by rebel4477
Plato was coming up the stairs, relying heavily on his staff. He smiled and greeted them with, “It’s a good day to be breathing.”
“How can you say that after our failure last night?” Blade responded.
“I was referring to me,” their Leader said. He came to the top and stopped to catch his breath. “As the saying goes, it’s a bear getting old.”
“I won’t have that problem,” Hickok said.
Plato arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I figure to kick the bucket before I hit fifty. I’ll go happy if I can go down with a Colt in each hand.”
“That’s childish,” Plato said.
“This is Hickok you’re talking to,” Geronimo said. “He’s got childish down to a fine art.”
“Ouch,” Hickok said.
Plato shook his head and turned to Blade. “I came to discuss the Gualaon. I wish you had let me in on your plan. I would have warned you that flame might not be enough to kill her.”
“I didn’t want word getting around,” Blade said.
Plato leaned on his staff. “I’m the soul of discretion. You know that.”
Blade shrugged. “My call. I’m sorry if it hurt your feelings.”
“I’m the Leader, after all.”
“Except when the Home is under attack,” Blade reminded him. “Then the head Warrior takes over.”
“True, true,” Plato said. “I only meant that it would be prudent to consult me.”
“What we should be yapping about,” Hickok said, “is how to bed that varmint down, permanent.”
“Varmint?” Plato said.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Blade admitted.
“I confess to being perplexed,” Plato told him. “We’ve never fought an enemy like this. And time is of the essence.”
“Why now more than before?” Blade asked.
“Think about it. You nearly destroyed the Gualaon last night. She’ll want revenge. It wouldn’t surprise me if she goes on a killing spree.”
Just then Shane came sprinting from the direction of the Blocks. The young Warrior ascended the stairs two-and-three at a time and on reaching the top he stopped and sucked in deep breaths. “Spartacus sent me. It’s the blacksmith, Hephaestus. We found him at his forge. His head has been crushed with an anvil.”
“Here we go again,” Hickok said.
CHAPTER 34
It came to him in the middle of the night.
Blade couldn’t sleep. He tried, but all he did was toss and turn. He’d drift off for a few minutes now and again, only to snap awake again.
His Family , his Home, was in dire peril. A single creature had decimated the Warriors and was picking other Family members off at whim.
Worry gnawed at him. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He lay there, his head on his pillow, staring at the ceiling, his wife asleep beside him, and mentally went over all that had happened since the Gualaon arrived.
There might be something he’d overlooked. Some clue that would enable him to bring the creature to bay. He remembered everything the shapeshifter had said, everything that had been said about it.
Along about four, when he was so exhausted he could hardly think straight, when his despair was greatest and he was wallowing on the cusp of helplessness, remarks that someone had made popped into his head and he sat bolt upright and blurted, “Dear God, no.”
Blade glanced at Jenny. She didn’t wake up. He eased back down and went over the incident again. A terrible certainty came over him, and he did something he hadn’t done in a good long while. His eyes moistened and tears trickled and he cried silently in the dark. He wept for his loss, the greatest he had known since the loss of his parents. He wept until he had no tears left to shed and then he fell into a deep sleep that lasted until the crow of a rooster at daybreak.
Blade opened his eyes but didn’t get out of bed. He felt drained, empty, bitter.
The implications of his revelation staggered him. So much so that he smothered his sorrow, for now, and focused on what he had to do.
Jenny got up and went to fix breakfast and soon he heard their son, Gabe, up and around.
Blade couldn’t put it off any longer. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. Sadness sat on his shoulders with all the weight of the world. He pulled on his pants and his boots and donned his black leather vest. He strapped his twin bowies around his waist. He regarded the Commando, propped against the wall next to the bed , and left it there and went out.
Jenny and Gabe greeted him. He sat at the table, slumped in sorrow.
“Blade?” Jenny said. “What is it?”
He had to cough to clear his throat. “I know,” he said.
“Know what?”
“Who the creature is pretending to be.”
“Who is it?”
Blade told them, and Jenny gasped and swayed and almost fell against the stove. She, too, began to cry. Gabe was too stunned to do more than stare.
“You’re to stay inside, both of you,” Blade said. “If I’m not back in an hour, go to Hickok and Geronimo. Tell them what I’ve just told you. Tell them to take all the Warriors and destroy it by any means necessary.”
Jenny nodded and said, “You can count on—-.” She stopped. “Wait. What about you? Where will you be?”
“Alive, I hope.”
Jenny came to the table and stared fiercely into his eyes. “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
“It shouldn’t take more than half an hour,” Blade said. “One way or the other.”
“No,” Jenny said.
“What’s the matter, mom?” Gabe asked. “Why are you upset? What’s dad going to do?”
“He’s going after it alone.”
“What? Why? No, you’re not, are you, dad?”
Blade nodded.
“You’re not thinking straight,” Jenny said. “You’re letting emotion cloud your judgment.”
Blade didn’t say anything.
“Take Hickok and Geronimo and Yama and Samson. Take Lynx. He’s about healed.”
“No.”
Jenny placed her hand on his arm. “You can’t do this by yourself.”
