Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3)

by Milo James Fowler

  It sounds too incredible to believe; but I do not doubt Gaia’s word.

  “Have your men bring the five UW scouts to you. Before first light. Let the Argonaus see their skewered bodies greet the day.”

  I like the sound of that. “As you wish, Mother.”

  “Then gather all of your people and go into the desert. Move with great haste.”

  “How will we find Luther?” He usually comes to us. My abdomen tightens at the thought of joining forces with the infidels.

  “I will guide you, my son. Through the desert, you will follow me as a pillar of dust in daylight, and at night you will see me as you do now.” She touches my face, tracing the shape of my jaw with her fingertips. “You alone are blessed to see me in this form.”

  My heart swells beneath her gaze, and I lower my head, eyes stinging, suddenly overwhelmed. “I am unworthy.”

  She rests her hand on the back of my head. “I have chosen you to be a great leader among your people. You will be their Moses. They will follow you in victory against the United World and its evils.” She wriggles her toes in the ash. “The old has passed away, burned in the fires of judgment. But now behold, all things will become new.”

  Twin streaks trail from my eyes as I turn my face up to her—

  But she has vanished.

  I cough self-consciously and scrub away the tears. Then I rise and turn to face the breeze, blinking my eyes at the barren moonscape beyond the barbed, bullet-notched fence of our compound. Not a single goblyn in sight.

  Our first line of defense. I almost chuckle, shaking my head at the thought of it. Gaia surely moves in mysterious ways.

  A confident excitement stirs within me as I return to the ocean liner and climb through the hatch, leaving the door to clang shut behind me. I shrug out of my cloak and make straight for the Temple where three guards stand at attention, more or less.

  “Lord Cain!” one of them greets me, jerking into a rigid posture. The other two follow suit, their idle conversation dying at once.

  “You—gather the chieftains. Go,” I direct the one on the left who scurries to obey. “Dismiss the faithful from the Temple. The gathering is over,” I command the second guard. “And you,” I turn to the third, placing a fist against the young man’s chest. “Summon Lady Victoria to my quarters. I require her presence.”

  The guard looks dumbfounded. He lingers, unwilling to enter the Temple as the other two have, unable to decide what to do with his eyes or his mouth.

  “Why do you delay?” I scowl at him.

  “My lord, I—”

  “Do you have something to tell me?”

  “Yes. I—that is, Lady Victoria—”

  “Spit it out!”

  The guard nods, a startled jerk of the head. “Lady Victoria is not in the Temple. She asked to be excused—”

  “And you let her leave?” I narrow my eyes, glowering down at the youth. “Without my consent?” Such a thing is unheard of.

  The guard swallows. “I—that is, with her condition, I assumed she must have needed to...” He cringes slightly. “Relieve herself.”

  I almost smile. This late in her pregnancy, there is little else she does as religiously. “Very well. Send her to my quarters when she returns.”

  The guard hesitates. He leans toward me, prepared to speak, but no words appear.

  “What is it now?”

  “My lord—Lady Victoria—she...”

  I grab the front of his tunic and hoist him up onto his toes. “If you have something to say to me about my wife, then you had best say it now.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The guard nods. “You see, Lady Victoria, she...was not alone.”

  “Explain.” I will shake it out of him if I have to.

  The guard seems to realize this. “She had an escort.” He winces, predicting the reaction the news will elicit. “It was Lemuel.”

  I bare my teeth. “How long ago was this?”

  “Just a few minutes after you left the assembly.”

  Long enough. I release the guard, sending him sprawling against the bulkhead. I jab a thick finger in his direction. “No one else hears a word of this.”

  The guard nods in a rapid succession of jerks.

  “Go!”

  My roar sends the young man floundering into the Temple. The faithful will wonder why the assembly has been cut so short, but I do not answer to any of them. Gaia’s word is my command, and right now I need to be in communication with the two men I sent after those UW scouts. There is only one among my ranks gifted with far-speech, one who can send word to my men to capture the scouts and bring them back.

