by James Axler
Every so often, Kane would drop onto his butt and slide on the loose pine needles and mixed leaves of the forest floor. The wet, slippery surface was just about perfect for Kane to continue his trek with minimal wear and tear on his slowly recovering limbs. As of now, though, Kane was pleased that he could move his arms without severe discomfort. He still hurt, the ache wrapping him in a blanket that served to keep him awake and alert for enemies.
He had descended at least two thousand yards over the past fifteen minutes, and found an outcropping that looked as if it would give him a good view of the valley. Kane descended and crawled on his belly to the lip in order to minimize his profile. Peering over, he saw that hundreds of tree trunks stuck through the bulk of the landslide like shattered teeth through mashed lips.
Two craters had been torn out of the floor of the valley. They were massive depressions, going by the estimation of the size of the tree trunks poking from the soil. He frowned at the sight of a Fomorian who bounded around on all fours, his arms slightly longer than his legs as he galloped to this task and the next. Kane wondered if the scale he’d applied to the scene was correct when his gaze fell upon two figures, one a tall and magnificent humanoid with long, flowing golden hair, and a small, dark-haired woman. Both of their skins had a bronze tint to them, but Kane could tell that the woman’s coloration came from sun and wind burning her face from life atop the mountains. As for the other, his hue was born of something unnatural. He gleamed oddly as the last rays of the day struck his skin. It was as if he truly were metallic-skinned, the glint of sunlight burning like fire on the highlights of his flesh.
“Bres,” Kane whispered, sudden and ancient recognition settling in as he gazed upon the figure who had been torn from a jump dream, a glimpse of an ancient past recast whole. Kane’s visual estimate of the man’s height was dead on, because Bres truly was fully seven feet in height. The godling standing in the valley was virtually unchanged since an earlier warrior, fighting in the cause of Lugh, had seen the unholy prince of the Fomorians on the battlefields.
Kane’s eyesight focused on the woman, and though he didn’t have binoculars, nor the optical enhancements of his shadow suit, he recognized her, as well—Granny Epona, being exactly where she shouldn’t have been, her wrists bound together by heavy rope, her shoulders stooped from the weight of the bindings. Jet-black hair fluttered in the breeze that turned Bres’s golden hair into a living flame that flickered.
There was no way that the witch should have been down there, not when it had taken Kane this long to reach the bottom of the valley. The woman who had greeted them with the scouts had to have been someone, or something, different. A dread sickness filled his gut as he wondered if perhaps the scouts who had accompanied her were similar abominations, recrafted Fomorians cast into the skins of the Appalachians. If that was the circumstance, then he wondered if Grant and Brigid had been allowed to escape back to Cerberus.
“They’re fine,” he said aloud to reassure himself. “As fine as could be with an impostor posing as me in their ranks.”
Kane slid back along the outcropping, moving slowly so as not to draw attention from the valley below. There were about ten Fomorians, not counting Bres and the apelike monster galloping around on his knuckles and feet. The Fomorians and their titanic kinfolk had applied their strength to hacking at a section of mountain while Bres watched over the captive woman. He was outnumbered twelve to one, and from the looks of things, the mutations were busy digging more of their brothers out of the mountainside. The odds could double or triple, and the only things that Kane had with him were his wits and skill. He’d been rendered almost crippled fighting two of those Fomorian hunters one at a time. The current odds, for want of a better term, sucked.
Kane pushed his worries aside. They would be a good guide to keep him aware of what would happen if he failed, but he had to move past envisioning failure and formulate a plan of action that didn’t entail one-on-one combat with a twelve-foot, one-eyed gorilla. Of course, with everything buried beneath tons of rock and shattered tree trunks, Kane was not going to have any luck finding a rifle to even the odds.
