All of them held out their arms, smiling, as if corralling a deer.
My boots dug into the glass-like sand, fighting for traction, even as I bent down, picking up another shard of glass and wincing against my cut hands.
I fell into a fighting stance... a real one that time.
Briefly, I thought of Irene. I also thought of Mongoose, my first fight trainer, and Gantry, who still taught me stuff when we got the chance to hit the ring together. I could almost see the three of them in my mind. I could see Gantry there, most of all, shaking his head and smiling with that dry humor of his.
What the hell you thinkin', girl? he said in my head. Alien throw-downs? Mystical circles? You gonna die now, chica. And that’s a damned shame, on a woman as fine as you...
"Yeah. No shit," I muttered.
Just then, hands darted out.
One grabbed my arm. My knee came up, my foot flashing out from my hip. I landed the kick in the guy’s sternum, forcing him back with a sharp cut. He let out a surprised grunt and staggered. It forced him back, yeah, but not enough, not nearly enough; my body still felt way too light in this place. My head, too.
That wasn’t my biggest problem, though. There were flat-out too many of them. All I could do was stall the inevitable, maybe make a few of them hurt for their trouble.
They didn't seem to mind, though.
On the contrary, it only seemed to make the game more interesting.
Laughter rippled the group, more conversations. A few more stepped forward, watching my feet now, their expressions more excited and interested than worried.
I waited, panting, knowing that rushing them would be full-blown suicide. Before, hadn’t Nihkil said something about help coming? He said things would be bad, but he seemed to think we’d get out of this. Maybe I could keep them off just until his people showed.
Given everything, I knew I was grasping at straws.
One of the young soldiers grabbed me from behind.
I moved without thinking, head-butting him. He dropped me, fast, but when the pain from whatever they’d done to my neck blinded me, I fell hard on my knees into those shard-like rocks, ripping open the nylons I wore and gashing my knees pretty bad. Bad enough that the pain from my knees paralyzed me briefly, too, making it impossible to move.
Trust me to get kidnapped by aliens while dressed in hooker wear.
I got back to my feet, fast, as soon as I sensed movement.
Another one yanked on my hair and I turned, swinging both arms and hitting him in the face. He grunted but I had to fight harder to get him to let me go that time, shoving at his chest and kicking him hard in the abdomen.
Something between anger and fear burst out of my lips.
“Nihkil!” I snapped. “Help me, damn it!”
More laughter broke out.
I heard one of the females imitate my plea, aiming her words at Nihkil with a smirk. Even their leader, the older guy, smiled that time.
I swung my bound hands again when another couple of them approached, twisting my waist to get more momentum. I hit one of them in the temple, even as another grabbed me from one side, forcing me to use the first one as leverage to kick him off.
The others cheered when I broke free, laughing harder.
I backed up warily, still roughly in the center of the crowd. I already knew they could have taken me by now, probably minutes ago. I'd become sport, so they were going after me one on one to draw things out.
They were having fun, in other words... using me to kill time.
I managed to fight off a few more, then someone swung one of those metal poles, too fast for me to avoid. It thwacked a sweet spot on my thigh and my leg crumpled. I fell, gashing my knee more seriously that time on the glass-like rock.
The men cheered. I gasped, fighting angrily, and more than a little desperately at that point, to pull myself up.
Nihkil watched emotionlessly.
I'd barely gotten to my feet when someone grabbed my shoulders. I brought my elbow back as hard as I could, aiming at his crotch. He raised his knee to block, but not fast enough. Staggering backwards, he yelped in pain and anger, making sounds that even I recognized as cursing in seal-speak.
The next guy got in closer.
Before I could move out of the way, he recoiled his fist and punched me hard, right in the face. Pain exploded around my eye. My vision whited.
He grabbed the front of my shirt before I could fall, cinching my waist with his other arm. I hung there, gasping, my bound hands pinned between our bodies. The soldiers cheered. Catcalls grew louder, the men laughing and talking at an increasing pitch, and then...
All of them fell silent.
Completely silent, as if they'd all been smacked on the back of the head by the same nun in Sunday school. Humor slid off faces as their dark eyes widened at someone or something standing behind me.
Without warning, the man holding me released my arms and body.
I let out another gasp when I landed on the rocks... I couldn't help it.
I didn’t try to get up that time, either, but knelt on the sharp stones on my cut and bruised knees and hands. Adrenaline, fear and anger shook my limbs.
I looked up, fighting to catch my breath as I took in the fear in the faces above me. As one, the men and women with the dark faces and straw-like hair stepped back. Still panting, looking up between strands of matted hair, I saw them bowing to someone seconds later, touching their shoes with their fingers.
The circle parted...
Then two newcomers blocked the light.
They looked absolutely nothing like the soldiers with the weird hair and the gray scuba suits.
Translucent skin lay over dark veins like white silk. Two sets of round, frog-like eyes stared down at me, their utter lack of inflection creating an eerie synchronicity, even though they bore no physical resemblance to one another.
I could only really take them in in fragments.
