by James Axler
J.B. passed the binoculars to Ricky.
“I see her,” Ricky confirmed. “It won’t be hard sneaking past her, either.”
When Ricky pulled the field glasses from his eyes he saw that J.B. had his M-4000 shotgun cradled in his hands. “No time for negotiation,” he said. “Krysty, Mildred—you’re covering the exit. Anyone comes in or out who isn’t one of us, you pop them. This is life or death, as usual. Ricky, you’re with me.”
Ricky hurried after the Armorer as he marched downslope, pulling his reproduction De Lisle carbine from beneath his jacket.
Ten seconds later they rounded a tree and appeared in the open, twenty feet from the redoubt entrance. The blonde in the white robes looked up with surprise to see two armed men standing there. J.B. didn’t let her thought process get any further than that. It was kill or be killed. He squeezed the trigger of his shotgun, sending a lethal cloud of buckshot into the woman’s gut and peppering the wall behind her.
The Melissa fell back, collapsing on the floor.
“Now they know we’re here,” J.B. stated grimly. “You got to hit them quick because they move like lightning if you give them a chance. And, Ricky, it’s us or them.”
“Gotcha,” Ricky acknowledged.
The two men stepped over the dead body and marched deeper into the redoubt, automatic lighting flickering to life with each step.
* * *
“TRICKED,” JAK GROWLED, shaking his head in frustration. He was walking with Doc and Ryan along the main path of Heaven Falls that led into the ville center. Doc thrust his swordstick ahead of him with each step, warily watching the few other people using the path, wondering if they suspected anything.
“We were all taken in,” Ryan said quietly. “J.B. figures the Trai are going to swarm soon, use the mat-trans to settle a new colony and expand their territory. Once they get one mat-trans jump behind them, it’ll be child’s play for them to keep moving, keep setting up colonies, eating up every bit of space.”
Jak looked thoughtful. He was recalling the conversation he had had just a few days before when he and Charm had been making love.
“We could leave,” Charm had told him, her eyes fixed on his. “Build our own Home, like this one, only better. With me as queen.”
“And me as king,” Jak had replied, laughing.
“You’re strong,” Charm had said. “We could build something beautiful together, another Home.”
Not a home, Jak realized. A hive. He had said he would be her king but she had never agreed, only told him how she would make a fine Regina. Doc had told him that the word meant queen, as they’d walked toward the ville center. It made a warped kind of sense now, the way the conversation with Charm had gone.
Jak recalled something else, too, how the wound on Charm’s leg had repaired very quickly and without any medication. “Bee people strong,” he said warningly.
“I have seen them move very fast,” Doc added.
“Me, too,” Jak said. He was recalling the incident outside the redoubt, when he had first seen the Melissas as they’d chilled the bomber. They had attacked as a group, and they had moved with uncanny speed and grace. It had struck him as odd then, but the further he had gotten away from that incident the more he had forgotten about it. There was so much he should have questioned but hadn’t. If what Doc had said was right, then the honey in the diet was making them all docile and obedient to the Regina, open to her suggestions. That made sense, albeit the sick kind.
“Charm trick me, Ryan,” Jak said. “Got fix it.”
Ryan nodded. He understood how Jak felt. Where the rest of them had been taken in by the miracles around them, Jak had been specifically targeted by one of the Melissas, the so-called daughters of the Regina, and kept almost as an obedient puppy. It had to burn him up inside.
Doc reached into his frock coat and pulled out the blaster that J.B. had handed to him before they’d parted to attend to their separate tasks. It was Jak’s Colt Python, reloaded and oiled by J.B., the safety carefully set. “I foresee that you shall likely be requiring this,” Doc said.
Jak nodded, taking the blaster with an expression of glee.
“Keep that hidden, Jak,” Ryan reminded him. “You know the ville rules.”
Jak slipped the blaster into an inside pocket of his jacket, pressing at it so that the jacket’s folds hid the bulge. Once he was satisfied, he trotted a little faster to catch up with Ryan and Doc.
