0036393001337282886 wind demon 01

by blood wind

  The Hunger.

  Sweet Merciful Alel, the Hunger!

  It was feeding on him, eating him alive. The parasite striving to survive was cannibalizing Cree's body.

  Voices from far away drifted to him and he stopping dragging the gurgling breaths into his battered lungs. With the voices came the smell of fresh blood rushing through full, healthy veins. The smell was intoxicating and he licked his split lips like the starving man he was. His nostrils flared as he sniffed.

  “No one is going to know. Open the gods-be-damned door!”

  “I'll give you two five minutes and not a minute more!”

  The door slid back into its wall niche and light from the corridor flowed dimly into Cree's cell. Konnor Rhye and Deon Inse moved past the guard and came to stand over the Reaper. “How are you feeling, Iceman?” Rhye sneered. “Up to another go

  ‘round with your good buddy?”

  “Don't underestimate a Reaper, Koni,” the guard warned. “He hasn't fed since-”

  “Look at him!” Inse laughed. “Does he look like he's something even you would be afraid of, Hein?” The guard shrugged. “Do what you want; Lord Onar won't care. I can't stay to watch, as much as I'd like to.” The guard left, leaving the door open behind him.

  Cree licked his lips again. The salty pulse of fluid that was Konnor Rhye's life essence was bombarding his senses and he was giddy with the smell of it. He heard the two human hearts beating: Rhye's a bit faster than Inse's; heard the blood swooshing through their veins. Rhye was saying something about Bridget, but Cree wasn't listening. He had tuned in on the tha -tump, tha-tump, tha-tump of Rhye's beating heart pushing rich red sustenance through miles of elastic veins.

  “Kahn will tire of her soon enough,” Rhye was telling him. “Then I will bring her home where she should have been all along; where she would have been if it hadn't been for you!”

  The thirst was lurching like a drunken man up his parched throat. It begged to be sated and the scent drove the thirst wilder still.

  He felt his fangs pushing outward from his face; heard the furtive wet, sucking sounds they made as his nostrils widened and enlarged to draw in more of the aroma that threatened to drive him into a state of ecstasy. He moved his head deeper into the shadows so the men could not see the Transition beginning.

  “She'll forget all about you,” Rhye snarled. “Once she's in my bed again, beneath me where she belongs, I'll make her forget you ever put your filthy, bestial hands on her.”

  The Reaper flexed those bestial hands and was pleased to find the claws already extended. The talons were drawing inward as his fingers curled and he ticked the long, sharp points softly on the stone floor, one after the other as though drumming his fingers in boredom.

  “She loves me,” Konnor stated. “I know she loves me. We were to be married until you took her from me.” Inse drew back his boot and kicked Cree hard, delighted with the sound he thought to be a moan of pain. “Are you listening to him, Iceman?” The Reaper groaned with unholy delight as the heat began to glow in his demon eyes. Daring not open the lids lest the humans see the piercing red light that would shine like an inferno in this dark room, Cree kept his eyes shut, the better to expand his other senses. He braced his right heel against the floor and began to gather his strength. Saliva dripped in a long thin string down his leathery chin.

  “I asked to be there when they hang you,” Rhye bragged. “I want to see what they do to you, you arrogant bastard. I want to be there when you start to choke.”

  “I want to see him piss his pants. When that noose starts tightening around his neck, he's going to-” The thing came at Inse like a whirlwind out of the darkness; he never had a chance to cry out his surprise or horror. It flowed up and over him, driving him down to the stone floor with a speed that could not possibly have been of this world. It enveloped him in ape-like arms that crushed his lungs and burst organs.

  Konnor Rhye shrieked and jumped back as the Reaper sprang. There would be no help for Inse. Bolting for the corridor, Rhye began screaming for Hein, for anyone to help him. He slapped viciously at the door pad and then ran as fast as he could from the death screams of his friend, hoping the portal would lock before the creature could get out and come after him.

  The last thing Deon Inse saw before he died was the unbelievable width of the gaping jaw coming toward his face from behind double rows of razor-sharp teeth.