The male-looking one was entirely hairless. He had a thin, elongated face with black and purple markings that ran in an animal-like pattern up his throat.
The female-looking one’s skin stretched taut over large-boned features, making her head appear too large, almost bulbous in shape. Roped, bone-white braids fell down her back and over her shoulders. Orange irises cut into white orbs, opaque and flat-seeming as plastic.
I stared at the symbols woven in purple thread on the front of their dark brown robes, feeling almost like I'd seen those markings before, somewhere.
And I had, sort of.
The symbol formed a pyramid.
The one I saw drawn in that thread didn’t look like anything I’d seen on Earth, though, not at Giza or anywhere else.
In one fluid motion, the female crouched in front of me.
Her words came out strange-sounding, almost underwater. Like Nihkil’s, they also didn't seem to match the movement of her lips.
I found I understood her, though, just like I had him.
"What are you?" she said.
I glanced reflexively at Nihkil.
The orange eyes swiveled, following mine.
"Does this morph belong to you?" the woman asked, her voice polite.
I looked at Nihkil again, then shook my head.
"No," I said, fighting to think, even as I shook my head again. "No. I don't know him. He helped me out in a tight spot, but––"
"Do you know why is he refusing to change?”
I stared at her. “What?”
“You control his lock. Is that not so?”
I blinked up at the woman with the braids, bewildered. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I barely know the guy. He helped me out...” I looked around where I crouched, staring up at that purple-blue sky. “...I ended up here. I don't know where I am."
"How did you happen to violate our portal, friend? You are Pharei, are you not?"
"I’m a what?"
The woman frowned at me, pursing her lips. Something in that gaze made me re
ally, really nervous suddenly. I don’t think it was just the freaky orange eyes.
Well. Not only that.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “That thing you said? Pharay. I don’t think I’m that.”
The woman’s face didn’t change.
"Who closed the portal, friend?" she said.
"I really don't understand," I stammered. “...Really.”
"You do understand," the woman insisted. "Our portal... it is now broken. You know this will mean war... ? War over the remaining door? It could only be thus. You did this."
I only shook my head again.
It felt like it was the only thing I had to hold on to, the fact that I really didn’t know anything.
"I really, really don't understand,” I said, speaking slowly as I stared into those opaque irises. “You get that I’m new here, right? That I don’t belong?" I glanced at Nihkil, seemingly outside of my control. “...He knows. He knows where I come from... that I don’t belong here. I'm not...” I shook my head, fighting for the right words. “...I really don't know anything about this place. I can’t start a war...” Swallowing again, I met the woman's gaze. "Seriously. Where am I right now? What is this place called?"
The robed female followed my glance back towards Nihkil.
Her orange eyes shone like blown glass.
"You are attached to this morph,” she said. “I can see it.” Pausing, she made her words carry a faint cajole. “...I can keep him safe. Tell us how you closed the door. Tell us, and he will live."
"She is lying," Nihkil said.
His sharp voice caused me to turn.
Oh, and to jump about a foot.
The female with the orange eyes blinked transparent lids at him, as if in warning.
"I would be silent if I were you, morph,” she said. “Your current owner may be fond of you... but your new owners may not feel so well-disposed."
"She is innocent," Nihkil said. “...a blarg from that world. She knows nothing. She followed me through the gate. That is all. It is a mistake."
“Listen to him,” I began, insistent, but the women spoke over me.
"You are lying," she countered, glancing at me before looking back at Nihkil. “You are both lying. It is clear enough to all of us that this female owns you. Your shape conforms to hers... reacts to hers. She holds your lock. Do you deny it?"
"She is innocent," he said. "I can only tell you the truth. She is not Pharei. She is not Malek. If you wish to punish someone for this problem... punish me."
The woman stared at him, those large eyes unblinking.
Then her gaze swiveled back to me, as if she were examining a specimen of some exotic animal. After a pause, she made a strange, trilling sound, but for some reason, it came across more like a sigh.
"Her blood tests are strange," the woman conceded, seeming to speak to Nihkil once more, even as her eyes remained on me. "It is possible she is not Pharei." She looked at Nihkil directly. “...But she is clearly human. If you are telling the truth, then you brought out as a sample, an unregistered being. That is forbidden.”
“It was a mistake...” Nihkil began, but she talked over him.
“...You brought a sample, and then you closed the door... or else she closed it behind you. Explain how you closed the gate, and why you brought her, and we will spare you both. Explain how both of these things occurred, and the connection between them, and we will not hurt her any further...”
"I cannot explain," Nihkil said.
"You must."
"Yet, I cannot," Nihkil said, his eyes and voice holding regret. "I have told you all I know. She followed me through the gate. The jump was different that time... painful. The lock hurt me. I left through the Pharei gate, yet found myself coming out through the Malek gate, even though I used the same portal. The key was given to me personally, by my handlers among the Pharei. I cannot explain anything other than this. I do not know how any of these things occurred...”
"Why did you bring the sample?" the woman pressed. "Why bring her through, if you are innocent? Why would you need her, unless you intended to close the gate?"
