Authors: Tim Marquitz
Caught between a dragon and a firing squad,
I chose the lizard. She whirled about as I got close, the red glare of her eyes
sizing me up like I was a pudding pop. Her wings rose into the air and she let
out another, bestial shriek aimed over my head at the Eidolon, and then
collapsed without warning. There was the sudden whiff of brimstone as Rala
toppled. She was back to being a girl before she even hit the ground.
She lay slumped in the debris. Her chest
rose with desperate effort as she tried to draw breath. Spittle glistened at
her lips, tiny bubbles forming at the corners of her mouth. Another shot
whipped past my head, followed by another. The Eidolon were closing in, and
they’d made my decision for me.
I scooped up Rala and ran. She was a limp
rag, her face rolling into my chest as I held her close to me. While I still
didn’t know which one of the two women were telling the truth, or whose side
they were on, it didn’t feel right to leave the girl to the mercies of the
Eidolon. They’d proven they were a shoot first and ask questions later kind of
organization. Besides, with Rala as naked as the day she was hatched, it was
pretty easy to tell she wasn’t sporting one of the phoenix tattoos, let alone
any others. That wasn’t exactly definitive proof of anything, but it did make
me think she might not be treated too kindly by the bird boys if they found her
unconscious in the alley.
Confusion and ignorance my natural element,
I ran and left the thinking for later.
Fourteen
A handful of blocks from the alley, I found
a ramshackle building that didn’t look like anyone had set foot in it in
centuries. Though, to be honest, I didn’t have to look very hard. Damn near
most of them in the area fit the bill for what I needed. After glancing around
to make sure no one was watching from the surrounding area, the Eidolon
somewhere in the dust behind me, I forced the door without making it obvious
and went inside. Stale air hit me as I entered and sealed us in.
Whatever had happened to Feluris was more
than just the recent warfare between God and his kids gone wrong. Much of the
city was deserted, and it was obvious it had been that way a long time. While
Rala and Vol sounded like true citizens, lamenting the violation of their
world, it was painfully apparent there wasn’t that much to lose. Maybe it was
one of those things where a person who has so little values it more, but I
didn’t understand it. Desboren was a dump by even my standards, and that’s
saying something.
I moved deeper into the building, letting
my senses loose. Able to catch a flicker of Rala’s life force but no others, it
didn’t seem as if anyone else was there, lurking in the dark. She might be
different than the other Felurians—turning into a dragon is the very definition
of different—but she was still an alien life form. If I could pick her up
against my senses, I was fairly certain I could the others. It was just like
pinging humans. There wasn’t much of an interaction, and they didn’t feel any
of it, but it was clear they were about.
Rala watched me through slit eyelids. Her
breathing had shifted to normal a while back. She was biding her time, most
likely unsure of what I intended. I may have saved her from the Eidolon, just
like she might have saved me from Cyrill, but Rala didn’t know me from spit. I
let her have her paranoia by keeping my mouth shut, and set her down in a dark
corner. Hoodie off, I laid it on top of her and wandered into the next room.
Even with as much as I missed Karra, I
couldn’t see myself torturing Rala to get information, so I was gonna have to
wait her out. If she wanted to talk, she’d do so when she was ready. If she
didn’t, I was no worse off than I was now, which was hardy comforting but yet
sadly consistent with the rest of my life. The status quo had been preserved.
I dropped down near a boarded up window,
which allowed me to see the street outside through tiny spaces in the slats,
and drew a slow, deep breath. Quiet voices drifted to my ears from somewhere
nearby, and though I saw a couple of aliens walk by the house who I thought
might be Eidolon, they just kept going without seeming to notice anything
amiss. I exhaled once they were a good distance past and out of my line of
sight.
“Why did you save me?”
I turned my head to see Rala standing in
doorway, leaning against the frame. She was wearing the hoodie and it hung all
the way down to her toes as though it were a robe. The skin of her face was
sallow, even paler than it had been before, the strips standing out in sharp
relief. I shrugged. “I flipped a coin in my head: heads I save you, tails I
chop you up and turn you into shoes. It just happened to come up heads.”
She shook her head and came over to sit
before me, crossing her legs to keep from revealing anything special as the
hoodie rode up. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or disappointed.
