Across from her, occupying two seats, Mike calmly scratched at the dents in his hide from the hail of bullets that the Pilgrim guard had blasted at him. He dislodged three bullets, and they clinked to the floor of the carrier.
From the driver’s seat emanated the screechy voice of Ryan, as the elf drove the carrier speeding away from the Pilgrim compound as fast as the fifteen-ton carrier could go. Beside him, James March issued directions, and behind him Louisa March consulted a digital map. She also relayed radio messages from E’iouy, who flew far overhead, surveying the landscape ahead.
Above them, Geniato Belligrado perched in the open hatch, scanning the terrain on either side of the road. He couldn’t stand to be in the troop compartment, when he might be able to catch a first glimpse of the werewolf and his captive, the cherished Meri. He also filmed the passing scene, the bleak wasteland that was Earth, to document the ruined planet for Thera’s leaders.
Vlad had assumed the best vantage point, manning the fifty-caliber machine gun. The vampire’s acute vision meant he could distinguish the most distant objects in the dimmest of light.
In the troop compartment, Jack leaned toward Sam, his brow knitted in worry.
“Are you bleeding?” he asked.
She smiled faintly, finishing her cleansing. “Don’t worry. This blood is red . . . human. Mine is bright blue, luminous, in fact.”
Leaving Jack shaking his head at yet another revelation about the exotic, fascinating pixie, she moved forward to sit between Ryan and James, to translate the elf’s skritterings.
Handing the radio up to Geniato, Louisa moved beside her son. She hugged Jack warmly. “My dear, I was so worried about you! And that chip . . . that termination chip. Why didn’t you tell your father and me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“True, we would have been beside ourselves.”
Jack looked out the carrier’s port at the dismal landscape sliding by. He shook his head. “I can’t imagine being trapped on this planet.”
Louisa patted his hand. “Not to worry. We won’t be. The Pilgrims in the compound won’t interfere with the wormhole controls. We forced them to lay down their weapons by threatening to close it. And your father and I told them we installed a destruct code.”
“But you didn’t, right?”
“No, but we couldn’t take the chance that one of the fools would attempt an escape to Thera and collapse it. That’s our only way back home . . . well, your home.”
“What do you and Dad know about this area . . . where we’re going?”
“We’ve been on scouting parties . . . well, more like raids . . . to confiscate fuel, weapons, and food. So, we know the terrain. The problem is, we’re passing through territory ruled by warlords. That’s good news and bad news.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s good that these warlords know everything that goes on in their area. They’re constantly battling over boundaries, so they have scouts everywhere. They could tell us whether the mercenaries or the werewolf passed through.”
“And the bad news?”
“They’re more likely to murder us for the vehicle and our equipment than to offer any help.”
From the hatchway came Geniato’s voice. “E’iouy says there’s a village ahead. And people.”
“That’s likely a landfill village,” said Louisa.
“Landfill village?”
“Many settlements have grown up around old landfills. They tap the methane for fuel. And they mine them for metal, plastic . . . anything they can sell or barter. Even food.”
“Food in the garbage?”
“Sometimes a package of dried soup or noodles. Sometimes even a can of food. Quite a prize for somebody who starves most of the time,” she said, as they moved forward to crowd behind the others peering out the carrier’s windshield.
After ten minutes, they saw a cluster of ramshackle huts made from discarded junk come into sight. The ragged, hunched figure of a young woman holding a baby stood beside the road, waving piteously.
“We’ll go out to talk. You should stay inside,” Jack told the Mythicals. “They might be frightened by your presence.”
Jack and his father took up assault rifles and made their way to the rear hatch. They stepped out onto the rubble-strewn road and into the hellscape that was Earth.
As always, the suffocating heat engulfed them, raising a sweat that soaked their clothes into sticky, clinging shrouds. The heat was so incongruous, given that the weak sun shone only as a smothered disk of wan light through the oppressive clouds. A choking smog clawed at their lungs and obscured any long-distance view of the gray-brown wasteland. Nearby, the only landmarks were the gnarled shapes of dead trees. A stream of scummy, fetid water trickled along a ditch which ran beneath what had once been a superhighway.
From the shacks emerged still more gaunt, ragged people, shuffling determinedly toward the carrier.
“My child needs food,” pleaded the woman, holding the little girl close to her tattered dress. “Can you spare any?” She glanced fearfully behind her as she spoke. James began translating from English to Theran for Jack.
Jack steeled himself against the heartrending sight of the mother and starving child. “We have some food that we can give you. But we need information,” he said.
“Yes, yes,” whimpered the woman. “Food for my baby. I’ll tell you what—”
She was cut short by the arrival of a mob of tattered, gaunt villagers, who also began begging for food.
Jack was about to make them the same offer when a shout came from the top of the carrier.
“GUNS!” bellowed Vlad.
Bursts of automatic weapon fire erupted from the crowd ricocheting off the carrier with metallic clangs. Jack and his father ducked behind the carrier, aiming their rifles, but holding fire.
“The people . . . we can’t just shoot into the crowd!” Jack exclaimed.
