Oxygen might get low if this truck was sealed properly, and she knew Willow had considered that. Yin and yang. Gain on the swings, lose on the roundabouts. They had no oxygen cylinders to feed air into this cabin, so dust and air would get in. Radioactive or not. Opening the door to let Maura out for toilet breaks, and her too now, it was also going to cause contamination.
This was nowhere near perfect, but it helped, especially since she was no longer being allowed to walk.
“If only we’d brought a deck of cards or even Cards Against Humanity.” Wait, no, not that. She twisted her mouth and figured she looked sheepish. “Oops.”
“Mmmm. Maybe not that? I spy?”
“Hell yeah. Excitement guaranteed.” D for dust would be a bit obvious. The windows that had been clean when they began were smeared and caked with the stuff.
She leaned back. If they found Big Daddy at the end, it’d all be worth it.
They passed the time mostly with Maura talking about Locke or of the days before the invasion. It was strangely comforting to hear those stories of the lost days, those memories of what would never be again, for they’d taken on the feel of fairytales. By the time Disney got hold of them, fairytales were fantasies, but before that they’d been instructional tales. Do this, be nice, obey your parents, don’t go out in the dark forest and talk to witches or the bad evil things will come get you and drag you away, screaming… or pop you into ovens and watch you cook.
The creature attacks began a few hours later. These were not nanodogs.
She watched the beasters shoot down a few straggling attackers—feral dogs and even a lion that must’ve come in from a part of the game reserve where the bigger cats used to be confined. Not everything on the reserve was a zebra, a kangaroo, or a cockatoo. There were hungry predators out there. At least none of these had been experimented on.
Just before dusk a pack of something bigger galloped in from the left flank, Maura’s side, where she could see little. Screams and the cacophony of gunfire that melted into a continuous drumroll told her this was serious. Something rammed the truck, rocking it sideways, and Maura clutched her side.
“Fuck! Cyn!”
“It’s okay.” She hugged her. Scary outside, but there wasn’t a lot either of them could do.
Another ram and a growl outside, and Maura was ready to climb into Cyn’s lap. If she had her gun… From the leaping shadows and furred body blocking her own window, there were two animals.
They didn’t last. Bullets and bolts conquered flesh, and the convoy moved on. A tap on the glass and shouted words from a beaster told them all was clear, but there would be no sleep for anyone, no prolonged stops, until they reached the end.
At the next toilet break she climbed out and found the column had formed a circle like an old wagon train with their weapons at the ready. The faces and clothes caked with dust, the old blood, the weary slumped positions where they squatted to eat… How lucky she was to be cozy in the truck.
Privacy was limited, but she’d rather have people eyeing her while she peed than be breakfast for some hungry critter.
On the way back to the truck she spotted Vargr, and he wandered over, looking worried even if his gait was relaxed.
“How’d the scouting go?”
“Good. Another day’s travel left. I see you had your problems.” Thumbs tucked into his belt, Vargr indicated the circle of beasters.
Bandages were showing on several, though she thought their numbers were the same.
“No deaths?”
“I was told not.” He sucked in air though his teeth. “We’ll make it. There are more out there shadowing the convoy. Willow is wishing she’d planned a more circuitous route but them’s the fuckin’ breaks. And you and Maura? No problems?”
She glanced back. Time to board, Maura had slipped inside. “We’re good. I just want my gun.”
“Hmmm. Persistent girl.” Tapping the butt of one of his twin guns he had holstered at his waist, he eyed the truck. The outside was smeared with blood, hopefully not a beaster’s. “I’d give you one of mine, but maybe we should play it low key.”
“And if it gets worse? Another day you said.”
He nodded. “How’s your head? If those tentacles are screwing with your pretty brain…”
“Pretty?” From the chuckle, he’d seen her eyeroll. “Damn you, Vargr. I can still shoot straight.”
“I know, but I’ll give it to you unvarnished. Straight truth. The others are worried, Willow is, that the GL bits will take over. We’re erring on the side of caution.”
