The monster lunged toward her, hissing, baring rotten teeth.
Mairead stumbled backward. Normally she would have dodged the creature easily, but she was too weak, too hurt. The hybrid slammed into her, knocked her down, and sank brown teeth into her shoulder.
Mairead bit down on a scream, not wanting to alert more enemies. She punched the creature's head again and again, bloodying her knuckles. It wouldn't release her. She drew her gun. She had no bullets, but she pistol-whipped the beast with all her strength. The skull cracked, and the creature finally released her, blood in its mouth. Mairead scrambled to her feet.
"What are you?" she whispered. "Do you need help?"
The creature shrieked. It leaped toward her again.
Mairead stepped aside faster, and this time she dodged her enemy. She swung her gun, knocking the butt against the beast's head. The chimera thumped to the ground, twitched, and rose no more.
But the shriek had alerted its friends.
They came slithering down the walls, through windows, from storm drains. Hideous creations. Snakes with human heads. All hissing, staring with rheumy eyes, zombies of scales and mindless hunger.
The creatures surrounded Mairead, closing in.
"What are you?" she cried. "Who did this to you?"
The hybrids attacked.
One leaped from her left. Mairead spun and pistol-whipped it, knocking it back. Another creature landed on her back and bit her shoulder—the same place where the last creature had bitten her. Mairead yowled, tore it free, and hurled it against two other beasts.
They were everywhere. Nipping her heels. Lunging from above. More emerged onto the rooftops.
"Help us," one whispered, only a girl, a girl with tears in her eyes and scales on her limbless body. "Please … Help …"
Yet when Mairead stepped closer to the girl, the creature leaped toward her, screeching, eyes mad with rage. Teeth sank into Mairead's arm.
She fought them. She fell to her knees, and they slammed into her, covered her, bit her, but Mairead kept fighting, kept howling.
I always knew I would die in battle.
A hybrid drove into her chest, and Mairead fell onto her back.
I always knew I would die young.
The pain was fading now. Maybe she was almost gone. The twisted, hungry faces crowded above her, but Mairead saw the stars. The beautiful cosmic ocean, glittering and endless, filled with light and peace. The home she had known for so long.
But the stars were never my home. I was always sailing to a distant world. To this world. To Earth. I always knew I would die on Earth.
As they bit her, Mairead wept. Because she had always dreamed of New York City. Of entering that poster above the poker table. Of walking among glittering skyscrapers. Of living like in the days of old. Her dream had become a nightmare. This had become a city of monsters. Earth had become a world of aliens and death.
Despair flooded Mairead. So long, she had fought in the beauty of space. Why should Earth be monstrous while the realms above were so fair?
A thought arose from the shadows
Because this war is more noble.
Mairead understood.
Our first war was fought along the path home. But now we are home. Now we fight a war of rededication. Now we fight upon hallowed ground. This war is fought in a pit of demons, but it is holy.
Mairead realized that Earth had never been meant for her, for her generation. She had been born in space. They all had. They would forever be the generation of exile, haunted by the demons, their hands bloodstained, their souls scarred.
But they were the greatest heroes.
They were the bloodied, broken pillars upon which a great civilization would rise again.
And bloodied, broken, Mairead rose.
She stood in the alleyway, and she cast off the demons.
She lifted a storm drain cover, and she swung it with all her strength, knocking the beasts back. The metal bars scattered their teeth across the alleyway. Shattered their skulls. Tore into the human faces. And as they died, she saw relief in their eyes.
"Thank you," they whispered as she slew them. "Thank you …"
She could not kill them all. But she could kill a few. She could deliver mercy to some.
Swinging the grate, she retreated toward a doorway and backed into a shadowy building. She slammed the door shut, sealing the monsters outside. They screeched, clawing at the door, at the walls. Perhaps desperate to kill her. Perhaps desperate to be killed.
Mairead had no more strength. She fell to her knees in the dark room, struggling for air.
