“Don’t like cutie?”
“No.”
“Sweetie?”
Her lip curled into a half-smile. “Fuck you.”
Vargr chuckled. “I’m Vargr. Russian name courtesy of a dad who had a thing for odd names.”
He still wasn’t sure what she was except she had fire. He sobered. If she didn’t die, it would be a shame to kill her.
“I should find you some clothes.” He’d almost grunted that out because his dick had chosen to rise hard against his pants.
“Pull out this?” She nodded at her stomach.
“No. Don’t. We need to—” His mouth fell open and he lurched upright, for she’d grabbed hold of the end, muttered something, and dragged at the bloody, twisted piece of metal. It emerged from her guts.
“Well. You are something, now aren’t you?”
Fuck, even he wouldn’t have done that. Mostly because it was stupid. Luckily none of her intestines had decided to stick to the metal.
“Jesus H.” Vargr wiped his mouth. “Keep your hand on it to stop it bleeding. I’ve got bandages. Let’s dress that.” And pray.
Because if she didn’t have sepsis after this, she was luckier than he was on a Saturday night at the races. Than he had been. Still hard to remember it was all gone. It jolted him whenever he slipped. No more races. No more humanity, pretty much.
“Where you from?” she asked him as he rummaged in his pack, fingers pressed to the red-welling wound. Tears tracked down her face. Possibly she was distracting herself by talking.
“The tribe? We call ourselves the Mercantors, after this quarter of buildings. There’s a sign,” he added lamely, waving his hand in the direction of the outer limits of this section where MERCANTOR was one of the few signs left hanging on the side of a skyscraper.
After a few years, it’d seemed natural to name themselves. The Worshippers Quarter had an overabundance of churches, temples, mosques, and now they had their Doctrine of Logical Gods. There was a certain karma of the universe how that’d happened. Buildings were history and meant stuff, patently solid stuff.
“Tell me. Winning?”
He scrambled to translate that. “Us? The war against the Ghoul Lords?”
She nodded, grunted as if something had pained her below. Her fingers cramped in, then relaxed.
He pulled out the bandage pack and the tube of antiseptic. “Hell, no. Hate to rain on your parade, luv, but things are pretty stuffed up, to put it mildly. Humankind is going down the tubes, and we, my kind, the super-soldiers that were supposed to save us all…” He shook his head, sniffed. How to put this kindly?
Nah. It was what it was.
“We are what is left. Guesstimates place us at less than a million, across the globe. Everyone else, is gone, or drawn by the Lure to the top of the world and in line to be eaten by our fun-loving alien overlords.”
Her mouth fell open. “The Lure?”
“Yeah that thing the Ghoul Lords do that attracts humans. Where have you been that you don’t know this? Have you been a feeder all these years? Up there? They’ve been chowing down on humans for years, whittling us down for whatever reason. Breeding up, some think, before they leave us and go somewhere else. Another planet, perhaps.”
She remained silent for a while. “How long?”
“How long since the last organized resistance fell, since we your great fucking saviors gave up and hid in the shadows?”
Cyn nodded, blinking, her hand still flat on that wound.
“Five years. Five long years.”
“Oh.” Tears shone in her eyes.
“Oy? Where have you been? You can’t have been a feeder all that time? Can you? I saw you fall with a piece of GL tentacle in hand. Am I right?”
No answer.
“How’d you do that? Girl, Cyn, no one else has escaped from above, ever. You are going to have to answer some questions…”
Hard questions. Ones to help them figure out if she was safe to have around.
If she survived. Remember?
“I…” She licked her lips then ran on, words spilling more easily, “I somehow pulled off a part of one, and I guess it messed up that thing you call the Lure?”
“Yeah?” So she had no clue how she’d done it?
He bandaged her wound, searched the nearby kitchen, and found a full packet of painkillers in an overhead cupboard, not aspirin – that shit made you bleed. He muttered a thanks to the spirits of the vanished owners—one of those things he did to make the world feel better.
