Aether (The Shadowmark Series Book 2)

by T. M. Catron

  “Yes,” answered Solomon. “With his wife Gina.”

  “What about her?” asked Mina, her temper rising at the injustice. “Did anybody think of her while they were betting on the roof over her head?”

  As if in answer, a commotion rose up at the lodge. Everyone stopped what they were doing to gawk. Gina was yelling at Jake, throwing his stuff out of their room while Iverson’s friends stood by. The winner lit a cigarette as she watched. Gina gathered her one small bag and swung it at the new occupant as she marched out. She missed. The woman tossed her own bag into the room before closing the door, and then walked off with the others, laughing.

  Iverson came up behind Mina’s group. Mina turned to him when she saw him. “You have an odd choice in friends,” she said. “Why did you bring them here?”

  He stopped to look at Mina. “They need a place to stay just like anyone else. But I didn’t know they were going to take the game so seriously.”

  “You must have been the only one, then. Everyone else thought they were sincere.”

  Iverson ground the heel of his boot into the gravel. “I’ll talk to them.”

  Solomon regarded Iverson with a frown. “Seems like you could have talked to them before they let the betting get so far. And I don’t see you giving back anything you took, either.”

  Iverson shrugged and pulled Marty’s knife from his belt. “Give it back to him, then. I don’t need another.”

  Solomon ignored it. “The knife is the least of my worries.”

  Iverson dropped it near the fire pit. “They just got lucky. And why did Jake bet his room if he wasn’t willing to lose it?”

  Mina nodded at the group of Iverson’s friends disappearing into the woods above the hotel. “Where’d you find them, anyway? They don’t seem to have any trouble taking care of themselves.”

  “Which is why we need them here,” said Iverson. He leaned in a little closer, eyes locking with Mina’s. “Can I talk to you privately?”

  Mina could feel Alvarez’s eyes on her as she nodded. She ignored the stares and walked with Iverson toward the road, wondering what he wanted to say.

  “You don’t seem to have any trouble taking care of yourself,” he said. They stopped in the center of the road, looking out over the valley.

  “And?”

  “Why do you resent others who have to do the same?”

  Mina’s face burned. “I don’t. But they didn’t have to cheat anyone out of their boots.”

  “Alone all that time—you never did anything objectionable?”

  “Just say what you’re getting at.”

  Iverson turned to Mina. His long blonde hair had been tied back in a ponytail. “It’s hard to survive this long by being nice. Not everyone has had that privilege.”

  “I’ve had to make choices, just like everyone else.”

  “But you’re different, I think.”

  “How so?” Mina searched his face for a hint of what he was thinking.

  He smiled. “I can’t exactly say.”

  She didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered. “Well, that’s . . .” she said. “Thanks?”

  “It’s a compliment,” he confirmed. Still smiling, Iverson held her gaze a moment and then said, “If I’d known how far they were going to take things, I wouldn’t have invited them to join in.”

  Mina looked back at the lodge. “It seems like such a backward way to get things. I don’t know why they didn’t just offer up some fair trades for what they needed.”

  “There’s no fun in that.”

  She looked back at Iverson. “We really never know about people, do we?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  Mina suddenly became uncomfortable with the way Iverson looked at her, like he could see right through her and into something she didn’t want to discuss. “So why did you need to speak with me?”

  “No reason, really. I know how Solomon feels, but he shouldn't worry about me. I don’t wish him or Evan any ill will. I wondered if you did.”

  “Wish them ill?”

  “Worry about me.” Iverson shifted on his feet and put his hands in his pockets.

  She shifted on her feet too, wishing for a way to end the conversation. She should have seen this coming. Her eyes again flitted to the long knife Iverson carried at his hip, then back to his expectant blue eyes. Right now he was like a high school kid asking a girl to the prom. Mina smiled at her own comparison—Iverson had to be at least as old as she. And he definitely wasn’t a child.

