I turned from the drone and tried to skip across the street. My left leg was starting to work, but I actually did have to lean on the woman a bit. I figured it would be another few seconds before I could use my right side again, and I hoped that we would be able to make it onto a side street before the drone came after us.
Would it even come after us? I had no idea how the official government or police forces worked in this world. For all I knew, the place I just freed the strange woman from was actually the government, and every single cop or soldier here would be searching for us.
My ears heard the distant whirl of the battle drone’s gun, and I turned around with surprise. I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I pulled the black-haired woman into my arms and I threw myself to the ground.
It was half a second before thousands of bullets tore through the cars, buildings, and citizens on the busy street.
Horns went off, metal screeched, and people screamed. I saw the citizens on the street try to run, but the bullets were like a molten laser cutting through the crowd without remorse. Blood, clothes, pieces of building, hunks of sidewalk, and body parts flew everywhere, and I turned my back to the drone with a hope that my armor would keep the woman in my arms safe. We both lay as still as we possibly could, and I began to count the number of seconds that passed while the bullets laid waste to the city street.
Fifteen seconds passed before the guns stopped firing.
Somehow, I hadn’t been hit, but I didn’t even want to look at the rest of the street. It was now obvious that this woman was important to whoever these fucks were; since they were more than willing to kill hundreds of innocent people to ensure that she didn’t escape alive. We needed to get out of here, but I didn’t know how to move without the drones spotting us.
They will not stop until I am dead. They know their fates are sealed if I escape. Please help me, Adam.
“I’m trying,” I panted. “If you’ve got any ideas on escaping these assholes, let me know.” I expected the woman to ignore my question again, so I was surprised when she actually replied.
There is a manhole cover four meters northwest of us. By the white vehicle.
I pivoted my head up and around to see the sewer entrance. It was some four meters away, which might as well have been a kilometer away given that the battle drone was probably waiting for anyone still alive on street below to move so that it could open fire again.
At least my spine felt as if it was healed from the impact with the car.
“Hold onto me,” I growled to the woman. She didn’t make any sort of movement to indicate she heard me, but I figured that she had. I pushed against the street with my left boot and slid my shoulder across the broken tarmac of the street. The drone didn’t open fire, and I let out a sigh of relief.
Only three more meters to go.
I pushed again with the side of my left boot and felt more than a little thankful for my increased tiger strength. It was as if I performed single leg squats with over two hundred kilograms of resistance. Even the strongest of men would have had a problem doing this more than two or three times, but I felt just fine after six, and I glanced up again to see how far away the manhole cover was.
Still another meter and a half.
I was surprised the drone hadn’t seen me wiggle like a worm across the street. Maybe it was just out of ammo. I almost tried to turn my neck around to look at the thing, but I decided against the move. Even if the drone was out of ammo, it would have been able to crush me with one of its spider legs. It probably just hadn’t seen me and turning my head to look at it might be all the thing needed to know that I was alive.
Six more pushes brought me to the manhole cover. My next challenge was getting the thing off of the ground without the drones seeing me. I guessed it would be impossible, and I realized that I was just going to have to be quick, and hope I could make it down into the sewer before the thing could shoot me.
“Get ready to jump down. I’ll lift it, and you go. I’ll follow,” I instructed the woman, but she again gave me no sign she heard me. Her eyes were opened, though, and the strange red orbs stared into mine with an unnerving intensity.
“Here we go,” I growled as I lifted the cover. The thing was heavy, but I had no problem lifting it with one arm. The woman swung her bare legs into the hole and then she fell down. I pivoted my body around to jump in and caught sight of the two drones at the top of the stairs.
Both of the spider-tanks seemed to notice me as I saw them, and their Gatling guns began to whirl instantly. I didn’t even bother to grab for the ladder that I hoped was at the edge of the hole. I just dived into the dark pit and hoped I wouldn’t slam into the woman on the way down.
The bullets left the drone’s guns like a swarm of angry bees, and the manhole cover slammed closed behind me with the force of their impact. I reached out my left hand, grabbed onto a ladder rung, and then gagged as my shotgun got tangled up with a rung higher. The strap tightened against my throat, and my vision started to turn white.
“Let go ass--” I began to say as I yanked my shotgun strap free. The weapon broke loose easily, but it seemed as if the ladder was made mostly of rust, and my violent movement had been the final force of nature to kill the thing. It broke free of the wall, and my stomach lurched as I became suddenly weightless.
I let out a growl as I fell into the darkness. My eyes hadn’t fully adjusted to the lack of light down here yet, but I could see that the pale woman was falling beneath me. She didn’t scream though, and I almost laughed at the irony of us both dying in a fall after we had escaped death so many times in the last few minutes.
Then I was in a river of water.
Sewer water.
It flowed over my head, and I fought against gagging and vomiting while I reminded myself not to breathe in the sewage. I kicked to the surface and was then swept up into the current of the disgusting river. The pale woman fought against the river next to me, and I reached out my left arm to grab her. I missed the first time, then the second time, but I managed to catch her the third time and I pulled her close to me.
