savage 04 - the savage vengeance

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

“That's clever John, really,” Archer said, his voice dripping sarcasm and John shot him a withering look. “Obviously, we just about got stomped out there and I am not keen on purposefully putting ourselves in harm's way again... but, the dome...”

  “It was cool, but John...,” Caleb said. “We don't have enough information to feel good about going back. And look at how sick everyone got.”

  “Not everyone,” Alex said.

  That was true. Caleb looked at his friends. “Who feels okay?”

  Alex, Tiff, Randi and himself.

  Why? Why some and not others?

  John's brow furrowed and he said the words Caleb knew he would, “We're going back.” When voices rose in protest he lifted his hand, “there are those of our group that had a greatly reduced manifestation of symptoms. Something mitigated that effect. What was it?”

  “Who gives a ripe shit, Terran?” Jonesy asked on a wail.

  “I do,” John replied, his eyes steady on Jonesy. “And you should too. After all, who got us involved in this little jaunt?”

  They all knew the answer to that.

  Parker.

  Jeffrey Parker and crew. That would be the scientists responsible for the gateway into the dome world. Gary and Joe Zondorae.

  How had they traveled to the world of Queen Clara and the dome? They were using the dimensional superhighway like Jonesy said. Why were they visiting that world? Graysheets only ever had one thing in mind: exploitation. How had they tapped into what Randi possessed? Were they folding space and time? Distance? Caleb didn't know. But they would find out. It could be that what was in that world, held answers for theirs.

  John made up the mind for the group. “Did anyone notice anything about the dome that didn't belong?”

  “Like Sesame Street?” Alex asked.

  “Listen, Sims... Sesame Street... you mean that lame-ass puppet show from a million years ago?” Jonesy asked.

  Alex scowled. “They had a game on there and the thing that doesn't fit means it needs to go.”

  “I don't know why you keep referencing pulsevision shows but whatever. Listen,” John's eyes held the group's, “the dome is supposed to be self-contained, right?”

  They nodded but Tiff snapped her gum (she had an endless supply, Caleb thought) saying, “If you say so, Terran.”

  “I do.” He drilled her with his eyes and she rolled hers. “It is the function of that structure to keep those inside of it separate from the elements outside its boundaries.”

  Realization dawned on Caleb and he snapped his fingers. “I gotcha, the holes...”

  John was grinning like Caleb was his prize pupil and Alex said, “They don't belong.”

  “Bingo,” John said, pointing a finger at Alex.

  Alex grinned, giving the piss off look to Jonesy who huffed and folded his arms across his chest.

  “So we go back,” Caleb said to John.

  He nodded. “If we want answers, if we want to stop the Graysheets... we need to find out where all of this came from.”

  “All of what, John?” Jade asked.

  “Us,” John said cryptically.

  “What do ya mean?” Tiff asked.

  “Do you think all this is coincidence? Our abilities, what we've been told about how they came about?” John asked rhetorically.

  Caleb answered anyway, “My dad mapped the genome. But the spiel about the paranormal markers and their inception... those precepts came straight from a Graysheet.”

  “So, it could be anything. We could be more guinea pig than we know,” Archer said.

  “Yeah, I've never been so happy that I'm a mundane. They probably spliced all you guys with monkey DNA!” Bry said, laughing.

  Nobody else laughed.

  Maybe they had... or something else.

  Caleb's wheels turned as they made plans to return to the other world.

  Clara's world.

  ****

  Clara's world

  Tucker saw Daniel and the way he regarded the full-blooded female of the Band and decided he wouldn't let on what he knew.

  That the idiot felt something for her.

  Tucker came forward as Daniel went for the woman. She was entangled on top of the largest male of the Band he'd ever run across. Tucker moved closer... was he dead?

  He couldn't consider it because the woman whirled on Daniel with her dirk in her hand and shocked him with her words.

  “Stay back, fragment,” she hissed at him.

