by Pippa Jay
Quin shivered. The procession drew closer, and the guards were looking everywhere, intent on their duty. “They’re going to see us!”
As one they moved back from the junction and Quin felt a gap open behind her. A doorway, shallow enough that they would have to squeeze together to have any chance of hiding, but it gave them their only hope. She pressed into it and tugged Keir inward, tightening her grip on his cloak as he jerked away from her. “It’s this or nothing!”
Keir froze against her, his breath coming in short, ragged pants as if she were crushing him. She tried to ease herself away, but body contact was unavoidable.
The carter came into sight leading his pony. Quin dropped her hand to the tell-tale bulk of the smoke bombs then moved to the explosives. Please don’t make me use these.
The cloth-wrapped wheels rolled past, and the mounted guards paced into view. As the group moved away, Quin saw the nearest turn his head to look down the street but not to where they huddled in the doorway.
She let out the breath she had been holding. Before she could move, Keir lurched out of the doorway as if he could not stand another second stuck with her. She brushed down the irritation she felt and tugged the tracker from her pocket. “We go right.”
Keir nodded.
The tracker led them from the main streets and into a series of narrow alleys. Quin had the strangest sense of déjà vu as she glanced around before realization dawned that this was where she had begun her search for the legendary Blue Demon. As she considered the thought, Keir suddenly stepped forward, eyes fixed on a house at the corner of a junction. Quin pulled him back, startled by his unexpected move.
“Where are you going?”
“I…” His voice faltered. “I do not know. A feeling…”
He shook her off and crossed the road, forcing her to follow. As they came closer, the skin on the back of her neck prickled. At the door, she raised a hand to stop him as she took out the tracking device Surei had programmed with Quin’s DNA. Horror trailed cold tendrils down her spine. The tracker showed two signals coming from inside the house Keir had chosen. It would seem Rulk had already begun her work, contaminating human DNA with that of the Sentiac’s. With trembling fingers, she brushed the screen of the tracker and wiped it clean of images, as if she could erase the knowledge it had revealed as easily. Keir watched in silence.
“She’s here,” Quin sent, along with a few threads of her apprehension.
He flinched, though whether from his own fears or in response to hers she couldn’t tell–he’d learned to shield himself from anything less than a determined search. After a moment, he gave a small nod–he would follow her lead, whatever she chose to do. She put her hand to the door and found her fingers tracing an oddly familiar sign burned into the wooden surface.
“It is to ward off the ultimate evil.” Keir startled her from her appraisal. His thoughts were as dark and bitter as the night surrounding them.
“I’ve seen it somewhere before.”
“Yes. I have that symbol branded on me.”
Quin snatched her hand away. She stared at the emblem, a stylized sunburst with six twisted rays emanating from a double spiral at its heart. In her mind’s eye, she recalled her first sight of him in the medical center, stripped to his waist with the same icon carved into his stomach in harsh, black lines. And yet she was sure she’d seen it even before that, somewhere. If only she could remember.
“I’m sorry, Keir.”
He shrugged, though he couldn’t conceal his revulsion. “It does not matter now.”
She offered him wordless sympathy but couldn’t help feeling the sign boded ill for them, and she shuddered before steeling herself to enter.
“Come on.”
She pushed on the rough, wooden surface–which gave, much to her surprise. She would have expected every door in the city to be locked and barred, secured against the plague or those who might carry it. Had Rulk grown so careless, or did she still consider herself superior to any human? To her relief, it opened without a sound into a darkened room and she pulled Keir through, flinching as the door bumped shut behind them.
Inside, they paused to let their eyes adjust to the gloom–the only light came from a fire on the far side of a thin, tattered curtain that divided the single room in half. Their side held a narrow bed pressed against one badly-plastered wall and a crude wooden table with two flimsy chairs. A meal had been laid on the surface and half-eaten before being abandoned.