  “What’s funny?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I just feel a little awkward. It’s a small camp.”

  Iverson ducked his head a little, the smile gone as he realized she was trying to let him down gently. “I get it,” he said. Then he shifted closer and the schoolboy manner disappeared. Instead he radiated something else. What was it? Desire? Strength?

  Mina tensed, on alert.

  “I don’t know how much I can persuade my friends to stop gambling,” he said. “They’re pretty stubborn.”

  The implied bargain hung in the air between them: give him what he wanted, and he’d call off his friends. Mina stood up straighter. She wasn’t going to be bullied into having a fling with him. “I’m pretty stubborn too,” she said.

  Iverson chuckled, gave Mina a curt nod, and walked away, turning down the road to the South. She took a deep breath, realizing she’d almost forgotten to breathe. The conversation had made her uncomfortable, and not just because of Iverson’s proposition. Mina’s thoughts returned to the knife he carried, the one that reminded her so much of Doyle’s. She walked back to camp, her mind heavy with questions.

  Emily found Mina again later in the day with Alvarez and Carter. Clouds moved in, bringing a cool breeze and the smell of rain. Mina had warned them about Emily’s eccentricities, so Alvarez pleasantly said hello when Emily sat down between her and Mina. Carter slept restlessly in the tent.

  “Water,” Emily said.

  Mina offered her water to Emily but didn’t expect her to take it. When she did, Mina smiled so broadly Alvarez looked around behind her.

  “What’s funny? I could use some cheer.”

  Mina nodded to Emily sipping the water. “She doesn’t usually accept help.”

  “I still don’t see how you did it.” Alvarez remarked a few minutes later. “Out there by yourself. I mean, look . . .” she was watching Emily who struggled to screw the bottle cap on with her bad hand, oblivious to the women talking about her. She finally screwed the cap and then began humming to herself while she picked dirt off her quilt.

  Mina pretended to be interested in the quilt too. Of course people questioned her ability to survive by herself. Few people could without training. And anyone who knew Mina’s background would hardly believe she had spontaneously developed wilderness survival skills. Most of her life had been spent in cities with modern conveniences like restaurants, grocery stores, modern medical care, and television. Her only survival training encompassed watching an occasional documentary or, more interestingly, a post-apocalyptic movie, none of which prepared her for her real-life situation.

  Alvarez watched her with narrowed eyes. She wouldn’t have made it, either, except for her job at the bunker, and they both knew it. Yet Doyle was gone, and Mina didn’t want to talk about him. “I think I just decided I wanted to live. That I was going to try, anyway. After that, it became easier somehow.”

  “So you're saying it was a coincidence?”

  “I’m saying I got lucky. You probably don’t believe in luck.”

  “No, and you probably don’t, either. Like you said, you wanted to survive. I bet most people have a similar story. The odds were stacked against them, against all of us, but here we are.”

  If Mina had told an outright lie, she couldn’t have invented a better one, but now she felt guilty for some reason.

  Alvarez stood. “I’m going to check on Nelson. Keep an eye on Carter?”

  Mina nodded.

&nbs
p; Still tired from two sleepless nights, Mina decided to rest a night before leaving again in her search for Lincoln. She regretted losing her pack.

  After a brief rain shower, the weather returned to warm and humid, and Mina didn’t hesitate about camping in the open near her new friends. She propped branches in a lean-to formation and slung leafy ones over them for shelter. When she finished, she stood back to survey her work. The lean-to wasn’t great, but it would keep the wind out, and some rain.

  Alvarez and Nelson were gone all day, Nelson returning only once to see Carter. He mentioned they were working on the generator with Solomon and Marty. After giving Carter another dose of painkillers, Mina lay down as soon as the sun set. But camp noises kept disturbing her from resting. Instead of sitting around fires eating or dozing, the lodgers milled around, speaking in low conversations. Mina sat up as Nelson and Alvarez returned. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “There’s another game,” Alvarez answered. “At the lodge.”

