As it was, she still spent a month in the hospital so she had time to dwell on many questions.
If it was a terror attack, why hit an almost abandoned chunk of the museum?
And if Liam was dead, where the fuck was his body?
Two
It felt a bit like being turned inside out, toenails first.
It felt a bit like having his nerves lit on fire.
It felt like an eternity.
It lasted less than five seconds – which, all things considered, was a good thing. If it had lasted longer, Liam might have gone completely mad.
A crack-boom as loud as a cannon filled his ears and his eyes were blinded by blazing white light. It felt like he had been dropped back into the Atlanta day – and so, for a moment, Liam lay on the ground and thought that he might be picked up by EMTs any minute now. He'd hear sirens and cars and people screaming about the bomb that had gone off and flung him from the museum. Instead, the low sounds that he heard never got higher or more sophisticated than the buzz of insects and the rustling of leaves and the creak of branches.
Liam refused to move. To move would be to admit that his body existed – and he still hurt too much for that to be something he wanted on the record.
Aha! he thought, his ears twitching as he heard the faint crunch crunch crunch of leaves and twigs underneath a heavy footfall. Someone has come to rescue me. Good. I can remain on the ground. Ow.
Something large and thick and bulbous slapped against Liam's face. He might have been able to accept that if it hadn't also been wet and sticky and slimy. He opened one eye and groaned as he saw two vertical slits that whuffed out thick streams of air into his face. A long, purplish tongue was smearing across the right side of his face and leaving a numb, tingling feeling that spread from his jaw to his ear. What was worse, the tongue went into a maw big enough to swallow his head and shoulders in a single, flat-toothed bite.
Later, Liam would chide himself for panicking. Flat teeth meant herbivores, not predators.
But at the moment, Liam made a noise between 'aaaugh' and 'eeugh' and 'oh Jesus Christ!' and jerked himself away from the monster. Something didn't work right in his legs – he tried to get them under him but instead he ended up flailing along the ground. As he had appeared at the top of what seemed like an infinitely tall hill, that turned out to be the less than ideal option for moving around. His arms cartwheeled as he tilted backwards, then thumped head first onto a hard, stone step. He rolled, hit his shoulder on the jam of another step and slapped out his left arm, catching at the steps under him. He stopped his spin, but his back continued to skid and bounce along the steps, the edges of the platforms butting at his spine, his ass, and the base of his neck.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” He finally stopped. Thank you friction, thank you Jesus for making sure friction did it's fucking job.
A low, groaning noise from the top of the hill made Liam roll his head back. The first thing he noticed wasn't the creature waddling towards him. No, it was the fact that the steps that he had been rolling down were ancient. The faint weathering on the stone, the curious geometric patterns worked into the stonework, and the fact that the inlaid patterns had long ago lost whatever had been laid within them save for a few scraps of glittering crystal that stuck out like the gaped teeth of old beggars. All of it screamed age to Liam.
Also, he was definitely not in any part of Atlanta. Atlanta might have been as hot and humid as a rainforest, but it wasn't a rainforest. This definitely was – and the most exotic rainforest he had ever seen. His mind didn't go to thoughts of the Amazon or the depths of Guatemala or the nameless tract of land the main characters of Predator stomped through. No, this kind of bio-luminescent bounty made him think of a half dozen dime store sci-fi novels or the verdant CGI beauty of James Cameron's Avatar. Broad, circular flowers with deep 'wells' in their centers grew along the paths, while trees were coated in fungus and mold that shimmered brightly even during the day. The leaves were edged with emerald luminescence and long, trailing vines hung from every branch.
The monster itself drew his attention again by lowing like a pig and stepping onto the path. It had two stumpy little legs that looked as if they could barely support its weight and a wicked array of glowing crystals that sprouted from its back. The crystals looked as if they had grown in open wounds – but the scales and the armor plates that the creature sported on its back had fused around the crystals. No sign of infection that Liam could see.
Not that he was an expert on alien creatures and crystals.