Something moved behind the fabric–a human-shaped shadow crossing the room. Quin crept forward until she reached the curtain, but hesitated at a gurgling sound. Then a frighteningly familiar voice spoke and ice gripped her heart. She snatched the drape aside, braced for combat, and froze at the scene confronting her.
Rulk, her cold blue eyes wide with shock, held a small baby wrapped in blankets which she clutched to herself as she backed away. She looked older, and frightened, worry-lines around her face and gray streaks through the once metallic, blue-black hair. The old slashed scar across her left cheek still showed clearly, undimmed by time and a testament to the anarchy she had caused on Edarius, where that mark had branded her a criminal. Barefooted, she wore a long, ragged tunic and threadbare leggings frayed at the edges.
Quin removed her hood as she moved closer but after a few steps she stopped, realizing she had no idea what to say to her old adversary. The woman she had feared for so long, whose image had haunted her deepest nightmares for so many decades, stared back at her wildly before her own face lit up in recognition.
“Tarquin Secker!” she cried, a jeer in her voice. “So you survived after all. And tracked me down, too. I’m amazed. I didn’t think you had so much talent in you.”
“Hello, Rulk.” Quin found her voice, thankfully, but couldn’t hide the slight quiver.
Hearing it, Rulk grinned, and a sudden hot fury raced through Quin’s veins, displacing her fear.
“You’ve brought company, I see,” Rulk continued, her voice mocking. “How nice. Come to make sure I couldn’t cause any more trouble? Or are you the execution squad?”
“I’m not here to kill you, Rulk, though Powers know I wish I had the strength.” Quin had her free hand clenched into a fist as she took another step closer. “Where’s the other Sentiac?”
For a second, fear flashed across the woman’s face before she managed to mold her expression into harsh defiance. “What other?”
Quin held up her tracker, though, now that they were so close, she could feel the presence of both Sentiacs in her blood–the result of the alien empathy that both drew and repelled her. “Two signals, Rulk.” She closed the distance between them, a clear threat though Rulk towered above her. “Where is it?”
Rulk gave no answer, her thin lips pressed together, but her gaze flicked down.
Horrified, Quin stared at the baby in the arms of her enemy. “The child?” she whispered, unable to look away from the tiny innocent sleeping in its blankets.
As if in answer, the infant opened dreamy blue eyes to stare back, blew a bubble and settled to sleep again. Cold dread filled Quin’s veins.
“My child,” Rulk said with pride, but Quin heard the faint tremor in her voice.
Quin shook her head, willing it to be a lie or some twisted trick, though she already knew it was true. The invisible link forged between her and the Sentiac made the infant as much kin to her as the Sentiac had been. But Rulk’s hybrids on Earth had been tank-bred, mass-produced creations. Not something that could have passed for a normal human child cradled in the arms of its mother. “How?”
Rulk made a disgusted sound. “You humans might need to breed like animals, but not I.” Her expression softened as she gazed at the child. She stepped away and placed the sleeping baby in its cradle. “When the Sentiac walked upon your world and took its first taste of humankind, it developed an insatiable need for the human life-force. Such violent, raw energy! It consumed many hundreds of humans before it took me.”
Quin swallowed the knot of revulsion snagged in her throat, chilled by the savage satisfaction in Rulk’s voice.
Rulk seemed to realize how much she was disturbing her guests and smiled. “But there was a side effect,” she continued. “The human DNA dominates. I can no longer change. I can’t open a gateway. I’m aging. Losing my powers. Every day that passes, I can feel myself die a little more. It seems that the Sentiac’s method for survival in that situation is to recreate itself. The child is all I have left. It is all that I am, all that I was, reborn.”
And now I have to protect that child, for Keir’s sake.
The prospect stirred her resentment and anger, made her feel sick. All that had been Rulk and the Sentiac, the monstrous creatures that took everything from her, had gone, leaving a lonely old woman and her baby. She felt cheated by it.
“I should kill you,” Quin whispered. At that moment she wanted to. Hate seethed in her chest until her heart pounded with it.
