“What, he tripped and fell?”
Elei tried to swallow. His mouth was bone dry. He should be asking something important, he was sure of that, something worrisome, but couldn’t think what.
“We need to move,” Kalaes said and straightened so Elei had to look up to see his face and ow, his head rattled as if a compressor were trapped inside his skull. He realized he was seated, propped against a metal wall, arms lax at his sides.
“How?” he rasped, lifting his hands to his lap. How had he descended into the tunnel?
“Kalaes carried you down,” Alendra said, her voice thick.
But why? His thoughts spun in tight circles.
“Can you stand?” Kalaes bent over him, offering a hand.
Elei took it, biting down on a cry as he was pulled to his feet. Holy pissing hells. Light-headed, he leaned against Kalaes, trying to breathe through the red-hot pain that radiated down his back.
“I’ll scout ahead,” Alendra whispered and her light footfalls faded away.
“Come on, fe,” Kalaes said, tugging to get him going. “We shouldn’t linger.”
Elei raised blurry eyes and gripped Kalaes’ shoulder, forcing his feet to move. He felt as if a streetcar had rolled over him, then backed up and ran over him again for good measure.
Feeling returned to his extremities as they lurched down murky tunnels and trudged through shallow sludge. Cockroaches skittered on the concave walls and rats watched from perches on pipes and niches.
At some point, Elei noticed that Kalaes kept stealing glances over his shoulder. He tensed, kickstarting Rex, and that was a mixed blessing. His pulse sped up, delivering bruising kicks to his ribs — but it cleared his head and the pain dissolved in a haze of rising adrenaline. His chest didn’t feel as if it was about to implode anymore and he could hear sounds beyond the beating of his own heart.
Were those shouts coming from behind them?
“Run,” Kalaes whispered and they half-ran, half-stumbled along a low-ceilinged tunnel. Kalaes seemed to know which way to go, but it wasn’t until Alendra stepped out, gesturing at them to hurry, that Elei believed it.
They hurried up a slippery slope to a ladder covered in green slime. Alendra climbed the ladder first, opened the lid and peered outside.
“All clear,” she whispered, “I think.” She ventured out, a dark and slender shadow melting into the night.
Elei followed, a distant pain in his upper arm distracting him when he reached to drag himself out of the vent. He managed, though, scraping hands and knees on the rough asphalt.
Alendra stood at the end of the street, gun drawn, keeping an eye out for pursuit. It was the sensible thing to do, he thought as he staggered to his feet, his back feeling like one big bruise.
Yet a lump he couldn’t explain formed in his throat.
Kalaes pushed out of the vent and scrambled up, grimacing. His shirt was wet with blood; it pulsed a dark crimson in Elei’s possessed eye.
“Let’s move,” Kalaes said, replacing the lid, and they stalked along the graffitied walls until they reached the main street. A few aircars cruised toward the city center, their reflector stripes catching the multicolored lights from strip clubs and bars.
“I know where we are. Follow me.” Kalaes slid onto the sidewalk, the colored lights streaking his face. “First left, then right.”
They fell into step behind him. Elei pulled up his hood and focused on his unsteady feet. Rex hammered in his skull but the flickering colors were faint, and despite his racing pulse, his breathing was shallow. It was as if Rex wasn’t concerned about outside danger. As if it was working inside. Repairing him, perhaps?
Unless the parasite was simply satisfied that a Rex sibling was in charge.
“Hey.” Alendra slowed until he caught up. She tugged on the hem of his jacket and nodded to the side. “This way.”
Even that slight tug on his jacket sent pulses of pain down his spine. Why did his back hurt so damn much? What had happened?
He staggered at the sudden memory of an impact — an impact on his back so forceful it had thrown him facedown in the alley. What in the hells had it been? No blood, Kalaes had said, but he felt a thin, hot rivulet running down his arm, drenching his sleeve.
The wind howled in the narrow passages between buildings. He let his feet guide him, following in Alendra’s footsteps through a narrow alley, catching a glimpse of Kalaes’ taller figure leading the way.
Blood. A splash of red on a white shirt. Hadn’t Kalaes been hit? Or was that a dream?