  A sinking weight filled Mina. “Same people?”

  “Smith, the woman that won earlier today, and another lodger. Looks like she’s winning again.”

  Realizing she wouldn't get any immediate sleep, Mina walked to the lodge. When she reached the common area, several games were being played. But the game between Smith and the lodger attracted the most attention. The players sat at a table in the middle of the room, blocked by the crowd standing around. Mina went back out and walked around the side of the building where she stood on top of the woodpile to peer inside the open window. From there, she rested her elbows on the sill. She still couldn’t see the players in the middle, but she gazed around anyway, thinking of what Alvarez had said about the strangers winning so many hands.

  Any of these people could be a hybrid. She scanned the room. Did they all resemble Doyle and Calla, with dark hair and sharp faces? Were they all tall? No one fit this description, but she wasn’t sure they would. Weren’t hybrids supposed to blend in? Williams, short and stocky with bright red hair, didn’t look anything like Doyle. No, she wouldn't be able to rule out anyone based on looks.

  Mina surveyed the room one more time, this time checking for injuries and unhealthy complexions. Hybrids were smart enough to always have access to food, and they didn’t get injured like humans did. When they were injured, they healed quickly.

  Her eyes landed on one of the strangers from the morning game. He was average height with brown hair and a short beard. She could have described many other lodgers the same way except he looked better cared-for. He lacked something, or perhaps had something no one else around had. Was it a healthy glow? The sharp eyes? Or maybe the lack of dark circles beneath them, Mina thought as she remembered her own reflection.

  He stood watching the game, facing his friend in the center. If he could see the lodger’s cards, maybe they were cheating using the adarre. If the newcomers were rogues, Iverson was too. Mina strained to look around the bodies in front of her, rising onto her tiptoes to get a better look around the room.

  The piece of wood on which Mina was balancing flipped over. She had been leaning more inside than out, but suddenly found herself in an awkward position, arms burning as she dangled out the window with her feet above the woodpile. She looked back at the suspicious stranger to see how closely he was watching the game.

  Instead he watched her. Mina tried to slide her gaze past him as if their eyes had met by chance, but she could feel his eyes on her as she struggled to maintain her position at the window. Finally, she eased herself down onto the woodpile and slid off it.

  Mina waited outside the lodge for some time to find out what happened in the game and to get another glimpse of the strangers. Finally, people exited the lodge. Mina caught a few grumblings—the lodger had lost. When Iverson came out followed by his four buddies and Evan, Mina knelt and pretended to tie her shoelace.

  She stood and followed the group, hoping they wouldn’t notice with all the other people going to their beds. Mina was a little surprised to see Evan, but her desire to find out what they were doing overrode her urge to go and tell Solomon. Whatever he said, Iverson didn’t care a bit about Solomon’s feelings.

  They rounded the side, then the back of the lodge. Mina hesitated. No one camped back here. They would see her if they turned around. She crept to the corner of the brick, putting her ear as close to it as she dared. But she heard nothing.

  So she peeked around. The glow of the campfires behind her barely lit anything, but the group wasn’t there. Mina scanned the trees up the hill, but they were dark. After another minute of waiting, she heard voices coming back along the brick wall. She pulled away from the corner and listened intently.

  Evan’s voice carried over. “I don’t know. When I went in, they were pretty much ignoring the place.”

  “But what were they doing there in the first place?” Sounded like Smith, maybe.

  “Nobody ever found out. Then the Army kicked us out.”

  “Do you remember the location of the mineshaft?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “What?”

  “Glyphs bombed the whole place! Everybody says so.”

  “We know all about that. Just take us to the mine entrance. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.” Evan’s voice betrayed his eagerness.

  “Okay then.”

  The voices grew closer. Mina panicked for a moment, worried they would head her way. She turned to leave and ran straight into something solid. A man stood there in the dark, a quiet shadow with firelight behind.

