by S. T. Boston
Thump, thump, thump.
As they mocked him he saw something else in that watchful sky. A small pinprick of black, almost like a floating speck of dirt skirting across his eyeball. Unable to take his gaze away from the growing speck he sat transfixed, and tried hopelessly to focus on it. Just as he thought his eyes could make out its shape it burst and gave birth to a new sun, which spread with ferocious speed across the sky. Adam felt pain in his eyes, and suddenly all he could see was darkness. As a thunderous roar filled his head he felt his flesh begin to boil against his bones and opened his mouth to scream, but instantly felt his throat turn to fire. Then he was ash. Fire and ash.
* * *
Adam's eyes snapped awake, his breath came in quick, panting movements that over-oxygenated his blood and made his head woozy. The first fingers of morning light were creeping in below the floral drapes, the shafts of autumn sun picked up swarms of busy dust motes as they went about their business floating around the room on invisible air currents. The fire had died down in the night and Adam felt a chill run through his body, he shivered, removed Oriyanna's hand from his waist and sat himself up. For a few moments he watched an ugly black spider, busily building its web between the worn red brick of the fireplace and the slightly overhanging oak ledge above. Everyone was still asleep, Lucie was snoring gently to herself, still sitting in the seat with her legs stretched over the foot stool. Maya was face down on the small sofa, cocooned into a foetal position with her arms wrapped around her slight body in an apparent attempt to get warm. Oriyanna, who'd been wrapped around him not moments before was murmuring something in her sleep, Adam tried to focus on her words but the strange and exotic dialect was lost on him. Digging his phone out of his pocket he saw it was almost six AM. In a few minutes the power and phone networks would be up, and he hoped there would be news from Sam, but the chance of getting a signal out in the sticks was slim to none, he'd have to drive to the nearest town to stand any chance.
Getting to his feet he retrieved the poker from the hearth, just below where the spider had expertly crafted her new home. As quietly as he could he tried to stoke the fire but the wood he'd fed it hours earlier had been devoured and reduced to nothing more than a few hot embers that glowed dimly, just hanging on to life. Tossing the implement back onto the grate he straightened out his sweater and tutted at the dishevelled state of his trousers, he'd been smartly dressed for the book talk that now seemed like a lifetime ago. He needed a good shower and a casual change of clothes, but doubted he would be getting either.
Making his way through to the kitchen, he collected up a glass from the drainer and turned on the cold tap, letting it run for a while before placing it into the steady stream of water. With the glass full he shut off the tap and drank deeply, his mouth and throat feeling like the scorched desert from his dream. The water, although chillingly cold, carried a nasty, metallic taste; the taste of old, seldom used pipes and age. Setting the glass onto the side and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he surveyed the abysmal selection of tinned food that he and Maya had found last night. Shaking his head, he wondered how a couple of tins of beans and a tin of preserved oranges would feed four people. As if sensing the lack of food, his tummy offered up a protesting growl of hunger. In an effort to ignore it he glanced out of the window. It had been hard to gauge the exact condition of the back garden in the dark, in the dim first light of the morning he could see much more. Ivy creepers had latched themselves into the wooden shed, strangling the dilapidated building and setting it slightly askew, like an old crooked house. The grass could almost house a small Amazonian tribe and looked more like a jungle, tangled through the various overgrown bushes and weeds were some angry, knotted thorns that seemed to belong to one of his grandfather's old fruit bushes. Unchecked for the past few years they'd set about their own mission to take control of the whole garden. They were winning.
“Trouble sleeping?” came a soft female voice from behind him. Stolen from his thoughts, Adam turned to see Oriyanna lent against the off white door frame, her blonde hair glowing in the early morning sunshine like a golden mane.
“Bad dream,” he replied, smiling back at her. “I seem to get those when you're around.”
“The desert?” she asked curiously.
“How did you –?“
“I had the same dream, the eyes and the explosion?” Adam nodded solemnly, not bothering to try and figure out why they'd shared the same dream. With Oriyanna that kind of madness was normality. “That ship, the large black one,” she paused and saw that Adam knew exactly what she meant. “That's his vessel, the Arkus 2, or that used to be her name.”