“Seriously. Do you believe me about that
woman?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” I told her,
meeting her eyes. They’d faded back to their natural shade. “Frankly, Scarlett,
I don’t give a damn.”
“Scarlett?”
I chuckled and waved it off. “Earth saying.
Don’t worry about it.” Besides, how do you explain to an alien the double
innuendo of a movie line
and
an
angelic cousin named Scarlett? Wasn’t gonna try. “I’m really not here to get
stuck in the middle of a turf war or to be the savior of your people. I just
want to find my woman, take her home, and forget all about this desolate,
depressing place. No offense.”
“Your woman?” she asked, eyes narrowing.
“The pregnant one?”
“No.” I shook my head. “She’s about yay
tall,” I said, raising my hand into the air. “Short, wild blond hair, gorgeous
with hazel eyes.”
“Yes, the pregnant woman, the one brought
here by the alien.” She nodded enthusiastically.
“No, that’s not her. She’s—” And that’s
when it hit me…hard.
A gear clicked into place inside my skull,
and I was suddenly very lightheaded. I slumped against the wall behind me, my
whole body tingling as if someone was playing a symphony with my nerves.
Pregnant.
The word was like a shotgun blast to my
guts. It explained everything. When Mihheer had said there was another who
shared Lucifer’s bloodline, I thought he meant Scarlett. It never occurred to
me that it would be Karra. We weren’t related—at least I hoped not—so I hadn’t
even given it a thought. Her being pregnant made sense. It wasn’t Karra that Gorath
wanted, but the baby inside her.
My stomach churned when I thought that.
Karra was pregnant and we were going to have a child together. A wave of
nauseous warmth washed over me as cold hard reality kicked the shit out of my
momentary slip of fantasy. Gorath had Karra
and
our baby. Then the hammer hit home.
“Oh…fuck!” I hopped to my feet in a huff,
startling Rala. She skittered back with wide eyes and clenched fists.
Gorath hadn’t taken Karra because he thought
he could use her to get me to play along like I’d been thinking all along. He’d
taken her because there was a tiny piece of Lucifer growing inside her. Gorath
didn’t need me at all, he already had what he believed was the key to drawing
the old man out. He was only waiting for the opportunity and energy to make his
move, and I’d been running around with my head up my ass thinking it was all
about me.
“What’s the matter?”
Rala’s voice surprised me. I’d forgotten
she was there. Sweat dripped into my eyes, and I could feel the heat of it as I
wiped it away with the back of my hand, my forehead warm with fevered
realization.
“I had it all wrong.” Each of the words
tasted of bile as I spoke them.
Lucifer didn’t care about Karra. In fact,
his hatred for Longinus probably extended all the way to his daughter by
default and on general principle. Even being pregnant with his grandchild,
Lucifer wouldn’t be swayed to put himself at risk especially not after I’d
called him out in front of God. I sighed and wanted to cry. It was all up to me,
and that wasn’t gonna be anywhere near enough firepower. I needed Longinus.
I dug in my pocket for the gem. It was cold
to the touch when I pulled it out, its blue surface dim and murky. With a tiny
spark of magic, I went to activate it. It just sat there, a tiny lump in my
palm.
“What is that?”
I waved her question off as diplomatically
as I could and sent another wave of energy into the gem, and then another,
increasing the power incrementally each time. Nothing happened. Either I’d
broken it somewhere along the way or Longinus had his end off the hook.
Both meant I couldn’t do this the easy way.
With a sigh, I looked up at Rala. “The
Eidolon group you and Vol talked about; can you lead me to them?”
She got to her feet and nodded, but her
eyebrows rode high on her face. “Why them and not the ones we just escaped
from?”
“There are a couple of reasons.” I needed
backup, for one, but I didn’t want to tell her that.
“This last group will be expecting something
now. We, and by
we,
I really mean
you
, made a good size ruckus just
outside their supposedly secret whatever it is. If they’re even still there,
they’ll be on the lookout for us, and we’ll never get anywhere near the place
and probably won’t learn anything, anyway. That opportunity is shot.”
Her eyebrows drooped and there was the
slightest slump of her shoulders.
