Iz patted me on the back and wiped her hand on a clean part of my sweater at the same time. I kept my words low, speaking into my chest, “I want to hug you but I don’t want more of my mess on you.”
She didn’t say anything as her arms snaked around my waist and she laid her head right against my pounding heart. We stood like that for longer than Dom was comfortable with. He hopped from foot to foot and darted quick glances into the other room at the fast paced conversation going on within. It wasn’t in English, which was for certain. Cyril and Neith railed against one another—no winner apparent.
I stared at the ceiling, trying to collect the courage to enter. Tiredness swamped me. If we’d been in the woods around the estate I could’ve hidden in vines of kudzu and dark brown dirt. Down in the cool soil with black carpenter ants and trapdoor spiders—at home with worms. Reveling in the quiet solitude and avoiding all of the unknown.
Resigned to my fate I pushed at my best friend to end our embrace. A tiny bit of green goop clumped some of her wild pink hair together on one side by her ear. The cool air that rushed into the space between us made me shiver. Blood was blood, whatever the color and sight of it.
When I entered the library Neith and Cyril were across the room from one another. Cyril had Rowena on the smooth finished surface of his black desk. One leg of my stepmother’s pants was torn in two all the way to her hip. The gash had stopped oozing but the skin around the cut was an angry red.
Neith leaned on the back of the long couch with one hand and stroked the top of Christophe’s blond curls with the other. My brother was wooden. Only his eyes appeared more alive and they were trained on Rowena without a blink.
My presence ended the argument. I wasn’t certain why since I didn’t understand the language they’d been conversing in. With that thought my head began to translate the last words of Neith I’d overheard.
“…you’ve had her long enough. It is my turn to train our little weapon.”
Before I could stop myself I blurted, “Weapon?!”
My forehead muscles tightened until I could feel a self-created headache stir at my temples.
Neith pursed her lips and flicked her fingers in my direction.
She breathed her words as a seduction, “Of course, sa. I was a tool of the Masters, as was your father. We are all escaped weapons from their arsenal.”
Dom put a hand between my shoulder blades and I tried not to jump.
His objection was sure and right. “No. No, that isn’t what you meant. There’s something about Zena you haven’t shared.” He shrugged and flipped his hair in annoyance. “A whole hell of a lot of somethings.” One finger rose to point first at Neith and then at Cyril as my father ministered to Rowena’s cut. “I can’t keep track anymore but one of you mentioned how rare a union between Neith’s type and Cyril’s is. There’s a reason for that, I’m sure. Why don’t you enlighten your daughter about what she really is?”
He hadn’t said ‘who’, Dom had said ‘what’. It made me feel like an oddity, not a person. I watched Cyril’s long black fingers move with stealth and grace as he worked.
Cyril spoke low while he sewed Rowena’s wound closed. As the skin pulled with each tug of his needle I expected my stepmother to wake screaming. She didn’t. Her expression was serene, as if she were having the best, most relaxing dream ever.
“First Bozena, the terms we use to explain are unique to the slave culture that fled to Earth. The language of the Masters, or Nun as we sometimes refer to them, is one of thought and has no words you could grasp. I am a Thoth—a keeper of knowledge. Things I’ve discovered and will discover could be dangerous to the Masters in the wrong hands. It was my duty to report information about target worlds as a means to an end. Your mother is a Nut and all Nut are the root of Seti—trickery in combat. Conquest by influence on the mind if you will.”
Cyril took a breath to concentrate on the knot he tied at the bottom of Rowena’s suture then used a small set of stainless steel scissors to cut the string and set the needle free.
Neith jumped in to interrupt the story and Cyril tossed a frown her direction as he tidied up from his work.
In a lilting voice, she said, “A long, long time ago—in a galaxy far, far away…”
My mother’s ingratiating dimples were meant to include us in the joke of her Star Wars reference. I wasn’t feeling it. Izzy cocked a hip and crossed her arms over her chest. Dom didn’t rise to the bait either. I looked at him through lowered lashes, remembering the trance he’d been under. He didn’t appear charmed by Neith’s voice at all. Huge relief there.
