A tick later, and he was holding me against him. I could feel the heat of his body even through our combined clothing, and I could smell his unique aroma. His hair brushed against my face, and he pressed his lips against the sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder. It felt good, so good that I could forget everything else for a short time.
“Why?” he muttered. “Why did you do it?”
I could have played the dumb game but I didn’t. “They wanted me. And Clora needed to be in Sunshine.”
“Clora’s all right,” he said into my flesh. “The baby’s all right.”
“How do you know?”
“I know,” he whispered.
Gideon perhaps. Maybe someone else who had joined up with the Redwoods Group. Or even Hanley via Landers. It didn’t matter. I felt more relief. I hadn’t thought Clora had a chance. The baby would have been born, and then once the connection between mother and child had been severed, she would have melted away into nothingness like everyone else had during the change.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I pulled back and looked into Zach’s beloved face. “I should have recognized what I had and I didn’t.”
“Don’t say that,” he protested. “You had to find out what made Sophie tick. I never begrudged you that.” He suddenly laughed grimly and dove in for a quick kiss. When he pulled back he added, “Maybe a little. But I do understand.”
I sighed, and my hands ran over his shoulders. The last time. The very last time. I almost couldn’t breathe. “Zach,” I said.
“Wait,” he interjected, “I need to tell you—”
Then Zach slapped me across the face.
* * *
Surprisingly, I had fallen asleep. Even while pain exploded in my already bruised jaw, I was thinking, I actually fell asleep? Then my cuffed arms were swinging up and away from me in a roundhouse blow. I didn’t care about the pain in my fists when I made contact with the face of the man who had just hit me. Again.
The weight of the cuffs and the chains made for a better smack. Mario now had a broken nose to go along with the impaled eye. It wasn’t going to be a good look for him. He fell back, grasping his nose that had blood spraying out, and cursed violently under the hand. People behind him started and rushed forward, uncertain what to do.
I scrambled backward, but I couldn’t go much further because of the radiator.
Mario drew back a heavy boot and made to kick me. A big hand caught Mario’s shirt collar and yanked him away, tossing him a few feet beyond the reach of my body. “Stop, dammit,” McCurdy cursed. “What did you think was going to happen when you slapped her awake?”
Mario scuttled off with another vehement string of words that would have made a sailor blush. The others backed away, still staring at me.
McCurdy turned to me. “You hurt?”
My eyebrows shot up. “Does it matter?”
McCurdy didn’t have an answer for that. “I’ll get you some coffee. You want something to eat?”
“No, I don’t want anything,” I snapped. “You going to offer a cigarette, too?”
“You don’t smoke,” he said with a tinge of wry humor.
Gallows humor, which would be great if he was going to be the one hanging from the gallows.
“I have Ativan,” he said.
It took me a moment to process that he was offering me an anti-anxiety medication. Something to salve a tad of McCurdy’s conscience and something to make me a little blurred around the edges so I wouldn’t start to cry or something equally girly and embarrassing.
“I won’t break down,” I said. In fact, vacillating shreds of anger were curling through me, poking at me in interesting locations, making me feel more outraged than I probably had the right to be. I might have done something that deserved recompense, but these men didn’t have the right to judge me.
Realization of another fact came to me. It was dawn. Pink light streamed into the high casement windows on the sides of the building, and I knew that the time was nigh.
High flipping nigh.
“Okay, we’ll get it over with,” McCurdy said reluctantly.
“I’d ask for a pardon, but I’m thinking my appeals have already run out,” I said. I climbed cumbersomely to my feet, and McCurdy directed one of his men to unlock the padlocks. I was left with only the handcuffs on my wrists. There wasn’t a way I was getting out of those, and I knew because I had already tried. I thought about taking McCurdy hostage, but based on the way that Mario was looking at me, it wouldn’t work. He’d probably kill McCurdy and then me, just for the heck of it.
“Take the Ativan,” McCurdy advised lowly. “I’ll wait for it to take effect.”