“And he's out there, right now. Waiting for us?” The acceptance in his own voice surprised him, Oriyanna nodded and crossed the room and wrapped her hands around his waist and kissed him deeply on the lips. As they parted, Adam looked at her and said, “You know, it would be nice to spend some time with you and not be fighting for our lives.”
“Well, maybe when this is all over,” she said temptingly, her deep blue eyes dazzling with promise.
Before he could tell her that they might be dead before it was all over and hence too late for the aforementioned quality time together, the sound of someone clearing their throat behind in a, I don't mean to interrupt – but, manner, drew his attention. Maya stood in the doorway, almost exactly where Oriyanna had been not a minute before. Yawning slightly and trying to get control of her dark sleep tousled hair she said, “Are you planning on cooking that food we found?”
“Sure, once Lucie is up, let me go and check on her.” Adam made his way back through to the lounge. His sister had moved, slightly. A bead of sunlight was now making itself at home on her face, in her sleep she seemed to sense it and turned her head slightly, causing it to lollop off the side of the seat, almost the way it sometimes happened on a train or aircraft, just before you smack your head on the window, or worse, the stranger sat next to you. The resulting movement snapped her awake. Frantically she looked around for a few seconds, as if she were still caught up in whatever dream or night terror she'd been suffering.
“Is there any news?” she asked, sitting herself up and feeling like her spine had turned into an old bent coat hanger overnight.
“It's almost six, sis,” replied Adam. “The networks aren't back up yet – I'm sure once they are you, I mean we, will hear from him.” Adam wasn't quite sure of how convincing he sounded. “Why don't you come through to the kitchen, we are going to crack open the cans of food that Maya and I found yesterday, if there is nothing growing in them we might just have ourselves some brekkie!” He raised his eyebrows in an encouraging fashion.
“Okay, I'm not sure I can eat, though.” Lucie said.
She followed her brother through to the kitchen, feeling achy and dirty in the way you always do when you've slept in your clothes from the night before, and collected up one of the two tins of baked beans with sausages. Turning the can over and searching for a use by date, she glanced at Adam who was fishing a tin opener out of one of the draws and said, “Are you certain these are going to be okay?”
“Only one way to tell,” he replied, finding the tool he needed and waving it in the air.
“I'll do the honours,” said Maya, taking the tin opener out of his hand and turning to the sink. The sharp point on the utensil had seen better days and no matter how hard she pushed down it just wouldn't breach the thin metal. Turning to the draw she recovered a shaper looking kitchen knife and tried to pierce the top of the can.
“Careful it doesn't slip and…” began Lucie, looking over her shoulder, but her warning was too late. The can toppled over causing Maya to drive the knife down into her left hand which was supporting the small tin of food, slicing open the skin between her the top of her thumb and index finger.
“Shit,” Maya hissed, snatching her hand away and causing the tin of beans to go spinning across the drainer before tumbling to the floor.
Lucie grabbed her damaged hand
and put it over the sink, “Best wash it out,” she encouraged as blood began flowing steadily from the wound, it dipped into the metal sink with a dull plink, plink sound. Manoeuvring Maya's hand under the tap, Lucie turned it on. “Those knifes have been in that draw for god knows how long.”
“It's okay, really,” Maya protested, struggling to free her wrist from Lucie's grip. “Just get me an old towel or something, in a day or two it will be just fine.”
“Nonsense,” fussed Lucie, “If it gets infected….” Lucie trailed off as the water, which had been running a very light shade of pink having been mixed with Maya's blood, turned clear. Eyes wide she watched as beneath the water's flow she saw the damaged skin turn pink, then heal completely. Lucie dropped Maya's hand and stepped back a pace. Neither Adam nor Oriyanna had seen it, and neither were ready for what happened next. “She can heal,” Lucie gasped, as in a flash Maya grabbed the knife from the drainer and pulled Lucie back by her untidy brown ponytail. As Lucie stumbled back, her head leading the way, Maya grabbed her around the shoulders and whipped the knife to her throat. In a good mixture of panic and surprise Lucie screamed, the sound piercing the otherwise still morning and resonating through the walls of the old cottage.
