Invasion | Box Set | Books 1-7

by Platt, Sean

  Kindred looked ahead, through the door with a porthole, closed because the ship had canted enough to let gravity close it. He could see Liza Knight moving between rows of containers, touching them, rapping the sides, seemingly unsure where to start or what, exactly, they were doing. Stranger was out there somewhere, too. Probably hearing the same voices as Kindred.

  Why would that be?

  But he sort of knew, beneath it all.

  “You were the one who made us come here. It’s the only way to maybe get Meyer back, remember?”

  “We need to be careful. There’s something out there.”

  “There’s nothing out there.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “What’s out there, then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Piper moved to the door and opened it. “Oh, for fuck’s sa—”

  From the deck, there was a bang.

  A noise like nails across metal.

  A scream.

  Kindred felt like someone had kicked a hole in his middle.

  And he knew that Lila was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Stranger fell to his knees. Even with the adrenaline flooding his increasingly human body and the fear that came with it, the loss was hobbling. He struck the deck with his hand on a metal latch, stumbling, knees sending signals of pain, his palm gashed. A flash of red from the corner of his eye told him it was bleeding. He’d probably get tetanus. Born like a god, dead of lockjaw at the dawn of a diseased Earth.

  When the worst of the feeling passed, Stranger raised his head.

  She was gone.

  His daughter — not his daughter at all — was gone.

  He hadn’t known it was coming. There’d been no time to prepare. He hadn’t been able to say goodbye. Hell, there hadn’t even been time for her to be his daughter. Lila had been too busy being Meyer’s child, and in her spare time she’d been Kindred’s. But Stranger couldn’t help wondering if he, of the three, was hurting most. Trevor’s death had broken something inside the first duplicate Meyer, and when Kindred was created, that fractured thing had been forced out of the Astral collective.

  Became the Pall.

  Became Kindred, when the recipe called for the addition of one Cameron Bannister, dropping himself into the Ark’s maw to turn the black smoke into a thing with a body and diminishing magic, as his cells began, finally, to age.

  He should run. He should hide. At the very least, he should find Piper, then maybe the others, and see them to safety. But Stranger didn’t want to. Twenty years of being human had made him mostly that. It was something he could see in the joined collectives of both species, as dirty water from one spilled into the pristine blue of the other.

  I’ll kill it.

  Stranger’s fists clenched. It didn’t matter what had taken her down, though the sounds suggested a Reptar. A thing like that couldn’t be fought hand to hand, and the Astrals had seen to it that the people had only blades and arrows for weapons. But he’d take it on anyway, throw himself upon it, pry his fingers beneath its scales, rip them away like fingernails from the quick, like needles under skin, like slowly pressing eyes with thumbs until they—

  Something hit Stranger, hard. His side struck the shipping container. He came up swinging, landing a few good strikes in the meat of something’s body before hands pinned his wrists and he found himself looking up at a freely bleeding nose.

  Peers.

  “Don’t,” Peers said.

  “Get off me!”

  “Sadeem and I talked about this. We thought this day might come.”

  “What day?” Red suffused his vision. He barely felt in control of his still-thrashing arms and legs. He wanted to annihilate something, cause anything half the pain he felt inside. Like a rapid cancer. Acid, burning him from the center outward.

  “You came from the Ark.”

  “I came from your mother!”

  Peers let Stranger raise his hand just enough that, with reapplied force, Peers managed to slam it back down on the ship’s metal deck.

  “No,” Peers said, his voice a reasonable but harsh whisper, “you did not. Nobody knew where you were from. Before the Forgetting was complete, they were close to declaring you a god. I remember trying hard to solve the mystery before my mind finally faded for good. I ran around asking everyone about you. People had dreamed about you. Many said they seemed to remember you visiting them before the floods, all over the world. They said you gave them special trinkets. Small metal balls that seemed to have minds of their own.”

  “Get off me, Peers!” Stranger was pinned down by the man’s crotch, unable to struggle free. Each fresh second left them in danger. With every new moment, the monster that had ended his daughter’s life — same as another had ended his son’s — drew another breath.

  “Listen to me. The Mullah knew about you. Not by name but by concept: a man who walked the land without boundaries, able to bend magic to his will. Sadeem’s memory did not fade. He’s spent all this time putting it together, and in that time you haven’t aged.”

  “I know who I am,” Stranger growled. He’d kept his memories, too.

  “You’re one of the seven. Or eight, if the King truly has two heads.”

  “GET OFF ME!”

  “But you’re not like that anymore, are you, Stranger?”

  Stranger thrashed. Tried to connect with Peers’s testicles, coming up empty.

  “You’re becoming more human. Because once upon a time, you were taken out of Meyer Dempsey.”

  Stranger stilled. “How can you know that?”

  “The Mullah always knew about the Archetypes. Each time, the cycle repeats. But each time, it’s been arrested before the Archetypes can become who they’re supposed to be.” He looked meaningfully into Stranger’s eyes. “Each time but this one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have our memories back. Sadeem located and read the scroll. We know what we’re supposed to do … and this time, we’ve got our wits about us enough to do it.”

  Stranger looked up at Peers. “We?”

