Her heart plummeting to her stomach, Hera left the driver’s seat to Sacmis and sidled back to where Mantis lay on the seat, his breathing shallow.
“Hey,” she said, her throat closing, the words fleeing her mind.
He looked bad. His face had a grayish tint, and his lips were white. His eyes were closed and his lids looked bruised. Sweat trickled down his throat in glimmering trails even though inside the aircar it was cold.
“Hera,” he rasped behind the mask.
“I’m here.”
“You’ll lead them,” he said. “Yes?”
She had no need to ask who he meant. The street kids. His army. The resistance. The future government, if it came to that, and Dakru.
She stared at him, and all the pieces finally fell into place in her mind; the thing that had been escaping her in the fuzz of the drugs, the realization niggling at the back of her mind.
He’d said he wanted her to lead the new government if this war ended in peace. After all, he was still a boy, younger than herself.
A boy who’d set up a resistance army who might topple the regime, who kept tabs on everyone he thought was important, who had organized the final battle and who had extracted them from the tight spots they’d been in with his quick thinking and calm in the face of danger.
She had not been too keen on leading the new state, if and when it happened, but now, with sudden clarity, she knew she would not. Was not cut out for it. Her strength lay in strategizing and acting in times of battle, not peace.
Above all, she thought, Mantis, young or not, was far better suited than her to a position of power and responsibility. He’d already been doing it for years.
He’d do a much better job and he’d set the world to rights.
“No.” She shook her head, even though she wanted to comfort him, but she could not let him off the hook. Could not let him give up. “I cannot. You will have to do it.”
His eyes opened to slits. “Please, Hera. From the start, I knew you could do this, should do this. Lead them to freedom.”
“You will lead them,” Hera said. “All the way. It’s you they want, you they obey and trust. You they love. And with good reason.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and bowed her head, her eyes stinging as if with acid. “I need you to lead us, Mantis. You can survive this, I know it. We’re almost there.”
He said nothing and she hoped it meant he would try, although she feared he was beyond caring.
***
“Iliathan has a Gultur girlfriend?” Kalaes munched on a ration bar, gun propped by his feet. “You’re pulling my leg. Gultur like chicks, Hera said so, and Iliathan definitely doesn’t look like one.” He swallowed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Does he? I mean, maybe with boobs and a nice blouse he might—”
“Kal!” Alendra slapped his arm. “Be serious for once.”
“Can’t.” Kalaes took another large bite from his bar. “You try it.”
Alendra mock-punched his shoulder. “I’m always serious.”
“Ow.” Kalaes fended her off, protecting his food. “So, what’s the truth?”
“Sexuality is a cline,” Bestret said, her tone neutral, as if talking about the weather. ‘Nice day today. Sexuality is a cline’. “A few of us like men. Under the regime, we hid this inclination as it was not viewed well. As for myself, I find Iliathan quite attractive.”
Kalaes whistled. “Iliathan, you lucky bastard.”
Elei rested his head on the window pane, lips pulling in a smile.
His lids grew heavy. Rex was quiet, his body numb, and the discussion appeared to be over, as Kalaes seemed satisfied with the replies, for now.
The two New Gultur sitting on the other seat were talking in low, calm tones and the aircar engine whirred gently, lulling him.
He sank into a sea of blood. Dead bodies floated around him, faces he knew. He clawed at the water, but he couldn’t swim. He was sinking, terror driving into his chest like a blade.
Next thing he knew he was being shaken, his breath constricted, a cold pit of fear in his stomach.
“Are you okay?” Alendra asked, her hands on his arms, and Elei caught Kalaes’ concerned gaze over her shoulder.
Dammit, when would the nightmares stop? Pissed and damn mortified, he nodded and turned away, because he could still see Poena’s face over Alendra’s, and Poena was dead. The gunshot wounds burned and throbbed. The painkillers were starting to wear off. Just how long had he been asleep?
Alendra moved away and he dared look up again. Kalaes was sorting through their ammo, checking which magazines fit his gun, fiddling with the settings. Alendra sat by the window, huddled in her black jacket, gaze locked on the darkness outside.