Oriyanna was first to react, a nanosecond before Adam, both of them rushed toward Maya who now had the knife pushed painfully against Lucie's neck. Her eyes darting from Adam to Oriyanna she tried to weigh up which side the threat might come from. “It wasn't meant to happen like this!” she growled, the soft and mystical edge to her Eastern-European accent gone. “If either of you take another step, I'll bury the blade so deep into her neck it will pop out the other side.”
“Just take it easy,” said Adam, holding both palms up to show he was no threat, for now. “What's all this about?”
“The – cut,” chocked Lucie, “it healed. She – said she was Earth-Breed.” Maya tugged her hair back painfully, causing Lucie to shriek in pain.
“I should have trusted my instincts,” said Oriyanna in a low and threatening voice. “I sensed something was off about you, but as you'd saved Adam I gave you the benefit of the doubt.”
“I don't understand,” said Adam, his mind turning like a fast spinning wheel. He glanced toward Oriyanna who slid her hands behind her back and realised that her Glock was still in the lounge by the fireplace.
“Really!” Maya spat. “There is nothing remotely familiar about me?” She scolded in a venomous voice. Her accent was gone, replaced by another familiar one that couldn't hide under her aggression. It wasn't a million miles away from Oriyanna's but it had a slightly different twang to it, a twang that he'd heard before, deep below the Pyramid. The memory was clouded thanks the feverish state Adam had been in but it was there.
“You're no Earth-Breed,” growled Oriyanna, her body looked tense below her tight, leggings-style black trousers and matching top. Her hair, which seemed unaffected from a night sleeping on the floor, looked even brighter against the fabric. Like a lioness she was poised and ready to strike at the first opportunity.
“Well you get full points,” Maya scorned, her hauntingly beautiful eyes seemed to be on fire with fury, and Oriyanna realised with horror why her eyes looked so familiar. Buer had fixed her with an identical look when he'd had hold of her in the Tabut Chamber some two and a half Earth years ago.
“You took everything from me,” Maya spat, looking hatefully at Adam, the knife's blade unrelentingly pushing into Lucie's neck. Between you, you have left me with nothing!” She turned and looked at Oriyanna. “Thanks to your book, Adam, I know exactly how my father died and who pulled the trigger. Then soon after, in the invasion of Sheol my mother was killed. Maybe you didn't cause the explosion that killed her,” Maya hissed, her eyes on Oriyanna. “But you are high on the council and there is no one else here to blame.”
“Buer was your father?” said Adam shakily.
“Her real name is Lilith,” Oriyanna cut in. “I never had the pleasure of meeting her, she is a child of Sheol, after the war. It was always rumoured that Buer had a wife and daughter but never confirmed. Let alone that she possessed The Gift. Typical of his kind to flaunt such a power upon their kin.”
“And the penny finally drops!” Lilith turned her face toward the dirty white ceiling, as if relishing the revelation. “A thousand years I lived on that shit stain of a planet, then after my father and mother were killed and Sheol was taken I escaped with Asmodeous on Arkus 2.”
“But you killed your team to get to me, to make sure I wasn't taken?”
“Don't you get it!” she shrieked, her voice another octave higher. The blade had broken Lucie's skin slightly, a small trace of blood ran from the tip of the knife, and like a lone red tear it ran down her neck, paused momentarily as it navigated the slight hump of her collar bone before disappearing below her sweater. “This was never about getting you to Asmodeous, this was about my own revenge. I didn't plan on her showing up.” She shot her fiery eyes at Oriyanna. “But things don't always go according to plan. I wanted you to suffer like I did, to have someone taken away from you, then once you'd seen your sister killed,” she paused. “Well, I hadn't decided what I was going to do with you! Once those nukes fly you're all dead anyway. The radiation poisoning will be far more unpleasant than anything I can do. But only just. As for me, I fully knew that doing this bought me a one way ticket, but when you've got nothing left to lose, who cares?”