He closed his eyes, wincing at the thought of having to go bare-handed against anything down there, especially with his limbs aching from fatigue. He ran his thoughts over the possibilities and focused on the idea of sharpening a branch with a flat rock, or perhaps splitting one end and tying a particularly sharpened simple spearhead in place. Stone would penetrate at least one Fomorian hide easily, but that meant leading at least a couple in pursuit. If he could pounce on one of the mutated hunters and take him down with a well-placed thrust, he’d get hold of a rifle and spare ammunition. Considering how the beasts had gone after a bear while wearing only a loincloth and carrying a simple hand ax each, the chances of getting more than a full magazine would be spotty.
Something mewled in the distance, making Kane open his eyes. Just what he needed while formulating his line of attack on Bres, an interruption by…what?
Kane squinted, and he caught a glimpse of movement. It sure as hell wasn’t a Fomorian hunter stalking the woods for survivors. It was too small, too wiry and too quick.
Kane rarely saw feral cats in the wilderness, and those that he spotted were mostly blurs of motion, running away from him if they detected his human presence in their territory. Felines had long ago lost much of their trust and curiosity in regards to humankind. Sure, there were a few pets within villes or various other societies, but that was only due to an abundance of food and a surplus of time for their owners to pay attention to them. Elsewhere, the cats had reverted to their wild ways, being hunters of the small, and avoiding anything that was too big to get involved with.
So, in a day that had been filled with amazing sights and sensations, the approach of a brown, snaggle-toothed old warrior cat, staring at him with sharp, intelligent green eyes, proved to be most mystifying to Kane. The lean and spry creature advanced on Kane with an almost regal air. He was able to sense the ancient leonine majesty that was still prevalent in the feline’s genes.
“Shoo,” Kane whispered, waving at the thing. The cat ignored his warning dismissal, choosing instead to seat itself, staring at him. Kane grit his teeth at the little beast, but rather than be impressed, the cat released a bored snort.
Kane had the instinct to kick a clot of dirt at the wild creature, but those piercing emerald eyes peered deep into him, something tugging at his mind, stopping his kick. The cat’s expression bespoke a familiar intellect, a friendly face. Epona sprang immediately to mind, and Kane couldn’t help but notice the subtle rustle of thoughts echoing in the back of his subconscious mind, the sensations reminiscent of his telepathic rapport with Balam, the last Archon.
“Balam never required an intermediary to tell me what he thought,” Kane said aloud to the cat, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t carry.
The cat’s head tilted in response to the statement. Those almost human eyes never wavered from his own as the feline padded toward him, eventually making a gentle hop into Kane’s lap. Instincts guided Kane’s hand to the back of the cat’s head, fingers scratching behind the animal’s ears. “Makes sense. Not only have witches been known to communicate with their familiars, but Morrigan was able to see through the eyes of her raven messengers. That was also a gift shared by Apollo and Odin, two other gods whose chosen animal was the raven.”
Kane winced as he felt the influence of Brigid Baptiste. Without her present, Kane had fallen into the role of lecturer as he wrapped his mind around the concept of intraspecies telepathic communication. All of this was known to him simply because he had gone back and done research on Morrigan, a familiar figure from one of Kane’s jump dreams, a person whom he had met in an earlier life, according to Fand. As Kane researched the bits of that past existence as Cuchulainn, he was able to explore the myths of the Tuatha and other European gods. Given that the Annunaki lord Marduk had confirmed that he had been Zeus in Greece, then it was no surprise that the “po
wers” of many of the gods were repeated, such as the powers of remote viewing and communication through animal forms. Marduk had required a bit of Annunaki technology to broadcast his thoughts, utilizing cloned tissues as his transmitter. Epona’s ability to do the same thing with simpler central nervous systems seemed as reasonable as the sun rising and setting. The weird thing was that Kane hadn’t even remembered reading about this until Epona made contact with Kane through the feline.
Kane tenderly put a knuckle under the cat’s chin. “I know you want me to continue scratching, old boy, but what does your granny witch want from me?”