“Watch out!” Alendra grabbed his arm, sharpening the ache in his bicep until it dung like sharp claws into his muscle, and saved him from his collision course with an infopole.
“Hurry the hells up.” Kalaes stepped out of the shadows and shoved Alendra and Elei into the darkness of an entrance. “We’ll wait here. The pissing regime won’t be sniffing our backsides all night. They’ll give up.”
Alendra’s eyes shimmered as if wet, but she moved away from Elei, folded her arms over her chest and leaned by the door, her hand on her gun. His throat was so tight he couldn’t speak, didn’t know what to say. She looked upset, but he couldn’t think what he’d done wrong.
Pain had to be the reason he felt so off-balance, so unsure of everything. Had to be. Ale was stressed and tired. Not everything has to be about you, so get your head out of your ass.
Kalaes slipped out of the entrance and returned a few moments later. He propped his gun on the wall, the set of his broad shoulders tense. “No sign of them so far.”
Elei’s knees shook. “Good,” he whispered and began to slide down. Maybe if he rested for five minutes...
“Hey.” Kalaes wrapped an arm around him, shoring him up. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. Tired.”
Kalaes tightened his hold. “Gods dammit, fe.” He pulled Elei into a hug. “I thought you’d died back there. You have to stop scaring me like that, do you hear?”
Elei blinked in the dimness, numb, limp like a rag doll. He made an affirmative noise in the back of his throat and yelped when Kalaes patted his back. He struggled to free himself.
Kalaes let go immediately. “You’re hurt. Let me see.”
Elei shook his head. “I’m okay. No bleeding, you said so yourself.”
“I found you unconscious,” Kalaes said through gritted teeth. “I swear I couldn’t find your pulse for a moment, fe. I thought your heart had stopped. So no, you’re not okay. Did you hit your back?”
Elei shrugged and waves of pain radiated down his ribs, tearing a gasp from his mouth.
“Goddammit, turn around,” Kalaes snapped. “I want to see what hit you.”
Alendra glanced their way, eyes wide, and Elei swallowed hard, trying to ignore the itch of what felt like a gash in his arm and the way his shirt stuck to his skin, wet. He didn’t want Alendra seeing his back, the snakeskin, the scars.
“I’m okay.” Elei searched his fuzzy mind for a logical explanation. “Must’ve wrenched a muscle when I fell.” He needed a diversion. He jabbed a finger at Kalaes. “Weren’t you the one shot?”
“You were shot?” Alendra abandoned her wall, stepped up to Kalaes and yanked his jacket open. She hissed at the bright red stain. “Dammit, Kal, when were you going to tell us?”
“It’s just a scratch.” Kalaes looked down at his bloodied side as Alendra lifted his shirt for a closer look.
“I have to bandage this before you bleed out.” Alendra took hold of the soaked hem of the shirt and ripped off a wide strip.
“That was my favorite shirt,” Kalaes grumbled.
“No it wasn’t. You got it from the hospital in Teos.”
Kalaes cuffed her lightly on the head. “Get on with it, we need to get going.”
“I’m just making sure you don’t pass out on the way back, you ingrate.” Alendra kept her attention on wrapping the makeshift bandage around Kalaes’ ribcage.
Distracted. Letting Elei off the hook.
H
e swallowed a sigh of relief.
“It might not need stitches after all,” Kalaes was saying. “I think it’s almost stopped bleeding.”
Of course. Rex was fixing Kalaes. Elei bowed his head, relieved Kalaes didn’t seem badly hurt, grateful Rex was looking out for them both. Looks like I owe you one — again.
Chapter Four
Mantis’ safe number wasn’t responding. Instead, a recorded message played. Kalaes passed the receiver to Elei, frowning, a flash of fear going through his eyes, there and gone, like the fin of a shark.
Bad news.
The message was electronic, produced by a distorted human voice. “Confirming time and place as agreed,” it droned. “Will contact you at the Hounds’ lair. Tefnut out.”
Almost made it sound as if Tefnut was the one who’d left the message, but it was their code.