The gleaming white towers of Heaven Falls peeked over the tree line where they waited up ahead.
* * *
THE REDOUBT WAS eerily quiet after the sound of the shotgun blast. J.B. and Ricky moved swiftly, their weapons in hand, ready for an attack.
“Perhaps if we look around the upper levels we’ll find something that will blow up,” Ricky suggested. “That way we won’t need to mix it up with whoever’s down below.”
J.B. shook his head. “I admire your style, kid,” he said, “but it won’t work. We need to clear this place of bee people since it’s our escape route. We leave the Trai in here and they could seal the place up and then we’re screwed.”
“Couldn’t we walk out of the mountains?” Ricky asked.
“Far as I can see, this whole area got hit by missiles and quakes pretty hard,” J.B. told him. “Quakes probably came about because of the missiles shaking seven shades of piss out of the terrain. Net result is this here is a land island—there’s no way out unless you plan to grow wings.”
Ricky shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “These people have tried to make me mutie enough for one week.”
They started to descend a stairwell. As they got closer to the lowest level Ricky became a little more nervous, and J.B. worried that Ricky was going to do something rash and give their position away. He remembered his dream, and the way Ricky had almost got himself chilled out in California.
“Settle down, kid,” J.B. whispered as they neared the bottom of the stairwell. “Whatever happens now, trying to second-guess it will only get you chilled. We need to react and watch each other’s backs.”
Then they were at the door. Without any discussion, J.B. positioned himself on one side while Ricky held himself back, centering the door in the sights of his De Lisle. J.B. nodded to Ricky just once, then pulled the door open and shrank back. A figure moved through the doorway as it opened, dressed in white robes that danced around her lithe body like mist.
Ricky pulled the trigger on the De Lisle, sending a .45-caliber bullet at the Melissa. She moved faster than he could imagine, leaping up toward the next level of the staircase even as his blaster boomed. The shot whizzed through the air where she had been a nanosecond before.
Standing to the side of the door, J.B. moved, too, aiming his blaster at the fleeing target and sending a cacophonous explosion of buckshot at the fluttering white robes. His shot missed, too, and the Melissa seemed to slip behind the cover of the next level like a cloud passing the sun.
J.B.’s breath came out in an audible “Whumph!” as the Melissa swung around on the aged metal banister and kicked him high in the forehead.
The Armorer crashed backward, his hat flying from his head.
“J.B.!” Ricky shouted, whipping his blaster around for another shot.
“No, Ricky, the—” J.B. began.
Moving like lightning, the Melissa delivered a second kick, this time to J.B.’s jaw. It struck so hard that the Armorer’s teeth clacked together with an audible snap.
Ricky tried to take aim, but then he heard something behind him and realized what it was J.B. had been trying to warn him about. Behind him, framed in the open doorway of the stairwell, stood another Melissa. Adele. Before Ricky could switch targets, the dark-skinned Melissa was on him, her hand flattened into a wedge as it cut toward his throat.
Chapter Thirty
Ricky reeled backward at the strike, choking on his own breath as he tumbled against a wall.
Three of them! J.B. realized. One on the door and two down her
e. No, check that—at least two down here.
He was still recovering from the other’s attack. J.B. brought his shotgun around and squeezed the trigger without aiming, sending a brilliant burst of buckshot at Adele as she slipped into the stairwell after Ricky. He watched with grim satisfaction as the white-robed woman did a twisting dance on the spot, the buckshot slapping against her right side.
But Adele recovered with the swiftness of lightning, switching targets and pouncing at J.B. in the blink of an eye. The Melissas were bastard resilient, J.B. knew, but he didn’t have any other option; as she sped toward him, J.B. squeezed the trigger again, sending another lethal burst of fire at her.
The other Melissa was scrambling up the stairwell, feet swishing out, bounding from step to wall, clambering upward monkey fashion. Ricky was just recovering, and he brought his De Lisle carbine up to take a shot at the escaping woman. “I got her,” he choked, the words coming out rough where his throat had been struck.