Cyril snapped the latch on the first aid kit as he continued into the tense silence, “Long ago the Nun decided to blend a Seti-Nut and Shu-Thoth for a more effective outcome. They’re all about efficiency, you see. The end result was a slave that could not be controlled and eventually began the one and only slave revolt recorded in their histories.”
Christophe stirred and rose from the couch. He was agitated, arms swinging against his thighs he turned in a tight circle. I thought his name so hard it felt like a mental shout.
“Christophe!”
My brother stopped his confused spinning. His light blue irises danced from left to right and left again before they settled on my face. Recognition dawned. It was there in the wrinkled brow and short gasps for air. Chris made his lips shine with a pass of his tongue as he took in the shelves and shelves of books surrounding us. He fell to his knees. Blond curls shook with each silent sob as his forehead came to rest on his thighs.
Cyril made it to him first. The fastest and loudest shape change I’d seen yet occurred in seconds. One big crack and Young Cyril was back. When my father went to his knees it looked more like a collapse than a purposeful movement. He wrapped his arms around his son and set his cheek on my brother’s loose curls.
Rowena sat upright on the desk, heard the heartbreaking cries of her son and leapt down only to have her injured leg give way. She landed on all fours and crawled like an infant to Christophe. Rowena threw herself back on her heels and cupped the bottom half of her face as fat tears ran past her crow’s feet. The hesitation to touch Cyril was there. I saw her think about it and discard her hatred just for the chance to comfort Christophe.
I stayed put and asked Neith, “What did you do to my brother?”
She toyed with the ends of her black hair. The fidget was so similar to my own physical tell I wondered if she’d copied it just to prove we had ticks in common. My earlier wish to cut my hair became a promise to myself.
No one is responsible for the circumstances of their birth. We are however responsible for what decisions we make ourselves—free will. If you’re born to a family as messed up as this, well…there was nowhere to go but up for me. A sad thing to feel but at this moment it was true, more true than the lies I’d been fed all of my life.
Neith’s reaction to Christophe’s obviously painful awakening was off. There wasn’t a reason I could name. Nothing glaring at me saying, “Look here for the clue, amateur Nancy Drew!” It was a knowing more than a hunch and I decided to run with it to see if I could trust my instincts.
“You didn’t heal Christophe’s memories, Neith, I did. When Cyril asked me to touch my brother, it started a physical reaction you had no hand in. You tried to bargain with me without Cyril knowing so you could claim credit and sway me to leave with you.”
None of it was a question because it didn’t need to be. I’d hit on the truth. It certainly didn’t stop Neith from playing off my accusations.
She simpered and pouted, “If you hadn’t been able to figure it out I would have been sure I couldn’t teach you. One must have a knack for our life. It is not something learned or earned. You are my daughter. You make me proud.”
Izzy coughed into her fist, “Pyscho!”
I didn’t even try to suppress my grin.
My mother was not amused. Her bare feet made slithering sounds on the hard floor as she approached. She spared a glance
for Cyril, Chris and Rowena hunched in their ball of grief and comfort as she gave them a wide berth. Neith picked up speed and made a line for Izzy.
Dom and I had the same thought. We pushed Iz behind us and she protested at the unexpected shoves with a loud, “Hey!”
Neith attempted to intimidate by stare down. I lifted my chin and shook my head, “Huh, uh. No way, no how, you touch my friend.”
Her pupils shrank as she squinted past my shoulder at Iz, “That one is odd.”
Instead of trying to force her way through, Izzy strode around on Dom’s side and aimed her index fingers at Neith like a kid playing cops and robbers, “Back at ya, bitch!”