Blood dripped down her fingers. She took deep breaths, trying to steady herself. Her hands trembled, and she tried to open her medical kit, but spilled it across the floor. She wrapped gauze around her wounds. She gritted her teeth, then slammed a needle into her thigh, giving her a dose of morphine.
I'm dying, she thought. I have to get to a hospital. I have to get home.
Port Addison was a thousand kilometers north. Walking, the journey could take weeks. But if she could still steal a Copperhead, she could be in Port Addison within half an hour. Cindy could patch her up, save her life.
Mairead trembled.
Half an hour, she thought. I'm just half an hour from home. I just have to make it a little farther.
The morphine parted the haze of pain. She looked around her. She was in a grimy chamber with brick walls, perhaps an ancient brownstone from New York's human era. There was a shed snake skin in the corner. A pile of bones lay nearby, vaguely—yet not quite—human. Tools hung on the wall: hammers, knives, rib spreaders, meat cleavers. Vials bubbled on a table. Human hands floated inside jars of green liquid.
Mairead stared at this morbid collection.
"What the hell?" she whispered.
A flash of movement caught her eyes.
A reflection in one of the cleavers on the wall.
Mairead grabbed the cleaver, spun around, and hurled the blade.
The cleaver slammed into a rearing basilisk, splitting the creature's head open.
The creature screeched, still alive, and pounced.
Mairead leaped back, and the basilisk slammed into the wall of tools. Hammers and blades fell across the alien, scratching his scales.
This was no ordinary basilisk. The creature seemed ancient. White whiskers grew around his jaw, and his eyes drooped, oddly human. Alien letters were etched into his white scales.
The basilisk was old, yes. Yet when he lunged toward Mairead, his fangs seemed sharp enough.
"You will not hurt your children!" the basilisk screeched. "They are no longer yours!"
Mairead dodged the snapping jaws. She knelt, grabbed a hammer, and swung it.
The hammer slammed into the jaws, shattering teeth. The elderly basilisk gurgled on blood, screaming.
"You will not kill your children!"
Mairead swung the hammer again and again, shouting wordlessly, knocking out teeth, cracking the jaw, until finally the creature fell. The basilisk lay on the floor, his jaw all but gone, but still gurgling, trying to speak.
"My … creations …"
Mairead was weeping now. Yet she slammed the hammer down again, driving it into the skull, and finally the basilisk lay still.
For long moments, Mairead shuddered. Blood covered her, half her own, half the blood of her enemies. Her fingers were shaking again. She pulled out another needle, jabbed it into her thigh. She gritted her teeth, waiting until the morphine kicked in.
Outside, the strange hybrids had crawled away. The house trembled as another Copperhead soared outside, and for a moment firelight filled the room. Mairead swallowed with a dry throat.
The spaceport is only a block away, she thought. I can be home in half an hour. I can make it to a hospital. I can survive.
She tore the cleaver from the dead basilisk. She hefted her weapons—cleaver in one hand, hammer in the other. She was about to step outside when she heard the voice.
&nb
sp; "Help … us …"
Mairead froze halfway toward the doorway.
The voice rose again, weak and trembling.
"Please … help …"
Mairead turned back. The voice came from below. She shoved aside the dead basilisk, revealing a trap door. A heavy lock kept it shut.
"Please …" Something scratched at the trapdoor from below. "Help … Please …"
Mairead wanted to run. To make to the spaceport. To hijack a Copperhead and get out of Dodge.
But the words of the Heirs of Earth returned to her.
Wherever a human is in danger, we will be there.
Was a human trapped below?
I'm no longer an Inheritor! she told herself. I'm a soldier in the Human Defense Force!
Yet she had made a vow. And that vow bound her for life.
She swung her hammer, hitting the lock again and again. It took long moments of work, and each swing hurt. But finally, Mairead broke the lock and pulled the trapdoor open.
Whoever had scratched on the trapdoor was gone. A rickety staircase led down into darkness. A stench rose from below, so thick and foul Mairead could taste it.