“Shove the Ativan where the sun doesn’t shine,” I said back, baring my teeth in a smile that wasn’t a smile.
McCurdy took one of my arms and a soldier who I didn’t know took the other. They walked me to the bathroom, and I was surprised that the water and toilet still worked. I took my time cleaning up until McCurdy opened the door and stared at me meaningfully. The pair took my arms again and escorted me outside, and I admired a fresh spring morning. The birds were calling. I could smell honeysuckle that was growing on a nearby chainlink fence. There wasn’t even a single cloud in a pinkish-purple sky. The dirigible had sunk nearly to the ground.
“Check the gas levels on the dirigible,” McCurdy said as he noticed the same thing.
Oh, it’s the gas levels all right. As in, they’re not in the thing anymore. Hope you have a sewing kit, captain, with some very large-sized needles in it. And I wasn’t going to point out what had happened in case McCurdy felt like retribution. In the darkness, McCurdy’s people hadn’t noticed its gradual descent.
But they had taken the time to tie a rope around an electrical pole. The cross member had to be about thirty feet up or more, so someone had to climb the thing in order to mount the rope. Someone else had found a table for me to stand on. They even had a mannequin sitting next to it. I assumed they had tested the length out on the mannequin. I’m sure they didn’t want to find out that the rope was too long.
Practice. Practice. Practice. After all, McCurdy should get used to hanging people who stomped on his ideals.
I glimpsed a glimmer of green luminescence that darted past. McCurdy saw it too, but one of the firefly pixies vanished before he could say anything. It was entirely likely that he thought they couldn’t prevent him from carrying out the execution.
They prodded me to the table. There was a matching chair next to it. “Step up,” McCurdy instructed, “or we’ll put you up there.”
I shrugged and stepped up. The table seemed a little rickety, but it was hardly something to complain about. The soldier I didn’t know stepped up beside me and put the pre-made noose around my neck. He adjusted the noose so that it was snug under my jawline. All of his people gathered to watch.
“I’ll read the judgment,” McCurdy announced and pulled out a folded sheet of paper from one of his many pockets. I had to appreciate the fact that he’d had to find an old typewriter and typed up the document even if I didn’t appreciate the contents.
I tuned out most of the words because McCurdy had also found some form of legalese to incorporate the fact that he thought he had the right to legally execute me. Betraying the nation, murder, and treason were all thrown in for good measure. It was a very boring document, and it took him a while.
While I stood there, I looked at faces. Mario’s was bloody and vicious. But there were others who were openly dismayed. Jack, the other bodyguard I knew, looked disturbed. He didn’t like me much, but he didn’t think much of this event. Then I saw Henry and Ela, the two soldiers who had been tasked to watch the hotel with the humans and new animals. They looked younger than ever.
Ela had tears in her eyes. She clutched Henry’s arm.
McCurdy continued to speak about tradition and honor and how we had to establish justice. Blah-blah-blah.
When it was all said, McCurdy nodded to the man standing on the table next to me. He st
epped down and started to pull the table out from under me. Just as simple as that.
My balance was immediately thrown off, and the rope began to strangle me.
Chapter 30
Death Comes on Silent Wings…
One foot automatically went back to balance myself, and a huge shadow swooped over us. I mean, it was well and truly ginormous. Because of the noose I couldn’t look up to see what it was, so all I saw was a great, rushing darkness. It exploded across us and was gone a microsecond later. The wind that it caused poured over my face and blew my hair straight back. It sliced over us, and I thought inanely, It’s a plane. Oh my God, it’s a plane.
I heard the surprised cries of the men and women in front of me as they tried to take it in.
The soldier paused in moving the table in order to better allow me to drop and strangle. He craned his neck like all of the others, and there was a huge distant thump. I felt it in the top of the table while I tried to maintain my equilibrium. The rope was snatched tight around the base of my skull and bit into the skin under my jaw, making it difficult not to choke. Another thump followed. It increased into a pattern. Something else very, very large was coming toward us, and it was so big it shook the ground.