She cocked her hip then propped her hand on said hip. Then she waited, slowly raising one eyebrow—enough to make clear her disgust at that implication.
“I may love your sweet ass, Cyn, but even I object to sticking a gun in the hands of a Ghoul Lord’s puppet.”
His words thudded in like a blow. Maybe he didn’t quite mean it how she felt it? Fuck, though.
There was not a lot she could say to that. She sucked in a breath while assimilating the hurt in his statement then she exhaled. “Okay.” She turned and climbed back into the truck and found Little Mo scrambling in after her. He found a place on the driver’s seat.
“Hey.” Maura took her hand and squeezed it. “I heard that. I’m sorry.”
“I admit, I don’t have an answer to what Vargr said. It’s just…”
She wished they’d trust her anyway. Even if it was crazy wrong.
“We will fix you. I swear.”
Those words were easy to say, but she smiled. The sentiment was good. She wanted to believe them.
As the beasters hauling it took the strain, the truck lurched, but a second later it stopped, and the door opened. Vincent thrust in his head.
“I have something I thought Maura might like to have. It’s to do with your problem, Cyn.” He reached across her with something dangling from his rock-like lumpy fist. When Maura opened her hand, he dropped a pendant onto her palm.
The chain was plain with chunky, silver links. The pendant itself was a locket. When Maura clicked it open, the inside was revealed to be an irregular oval of clear resin with some white shreds set in the middle.
“What is it?” Maura raised her head.
“Lennox made this. I never knew until he showed me just now. These are the bits left over from when he ate the Ghoul Lord tentacle. They were steaming in the light, he says, so he stuck them in this locket. He’s a bit of a collector of shiny stuff and has pockets of jewelry. Can’t break him of the habit. When he found himself a tube of resin, he sealed these in.”
“Lord,” Cyn whispered. “He’s lucky they didn’t worm into him.”
“They were already dead, he thinks. We’re pretty impervious too, though sharp things do pierce our skin, like stinker claws do. Anyway. Maura?”
“Yes?” She was studying the pendant. “I think I see your point. This is a sample of GL, and with it, I can do tests. Providing this survives sectioning and Big Daddy has a microtome, a microscope, and a few other things a research vehicle must surely have, then I can use this.” She looked up and searched their faces. “If it does, I can see what to use on you Cyn. What will make the GL fragments visible inside you.”
“Okay.” She swallowed. “I guess theoretically… you could use anything inside me, and I’d heal it?”
“Theoretically… yes.”
But they didn’t know for sure. Her latest headache chose to flare up, and she winced. Anything. She’d volunteer for anything if it’d cure her. Cure or kill, here we come.
“I volunteer as tribute,” she mumbled.
Vincent snorted. “I’ll see you both later. When we get there.”
The door slammed shut.
They were a half a day from the place they aimed for, where Big Daddy should be, when the biggest ever attack rolled in. She couldn’t see out the windows without finding a tussle of beaster and nanodog, and these were as large as Toother or bigger, Men were being flung about, and nanodogs were being bl
asted into death and beyond.
Her palm itched to be filled with gun. Her eyes felt bright, feverish, and as if she should not close them, in case she missed something vital.
Her spidery buddy, Mo, had been keeping count from a vantage point on the dashboard. His metal nose was pressed to the glass. So far nothing had smashed any of the glass, though if she had a weapon, she’d have fired through the windshield several times by now.
Yeah, maybe it was for the best she wasn’t armed.
Violence did rather hype her up.
Maura was cowering on the floor despite her attempts to help calm her. Cyn patted her hand where she clutched the edge of the seat.
“Incoming to the right!” Little Mo bleated, his blinking eye lights reflecting off the glass. How had she not noticed this little Christmas Tree critter for five years? How had the Ghoul Lords not?
Gore splashed across the window, and she glimpsed Vargr on one side, Rutger on the other and both were firing repeatedly. She had an aching leg and a thumping headache—her fifth one of the trip. Cyn chewed her lip, fuming.
The biggest nanodog yet was galumphing in like a super-large lapdog on crack.