  “Excuse me,” she said, taking a quick step back.

  But the stranger took Mina’s arm and steered her away from the building. Doyle’s voice hissed in her ear, “Mina, what are you doing?”

  ***

  Calla had circled the mountain bunker once again, this time searching a wider radius. Trails branched out in every direction, all leftover from the Army camp she had helped destroy. The humans had camped in the area for weeks, and looking at boot prints did little to aid Calla’s errand. She continued searching in the dark, refusing to waste a moment of her tedious mission.

  A short bluff created a natural alcove at its base. Protected from the elements, it would have been a good camping spot. As Calla approached, the distinct smell of rotting flesh greeted her nostrils, and she hurried up into the alcove.

  Bodies lay strewn about, all in similar stages of decay, flesh peeling off bone. Scavengers had worried the bodies, and several were missing limbs or bore teeth marks. Two had been burned before they began decaying, their blackened flesh still visible in places.

  Calla knelt next to the first body, pulling away the remains of a shirt. A singular, bloated circle remained on the hybrid’s chest. Without the entire adarre, she had no way of identifying the hybrid. She covered her nose at the stench and counted the bodies—nine. Nine dead hybrids.

  Calla frowned. They’d been dead over a week, maybe two. Which meant they had died before she and Doyle had destroyed the loyal hybrids in the Factory. These could have been loyals, not rogues. She had no way of knowing.

  Regardless of their allegiance, their deaths worried her. Who would have been capable of killing nine hybrids at the same time? How many did it take to overpower them? And why would anyone even try? Even Calla would have struggled to win a battle against nine. Perhaps a band of rogues had quarreled, and these were the casualties.

  She knelt to examine the first body again. A gaping gash in his neck had expanded during decay, creating the illusion of a grossly wide smile. An animal had torn out part of his windpipe. She searched the rest of the body and found that one of his hands had been neatly severed, not torn off. Why had he not just gunned down his attacker? Calla stood and moved on to the next body. She would have to search every one of them.

  ***

  Relief surged through Mina as Doyle led her toward the edge of the parking lot. When they reached it, she paused to let her heart stop pounding. “Where have you been?” she ask
ed.

  Doyle watched the camp and said, “You’re not mad at me then?” He walked away toward the trees.

  Mina followed. “Of course I’m mad!” she whispered. “You threw me out of your ship!”

  He paused inside the darkness of the forest, the campfires still visible. “Not here.”

  “Yes, here!”

  “Tell me,” he said in a low voice, “if I’d taken the time to explain, would you simply have jumped out?” She couldn’t see his smile in the dark, but it carried in his words.

  Mina frowned, trying to remember her anger. No, she wouldn’t have jumped, but she said, “I would’ve liked the opportunity to try.”

  “Next time then.” Doyle’s voice still held a trace of amusement. “Any trouble?”

  The question was his way of asking if she’d been okay. She considered telling him yes, she’d had trouble. Telling him about her renewed concern for her brother and her horror that they had just missed finding him at the bunker, about Emily and Evan, Iverson and the people she suspected were rogues, and the horrible scene she had witnessed in the forest.

  But instead, Mina shook her head and leaned her forehead onto his chest, breathing in his scent—sweat and ice and dirt. He was alive. They would discuss those things later. “I didn’t know if you were coming back.” She whispered it very quietly, giving him a chance to pretend he didn’t hear.

  Doyle wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. “I didn’t know, either,” he said. The stubble on his chin brushed the tender skin of her ear. “I wanted to, if it makes a difference.”

  Mina shifted her hands to return the embrace. “It makes a difference,” she breathed.

  He held her a minute with his thoughts closed to her. Mina couldn’t help but enjoy feeling his body close to hers. How much she had missed him. But I’m still angry.

  Then Doyle broke away. “I can’t stay.”

  “Are you still working for the Condarri?”

  “Shh . . . There are rogues here. I thought I told you to hide?”