Then we fell off a slimy waterfall, and I lost my grip on her.
I swam to the surface of the sewage again, tried not to vomit, and looked for the woman. She was splashing against the current downstream of me, and I kicked my powerful legs a few more times to catch up to her. My vision had adjusted to the darkness now, and I could see her red eyes actually looked a bit panicked. I pulled her to me again and caught a ladder on the side of the river.
A few tense seconds later, I managed to yank us both out of the filth and onto a pathway a good two meters above the river. I gulped air when we were safe, felt my insides twist, and then couldn’t keep the contents of my stomach down. I vomited down into the river until my actions were just a dry heave. The retching took me a good half minute, and I felt the woman’s hands gently pat me on the shoulders near the end. It was meant to be a soothing motion, and I nodded at her once I’d finished puking.
“Thanks,” I said, but the woman didn’t nod or smile.
They will keep looking. We must continue our escape.
“Where? Do you have friends who can help us? I have none on this planet. I don’t even know where we are.”
We are on Trappist-1e. Eventually, we will need funds to procure a ship. For the moment, we need to continue. We need money and a place to rest. Let us continue in the sewer for a bit more and then go to the surface. How long can you maintain your form?
“The longest I’ve done it is for half an hour. I get so angry, and my hunger overwhelms me. I start to lose myself. I saw others go insane when the scientists kept them in this state for too long.” I closed my eyes as I spoke and tried to push the memories away. How long had it been since the collar forced me to change? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? The helmet had a clock on it I used to track the time, so I felt a bit naked without it. Still, I didn’t feel very angry yet. I didn’t feel as if the rage was starting to burn the edg
es of my mind. I would be fine for another quarter of an hour, or so I guessed.
I do not want you to go insane. Let us find some money and a place to rest. As I said before, speed is of great importance. The quicker we can get away from them the harder it will be for them to follow us.
“Right. Let’s go. Are you going to tell me who they are, and why they had you imprisoned there?” I asked her as I began to walk.
The woman followed me, but she didn’t answer, and I decided not to ask again until we had made it to safety.
Chapter 4
It took us an hour to get out of the stinking sewer. We found ourselves in the slums of the city and snuck through streets filled with junkies, gangs, and poor for another quarter of an hour before we found a motel. We still didn’t have any money for a room, but I’d managed to find a plastic tarp to cover my head and shoulders.
I had never maintained my half-tiger form for this long, and I felt my hunger gnaw through my stomach like a disease. The starvation made my anger spiral to a slight insanity, and I couldn’t help from growling every time I breathed in the stench of the sewer that covered us. The feline part of my soul wanted to clean myself up, but we didn’t have time for such activities, and that also made me angry.
The motel we found was called Way Place, but both of the “a” letters were not casting their neon glow into the night sky. So it just looked like Wy Plce with some Chinese characters underneath.
A group of four women leaned against the wall of the motel, and their attire convinced me they were prostitutes. As if on cue, a man pulled up on a new looking cruiser motorcycle, addressed the four by the name “bitches” and then beckoned for them to all follow him into the alleyway next to the building. They seemed to know the man, and my animal senses could taste their terror from across the street. He must have been their pimp.
He will do.
The strange woman’s words drifted into my mind almost as if I had thought of them myself.
“Confirmed,” I growled, and readied my shotgun.
No gun. Cut his throat. He is clean.
“What do you mean by ‘clean’?” I asked, but the strange woman didn’t answer. Her white lab coat was now the dark yellow color of piss, and she smelled as bad as I did. I hadn’t been able to find her any shoes, and her dirty bare feet looked out of place on the neon reflecting surface of the sidewalk where we hid.
I need him.
“Uhhh. Whatever,” I felt jealousy spin my anger out of control, and I wrestled with the idea of hitting the woman. I had just saved her life, multiple times, but she needed another man now? Fuck her.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax. I was too angry. Damn it. She wanted me to kill the man with my knife. I didn’t need to get jealous. Why was I even feeling that way in the first place? Yeah, she was beautiful, even when she was in obvious need of a meal or twenty, but it wasn’t like saving her life meant I owned her. Calm the fuck down, Adam. This is your beast talking. It is the rage trying to take control of you.
I really needed to change back into a human.
A woman’s scream brought me out of my meditation, and I looked both ways on the street before sprinting across.
“I need my money every! Fucking! Night! Bitch!” The man was slapping one of the four women, and the other three were pleading with him in a language I didn’t recognize. I didn’t know what the currency looked like on this planet, but the man clenched a roll of red colored paper in the hand he wasn’t beating the woman with. The three other prostitutes each held out crumpled leaves of it, as if they could deposit it into a slot on his shoulders to prevent him from hitting their friend.
“Stop,” I growled as I slowed my sprint and walked into the alley.
“Whaaada you?” He looked like he may have been of Asian ancestry, but his skin was darker than the other women. He pushed away from the hooker he was beating, looked at the long guns hanging from my shoulders, and reached into his leather jacket.
