Hank was one of the latter.
The powers that be should have been a little more specific on the collection of skin grafts and DNA core plugs.
But it didn't work that way. Instead of arguing it out like he should have, he'd allowed the sheer violence of the creep to intimidate him into agreeing.
Now he and Simon were watching Hank's slow, but thorough, torture by a huge Native American dude and a young woman of indeterminate race.
“Nobody can live through that. Sweet Jesus,” Simon said almost reverently, “there goes another tooth. What the hell is that girl doing?”
Jim raked a hand through his hair. “Healer, five point, from what it looks like.” They had been briefed that some paranormals would be present in this world but not in the numbers that were in his own.
Simon leaked a colorless whistle from between his teeth. “Now that's worth it. Let's go nail her.”
Jim winced at the thought. Already there was going to be hell to pay for not interfering with Hank getting his body parts peeled back one by one.
They were far enough away that the screaming was mercifully quiet, but too close not to be intimately aware of the agony.
“Listen, Jim. We don't have to hurt the girl. But if we can get a sample from one of those manifesters, one of the pure ones, none of the bullshit that happened here will matter.”
Jim turned on Simon, who just didn't get it. “No!” he seethed, “Hank's group killed, Simon—raped, stole children and tossed them inside the Pathway. There's no forgiveness for that.”
Simon shook his head. “Yeah, there is.”
He held up his gun, and Jim backed away, hands by his ears. “What are you doing, Simon? Put the gun away.”
“Quality control, Doctor Toronto. You're expendable. That's what they told me.” Simon nodded a touch frantically. “If one of those high points were found, like a four or five, I had instructions.”
Clearly, ones Jim had been unaware of.
“The one for the many, Jim-bo. If you don't cooperate, it's off with your head. Mary Queen of Scotts style. Capisce?”
Jim did understand, but it was too late.
He had a hole where his shoulder used to be. Fallen, he wheezed through the gunsmoke as Simon knelt beside him, the echo of the shot still ringing.
“Sorry, Jim, just following orders.”
Jim closed his eyes, asking for forgiveness that'd never come.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Adahy
“Smell blood,” Adahy said, and the party stopped. The two of the Band cocked their heads at the same moment, and Adahy would have smiled at the sight if his humor had not been in such short supply.
“Aye, I do as well.” Philip's great body moved in front of Calia, but it was Elise who shouldered past the men and followed the scent.
They had been only two short miles from the camp of the Red Men when Adahy stopped.
“No—hurt you.” Adahy stayed her with a large hand wrapped around her forearm.
She gave a light shake of her head. “I heal.”
His eyebrows shot up, and with great surprise, he followed.
They snaked through thick trees that led to a small bluff. As Adahy made his way down the treacherously steep ravine, he spotted the view of the river far beyond.
His excellent eyesight, courtesy of his blood of the Band, immediately perceived the area where he had tortured and left the Fragment. Already turkey vultures made short work of the carcass—an ample supply of carrion during an unusual time of year to have it.
He smiled grimly and marched onward, his hand keeping a steady position around Elise's upper arm. Navigating the rough stones and ice-covered undergrowth in the forest was challenging and required concentration to the minutest degree.
The others followed behind with quiet footsteps that were practiced and sure. Edwin was the loudest, and Adahy was unsurprised.
However, surprise waited for him around the next slope where they found one of the Fragment dying in a pool of blood.
Adahy knew the type of weapon that had been used, as did the Band. Elise had made them aware.
At seemingly the same time, they all crouched except Elise, who gathered her skirts and rushed to the fallen Fragment's side.
Of course, her footing was not as sure as his own, and she slipped, landing hard and sliding in a direct collision course with the Fragment.
*
Jim
Jim could have been no more surprised if the President of the United States had showed up for a beer.
The young woman, for whom Simon had shot him and left to die, had just made a jack-in-the-box like appearance on the steep rock bluff above his head.
His shoulder throbbed without mercy, like a tooth in need of excising, and the blood loss was tremendous, yet he was still alive.
Jim knew his options were limited. In the unforgiving winter of the midwest of this world, somewhere roughly in the Pennsylvania region, his goose was cooked.
There he went again with the fucking bird metaphors.
His sloppy thinking was halted when the girl caught his gaze, a look of concern on her face.
Then he watched in horror as she slipped on the partially frozen moss that in spring would have been a spongy floor of traction, but in winter was a carpet of sliding death.
She fell hard on her ass, and began to slide toward where he lay prone below.
Jim was not brave.
He was just a science guy pegged to go on a scavenger hunt that had been explained just enough to be understood, while the dark underbelly had remained unknown. He'd been shot for his ignorance and naiveté.
But somewhere, in the deep primal recesses of his brain, a sluggish instinct, which had never been called to task before, rose.
He rolled on his good shoulder and staggered to a standing position. The world tilted as the girl began to tumble off the edge of the rock then latched on with one thin hand and hung above him.
Jim could almost touch her animal-skin boots.
A large man, like a big-time WWE Wrestler, rose like his own mountain above her.
His eyes were death on Jim.