  Tucker's disfigured mouth lurched into a semi-grin. The woman didn't know anything about Daniel. Perfect.

  Daniel hesitated. Then he saw it. He saw the look in Calia's eyes. She would rather be his prisoner than theirs. There were too many. Too many even if Philip had been conscious.

  Daniel couldn't believe his timing was that horribly unlucky as to knock down the one male he could have relied upon had he been conscious. He looked around him, seeing fifteen or twenty of the fragment, recognizing most. Two stood out.

  Jabez, Prince Frederic's first. And the other was Caesar, dreaded cousin and first in line for the throne in the Kingdom of Kentucky. Oh yes, Daniel was well-versed in the politics of the neighboring kingdoms. He had thought it advantageous. Never more so than now.

  He kept his advance on Calia and snaked out with his hand, she made a show of striking but to the untrained eye he overcame her maneuver, landing a soft blow to her wrist, causing her to release the dirk, he pulled his punch but she still made a sound of pain at its impact. Daniel shut his eyes then opened them, staring into her gold ones. He tried to convey with his look that he would do his best for them.

  For her.

  Calia allowed Daniel to fell her dirk with his fist. The impact of which hurt terribly but she disallowed a huge show of pain, it would make what she must do more difficult. The fragment must not get wind of weakness. They would scent it like vultures and move in for the kill.

  A slow one, knowing them as she did.

  The one named Tucker, who had struck her in the field when the strange boy had called the dead of the fragment, came and stood before her. Her arms pinned to her sides against the safety of Daniel. Her eyes flicked to an unconscious Philip, then back at Tucker. He bore a close watch, she could see this one enjoyed causing others pain.

  Tucker missed nothing.

  “I know the Band is not far from here,” Tucker's eyes slid to Daniel, “and I do plan to rendezvous with them before they reach their damaged sphere...” he looked at Daniel and asked, “that is where they head, no?”

  Daniel nodded, subtly gripping Calia tighter in quiet warning. “Yes,” he said tersely.

  “Good. Then we kill this one of the Band while he lays vulnerable and be about our journey.”

  Daniel felt Calia tense and Tucker, who felt the tightening within her, pulling against their mutual blood, a bond of genetics neither had control over whirled on her. “You do it!” he hissed. “For I know you do not wish it...” he trailed off, handing her his dirk.

  Calia's stomach fell to her feet. To kill one of her brethren, who had done nothing to her... while he lay there vulnerable. She did not know if she could do it. Even to save herself. But she could not have them attack Philip either.

  Calia hesitated.

  Tucker responded for her, his arm shooting out with the end of his fist connecting with her jaw.

  Her head snapped back against Daniel's chest and her teeth rattled.

  Daniel moved Calia to the side as the second fist followed the first. He grabbed Tucker's hand before it could make contact, the meaty sound of his palm intercepting his fist sucked into the swollen silence of the forest.

  “She can't kill him if you beat her into unconsciousness, you know,” Daniel said in a voice as reasonable as he could make it, his anger coursing through him like a nauseating current of bile.

  Their gazes locked and Tucker realized what Daniel spoke the truth. He looked at the select, her haughty face glaring at him with unveiled hostility. He would have plenty of time
to degrade her, then sell her to the highest bidder. Surely she was not untried? She looked to be at least twenty and two.

  Caesar salivated at the violence vested upon the woman by Tucker. He was a tragic maniac but oh, so wonderful at meting out just punishment. And this female deserved it. He relished the future, where he would be in control of all.

  Especially Clara.

  Tucker grabbed the female's wrist, putting undue pressure on the exact point that Daniel had halted her strike and lightly ground the small bones together, watching her misery as she suffered the pain in stoic silence. Tucker frowned, this should have made her cry out. Where did this select hail from to be as she was?

  No matter, she would kill this male of the Band and they would leave, quickly.

  He shoved her down next to the male and said, “Kill him. And strike true, or you will meet his fate.”