J.B. was knocked back against the wall by Adele, and the M-4000 shotgun in his hands angled upward, pointing uselessly toward the ceiling as the woman attacked. The Armorer took a blow to the face, another, then heard something crack inside his nose. He ignored it. Adele moved in a blur, striking out at him from feet away, each blow precise and vicious, like being lashed with a whip. J.B.’s glasses slipped from his face as the woman struck another painful blow there, and the Armorer cried out in agony.
“Violators die by the Regina’s command.” Adele spit in his face. “Die, violator!”
“That’s not in the plan, girl,” J.B. snarled. As he spoke, he shifted his weight, thrusting his left leg out and hooking his foot behind the leg of his attacker as she continued toward him. Then he pulled his leg back quickly, and Adele lost balance as her foot was pulled out from under her.
The Melissa crashed backward, her skull striking the metal banister with a bell-like clang. J.B. stepped forward, raising the M-4000 and pointing it at the woman’s face as she struggled to recover. He pulled the trigger and Adele’s face was turned into a bloody ruin, her brains exploding out the back of her skull.
Ricky was at J.B.’s side, the tension clear on his face. “The other one got away,” he croaked. “We should go after her.”
“No,” J.B. advised as he plucked his glasses from the floor. “Krysty and Mildred are up there. They’ll stop her before she gets back to the ville.”
Ricky looked as if he would contradict that, clearly frustrated at letting the Melissa go.
“You have to learn to trust your friends, kid,” J.B. told him, wiping Adele’s blood from his glasses on his shirt before replacing them on his nose. “Loners don’t last long in this world.”
Ricky accepted J.B.’s advice with a nod.
Leaning down, J.B. snatched his hat from the floor. “Might be more Melissas out there,” he said, indicating the stairwell door. “We aren’t out of this yet.”
“I thought you didn’t want to chill anyone you didn’t have to,” Ricky said.
J.B. shrugged. “Sec men or women choose the life,” he said grimly. “They know the risks.”
Ricky reloaded his De Lisle.
* * *
MILDRED AND KRYSTY were waiting in the trees close to the redoubt when the Melissa appeared. They had rearmed themselves, Krysty with her Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, Mildred with her trusty Czech-made ZKR 551 target pistol. Even now it seemed strange going back to weapons after almost two weeks of tranquillity in Heaven Falls.
Mildred spotted the woman first, seeing the glint of her trailing white robes as she hurried through the garage-like area of the redoubt toward the pulled-back door. “Look alive,” she whispered to Krysty. “We’ve got company.”
The women watched as the Melissa exited the redoubt, moving at a sprint.
“No sign of J.B. or Ricky,” Mildred said, concerned.
Krysty watched the Trai woman hurrying up the slope that led from the redoubt entrance. “No time to worry about them now,” she whispered. “Melissa’s making a beeline for Heaven Falls.”
“Beeline,” Mildred muttered with a shake of her head.
Then Krysty and Mildred stepped out from cover, weapons raised as the dark-haired Melissa came sprinting almost straight toward them.
“Freeze!” Mildred shouted.
The Melissa changed direction, moving at a blur.
Mildred pulled the ZKR’s trigger, sending a .38 round at the sec woman. “Stop her,” she shouted to Krysty as she loosed the bullet.
Impossibly the Melissa weaved out of the bullet’s path, her white robes swirling around her like surf in a whirlpool. Mildred cursed as her shot went wide.
Krysty steadied her grip on her blaster and took a deep breath, one hand cupped beneath her wrist as she tracked the running woman in the white robes. Then, letting out her breath slowly, Krysty pulled the trigger and sent a single shot at the retreating woman as she sped past them, just twenty feet away. The bullet left the chamber and powered from the Smith & Wesson’s muzzle with a bang of propellant, the smell of cordite immediate in the air.
The Melissa reacted to the sound, bringing one hand up and—incredibly—batting the bullet aside as it drilled through the air toward her. There was a thunderclap of noise as her hand met the bullet, knocking it away before it could strike her.