My mother didn’t make a move to attack. She rocked on her heels and threw some of her thick shining hair over a tan shoulder. “You misunderstand me. That one is odd for Earth. She is of mixed descent. I scent Apep on her skin.”
23 FOR THE LOVE OF CHAOS
Iz put hands to hips and wove her head in strenuous objection, “I don’t know what the hell ‘Apep’ is, but if you’re saying there’s something wrong with bein’ mixed race you can kiss my Mexican African American ass!”
Cyril’s rough voice caught us off guard, “No wonder I don’t like her!”
Neith nodded. “Yes, I noticed, my Shu. How is it that you did not?”
My father actually looked ashamed as he reasoned, “I’ve been distracted. Who would expect it? We did our best to leave them behind my Nut.”
I asked, “Leave who behind?”
Cyril disentangled himself from Christophe, who was shaking far less now, and stood tall before he answered, “Apeps.”
He sighed at the torn and filthy state of his shirt and grabbed the neck to rip it free of his torso. The tattered remains fluttered to the floor. “They create chaos and destabilize worlds to weaken them for conquest. The Masters send them in before any slave and have them breed with the natives. Which begs the question—how did this happen? Those of us who fled made certain to leave the Apeps behind. They could not help with our plans—only hinder or doom the escape.”
Neith grew alarmed, “What will we do if the Masters are already here? Bozena is not ready! It is too soon for our plan to work.”
Izzy threw her arms high and wiggled her spread fingers as she squeaked, “Wait! Just wait a minute. Ay Dios mio!” She stopped to grip her pink hair, big brown eyes wild. “You’re sayin’ I’m part alien?”
Cyril sneered, “Yes.”
Dom muttered, “Small world and shit, Z.”
It was a replay of Izzy’s words in the gas station after we’d run into Dominic.
My inner data bank began to knock from the inside out. It pulsed with agitated intent for immediate attention. Something told me not to say why I needed seclusion but to get to a quiet place—alone—as soon as possible. Thoughts and fuzzy images barked with urgency and it took all of my concentration to wheeze out, “Be right back.”
Before I knew it I was on the stairs headed to my room. There were spots of terrifying blank blackness. Loud pants escaped my mouth as I breathed through the pain driving me to seek distance. Once I made it past my bed and to the dresser against my wall the blind panic eased. One great sigh of relief and then a ‘now what’ sensation.
My eyes closed without conscious decision. I lost the sense of being in a body. The only thing I was certain of was that I was traveling. Not because I could feel the passage of time or distance but because of the expectation of arrival at a destination shared by the foreign database inside me.
Much as the white room with the pulsing representation of my firing neurons had appeared when I touched the relic in the library, another brain showed itself. Curious loops and bundled intersections filled my sight. The meaning of how they worked and what they were for was beyond my ability to grasp. Impressions and flashes of information flooded my consciousness until my sense of self dimmed.
Great curving tunnels of light sucked me along until I burst free into a beautiful panorama of cast off floating balls. These weightless orbs bumped and rubbed against one another to create a charge. Each bolt of electric blue surged into a tear-shaped kernel at the center. I drifted in front of a charged pair and instead of their arc tapping the center it landed on me.
I hadn’t thought in this mental state I could feel pain, but feel it I did. Without a body to clench or a mouth to moan I was helpless to express the agony.
And then it stopped.
In its place came stillness and visions. The Masters with heads bowed in reverence to one of their own in a great room. The leader’s unexpected death in battle. Long-fingered hands extracting his brain from an opened skull. A rebirth of soul by a technology I couldn’t understand.
Supreme sadness as the mighty computer that had once been a flesh and blood Master became a relic of the past to be used and ignored. The sole drive of the Masters’ existence was conquest without end. Death and political machinations without cause or joy.
Loneliness evolved into purpose in the disembodied mind and with purpose came renewed hope. Plans within plans darted off to the far reaches of the universe until finally…fruition.