McCurdy glanced around and suddenly bellowed, “Get your weapons!”
Everyone stampeded like frenzied chickens. It wasn’t anything like it was in the movies where they smoothly pulled out their armaments and got down to protecting themselves. Instead, they panicked because most of them had left their weapons inside the building. (Once the size-4 teenager was handcuffed, the pressure had been off, and clearly no ordnances had been required.)
McCurdy spared me a brief, concise glance. I wanted to shrug at him, but I didn’t really care to move. He bolted for the building, leaving me and the other man. The other man looked at me. His hands were still on the edge of the table ready to push or let it alone. Then he fled, too, leaving me standing there.
I reached up with my handcuffed wrists and yanked at the knots around my neck.
It took me a few jiffs, but I loosened it, sighing with utter relief.
Before I could work the noose off and run like hell, the military spilled back outside, crossbows, swords, and spears in hand, ready to face whatever it was. McCurdy was in front, rapidly glancing back and forth, actively seeking the enemy. I would bet a million useless dollars that New World Creatures 101 hadn’t been on the curriculum in the naval academy.
I still stood on the table on account that the rope was still attached to my neck and not in a good way. Gazing down the tracks as they stretched away to the southwest, I could see movement. Something was coming. In fact, a whole bunch of somethings were coming. McCurdy followed my gaze, and his shoulders stiffened.
The flying thing swept over the area again, and my mouth opened wide. It wasn’t a bird. It wasn’t a plane. And it damn sure wasn’t Superman. The impression was gilt wings the size of a jumbo airliner and a sleek body covered with golden scales that glimmered in the morning light. Its eyes burned with a red fire that made the world seem inadequate by comparison. And there was another set of eyes that burned at me.
Human eyes. Chocolate eyes.
I didn’t even process what it meant until after as it soared past my position. One sharp-tipped wing just missed my body.
But it didn’t miss the rope, and the sliced length fell down in a pile next to me on the table. It was like an abruptly cut ribbon, fluttering in a sharp breeze as it made a neat heap of hemp.
“Shoot her!” Mario yelled. “She’s going to get away! Shoot her!” He sure liked to say that. Pretty soon, someone was actually going to follow through.
Just then the hippogriff, with Prosper curled over its neck, blasted through on a low trajectory, knocking Mario backwards. The kid grinned at me, and I saw a brief thumb’s up come from him. Sure, he could make the gesture. He didn’t have a noose around his neck and crossbows pointed at him.
“Belay that order! Get that damn dirigible back in the air,” McCurdy shouted. “Get the cannons ready!” He issued some other instructions while I watched the faces of the people around me.
Many of the soldiers were frozen for the moment. No one really knew what to do. I think they had a pretty good idea the dirigible wasn’t going anywhere else for a long time. Then Mario scrabbled to his feet and grabbed someone’s crossbow again. He really, really, really didn’t like me.
I looked into the distance. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had seen the creatures a long way away before, and they had been somewhat friendly. In fact, they kind of owed me a favor, but I didn’t know if they saw it that way. I should say that they had seen it that way because here they were, and they loped toward us, giant masses of a thing that I would have called half-elephant and half-brachiosaurus. Their über colossal ears flapped as they galloped at what was probably top speed for them. They were making the ground shake.
And a spearhead pattern of firefly pixies surged past me. The ones that had left before I had climbed off the train to deal with Asher the Luddite. The ones who had stayed with me joined the formation, screaming their intention of attacking anyone who dared threaten me.
Spring shrieked, “HOLD ON, SOOPHEE! THE SISTERS ARE HERE!”
A set of giant moths swept past, their large wings folded up as they burst past me at a speed that made me gasp. I could see the golden-winged beast coming back around for another diving pass, and its scales caught the sun like a mirror reflecting back a thousand stars.