Vargr toed a line in the dirty floor with his boot.
All the fires and explosions as safety features failed or missiles hit, the meltdowns from power stations and other Armageddon-themed problems had released pollution and radioactive gases and made the scrapers shake to hell and back. Immense clouds of smoke and dust had engulfed the planet. Sometimes a whole quarter of scrapers fell down, crumbled into rubble. If there were beasters or humans living in them still, they were dead.
He took a last look around the filthy granite bench tops, the oven, microwave, the half-empty knife block, then returned to her.
He handed her his water bottle, watched her swallow the tablets, wincing as her ribs and muscles moved. What was she? He’d seen her swinging by her fingertips on a broken floor, and that first fall and catch of building edge, how was that even possible? He might do it, or any other beaster, but a plain human, no. It meant she wasn’t exactly human, yet she was also not a beaster.
Those people genetically modified by the nanites of Dr. Nietz were well described in type, well established, and no more types had been created since the doctor’s passing.
How could this cute, sexy, innocent yet tough woman be the enemy? Would be sad to have to kill her.
She was definitely an enigma. He wanted to find out what she was. Maybe there was some new way to fight the GLs? It would be more fun than lying back and watching the world die then rising in the ashes, which was what half the beasters were resigned to doing.
“You have an octopus tattoo on your ass.” Amusement had leaked into his voice.
“Uhh, I do? You shouldn’t be looking.”
“Difficult not to see that.”
“I’d eyeroll at you if everything didn’t hurt. You owe me.”
“Sure. Anytime you want to see my ass, I’ll deliver.”
That did make her eyeroll. “Stay there. Best if you don’t move too much. I’ll be back.”
He figured he knew her size, having had his hands on her. Now to find an apartment that had what he needed.
Chapter 3
Night fell, and the reflections off walls and slanting through open doorways lessened to almost nothing. They hadn’t travelled in far from the chasm, but moonlight wasn’t enough for her to navigate by. The room slowly took on a gray darkness impenetrable to her eyes.
Until he returned bearing gifts and a flashlight.
He’d brought tan leggings that looked as if they’d fit and a red sleeveless shirt that was too loose, plus underwear from some nearby bedroom. They seemed clean. Not that she could wash them. Water was scarce, he’d said. Along with most everything humans held dear or required to survive.
She was reborn into a world of need, devastation, and desperation. Only this baby had teeth. Sharp ones. She’d cut a Ghoul Lord and killed a man, and her only a day old.
“Thanks.” She smiled at Vargr.
“Not a problem. If I had to see your naked octopus-ass for one more hour, minute, make that second…” He winked. “I’d do something I wouldn’t regret. Feel well enough to dress?”
Cyn made a dismissive sound and shook out the shirt, wondering if the old her would’ve said something to put him off the… her scent. He was attracted to her? Thing was, she rather liked him too, this imposing, exceptionally solid man, who’d become a winged beast. Wing-soldier he’d called his form?
She supposed they needed to make new names for themselves. New names for a new world.
The flashli
ght he’d salvaged lasted another minute before it flickered and died.
“Battery’s fucked. Most are.” Vargr dropped it to the floor
Cyn dressed by touch, wincing as the wound was pulled by her contortions.
The bandage wrapped about her belly had no new blood seeping through.
What had she been thinking, dragging out that metal bar? It’d been instinctive in the moment—what she’d felt she needed to do, despite the possible dire consequences such as bleeding out. Truthfully, the consequences hadn’t occurred to her. Had she gone mad for those few seconds?
She’d lied to him too.
Lying to her rescuer was ungrateful, and she’d seen suspicion in his eyes. He suspected her of something, and she didn’t know what because she knew less of her situation than he did.
Five years up there with those monsters and she’d forgotten almost all of it, years, except for a blur of memories and that fight when she freed herself.
The lie about that fight between her and the Ghoul Lord had slipped out easily, as if she’d thought it through and went, yes, for the best. Again, no, she hadn’t.