“Then do it,” Rulk said, showing her empty hands. “If you can.” Quin hesitated and Rulk smiled. “You forget, Quin. I read everything in your mind and your memories the day we first met. You are not, and never could be, a killer. You don’t have the stomach for it.”
“That was a lifetime ago. You’ve no idea what I’ve been through since then.”
“Poor Quin! All those years and you don’t even have the courage to take revenge.” Rulk mocked her. “Why seek me out at all?”
“Ryan.” Quin held her gaze. “The man who was with me at the end. What happened to him? Where did you send him?”
Rulk stared, and then laughed. “You ask me to remember the fate of one human? After the hundreds I devoured?”
“He was the last, Rulk. You pushed him through a gateway when you tried to kill me. You must remember that day?”
Rulk scowled. “I remember. Two pathetic little humans wrecking everything I’d achieved. I should’ve killed you the day we met.”
“We all make mistakes.” Quin took another step forward, placing herself within reach of the woman. “Where did that gateway go?”
“I don’t know.” Rulk watched her face with a disturbing intensity, as if savoring her reaction. “And even if I could remember, why would I tell you?”
“I don’t believe you,” Quin muttered as hope died in her heart. This was her last chance, the last possibility to find him. “Please.”
“I’ve no reason to lie over such an insignificant thing. But I can’t deny I find your pain gratifying.”
Quin buried her face in her hands as the enormity of Rulk’s statement sank in. It could well be another lie, but either way, Ryan seemed lost to her for all eternity.
Warmth touched her mind as Keir drew closer, offering wordless sympathy. She reached for him mentally, and his presence in her mind gave her as much comfort as arms wrapping around her.
“What is this?” Rulk’s voice cut into her grief and jerked her gaze up.
Keir removed his hood, his posture defiant as he faced his ultimate ancestor.
Rulk looked him over, her gaze admiring. “But he’s one of mine!” she crowed. “I can feel it in him, the Sentiac’s blood runs strong. Oh, he is beautiful!”
“I am not yours,” he told her, but Quin felt the shiver of uncertainty that ran through him.
A smile as sharp and deadly as a blade lit Rulk’s face. “Oh, but you are, however much you might wish to deny it.” She extended her hand and beckoned to Keir like a waiting lover. “Come here, my son.”
Sudden darkness hid his mind from Quin’s as he jerked and took a step forward. In panic, she grasped at his shoulder to keep him from Rulk, but agony tore through her mind as the woman turned her focus onto Quin.
“He is mine!” Rulk hissed in her thoughts, a venomous sliver that ripped through her head and tore a groan from her throat.
Pain drove Quin to her knees. She raked in a desperate breath, head in her hands, and tried, in vain, to quiet her rising panic. Despite the onslaught, sheer stubbornness hauled her back onto her feet in time to watch Keir be drawn irresistibly closer to his ancestor.
“Don’t let her touch you!” she shrieked, and Rulk flicked her fingers in a dismissive gesture.
A bolt of telekinetic energy threw Quin backward and smashed her into the ground with force enough to leave her helpless. Beside her, the tracker shattered into black glassy fragments as it struck the wall.
Rulk, it appeared, had lied about losing her powers.
* * * *
Keir flinched as an echo of Quin’s agony edged his thoughts. The woman before him held him in thrall even as he fought to break free.
“What are you?” he demanded, both repulsed and oddly fascinated by her.
The dark energy she radiated contrasted brutally with the luminosity of Quin’s, her malevolence overshadowing his mind. He could not move as she raised a hand to his face, her gaze holding him fast. As her fingers brushed his skin, he shuddered and closed his eyes.
She burrowed into his mind, ripping information from him. Pain scythed through his skull and tore into his chest, a ravening snake of agony. Tendrils of silver and blue wrenched memories from him. He tried to hold on, to keep himself from her, but resistance only intensified the pain.
Darkness flowed into him, an endless hatred and hunger, until he felt he would choke on it. It pulsed in his veins like poison. New agony seared through him and turned the blackness behind his eyes to blue flame. Within seconds, his legs buckled, and he collapsed at her feet.