A feint mew was Kane’s undecipherable answer, but given how easily Epona had planted the idea of the cat being her representative in Kane’s mind, her need for communication had faded for now. That, or she was being grilled by Bres, forced to search for him via her granny witch powers. Kane thought back to Bres, looming over the woman, and tried to decipher the order of events and the reasoning behind this particular contact. The cat could have been one of hundreds of animals that still survived on the mountainside in the wake of the avalanche, and Epona was legitimately searching for Kane in order to appease the irate Bres. It was unlikely that the animals were sent in search of trapped or injured Fomorians as Kane had seen the uninjured mutants digging at the slope, trying to penetrate into collapsed caves for their brethren.
That only left Bres looking for the Kane that the Thrush doppelganger had left behind on the mountain. It was logical that Bres wanted to catch up with Kane, most likely as a means of evening the score with whoever had unleashed the landslide on Bres’s settlement of mutants. Whether that meant that Bres wanted to utilize Kane as an ally or pulverize the creature that Thrush wanted protected and out of the way was the question that weighed on Kane’s mind. The answer to that would determine how roughly the Fomorian would treat him, should Epona direct the hunters toward him via her psychic link with the animals of the forest. The cat didn’t move, so it hadn’t been summoned away by Epona, which didn’t mean anything in itself. Still, the emotional bonding that had been projected through the animal informed Kane that Epona felt what her familiars experienced. If danger was en route to this spot, Epona would have dismissed the cat, rather than suffer its agonies at the claws of the savage mutations. As well, Kane’s own perceptions were as sharp as ever, and he had no indication of danger looming, not even with his almost supernatural point man’s sense. Rather, Kane was in a place of calm, the lounging cat exuding soothing, almost healing vibrations.
It was then that Kane’s mind wandered for a moment, reexamining the moment that the bear had lurched into view. Though it had swatted him in the head, a single claw carving open his forehead, Kane now realized that the blow had not been intended to decapitate him as he originally thought. The limb that had been wounded had been harmed in the process of the bear lunging to protect Kane, not beforehand. The whole thing now stank of deus ex machina.
Kane looked into the cat’s eyes and spoke clearly. “That was you with the bear, as well, wasn’t it, Epona?”
A gentle paw reached out to rest on Kane’s chin. There was a sudden, deep pang of regret in Kane’s heart, a sadness that enveloped him as he caught the emotion in the cat’s eyes. Epona was mourning over her ursine pawn. It could have been projection, but Kane also felt regret at the loss of the magnificent animal to the brutal fists of the Fomorians. At least Kane had managed to avenge his rescuer.
There was a brief flicker in the cat’s eyes, and its raspy tongue brushed across Kane’s bristly chin. The thanks of a witch for an act of justice against a murderer.
“So, is this a trap?” Kane asked the cat, feeling a slight bit silly. When the cat put its paw over his lips, the silliness disappeared. This was genuine conversation. It wasn’t the mind-speech that he’d shared with Balam, though; it was more a transmission of ideas, sort of like classical music scores without accompanying operatic verses to make sense of things. Concepts were transmitted through nonverbal interpretation. For a moment, Kane felt the urge to bury himself under some foliage to hide from the Fomorians. It wasn’t a precise exchange of thoughts, but the implication was clear. Epona wanted Kane to remain in hiding, and any efforts she made to assist Bres were only obfuscation.
Kane racked his mind to come up with a term for the process by which Epona had kept in touch with him through the cat’s mind, and he went back to a term Brigid Baptiste had encountered in the Fortean Times, a journal of unusual phenomena that stretched from alien life to odd zoological specimens. Brigid was able to supply Kane with a lot of background information on creatures he’d encountered and odd places he’d been to. The term that Kane cast about for finally came to mind: telempathy, long-distance emotional communication.
Epona’s Tuatha lineage and skills made her brain quite powerful, but not on the scale that Balam’s oversized cranium allowed for. Kane doubted that humans had developed enough conscious complexity of thought to duplicate some of the extraordinary feats the First Folk had been capable of on so casual a basis. Epona probably looked as if she were pushing an invisible ten-ton weight from the effort expended to keep in touch with Kane. Her advantage was that Bres expected that kind of exertion when Epona sought out Kane on the mountainside.
