by rebel4477
“You’re going back out?” Jenny said. “You just got here.”
“I have a lot to do. I just wanted to see you.” Blade kissed her on the cheek.
Standing, the creature smoothed the flesh that resembled her dress. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
Blade opened the door. “After you, young lady.”
Performing a curtsey, the creature walked out and let him usher her along. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything you want.”
“Which Warrior are you closest to?”
“I know all of them really well,” Blade said.
“But which of them do you like the most?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Everyone has someone they like more than anyone else.”
“Jenny and Gabe are the two I care for most in this world. Plato comes a close second. As for the Warriors, Hickok and Geronimo have been my best friends since we were Gabe’s age. They’re like brothers.”
“So it would be one of them?”
“Both,” Blade said. “I don’t like one more than the other.”
A woman came toward them, a woman the creature had not talked to before.
Blade stopped. “Clarice? Is everything all right?”
“No,” the woman said. “I had another vivid dream last night. It was horrible. In it the Home was destroyed and all of the Family were slain.”
“How?”
“That’s what I don’t quite understand,” Clarice said. “In my dream the sky was filled with a white light that set the Home on fire.”
The creature suppressed its consternation. “How can a light cause fire?” it asked.
Clarice smiled. “Where are my manners. I’m Clarice, and I know who you are, Mary.” She added as she held out her hand, “I’m an Empath.”
The creature held out its own.
As Clarice shook, her smiled died and she looked at the creature’s hand with a puzzled expression.
“Have you told Plato?” Blade asked.
Clarice nodded. “He said I should come tell you. He’s extremely concerned.”
“So am I.”
“I’m sorry to add to your worries.” Clarice clasped her hands in front of her. “I have to get back. If I have another dream or pick up any impressions, I’ll be sure to let you know.” She smiled at the creature and headed for the Blocks, her brow knit in contemplation.
Blade continued on, saying, “So you were asking which Warrior I like the most?”
“That’s not important anymore,” the creature said, staring after Clarice.
CHAPTER 11
The creature lay on the couch in Bertha’s and Sundance’s cabin, a blanket pulled to its chin and its eyes shut, shamming sleep.
It was beginning to see why the Family had proven so troublesome to its masters.
Those it served had tried for some time to destroy the Freedom Federation and been thwarted time and again by the Family’s surprising resilience.
Now it had an Empath to deal with, of all things. Few humans recognized their empathic potential, let alone tapped into that part of their nature.
Its experience had been that humans were shallow little apes, so caught up in their petty desires that they seldom delved into the deeper realities of their existence. Clouds of delusion and illusion befogged their infantile minds.
Leave it to the Family to be different. Leave it to them to tap into the substance underlying the shadows.
This new threat could expose it. It must deal with the Empath without delay.
The creature reached out with all its senses. Bertha’s breathing assured it that Bertha was asleep. Sundance was on duty with his Triad.
Casting the blanket off, it rose and crept to the door. The latch scraped as the door opened but not loud enough to wake Bertha. Slipping outside, it quietly closed the door behind it.
Once more the creature strained its senses. Warriors were on the walls. Others roved the compound, seeking to prevent a recurrence of the night before.
Fools, the creature thought. As if they stood any chance of keeping it from having its revenge.
Closing its eyes, it willed the change to take place. It reveled in becoming itself again, in its size and its strength in its sinews.
Finished, it flowed toward the Blocks. At supper it had asked Bertha about Clarice, saying that it met her and how nice Clarice was. It had casually asked if Clarice was married and had a family and Bertha answered that no, Clarice was single and lived in what the Family called the dorm, or B Block.
A Warrior was on the north wall but he was too far away to spot movement. It could see him, though. Shane, the young Warrior who idolized Hickok and had taken the name of another gunfighter in a book by that name. It reminded the creature of Achilles, the Warrior it had eaten. His name came from a book, too: The Iliad.
As the creature understood it , every Family member underwent a special ceremony when they turned sixteen. The Naming, they called it. They were allowed to pick who they would be known by from that day on. Apparently they were encouraged to choose a name from human history, or, as in the case of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, human literature.
The practice had seemed silly until Bertha explained that it was the Family’s way of connecting to their roots. The creature could respect that. Its own kind revered their lineage.
Ahead reared the immense Blocks. They formed a giant triangle and were designated by letters of the alphabet, from A Block on around to F. B Block was nearest the drawbridge.
Suddenly it heard footsteps.
Going prone, the creature spied a Warrior in the open area between the Blocks. He was coming in its direction.
The creature couldn’t move without him spotting it. And if it stayed where it was, he’d practically step on it.
Rimming its razor teeth with the tip of its tongue, the creature tensed. It would have to be quick. And no feasting. Not if it was to do the Empath, too.
By human standards the Warrior was deadly. He was reputed to be uncommonly quick. He had a rifle in his left hand, an old Winchester, the barrel on his shoulder, and pistols in shoulder holsters under each arm.
The craving came over it but the creature willed the hunger away.