  “Victoria!” I stiff-arm the hatch to her compartment, breaking the chain on the inside—a futile attempt at ensuring privacy.

  A cry of alarm comes from the bed, but it is not from a woman’s throat. Lemuel stands naked, gangly and pale, with both hands cupped over his crotch. His eyes bulge from their sockets and his mouth gapes open, having ceased to draw breath.

  “Welcome, husband.” Lady Victoria lies sprawled atop the sheets, her legs closed for now. Her abdomen swells outward, carrying my child. Her clothing has been discarded across what once was the ceiling of this room. “Did you miss me?” She gives me a broad smile and a wink.

  “You dare to mock me in this moment?” Both of my hands have tightened into fists. My eyes dart from the youth to my wife, sizing up the situation as best as I can. So young, both of them. Young and foolish. I should have expected as much. “If it were not for my unborn child within you, I would break your neck without a thought, woman.”

  “That’s likely so.” She sighs, rubbing the palm of her hand across her belly. “Lucky for me then, isn’t it?”

  “You—” I face Lemuel. “Speak up! Whatever words you say will be your last.”

  He shudders mutely, staring at Victoria for help.

  “Oh, let him be. My back aches all the time now, and he has such strong hands.” She slides her thighs against each other and gives me a direct look. “I have needs. And Lemuel is here for me when you are not.”

  “So this has happened before.” I take a step toward the boy and watch him cower. There will soon be nothing left of you but blood and broken bones!

  “No—Lord Cain—I didn’t—!”

  “Stop your babbling!” I roar.

  Victoria laughs, tossing back her head.

  I turn my seething gaze on her. “You disgust me. This many months with child, yet you cavort like a common whore.”

  “Didn’t seem to bother you before you made me your wife.”

  My arm swoops down and strikes her hard across the mouth. Her head whips to the side, golden tresses flying. Fury kindles in her eyes, even as a thick line of blood trails from her broken lip.

  “Hold your tongue, or I will cut it out,” I whisper into her ear, clutching a handful of her hair at the scalp. “You don’t have to be entirely in one piece when you birth my son. You just have to be alive.” I throw her back onto the bed and bear down on the lad, cornering him. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

  Lemuel doesn’t seem to know whether to cover himself or fend off the impending blows. More than likely, there will be only one. I will lay him out with a fist to the face, breaking his nose and shoving the fragments of it up into his brain. Or I will tear the youth’s head from his shoulders and mount it on the gate outside. Or rip his limbs off, one at a time.

  I have so many options.

  “Please, Lord Cain—please, listen to me—” he begs.

  “There is nothing I want to hear but your screams. I have been patient with you, no matter what others have said. Justus and the chieftains see you as a worthless pup, but I fed you at my table. And this is the thanks I get? You go behind my back to bed my pregnant wife?” I grimace, cursing. “It is obscene!”

  I lunge for Lemuel then, pinning him easily by the throat and squeezing, lifting him up along the wall, raising him to eye level. He claws at my grip in vain, his legs dangling.


  “You won’t be needing these again.” I grin, seizing hold of the lad’s scrotum.

  “Cain!” Victoria’s cry rings out.

  “I thought I told you—”

  My voice dies in my throat. For there sits my wife upright on the bed, holding a blade to her own throat, the same weapon she once used to slay almost as many goblyns as any warrior. “What are you doing?”

  My voice trembles as all the blood drains from my face. I release Lemuel’s balls but maintain a choke-hold on his throat. He continues to grimace, but he’s given up struggling. He too stares at Lady Victoria.

  “Let him go.” Is she holding herself hostage?

  I release an uncertain chuckle. “Or what?”

  “I said let him go.” She presses the blade into her flesh. A thin trickle of crimson dribbles down onto her collarbone. “It was my doing. I forced myself upon him.” The mirth has left her eyes. “Do not maim him.”

  “Maim him? I’m going to kill him!” I watch her. “Eventually.”