Perhaps it was for the best? What would Vargr think if he knew she’d killed a man with a knife and done something else to the Ghoul Lord she didn’t comprehend? That had been weird. Vargr was suspicious of her and for good reasons.
She chewed off a torn nail and frowned at the blood taste on her tongue. Brooding on where she was and who she was with, how she’d arrived… she slid her tongue along her lip, gathering the bitter-sweet taste. Was surviving five years up there not your average deal?
Duh. Of course it’s odd.
She buckled the belt atop the tan leggings, surprised at how her stomach felt less painful than it had a few minutes ago.
“There’s something here with us,” Vargr whispered sharply. She could see him standing over her, craning his neck back. “Somewhere above.”
“Crap.” The ceiling had holes, part had caved in, spilling plaster into the bedroom corner. Not all the floors in this building were separated by concrete. “If anything leaps down onto me, I will either A, scream or B, kill it with fire.”
“You can’t see in the dark though, can you?” His voice had risen in a distinct question—a pointed one.
“Only some.” The darkness was lighter than it had been. Had the moon slanted light down the hallway? No, her eyes must’ve adapted. The door to this apartment was in a line, opposite this bedroom door, and had long ago had its door torn off the hinges.
That door lay in the hallway, partly visible, and green.
She could see colors. The blue threads and dots swirling over his furled wings were always visible, but they twinkled.
“Humans can’t see much either, so maybe you are human?”
Am I? She shivered. This was surely good. Not that she’d been wondering, much.
Cyn rose to her feet, feeling the resilient mattress push up under her butt. “But you can.”
There was a faint scuttling, as if many legs were moving.
“Yeah. Beasters can.” Absentmindedly, he rambled through a list, “The foot-soldiers, the wing-soldiers, the biotechies, we all have nanomachines in our blood, and all of us can see in the dark.” With her following closely, he went into the living room entrance, drawing a huge pistol that’d been strapped to his right hip. The twin to it was holstered to his left. The marks on the pistol butt stood out clearly, as did the water-stained walls, the dangling light, the vanes of the wing feathers.
The pistol, wall, and light were not glowing like the motes and swirls. She could see in the dark—very well.
Should she lie again?
“You know,” she said nonchalantly, “I am seeing better.”
“Oh?” He twisted to look back at her.
Something clinked above their heads, and she reached and drew that second pistol while he was preoccupied. Heavy in the hand, and a revolver that used a large caliber, from the feel of it under her fingers.
“Hey. Put that back.” That was said softly, but with stern male authority to his tone.
“Moi?” Tenderly, she lifted it to brush the cold metal across her cheek, flicking off what appeared to be the safety.
The weapon felt good, smelled good.
Vargr, his neck twisted so as to get her in his focus, in the throes of an outraged stare, reached back with his unoccupied left hand to retrieve his gun.
She smirked and spun, standing back to ass with him, to face whatever foe might charge in, both her hands wrapped about the gun.
A few heartbeats passed, then he sighed heavily, but she could tell he’d faced away again. The unknown creature worried him more. “Do you even know how to shoot?”
“I could, I’m sure. I have once…” Upon a time. She was certain of this, but the precise occasion escaped her memory.
“You’d break your wrist when it fired.” He remained back to back with her. The noises lessened then stopped.
“Don’t bet on it.”
Silence out there.
Nothing moved or made noises except for a few insects and the building, which creaked and groaned and made her wonder how long a scraper lasted once the maintenance engineers ceased to monitor them. Not forever.
“Thought it might be stinkers, sent from above to retrieve you.”
“Stinkers?” His broad back, with the folded wings to either side, was warm and hard against hers. Reassuring. His butt was even warmer, stirring her below, in a way she was sure it hadn’t been stirred for a long time…
Excluding that tentacle? Ick.