“Okay,” Liam said, his voice raspy as he rolled onto his back and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He felt something bump against his back and panicked chest until he realized that the thing looped around him was the curved strap of his scabbard. Delenn was still strapped to his back.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
But then a strange whirring noise filling the air. Liam saw that the crystals on the creature's back were starting to glow brighter and brighter as it shook itself from side to side.
“Oh fuck me,” he whispered.
The whirr got louder.
Liam flung himself off the side of the stone steps, crashing into the underbrush a moment before a lightning bolt sprang off the creature's back and smashed into the steps he had been unsteadily standing on a moment before. He scrambled onto his belly and grabbed a rock. He stood and threw it at the creature – it hit the ground to the left of the creature's foot. The creature started to shake back and forth. The whirr started up again. Liam's heart pounded and he charged forward, grabbing his scabbard. He yanked it over his shoulders, got the blade free, then smashed his shoulder into the monster's side. The monster lowed plaintively as it fell onto its side and sent off a surge of lightning – bright blue and strangely cold – into the air, harmlessly.
Liam plunged the tip of his sword into the monster's side and put his weight on the cross guard and shoved as hard as he could. The sensation of blade parting flesh was one that would stick in his mind and stay there – a hideous give that came with an iron scent of blood and a red that no movie or video game could possibly match. It was brighter and more clearly real than anything that he had ever seen before in his life.
But it did the trick. The creature gurgled, spat up blood, and died.
Liam stood above it, panting and jerking his blade free. He looked at his bloodied sword and whistled. “N-Nicely done, Dee.” He blinked. “Panic later. Figure out where you are first.”
The first thing that that required was looking at the sky. His brain was whirling in a dozen different directions. One was screaming that he was dead. Super dead. Like, so incredibly dead that he might as well just start asking God nicely for a ticket straight up to heaven. He was stuck in a rainforest – and even on Earth, a world where man had essentially kicked Mother Nature's ass unrelentingly for the better part of two thousand years, being in a rainforest was a fast way to become fertilizer for some uncaring, evil tree.
And he was in an alien rainforest.
An alien rainforest with lightning rhinos.
Liam looked at the sky.
After a few moments of silence, he whispered: “Okay. Maybe you can panic a little.”
The sky was not the sky. Oh, there was a sun up there, yes. But the sun hung between him and the sky, clearly interposed between the tops of the trees and the rest of the sky – and the rest of the sky was green and brown and blue and gold. The colors of Earth from space. He could see drifting clouds over vast oceans that shimmered and winked with that familiar pattern of distant water – the waves rendered into nothing but minor pixelation effects. He could see vast rainforests that sprawled between mountains that pointed towards him. He could see cities. They were large, sprawling places that hugged along the coast, their presence visible by how they impacted the wilderness around them. He tried to judge the distance – and figured that he had to be dozens of mines away from them.
That couldn't be right.
“
I'm inside of a bubble world,” he whispered. “But the sky is too close.”
Liam started up the stairs, wanting to figure out where he had arrived – trying to grapple with the reality of the situation. He was alone, with nothing but his longsword, his wallet, his fanny pack, two granola bars and a bag of trail mix, his clothes, his 21st Century spread of vaccinations (fuck you, Jenny McCarthy, he thought) and his brain. Good. He was in a world that was enclosed. Got it. His body had been put through a serious ringer – because just walking up the stairs left him drenched in sweat.
“That might have something to do with the fact this place is a bake-oven,” Liam said, panting as he put his hands on his knees and looked around the clearing at the top of the hill. Trees grew around it – jutting up from the hill and thus preventing him from getting any sense of the landscape immediately around the place. However, the hilltop itself was clear – barring a few strange statues built. The first one that he noticed was of a gorgeous woman with firm, jutting breasts capped by rock hard nipples.
Liam paused and slapped his cheek gently. “Bad, Liam. You are going to hell for that pun. Right into God's personal murder dungeon.”
