by SD Tanner
“Too late to change that now.”
While Ruler ran his claw across her exposed neck, he said softly, “I didn’t know there were any hunters left.”
In all her travels and those of the super hunters, they’d never found a hunter, but she supposed they hadn’t really been looking. Jacob had called the hunters home and like everyone else, she assumed every last one of them had left. It surprised her to learn that one was being held prisoner by someone called Cain. She’d never heard of Cain and wondered where he lived.
“That’s a very good question and one you should get the answer too, my dear.”
“How am I going to find that out? You heard what they said. They don’t even know how many Crusaders there are, or where they are.”
Ruler was delicately slicing into the soft part of her neck just under her ear, and she could feel a warm trickle of blood making its way down her throat. For as much as she was enjoying the discomfort, she knew TL would notice, and placing her hand on his claw, she gently lifted it away from doing any more damage.
She felt his breath against her hollow of her neck as he sighed softly and said, “We really must make time for us.”
“Stay focused, my love. What we really need is that hunter. She can infect the living and we can use the super hunters to control them.”
Moving his head to the other side of her neck, he began to slowly lick the blood from her throat, and she stretched her neck a little further to encourage him. Ruler’s touch always healed her wounds. It made her feel special that no matter how much damage he did, he always took the time to make her whole again. Feeling a heat between her legs that TL could never give her, she wished she wasn’t quite so pragmatic, but she had a job to do.
Lifting his head from her throat, he said, “Maybe I should talk to Cain.”
Already missing his warmth, she thought, that’s not a good idea. Firstly, she didn’t want to lose her status as Ruler’s main human on earth, and secondly, Ruler was an acquired taste and he could do more damage than good if he spoke directly to the man. Cain appeared to have built himself quite an army, and she was impressed how he was using his cult styled religion to keep his followers loyal. Still, she thought, he might anger Ruler and then he’d be dead.
“Have a little faith, my dear. Why would I kill someone so clearly aligned to my own objectives?”
“How do you know he is?”
“Well, he’s using their pet hunter to infect the living and then killing them. Although I can’t imagine why he’s doing that.”
It was an odd tactic and she pondered why she might do the same thing. An infected person turned into a hunter was always dangerous, so why create one only to kill it. A display of power maybe, or perhaps a way of keeping the crowd entertained. Creating and killing a hunter would make a spectacular display, and it would play on people’s fear while demonstrating his strength when he killed it. It was a clever thing to do.
“It is clever, my dear. Cain is most definitely someone we need to meet.”
“But how?”
“Find out where he is.”
“But the Crusaders told Pax and TL they didn’t know.”
“Doesn’t mean they don’t.”
“They won’t tell me.”
“You have assets neither of those two fools have.”
Under-utilized assets, she thought unhappily, I’ve not been used in the way I like lately. Peeking around the corner of the cabinets, she saw the nine men were quietly talking with one another, no doubt trying to plot an escape. The idiots would never get out of the military town alive, and she knew Pax would use any attempt to escape as a training exercise for his army. She quite liked Pax, he had a roughness to him she appreciated, but he seemed deeply attached to the slutty looking platinum blonde with enormous breasts. BD was a woman she could appreciate, she seemed to understand men in much the same way she did.
“Don’t underestimate that blonde bitch. She’s with the other side.”
“What do you mean?”
“The other side plants agents everywhere.”
“She doesn’t seem pure enough to be one of them.”
“Angels aren’t pure. They have good intentions for man, but that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy having human form.”
“She’s an angel?”
Spinning her chair around until she faced him, he replied, “Angels and demons weren’t humans who were extra good or extra bad, they’re a completely different…species.” When she looked confused, he added, “When the universe was created, so was a system, a logic. God and I gather souls to our side and whichever side has the most souls rules, but whenever a winner isn’t clear, the Horsemen are called to decide which of us should own man. If they decide I should rule, some souls are cast from heaven and given to me. If they decide God rules, some souls are taken from hell and sent to heaven. It’s very simple.”
“But what’s the point?”
“Man is always given a choice to decide whether to act from his strengths or his weaknesses. It’s man’s eternal turmoil about which road to take that generates the emotion that fuels the universe, but when man loses hope I win a soul.”
“How does man lose hope?”
“Whenever he chooses to be weak over strong, then man is feeling hopeless. Cain’s followers are allowing fear to rule them, otherwise they wouldn’t follow him,” he said contemptuously.
She’d never wondered how the universe worked, and even now she knew, she didn’t care. So what if there was an eternal conflict, what did it have to with her? The way she lived fit snugly inside everything life had to offer, and she’d never questioned if there was another way and saw no need to change.
“Of course, you don’t need to change, my dear, you’re perfectly corrupt just the way you are.”
Running her hands over his thick grey chest, she said distractedly, “I’ll talk to Cain. You might alarm him.”
“We have to find him first. None of my demon super hunters have seen him.”