  Lemuel whimpers.

  “Do it, and you’ll lose the child within me as well.” More blood trickles.

  “You’re insane. You would end your life for this worthless runt?” I shake Lemuel by the throat. It wouldn’t take much to snap his neck and be done with him. “I don’t believe it. Your life is too precious to you.”

  “Why should it be? You’ll end it once the child is born. You’ve said as much already.” She takes the hilt in both hands and hovers the point of the knife over her protruding belly. “Or would you rather—?”

  “Stop this,” I growl. “Right now.”

  “Let him go.” She punctures the taut skin. Blood runs freely in rivulets from the apex.

  “What the hell has gotten into you, woman?” With a curse, I hurl the lad to the floor where he lies choking, doubled over as he draws breath. “Put that weapon away!”

  “When he is far away from here.” She glances at Lemuel. She makes no movement to lower the blade.

  “You ask me to banish him? That is his only punishment for making a cuckold of me?”

  “You promised his mother you would guard his life. You granted her dying wish, Cain. Would you go back on your word?”

  “Had I known he would become such an impudent libertine—”

  “I told you it was not his doing.” She gives the boy a direct look. “Leave us. Take what you need and be gone. He will not stop you.”

  Lemuel glances up at me. “I will die…out there.”

  “Or I can end you now.” I reach for him.

  “Go!” Victoria’s eyes bulge as she shouts, drawing my attention. “Now!” She watches Lemuel scramble to gather his clothing, covering himself as he dashes out of the room.

  I have yet to relax my fists. “You try my patience.”

  She brings the blade back to her throat, toying with it. “We’ll give him plenty of time to escape. You won’t go after him, nor will you send anyone else.” She runs her eyes along my muscled frame, savoring the sight. Her appetites are insatiable. “Then we’ll discuss what you need from me. Because you do need me, don’t you, my love? There is no one else among your ranks gifted as I am.”

  I grind my teeth together, refusing to meet her gaze. Of course she is right. She is the only one who can contact my men tracking the UW scouts. Because of this, and because she carries my child, I need her.

  For now.

  6 Margo

  17 months after All-Clear

  I see it all—perceive it through the senses of the little ones Tucker carries across the wilderness, strapped to his back in the portable incubators I rigged for his journey. As soon as he touched them, they vanished from sight—as with anything that comes into contact with Tucker’s flesh—but I knew they were all right. I could sense their thoughts, both the male and the female, and they were not afraid. Completely at peace, they floated in their artificial amniotic fluid, unaware that Tucker and I risked our own lives to see these two unborn children to safety.

  “Sure you don’t want to tag along?” Tucker asked, cinching the belts so they were nice and snug. He didn’t want the canisters clinking against each other while he attempted his silent escape.

  I shook my head. “Someone needs to stay behind to monitor the others.” I gestured lamely at the rows of incubation units around us. “Besides, the mutos won’t see you. If I were to come along, my presence would endanger your lives. Even as it is, you will have to be careful.”

  “I’ll travel by night if I can. The mutos aren’t nocturnal, far as I can tell. And I won’t have to worry about my shadow without sunlight.”

  “What about the moon?”

  “Shouldn’t have another full one for a couple weeks. Plenty enough time for me to get where I’m goin’.”

  “Due west.”

  He sniffed. “That’s what they said.”

  I nodded with some lingering reservation. “The spirits of the earth.”

  “Yeah.” He almost chuckled. “Crazy as that sounds.”

  It sounded far beyond the realms of sanity weeks before, when Tucker returned from one of his routine salvage runs on the surface. The city ruins above Eden were a virtual cornucopia when it came to useful items and well-preserved foodstuffs. Tucker along with Willard’s dogs—collared, remote-controlled mutos—made regular scavenging excursions throughout the rubble, searching and rescuing all the goods that made Eden a subterranean paradise.

