Gaia's Brood

by Nick Travers

  Chapter 41

  Jack McGraw reaches in quickly and snatches away Borker’s compression pistol. “Alive Lieutenant. Our orders are to bring her back alive.

  “Your orders,” Borker growls, but he lowers the pistol anyway and turns away.

  Jack smiles, nervously licking his lips. I raise a questioning eyebrow at him, but he just shrugs. Does that mean he doesn’t know what is happening or he doesn’t care? I’m safe from Borker as long as Jack is there to protect me. But what happens when Borker gets me alone?

  Eventually, Borker tires of baiting. “Come on McGraw, we got repairs to complete.” The two of them wander off leaving us tied to chairs in the chapel and just two constables inside the Chapel to guard us—I guess there must be more outside.

  “Now what?” Izzy asks.

  “We wait.”

  “Quiet there,” a guard demands.

  The Priestess whimpers from her dark alcove so I turn my attention to her. “What did they offer you to betray your god?”

  “Forgive me—I didn’t know. They said you were an outlaw and were coming with a band of desperadoes to take our village. I didn’t think it would be you.” At least she hasn’t taken my protests to heart—she still thinks I am Gaia.

  “Right, that’s it—I told you to be quiet.” One of the guards stalks over to me and pulls a dirty rag out of a pocket.

  The Priestess’ face turns ashen at the thought of more violence against her god. “What must I do?”

  “Get out of here, before I tie you up too,” the guard growls.

  “Wait for a sign,” I shout as the Priestess scrambles out an entrance hidden behind the painting. “And mm m mmmm.” The guard stuffs the dirty rag into my mouth to gag me and secures it with another length of cloth. The gag tastes of stale biofuel.

  “A sign? What sort of dumb advice is that?” Izzy scoffs.

  “Quiet or I’ll gag you too.”

  Scud is still studying the painting of Leanne. He’s under stress so I guess he’s counting something. “Good advice,” he mutters so quietly I barely hear him, “very good advice.”

  I try to loosen the bindings at my wrists, but they are tied too tight. I will just have to follow my own advice and wait.

  Before long, there is a disturbance from outside and some distant shouting. Both constables move to the main doors. I check over my shoulder to ensure they have exited the building before starting to hop my chair in a circle until the back of my chair is facing the back of Izzy’s chair. We both try to undo the rope bindings at the same time, but just succeed in getting in each other’s way.

  “You go first,” Izzy instructs.

  But I can’t move my hands and cannot get a proper purchase on the knots. “Mm mmm mnn mm,” I say through the gag.

  “I’m hoping you said, ‘You have a go,’ Izzy says, fumbling with the knots, but she is no more successful than me.

  We are running out of time. Suddenly, the Priestess makes a reappears. “Is this the sign?” she asks pathetically.

  “Just get that Krys-knife and cut us free,” Izzy snaps, “before we bring the wrath of Gaia down on you.”

  The promised wrath seems to galvanize the old lady into action. She hooks down the Krys-knife from the statue and carefully cuts through the bindings to free my hands and feet.

  I rip off the gag and snatch the knife out of her hand. Quickly, I free Izzy and Scud before turning back to the Priestess. “Thank you. Now if you can get us out of here, I guarantee no more tributes.”

  “Nina, we can—” Scud begins.

  “Not now, Scud—”

  “Oi, what you doing?” One guard returns and runs towards us waving a compression pistol.

  Izzy must think the same way as me, because two wooden chairs simultaneously crash into the guard. The guard is knocked off his feet and the pistol skitters across the floor, and out of his reach. Izzy and I throw ourselves on top of the guard as he moves to retrieve the gun. As the constable takes a swing at Izzy, I roll off and retrieve the pistol.

  “Stop!”

  The constable looks up, sees me with a pistol and razes his hands. I gesture to Izzy and Scud, who is also now free. “Secure him and gag him. We don’t want him calling out.”

  The Priestess leads us out the back of the chapel. Round the front, the Shonti Bloom has descended quietly from the skies into the village green, as planned. Trent and Fernando, using crossbows, have already taken out six constables—I doubt if any of them saw or heard it coming. I note with pleasure that one of the comatose bodies is that of Lieutenant Borker. Where is McGraw?

  The Shonti lifts off out of range again, leaving Trent prone on the floor trying to finish off the remaining constables with my Whisper. The final guard from the chapel is sheltered behind the front corner of the building trying to get a good angle on Scud.

  Removing this one is easy: I calmly walk up behind the guard and place the pistol against his head. Immediately, he freezes and drops his compression rifle.

  Trent gives me a covert thumbs up from his hiding place, then raises one finger and points across the plaza. A final constable is sheltering behind a group of rocks on the edge of the plaza and she has Trent pinned down with shots from a compression rifle. This will be difficult.

  I could climb onto the roof of the building and try to get a down-shot, but that will take time and Trent doesn’t have time—nor do we, because the disturbance will attract more constables. This calls for a bold approach.

  Izzy has the captured guard trussed up and gagged.

  “Strip him,” I order.

  A great majority of what we think we see is constructed within our minds, so we tend to see what we expect to see.

  In this case, the beleaguered constable expects to see a uniformed colleague doubled up and running towards her with a compression riffle. She sees what she expects to see; otherwise she would have taken a clean shot at me.

  I skid into the dirt behind the rocks, and jam the riffle into the constable’s ribs. “Drop it!”

  Slowly, the constable lowers her own rifle to the ground. Then, in a blur of movement she leaps into a crouch, knocks my gun aside, and thumps me on the left shoulder. My body goes into shock.

  I try to get a handle on what is happening, but my mind has become detached from my senses. I can no longer feel anything—it’s like I’m watching a film of someone else. The constable stares at me open mouthed, shock written across her pretty face: a crossbow bolt protrudes from the hand she raised to me. She keels over, a frown of incomprehension creasing her face. Her staring eyes are hazelnut brown.

  I look down and see a similar crossbow shaft buried in my left shoulder. As my vision darkens around the edges and my body slumps, only one thought enters my mind.

  Trent has shot me with my own weapon.