by S. S. Segran
“The fact that you could do that at all is mind-blowing,” Aari said.
Kody offered Tegan his arm again and she hooked on gratefully until they reached the main road, where Marshall took over and the group split up. With the satellite picture he’d snapped displayed on his phone screen, Kody fell in step with Mariah as they entered the rainforest and found the stream they were to follow.
“If I remember correctly,” Mariah said, skirting a root, “the woman at the reception said that coming up here requires a ranger. Because of, you know, leopards.”
Kody glanced up from his phone. “Are you saying you can’t fling away an overgrown housecat?”
She groaned. “Gah, you’re right. I keep forgetting that I’ve grown in my abilities, and I don’t have to fall into the habit of being afraid of . . . a lot of things.”
“You’re lucky like that, ’Riah. You and Jag, and Tegan, kind of. Aari and me, our abilities aren’t exactly great when it comes to protecting each other or even ourselves.”
“That’s why we were trained in self-defense. And I saw you having a go with that staff in the Lodge before we left for Israel. You really flowed with it, like you were an expert. And your abilities are useful, Kody.”
“I’m a glorified bloodhound who provides slapstick comedy at best.” When he saw her stiff look, he added, “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”
“You don’t know how important you are, do you?” she asked, sounding small.
Kody, armed with a deflective one-liner, swallowed his joke when Mariah stopped him from speaking.
“Jag and Tegan are leaders, putting aside Jag’s ongoing self-doubts,” she said. “Aari’s got a mind that exceeds every one of us. I don’t know what I am in this saving-the-world dynamic. But you . . . Kody, you’re the glue. You do what you can to make everyone feel okay, feel like things aren’t necessarily as bad as they seem. Honestly, without you, it would be harder for the group to function. And I’m not talking about just now. It’s been like that all our lives. Yeah, maybe your abilities aren’t so great when it comes to self-defense, but I’m convinced your real power is who you are as a person.”
Kody focused on his shoes as they trekked among the fig and cedar trees, continuing upstream along the calm waters, exchanging no more words. He wasn’t sure what to make of her statement and, from his point of view, she was being overly generous with his importance.
In the forest canopy, blue monkeys chattered at each other, nosily following the humans from the trees for a time before losing interest and acrobating away. The other pairs checked in telepathically with Mariah to say they were on their assigned trails. One false alarm came from Dominique; the stone slab she and Aari unearthed had no etchings on it.
Kody found that he had to squint as his headache hammered harder in his skull, demanding to be acknowledged like a child throwing a tantrum. He let Mariah take the lead, pretending he didn’t catch her troubled expression. Little things began to annoy him, like the jabbering of monkeys in the trees, the trumpeting of distant elephants, even the general hum of the forest.
Cool it, he thought. It’s okay, man. You’re fine. What was it that Victor said when you met him? Eyes forward. Yeah, that’s it. Eyes forward.
Determined to push past the Omega strain festering in his body, he overtook Mariah, giving her two thumbs-up and a big grin. “Hurry up, slowpoke!”
One look at his beaming face and she broke into a smile and darted after him.
Huh. Maybe ’Riah was onto something with her little speech back there . . .
They jogged side by side in comfortable silence, vaulting over mounds and fallen trees while the stream gurgled next to them. Search as they did for any shape or clue in the landscape that might mark Carmel’s grave, the forest seemed intent on keeping its secret.
As the pair split around a particularly wide cedar, Kody thought he heard something overhead, above the canopy. He fought to hone his hearing and magnify his sight. When he located the source of the disturbance, he rolled his eyes. “Reyor’s guys found us.”
Mariah whirled around. “Where are they?”
He pointed through a break in the canopy. “Over there, coming in lower. A drone.”
“Oh . . . oh, I see it. But how did they track us through the trees?”
“It’s probably got infrared capabilities that pick up heat signatures.”
“Well, I’m not putting up with this garbage.” Mariah, striking a sass-filled pose with a hand on her hip, lifted her other hand to the sky. With a swipe of her finger she brought the drone plummeting through the treetops before smashing it to the ground.