"Hello!" Mairead said, hating that her voice trembled. "Who's down there?"
No voice replied. For a long moment—silence. Then a scrape. A clatter of metal. Silence again.
Mairead looked at the staircase.
Don't do it, Mairead told herself. Rowan showed you horror movies from the Earthstone. You know you should never walk into a dark basement!
"Wherever a human is in danger," she whispered to herself, "I will be there. I am Mairead McQueen, an officer of the Human Defense Force. I fought in the Battle of Aeolis. I charged with the Corvette Company at Terminus. I fear nothing."
She took a step onto the staircase.
She gulped and took a few more steps.
Above her, the trapdoor slammed shut with a boom, sealing her in darkness.
Mairead froze. The darkness was complete now.
From below—another scrape. A deep, ragged breath.
"Who's there?" Mairead demanded. But nobody answered.
She had no flashlight, no more flare, so she pulled out her minicom. She had been using it extensively, tracking Naja across the wilderness. She was on her last spare battery, and even it was down to 5%. It would have to do. She held up the pocket-sized computer, casting its soft light.
Something scurried below. Mairead's heart seemed to stop. But no—it was only a shadow. Wasn't it?
You're a mucking idiot, Mairead McQueen, she thought, taking more steps down.
The stairs creaked. Dust scattered. She kept walking, finally reaching the basement.
She raised her minicom, casting pale light. The basement was filled with bones. They covered the floor. Countless bones. Human bones. Insects scurried inside skulls. Rib cages formed diminutive temples. But the bones were picked clean, old and dry. The stench came from piles of excrement that lay between the bones.
Mairead slowly raised her head and looked at the ceiling.
She clenched her jaw, struggling not to pass out.
My Ra.
They covered the ceiling. A dozen or more, collared and chained. At first, she thought them more harpies, the same creatures from the tunnel. But no. These creatures had long, scaly bodies like basilisks. Instead of arms, they had leathern wings. The worst part, however, was their heads.
Each creature had a human head. Red hair. Green eyes. Freckled skin.
They all had Mairead's own face.
"We are your daughters," one of them said, eyes damp. "Kill us. Please. Kill us …"
Across the ceiling, the others all spoke too.
"Kill us … Please … Kill us."
"Who are you?" Mairead shouted.
They looked at her, reaching down with twisting tails. "Your daughters … Please … Help …"
Mairead began to pant. Her head spun.
They took my blood.
Cold sweat washed her.
At some battle. In space. Or here on Earth. They took my DNA. They grew them. My daughters.
Mairead wept for them.
"Please," they whispered. "Help us … Kill us …"
Mairead looked up at them, sobbing now. At her children.
"Wherever there is a human in danger," she whispered, "I will be there."
She climbed out of the basement. And they followed. Mairead emerged onto the street, holding their leashes. They flew behind her on their leathery wings like lurid balloons. Thirteen daughters. Thirteen scaly, winged demons. Thirteen humans.
She walked out of the alleyway and toward the spaceport.
Copperheads were soaring ahead, rumbling with fire. The firelight painted the decaying skyscrapers. In the distance, peering over a sea of smog, the Statue of Liberty stared with serpentine eyes, her scaly face twisted with malice.
Mairead walked over piles of bricks and bones, heading toward the spaceport.
A gateway rose before her. Mairead tossed an explosive, and the blast shattered the gateway, tore apart the basilisks guarding it. She walked over their corpses, entering the port.
A hundred Copperheads were here on the tarmac. A hundred more were flying above.
Many basilisks were here too. The serpents reared and shrieked, then charged toward Mairead.
She watched them coming, and a tear flowed down her cheek.
"I'm sorry, my children," she whispered.
She released the leashes.
Her deformed, beautiful daughters flew toward the enemy.
Creatures of wings. Of scales. Of red hair and sad green eyes. They wept as they died.
They were weak creatures. Experiments. Rejects. They had no claws, no fangs. No way to kill. But they launched themselves onto the basilisks, beating their wings madly, blinding the serpents.