And... crap. That meant they had to return to Zoe’s haunt whether they trusted her or not. They couldn’t change the time and date of the attack, couldn’t ask Mantis and Hera whether they were sure these gang leaders were true to the cause, couldn’t ask them what the flashes Kalaes was seeing might be... Couldn’t do anything but follow the plan and hope it didn’t get them killed.
Fat chance.
“Now what?” Elei hung up, stared at the ancient telespeak for a long moment, then stepped back. The light from the fizzling streetlamp caught Alendra’s fine features and the black tattoo on Kalaes’ cheek.
“Keep to the plan, huh?” Alendra made a wry face and glued her jacket all the way up to her chin. It had to be freezing cold, but Rex showed no signs of relaxing, causing his heart to pump overtime, making him sweat.
He pulled his hood back and wiped his brow. His back throbbed with a deep ache, and the gash in his arm burned like fire. “Do you think someone was eavesdropping, at Iliathan’s place?”
“That or he turned us in,” Kalaes muttered, scowling. “And we can’t even let Hera know.”
“At least no-one knows the real plan,” Alendra said. “They all think we’ll attack for real.”
Yeah, they’d lied to everyone so far, and good thing they had. If it had been a test, they’d all have failed — Iliathan, the gang leaders. Good to know they really couldn’t trust anyone.
But it wasn’t a test, dammit, this was real, and they needed all the help they could get.
***
Darkness was falling across the plain, and agaric groves glowed in the distance, scattered among hamlets. The road wound ahead, phosphorescent fungi at its edges, and curved slightly to the left, toward Teos and Gortyn.
It was a beautiful sight. Festive somehow. Incongruous. Because they were on their way to retrieve a war machine, an instrument of death, and then they’d unleash it on the Gultur capital.
Sourness rose in Hera’s mouth. Gods she was tired of death and pain. She hoped... she really hoped the machine’s presence might avert further bloodshed.
“Let me drive,” Mantis said, leaning over her shoulder and almost giving her a heart attack. Damn boy moved like one of Elei’s possessed cats, noiseless and barely stirring the air he glided through. “We need to turn off the road.” He glanced back at the small convoy of aircars that had rejoined them.
“I am able to follow simple instructions. Speak slowly and enunciate, and I’ll drive.” Hera glared at him, and he grinned.
Totally unaffected. Bastard. Like Kalaes would be, only Kalaes would tease her, and Elei would hide a smile and duck his head, and Alendra would laugh.
Gods, she missed them.
“Turn left at the next K-bloom farm.” He did make an effort to speak slowly. Damn smug kid. “The kids need to rest and we have to regroup and study the map.”
“The kids are not coming with us.” Hera frowned at the road ahead. It was not a question and Mantis pondered the statement, before responding.
“They’re my army,” he said softly. “If I leave them behind, who will fight with us?”
“That is not what I meant,” she said, impatient. She was not happy with kids going to war, but as Mantis had more than once pointed out, these kids were not much younger than her, and the small ones had been sent off to a safe house. So she could not keep protesting.
“Then what did you mean?”
“I mean, they cannot come with us to retrieve the machine. Something might go wrong. We must leave them at a safe place and have them join us when we take over Dakru City.”
Mantis nodded, his lips white. “You’re right. All the more reason to stop at this farm.” He rubbed his face.
“Are you okay?” Hera gave him a hard look.
He nodded again, shrugged.
A structure loomed in the gathering darkness, a storehouse with a small house attached to it.
“Here,” Mantis said.
Hera veered onto a dirt path and into a yard where machinery lay in rusting heaps. Lights came on automatically, highlighting the dirt path and half-blinding her. She hesitated to power down the vehicle, in case they had to make a hasty escape.
“Why here?” Sacmis muttered, her gun at the ready, gray eyes narrowed. “Who is here?”
“My people,” Mantis said.
“I do not think they’re expecting us,” Sacmis said dryly when a group of men burst out of the building, guns in hand.
“I forgot to call in advance.” Mantis winked. “Let me handle this.”
“As if we have a choice.” Sacmis huffed.
“But the others—” Hera began, afraid for the kids in the other aircars.