  She didn't respond as he thought she would, “You will not kill me. I am worth far too much alive.”

  Tucker pursed his lips, glaring at her. “Do it.”

  Calia crawled the two paces to where Philip lay. His handsome face and strong jaw there to be touched, not beaten.

  She could not do it.

  Calia looked out amongst the fragment, waiting for her failure, so they could succeed where she could not. She met Daniel's eyes last and he gave a slight nod. There was a message in his eyes but she could not decipher what it may be.

  As she stared an idea rose inside her.

  Could she do it? Calia thought perhaps she could. It might liberate him from the arms of certain death.

  She rose up on her knees, the fragment's dirk in her capable hands. Her hands shook for the first time before a strike and she steadied them with an effort. She looked down into his face, his black eyelashes laying against skin the color of coffee with cream and felt the blade fall. She struck him high in the chest, angling the blade away from his heart. Only an expert would know that it was not an organ pierce.

  Tucker laughed mightily. He would enjoy this female.

  A female capable of murdering her own would be great sport indeed.

  Philip's eyes opened and met Calia's. His surprise at the blade from her hand was equal with the disappointment in his eyes.

  Her hands were still wrapped around the hilt.

  She moved them away, staying the quaking with effort.

  Philip saw Calia just as the blade struck home, the impact deep and true, a burning pain starting inside his body, her flesh at once meeting his skin as the metal of the blade dug a hole inside his chest.

  It was nothing compared to the hole she had caused in his soul. The one true mate he may have murdering him with the blade of the fragment.

  For he recognized what Calia was even if she did not. He did not need a Rite of the Select to confirm his one true mate.

  His body faltered, his mind swimming on the surface of consciousness, with a last look in her traitorous golden eyes his consciousness stuttered, she looked back at him with regret. Unshed tears brimmed on lashes like gold lace.

  Philip could hang on no longer, a blackness washed over him and he sunk into unconsciousness.

  Daniel hung his head on his chest when he saw Calia stab Philip. As if she needed any more conflict, guilt or strife. Then he saw that she had indeed understood his silent communication. She had struck him at an angle, the knife not true.

  Perfect.

  Now, they could only hope that Tucker would not see it as well. Or recognize it for what it was.

  It was not a killing wound. He might survive it.

  Philip was Band after all.

  Tucker grabbed the woman around the arm and hauled her up, noticing how small she was even though she was only a few inches shorter than he. His hands itched with wanting to see her suffer.

  To beg.

  He clamped down on his perversions for the moment. He would explore those later. He motioned to four of the fragment and it was Lyle and three others that moved forward.

  Calia instinctively moved backward as an especially filthy specimen of the fragment latched onto her arm where Tucker's had been but a moment before.

  Tucker saw her reaction and leaned forward. “Go with him. Cooperate. Or he will have you first.”

  Calia shuddered, the thought of this vile man touching her made her stomach clench in horror and disgust.

  Tucker grinned, his lopsided and scarred mouth lifting on the one side and Calia studied him. There was something about him that was familiar but before she could get a sense of it, Tucker's face shut down and he barked to the others, “Take her. We make our way to the sphere.”

  Lyle turned, “Which one?”

  “The red-haired queen's,” Tucker said.

  Daniel and Calia looked at each other, Clara, their gaze said.

  Clara is in danger.

  Of course, so were they.

  *

  Edwin had no trouble following the short trail into the forest where Calia had stowed her rucksack. He would be about discussing where she kept her things while traveling. Edwin looked around him at the deep pockets of the woods and felt that her decision to leave her things in this area was not wise. There were too many hiding places for the fragment by far. How she had avoided them for ten years past was a mystery. She be a keen observer.

  Edwin thought on his interruption of Matthew and Clara and felt anger stir deep inside him. Why could she not see the logic in a union with he? The greater clan of her mother, unified with her sphere? A full-blooded male of the Band. He scoffed, what did Matthew have to really offer her that was any better? And his temperament was contrary, brooding and quiet. Edwin could offer her buoyancy in abundance.