It missed having a feeding schedule. In Bangkok humans were served as food as regular as clockwork to help keep its hormones stable.
The Warrior pushed his hat back on his head, and yawned.
The creature willed a partial change, just its skin, transforming so it appeared to be part of the grass. As the humans liked to say, this Warrior would be candy.
When he was almost on top of it, the creature sprang . His hand flashed to a shoulder holster and he had a pistol out when the creature drove its claws into his chest, up under his sternum. Wrapping its fingers around his heart, it tore the still beating organ from his body.
The Warrior died on his feet wearing a look of disbelief and astonishment.
The creature raised the heart to its nostrils and inhaled. How it loved the smell. Unable to resist, it bit the heart in half and chewed, savoring the sweet taste. It quickly finished the rest, then seized the dead Warrior and raised him off the ground. It must hide the body.
Then it would deal with the Empath.
CHAPTER 12
Clarice tossed and turned on her small bed in the women’s quarters in B Block. A malevolent fog filled her mind and she couldn’t dispel it.
Throwing off her blanket, Clarice rose. By the wind-up clock on the table beside her cot, it was almost time. She pulled a robe on over the striped pajamas she liked to wear and put on her sandals. She had thought about keeping her clothes on but that might seem suspicious. Everything must appear to be natural or she might give it away.
Silently so as not to wake the others, Clarice went down the long aisle to the stairs and up them to the door. She quietly threw the bolts and had to use both hands to pull the heavy reinforced doo
r open.
Cool night air washed over her. She smiled and gazed at the few stars. She would have loved to see the night sky before the Big Blast, when the Family records made it clear an untold number always sparkled overhead. Stars reminded her of the vastness of it all.
The fog in her head worsened.
Clarice experienced a wave of fear, fear so potent she tasted it. Steeling herself, she walked toward the moat. Fear was an emotion and emotions could be controlled. She’d spent her whole life honing her mind so that she controlled them and they didn’t control her. Emotions interfered with her gift. They distorted and warped her ability to perceive psychic impressions. For them to be vivid, she must empty herself of everything else.
But by the Spirit, she was afraid . She looked around and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. That should reassure her but it didn’t.
Clarice walked to the bank and stood where she was supposed to stand. Normally the watery whispers of the moat would have a soothing effect but the moat had yet to be refilled after being drained.
Clarice breathed deep to steady her nerves. She was the youngest of the Empaths and had a lot to learn yet. Foremost, she must trust in herself, in her ability. Doubt, too, clouded her inner sight.
The fog in her head was so strong, it threatened to engulf her. She forced her mouth to move, to say, “I know you’re here. I know you’ve come for me.”
Save for the whisper of the wind the night stayed silent.
“Afraid to speak?” Clarice asked. “It’s just you and me.” She realized that was a mistake and quickly added, “But then, given your craven attack on Achilles, I’d expect no less.”
Off to her left something rustled.
Clarice turned. A small blue spruce seemed to have detached itself from the ground, and reared. As she stared, it shifted and assumed what she took to be its true form. Over eight feet tall, it had a reptilian cast. “Ah,” she said. “A shapeshifter.”
“You say that as if you expected it,” the thing said in a low, sibilant voice.
“Not me ,” Clarice said. “I haven’t been out in the world as some of the others have.” That was a mistake, too, and she covered her blunder by saying, “I feel impressions, not specifics.”
“That you feel anything is remarkable,” the thing said. “Most of your kind are dullards.”
“What about your kind?” Clarice said. “May I ask what you call yourselves?”
“We are the Gualaon,” the thing said with pride.
“I’ve never heard of you.”
“Humans from many cultures have had many names for us,” the Gualaon said. “Were-this and were-that. Skin-walkers. Huli jing. Kitsune. Metamorphs. Mimics. Gualaon is our name for ourselves, not one of those bestowed on us by you primates.”
“A revealing term,” Clarice said, forcing herself to stay calm. “Is that all we are to you? Apes?”
“Humans are food. That’s all humans have ever been, all they will ever be.”
“Surely we can co-exist? Isn’t it better to be friends than enemies?”
The thing’s mouth curled in scorn. “If you only knew how pathetic you sound. To our kind you are no different than cattle were to yours before World War Three. Or poultry, for that matter.” The thing flexed its long fingers and clicked its claws.
“You intend to eat me?”
“Would that I could,” the thing said. “But no, I will slay you and be done with it. The only reason I haven’t already is that your ability intrigues me.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Of course.”
When the thing didn’t go on, Clarice said, “But you’re not going to tell me? Very well. Will you answer one last question before you do what you must and I do what I must?”
“What can you do?” the thing taunted. “But yes, ask your question.”
“Why are you here? You must have come far to reach us. Why the Home? Why the Family?”
“To paraphrase a trousered ape of some meager intellect, the world is our oyster and the Family is in our way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nor will you live long enough to,” the thing said, and bared its teeth. “You can scream if you want. I like the sound of fear. It is music to me. It won’t matter if anyone hears. I’ll kill you and be gone before they come.