My vision returned on a wave of light as if a god had poured water over a canvas and washed away one layer to reveal another. Sweat made my hands stick on the dresser and I pressed the front of my body against the knobs to feel something. Anything to anchor me in the familiar. I couldn’t catch my breath, the harder I inhaled the more I suffocated in the humid air of my room.
I wanted trees and sunlight. I needed out.
The consciousness, the presence that was my inner database, and something much, much more I suspected, shut itself away. A quietness was restored. My breathing came easier but a slight trembling shook my body still. It was an odd, nearly numb sensation.
Some dried green blood flaked onto the dresser. I undid the buttons on my ruined cardigan as I walked, one careful foot in front of the other, on watery legs. The cave of my hanging clothes smelled like memories to me. I rubbed my body down with clean sections of my dress and threw the mess in the floor. Standing there in my underwear, I hugged my elbows and focused on a poster of waves above my head.
What did I want? Who could I trust? Everyone around me had their own agenda. Well, maybe not Izzy. Could she really be part alien?
Christophe was back but not well. Why had Cyril asked me to touch him? Neith wanted me to do something for her. Probably something in her best interest. Cyril wasn’t much better.
Dom…well, Dominic was Dominic. He would do his best to protect those he cared about because that was just him. And there was the whole Geb thing.
Again, it came back to me. I was responsible for my actions so I needed to be sure of my decisions. What did I know?
Cyril wanted the other slaves freed and the Masters’ empire toppled.
Neith claimed to want the same thing.
Christophe was breaking out of his mental confinement but he wouldn’t be the same brother I had known. If I’d really known him at all.
An unknown element had tried to kill me for a purpose I didn’t understand. Did they send the CORE? Why did Dobbins, if that had been his true name, attack for the Dalah?
Feet scuffled on the floor. The air pressure changed in the closet. I heard the barest whisper of cloth rubbing before I looked up to see Dom gasp and flinch at my nakedness.
I turned to face him fully, dropped my arms to my sides and stood in my underwear completely unashamed. My gaze met his gawk straight on. First I saw confusion in his furrowed brow and then his lips parted. He inhaled and I noticed his nipples press against the thin cotton of his shirt. Muscles in his neck constricted as his Adams apple bobbed up then down.
He said, “Tell me to leave. Throw something at me. Be angry.”
It was my turn to be confused. “Why?”
“Because.”
My joints felt liquid as I threw my shoulders back. “No. Leave if you want, but I’d rather you stayed and kissed me again.”
&nbs
p; Warmth and need curled together just under my belly button and I wanted him.
Just like that.
Dominic moved so fast one second he was in the doorway and the next his hands were under my jaw. His kiss wasn’t gentle, it was hungry and I nearly lost my balance from it. Only his grip kept me upright. Thoughts fled. Problems disappeared to where they had come from. There was only the moment, sensation and pleasure.
Power began to crackle on my skin. This time I let it, unafraid. He wouldn’t let me hurt anyone. He would keep me contained. The worry inside unspooled and flowed away on the rising tide of desire.
Dom broke the kiss. “Are you messing with my head like Neith did?”
Tears threatened and I slapped his hands from my face one handed then stiff armed him in the sternum. He stumbled backward before he caught himself.
I shouted, “I would never do that!”
He just stood there with his lips pressed together and his chest rising and falling—his hazel eyes still darkened with desire. I turned from it and yanked a random top from a hanger. It was a boy band T-shirt. Laughter boiled up unexpectedly at the absurd hairdos and too pretty fresh male souls countless pubescent girls had lusted after. They looked almost as stupid as I felt. Christophe had bought it for me as a joke the last Christmas we’d had together. The white price tag dangled from the sleeve on a thin wire of clear plastic.
Rough fingers grazed my shoulder over the sore spots Neith had left with her dug in nails. When I didn’t shrug off his touch Dom grew bolder. He hugged my back to his front and whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry, Z.”
The Blood Key (The Wander Series Book 1) Page 13