The demons had possessed and infected thousands of humans before the battle, and she’d used them to travel the country hoping to enlist more humans to her side. It looked as if Cain had done much of her work for her and she needed to enlist him next. With an army of hunters and super hunters to control them, she could destroy what little army Gears and his brothers were building. Everything she’d seen so far told her they had no idea what was really going on, and were ill-prepared for what was to come. She could destroy them now and make it almost impossible for them to recover.
Leaning into her, he said, “I like the way you think.”
“It won’t work unless we find Cain.”
Standing up, she adjusted her skirt and pulled her bodice a little lower, so her breasts were almost bursting from their cage. It wasn’t a look TL seemed to appreciate, but she’d noticed Pax looking more than once.
Sashaying towards the men, she leaned against the bars of Crusader John’s cell and said flirtatiously, “Shame to see such fine men in jail.”
Looking at her with a surprised expression, Crusader John replied candidly, “Well, you could help a guy out.”
“Oh, I will, but you need to help me first.”
“What do you want?”
“You must have a way of communicating with Cain and I need to talk to him.”
“What do you want to talk to him about?” Crusader John asked suspiciously.
The man needed a little more persuading, and she wondered if Ruler would be kind enough to make his presence known. Almost before she finished the thought, Ruler appeared in the cell with Crusader John.
Looking down on him, he said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I have a preference, but you probably won’t like it.”
Backing up against the bars of his cell, Crusader John asked warily, “What the hell are you?”
“What the hell do I look like?”
“The Devil.”
“Oh, you’re a smart one,” he replied sarcas
tically.
“B…b…but Cain is the Son of God.”
“You know as well as I do that isn’t true.” Waggling his clawed finger at Crusader John, he added, “Don’t pretend to be stupid. You’re with Cain because you think he can protect you…and he can, but he’ll do an even better job with me on his side.” When Crusader John didn’t reply, he said irritably, “Don’t make me tear your soul apart. We’re on the same side, and I hate to waste good resources this early in the game.”
Seeming to recover from his shock, Crusader John asked tentatively, “Can you get us outta this prison?”
As soon as they escaped, she knew Pax would hunt them down and kill them. They’d be safer if they stayed put and appeared to cooperate. None of the Horsemen, except perhaps Ip, was a cold-blooded killer and they wouldn’t harm them for as long as they caused no trouble.
Glancing at her with a quizzical look, Ruler asked, “But do you care?”
“No,” she replied coldly. Turning to Crusader John, she asked, “So, where is Cain?”
“I don’t know, no one does. He continuously moves between the bases, so he’s never in one place.”
“Where are the bases?”
“Well, ours and the others we know of are old prisons in California and Nevada.”
That was clever, a prison would keep them all close and easier to control, with the added bonus of having inbuilt defenses. She hadn’t met Cain, but she was already growing to respect him.
“Who leads you at the prison?”
“Crusade Commander Jeff. Every prison has a battalion of Crusaders. When we need to talk we send Crusade Couriers with messages.”
Just like the mafia. No phones, no one knowing all the members and yet committed to a single cause. Cain wouldn’t be easy to find, and by keeping his troops unaware of one another, it would be difficult for them to overthrow him. Divide and conquer was the oldest tactic in the book. Finding Cain was going to be impossible unless she found a way of bringing him to her, but in order to do that, she needed to be closer to where his Crusader battalions were based.
Eyeing Crusader John with interest, she asked, “What does Cain really want?”
Narrowing his eyes and snorting softly to himself, Crusader John replied, “Power.”
That was an obvious answer and no doubt an accurate one. If she wanted Cain to come to her, she needed to show him she had something he needed, and she suspected her ample cleavage wouldn’t be enough for such a sophisticated player. She needed to know what he didn’t have.
“How do your battalions get around? How do you fight?”
Looking surprised by her question, he replied, “By truck or beast. And we fight with guns, what else is there?”
They didn’t have air power, and that had to be a serious limitation. Now she understood why Cain was attacking the refinery town. He needed the fuel, and no doubt Gears’ helicopters would be his next target. Smart man, he’ll have his army, own the air and then it’ll be game over no matter what Gears does. So far, she hadn’t seen the Horsemen do anything that impressed her, and she didn’t doubt Cain would win.
“Don’t underestimate them,” Ruler said sternly. “They’re ridiculously lucky.”
“They’re about to get very unlucky,” she said dourly. Turning to Crusader John, she added, “I’ll set you free, but before I do I need you pass a message to the two men interrogating you.”
“What?”
“Tell them where your prison base is and that they’ll find Cain there.”
“But they probably won’t. Well, at least not until he shows up there again.”
Rolling her eyes impatiently, she asked dourly, “Do you care?”
“Guess not.”
Walking away from the cells, Ruler fell into step with her and asked, “What if that idiot tells the Horsemen about us?”
She had no intention of letting them live long enough to do that. Pax would kill them for escaping and if he didn’t, then one of her demon super hunters would. They might never be seen much, but the super hunters were scattered across the country. Hearing about Cain excited her. For the first time in years, she felt a flutter of anticipation. It was a long time since she chased a man, and this one sounded like he’d be worth the hunt.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Gears
There was clear, blue water all around them, and enormous prehistoric birds with wide flaps of boned skin, flying idly nearby. A smell of clean, salty breeze filled his nostrils, and despite the wind, the air was mildly warm. He could feel a slight mist of water being thrown up by the spinning rotors touch his face. He always liked the sight of an endless horizon, and the one he was looking at couldn’t have been more perfect, but it still irritated him. Having got up at 5am, he wasn’t looking for ideal weather or a perfect day.