Kody loped over to the mangled gray quadcopter and prodded it with his foot. “The more I think about it, the more I realize just how unfair of an advantage we have.”
“I think it’s perfectly fair,” Mariah huffed. “We have to deal with them having resources literally everywhere while we—”
She halted mid-sentence and grabbed Kody’s wrist, hauling him behind her. A strange protrusion covered in vines and moss, about eight feet long and six feet high, stood on its own between a couple of fig trees. Mariah pulled at the clingy foliage and Kody helped until the uppermost layer of overgrowth was peeled off, displaying the top of a jagged rock.
The pair ran backwards a few steps, then turned to each other with elated grins.
The outcrop, weathered by time, still resembled the outline of Meru as the mountain peeped in the background through a bald patch in the forest canopy. Kody directed his attention to the ground, now searching for the slab of stone that marked Carmel’s resting place. The headache still pounded but his eagerness provided a modicum of distraction from the pain.
As they combed the forest floor, Mariah let out a giggle. “I told the others that we’ve found the landmark so they’re heading over, but I also warned them about possible drones following them. Tegan said none were following her and Marshall, but Domi . . . Domi threw a stinkin’ rock at a UAV and completely destroyed it.”
“Now that’s something I wish I could’ve seen.” Kody lightly stomped on the ground until his sole struck something hard. “Bingo.”
He pulled away clumps of dried foliage, revealing a square stone block with rounded edges. A thick coat of grime on the surface, probably nearly two thousand years old, made it impossible to positively identify the grave marker. Kody stroked the gauze on his neck, wondering how best to clean the slab. A sudden flashback to a documentary his younger brother once forced him to sit through came to mind.
Thank you, George!
He hurried to the stream, picked up double handfuls of fine sand and worked on exfoliating the slab. He was sweating by the time most of the accumulation had been scrubbed off. The sand easily filled in the markings on the dark stone, displaying several peculiar motifs. But one thing stood out to both him and Mariah: the Hebrew script at the center.
“Look at you go!” Mariah high-fived him. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“I—”
Kody’s smile fell. A sudden rush of blood to his head made the agonizing beating within unbearable. He stretched a hand to Mariah but before she could grab it, he collapsed.
54
“Kody!”
Mariah dropped beside the comatose teenager, patting his cheeks and shaking his shoulders. “Hey, don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Up! Get up! Kody, get up!”
He was warm to the touch, warmer than he should have been. She sent out a telepathic blast to the others, telling them to hurry, then carefully pulled Kody aside. “I won’t have you lying on top of a grave,” she muttered. “No sir, none of that foreshadowing business here. I won’t have it.”
She positioned herself so Kody’s head rested comfortably on her lap. His breathing had quickened slightly, but otherwise he remained unresponsive. Dominique and Aari arrived within minutes; Mariah heard the rush of air as they pulled to a stop beside her. Aari scrambled off the Sentry’s back, looking uncomfortable that he’d had to
cling on like a baby chimp as she’d sped through the forest.
“He just collapsed,” Mariah told them, hating how her voice came out in a squeak. “It was so sudden, I . . . I didn’t see it coming.”
Dominique leaned her head against Mariah’s. The brief gesture and the Sentry’s earthy scent delivered a morsel of composure to the distraught girl. Dominique then moved to do a full body-check on Kody before sitting back on her heels. “No physical injuries, but he does have a growing fever. I don’t know how to wake him.”
Mariah lightly stroked her friend’s cheek. “Hopefully he’ll come out of it on his own,” she murmured.
This can’t be happening.
Marshall and Tegan reached them fifteen minutes later, drenched in perspiration. The forest had gone still apart from the pair’s heaving gasps, as if every creature had left the humans to themselves. Once they’d caught their breaths, Marshall tried to wake the unconscious teenager.
Tegan turned to Aari. “Get on Lucius’s letters. Now!”
Aari tentatively stepped onto the grave, as if trying not to rouse the remains that rested underneath, and withdrew a parchment from the canister. Mariah watched him attentively until she felt movement on her lap. Her heart skipped a beat as Kody’s eyes eased open.