My eyes travelled back to Mario. He brought the crossbow around, and the bolt centered on my chest. I didn’t have my broadsword nor did I have any remaining ruses or artifices to save my bacon. My cuffed wrists came up, and I held them over my heart.
McCurdy suddenly cottoned to the fact that I was going to be improperly murdered at my own execution. Surely that wasn’t done. He followed my gaze, and he yelled something I couldn’t hear. The blood was pounding in my ears, or perhaps, it was the titanic feet of the Big Mamas thundering toward us.
Then he shoved his way through the crowd of soldiers who were frozen as they waited for the next super huge thing to go by them. No one was doing anything except Mario and McCurdy.
I took a deep breath as Mario lined up. I moved to jump off the table, but I could see the tip of the bolt unerringly following me, and I was dumbfounded for that single slice in time. Mario was inhumanly determined, and I wasn’t going to be able to escape that.
But someone else didn’t freeze up.
Jack swung his crossbow like an axe, a great arcing swing that built up speed and power. There was a physics law about it somewhere. “When a body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to that of the first body.” Yep, that was the one. Apple-headed Newton and his laws of motion in direct correlation to my situation.
To be more concise, Jack, who I didn’t think really liked me much more than Mario did, swung his crossbow around and clocked Mario on the side of his head. In the process of the equal and opposite reaction of the first body, Mario dropped the crossbow as he was tossed away from Jack, and finally hit the ground. I saw the dust puff up around his body as it made contact, but I still couldn’t hear anything but thumping in my ears. Really, it didn’t seem to cause a thump that was any larger than the Big Mamas’ feet, but it was quite vivid.
I took another breath, and I could hear again.
Even better was what Jack said, “This has gone far enough!” He turned to McCurdy, who had stopped in the act of charging to stop Mario. “This isn’t right. She—” he pointed at me “— didn’t do anything more than protect herself and her friends. Maston was nuts, and he was going to drag everyone down to the ninth level of hell with him. You’ve got to admit it. It’s not right to kill her for what she did. I’ll be damned before I stand here and condone this crap!”
I owed Jack a sports hoody. Pulling at the noose, I loosened it a little more. Mayb
e McCurdy wouldn’t change his mind, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him by keeping it on.
The soldiers turned as the Big Mamas reached us, and the wondrous golden-scaled creature plunged past us again. The wings came up and back as it put on the brakes and came in for a graceful landing just past the dirigible. The wings were out and each scale seemed to reflect the maximum amount of light as the mighty animal stopped and turned toward us. I wanted to look. Oh, how I wanted to look. My heart was making such a ruckus inside my chest, but McCurdy was still teetering on a moral edge. I looked back at the captain.
The Big Mamas stopped not ten feet away from the group and soldiers milled nervously, drawing into a tighter group. I looked up and saw Kara peering down at me from the back of one of the beasts. I thought about the dream where Zach talked about her. Guess she forsake the bike for the back of a Big Mama for the big dramatic effect. Five minutes later, and I would have been a big human hangy toy, but I shouldn’t be complaining.
On the other Big Mamas, were other people I knew. Lulu was sitting behind Tyree, and Stephen looked flummoxed as he sat behind Tomas. Tomas was the short carpenter from Sacramento who had come looking for his brother and found the Redwoods Group. Robert the tall lanky man who could hunt just about anything sat on another Big Mama, grinning down at me, with Hetta sitting behind him.
I should still be shaking in my combat boots, but instead, I felt such a surge of joy. I didn’t have to go back to go home. Home had come to me, home had come to save me.
Spring and numerous other firefly pixies landed on my head, pulling on my hair and singing insistently, “Was Soophee hurt? The sisters will impale the ones who did it!”
Soothingly, I sang to them as I watched McCurdy.
Henry was the first one to agree with Jack. The boy, who was actually older than I was, threw his crossbow down, and said, “It isn’t right. I won’t do it.”
Then Ela agreed, and she threaded her arm through Henry’s. There were a number of others who agreed and some who didn’t know what to do in the face of all of the beasts surrounding them.
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