Hatch told him they’d left the cruise ship moored off the main island, but it wasn’t there anymore. The cruise ship, renamed ‘The Mission’, was the ideal defense against a land filled with hunters. It had acted as their safe haven and command center for two years, until Ruler managed to smuggle super hunters on board, and they’d lost half of the thousand people living on it, including Lucie. Despite the losses, Pop had faithfully restored the ship, just as he always restored the Ranch every time Ruler wrecked it.
He had an odd attachment to his ship. It represented hope, protected the people he loved, and not least of all, it was his goddamn ship. They’d flown all over the ocean for three hours looking for it, but the sea had a knack for making even the largest craft look insignificant, and so far all they’d found were a few floating piles of rust that must have once been seaworthy vessels.
“Maybe it sank,” Hatch suggested unhelpfully.
“Seen any storms since paradise showed up?”
“Nope.”
“Then why the hell would it sink?”
“Whatdaya want it for anyway, Gears?”
“’Cos it’s my goddamn ship,” he replied irritably.
Why did he want it? There were no hunters on the land, and after thousands of people lived on it and then Ruler wrecked it, the ship was so torn up it didn’t look anything like the five star luxury cruiser it once was.
Why do you argue when you know what is right. You never defeat with just might.
Ip was sitting with him in the cockpit next to Hatch. He’d missed her while she was travelling with TL, but she was instrumental in convincing the town leaders to work together. One trip to hell on earth was enough to persuade them to behave nicely with one another, but her job was done. Once they’d won over ten of the largest and most capable towns, the rest were falling into line. The first of the Council of Eden meetings was scheduled, and he wanted it to take place on the cruise ship.
In the absence of decent radio communications, Ip was flown back from Axe’s town with a letter from Pax. The letter told him they’d captured some of the Crusaders, and Cain had an unknown number of armed men in prison bases across the west coast. The prisoners had escaped before they could question them further, and Pax and his new army had hunted them down and killed them. He didn’t mind Pax killing them for escaping, but he wasn’t happy about losing access to intelligence. In his letter, Pax assured him they’d finished interrogating them.
Twisting in his lap, Ip smiled up at him, and he heard her speak.
Symbols of hope should never be lost. For all the work, it will be worth the cost.
“It’ll act as the seat of government, Hatch, jus’ like it was once the seat of command.”
“Good thing we’ve found it then, otherwise they’d have nowhere to put their fat asses.”
Hatch was right, and in the distance, he could see the familiar outline of the ship with its high boxy structure and perfectly clean lines. Smiling to himself, there was only one last missing piece to his bases, and that was the expedition ships. They still hadn’t heard from them, and he intended to search for them next. As they flew closer to the ship, he could see deep, vertical, red lines of rust streaking down the s
ide, but otherwise she looked just as he’d left her. The hastily painted sign naming the ship had obviously worn off under the rain and constant buffeting of salty air, but even without a name, he’d recognize his ship anywhere.
“She’s still a beauty,” Hatch declared with obvious pride.
“Yeah, she is. I kinda get why ships are always female.”
Landing on the helipad, they disembarked and walked into the ship through the Midway Bar. The bar had long been converted to become an administration office, and files of papers were still tidily lining the long glass top once used to hold rows of bottles. Desks with chairs were lined up against the walls, and it looked as if the people had only left yesterday and not five years ago.
Walking through the corridor leading to the main reception area, the ship smelt of salt and old sweat, but nothing was damaged. A few chairs, clothes and empty boxes lay scattered around the floors, and painted over scars of gunshots, ripped patches of carpet and worn furniture spoke of long and hard use. The ship had clearly seen better days. There was no sound, and he assumed the engines would need to be overhauled before they could be used again. Once the engines were working, there’d be water and power for the four hundred cabins and crew quarters.
Standing on the sleek bridge of the ship, he looked out at the brilliant blue sea and said, “Now we know where she is, I’ll get the naval engineers out here.”
“Shame Jordy isn’t around anymore,” Hatch replied.
Jordy was the electrician who got the ship working when they found it. He was a quiet and reliable man who brought their bases to life by making the power work, no matter where they were. Having lost his entire family during the outbreak, Jordy had finally got his wish and joined them. Cutter said Jordy was living in one of the containers at the Marine supply base, and simply never woke up one morning. No one knew what he died of, but he guessed Jordy was rewarded for his service and taken home to be with the people he loved.
There wasn’t much to see on the ship, and he didn’t know anything about the engines to check if they were even intact. He and Hatch planned to fly from the ship to Nelson’s island where he would talk to Pop about getting the ship ready for use again. Not having communications fully working was becoming a nuisance, but Gerry was having trouble finding radio equipment. Without satellites, communications were always patchy, and now they were nearly non-existent.