For a moment Rulk stood with her hand still raised, a peculiar expression on her face. “Is that what my line comes to? A powerless mortal treated as a monster?” She glared down at him. “Has my life been a complete waste?”
With an effort, Keir dragged himself back to his feet, grimacing. “A life spent destroying cannot create anything other than sorrow and suffering. This is my inheritance.”
Fury lit Rulk’s face and she lunged toward him, her eyes fiery blue. Keir recoiled and Quin barged past him, knocking him aside. The two women tumbled across the floor, blue-white sparks shimmering over them until Quin sat astride Rulk, pinning her to the ground. A sudden wail rose from the child in the cradle and both froze.
Rulk started to laugh, the sound a mixture of fear and mockery. “What will you do now, Quin? Kill me?”
“I won’t kill you,” Quin promised, sudden resolve in her voice. “But I’m going to make sure you’ll do nothing more.”
Keir watched as Quin seized Rulk’s head in her hands and white lightning surged over the prone woman. She screamed, a raking sound that clawed through his skull, and he clapped his hands over his ears, trying to shut it out. Rulk convulsed as the energy streamed from her body and spiraled into Quin, who threw her head back and shrieked. Power coruscated around the two women and filled the room with a dazzling brilliance that forced him to cover his eyes and left painful sparks in his vision.
As the light dimmed, Keir crept to Quin’s side. She was shaking, her head bowed and red hair hanging loose over her face. Rulk lay limp and panting beneath her, glazed eyes staring into space.
“Quin.” He raised a hand toward her, his fingers halting just shy of touching her. Her head turned until her gaze met his. Tears streaked her face. “Are you all right?”
“No,” she breathed, and her voice caught. “But I will be.” She pulled herself clear of Rulk and struggled to her feet. Keir rose with her.
Relief eased the pain still thrumming through his head as they stood together and stared down at Rulk.
“What did you do to her?”
Quin hugged herself, and he felt the urge to touch her shoulder, to give her the reassurance she clearly needed, but could not bring himself to do it. “I’ve crippled her,” she admitted hollowly, and shuddered. “Drained off her remaining powers and burned out her memories. She’ll be capable of taking care of the child, but she won’t remember what she is and what she did. I didn’t want to…”
This time he did brush
her shoulder at the pain flowing from her. It was an ephemeral gesture, but she gifted him with a brief smile for it. “I did learn one thing though. She wasn’t lying about Ryan. She has no idea where she sent him.”
“So what will you do now?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “With all of time and space to search through, my last hope was finding the Sentiac. Now…” Hopelessness bled from her. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“But you will keep looking?”
“Yes. Somehow. I have to.”
She moved away from him and looked down into the crib. Curiosity drew him to follow. The baby had its eyes open. They appeared black as it gazed up at them both.
“It is hard to believe that this will be my ancestor.” Keir murmured, unnerved by its silent staring. And yet he felt the same connection to it as he had with Rulk, with Quin. They were all bound by the same blood, by that same alien contamination.
“But it means that your origins are human. Whatever Rulk may have been, there aren’t demons in your ancestry. You can see that now, can’t you?”
He could. But even that could not purge the image of the Sentiac from his mind, or the knowledge that he still carried that potential within himself. Pain still throbbed in his head from Rulk’s searing invasion, and his stomach squirmed at the memory. Her touch had branded itself into him body and soul, leaving his skin feeling strung tight and hot around his flesh. As if the blue fire he had seen within her had passed to him, had scorched the blood from his veins.
Quin sighed. “We’re finished here,” she murmured, and with a final scathing glance at Rulk still sprawled on the floor, she led him back out into the night.
Keir paused at the doorway to look back once. He had hoped to find a resolution here. The end to his hatred. The start of freedom. Instead, he had only Rulk’s taint on his tongue. Her contagion in his blood.
Something inside him had changed.