  The last thing Inse felt was the piercing agony that exploded in his throat as those steel-like jaws closed over his neck, severing his jugulars, ripping out chunks of flesh before it clamped down on his spine and crunched the fragile cartilage between its massive jaws.

  The last thing Inse ever heard was the slurping sounds the beast made as it fed.

  ****

  THEY HAD reached the outer hatchway of The Vortex. The new Chief of Space Fleet Operations looked at the black prison ship sitting in her docking harness alongside Feis Coure's ship, The Sirocco. He hated the sight of that massive long-range cruiser.

  She was ugly and she bore the unmistakable stamp of the Tribunal on her. Many men had died on that hell ship, but if he had anything to say about it, there would be no more torture and death inside her matte black hull. He meant to have her de -

  commissioned when this was all over.

  “That thing gives me the creeps,” Kullen remarked.

  “Aye,” Hesar agreed. “You and me both, Cap'n.”

  “Can you fly a LRC, McGregor?” Kahn asked the young man who had appeared in the hatchway.

  “Aye,” Raine McGregor admitted.

  Kullen looked past the young man to the dark hulk who stood behind the Serenian prince. He frowned, having a particular dislike for darklings, but he kept his mouth shut. If this man had had his life saved by Cree, there was something to be said for continuing to preserve that life, worthless as Kullen deemed it to be.

  Kahn studied the ship a minute then turned to Hesar. “Get Noll on the horn and tell him I want the bodies of our fighters brought out to the Vortex.”

  “Why?” Kullen asked, tearing his attention from the dark man who was glaring back at him none-too kindly.

  “We were going to bury them in a mass grave on Rysalia Prime, but I think it might be best to take them to Haelstrom Point and send them into the Hole.”

  “What the hell for?” Kullen demanded.

  Kahn looked at the ship. “We'll send her in with them. Set them both free of Tribunal evil.”

  “I get your meaning,” McGregor agreed. He looked over at the Vortex. “How many bodies are you taking about?”

  “About thirty,” Hesar spoke for the Admiral. “We were lucky. Twenty-nine women and one man.”

  “The lone male was one of Cree's,” Kahn said. “One of his Shepherds.”

  “Not the young one, I pray. Not the one called Lona,” Lares Taborn spoke up.

  Kahn looked at the massive man. “I'm afraid so.”

  “Bad,” Lares pronounced. “Very bad.” He had met the boy and liked him very much.

  “Take Thorne and Noll,” Kahn told McGregor. “You shouldn't need any more crew than that should you?” Raine thought a moment. “For an LRC? I'll need three beside myself.”

  Kahn nodded. He looked at Hesar. “Go with him, Teal.” His attention shifted to the Necromanian giant.

  “I go where the son of the McGregor goes,” Lares stated and headed with the young Serenian prince toward the black ship.

  Kullen rubbed his hands together. “Shall we go get our Prime Reaper, then, before he grows any taller?” The men were silent as they filed on board Symthian Kullen's ship. The other five Reapers: Coure and Kiel, who were twins; Tohre; Belial; and Gehdrin were already on board with their men. Kahn took his seat at the Captain's console and thought of the last words Dr. Dean had said to him before he left for the docking bays.

  “With over ninety-eight percent of the population being women now, there won't be a need for Retrieval Units.”

  “Unless,” she ha
d answered quietly, “you go after men this time.”

  Kahn shuddered. With three hundred thousand men dead on fifteen space stations, that left a little more than five hundred thousand on Rysalia Prime. With a ratio of 48 women to every man before this all began-He shuddered again. It was too terrifying to think about. Thank God the men of Rysalia Prime had been spared the evil that had been visited upon the men of the Frontier Stations.

  ****

  HAEL SEJM and Sada MacCorkingdale, one of her followers, did not speak as they walked along the Boulevard of Tears.

  Their faces were hidden within the deep cowls of their dark blue postulant's robes and they walked stooped, the better to hide their features. The leather sandals they wore made slapping sounds on the cobblestones as they made their way to the religious center of Tethys, The Mother.