“Stinkers smell. They’re white, all white like the GLs that we have documented images of. They look like a parasite, or a big, saucepan-sized spider with legs all crooked and sticking up like a bunch of mini Eiffel towers when they run.”
“Interesting.” Just one of her worst nightmares come true then. A madhouse version, a French spider. She almost giggled. Eiffel towers?
“When you see them, you’ll know. Can I have my gun back?”
She hugged the gun in her hand for a last second. “Here.”
The beast man thought they’d send something after her? Oh joy of joys. This was her lucky day.
Her legs chose then to tremble, and she hissed as the pain returned to her side. “Ouch.”
* * * * *
Little Mo.
Day of Observation 1692
Found the female, Cyn. She has joined a male that has wings. Male and therefore one of the GM beast horde with a probability of ninety-six point… something. It lifted one leg and tapped its globular head. The ding, ding, ding resounded in Little Mo’s sound receptors but caused no improvement in the data.
Data corruption was a bitch. Memory was overflowing, and there were possibly physical defects in the core. Too long. Too long following Cyn. It needed to back-up at Big Daddy. Sadly, she was going the wrong way.
It continued observing the pair but more silently, as much as possible. One leg was glitching and the servo-motor was stubbornly refusing to obey some signals.
Little Mo was getting old, and it knew it. Back-up soon, it prayed.
Chapter 4
Immediately after handing him back his own gun, she wobbled and almost fell. To be expected. Vargr frowned. Well, this or her being dead. How was she still functioning?
He grabbed her and hefted her into his arms despite her protests and miniature cute scowl. Once he’d hooked his pack over his shoulder, they set off deeper into the quarter. Being super strong had its pluses. Carrying sexy girls might be the numero uno advantage.
Nothing tried to attack them as he lumbered down the hallway. A flock of stinkers would bother him if there were enough of them. He’d seen them stab out throats and eyes, with gusto, then turn in seconds and swarm a new victim. Beasters tended to win but not every time.
The girl grabbing his gun had both pissed him off and impressed him. For a second he’d wondered if she’d shoot him. She hadn’t. She’d stood there with him, waiting t
o confront an unknown enemy instead of hiding under the mattress, though it was probably safer cowering next to him.
When she’d pressed herself against the length of his back, it had sent a rude shudder all the long way down his spine to his balls. More than that, she’d managed to convince him of her essential humanity. The call to mate was strong, even more so than pre-GL. In times of stress, men wanted to fuck, so did women. Carry on the species, and so on.
His body recognized her as not just a female but a possible bedmate. He trusted his body more than his brain.
At her birth, she’d been human… same as he.
She could also see in the dark—a change that was abrupt and certainly not human-like.
But, again, she hadn’t shot him. If not for those red scintillating motes in her eyes, she could pass as human, especially if he coached her not to reveal she could see in the dark and swing from buildings by her fingertips after falling several stories.
Cyn might be some new devilry set upon them or she might be a key to something big, if she’d found a weakness in the GLs. His sister had been lost on the top floor since a year after the invasion. He might be able to get her back.
Might. Hoping was better than giving in.
“I like the perks with this service,” she murmured, smiling up at him.
“You flirting with me, babe?”
“Hell no,” she drawled. “And babe? That’s one rung below cutie. Just approving the free perks, is all.”
He kept jogging, walking a while before he replied. “Never said this was free. Before we reach my tribe, I need to fill you in on a few things. This isn’t the old world anymore. Everything is up-ended.”
“Would never have guessed that. Not in a million years. The dead bodies, the absence of the living, the…” She twisted to watch as they passed silent doorway after doorway, the floor decorated with litter—cups, money, clothes, hairbrushes, cellphones. “The leftovers of a fleeing, lurching, mindless population crushed under your feet like it was nothing. Yep, I was clueless.”
“Yup.”
Her words were obviously true. Sadly so. And she was a bit of a poet. Poetry was unique. She made him realize how the art created by humankind was going to die out with them. The deeper literary stuff was nuts, but he loved his books.
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