From behind them erupted another round of bullets slamming into the carrier. They were surrounded. They scrambled beneath the carrier.
Jack pulled a grenade from his belt, but James stopped him.
“They’re using the people as shields,” he said. “You’d kill innocents.”
“So, basically, we’re trapped out here,” said Jack, stowing the grenade. “We’ll just have to take our chances and try to make it back inside.”
Above them, the machine gun roared to life, Vlad launching a fusillade of rounds that ripped into the shacks, exploding holes in their sides and shredding their roofs. He aimed above the crowd, making them drop as one, scrambling away in the dirt, screaming and crying.
But still the gunfire continued from the cover of the human shields.
“We’ve got to make the carrier!” exclaimed Jack. “Take the chance of being shot.”
They leaped up, to see Vlad determinedly holding down the machine gun’s trigger, raking the area with machine gun fire. Beside him, Geniato fed the ammunition belt into the smoking machine gun.
But the attackers continued their barrage, now targeting Vlad. Round after round careened off the metal of the carrier near him, but he kept shooting. Periodically, he ducked an incoming round, marshaling his lightning reflexes.
Abruptly, Geniato disappeared into the carrier; and rising up through the hatch came the massive bulk of Mike, shielding Vlad from bullets that slammed into his body.
James plunged into the back of the carrier, and Jack was about to follow. But he paused when he glimpsed a shimmering reflection of light streaking downward from the sky toward a spot distant from the road.
The enemy gunfire abruptly stopped.
Realizing the silence, Vlad stopped firing. The only sound was the sobbing of the villagers.
Jack stood warily up, and James emerged from the carrier. They looked at each other with puzzled expressions, but both held their rifles at the ready.
They quickly brought them up again when, throughout the crowd, gunmen began to stand up, h
olding their weapons above them, as in surrender. One by one, they began to back away from the carrier, as the people took the chance to scramble for the safety of the huts, leaving the carrier sitting isolated amid an empty expanse.
A figure stepped from behind one of the shacks, a hulking, bearded man with a scar slashing through one blinded eye and down across his face. He held his hands at his side.
Behind him appeared the alabaster body and gossamer wings of E’iouy. The fairy held a dagger hard at the throat of the man, shoving him toward the carrier.
“They didn’t expect an air assault,” said E’iouy, smiling. “I’d like you to meet . . . what is your name?” James translated the question.
“Bardolph,” muttered the man.
“Ah, yes, Bardolph,” said E’iouy. “He is the leader of these thugs. They apparently obey him.”
E’iouy shoved Bardolph up to the carrier, as James and Jack leveled their weapons at him. From the village, they heard alarmed shouts, and the warlord’s men appeared from behind the shack walls, leveling their rifles at the group.
“You could have been killed,” Jack scolded E’iouy.
“I’m pretty fast.”
“Well, you’re going to be a father. You really shouldn’t have come, you know.”
E’iouy grinned and nodded. “True. But you needed me, obviously. A’eiio is safe on Thera. That’s what matters.”
Jack confronted the warlord, and with James translating, saying, “Here’s our offer, Bardolph. You give us the information we need, and we take you with us down the road far enough until we’re sure none of your men are around. Then we let you go. It’s that simple.”
“You will kill me.”
“No,” said Jack. “We give our word.”
Bardolph glared up at him, uttering a guttural grunt of disbelief. “The others killed. They killed five of my men.”
“Others?”
“Soldiers. They also came in two of these.” He gestured at the carrier. “They came at night. They took men from their families. They killed the families. Then they killed the men.”
“We’re different,” said Jack. “They are our enemies.”
Ryan and Sam appeared from within the carrier, and the warlord regarded the elf and the pixie with a widened eye, snorting in disbelief. “Yes, you are,” he said. “What are these creatures?”
“Tell us what your men told the soldiers.”
The warlord paused, regarding the invaders with a calculated stare, finally nodding in agreement. “They told them about the cannibal beast that came and killed.”
Geniato leaped forward, grabbing the warlord before being pulled away. “What about the beast?” he demanded. “Was there a girl with the beast? Where did they go?”
Bardolph glared at him, then shrugged. “The creature came at night. One of the girls saw it, as it dragged away her mother from their hut. It had fur . . . and fangs . . . an animal, but like a human. We found the mother’s body. It had been eaten. And we found others dead and eaten at its feeding ground. One was my kin.”
Geniato slumped in dejection against the side of the carrier.
“Where did the beast go?” asked Jack, repeating Geniato’s question.
“South.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“That’s all I know. And that will let you find them. They can only go so far south before they reach the ocean. The beast may be trying to get there and take a boat.”
“There are boats there,” confirmed James. “If he manages to steal a boat, he can escape to open water. This is the only road there. The others were destroyed in the civil wars, when the government collapsed.”
“Then we go south,” declared Jack.
“He’s gone. She’s dead.” Geniato slumped between Jack and James on the muddy shore of the flat, gray sea. They had reached the end of the highway, only to find a total emptiness both to the east and west as far as the eye could see.
Jack put his arm around Geniato, declaring. “Don’t give up hope. E’iouy is up there. He can see for miles.”