“Hey, kiddo,” Marshall said quietly, brushing some dirt off the boy’s ear. “Take it easy.”
Kody sat up with Mariah’s help, resting against her. She held him tightly, afraid that if she let go, he’d fall to pieces. He weakly grabbed his baseball cap that had tumbled off his head. “H-how long was . . . was I out?”
His speech was jarred, uneven. Before Mariah could respond, Aari yelled. “Nothing! I’m getting nothing!”
“You said this was a geo-marker!” Mariah snapped.
“I know what I said!”
Marshall held his arms out at the two of them. “Getting riled won’t help. Aari, try again.”
Aari turned back to the grave; he held the letter so tightly, Mariah worried it would tear. He stood motionless, letting out small hisses of frustration every few moments, then spun back around, flushed red. “It’s like the artifacts just died! They’re not giving me anything! No flash, nothing!”
Mariah felt Kody go rigid in her arms. “The trail’s gone cold?” he asked. “Right n-n-now?”
Aari couldn’t meet Kody’s gaze. The group remained stock-still. Kody folded into himself, hiding his face with a hand. Mariah held him closer, her mind a panicked blank. This—no—it can’t—Kody—no—no—
“The slab,” she suddenly whispered. The others looked toward her resignedly. She pressed them. “The stone slab. Did Lucius carve it?”
Aari knelt by the freshly-unearthed marker. “I don’t know. Maybe? I think he carved her name and the tribe symbols . . . if he did etch into it, there could be enough of an emotional connection—”
“Try it,” Tegan growled.
As Aari’s fingers neared the stone, Kody sat up so quickly his head struck Mariah’s chin. “Ow!” she cried. “Kody, what—”
“I hear them,” he said.
“Hear who?”
“Reyor’s men. They’re trying to be r-real quiet, but someone stepped on a b-branch. I think they’re s-sweeping the forest.”
“We demolished their trucks,” Aari protested. “How’d they get here so fast?”
Marshall slammed the side of his fist into a tree. “The drones gave away our location. And they’ve got local mercenaries waiting to move in with their own vehicles who most likely know this forest like the back of their hands.”
“Guys.” Kody tried to stand but was too frail to hold up his weight. “L-look at me. If I can hear them in m-my state, then t-they’re close. No more than a half a mile.”
“You think they’re moving up their kill-and-capture schedule?” Mariah asked.
“Maybe.” Dominique threw Kody over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “We need to move!”
Marshall covered up the stone slab. Together the group disappeared deeper into the rainforest.
55
“I still can’t believe we’re playing for sugar cubes.”
Jag glanced up from his cards and grinned. “I appreciate you humoring me, Danny.”
Daniel chuckled. “The last time I joined a poker game with Marshall, it was with his army friends who were between deployments and we played for MREs. I nearly walked out of there. At least they threw in kosher rations. But sugar cubes . . .”
“It’s sentimental. First time Aari, Tegan, Mariah, Kody and I tried to play poker, we were eleven. We only had sugar cubes to bet with and it’s been our thing ever since.”
A rumble in the distance made both of them look out the window next to their small table. Sprawling black clouds rolled toward them, throwing the desert around the safe house into a gloom. Sand dunes painted the landscape every which-way.
Jag’s forehead crinkled. “You get rain out here?”
“The desert does bloom, Jag. But this kind of storm is rare.”
Daniel’s safe house was no more than a distant family member’s cottage located in the Negev Desert. The small edifice was roomy enough for three occupants at most, with a single open area on the main floor hosting a makeshift living room and bedroom combo, as well as a kitchenette. Wooden steps led to a half-loft with an air mattress, a small table and two chairs. Jag and Daniel spent most of their time there playing card games and conversing; the higher ground was also easier for surveillance. Daniel had set up his military-grade spotting scope on a bipod by the window and checked it often.
The commando tossed two sugar cubes into the center of the table. “It’s amazing how quickly your leg’s healing. It’s been ten, eleven days since your accident, right? And you already have more mobility than you should. What is in that remedial powder Mars left us?”