  “I’m one. So is Sadeem.”

  “Maybe we should have a reunion.”

  “Sadeem thinks that Trevor Dempsey’s death created you and that Cameron’s sacrifice made you real.”

  “He’s so clever.”

  “And now a new death has made you human.”

  “I suppose Sadeem knew that, too.”

  Peers nodded. “But that’s a problem. If you rush into your new emotion, you’ll get yourself killed. You can’t fight a Reptar with your fists, Stranger.”

  “I can try.”

  “What’s more important? Your anger, or humanity?”

  “My anger.”

  From the right came a chattering. From the left came another. Stranger, with his ears on the deck, could hear their claws. Their many countless claws.

  Piper stumbled into their space, looking down, questions in her eyes. But she let it drop, looked back over her shoulder with her breath coming hard, and spoke in a whisper.

  “Reptars. They were … They’re in the containers.”

  “They were here all along,” Peers said. “Hiding in the cargo, probably since the ship was beached.”

  “Why?”

  “Guarding something. Protecting whatever we’re trying to find.”

  “And what is that, Peers?”

  Peers didn’t answer. He didn’t know, and neither would Stranger — or Kindred, or Liza, wherever they were. He only knew that the dream had told him to come. Had told them all to come. And that whatever was here, it mattered enough for the aliens to stake out, risking discovery, for as long as it took.

  But he said nothing because the chattering was coming faster. Harder. Louder.

  “We’re surrounded,” Piper said, cowering, looking, listening. “And there’s no way to fight.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kindred blinked. Then again — this time forcibly, harder, wrinkling his e
yebrows.

  The Reptar had been there, plain as day.

  Then it was gone.

  And then it was back.

  He stayed low, creeping along the giant cargo containers on the ship’s deck. Twice now he’d seen Reptars, and almost constantly since he’d felt Lila die inside his mind, he’d heard them. But he had to keep his thoughts away from that. This wasn’t the time for grief. Or anger. Another part of himself would handle those things. Right now his only job was to get them away so they could all live to fight another day.

  There’d been tracks of blood, but Kindred made sure to turn the other way. He couldn’t take finding her body now, assuming the beast had left any of it behind.

  But now he wondered if his eyes were playing tricks. If his mind was deceiving him. Because Piper, clearly, had thought there was something wrong with him, before the sounds and screams had sent her running. He must have sounded like he was babbling, seeing and saying things that no one else could understand. And honestly, now that the hot moment had passed into a hotter one, Kindred could neither remember what had bothered him nor care. It only mattered that he’d been suddenly sure that danger was on the cusp, and he’d been right. Judging by what he’d seen and heard since Piper had left him, there were dozens of Reptars on the ship — maybe hundreds. He still had some of that connection to the mental collective, and got the feeling that they’d been protecting something. Their group, by coming here, had unwittingly stuck its fumbling hand into a wasp’s nest. Now the wasps had been roused and would sting the intruders.

  They didn’t come here to find us. The Reptars were already here, hibernating in the boxes, waiting for someone to come looking for what they have and want to keep. We disturbed them.

  But it didn’t matter. They’d kill them just the same.

  This new phenomenon changed everything.

  Kindred could run from Reptars he could locate, and maybe lure those Reptars away from the others. But if they kept blinking in and out of existence?

  He had to be imagining it.

  Kindred hunkered down. He’d heard at least some of his party a few rows down not long ago and was skirting around, trying to find them. Once, he’d seen Stranger, creeping along with Peers. He wanted to shout, but if he did, they might come closer. And that couldn’t be allowed, no matter what.

  Or could it?

  He felt confused, battered, punched in the face. Seeing the Reptar blink away and return hurt his head. He was already convincing himself he hadn’t seen it happen, when he knew damn well that he had. Kindred couldn’t trust his senses. Tall walls built over the years of not knowing himself were disintegrating like waves eroding a natural dam. He remembered being angry, but the feeling was distant. He remembered being jealous, but that was far away as well.

  Now, there was more fear. Nervous anticipation. And with it more readiness: an increased desire, should the moment present itself, to fight.

  And more fog.

  And more uncertainty.

  A Reptar moved in front of Kindred, at the end of his current row. Its mouth opened. And then it was gone.

  Kindred spun. He’d heard something behind him, but now there was nothing. Too late, distracted, he heard another purr from where he’d been looking — now coming from behind. By the time he looked, the black, panther-like beast was already lunging, claws out, raking air so close that Kindred could swear it trimmed hairs from his arm. He ducked around the corner, panting, all-too-human heart slamming into his ribs. His back struck corrugated metal, arm raking the paint-flaked edge of a lock bar near the container’s door.

  Open it. Hide inside the container.

  But there wasn’t time, and Kindred could hear another Reptar inside, fumbling at an interior latch.

  Claws.

  Heavy, diseased breath, accompanied by a rattle of bones.

  (!!Crowbar!!)

