crowd, we got to the open space of the island and headed straight for the smoke trail leading up into the sky.
“They may have her under some kind of influence, so Carmen, get ready to block her if needed,” I said.
“Okay,” Carmen said, dragging her feet near the back of our pack.
Benji walked close to my side, glancing back at Carmen and then to me. I felt the daggers she was glaring at me with.
The stones were evil, she was right about that, and as Mario said, they ripened the land and the
people for the king. I knew we had to get it away from Carmen, but it might break her if we ripped it from her. Plus, I had to figure out how she had hidden it from Benji. She could sense those stones. Had Carmen masked it with her talent?
Another fireball shot up into the sky with a thump. It flew across the sky, far from it, striking a section of trees, setting the canopy on fire. The smell of smoke filled the air and a haze spread over the island as the flames erupted.
We entered a small forest of thick trees, with large leaves shaped in elongated hearts.
“Ah, look at these,” Cass said, grabbing a leaf from a branch and holding it over her chest like some giant Valentine’s Day gift.
“I didn’t take you as the heart kind of girl,” I said, adjusting my grip on Aubrey as we walked through the forest.
“You don’t know a lot about me, Jack,” Cass said, smiling and giving me a look over the back of her shoulder. “We need to spend more time together and change that.”
“As first wife,” Aubrey said, taking labored breaths, “all intimate encounters must first be submitted and authorized through me.”
“Oh, stop it,” Cass said. “You don’t own Jack.”
“If anyone is getting to know Jack better, shouldn’t it be me?” Carmen said and then put her hand over her mouth. “I mean, not in some sexual way but…you know…like we should just get to know each other better.”
“Sure,” Kara said, and nudged Carmen.
“I have a boyfriend,” Carmen said with a hint of red hitting those dark cheeks.
“I know Jack better than all of you, and if anyone is getting more Jack time, it is me. He likes me,” Emma said, picking her bat up from dragging it on the sand and placing it on her shoulder.
“I love you, Jack,” Benji said. “But damn, they can take their turn. I need some sleep soon, or I’m going to collapse.”
“What an amateur. I’ll fuck you in my sleep, Jack,” Aubrey whispered.