What made the statue strange was the immense pair of feathered wings spreading from her shoulders. And even that was comfortingly familiar. Yes, she was wearing considerably less clothing than the angelic statues that he had seen in graveyards – but she was still comfortingly familiar. There were other statue bases in the clearing – forming a half circle. All but the winged one had been smashed or dragged off ages before, leaving nothing but rusted... no, that wasn't rust. Liam knelt down and frowned at the placards that were mounted on the bases: They were all bronze, and they had tarnished with age. The etchings were still clear.
“Greek?” he whispered. “I'm on alien planet that leaves behind statues in Greek?”
He turned back away from the statues and his heart leapt into his throat. Something gleamed in the center of the clearing. Springing forward, Liam held it up with shaking hands. Battered, yes. Worn? Yes. But his iPod was intact and functioning in the hardened plastic sheath that he had purchased to keep it safe through his rough and tumble lifestyle.
“Sweet,” he said, then touched down on the top button, waiting until the whole thing shut down. Then, carefully, he rooted through his pockets and his fannypack. He found a spare ziplock bag – one that he hadn't used for trail mix - dumped his iPod inside and packed it into his fannypack, zipping it up with a fierce jerk.
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “We're good for now. Wherever this is, there are cities. We just need to find one.”
He started down the stairs, taking them one at a time. The temperature dropped slowly as he moved deeper and deeper under the canopy. He knew that every right thinking xenobiologist on the Earth – of which there were probably, like, five – had to be screaming at him. Here he was, walking through an alien ecosystem and he wasn't taking any notes, or any samples. But all Liam was focused on was finding some kind of water. Now, he didn't have his water bottle with him – he had given it to Chelsea during the trip to the museum so she could get a drink – but he was sure he could figure something out.
But he knew he'd need water bad soon.
“Hell,” he said. “I need water bad now.”
The bottom of the stairs did not lead into a trail – at least, not one that had been used recently. The trees grew thick and fast around the base of the hill, and there was no sign of any civilization that had been there in centuries, if not longer. Liam looked around slowly and perked his ears. He didn't hear any water.
But he did hear screaming.
“Close enough,” Liam whispered and started to run through the jungle. He ducked round vines, and hoped that nothing that he was running through was toxic. He pushed around a branch and almost ran smack bang into a clearing that was bisected by a small pond that seemed to grow out of the ground. The pond was surrounded by thick stones that were covered with scrawling runic script. Standing at the edge of the pond was the most fantastically beautiful woman that Liam had ever seen. Her hair was a brilliant blonde that caught the sunlight that streamed into the clearing and glowed. Her eyes were pure, ice blue without any whites. They literally fluoresced. Her shoulders were slender and toned, with pale pink skin that was almost entirely exposed. She was dressed in nothing but a breast band that wrapped over her full chest – and considering how she gleamed with sweat, the band molded to her like a second skin – and a kind of pleated kilt that seemed to have been pulled straight from Ancient Egypt. At her left hip was a scabbard, and in her right hand she held a short, gleaming bronze sword that wouldn't have been out of place in a Roman Legion.
She was also winged.
The wings were huge – easily three feet long each – and fanned to either side of her, making her seem even larger than life. They twitched slightly with every motion as she looked left and right and glared at the people surrounding her. Those people were the ones who were screaming – well, one of them was. He was on the ground, clutching his wrist, blood pouring from the stump that had been his hand. The blood poured into the water of the pool – but the pool never became tainted or discolored. It was as if the water was too pure to be sullied.
The other men were dressed in bronze armor – chest pieces that protected their torsos – and helmets with horse hair mohawks that made them seem taller and more impressive. Two of them held short spears and had wooden shields on their arms, while the other three held swords similar to the woman's.