“We’ll be there soon,” Iset said. “In about an hour.”
It felt as if centuries had passed since that morning, when he’d helped Alendra make breakfast for Zoe’s charges. Since he’d been caught by the regime and talked with Maera. Shit. A shudder wracked him and he glanced at Kalaes, who was sorting through their ammo, checking which magazines fit his gun. Should he say he’d met Maera? Should he tell Kalaes what she’d said?
“How are we going to get inside the plant?” Alendra muttered. “Iliathan will get us as far as the building, but to enter?”
“I have an idea.” Kalaes fiddled with his gun’s settings, his expression troubled.
Elei drew his Rasmus and pulled out the magazine. He field-stripped the gun and cleaned it. He’d need more bullets. He snagged some from Kalaes who swatted at him and muttered about thieving little brothers.
Kalaes sounded out of breath, Elei thought, and had sweat rolling down his face. He’d taken off his jacket, although it was damn cold inside the aircar, but he wasn’t bleeding; his t-shirt was stained but the blood was dry and brown.
Stop worrying.
Elei turned back to his task. He put the gun back together and shoved the magazine inside, clicking the safety on.
Ready. For whatever was to come.
What came first was a lurch that almost threw him out of the seat.
“Roadblock,” Iset hissed and pulled the seat forward, revealing a space behind. “Hide.”
“That’s convenient,” Kalaes shimmied behind the seat. “You often carry illegal passengers?”
Alendra wedged herself between him and Elei, and Iset put the seat back. Alendra’s elbow dug into his injured side and his bandaged arm was pressed against the side of the aircar. His back throbbed, and Rex was stirring inside his head, whispering about death and bullets.
A knock rocked the door of the aircar and Elei leaned forward. Through the opening between the seat and the wall, he could see a visored Gultur. She held her longgun loosely in one hand, a data-rod in the other, and her chest pulsed bright.
“What is your business?” she snapped. “Your vehicle is not registered in my roster. Are you authorized to travel toward the capital?”
“I have the codes,” Iset said and motioned for the data-rod, which the visored Gultur gave up with reluctance. Iset’s slender fingers tapped on the keys. “We are reporting for security work at the water purification plant.”
“Expecting trouble, are you, senet?” The visored Gultur retrieved the data-rod and pressed a button.
“Routine guard change.”
“Move along then.” The Gultur nodded and left. Iset closed the door and the aircar engines rumbled back to life.
“Oh gods,” Alendra breathed out, leaning her head back as they rolled down the street.
He pushed the seat forward and climbed out, the inside of the aircar still blazing with colors. “How far are we from the plant?”
Bestret tapped on the divider and a window opened. A Gultur nodded at them, her hair golden like Alendra’s, caught in the customary Gultur ponytail. “How far to the plant?”
“Ten miles.”
The window closed and Bestret came to sit with them. She was a pretty woman with lustrous black hair and large, dark eyes, one of the
m faintly glowing with shards of blue — Rex’s mark.
“We have another aircar that will join us shortly,” she said. “We kept some distance from them, not to raise suspicions.”
“More of you to change the guard?” Kalaes drawled. “Won’t that make the patrol suspicious?”
“The others will say they are heading elsewhere.”
“Heading where? I don’t like secrets, fe. Maybe it’s time you told us more about yourselves, and why we should trust you. For all we know, you may be leading us straight into a trap. An elaborate one, but still. Your kind wants Elei, and now you’ve got him, and me, and maybe—”
Alendra jabbed a finger in his chest, making him wince. “Shut it, Kal. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me. They’re keeping things from us, I can tell, and they have codes for the damn blockades. Did Iliathan give them to you, or aren’t you who you say you are?”
“We pretend to be part of the system,” Iset said. “It is our cover.” She looked at Bestret.
“And did you pretend for Iliathan, too?” Kalaes waved a hand in the air, a dark flush in his cheeks. “Does he get to have fun with the both of you? Or does he get to watch when you screw each other?”
Elei’s heart began to pound. What was Kalaes on about?