“No,” Clarice said, “you won’t.”
The thing tilted its head. “Clutching at straws, are we, as your kind would say?”
“Three straws,” Clarice said. “I don’t like to be a party to the taking of life but I knew you were going to try to kill me. I sensed it, and I told him.”
“Told who?”
“He suspected the truth. He’s encountered your kind before and he asked me to lure you here.”
“Who?” the thing demanded.
“He said that your kind can see and smell better than we can,” Clarice said, “but you can’t see or smell through dirt.”
The creature poised on the four long toes on each of its feet and sniffed loudly. “You’re bluffing, monkey girl.”
“I’m sorry.” Clarice stared at the earth and said as if addressing it, “You’ve heard enough, haven’t you? Is there anything more I need to do?”
“No,” someone answered.
In three separate spots the ground moved. The sod separated from the earth under it and three figures rose out of the shallow trenches that had concealed them.
The creature hissed.
Clarice smiled and said, “I believe you’ve met Blade, Hickok and Geronimo.”
CHAPTER 13
Blade leveled his Commando, his finger curled around the trigger. “Gualaon,” he said.
Hickok, his thumbs hooked in his gunbelt, moved a few steps nearer to Clarice. “Butt ugly is more like it.”
“Are you sure you and this thing aren’t related?” Geronimo quipped.
The Gualaon reared and clacked its razor claws. “Clever,” it said to Blade. “You’ve outwitted me. It’s been ages since an ape did that.”
“I’ve met your kind before, in Los Angeles,” Blade said. “I killed it.”
“Him, not an ‘it’. We’re not like those off-worlders with no gender.”
“Like what?” Blade asked, but the Gualaon ignored his question.
“Zhongli Quan was his name. He was one of the best of us, and had lived more years than everyone in your Family combined. That he fell to a muscle-bound ape was an insult to my species.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately, gruesome?” Hickok said. “Your species is an insult to your species.”
The creature paid no attention to him. “Zhongli Quan wasn’t the only Gualaon you’ve killed. It was a slight not only to us but to our Masters.
“Who might they be?” Geronimo asked.
“The Lords of Kismet,” the creature replied. “For ages they waited, knowing you humans would eventually destroy yourselves. Now they have emerged to reclaim what was once theirs.”
“Kis-who?” Hickok said. “Didn’t I read about him in the Family library when I was a sprout? Wasn’t he a green frog in love with a pig?”
The creature fixed the eerie red pupils of its slanted eyes on the gunfighter. “You’re not nearly as humorous as you think you are.”
“I crack me up,” Hickok said. “That’s all that counts.”
Blade edged toward the intruder. “The Lords of Kismet sent you here, didn’t they? To what end?”
“I should think it would be obvious. To wipe your precious Family out, of course.”
“Just you by your lonesome?” Hickok said, and laughed. “It’ll take more than one chameleon to lick us.”
Snarling, the Gualaon pointed a claw at him. “I’m going to make a special project of you.”
“Be still, my quaking knees.”
“Before I destroy your Family,” the creature said to Blade , “I intend to bring all of them to their knees.
Then, and only then, will I fulfill my mission and obliterate the Home.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Blade said. “Us.”
“I am Razhliq Nher of the Gualaon. I never forget anything. I have what you would call eidetic memory. I am as far above you in ability as the sun above the Earth. In all ways I am superior.”
“You’re sure superior at yakkin’ us to death,” Hickok said.
Geronimo laughed.
“When I kill you,” the Gualaon said to Hickok, “I will split your skull open to see if there is a brain between those ape ears.”
“I bet there isn’t,” Geronimo said.
Blade motioned at the shapeshifter. “I’ll give you one chance to surrender, Razhliq Nher.”
The creature grinned a hideous grin. “You think that you have the better of me because there are more of you? You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Hickok glanced at Blade. “How about if I put two in its brain pan, pard? I’m tired of listening to it prattle.”
“Tell me, blond one,” the creature said. “You seem to enjoy allusions to the prewar culture of your kind. I have one for you.” The thing paused. “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?” It grinned, and attacked so incredibly swiftly that it struck Hickok on the temple, knocking him aside, and was on Clarice before Blade or Geronimo could fire.
The Empath raised her arms protectively over her face, only to have her neck gripped in both her attacker’s hands. With a powerful wrench, the creature ripped her head from her body.
“No!” Blade cried, and opened fire, stitching slugs into the creature from its knees to its shoulders.
Geronimo resorted to his .45-70, his rifle booming like a cannon. He scored, too, the heavy slugs causing blood that wasn’t blood to spray every which way.
Yowling, the creature threw Clarice’s head at Blade, leaped to the edge of the near-empty moat, and jumped down.
Blade and Geronimo darted over in time to glimpse a darkling silhouette flit around the northwest bend.
“That thing is fast,” Geronimo marveled. “I’m after it,” he said, and started to give chase.
“Not by yourself,” Blade said. He hurried to Hickok, who was slowly sitting up. “How bad?”
“It feels as if that critter about caved in my noggin.”