She glared at the men, then flicked her sword down to the wounded – no, the dead – man at her feet. He looked ashen faced now, all the blood drained out of his body. She spoke and her voice was musical and alien. Her language seemed to be fast moving and faintly familiar, but Liam couldn't make hide nor hair of it. The men, though, had been waiting for her to be distracted. One of them had dropped his sword and yanked something off his belt. He tossed it and the winged woman beat her wings – a massive wind blowing through the clearing, catching dust and kicking up small bits of detritus. But the object the man had thrown looked like a lead dart tipped with something that glowed. It thudded into the woman's thigh and bright red blood splashed along her skin.
Her wings shuddered, then flapped again – but this time, they barely slowed her down. She hit the ground and staggered. One of the swordmen charged forward and she slashed at him. Her blow was artless and slow and he batted it aside as easily as if she had been an untrained child. He lifted his sword, ready to bring the pommel crashing down onto her head – and then blinked. His arm seemed to be on the ground. Liam stood behind him, panting softly, his hands on the hilt of his sword.
“Sorry!” Liam exclaimed – the first, stupid thing that came into his mind. Part of him half expected a ref to spring out of the woods and shout: Foul! Foul! Improper dismemberment! You're disqualified, Vanderbilt!
The man missing his arm opened his mouth, then dropped to the ground in shock. The four remaining men charged at Liam. That turned out to be a mistake. The woman, weakened or not, wasn't out yet. She shoulder checked one of the spearmen. He flailed and went tumbling into the pool and the woman grabbed onto him and held him down, the two vanishing under the water. One of the swordsmen got to Liam first. He slashed at Liam – a quick, brutal chop. Liam stepped to the side, wishing he had a shield. Parrying was all well and good, but it was a great way to get your weapon ruined in an actual fight. Then Liam brought his sword up in a counter stroke, completely forgetting that this was, in fact, a real battle.
And rather than the unmusical clang followed by death that he expected, Delenn struck the armor that the man wore and smashed through it. Liam felt ribs grate under his hands and he kicked the corpse off and into the path of the last swordman who had faced him. He held Delenn up – hoping that he hadn't damaged the blade beyond repair. The two remaining man gaped at him... and he realized that one of them was a woman.
She said something and the other man nodded. They backe
d away in a hurry, then turned and ran.
It had all been so fast, so stunning that Liam barely had time to think about what had happened. Now, it stuck him with the force of a nuclear bomb. He had just killed two people. There was blood everywhere. The man he had disarmed – ugh – had sprayed blood over his chest and his pants and his fannypack. The woman whose chest piece he had smashed through had died instantly. It looked like she was shocked, and her helmet had been knocked off.
Underneath, she had ears that came to long, thin, tapering points.
“H-Holy fuck,” Liam whispered. “I killed an elf.”
He was being violently sick when the winged woman burst out of the water, gasping, and heaved the corpse of the man she had tackled into the pool out.
The winged woman grinned at him as she tugged herself out of the pool. Liam wiped his mouth clean with one hand and coughed as he saw that the pool water had turned the scanty clothes that the winged woman wore into parodies of clothes – clothes that did far more to accentuate the puffy hardness of her nipples, or the smooth, muscular curve of her thighs. She put her hands on her hips – then grabbed the dart still stuck into her. She yanked it free and hissed as she tossed it to the ground. Liam walked towards her, staggering as he knelt beside the pool.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that her wound was closing – the skin was knitting together. By the time he had finished wiping his face off and cleaning some of the blood off his hands, it was closed. He yanked his shirt off, dunking it into the water, then tugged it free. He had expected to need a good five or six dunkings to try and clean the blood off.
Instead, his shirt was already clean.
The woman said something to him. Liam looked at her, then shook his head. “No, sorry. No universal translator on me.” He took off his fannypack, then dunked his feet into the pool, then sloshed himself into it. His whole body tingled and he pulled himself out a short moment later. When he stood, the blood was gone – and more, he felt better than he had since he had arrived. He looked at his dripping hands, grinning. “Nice poooooooo...” He trailed off, never finding that L.
The Murder Stroke (Purgatory Wars Book 1) Page 3