“Kal!” Alendra dragged him toward the other seat. “You sound crazy. Maybe we can find some sedative for you, you’re manic again.”
“It was an honest-to-the-gods question, fe. I was just curious and wouldn’t you think a guy would like to know... Dammit.” Kalaes threw himself in the seat and rubbed his face. He sucked a deep, shaky breath. “Sorry.”
Alendra threw Elei a questioning look, but he didn’t know what to think. Why did Kalaes think Bestret and Iset slept together? Iset had explained again, for Kalaes’ benefit, that some Gultur liked men, and even if Bestret liked both sexes, it didn’t mean...
Elei sighed. Maybe Kalaes was right to be suspicious, and curious, and confused. Hells, he was too, only he tried to convince himself nothing was wrong.
“Let’s just go,” he said and took his seat. “Not much time left.”
Chapter Ten
They drove through the suburbs. Elei caught glimpses of abandoned buildings, their windows shuttered with nepheline patches, and lined faces around small fires in narrow alley mouths, smoke swirling in the wind. Winter had closed in, its bite sharp.
Then they were rolling out of the city, the buildings thinning out, replaced by open expanses of brushland and swamp, a few scattered algae ponds glinting in a brief showing of the moon. Elei looked up. It looked like a silver disk, like the medal hanging around Kalaes’ neck.
The clouds unfurled, covering it again, erasing the world until his possessed eye adjusted to the dimness.
“It’s pitch,” Alendra muttered by his ear, startling him. “What are you seeing?”
“There’s a hamlet up those hills.” He pointed. “They must tend those algae ponds.” Alendra gave a soft snort, because of course she couldn’t see them. “No sign of the process plant yet, but Dakru City is that way, I can see the tall buildings, and there,” he shifted his finger toward the north, “up on the mountains is Bone Tower, the sacred citadel.”
“What does it look like?”
Elei lowered his hand and sat back — images of the gods carved in white marble, water gurgling and streaming down the slopes among trees and flowers, children playing, blood and more blood and pain.
“Beautiful,” he managed to say. “Colorful. I only saw part of it.” The great temple of Regina and the fountain, water rippling and shimmering, then tinted red and turned frothy, pock-marked by bullets.
“I wish I could see it,” Alendra whispered and her small hand covered his on the seat. He inhaled her scent and tried to calm his heart.
An agaric grove loomed on the side of the road, the stalks young and no taller than a person, their wide caps delicate and glowing bright. A dark mass further down the road caught his eye and he leaned forward.
Faint lights marked the perimeter of the chainlink fence surrounding the purification plant, a round, domed building. It was framed by long, rectangular storehouses that crouched by its sides like faithful dogs. The entrance was brightly illuminated with spotlights.
His breath fogged the glass and he cleaned it with his sleeve. Where were Zoe and the others? No sign of any parked aircars. A hulking shadow in front of the warehouses turned out to be a heavy truck, its lights turned off.
The aircar powered down, settling behind the agaric grove.
Silence. Scintillating spores fluttered in the air. Nothing else moved.
“Something’s wrong,” Kalaes said.
“Maybe they hid the aircars in a warehouse,” Iset said. “They may be waiting for help.”
“They don’t have the codes to enter the plant, only to pass the blockades and the outer fence.” Kalaes ran a hand through his wild hair. “They’d have waited for us.” He frowned. “Now that I think about it... How did Mantis send Zoe the message?”
“Iliathan,” Bestret said.
“And how do you know that?” Elei muttered, squinting at her.
“We received the same message,” Iset said. “I assume they received it from the same source.”
Kalaes shot to his feet and began to pace. “If Iliathan betrayed us all... Were screwed.”
“Iliathan would not do that,” Bestret said.
“But what if he did? Think about it. He’d know everything we’re doing. He’d have set the Gultur on Elei and captured Zoe and the kids.” He shook his head. “Mantis, Hera, they’d not change the plan at the last minute. There would be no guarantee we’d get the message in time.”