I went on before she could feel too badly
about it. “And secondly, whatever those guys were doing there, it wasn’t guard
duty. They were too busy lugging those tanks out to be worrying about a
hostage. Besides, if they’re storing magical energy in those things, which is
what it looks like, the last place on Feluris they want to have them is
someplace Karra can get her hands on them. I’m not sure she could tap into
them, but regardless, she would figure a way to make their lives short and
extremely miserable.”
Rala grunted. “Okay, that makes sense, I
suppose.” She went to the window and peeked out the slats. “Looks clear out
there.”
I went and cast a quick glance over her
shoulder to double check, and then eased the door open. The street was quiet
and empty. Encouraged, I stepped outside and motioned for her to follow. She
came out without hesitation, slipping around me and drifting down the beaten
sidewalk as if she belonged there. No longer wearing the hoodie, I was a little
more self-conscious about going after her but it wasn’t like I could just shit
another option. I caught up a few seconds later.
Another quick look around told me we were
headed in a different direction than the last sect and that we were alone. So
thinking, I’d done my part. The rest was up to her.
“So, a dragon, huh?”
She cast a sideways glance at me. “What?”
“Dragon,” I repeated, saying it slower.
“You know, the winged critter thing you turned into back there.”
Rala snorted. “
Wyvern
.” She imitated me and dragged the syllables out.
“Dragon, wyvern, insurance
spokeslizard
: same thing.”
She shrugged. “If you say so, alien.”
There she went again with the name-calling.
I was only trying to clarify something, not be mean. “You spit fire?”
“Keep giving me a hard time and you’ll find
out.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
She stuck her tongue out and wiggled it at
me.
I liked this girl. Hopefully I wouldn’t
have to shoot her.
Much like Baalth had, Rala led me through
the back alleys and down desolate streets, going out of her way to avoid
running in to other Felurians. My paranoia kicked in early, but there was no
way to tell if she was just being smart or was tricking me into something ugly.
Then again, my lack of options made it a moot point. If Rala was looking to get
me killed, she’d plenty of opportunities to do so. One more wasn’t gonna make
my day much worse.
“So, what happened to this place?” My
curiosity got the better of me. Besides, asking questions kept my mind off the
possible surprises ahead. “All this damage didn’t just happen recently.”
Rala gave me a grim look. “No,” she
admitted. “Feluris has long suffered being so close to
Shal
Ko’ra
, the nexus of worlds.”
I started to bless her but realized it
hadn’t been a sneeze, but the name of the nexus thingy. “What’s that?”
“It is a dimensional portal; a sort of
black hole that allows for travel between the various universes. It has brought
us nothing but grief.”
Things were suddenly a little clearer. “So,
I’m guessing the current
alien
invasion isn’t your first.”
She gave me a sour grin. “Hardly. The Alitereans
used the nexus often, going as far back as a hundred years. The frequency of
their visits has increased over the last fifty years, or so, and that was when
the trouble began.”
I did the math. Right around fifty years
ago was when God and Lucifer took off on their inter-dimensional jaunt.
Coincidence? I think not.
“It was then that the Consortium began to
harvest the resources of Feluris, tapping into the planet’s natural energies
and…”
It didn’t take much to see where it went
from there. “Your people?”
Rala nodded. “At first, they were only
consigned to doing the labor for the Alitereans, but we learned quickly that
wasn’t all they wanted. People started to go missing. It was only a few, at
first, but it quickly became an epidemic.” She let out a weary sigh. “Vol had
foreseen the ruin our planet would become, but no one believed him. Almost no
one.”
“You?”
“My parents,” she answered, sadness coating
her voice. “Just a child still, they left me with Vol one day when they went
off to serve the Alitereans in the fields outside of Desboren.” Rala paused,
licking her lips. “They never came home.”
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to
say.
She waved my apology off, forcing a
halfhearted smile. “That was a long time ago, the Alitereans gone now.”
“Yet nothing’s changed.”
Rala nodded. “The newest visitors to come
through the nexus are no different than the last. They, too, have conscripted
our people and steal the resources of our world to fuel their war. A quick hand
wiped something from her eye. “Life goes on.”
She weaved her way down the empty streets
without another word, coming to a halt as the musky scent of char hit my nose. The
funk wiped away all thoughts of the past; the here and now was calling…loudly.