“Let me.” Mantis opened the aircar door and climbed down the ladder, his pale hair catching the lights like a mirror.
“Wait!” Hera jumped out of the driver’s seat, grabbing her gun, but Sacmis put a hand on her arm.
“Let him clarify things before we make our appearance.”
“We have to protect him.” Hera tried to dislodge Sacmis’ hold, which only tightened. “We cannot let him go out there alone.”
“We can, and we must. Do you really think our presence will help him not get shot on the spot?”
Hera blinked. Two Gultur with longguns appearing behind Mantis — what would it look like? As if they had taken him hostage, perhaps. What was wrong with her? Why was her mind so slow?
“The pills they gave you at the hospital,” Sacmis murmured, and Hera realized to her horror she’d spoken the thought out loud. “The drugs to regulate Regina and keep it under control. The doctor said they might make you drowsy and dizzy. I’ve been looking out for the symptoms, but you seemed to handle it fine.”
The doctor had talked about side effects? Hera dragged a hand over her gritty eyes, trying to clear them. Mantis was walking toward the group of armed mortals, his hands spread wide.
Her fingers clenched around the grip of her gun.
Mantis spoke, gesturing at the gathered aircars, and one by one the guns lowered, the stances relaxed.
All was well.
Which let her thoughts return to the conversation and its nasty truths. “The doctor told you about the pills,” she whispered. “But he did not tell me. He asked you to keep an eye on me, did he not?”
Sacmis nodded.
Right. Because Hera had been half out of her mind. The Echo Princesses’ bane, the curse of Regina’s pure, original strain. A cocktail of hormones spiking to incredible heights and ebbing to dangerous lows, strong enough to hurtle you into madness.
She vaguely recalled laughing and crying, oscillating between fear and mirth — and trying to kill her friends, her family. The doctor probably thought she’d throw away the pills and go on another rampage if he’d told her.
He would have been right.
“Do these pills make me paranoid, too?” She bared her teeth.
“No.” Sacmis shrugged, a smile twitching her lips. “That’s all you.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really.” Sacmis tugged her closer and slid an arm around her waist. “And I like you the way you are.”
A sigh r
ose from deep in Hera’s chest and she allowed herself to be held. She relaxed. Sacmis had not run away screaming from her yet, so maybe there was hope her other friends would forgive her one day.
Meanwhile... “No more pills. I need to be able to think straight if we are to succeed in reaching the war machine and taking over Dakru City.”
Sacmis heaved a sigh of resignation. “I knew you’d say that.”
“You’ll keep watch?” That I do not kill our allies, or anyone innocent of my wrath.
“You do not need to ask,” Sacmis whispered and her eyes shimmered. “You never need to ask. Remember that.”
***
“Hey, pooskers.” Zoe’s smile shone white in the dark opening of the door. “Countersign.”
Elei and Kalaes exchanged a wary look over Alendra’s head.
“Soomi,” Alendra said, “please, stop teasing us, we’ve had a rough day.”
Zoe grinned and threw the door wide. “Come on in. No more teasing.”
Alendra strode inside, Kalaes after her, a brow arched and his shotgun slung ready over one shoulder. Elei followed, heart thumping, expecting just about anything — armed Gultur, a platoon waiting to riddle them with bullets, even a canon.
Soft giggles greeted him. The lights were dim. Rex immediately adjusted Elei’s vision and he saw bright eyes peering at him from behind threadbare couches and under benches.
So much for an attack.
Still, Rex didn’t back down. The outlines blurred as Rex swept the place, locating more people standing at the back of the room. With the colors twinkling it was hard to tell who they were.
One of them spoke a greeting and Elei knew from the voice it was Ifran, Zoe’s second in command, but the others... They stood in a semi-circle, silent, waiting.
Unknown threats.
Elei forced his hand away from his gun. Deep breaths. Calm down.
“Here we are,” Zoe said brightly, her many tiny braids fluttering, dark lines against the pulsing red of her head and chest. “Your army.”
Army. Yeah. Elei’s chest constricted so badly he couldn’t breathe. Dammit, Rex, stop it.
Rex Aftermath (Elei's Chronicles) Page 5