  His hands reached almost of their own accord, grabbing and hefting the tool leaning against the door beside him, not thinking where to aim or when to swing but impelled by some urge deep, torso pivoting, a random thought screaming through his head

  (It was leaning against the door, and there’s a Reptar behind the door, and that means someone was here, working, doing his job, with that thing only inches away)

  before the crowbar connected with a satisfying crack, the hooked, beveled end breaking through carapace like a heavy stone through stubborn ice, the straight end yanked from Kindred’s hand as the Reptar lashed upward and away, gushing alien blood, screeching with tendon-snapping wails as it thrashed down the metal-walled corridor, finally stilling, finally dying, and Kindred ran forward without thinking and pulled the bar from the Reptar’s head, its end wet and dripping.

  Then he heard a second thump. And another.

  Hit one. The others fall.

  But that didn’t make sense. He had to be imagining it, the way he’d imagined the first Reptar disappearing and reappearing. In a sane world, things existed or didn’t, and it was his own damned half-Astral brain’s fault if he

  (nothing has changed; you’re just seeing it different)

  was seeing things while his heart was pounding in his ears and driving him crazy.

  But ahead was another dead Reptar, its head caved in as if by a crowbar.

  And another.

  You’re crazy. You’re losing your mind.

  There was a tremendous roar, and Kindred saw that he’d entered the same aisle, all the way down, as Stranger, Peers and Piper. Each end and along the cross-aisles in between were thick with the black heads of countless Reptars. They were surrounded. The beasts, disturbed from their sleep, had been waiting for this moment — trained and bred, commanded to wait for someone to dispatch from this protected place. He met Stranger’s eyes, and a simple, nonsensical thought traveled like a carrier through an old pneumatic tube between them

  (we don’t need to be here)

  then Kindred’s eyes closed as the Reptar nearest him lunged, like the Reptar nearest Piper. Kindred thought of Lila, Heather, and Trevor.

  And then there was nothing.

  Kindred opened his eyes.

  Perhaps fifty feet away, he saw Piper, Peers, and Stranger.

  The air was calm and silent. The sun, almost directly overhead, was suffocating.

  They were in the middle of an open stretch of desert, alone, the freighter nowhere in sight.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Clara sat by the fire. She looked at Logan first, Sadeem second. She’d been fighting an itching, troublesome feeling since midday. A sense that in another place, something with someone she cared about had soured — and then in the same place, something else had gone catastrophically right.

  After escaping the Astrals at the Mullah caves, they’d walked from one hiding place to another. Clara didn’t know if the Astrals still couldn’t see Lightborn — or, for that matter, if she and Logan, as adults, even still counted as Lightborn. If they’d stayed together, maybe they’d have had a child. And maybe that child would have been something like they were, only innocent. A new breed of chosen ones — perhaps all that were invisible now.

  Her eyes went to Logan, whom she found staring back.

  That’s why we didn’t stay together, she said to him with her mind, answering a question she’d seen in his eyes all day. Because who would curse a child at birth?

  The curse she’d mentally proposed to Logan was the same one she’d been born with, and she’d managed fine. Although was hers a life worth envying?

  She looked to the dirt, stirring it with a stick. Night, out here and away from her village, was everywhere.

  During their journey to this place, the sun had been up. They’d left, unsure of their pursuit. But after an hour of still-empty sky, they’d settled into a copse of ratty trees to rest. Clara had fallen asleep and dreamed of her mother standing far in the distance, calling her home.

  You’re fine, Clara. You’ve always been fine, even without me.

  She’d come upright with Log
an’s hand on her shoulder, her shirt sticking to her back despite the cool desert shade. There was a worry out there beyond arm’s reach, but as the dream dissolved, Clara couldn’t grab it. The thing vanished like a Forgetting in miniature. It felt like something worth worrying about that she could no longer recall.

  So they’d walked.

  And walked.

  And eventually, after hours of what felt like aimless plodding, they’d arrived in a tiny village like a scale model of her own. It was closer to a cluster of bivouacs than a permanent settlement, though the tribe had called it home for years. As she watched the people move to their individual huts, Clara saw their confused, almost embarrassed expressions. They struck her like hungover people recalling a prior night’s debauchery. What had been so delightful in a haze now seemed stupid in the light of clarity.

  She’d looked up to see Kamal looking at her. His expression said, This morning, the world mostly made sense, and this still felt like the only home we’d ever known. Now we remember, and all we’ve worked to build is a joke. A lifetime for some, amounting to sticks in the sand.

  The evening had drawn into night. Clara had fought the pain in her gut, knowing it had nothing to do with soreness. It was a psychic pain, as if she’d lost something precious without realizing it was gone.

  And now, as Sadeem and then Logan retired to leave her alone by the crackling fire, she gazed into the flames and thought of her dream. It wasn’t the persistent one she often had — of meeting friends by the freighter. Instead her thoughts were of the almost-there new dream, returning bit by bit. She could close her eyes and see her mother, standing beside her uncle and the grandmother she now barely recalled, waiting for Clara at the end of an impossibly long corridor.

  “It sucks, you know,” said a voice.

  Startled by the intrusion, Clara looked up to see Kamal standing above her holding two cups. He handed one to her, full of warm liquid that smelled like an approximation of coffee. The cup itself was metal, slightly banged up, and tall. On the side was a faded stamp that seemed to say, World’s Sassiest Aide.