  On this particular occasion, Tucker returned a bit shell-shocked. He said later it was a good thing Willard and Perch hadn’t been able to see how pale he was. When he managed to get a moment alone with me, he shared about the encounter he had with his mother in the middle of a cracked and dusty street.

  “Your mother?” I had been unable to contain my incredulity.

  “Hear me out,” Tucker said, keeping his voice low. “I know full well it wasn’t really Momma. She died in the blasts on D-Day. But she was just how I remember her: standing there in her apron and her rose-print dress, like she was a hologram projected straight from my own mind. There she was in the middle of the street talking to me. None of the dogs gave her any notice—except for when she showed up in that dust devil.”

  “A what?”

  “A little twister along the ground. It spiraled toward me down the middle of the street, and I held up my arms like this to shield myself from all the grit.” He demonstrated. “When I brought ’em back down, there she was, standing right there as solid as you are right now.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  He sniffed, shuffled his feet—the usual tics when he starts to feel uncomfortable. “Told me a lot of stuff about myself, stuff only she’d know. Sounded just like her, too. Her voice. But I knew it couldn’t be, not out there like that. So I had her tell me straight out what was going on. And she sure did. Told me all about Milton and Daiyna and Luther and the others, about how they went west and met others of their kind—our kind—changed by the dust of this crazy new earth and made into something a hell of a lot more than human.”

  “Are you certain you weren’t hallucinating? The temperature spikes can be extreme on the surface, not to mention—”

  “No, I’m sure. Just hear me out.” He took a quick breath and resumed, “She—it—this spirit manifestation or whatever it was, she went on to tell me that Luther was the leader of these folks, and they were all holed-up in caves out west, near the Pacific coast. And if we—you and me—ever wanted to join up with them, that’s where we’d find ’em all.”

  “You and me,” I mused. “Is there any particular reason why this spirit-projection cannot come down here and invite me herself?”

  “Yeah, actually. It’s got something to do with them being unable to co-exist with all these manmade materials we’ve got. They can only move through dust and air. If they’re really the earth’s spirits and whatnot, I suppose that makes some sense. Right?”

  I hadn’t been so sure. I’m still not.

  “Let’s just hope th
ey know where they’re sending you,” I told him. “Did you get an accurate count of Luther’s numbers? He will need to return in force if he is to reclaim what belongs to him.”

  Tucker sniffed. “I know it’s kind of late in the game to be bringing this up, but... What if they aren’t all that interested in coming back for these little ones? What if they’re busy out there makin’ a new life for themselves instead? Making their own children the natural way?”

  I remember mulling this over like it was yesterday.

  “Luther is a man of integrity—the last of a dying breed. Daiyna is much like him. You tell them what Willard plans to do with these children—using them as bargaining chips to get himself off this continent—and they’ll come back. I know they will.” I paused, staring at the empty space where Tucker stood. “As long as you get to them in time.”

  “I’ll move as fast as these boots carry me. But remind me again: Why don’t I just borrow one of the Hummers?”

  I shook my head. “You do that, and Perch will have the dogs hot on your trail. This way, you sneak out quietly, and nobody knows you’re missing until they find your shock collar without you attached. By the time they start hunting you down, you should have close to a day’s head start.” I paused. “Then I will tell Willard about the missing fetuses.”

  “Shouldn’t you do that right off? Won’t they suspect you had something to do with it, otherwise?”

  “Let me worry about that.” In the end, the timing was far from perfect, despite our best-laid plans. “You just get to where you need to be—as fast as you can.”

  “All right.” Tucker’s last words as he left.

  But his voice has returned since then in garbled, gentle tones as heard by the neonates in their amniotic chambers. Somehow, I share the makings of a telepathic link with these two little ones that does not diminish over space or time. It’s not something I am always conscious of, but I can tune in whenever I wish to check on their progress.

  It has already been weeks, and they have yet to reach Luther and his people. Wild mutos along the way impeded Tucker’s progress, as did the dogs Willard sent after them once the two fetuses were discovered missing. Much sooner than I anticipated.