  “Good morning, Daughters,” they were greeted by the Guardess of the Gate, who manned the tall verdigris portal behind which lay the octagonal-shaped grounds of the center.

  Silently lifting one hand in greeting, Hael made good use of the rules of the Order, which forbade its members to speak until they were once more behind the twelve-foot high bronze perimeter of the compound.

  As the gate was unlocked for them to enter, Hael raised her head only high enough to allow her to get a glimpse of the center.

  A grim smile touched her pursed lips as she swept her eyes along the cluster of seven 600 foot tall black marble towers which circled the soaring majesty of the center's main building: the 1400 foot tall amethyst-sheathed obelisk called the Titaness.

  Hael's furtive gaze moved over the immaculately groomed grounds with their six oval fountains; the cobblestone courtyard which encircled the Reflecting Pool at the base of the Titaness. Her heart began to accelerate. She was with her own kind. Her sisters. The Daughters of the Multitude, at last! She and the other woman were safely within the protective arms of the Order and no man was allowed on these sacred grounds. A sigh of relief came from both women as they pushed back the hoods of their robes to reveal their faces.

  The Guardess of the Gate smiled at them as the massive portal closed and locked. “We have been expecting you, Sister,” she said.

  ****

  THE BIOENGINEER breathed a sigh of relief. “Then it isn't contagious,” she said.

  Beryla held up the test tube of pale blue liquid. She had cloned the original retrovirus and had then set to work on a vaccine.

  Working around the clock for the past thirteen hours, she believed she was only an hour or two away from success.

  “The only way the virus can be contracted is through breathing in the living bacterium,” Beryla explained. “Once it's in the lungs, it attaches itself to the air sacs. It isn't expelled so it can't be passed from one person to another. ” She was exhausted and her voice hoarse. “Once the bacteria is inhaled, it starts to destroy the immune system at such a rapid pace, we could never administer an antigen fast enough to stop it.”

  “Like the old Ebola virus from the late nineties,” suggested Dorrie.

  “Yes,” the Director agreed. “It, too, was a hemorrhagic virus.”

  “Can we safely conclude this horror won't repeat itself?” asked Amala.

  The Director held up the test tube containing the lethal virus. “I am going to destroy this as soon as the vaccine is developed.” She stared with fascination at the innocuous-looking liquid. “I want to make sure this demonic product of Sejm's warped mind is never unleashed on the men of any world ever again!”

  ****

  THE PROPHETESS-Mother's hands were folded into the loose sleeves of her purple gown as she led her flock up the serpentine stairway of the Titaness. Twelve women in lavender silk robes followed silently in the Prophetess-Mother's wake. The flickering lights of lavender candles lit up the circular stairwell and cast long shadows on the gilded plaster walls.

  It was evening; the time for Vespers.

  The women were heading for the vertex of the obelisk upon which rested a hundred foot wide circular platform. Opened to the evening air, protected only by an intricate fretwork railing around the outer perimeter, the Chanting Dais was a focal point of more than two thousand blue-clad women of the Order of Oceania who were gathered in a circle around the Reflecting Pool far below, their faces lit by the shifting lights of torches set in high stanchions.

  Cyle Acet, the spiritual leader of these women, gained the platform just as the last melodic tone came from the Vespers Bell.

  She stood aside as her Court fanned out around the platform and took their places facing the statue of Tethys, The Mother. When everyone was in her assigned place, the Prophetess-Mother walked to the statue of their beloved Creatoress and knelt; the women on the platform, as well as those on the ground far below, knelt with her.

  “Oh, Majesty of the Multitude, Fruitful Mother of us all: Hear out prayer!” Cyle chanted.

  “Hear our prayer!” came the united response from the women.

  Sejm spoke the words almost absently as she stood high atop the pinnacle of their Order's power. She closed her eyes to the stirring of the brisk wind that whipped her robes around her ankles and breathed in the smell of frangipani borne on the air from the botanical gardens a mile away. She stood with her Sisters then turned with them to face the four arcs of the heavens, the wind pushing at their backs.