“Fuck this.” She twisted the door handle and kicked it open on Vargr’s side. He was firing one way, the nanodog was bounding truckward, all furry and toothy, with a mouth like a shark. Coming at him was a whole array of triangular teeth ready for that first bite, yawning open.
He was using one of his guns, but had the other holstered, so she naturally whipped it out and blew a hole in the nanodog’s brain. It crumpled and slid. By the time Vargr clutched for his gun she’d dispatched the creature with a double tap, just to be sure. Blood erupted, and hair.
He spun, growled at her, and took back the gun that she offered to him, butt first. “In!”
She hopped back into the truck and he followed, cramming himself and his wings in and almost closing the door, leaving only a small gap. Every so often, he opened it wider and fired. It seemed to confuse the big critters. They persevered, and the fighting lessened.
The last nanodog she noticed alive was upside down being throat gnawed by Toother.
Someone had slashed the harness to free Toother from the truck when the fighting began.
“Phew.” Vargr slumped back onto the seat. “I’m deaf.”
“Not surprising, considering.” So was she, a little. Her ears rang.
“You.” He twisted to peer at her dubiously. “Are bad.”
“Yeah.” Her grin spread to mocking proportions. “However, I did give the gun back.”
Ignoring her, he leaned forward to nod at Maura, who’d climbed back onto the seat ages ago, probably when hero Vargr had entered. Not surprising. Sitting next to him did feel good.
“Maura,” he added. “I have to take this one here, elsewhere. I’ll send Locke in. We are close to out of the worst of the radiation. Hopefully we’re also out of nanodog territory. We must be the best food they’ve seen for a while. The bastards are tenacious as fuck. Cyn.” He eyed her, she shrugged. “Come.”
With one hand he thrust open the door, and with the other he latched finger and thumb on her ear and pulled her with him as he exited.
Muttering “Ow” a few times, she followed. It was surprisingly difficult to avoid being dragged. She could’ve crotch kicked him but that’d lead to more of this… animosity. Truthfully, she was almost giggling.
Which stopped once she remembered what had led to this, when she saw the destruction and death.
Vargr released her, and she found Rutger was here, standing, eyeing them both.
“Casualties?” she asked, looking about and not seeing much beside the bloodied fuzzy mounds where nanodogs had died. Was this the only way to get them to stop? If they were hungry, who could blame them? Larger bodies meant larger appetites.
“Two dead. Nine bitten. One badly,” Rutger told her. “Willow is patching that one up. He’ll live.”
“Hmmm. And we killed how many of these? Five or six?” And once again, humans had made these creatures. “Even in the face of extinction our… or is it now their… legacy remains.”
“Yeah. It is a pity.” Rutger grimaced. Killing always is unless you need to eat.”
“She stole my gun,” That was Vargr, sounding exasperated.
“I saw. Is that news?”
Her leg gave way when she turned to smirk at Vargr, but she limped and managed. “I borrowed only. Doesn’t that bring back fond memories, Vargr? It’s how we met. I borrowed your gun then too… You have forgotten?” She was in the middle of waggling a finger at him when he grabbed her ear again and made her bend over with her head low.
Cursing at the pain, she peered up at him. “You know I could get loose if I tried?” She grabbed his wrist, felt the size of him there, the rigid strength. She could smell him even.
Nice.
“I’m sure you could. Minus an ear. What should we do with our dear sweet babe, Rutger? I know she’s ill, but I think I’d rather her be out here with us. Less dangerous. Plus Locke would like the chance to be with Maura.”
Smiling, Rutger regarded her ear-trapped position, leaning his own head to the side to stare down at her. “She’s limping again. Would you like to ride on my shoulders a while, babe?”
“One more babe—” But Vargr twisted her ear, and she shrieked, whimpered. “Okay! Okay.” Fuck, now she was turned on. Something about this had connected to her ovaries, which was stupid. “I’d love to ride you, Rutger.”