I could have used my claws to rip his head off of his shoulders, but the strange woman told me to use my knife, and I pulled one of the many out of its sheath while I stepped across the alley. He was slow to reach for his weapon, probably because he was terrified of the giant, tarp covered monster that had suddenly appeared in the alley, and I was able to slice open his throat with surgical precision. My attack didn’t kill him instantly, and the man continued to pull his gun. I caught his wrist with my left hand, and then I held him while he struggled to cover the wound with his other hand.
The women screeched when I cut open his throat, but I ignored them. As soon as the man was dead, they set their cash on the ground before my boots and began to beg in the language I didn’t understand.
“Get out of here!” I snarled at them, and the four prostitutes ran into the dark corner of the alley away from the motel.
I crouched down and picked up the roll of cash the pimp carried. Then I searched his pockets. He had tried to pull out a meaty chrome revolver from his belt. It was a heavy thing that carried five bullets larger than my thumb. I doubted the man had the strength in his grip to even shoot the massive revolver, but I did. I took its holster, and the three speed loader cylinders that were attached to it. I also grabbed the keys to his motorcycle and fished out his wallet from his pants pocket.
The strange woman walked past me as I picked up the other stacks of cash the women had left in the alley. It took me a few moments to gather everything, put it in the man’s wallet, and then turn to her, but when I did, I let out a shocked gasp and took a step back.
It appeared that she was eating the man.
The strange woman was crouched on all fours with her face over his neck. Her long black hair concealed what she was doing, but I heard the sounds of her lips smacking together.
“What are you doing?” I growled as soon as I gained my composure. The woman didn’t answer, and I felt rage fill my stomach. How dare she not answer me? I had saved her life. I had killed for her. I had—
I couldn’t move. The effect was sudden, and I saw that the woman was holding her left hand out to me. Her fingers were spread as if she was trying to touch me, but we were two meters away from each other. My boots weren’t actually touching the surface of the street, and I tried to jerk myself back onto the ground. It was as if there was a rope tied around my entire body. No, it was as if I was paralyzed since I couldn’t even flex my muscles. All I could do was watch the strange woman crouch over the man.
My anger turned to disgust, and then into terror, and then into anger again. How was she keeping me like this? I had seen her take off my collar, and fling the grenade back, but I was a half-monster bulk of a man who could lift hundreds of kilograms over my head with ease.
Be still, my Adam. I am almost finished.
Her words came to my mind, and I felt my anger fade. This woman was strange, but she had saved my life. I owed her a blood debt, and I felt shame coil through my stomach. I knew it was the beast feeding my anger, but I was the beast now, and I didn’t want to hate this strange woman.
She moaned and stood from the corpse of the man. Her face was covered with blood, and it dribbled down her chin to splatter on the front of her filth covered lab coat.
She opened her mouth, and I let out a gasp despite the paralysis.
She had no teeth or tongue.
The people who held her in the tank must have yanked them out, and my emotions sprinted from sadness to anger again. I knew what it was like to be experimented and tortured, but the idea of them pulling out this beautiful woman’s teeth and tongue made me want to kill every last one of those fuckers.
The woman made a soft growling sound, and I saw white dots appear on her gums. The dots turned into small teeth five seconds later, and then the smaller teeth continued to push out until they were proportioned to her face.
Her canines kept growing, though.
They extended another three centimeters past where normal human teeth would have stopped. They were fan
gs, like mine, only the rest of her teeth hadn’t taken on the sharp structure that a carnivore's should possess. Her tongue was also healing or growing, or maybe regenerating, and it rolled to the front of her mouth like a flower petal.
“That is better. Ummmm,” she moaned aloud, and I felt my boots touch the ground.
I could move now and look back to the corpse of the man I cut. It didn’t look as if the woman had actually eaten his neck. It just looked as if she smeared her face over his wound.
“I just needed a little sustenance. It has been so long,” she said, and I turned back to stare at her. The woman’s voice was a dark, husky tone, and it looked as if there was actually a bit of color coming to her cheeks.
“What are you?” I asked as I stared at the blood dripping from her face.
“I am like you, Adam. Changed into something beyond human.” She wiped some of the red off of her face with her fingers, and then she licked it off with her new tongue. Her red eyes rolled back into her skull when she tasted the stuff, and a shiver of dread cascaded down my massive spine.
“A vampire?” I asked. I felt like an idiot asking because everyone knew vampires weren’t real. But here I was, talking to a beautiful pale woman, with dark hair and fangs, while she licked the blood off of her fingers.
Weretigers weren’t supposed to be real either, but I was evidence of such a thing.
“Hmmm. That word might work, but it doesn’t explain everything. I am sorry for feeding in front of you. I know you are starving as well. It has been so long since I have had a taste. I need to remind myself not to overindulge,” she said as she licked the last bit of blood from her fingers. There was still a lot on her face.
“How long?” I asked.
“I don’t know for sure. There was no way for me to count the passing of days. One of the men who captured me had a son. The boy grew into a man and had another son. All three of them were tasked with experimenting on me.”
Eye of the Tiger: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 1) Page 4