“Well, I need to do something,” said Geniato. “I’m going to scout.”
Jack considered stopping Geniato from going off on his own, but thought better of it. The sorrowful young man needed to be doing something. “Okay, but take a weapon.” Jack waved to the ogre, who was tromping up and down in the scummy water. “Take Mike with you.”
Geniato nodded and returned to the carrier to fetch an assault rifle, and followed by the hulking ogre, hiked off down the mud flat.
Sam and Vlad emerged from the carrier to join them, Sam shaking her head to indicate there had been no word from E’iouy of any sighting.
“Could the werewolf have taken a boat from here?” Jack asked his father.
“Not likely. There are no villages here. No reason to be. The ocean is dead. Few fish, except for sharks. Little life.”
“What happened?” asked Jack.
“It started back in the two thousand and twenties, when global temperatures were rising, including the ocean water temperature,” said James. “Carbon dioxide levels were going up, and the ocean was absorbing it and becoming acidified. It began killing fish, coral reefs. The warmer waters reached down into the deep ocean, where frozen methane ice had been collecting for millions of years. The deposits thawed and over maybe decades there were these huge eruptions of methane. That was the death blow.”
“So, there aren’t many boats?”
“Not the last time we were here, years ago on an expedition. But there were boats in some villages up and down the coast . . . trading boats that go south to flooded cities, where there are still buildings sticking out of the water. They trade . . .” James’s voice trailed off, as if he didn’t want to explain further.
“So, this wasn’t always ocean?”
“No. It was all land from here for several hundred miles south. It was a giant peninsula. It was called Florida.”
• • •
E’iouy skimmed above the decaying landscape, along the shoreline where the gray mud flats met the ocean’s brown waters. He struggled to breathe in the muggy, dank air, but was determined to fly on, especially because he had glimpsed what appeared to be a village in the distance.
He willed his wings to beat harder to carry him higher in the murk, to make it less likely that a bullet would find him. It was a laborious task, given that he had decided to carry a belt full of grenades. Even the relatively small load made flying harder, but he had decided for this flight, he might need aerial munitions.
Armored carriers! He spotted a pair of armored personnel carriers parked among a collection of ramshackle buildings below. At first he could make out no people around them, but as he began to circle, he saw that camouflaged mercenaries were ducking their way down the streets. They were converging on another carrier parked near the water.
Then, he saw why they were advancing. It was the werewolf! The creature was scrambling for a boat dock, dragging Meri behind him. E’iouy could see villagers fleeing, probably terrified of the monster that had appeared among them. E’iouy pulled out the radio and told the others of his discovery. Louisa replied that they would head for the scene immediately.
The mercenaries were nearly on the werewolf, making it likely he would not reach the boat in time.
E’iouy banked into a sharp turn, to stay above the scene. He realized that, as absurd as it might seem, he had to help this beast who was a cannibal, and who had abducted an innocent girl. If the mercenaries reached them, they would kill the werewolf, which was not a bad thing. But they would no doubt kill Meri. And, if the monster had the codes for the Palliation, it would be the death of an entire planet’s population.
So, he pulled two grenades from the belt, yanked out their pins, and held the triggers tightly. He calculated where the nearest mercenaries were approaching the boat dock. He banked into a steep dive, counting on the whisper-quiet of his wings to enable surprise. He whipped across the roofs of the village, r
eleasing a grenade in front of one contingent of advancing mercenaries. And on the next parallel street, he dropped the other.
He willed his diaphanous wings into a furious whir to bear him upward, hoping that the mercenaries had not detected him.
From below rose the sharp report of exploding grenades and the crackle of automatic gunfire. He scanned the area, trying to discern whether any of the shots were directed upward. But they seemed to be aimed at the dock. The mercenaries must have believed the werewolf had launched the grenades.
The werewolf had reached a boat and clambered in with his captive. Still the mercenaries advanced. They would be on him before he could launch.
Now E’iouy had a choke point; the dock entrance. He pulled out two more grenades and pulled their pins, banking around and sailing low along the shoreline, calculating precisely when he would reach the dock.
Now!
He released the grenades, watching them plummet downward, bouncing on the dock, coming to rest.
But now, more gunfire, and aimed at him. Bullets whizzed past him with a piercing whine. He quickly banked left, then right, then left, to evade the bullets. A round pierced his wing, bringing a stinging pain, the tattered hole rendering it less aerodynamic. He adjusted his flight to compensate.
As he swooped down to take himself out of the line of fire, the grenades exploded with a louder bang, given his lower altitude. Now that he was beyond the village, he gained altitude to see the result.
Success! The werewolf had boarded the boat and flung the girl onto its deck. But the beast didn’t leave immediately. He turned and flung a small bag onto the dock. Then he returned to the boat’s small open cabin, started the engine and sped away in a spray of brown water.
The mercenaries reached the dock and began firing at the fleeing craft, but E’iouy could tell that the boat was far enough out that the bullets had little chance of reaching their target.
Two mercenaries aimed their weapons upward, spraying the air with gunfire. As bullets whizzed past him, E’iouy struggled upward, hindered by the injured wing.
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