Rachel watched him, tense and ready.
She couldn’t have known. Couldn’t have known about the drunk driver who’d beaten the raknoth to the punch in stealing his mother away. Couldn’t have known because he hadn’t told her or anyone else. Because his pre-Catastrophe life was gone. It belonged to someone else.
But as the memories flashed through his mind—the crumpled blue and gray heap that had barely been recognizable as a car, the look on his dad’s face when he’d sat down to tell Jarek the news…
“Fine,” Jarek growled. “Fine then. Let’s just sit here and watch the fucking world burn together, shall we? What’s the point anyway, right?”
The twisted glare contorting Rachel’s face faltered, as if she’d glimpsed something of the old pain her words had stirred in his chest. Tense silence strangled the space between them, both wanting to drop the angry stares, neither wanting to make the first move.
Footsteps in the corridor drew his attention before either of them could—fast, heavy. Someone running.
That was never a good sign.
“Someone’s coming,” he said.
Apparently Rachel had already sensed as much. “It’s Elise.”
True to her word, when the hatch peeled open a few seconds later, they both looked to find the raven-haired Enochian breathing hard and looking a bit flushed.
“It’s Michael,” Elise said without preamble. “He’s having an episode.”
Jarek traded a concerned look with Rachel, their squabble forgotten for the moment, and they trailed Elise wordlessly out of the room and up the corridor to the cockpit.
At their entrance, the ring of Enochians in the center of the cockpit stepped back to reveal Michael’s seizing form on the ground. From what Jarek had witnessed of his other attacks, this one looked to be on the tail end. Michael’s convulsions were sporadic, subdued, his muttering infrequent.
Rachel was at his side in an instant, though she knew as well as the rest of them there wasn’t much to be done other than to wait it out. After an unsettling minute of dwindling jerks, twitches, and semi-violent flopping, Michael went still. Rachel gathered up his head and stroked his hair, whispering comforting words.
“Mountains,” Michael groaned. “I saw mountains. Flying by below.”
Haldin exchanged a dark look with Alton and Franco before turning his gaze to Jarek.
“The Himalayan clan?” Jarek asked.
“Could be,” Haldin said. “I assumed he was busy stirring up the furor back home, but if Gada’s back on the prowl, Al’Brandt’s temple is the next closest to Kole’s.”
That didn’t bode well for their Himalayan allies. Unless…
“You happen to notice where the sun was, Mikey?”
“Ahead,” Michael said. He winced as Rachel helped him sit up. “It was ahead.”
Shit.
“That sure sounds like west to me,” Jarek said.
Unless Gada had happened to somehow jump to the other side of the planet, of course.
Johnny traded a worried look with Haldin. “We’d better let them kno—oh shit.” He looked up from his comm. “No net coverage here.”
That wasn’t much of a surprise, out here over the Pacific.
“Probably still not much coverage there, either,” Jarek said, “but don’t you guys have some of those little messenger fellas on this rig?”
“We do,” Haldin said slowly, his eyes flicking to Alton, whose eyes had drifted shut, “but…”
Elise was watching Alton now too.
Alton opened his eyes with the look of someone returning from a faraway daydream. “But we’re running preciously low, and sending warning that way may be risky.”
“Gada might intercept it?” Haldin asked.
Alton nodded. “If he’s headed that way, it’s entirely possible. And in that case, we’d be blowing any element of surprise to send a message that wouldn’t arrive for Brandt to hear it. In any event, we wouldn’t be able to tell what had happened, as Brandt likely won’t be able to respond without a nest of his own, and I doubt Gada would kindly inform us he’d intercepted our warning.”
“Well that is a pickle,” Jarek said.
Freaking telepaths.
Haldin looked around at all of them. “Do we go?”
There was a short silence, during which Jarek felt the subtle tilting pressure of the ship’s deceleration through his legs.
“HQ is still in trouble, as far as we know,” Michael said after a short silence. “We heard it straight from them. We know it’s true. This…” He touched lightly at the side of his head. “I don’t know what I saw. Not for sure. And I definitely don’t know if it’s true.”
“So we send the warning to the Himalayan clan,” Rachel said, “and then we get our asses back to HQ before it’s too late.”
That made a certain amount of sense, aside from the minor problem that they might be leaving eight of their dwindling number of potential raknoth allies to die while flying off to help a base that might already be in the clear if the duration of the last furor was any reliable indication.
There was too much they didn’t know, and no way to find anything out but to pick a direction and go.
“I don’t think we can do much for HQ at this point,” Haldin said. “The furor will probably be over before we get there, they’re tough enough to handle it without us, and it’s starting to sound like a diversion, anyway. If Gada somehow sniffed us on his trail, he might’ve started a furor on the other side of the globe to chase us off in the other direction. Or maybe he had no idea and was just trying to keep everyone looking the wrong way to start with.”
“Or maybe it’s happening because he’s flying there right now to end the fight before it begins,” Rachel said. “Maybe he deliberately tricked Michael hoping he’d tell everyone to be looking in the wrong direction.”
Michael lowered his eyes to the deck as everyone turned his way, his face tight as if he were fighting some internal battle to decide whether or not he should be trusted.