Kane still had to admire Epona’s ability, however. She’d shown the capacity to manipulate animals and use them as intermediaries for long-distance communication. The cat, as if sensing Kane’s appreciation, licked his cheek again. The warm and gentle rasp of the feline’s tongue had an emotional substitute, not the adulation of an animal but the chaste touch of Epona’s lips conveying a silent thanks.
“Trouble is,” Kane spoke up softly, “I have to get back home. How the hell is a cat going to help me against an army of Fomorians?”
The cat’s eyes flashed, and it swung its gaze down the mountainside. Kane followed the direction of those sharp, humanlike orbs to a spurt of activity among Bres’s mutants. Most of the Fomorians were still busy digging their brethren out of the caves, but a few of them had broken off from the group and were directed to a small group of crates that had been torn out of the dirt by the gigantic, gorrillalike monstrosity. Kane squinted, concentrating on the creatures as they took long black objects from the crates.
“A hunting party, for me,” Kane muttered.
A repeat of the urge to hide was transmitted by the cat, but this time Kane knew it wasn’t his own instincts being spurred. It was simply a message. He glanced toward Epona, and saw Bres wrap his hand around her chin.
That wasn’t an act of affection. It was menace, pure and simple. From the gore spattered all over Bres’s clothing, he had to have suffered serious wounds, and yet his body looked hale and healthy at this distance. Given that he could remold the Fomorians into strong, inhuman beasts, Kane didn’t doubt that Bres had the ability to craft flesh with a whim, including rebuilding his own when subjected to horrendous injury. It would be a tough fight, if and when Kane got to it.
Kane returned his attention to the Fomorian hunters as they armed themselves. They seemed adept with the weaponry, even the single-handed creatures. He couldn’t distinguish the make of the rifles from this distance, but they couldn’t have been the big booming rifles like Grant and the Appalachian mountain scouts had required. Kane didn’t think that they’d need that kind of punch against mere humans, on reflection, but rapid fire put them in a league past the hapless mountaineers who were limited to bolt-action designs.
Would Thrush have given these beings weapons they could use to harm each other?
A dull note of dread struck Kane in the stomach as he knew that no agent of Thrush, no matter how willing to serve the collective, would be harmed by a weapon it had given out freely. Kane took a deep breath as he realized that small arms were not going to carry the fight against the doppelganger who had taken his place.
“One thing at a time,” he told himself, his mood grim. As the sun disappeared behind the western mountaintops, Kane knew that he had to get som
e more clothing, as well as a means to even the odds against the deformed creatures who had assembled a hunting party for him.
He watched as the shadow of a peak loomed across Epona and her captor.
Kane had two lives to protect now.
“Come on, cat,” Kane whispered. “Let’s go rescue your granny.”
A faint mew was his answer, and the pair stalked off like panthers on the hunt.
Chapter 13
The touch of Bres’s fingertips on her chin made Epona’s skin tingle. Whatever power resided in this near-immortal golden being, a mere caress transferred the depth of the power she was dealing with. It was no surprise to the granny witch. He laid hands upon outcasts and rebuilt them as he saw fit, pulling horrors from the depths of their being and placing them on the surface. Bres lowered his hand from her face, and Epona’s head swum as if she’d just been unplugged.
“Don’t disappoint me, witch,” Bres said, his voice icy. “I will make hell seem like a release if you do.”
Epona shook her head. “I’m searching for Kane.”
Which was a lie, of course. She’d locked on to him almost immediately, familiar with his emotional signature. It took her a few moments to find a mammal or a bird in the vicinity that hadn’t been frightened off to the high hills by the avalanche and make contact with him, but finding him had been easy. Bres didn’t need to know that, however. The strain that brought out the wrinkles in her forehead could as easily be scouring the mountainside as the exertion needed to send through messages to the lone Cerberus explorer.
Still, Epona knew that she was playing a dangerous game. She’d watched Bres take one of the Fomorian womenfolk and recarve her into an exact duplicate of Epona. That, plus the tingle of his touch on her unmutated skin, added up to the simple fact that she had to look as if she was making progress.