  Edwin led the horse through the woods, nearly to the spot that Calia had hidden her things.

  At once he felt a primal alert begin and he slid off his mount even as he unsheathed his long sword, the length of which fell from wrist to a near caress of the ground at his feet.

  He looked, his acute eyesight boring through the filtered light as if he were out in the open, direct sunlight illuminating all. When his eyes touched on Philip, the blood leaking out of his body unabated, he rushed to his spot and dropped to his knees.

  Philip saw Edwin come and when he reached him he used his uninjured arm to fist his clothes and drew him close. He had lost consciousness briefly and then came to himself. He did not think Calia daft, she had struck him high. However, he did not know why she had thought to murder him. It was a mystery.

  At present, he needed this hole stopped up and his Band around him.

  “Calia,” Philip ground out around the pain in his chest.

  “Where is she?” Edwin nearly yelled and Philip's gaze told him to be mindful of his volume.

  “I know not, but she has stabbed me.”

  What say him? Edwin thought. It made no sense.

  “Did you argue with her...?” Edwin's eyes narrowed. “Did you lay hands on her?”

  “No fool!” Philip yelled, forgetting himself and winced. “She has been taken!”

  Fragment.

  Edwin's eyes widened and he leaped to his feet, jogging to the rucksack that was strapped to Briar Rose's flank. She neighed softly at his anxiety, stomping a foot in the soft moss of the forest floor, her eyes wide. He ran back, wrapping the material around his fist, he made a makeshift bandage. Edwin applied pressure to stem the blood flow and tore a secondary swath of material away from the first, crossing the two around Philip's massive shoulder.

  He jerked him upright and Philip swayed, his skin the color of ash.

  “Remind me to never anger your sister again,” Philip joked as he staggered against Edwin.

  Edwin grinned. “I think we will make haste to the Band and you can tell her yourself.”

  Neither said what weighed on them both.

  That they might not get to her in time. Before she was traded to another fragment.

  Or worse.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Lyle had not partaken in the pleas
ures of female flesh in some time and was absolutely smitten with the specimen he clutched against him as they made their way to a point of attack with the sphere-dwellers and Band.

  She was vital and wild... she made Lyle's blood speed. And the fragrance of her!

  He pulled her against him and lifted the thick, golden braid of her hair, inhaling the rich fragrance at the nape of her neck that was somehow flowers of the field and female combined in an intoxicating mix of....

  The elbow to his rib cage came unexpectedly and the breath left his body in one long rush. He leaned over, loosening his hold on the female.

  Before any could help him she swiveled and with the flat of her palm she slammed her hand into the bridge of his nose. Pain washed over him even as blood sprayed from his face, the exit point like a great faucet unleashed.

  “Arrrrggghhh!” Lyle cried, his hands making a vee of protection over the shattered cartilage of his face. “Get her!” he yelled in a screaming gurgle.

  Calia spun away, running as hard as she could... that vile wretch! He had tried to grope her even as his hand had left her hair and begun to reach underneath her tunic. She had used the bony part of her arm to best advantage and whilst he was distracted by the initial maneuver, Calia made the scenting of her more challenging by crushing his nose.

  It had felt good.

  And been rash.

  Calia could feel the others at her heels and knew that even with her speed some may be fast enough to catch her.

  They were bigger and stronger.

  Daniel's mind screamed in protest when Calia swung and rearranged the nose on the face of Lyle then turned and ran for the hills.

  The fragment who chased Calia may hurt her.

  Most certainly would.

  Daniel ran after them. He would be faster than all, for he was Band.

  Her lungs burned as she ran, her arms whipping the branches aside as she moved. Calia felt the air from her heels as they nearly brushed her backside. She gained and they fell behind. As she rounded a steep incline, her boots with their special pegs gripped the frozen ground, digging deep as she surged forward.