“Now doesn’t that sound like an insult.” He chuckled. “Let her go. We can talk, you can ride me, later on when you’re well, we’ll both ride you. Deal?”
That. Was hot. Cyn swallowed. “Ummm, yes?”
“Good. Let’s do this then.”
And Vargr released her. Rubbing her ear, she pouted at him. “Man, you are mean.”
“You wish. Why do I want to fuck you against that truck, now?”
“You and me both,” she whispered.
“Because she’s due to be fucked, aren’t you? I feel it too. We’re moving so let’s hope the Lure stays away for long enough. Either that or I can go jerk off and feed you my warm jizz.” Rutger winked.
“Ewww. No thanks.” It just would not be the same as getting nailed by both of them, sadly. “Rain check though, on the other.”
Vargr leaned in and clasped her butt through the stone-washed pink jeans she wore, until her flesh screamed to be released.
She let her eyelids flutter down, savoring the sensation.
“Definitely a fucking date,” he said quietly. “If you haven’t given me tentacles by now, I guess you ain’t going to.”
Chapter 17
Vargr watched as Rutger kneeled to let Cyn climb on board then offered his own hand to help steady her. She adjusted her legs on his shoulders, wriggling about.
“We can swap every hour. I’d like her pussy snuggling up to me too.”
That gained him a thumbs-up from Rutger and a groan and a headshake from Cyn.
“Not sure this is the definition of getting pussy, though, man.” He patted her knee, wrapping both arms over her lower legs as he began to stand. “I’ll tell you if I come in my pants.”
“You do that.”
Once Rutger rose to his full height, she clung to his horns and grinned down at him.
“Now how are you carrying your pack?” He picked it up. Luckily his scouting had disqualified him from carrying one, up until now.
“Hmmm.” With a deep frown, Rutger looked at the pack. “You?”
After searching inside he strapped down the flap again and slung it over his back, squashing his wings on one side, but they’d live. “With pleasure. I have something for you, Cyn.”
He held her gaze and lifted the belt and holster he’d grabbed. The gold on the butt gleamed in his night-sight.
“Are you sure?” But she didn’t take her eyes off the prize, studying it wistfully.
“I’m not but then again I am. Where we are at rig
ht now, I’m going with gut instinct. I’m trusting you. Here.” He handed it up to her. “From up there you’ll have a good sight of anything creeping upon us.”
The convoy was moving again, and he fell into step beside them. A flock of three or four birds swept past, low and fast, zipping through the dark falling dust. Though there was substantial building mass above them, the demolished zone of radiation was nearby. They were heading to the outside, he thought. Sparrows. Their tails vanished into the murk. Even his eyes lost them. Sparrows were as good at surviving as cockroaches.
Cyn was also following their flight path.
The doubt he’d seen in her eyes when he’d handed over her weapon had him placing his hand on her thigh, on that soft, faded pink cloth, thinking. She smiled and returned to organizing the buckling of the weapon belt beneath her black sleeveless shirt. Asian writing was arrayed neatly across the back of her top and he couldn’t help wondering what it said. Something disconnected from the now of reality, almost certainly.
“Vargr?” She placed her hand over his where it lay on her thigh.
He inhaled, kept walking for a few seconds, then wrapped his hand around hers. “I don’t want to make the same mistake I did before. I never said exactly why I decided to trust you again, did I?”
She shrugged, but her eyes were all his, all over him, checking his face. This was important to her. And to him.
“I think I goofed.”
“I did shoot you,” she said slowly. “I understand why you did what you did. And… I have to say, I don’t quite understand me.”
“I figured as much. What you’re doing is the new you, the you the nanomachines are helping to grow.”
Her frown was cute, as always. He grinned.
“Not an insult, girl. That applies to all of us.”
“I’m still me, though.”
“She feels like girl,” Rutger interjected, hand squeezing and re-adjusting on her legs. “Is good.”
“Shut up.” She tapped the top of his head, patted it, then wound her hand around a horn. “You know I think I’m getting to actually… love you both. Bondmating screws up the normal, but yeah, I do.”
They both bit out laughs.
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