"I had no such intention, mistress," Nihkil repeated. “It was a mistake.”
"That is implausible. You must realize this."
"I do," Nihkil said. "And yet I cannot tell you anything else."
A silence descended.
Again, the female with the orange eyes seemed to create it, her dark orange eyes fixed unblinkingly on Nihkil.
But I’d been trying to follow the conversation, too, and suddenly, a number of disparate pieces clicked together in the more aware parts of my brain. Once they had, I felt the blood drain from my face. Replaying their words, I tried to get a different answer, but I couldn't.
“Closed?” I echoed faintly.
The two robed figures and Nihkil turned, staring at me.
Nihkil's eyes met mine for the first time since I'd been been inside that ring of white stones. They shone a pale brown color, almost yellow, but as I watched, they morphed into a darker green. Just then, a screech in the air overhead drew my eyes upwards... just in time to see a blue-green lizard the size of a German Shepherd wing overhead.
It opened its mouth, breaking the silence with another high, screaming cry.
Fighting a deepening sense of unreality, I looked back at the woman with the orange eyes.
“The door to my world?” I said. “It’s closed, you said?”
Neither of the people in robes, nor any of those wearing gray uniforms, nor Nihkil himself made a sound. None of them looked away from my face.
I cleared my throat, staring around at all of them.
“How closed?” I said.
7
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN
THE WOMAN WITH the strange eyes stared at me, unblinking, her eyes shifting from one part of my face to the other.
Then her gaze shifted back towards Nihkil.
"Is this evasion?" she said.
I wasn’t sure if she meant me or Nihkil.
I watched those orange eyes shift back to my face.
"She has already been implanted," she said, seeming to speak to Nihkil that time. "Tell us how you came upon her. Tell us what she is... or we will let the humans abuse her."
Implanted? I thought.
Some part of my brain and body were slowly catching up with the events of the past however-many minutes and hours, making my breath come harder as I stared up at the sky. I looked at Nihkil and saw conflict in his expression, too, what might have been worry. Looking over his bruised and cut face, I wondered suddenly if he really felt as indifferent towards me as he’d been acting. I wondered at what the woman said, too, about me “owning” him.
But I couldn’t remember her exact words well enough to make sense of that, either.
I remembered the blank look on Nihkil’s face while the men had been circling me like wolves, and something else occurred to me.
He thought they’d hurt me more, if it seemed like he cared.
Which meant he did care, maybe a little.
I looked at the orange-eyed woman and caught her staring between the two of us, me and Nihkil.
My gaze drifted to the men in the gray scuba suits. Looking around at their faces, I realized they were still waiting to get back to it. They wanted these robe-wearing weirdos to leave, so they could resume their rape and beating of the dumb girl from another world. It occurred to me in the same set of breaths that I knew something else.
They were going to kill him... Nihkil.
They had no intention of letting him live. That's what Nihkil meant, when he told me the woman was lying that she'd keep him safe.
That pissed me off. I mean, I didn't know the guy at all, or even what he was, but I knew Nihkil didn't deserve to die. He tried to help me with that mark, even though he seemed to know it would put him at risk. He tried to protect me here, too, even if he hadn't exactly done a stellar job. He had a good heart, whatever he was.
A lot better o
f one than any of these other assholes.
"What do you want to know?" I said, looking at the woman with the orange eyes.
"Do not tell her anything," Nihkil said. "Please. It will not help me."
"What is she?" I asked Nihkil, without looking away from the alien woman’s face. "She and this other guy. They’re different from the others, right?”
"The others are human. She is hybrid. A supernatural."
"What does that mean?"
"She has powers. She is like...” There was a pause. I saw his eyes tighten, almost like whatever he was using to translate his words couldn’t handle this topic. “...Witch," he said finally. "A person who sees. Who makes things happen. She can make people sick... cause pain. She is dangerous. It is a small percentage, very small, who are born like her. One in several hundred thousand. Maybe even more rare than this. She is like me, but not."
“Like you?”
“But not,” he corrected.
Deciding to leave that alone for the moment, I looked back at Nihkil, then at the soldiers in the gray scuba suits. "That's why they fear her?"
"Yes."
"And what are you, Nihkil?"
He hesitated, as if reluctant.
Then he looked directly at my face.
"I am morph.” At what must have been a blank look from me, his voice grew impatient. “Morph. Changeling. Shifter.” At my continued blank stare, his frown deepened. “I do not know the correct term for your world... they are the only names I have."
I frowned. “Are you going to tell me what they actually mean?"
He blinked at me, as if startled. Then he sighed. "It is complicated. I can change. Change bodies... change what I am. I work for humans."
“Doing what?”
“Traveling. Shifting. Creating hybrids.”
I fought for some way to make sense of this, then went back to one of the few parts that still made sense to me. “You work for them?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
He hesitated again. “Sometimes.”
I frowned, still feeling like he wasn’t telling me something.
Well, maybe a lot of somethings.
"Why?" I said finally.
The Morph (Gate Shifter Book One) Page 7