“Should we put it to a vote?” Elise asked.
No one seemed particularly excited about the idea.
“I’ve lived under the rakul for over three thousand years,” Alton said, “and I feel it’s safe to say that, if Gada knows of the Himalayan clan’s location—and he would after looking into the minds of the raknoth he slew—he’ll pursue his retribution on my kin before sparing much worry about humankind.”
“And we’re just supposed to trust your intuition on that one?” Rachel asked, gathering her staff from the deck and standing from Michael’s side.
“I trust it,” Haldin said.
“Of course you do,” Rachel said.
Haldin showed his hands in a peaceful gesture. “The only horse I have in this race is stopping the rakul.”
Rachel looked around at the group, her expression darkening. “Vote, my ass.” She shook her head. “Did we all already forget what happened last time we went chasing after this thing?”
“That’s a good point,” Franco said, chiming in for the first time. “And it begs another question. Are we sure we’re even ready to catch him?”
That gave everyone pause, and their collective hesitation in turn lengthened the uncertain silence.
It was a fair question. Aside from the fact that this Gada creature had apparently had little trouble taking on a Zar and four of his raknoth, Jarek had no real way to gauge what it was they were dealing with.
Haldin’s eyes found his.
“What do you think, Jarek?”
What he thought, possibly for the first time in his life, was that he didn’t want to touch this decision with a ten foot Whacker.
Never mind that he might be casting a vote for them to all fly to their deaths. Never mind that Rachel might take a vote against her, and with Alton, as a knife straight to the back.
He’d already let too many people down today, and now, no matter what they decided, people were going to get hurt—were already getting hu
rt. And every moment they lingered here was another moment they were letting it happen.
“How much longer will it take to swing by Brandt’s and see for ourselves?” he asked.
Alton appeared to be consulting a map in his head. “Less than three hours, probably.”
That wasn’t exactly comforting. A hell of a lot could happen in three hours.
Still—and maybe it was the fresh memory of Kole’s savaged corpse talking—Jarek couldn’t quite turn away from the gut feeling that, unless that furor back home lasted far longer than the other one had, and unless Rachel was right and Gada had thought to trick them using Michael, Brandt’s mountain temple was where they could do the most good right now.
Eight more raknoth on their side, not to mention the support of Brandt’s human forces…
They could still score a win today.
Jarek looked around at the faces waiting for his input.
Electric trills laced through his chest, the words lingering on his lips.
Because it was crazy, wasn’t it? Racing off after the thing that could cut down raknoth like mere squishy humans—and while HQ may or may not be burning under the furor, no less.
But it was already too late to do much about HQ, and if they could get Brandt and his people out, get them back to home base…
They could get it right this time. For Kole. For Katashina.
He could get it right this time.
They just had to move.
“What do you say, team?” Jarek looked around at the assembled crew. “Are we crazy bastards or aren’t we?”
They all exchanged glances, weighing and assessing as if seeking some unspoken permission.
Finally, Johnny bobbed his head. “Crazy bastards.”
“Crazy bastards,” Haldin agreed.
Others echoed the sentiment.
Michael speared Jarek with a stern look. “And what about the Resistance you claimed to be a part of?”
“I think Haldin’s right. They can handle the furor. They were preparing to do just that when we left. Keeping eight more raknoth alive today is the most valuable thing we can do for Earth’s chances.”
Michael and Rachel traded a look, Michael hesitant, Rachel clearly less than convinced.
“Fine,” Michael finally said. “Crazy bastards, then.”
“Crazy assholes is more like it,” Rachel muttered.
Jarek was considering the wisdom of clarifying whether that meant she was in when Rachel shot an impatient look around the room and added, “So what are we all waiting for?”
Jarek clapped his hands together, not keen to waste the small grace. “The lady raises a fair point. Whose tummy do we have to tickle to get this crazy party on the road?”
“No tickling required,” Alton said. “But you might all want to take your seats.”
They hurried to comply, plopping down in the chairs that had clearly been retrofitted in the raknoth vessel and strapping into harnesses.
Jarek was a touch surprised when Rachel settled into the seat beside him, but he had the good sense to hold his tongue as she strapped in and met his eyes.
For just a second, it was like old times, and he couldn’t help but think about the night they’d spent in silent fear awaiting the duel with Zar’Golga that’d gone so messily sideways. In that second, he even thought about reaching out for her, about saying quiet thanks for her support or an even quieter sorry for something he wasn’t quite sure how to articulate.
But then the ship banked gently beneath them and drew their eyes to the front as the sun swung into sight and steadied out right-center in the viewport. At the center console ahead, Alton’s gaze was distant with whatever he was doing to control the ship.
They accelerated—fast.
Jarek relished in the raw power of the ship, as communicated to him by the prolonged backward lurch of his stomach, until the acceleration lulled off and left only the sure weight of Rachel’s presence beside him, the ominous pull of dread somewhere in the distant mountains, and the burning guidepost of the sun ahead—the same sun they’d already chased halfway across the world today.
Quietly, so quietly that only Al and Rachel could hear, he murmured, “This day just keeps getting longer and longer.”