  The Prophetess-Mother lifted her arms to the evening sky. “Lead us from our misery, oh, Mother of us all!” she cried out.

  “Lead us!”

  “Teach us the pathways to peace and prosperity!”

  “Teach us!”

  “Grant us the fulfillment of our bodies and souls!”

  “Grant us!”

  “Grace us with the wisdom to rule our world with a just hand and a pure heart!”

  “Grace us!”

  “Protect us from the savagery of the male who would abuse us and enslave us; who would murder our Sisters with impunity and slay our offspring!”

  “Protect us!”

  “And give us your Majestic help to set right the wrong that was done to our Sisters on this very night so long ago!”

  “Help us!”

  Cyle Acet brought her arms down from the heavens to which she had cast her prayer and extended a hand to her Court. “May the Wind be with you,” she said softly.

  Hael Sejm moved as one with her sisters as each woman reached into the pocket of her robe and withdrew a vial of pale blue liquid. Uncorking the vials, the women released the live bacterium into the wind that swept over Rysalia Prime.

  Chapter 25

  THERE WAS a noxious smell coming from the Reaper's cell as the group of five men made their way down the poorly lit corridor. Onar, already infuriated to find the guard absent from his post, drew a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his tunic and held it over his quivering nostrils.

  “Put Hein on report, Ensign,” he ordered. “Sixty lashes for dereliction of duty.” The four Interrogation Guards-ranged two in front, two behind Onar-felt a distinct uneasiness as they neared the prisoner's cell.

  It was an intricate part of their training: the interception of alarming currents floating through the ether around them. The implants buried deep within their brains were giving off danger signals. They looked at one another, delving the depths of each other's discomfort, then, almost in unison, their hands strayed to the phasers on their utility belts; they switched the settings to heavy stun.

  Onar came to an abrupt halt about four feet from the door when one of the Guards held out a barricading arm into which the old man walked. “What are you doing? Get out of my way, you imbecile!”

  “Your pardon, Lord Onar, but we are concerned,” the Chief Guard answered. He nudged his chin toward the door and the three other men moved into defensive positions to either side of the cell opening. The Chief Guard unhooked a phospho light from his utility belt and thumbed on the switch.

  Onar stayed where he was as the greenish-yellow light bobbled at the threshold of the cell door. He trusted
his guards; their psychic abilities were something he never questioned.

  At the Chief Guard's nod, the man on the far side of the door reached up to slap a hand at the door pad entry button. The door shushed back.

  Ensign Graz shifted the phospho light from his right hand to his left, then drew his phaser. So far, there had been no movement from the cell, no sound, and it was now obvious to all five men that something was very wrong. Graz pointed the light into the cell and nodded. His men raced in: one to either side of the door, one straight into the space between.

  “What the hell was that?” one man cursed. He had tripped and fallen, his hand sliding into something sticky and thick.

  Graz stepped through the door with his light and the beam fell on the thing over which his man had tripped. The Ensign could not stop himself from gagging any more than his Sergeant could keep from turning and puking up his morning meal when he found what he had landed in.

  “By the gods!” Onar heard a guard gasp then there were more sounds of retching.

  “Graz?” Onar questioned.

  “Don't you move!” a guard roared. “Don't you fucking move or I'll fry you, Cree!” Onar, more concerned that he would be denied the exquisite pleasure of hanging Kamerone Cree than with his own personal safety, rushed through the cell opening, but was brought up short by the horrific sight that met him.

  The missing guard's body was lying just beyond the opening; his head, trailing torn arteries and ragged chunks of flesh, was lying about two feet away. The eyes were gone, as were the ears, and the dead man's gaping mouth was an obscene hole where two rats played hide and seek.

  “Urghhhhhh!” Graz groaned, no longer able to keep the hot surge of vomit from erupting. The contents of his stomach splashed against the wall on which he leaned, his light still trained on what was left of another dead man's body.