“Or else your mortal friends merely failed to capture the plant.” Iset glared. “Or they’re inside, having given up on waiting for you, and you’re kicking up a fuss for no reason.”
“No reason? You’d better watch it, Gultur.” Kalaes opened his mouth to say more, and Iset’s hand inched toward her gun.
Elei gripped Kalaes’ arm. “If Zoe and the others have been caught, is there a way to know?”
Iset glanced at the other Gultur and nodded. “A classified message with a glitcher to notify HQ would be expected. Unless they consider the occurrence not important and choose to ignore it.”
A bunch of kids with some weapons, breaking into a water purification plant. Caught, if not killed. Elei suppressed a shudder. Would it be reported?
“Check it,” he heard himself say and squeezed Kalaes’ trembling arm. “We need to know.”
Iset threw him a long look, then knocked on the driver’s window. A narrow door opened and both she and Bestret slid through and vanished into the driver’s cabin.
Elei tipped his head, listening in. Did they know he could hear them? They were explaining the situation to the driver.
“I don’t pissing trust them,” Kalaes said.
Elei frowned. “Why not?” Iset was asking for the glitcher. Nothing suspicious.
“They lie, fe.” Kalaes went to a box in a corner of the cabin and rummaged inside, pulling out a ration bar.
“About?”
“They said Bestret likes men. But these two...” Kalaes unwrapped the bar and took a big bite out of it. “I can see where a Gultur has touched, and the places Bestret and Iset were touched... That’s not common practice between friends, fe. The touches were recent. I can tell. The marks are bright. Each Gultur’s is a slightly different color. I think they’ve been going at it like pigeons.” He waved the bar, chewing thoughtfully. “If they lie about this, they may lie about more.”
“You’re saying Iset and Bestret sleep together?” Alendra glanced at the driver’s cabin. “Or maybe you’re upset because they don’t think you’re hot after all?”
“What? No. Besides, how do you know they don’t think I’m hot?” He winked and bit more off the sweet bar.
“Why would they lie?” Elei whispered.
“Maybe Bes
tret likes both men and women,” Alendra said, color rising to her cheeks. “It happens.”
“And who cares if they do?” Kalaes frowned. “I’m talking about lies.”
“She said she finds Iliathan attractive,” Alendra said, making a face. “She never said she doesn’t like women, too.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Kalaes dug out another ration bar, the smell of sugar hitting Elei’s senses like a sledgehammer.
“Man, you shouldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t what?” Kalaes lapped at the crumbs on his fingers.
“Shouldn’t eat that.” Elei made a grab for the food, Rex screeching inside his head, demanding sweet, only to miss it and stumble forward. “Give it to me.”
“Find your own.” Kalaes stuck his tongue out.
“You’re acting like dogs over a bone,” Alendra said. “What the hells?”
“Can’t let him have more sugar,” Elei muttered, Rex sending lightning pain down his nerves for denying it what it craved when it was so close, within reach. He remembered all too well the hell of Rex’s power, the control it had over him, playing him like a puppet.
No, thanks anyway.
And still his hand strayed toward the ration bar and he wanted to tell Alendra, beg her, to take the sweet away.
“Elei?”
He forced his gaze from the promise of deliverance, sweat running down his back. He opened his mouth to explain, but Rex struck again, fire burning his insides, making him groan. “No.”
“What is it?” Alendra reached out for him, her eyes concerned, and he tried again.
“Put the rations away.” Please.
She nodded and wrestled Kalaes for them, but Kalaes was stronger; he shoved her away and she fell with a yelp.
It broke the paralysis. Rex sent jolts through him, but Elei gritted his teeth and reached a hand to help her up. Screw you, Rex. He pulled her to her feet, turned to Kalaes and knocked the food from his hand.
Kalaes drew back a fist, his lips curling in a snarl, and dammit, this was going to the hells.
“Kal, let it go, it’s Rex, it wants you to eat—”
Kalaes’ fist connected with his jaw. Stars exploded in Elei’s eyes, then the pain hit, and he staggered back, tripping and crashing into a seat.
Rex Aftermath (Elei's Chronicles) Page 13