"Thank you, Mother!" they cried. "Avenge us! Avenge us! Peace … Peace . . ."
Mairead ran.
She ran through the battle, weeping for their loss. As basilisks pounced, her daughters swooped and held them back. As a Copperhead tried to fire its cannons, several daughters slammed into its engines, and the starfighter exploded above.
Mairead reached one of the Copperheads on the tarmac. A basilisk lunged at her, and she swung her hammer, destroying the alien's eye. Behind her, her daughters were dying, and the spaceport was burning.
Mairead crawled into the Copperhead.
Half an hour to home.
Inside the narrow tube, Mairead lay down on her belly. Her blood kept seeping through her bandages, dripping across the floor. She stretched out her arms and grabbed levers. Through the windshield, she saw the last of her daughters die. The corpses of the creatures lay strewn across the port, torn apart, finally free from pain.
Basilisks undulated toward Mairead, jaws opening wide.
She pulled a lever, firing the Copperhead's guns.
Lasers beamed out, tearing through the basilisks, ripping up the tarmac.
She pulled another lever, and fire roared from her engine, and the small vessel rose.
Other Copperheads were firing up their engines below her. Mairead soared, swooped, and strafed the spaceport with her lasers. The green beams tore through the other vessels, ripped open a tower, carved up the basilisks on the ground.
Her daughters burned.
Her sweet, dead little girls.
Mairead rose higher and fired again. Laser bolts scoured the alleyway. The buildings crumbled. The alley burned.
Let there be no memory of this place, Mairead thought, burning it, tearing that dark building down.
But she knew that the memory would always live inside her. That she would never forget those voices calling for mercy.
Mairead rose higher and shoved down the throttle. She blasted forward, rising between skyscrapers. The Freedom Tower. The Empire State Building. The Chrysler Building. They rose before her, draped with scales, swarming with basilisks. Somewhere inside them, Xerka was lurking. Watching. Mairead
could feel it.
I will come back for you, Xerka. I swear. You won this round. But it's not over between us.
She switched on the afterburner, and she cracked the sound barrier. Windows on the skyscrapers trembled. And within seconds, she was out of New York, flying over the ravaged plains of Earth, hearing north. Heading to Port Addison. Heading home.
But Mairead knew that a part of her would forever remain behind, as surely as the ashes of her daughters. The city of her dreams had become her nightmare. She could fly for light-years, she knew, but she would never truly escape New York.
Near Port Addison, the colony's artillery cannons turned toward her. Humanity's few vessels—just a handful of Firebirds and dropships—flew to meet her. Their cannons heated up.
"It's me," Mairead whispered into her comm, voice shaky. She was so tired. She could barely speak. "It's Mairead …"
Her hand slipped from the controls. Her Copperhead wobbled.
"Mairead!" rose a voice through her comm. "Mairead, is that you?"
"Ramses," Mairead whispered. "Ramses, I'm home … I'm home …"
She landed in the colony, ripping up soil and stones. She lay on her belly, bleeding, crying.
I'm sorry, my daughters. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry.
Somebody opened the hatch. Strong hands grabbed her, pulled her out, placed her on a stretcher. Mairead blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, she was in a field hospital. Cindy was scanning her wounds, and Ramses was holding her hand.
"I had to come back," she whispered to him. "I saw it, Ramses. The city from our poster. The poster over our poker table. I saw New York …"
He stroked her hair, and she smiled at him, and she closed her eyes. She fell into a dark tunnel. Her arms turned into wings. She was collared and leashed. She clung to the wall, crying out, trying to find her way back to the light.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"Wait for it," Emet whispered. "Wait … wait …"
His soldiers stood around him in the tunnel. The walls were shaking. Dust fell from the ceiling. Outside, they heard them. The monsters.
"Wait," Emet mouthed, daring not even whisper.
He stared through the periscope. The other end extended aboveground, hidden among the bushes.
The Song of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 5) Page 14