Krysty and Mildred watched the display with incredulity. This woman had just swatted a bullet from the air, moving with such speed that it could not harm her.
“Holy...! Bees move fast, I guess,” Mildred said breathlessly. “We’ve got to—”
“On it!” Krysty said, running after the Melissa.
Krysty’s hair trailed behind her like a flame as she ran, chasing the white-robed woman. The Melissa moved incredibly fast, her arms pumping in a blur, long legs eating up the distance with every step. She was heading for the settlement, no doubt to raise the alarm. Krysty had to prevent that. If she didn’t, if the warning made it through, then Ryan, Doc and Jak would be in danger, either captured as they tried to enter the honey store or simply found guilty by association.
Krysty’s cowboy boots pounded the ground, the blaster clenched tightly in her fist as she dashed up the grassy incline. The Melissa was moving too fast; she would never catch up.
Still running, Krysty raised the blaster, steadying her breathing as she drew a bead on the fluttering white robes ahead as they weaved between the trees, sending a .158-grain lead slug up the hill toward the retreating figure. The shot missed, clipping a low-hanging tree branch in a shower of sawdust.
The Melissa reacted to the shot, however, spinning on her heel to see who was following.
Krysty shot again, sending another slug at the dark-haired woman as she spied her. The Melissa leaped, her right hand snapping out to slam against the trunk of the tree next to her, using the force of the blow to swing herself around and out of the path of the hurtling bullet.
Krysty continued sprinting, hurrying up the slope as the Melissa dropped back down to the ground and adopted a combat stance.
“Violator!” the Melissa said accusingly, flexing her fingers in readiness.
Krysty tossed her blaster aside as she approached. It was useless against her fast-moving foe, and she wanted both hands free for what she was about to do. As she ran, she chanted a familiar prayer. “Gaia, help me in my time of need. O, Earth Mother, hear my plea!”
It was like being struck by lightning, ten thousand volts racing through Krysty’s body in the blink of an eye. That was the Gaia power, drawn up from the earth and bringing the woman alive in a way no one else could ever know. She felt her muscles burning with energy, felt her strength increasing, the force inside her growing. Behind her, Krysty’s sentient hair crackled with energy, spreading out from her head in jagged tangles of fiery red, so bright that they seemed to glow in the sunlight.
Then Krysty was on the Melissa, powering at her like a charging bull. The Melissa leaped, vaulting over the woman, one hand slamming down against her
back. Krysty felt the blow—it was powerful and it seemed to echo through her rib cage—but she shrugged it off and changed direction, readying for her follow-up attack. The Gaia power made her almost invulnerable, and while it could not be tapped for long, while it flowed she felt invincible.
The Melissa landed in a billowing cloud of robes, turning in a superfast blur to face Krysty.
“Violator!” she repeated. “You betray the love of the Regina!”
Krysty charged once more, twisting her body to bring the crook of her right elbow around and slam it into the Melissa’s face. The sec woman responded with lightning quickness, blocking the blow with both hands and throwing Krysty off balance.
The redheaded beauty rolled away, bumping against the ground in a tight ball. The Melissa saw her advantage then and she pressed it, kicking one perfectly tanned leg at Krysty’s face as she recovered from the fall.
Krysty moved quicker, reaching out with her left hand and snagging the Melissa by the ankle as that bare foot rocketed toward her face. The movement was sudden, so sudden that the Melissa didn’t have time to counter. Her kicking leg stopped in place with such abruptness that she toppled over, falling forward and pushing all of her weight against her hip and knee joints where Krysty held her leg.
The Melissa shrieked, dropping to the ground.
Still holding the woman’s ankle, Krysty grabbed higher up the same leg with her other hand. Then she moved both her hands in a brutally swift use of counterforce, snapping the woman’s tibia and fibula bones with a hideous crack.
The Melissa shrieked again, not just from the pain but from surprise. She didn’t expect Krysty to match her move for move, countering her blinding speed with such incredible strength. Her speed came from imbibing the royal jelly, where all the Melissas got their power.