“Magic, probably.” Jag looked down at his left leg. Daniel had removed his cast two days prior and somehow wrangled a functional brace from Beersheba, the closest city to the safe house. The brace went up to Jag’s knee and allowed him to put some weight on his injured leg when he walked, but he still favored his other foot.
The pair played on as the storm approached, the pitter-patter of rain like fast-falling pebbles on the roof. A streak of silver split the sky, followed by the cracking of thunder. Jag felt himself unwind with the storm but the contentment tasted more bitter than sweet in his mouth.
How can you enjoy something when the person who taught you to love it is . . . gone?
He fancied that he saw his grandmother’s reflection in the window. Julia’s tanned face glowed, her graying hair was in her signature side bun, and she looked healthier than her last days alive. She smiled at Jag. His heart fluttered and softened. Then lightning flashed again, and her face disappeared.
“Tell me more stories about Marshall,” Jag said, fixing his attention back on his cards.
“Mmh, I don’t know what’s left to tell. I only lived in the States for six years, so my stories are limited.” Daniel rubbed his jaw. “Wait, I got one. So you know how Mars was one of the smallest people in school, even as a teenager, and everyone picked on him?”
Jag grabbed his root beer from the table. “I still can’t imagine him getting bullied.”
“Yeah, he had this weird need to please everyone and took it as a personal failure if people didn’t like him. Even now, he has it. Might be a byproduct of being an only child to a single dad or something. Anyway, we had P.E. together in eighth grade. This one time, the class played prison dodgeball. Mars had a crush on this cute girl on our team but she got hit and had to stand behind enemy lines, and Mars kept throwing balls for her to catch so she could come back to our side, and”—Daniel had to put down his cards so he could cover his face, his shoulders shaking with suppressed mirth—“this moron gets so frustrated he launches the ball like a rocket and it hits the poor girl right in the face. The whole gym stops and looks at him. No one expected this scrawny kid to have that much arm-power. An
d at this point Mars is completely mortified. I’m talking red as a bleeding tomato. As the girl leaves with the nurse, he runs over to apologize but his shoe gets caught in the hem of his sweatpants and he slips and smashes into the corner of a concrete wall. So they both end up heading for the nurse’s office, her with a black eye and him needing stitches on one eyebrow. They never talked again after that.”
Jag nearly choked on his drink as he spluttered a laugh. “Dude! I’m definitely gonna bring this up next time I see him.”
Daniel reached over the table and lightheartedly smacked the teenager on the head. “You cannot breathe a word about anything I shared the last few days. Mars will kill me if he finds out.”
“I thought you said you were a tough kid in school?” Jag teased.
“I was. Except I had Marshall—the Boy Scout would literally slap cancer sticks out of my mouth—who’d risk getting grounded for leaving his house to stop me when I snuck out to late-night parties. He’s a hell of a friend . . . but as a kid, I called him a killjoy.”
Thunder boomed, this time sounding like it was right above the safe house. Neither occupant inside flinched. Daniel shoved his sugar cubes to the center of the table. “I’m all in.”
Jag narrowed his eyes at him and played the hand. Daniel chortled, slapping down his cards. “Four of a kind! I’ll collect my winnings, thank you very much.”
“No, you won’t.” Jag smugly laid his cards right-side up. “Straight flush.”
“Oh, come on!”
Jag gathered the sugar cubes and popped one into his mouth. Daniel pulled a face. “That’s nasty.”
Jag responded by throwing in a second cube, then pushed his chair to the window and looked out at the desert through the lashing rain. Daniel joined him, kicking up his feet onto the windowsill. “Hey, you know the deal. I talk, you talk. And no more stories about you getting into fist fights. I can’t believe how many of those you’ve had. You’re worse than I was.”
Jag linked his fingers behind his head. He liked how easy chatting with Daniel was. “Alright, we’ll switch it up, then. Nearly two years ago, Tegan and I tried dating. Didn’t last a week. It was really weird for the both of us. We grew up like family so romantic relationships aren’t in our cards, I guess. We did it because people thought it would be a good idea. It wasn’t.”