Oh fuck, Jim stuttered in his mind, this ain't good.
Then, just as her toes almost kissed his fingertips, the girl fell.
She landed into Jim, and he spun, wrapping her against him to protect her from landing.
Blood soaked whatever she wore as they did a stumbling dance of regaining balance on the top of the ridge.
Jim had been a mountain climber before he was a scientist, and at the last, quaking moment, he forced his numb, injured arm to grab a stone shelf, hardly more than foot sized.
For a frozen, horrible moment, both he and the girl were suspended, tipped just over the narrow ledge he and that asshole Simon had perched on to scout the indigenous peoples without being seen.
People landed like giant hailstones on the small cliff around the pair. All of them carried daggers, naked in their sure hands.
To kill him, Jim was certain.
Shit just gets better and better.
He pushed with all his might and planted both feet firmly on the rock. He swung the girl around until he was against the tree that sprung out of the side of the rock in an awkward arch, as though seeking sustenance from its stunted position to an indifferent sky.
Vertigo surged through Jim in a sickening rush that left his extremities in a numb, dull, unmovable mess.
He held onto the girl as the others, a wild looking young woman and three men—obviously clansmen—circled around them.
They would get the girl then kill him. Dumping Jim's body off the cliff for good measure.
He clenched his eyes closed, feeling the racing beat of the girl's heart underneath his hand.
Then she spoke and Jim didn't know if he should shit or go blind.
“I heal.”
*
Elise
He had saved her.
Yet it might not be enough for Edwin, Philip, Adahy
, and Calia to stop their disposal of a bloodied Fragment that had his hands on her.
Adahy moved toward their precarious position when Elise said the two words that stopped him.
“Fragment,” Adahy said.
Elise nodded. Yes, he was Fragment, but he was also other. A Traveler, she was sure.
“No, Adahy,” Elise said loudly, quickly.
Their eyes met, his dagger low and by his side, knuckles tight against the hilt.
Ready.
“He be a Traveler.”
The man who held her was taller than she, but not enormous like the males of the Band and Fragment. He also had lovely, almond-shaped eyes of such a deep brown they looked like melted chocolate. His black hair was short and very straight, and skin that looked tan had paled unnaturally from blood loss.
“Do not kill him as he sickens and we will not get the answers we seek,” Elise said quickly.
Philip and Edwin slowed. Adahy moved forward. “No hurt first,” he said in mixed Iroquois.
“I have a minor in Native American language,” the man who held her said in a random way.
He spoke strangely, like the Traveler Elise had kissed only months ago in the meadow. He must have hailed from the same world.
Adahy laid a large hand on her arm and jerked her from the man's loose embrace.
He fell on his buttocks so hard Elise winced as his teeth slammed together.
Edwin and Philip moved toward him.
“No!” Elise yelled as Adahy tried to drag her to a perceived safe distance.
Edwin whipped his head in her direction.
“Allow me to heal this one. We will learn where the others are, what he pursues here.” Elise pleaded with her eyes. “He saved me,” she added in a fierce whisper.
The men of the Band exhaled in abbreviated defeat.
Calia's eyes glittered with intent.
“Calia,” Elise implored in a low voice.
She gave an exhausted exhale and stomped off. She moved to the edge of the cliff, folding her arms, her back to Elise.
“I will kill him like swine if he is not of use to us.”
Elise blanched. She believed Calia would.
“Please, Adahy,” Elise said, her eyes moving to where his hand gripped her.
“I go too,” he said but he released her.
She hastened to the Traveler's side.
His eyes fluttered open and he moaned.
“This will hurt quite badly, and for that, I do apologize.”
His eyes flew open and he screamed as she dug her fingers into the hole the bullet had made.
“Hold him,” Elise said in a dreamy voice of concentration.
Edwin and Philip clamped strong hands on his arms as Adahy pushed his legs down.
Elise leaned over his prone body.
She did not know what happened to her fingers once they entered the body. She only knew that blood welled as though fresh cuts sawed their way through him.
His screams were piteous and loud.
Her hands were deft and exacting. She found the bullet and with a pincer grip of two fingers, she extracted it, tossing the mangled bit away with gore-slicked fingers.
“Your fingers,” Calia whispered, having moved closer to their position.
“Yes,” Elise replied, still deep into the operation of healing.
She inserted her fingers again and closed her eyes. Elise's senses came alive. She could smell the flat, metallic taste of his blood. Her fingers separated the thick cords that had been torn and shredded but still hung tenaciously to the bone.
Her fingers caressed the sinew and it knitted. Delicate pathways of blood reconnected with a sigh.
The Traveler thrashed under the hard hands of the Band. He gasped as the strings of his body became plump and strong again.
Elise thought blood, and what surrounded the wound birthed more. A knick on the bone the size of half her thumbnail filled underneath her fingertip. She exhaled softly as the innards of his body righted themselves.
No endeavor felt more right to Elise than the art of healing.
Elise became clearheaded again, and her fingertips were pushed out of a crevice of flesh that joined quickly into scar tissue.