11
In just over an hour, they were closing in on the Himalayas. Despite everything—the danger they were quite possibly approaching, not to mention the frightening pace at which they were doing so, or the fact that it was largely at the behest of Alton Parker—Rachel couldn’t help but stare in wonder at the snowy, sun-doused peaks of the great mountains as they rushed toward them.
At least things were under control back at HQ—or at least headed that way. They’d received that news as soon as they’d found their way back to net coverage, right along with a hefty dose of cursing chastisement and orders for an expedient return from Alaric.
So maybe Alton had been right. Maybe the furor back at home base had simply been a distraction. The thought didn’t exactly make her feel any better. Especially since it only meant it was that much more likely Kul’Gada was bound for the Himalayas and that they were indeed hot on his trail.
What would happen when they caught up to him… Well, they were probably about to find that one out.
She looked over at Jarek, strapped in beside her, and suppressed the faint urge to reach for his hand.
Why had she been so insistent on pushing him away since that kiss? Sure, shit had admittedly gone sideways in the past few days for their own reasons—namely the enormous cargo bag of unresolved shit she’d somehow managed to convince herself she’d dealt with in years past. But before that… Why had she spent two weeks being so stubborn when they could have had each other and…
And Jesus, why was she thinking about this now of all times?
Maybe because it felt a little too much like they were flying into a rumble with a creature who’d singlehandedly torn five raknoth to literal pieces.
She glanced around at the Enochians, all strapped in ahead of them along with Michael, and wondered if similarly doomy thoughts were drifting through their heads.
The nav marker on her comm map put them about forty miles out from Al’Brandt’s mountain temple when Alton began gently decelerating and dropping elevation. As they leveled out, Alton took a sharp intake of breath.
The translucent viewing section of the cockpit’s wall zoomed in to reveal the distant shape of a rustic wooden temple nestled into the side of one of the larger mountains. And there, below, was what must have startled Alton.
Rachel breathed a soft curse as the zoom focused in and the small shapes resolved into dozens of humans charging up the mountain path toward the temple. Some of them were bloodied and lacking the appropriate clothing for the frigid mountain air. None of them seemed to care. They charged on with maddened intensity.
As if they’d been caught in a furor.
“Son of a bitch,” Jarek murmured.
“Gada,” Alton hissed at the head of the cockpit.
The viewing panel refocused downhill from the charging berserkers to a level, diamond-shaped butte set a good ten feet higher than the slope around it. And there on the plateau stood a figure Rachel was instantly certain would be haunting her nightmares for years to come, provided she was around to have them.
Kul’Gada. There was no question about it.
He was like a twisted nightmare mashup of a tyrannosaurus rex and the big evil turtle from those old Mario games—plus a shot of Satan himself and a set of disturbingly crimson eyes, of course. Those glowing orbs slowly turned to face them as Alton slowed the ship to a distant hover.
The rakul’s shape couldn’t fairly be described as humanoid beyond the fact that he was an upright biped with two arms. Gada stood at a slight forward incline, the line of which continued on from his sandy yellow haunches and into his thick, powerful-looking tail. His back was a mess of jagged-looking bony protrusions that ran from upper back down the length of the tail, and his long arms and thi
ck legs ended in viciously clawed appendages.
Silence hung in the cockpit, at least until Johnny disrupted it.
“Ahh, he doesn’t look so bad!”
Obvious bravado aside, the sound of his jest still made Rachel feel just a touch less paralyzed with fear.
“Okay, guys.” Haldin unstrapped his harness and stood. “This is it. Probably goes without saying, but let’s not underestimate the thing that just slaughtered five raknoth. We keep him busy and buy time for Brandt’s raknoth to either join us or escape.”
Jarek raised a hand. “How do we feel about cutting the bastard’s head off?”
Haldin made a have at it gesture. “That seems like an ideal outcome.”
“Well Christ.” Jarek unbuckled, stood, and strapped his Big Whacker across his back. “Why didn’t you just open with that?”
Alton turned from the viewport. “Let’s just try to keep our own heads here, shall we? Gada will be faster than he looks, and far stronger than any raknoth you’ve ever faced.”
Rachel didn’t miss the way Jarek tightened up, maybe at some memory of his nearly fatal duel with Zar’Golga a few weeks ago. She unbuckled and stood as the rest of the Enochians did the same, gripping her staff tightly for stability—and maybe just a bit to help calm wild nerves.
Alton waited for Phineas to take over the ship’s physical, and apparently more clumsy, controls and then followed Michael and the Enochians in filing back toward the exit hatch, checking weapons and murmuring last calm words to one another.
Rachel turned back to find Jarek watching her. “Well”—his faceplate slid shut and locked with a click—“let’s get ready to rumble, then.”
She opened her mouth to say something—she wasn’t entirely sure what—but anxious fear clutched at her chest and halted her tongue.
Then Jarek cocked his head. “On second thought…”
His faceplate slid open, and before she knew it, he’d slipped a hand behind her head and was pulling her to him.
The kiss was as heated as it was unexpected, and as soon as she got over her surprise enough to even realize she wanted to respond, he was already pulling back.
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 65