“Just let her go,” Adam encouraged, taking a tentative step toward her. “You can have me, you can do what you want to me. Just let her go.”
“This isn't about killing you!” Lilith fired, her hand was deftly steady on the blade. “This is about taking something away from you. Come to think of it I can make you pay twice, no, three times!” The thin, reptilian smile yet again spread across her once pretty face. “You can watch me kill your sister,” she paused, then thought for a few seconds as if she were working something out. “She is with child,” she finally declared with a fresh delight. “You're going to be – sorry, I mean you were going to be an uncle, Adam!” She paused and let the words sink in. “I thought I detected something strange with her, and that explains it.” The last part of her statement was spoken as if she were in conversation with herself.
Adam looked into his sister's frightened eyes. Tears began to well up in them and she tried to blink them away, which caused them to streak down her face.
“I was going to say, you can watch me kill your sister, then her!” She nodded toward Oriyanna. “But now I get to take three things away from you, it's almost too perfect to be true.”
“If you harm either of them I will kill you with my bare hands.” Adam felt the fear within him replaced with a burning fury. He glanced to Oriyanna, hoping to see that she'd found a way to make a move. Unfortunately with them both unarmed and Lucie with a blade to her neck, they were well and truly on the back foot.
“Enough of the chatter,” Lilith growled, her eyes hungry with rage. She took the knife away from Lucie's neck and prepared to drive the blade home.
Chapter 20
Sam sat himself back against the pilot's seat and ran his dirty hands over his face, trying to detect any trace of an injury. Of course there was nothing to discover, The Gift had taken care of the split lip and broken nose he'd suffered on impact, the impact that had rendered him unconscious for a short period. As the memory of the crash caught up with his fuzzy head he looked frantically about, searching for any signs of fire. Thankfully there were none, the only sound in the cabin, spare for his breathing, was the soft ting-ting of broken glass as it dropped from the spider-webbed windscreen.
Consciousness fully regained, Sam unclipped the safety belt and reached across to Ackhart's body. Urgently he searched for a pulse, if the inspector was still somehow alive he owed it to him to get medical help. After thirty seconds or more of searching, Sam gave up. Ackhart was dead. He inwardly thanked the inspector for what he'd done and hoped he had no direct family who were going to mourn his lo
ss. Climbing over the pilot's seat he navigated the ruined fuselage, the overhead lockers had come open, spilling their contents over the eight large, luxury seats. The body of the pilot, having slammed into Sam's seat, had ended up halfway down the cabin, his skull jammed into the bottom framework of one of the seats, and his torso was contorted into an angle that made him look like a strange piece of modern art. Kneeling down Sam felt under the opposite seat. The pilot had been toting his own gun, and Sam wanted it. A few minutes later he found his folly, the Beretta Px4 9mm had been thrown to the back of the cabin and was buried under two orange life jackets. Sam turned the weapon over in his hand and checked the magazine. The weapon was missing only one round from its seventeen shot capacity, the one which would have been in the chamber had slain the inspector. The Sig SP 2022 that had been Ackhart's was low on ammo and could hold one less round than the Beretta he'd just found in the cabin.
Scouting the wrecked fuselage for other useful items he located a small backpack. Taking the SP2022 from his waistband he deposited it into the pack and slid the pilot's gun into its space, and then shouldered the pack onto his filthy jacket.
In the fridge at the rear of the cabin he located six small cans of Pepsi and three sealed packs of prawn salad sandwiches, which he deposited into his pack along with two packs of dry roasted nuts. Satisfied that he'd picked the cabin clean, he stopped for one final time at the dead pilot and removed his shoes. They were not a style that Sam would normally have chosen, patent black which meant they were very shiny. They were closer to his old parade shoes, part of what he used to call his 'Number One's.' They were, however, just one size too big and far better than being sock-footed. Taking the dead man's socks as well, he slid off his filthy grey ones and tossed them aside. The new shoes looked very odd with his dirty cargo trousers but it did feel nice to have something back on his feet.