She spread her bloodied fingertips over the rapidly healing hole and smoothed them across the top once, twice, and then rolled her palm flat against the hot pink scar tissue. She blew on it. Heating her breath, Elise exhaled against the battered flesh, her palm cupping the area so all her breath bathed the wound with the heat of her healing.
The Traveler no longer gasped and panted but stared at her.
“That's—amazing,” he said, blinking up at her from the sea of hands holding his limbs down.
Elise smiled then fainted.
Had she been awake, she would have tended him further. However, it was well-known that healing came with a price to those who did so.
*
Adahy
Adahy had watched Elise as she healed Traveler. The more vicious the injury, the more it appeared to siphon her reserves.
He caught her as she landed. Her lashes lay like a smearing of lacy soot against her pale cheeks.
His eyes met those of the Band and the lone female warrior.
“Up,” he said, jerking his head toward the cliff above them.
The Fragment gave Adahy wide eyes.
“You go,” Adahy said to him.
The Fragment narrowed his eyes. “I'll come willingly—just don't kill me.”
Adahy leaned forward in surprise. “You speak the tongue of my people. Though strangely.”
The Fragment gave a weary nod. “Yes.”
“Let us get off this edge. A fine place for an ambush, should any of his kind stumble across us,” Philip said, scanning the area.
Edwin nodded, and the Band made their way up the footholds in the ten-foot sheer rock wall to the woods above.
Adahy came last, handing Elise off to Philip.
He gave a final, lingering glance at the barren meadow at the base of the cliff and the river beyond.
Where there was one Fragment, there were surely more.
CHAPTER NINE
Elise
Elise's eyes flew open, and she did what all people do when they are disoriented: she fought awake, arms flailing, trying to sit up.
Something held her down, and her panic deepened.
“Elise!” a familiar voice said firmly.
Adahy came into focus, and she began taking deep, calming breaths. Icy air filled her lungs and caused her to cough.
“Traveler?” she sputtered.
“He fine.”
Elise relaxed in Adahy's hold.
Then she noticed where they were. Her eyes roamed the vast cave. It was dark and near a water source, reeking of the dankness of water that did not flow swiftly.
Elise took in the glare at the yawning mouth of the entrance. Snow swirled, high winds scattering it like brilliant, glittering sand. They could not have journeyed in it.
Suddenly Elise remembered the male Traveler again and sat straight up. “The male…”
Had they hurt him?
Adahy centered his palm over her chest, between her breasts. The gesture should have caused her discomfort. Instead, it was a reassuring.
“He safe.” Adahy's expression became hard with irritation.
Elise's brows drew together. All she could wonder was why? She had healed an enemy of the clan, and he should have been dead for his existence alone. Elise had asked that they not kill him. The Band had been witness to his healing by her hand. However, because of the exhausting process of repairing a wound as grievous as his, there was nothing to keep her wakeful. Her own body needed to rejuvenate through deep sleep.
Now she was awake, wondering what had happened to the key to unlocking the puzzle of why these new Travelers were here and why the tribes of Red Men were being exterminated.
“Where is he?” she asked Adahy.
He smiled.
“He safe.
”
Wonderful. She captured one of his hands as he lifted it off her chest and brushed a stray hair from her face.
Adahy turned away from her searching gaze, and she followed where his eyes took her.
There lay the Traveler in a deeply shadowed crevice, a thin blanket covering him.
Opposite him sat Philip, sharpening his blade with a honing stone. The sounds were large inside the cave, which amplified it into a grating echo.
Edwin sat next to a disgruntled-looking Calia.
A merry group.
Adahy helped Elise stand and the attention of the group turned to her.
Including the newcomer.
“Jim speaks Iroquois,” Adahy told her in their mixed language.
The stranger used the wall to stand, looking weak but better. His naturally darker complexion no longer held an ashen undertone.
He was on the mend. Elise's shoulders released their tension.
“That's like Spanglish or something,” the man said, and Elise cocked her head. Spanglish? A nonsensical word if she had ever heard one.
The slight smile on his face disappeared. “I guess my words aren't always understood here.” He gave a nervous chuckle.
They all looked at him.
“They think you are strange,” Adahy said in Iroquois.
Jim grimaced through a shrug that obviously tweaked his healing shoulder. “Well, I am—to them.”
“Jim?” Elise said, the odd name rolling off her tongue.
He smiled and moved forward with his hand outstretched.
Calia was behind him in an instant and had his hand jammed up between his shoulder blades.
He rose to his toes. “Hey! I wasn't going to do anything!”
“Vagrant!” Calia said, hiking the arm up higher and Jim squealed like a captured animal. “Adahy! Tell her!”
“He no hurt,” Adahy said in English.
Calia's eyes became slits. “How do we know ye do not intend to harm the one who made you well, eh?”
“How dumb do you think I am?” he yelled back at her.
“Calia, I think it was a means of greeting,” Elise explained.
Calia thrust him forward, and he spun around to face her.
Her dagger lay between them, glinting softly in the ambient light intruding from the open cave. “Do not think it.” Her voice low with warning.
savage 06 - the savage dream Page 5