“I won’t risk anyone else’s life.”
“But you’ll risk your own?”
“I’m the head Warrior,” Blade said. “Risking my life is what I do.”
“There are other Warriors, and they risk theirs, too. They will gladly go with you and back you, and you damn well know that.”
“No.”
Tears welled in Jenny’s eyes. “Why?” she said. “Help me to understand. Why in God’s name does it have to be just you?” “It’s how it should be.” “What does that even mean?” “Mom,” Gabe said. “Hush,” Jenny said. “Explain it more, Blade. Help me to understand. Why in God’s name does it have to be just you?”
“It’s how it should be.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Mom,” Gabe said.
“Hush,” Jenny said. “Explain it more, Blade. Help me here.”
Blade bowed his head. “As the thing once said to me, it’s personal now.”
“Are you suggesting it chose him out of all the Family on purpose?”
“Who do I love almost as much as Gabe and you?” Blade asked. He corrected himself, saying softly, “Who did I love?”
“It’s playing with your head? Is that how you read this?”
“That, and throwing down a gauntlet.”
“It wants you to come after it? You alone?”
Blade nodded. “I killed its kind in Los Angeles.”
“This isn’t just about you. The thing has vowed to destroy our Home.”
Blade stood. “Remember. Half an hour. No more. No less.” He went to go but she held onto his wrist. “Jenny, please. This doesn’t help.”
“I won’t let you throw your life away.”
“Dad?” Gabe said.<
br />
Blade looked at him. “Remember the talk we had a while back?”
“About growing up? About what it means to be a man?”
“Being a man means that sometimes we do what we have to and not what we want to.”
“Blade, please listen to—-,” Jenny began.
Blade held up a hand. “Let me finish. If I don’t do this, I’ll never be the same. Yes, I could ask the other Warriors for help. But then the thing has beaten me before I step out that door.” He embraced her and she trembled and uttered a low sob . “I’m sorry. It has to be this way.” He kissed her and held her at arm’s length, and nodded. He went around the table and Gabe stood and he hugged him and said, “Comfort your mother. She’ll need it.”
He got out of there. He stood in the chill morning air and breathed deep and steadied himself.
The Family was astir. Lights were on in many of the cabins. People were drifting toward the Blocks to start work for the day. Tillers were heading for the fields.
Blade moved as if in a daze. He saw Hickok come out of his cabin and yawn and stretch and look around. The gunfighter spotted him and grinned and waved and came over.
“You’re up and about early. Where are you off to?”
“I have something to do.”
“By your lonesome?” Hickok said. “That’s against your own rule.”
“I’m making an exception this once. It’s my right as head Warrior.”
“So where are you off to?”
Blade took a step but Hickok moved in front of him.
“You didn’t answer me, pard.”
“Out of the way.”
Hickok looked him up and down. “This isn’t like you . You’re acting so danged peculiar, you could be the shapeshifter.”
“Not hardly. The creature blends in by acting the part of whoever it becomes.”
"Even so. I'll ask one last time. Where the dickens are you off to?"
“To kill it.”
Hickok stared at Blade a good half a minute before he said, “You’ve figured out who it is now?”
Blade nodded.
“Then why in blazes aren’t Geronimo and I at your side. We’re a Triad, remember?”
“It has to be me.”
Hickok put his hands on his Pythons. “It’s not going to happen, pard.”
Blade sighed and tiredly rubbed his eyes. “How long have we known each other, Nathan?”
“Uh-oh,” Hickok said. “You haven’t called me by my real handle in a coon’s age. That shows it’s serious.”
“How long?”
“Since we were in diapers. Our moms used to put us in the same crib and you’d always beat me up and take my rattle.”
Blade stared.
“Okay. I might have made that last part up. But I’m still not moving. Not unless you can give me a damn good reason.”
Blade said a name.
Hickok blinked, and swayed, and said softly, “Tell me it ain’t so?”
“Now will you let me pass?”
“He was my friend, too. Hell, he was everybody’s friend.”
“He was like a father to me.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you still standing there?”
Hickok frowned. “You’re asking an awful lot. You die, Jenny will never forgive me.”
“She’ll never know.”
“Sure she will. She’s over by your cabin with Gabe, watching us.”
Blade looked over his shoulder. “Damn.”
“You can’t blame her for loving you.”
“Stay with them. Give me half an hour. That’s all I ask. If I’m not back—.”
“Consarn you, anyhow, Michael,” Hickok said, and moved aside. “Go on. And don’t get yourself killed.”
“I’ll try not to,” Blade said.
CHAPTER 35
The Family’s esteemed Leader came out of his cabin and hobbled toward the Blocks.
Blade waited until Plato was well away from anyone else and overtook him. “Morning.”
“Morning to you, as well,” Plato said with a smile. “Where are you off to so bright and early?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“To look in on the wounded,” Plato said. “Gremlin has yet to revive.”
“Does he know who you are?”
“I beg your pardon?” Plato said, and stopped.
“More to the point,” Blade said,“ I’d like to know if he suffered before he died.”
“Gremlin isn’t dead.”
