“What happened here last night?” Bunker asked as he walked over to them, crunching concrete and glass along the way. He was even more heavily armed than when Keo first glimpsed him wandering around the lobby earlier.
Both the rancher and Lara had come fully prepared for a battle. Lara’s rifle was on the ground next to her bulky tactical pack that she was taking medical supplies out of. She wore a pistol on her right hip and carried a knife on her left.
“A blue-eyed ghoul happened,” Keo said.
“It did this?” Bunker asked
“We did, trying to blow it up.”
“‘We?’” Lara asked. “We only found you down here.”
“There were some slayers with me last night.”
“Explosion got them?” Bunker asked.
It got Felix, but Huston was already gone, Keo thought, but he didn’t think those details were important right now, so he only said, “Yeah.”
The rancher put his hands on his hips and glanced around at the lobby. “Well, I hope whoever owns this place has insurance.”
“Did you find it?” Keo asked.
“Find what?”
“The blue eyes.”
Bunker shook his head. “I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking for one.” He took off his Stetson and fanned himself, though that only scattered the dust in the air around them more. “Found a few of the suckers still underneath all the damage, but nothing that looked like a blue eyes.”
Keo glanced up at the half domed-shaped crater that Felix’s explosion had gutted out from the rest of the upper floor. It almost looked as if a giant shark had taken a bite.
“Hey, Keo, time to make the donuts!”
Felix’s last words, even as he was grinning like a madman.
“It was up there when the explosion went off,” Keo said.
“We didn’t go up there yet,” Lara said. “It didn’t seem as important as making sure you were alive.”
“What was the explosion?” Bunker asked.
“A block of C4,” Keo said.
“That’ll do it.” He turned and walked toward the escalator. “I’ll check, just in case. Better safe than sorry when it comes to those suckers.”
“Yeah, you do that, Bunker.”
“Hey, look at me,” Lara said. When he turned to her, she continued cleaning his face. “How are you feeling?”
“Worse than shit, remember?”
“But you’re alive.”
“I am alive, yes.”
Thanks to Felix and Huston.
“That’s all that matters,” Lara said. “We’ll be fine. Whatever happens, we’ll be fine.”
He nodded and returned her smile, because she was right. As long as he was still alive, they would be fine. As long as he had her…
He put his hand on her belly again. “Did you name it yet?”
“Of course not,” Lara said. “I told you I’d wait until you came home. Why? Did you think up a name while you were running around out here having fun without me?”
“What about Felix?”
“Who’s Felix?”
“The guy that saved my life last night.”
“Oh,” Lara said. She sat back and seemed to think about it for a moment.
“It can be another name,” Keo said. “I’m not married to the idea.”
Lara shook her head. “No. Felix doesn’t sound too bad. It’s different enough, in a good way. But what if it’s a girl?”
“How about Huston?”
“The city?”
“The director.”
“John Huston. H-u-s-t-o-n.”
“That’s him.”
Lara smiled. “I like that one, too.”
“Good,” Keo said.
They exchanged a smile.
Lara went back to cleaning him as Keo looked up and over at Bunker. The rancher was climbing up the escalator, which had been spared most of the explosion, but there was apparently debris on the steps that Bunker had to navigate around.
The blue-eyed ghoul’s body was up there, somewhere. Keo wouldn’t feel good about last night—or the nights that would come after this one—until Bunker found the fucker’s bones bleaching in the morning sunlight.
“It couldn’t have survived last night,” Lara said when she saw where he was looking. “Even the blue-eyed ones aren’t invulnerable.”
“But they can heal fast,” Keo said.
“Against what took out most of the second floor?” Lara shook her head. “It’s dead, Keo. Everything’s okay now. You can relax.”
Keo nodded, even as the blue-eyed ghoul’s last words echoed inside his head:
“What do you say, meat sack? Should I make you one of mine? This game of ours has run its course, don’t you think? Maybe I should take you along with me, as I descend on this ranch of yours.”
Keo hoped that Lara was right, that it was dead, because as long as it was out there, they weren’t safe.
Not him, not Lara, and not the child growing inside her.
“Everything’s okay now,” Lara said. She held his head gently between her hands and stared lovingly down at him. “We’ll go home. You’ll heal. And one day, not too far from now, either Felix or Huston will join us. How does that sound to you?”
Keo grinned up at her. “That’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”
Epilogue
After the humans left, taking away the stink of their sweat and their loud, inane chatter with them, his children came.
She led them.
There were just a handful of his children, but soon there would be more. He would rise again, like a phoenix from the ashes. He imagined it all in his head, and it was glorious. Most of all, it would be fun.
She caressed his damaged flesh as the others pulled him out of his prison. He was a mangled version of what he used to be, but it wouldn’t last. All he needed to heal was time.
“Father,” she whispered. Her lips didn’t move, and her voice was like a second heartbeat inside his mind. “Father, you’re hurt. You’re hurt so bad.”
“I’ll heal,” he whispered back in the same way. “All I need is time.”
“They did this. The humans.”
“Yes.”
“They’ll pay.”
“In time. Time is on our side.”
“Yes…”
“We’ll make more children first.”
“Make more children,” she repeated, with just a ghost of a smile on her lips. Her face, a darker shade than her original form, blushed against the moonlight.
The children crowded around them. Anxious. Their voices echoed in his head, longing for his love.
“Soon, children,” he cooed to them, sending his words through the hive and into their minds. Their small, simple minds. “Soon.”
“The ranch,” she whispered inside his mind. “They’re at the ranch, Father.”
“Yes,” he said. “The ranch. The ranch…”
More From The Road to Babylon…
Keo, Lara, and Bunker will return in…
The Ranch
(Coming Soon)
Road to Babylon (Book 8): Daybreak Page 26