“I don’t mean him and you know it,” Blade said. “I mean Plato. Did you torture him? Play with him like a cat with a mouse? That’s your nature, isn’t it?”
“Ah,” Plato said. He smiled and his mouth was suddenly full of fangs. “What gave me away?”
“Up on the wall yesterday,” Blade said. “You called it ‘she’ and ‘her’. None of us had any idea it was female. The only one who would know—-.”
“Was me,” the creature finished for him. “Well. This is embarrassing. I don’t often make mistakes like that.”
Blade placed his hands on his bowies. “Answer my question. Did Plato suffer?”
“That would anger you, wouldn’t it?” the Gualaon said. “But no. I’ll be honest. He was a feeble old ape. It took no effort. I crushed his skull and buried his body under the pines.”
“You didn’t eat him?”
“Please. His flesh was withered and stringy. There wasn’t enough meat to make it worth my while.”
“He was my friend,” Blade said. “More than that, actually.”
“Good. You should feel the same pain I did.”
“How so?” Blade asked.
“You killed my mate in Los Angeles.”
Blade didn’t try to hide his surprise. “One of those I killed was your husband?”
“It’s not like that with us,” Razhliq Nehr said. “We don’t ‘wed’. We’re not husband and wife, although he was your equivalent of male and I am your equivalent of female in that I can bear eggs and he could not.”
Blade didn’t say anything.
“My mate and I were a couple since before the fall of Sumer . Can you conceive of the depth of our bonding?
Physically, emotionally, intellectually, we were devoted to one another. Do you see now why I have taken such delight in slaying everyone you hold dear? Why, as your kind would say, I have wanted to get even.”
“We’ll be even,” Blade said, “when you’re dead.” And with that he whipped his bowies from their sheaths.
Springing back, Razhliq Nehr assumed her true aspect. It was her swiftest transformation yet, completed in a span of heartbeats. Her body rippled, her clothes became her scaly hide, and her red eyes blazed. She reared and spread her claws and snarled. “It’s you I want to suffer. I was going to save you for last but now—-.”
“Save this,” Blade said, and flew at her, his bowies flashing.
Razhliq Nehr didn’t retreat. She met him head-on, her steely claws pitted against his cold steel, her sinews matched against his muscles, her innate ferocity in opposition to his unbridled fury at the death of a man he loved. She opened his arm. He cut her leg. She raked his thigh. He slashed her chest.
Arms blurring, they circled, closed, circled again.
“Interesting,” the Gualaon said. “You are the most formidable of them all. Perhaps now I understand how you were able to slay my mate.”
The creature sprang and the Warrior met her and there was no holding back.
Blade’s vision became a red haze. He’d never wanted to kill anything as much he wanted to kill this Gualaon. He sliced her shoulder and she sidestepped and sank her claws into his side. He drove his right bowie at her throat only to have her slip under his swing and shred his flesh from his shoulder to his hip. Spining, he arced a bowie and rent her torso. She roared and seized his right wrist and tried to seize the other but Blade drove
his second bowie up under her arm, burying it to the hilt. She screeched and jerked back. Spittle flecked her lips. Her eyes were infernos of hate . She kicked at his legs and Blade jumped above them even as he brought his left bowie slashing down at the arm that held his wrist.
Razhliq Nehr jerked her hand back, too late. Two of her fingers fell to the ground.
Blade stumbled as he came down and almost lost his balance. He felt searing pain in his shoulder, his thigh. Her other hand clamped onto his throat and her face lit with triumph. Another second and she would rip his jugular wide.
Blade chopped her hand off.
Razhliq Nehr staggered back, bewilderment replacing her rage.
Blade went after her. He cut her above her elbow, cut her belly, split an eye. He swung low and hacked off a foot. Somehow she stayed erect and clawed at his face . He buried his left bowie in the middle of her chest and whipped his right bowie up and around and caught her where her neck met her body.
Her head went flying.
Blade reached it as it rolled to a stop and poised with a bowie on high.
Razhliq Nehr’s eyes fixed on his. Incredibly, she tried to speak.
“For all those you’ve killed,” Blade said, and split her skull from crest to stump.
It wasn’t enough.
He cleaved her head again and again and again, until it was in bits and pieces at his feet. Even that didn’t suffice. He brought his boot down on the biggest pieces, pulping them.
“Are you sure the critter is dead, pard?”
Blade looked up.
Hickok was there, his Colts in his hands.
Geronimo, too, with his .45-70.
Further back stood Yama, his hand on his scimitar. “Nicely done,” the Warrior in blue said.
“Seemed kind of sloppy to me,” Hickok said. “Look at this mess.”
“Are you all right?” Geronimo asked.
Blade was covered in blood, his and the creature’s. His vest was in strips, his pants ripped beyond repair. His body bore a score of wounds and thorns of pain spiked through him when he moved.
“Blade?” Geronimo said.
Suddenly weary to his marrow, Blade smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m not all right.”
And he collapsed.
EPILOGUE
A month went by, a time of great sorrow, a time of healing.
The Elders called a meeting. In the cool of an evening the Family gathered to discuss their future. The first order of business was to choose a new Leader, and the first name mentioned was Blade’s.
