DarkWind: 2nd Book, WindDemon Trilogy

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “Don’t listen to her, Ceatie,” cooed Sern. “We’ll have you smelling fresh soon enough.”

  “Ceatie?” Cree questioned.

  “C-A-T,” Dorrie chuckled. “I like it!”

  Apparently the weretiger did, too, for he reached up a massive paw and playfully swiped Sern’s cheek.

  Augeania Deon had been working for over four hours re-wiring the crippled transpositioner. The moment she had seen the mass of pulled wires, she knew who had caused the mischief. Not that she cared. Her thoughts were identical to Chanz and Sern’s so she had no problem with what her fellow warrioresses had done. When the Captain asked her who had sabotaged the equipment, Deon had no compunction about telling her commander she believed the Reaper had created the havoc before trekking on toward the ice fields.

  “Get it fixed ASAP!” Chakia ordered.

  Well, Deon thought as she fiddled with the wiring, there was the Captain’s opinion of as soon as possible and then there was her own. As far as she was concerned, as soon as possible could be a week from now.

  When the footsteps behind her stopped and no one spoke, Deon didn’t bother to turn around but continued to jiggle the wires. “This is precise work and it must be done just so,” she said. Her movements were infinitely slow.

  It wasn’t until the cold nose poked at her arm and she looked down to see a weretiger gazing up at her that Audeania Deon moved like lightning.

  “What is that noise?” Sejm demanded, looking up from the plate of tasteless stew two of the warrioresses had provided for her and the captain.

  Captain Thalia Chakai paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth, cocked her head to one side, then lowered the spoon. “It sounds like the engines of the Aluvial.”

  The two warrioresses who had been serving table for Chakai and Sejm looked at one another. “Would you like us to go check?” one asked.

  “Why are the engines being tested this time of night?” Chakai wiped her lips on her napkin. “Aye, go check and tell Deon to report to me immediately!”

  The warrioresses took off at a fast walk, both aware of what was happening. Their pace increased; they did not want to be left behind on Montyne Vex.

  When the floor of the cave began to shake beneath their feet, Chakai knew the ship was lifting from the desert floor. Her green eyes opened wide and she stared into the Chalean woman’s confused face.

  “What is happening?” asked Sejm.

  Chakai slumped on the wooden bench. “Sweet Merciful Alluvia,” she whispered.

  “What is it?” When Chakai did not answer, Sejm stood. “I asked what is going on here?”

  “You might as well sit down and enjoy the last meal you will probably have for awhile, Doctor.”

  “What are you...?” Sejm stopped as the blast of the ship’s engines rose in volume then ceased altogether as The Aluvial soared into the heavens. Her face drained of color. “They left us?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “Alone?” Sejm gasped. “With the Reaper?”

  Chakia shook her head. “My guess would be he is with them.”

  “No!” Sejm screeched. “I want to be there when he is executed!” She reached up and began pulling at her hair, tearing handfuls from her head.

  Chakia stared in silence at the mad woman flinging about the room and wondered how long it would take them to die on Montyne Vex.

  “This is the LRC Aluvial. We are reporting a situation on Montyne Vex,” Lt. Deon reported to the Amazeen fleet command transport she had contacted.

  “What is your situation, Aluvial?”

  “We had a hull breach and were forced to land on the Vex to make repairs. Unfortunately, Captain Chakai was bitten by a ghoret and has succumbed to her wound. Major Akkadia Kahmal has assumed command.”

  “You have our sympathies Aluvial. May we speak to the Major?”

  “Not at this time, Command. The Major is in mourning and is in her quarters saying kasla for the Captain. When she has completed the ritual, she will contact you.”

  “Understood. Please ask her to do so at her earliest convenience.” There was a pause. “I have been asked to inquire after the Chalean scientist, Dr. Sejm.”

  “It is with regret that I inform you Dr. Sejm also succumbed to the ghoret attack. In her efforts to ease Captain Chakai’s suffering, she was smeared with ghoret blood and fell into a stupor. She never regained consciousness and is buried beside Captain Chakai on the plateau at D-9.”

  “A most tragic state of events,” the communications officer replied. “Did you retrieve your target?”

  “Aye,” replied Lt. Deon. “The Reaper is aboard and we are bringing him to Rysalia Prime.” She looked up as Kamerone Cree laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “Good, we will join you there for his termination.”

  “That’s what you think,” Cree murmured.

  “Aluvial ending transmission.” Deon leaned back in her chair and wondered why the touch of the Reaper did not bother her as she thought it would have.

  “Because I am not your enemy,” he said, reading her mind.

  “I hope you have a plan, Cree,” Kahmal said as she joined them.

  “I will by the time we reach Rysalia.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear,” Dorrie said.

  Cree walked to the sweeping windows that looked out into the ebon heavens through which they sped. His only chance to make it back to Terra was through the women who had vowed to bring him to justice. In the reflective glare of the windows he could see them: Kahmal, Sern, Chanz, Deon, Aegean, and the one he learned was called Cedilla. His gaze shifted to Dorrie and he knew she was looking back at him, gauging his emotions as he stood at parade rest, his hands clasped behind his back, his legs spread wide.

  A thought from one of the women wound its way to him: like a king surveying his domain.

  He turned and looked at Cirolia Sern and smiled.

  She answered his smile as she patted the head of the weretiger lounging beside her navigational chair.

  He returned his attention to the stars streaking by the ship and reminded himself that he would need to shield his thoughts around one such as Sern.

  For an hour he stood at his self-imposed post then turned to Kahmal.

  “Do you have a chapel on board your ship?”

  Kahmal nodded. “Deck three.”

  He nodded and turned away from the bank of windows and walked to the elevator, his hands still clasped behind his back.

  “That has to be a first,” Chanz said quietly. “A Reaper seeking solace in a chapel.”

  “If I had not heard him ask, I would not have believed it possible,” Cedilla said.

  “There is a lot about Kamerone Cree you women will never know, but this much I will tell you,” Dorrie said. “He is not the beast you have been taught he is. He is a very spiritual man although he would be the first to scoff at the notion.”

  He found the chapel a place of strangeness for it was adorned with the likenesses of the goddesses of the Amazeen pantheon. The faces on the statues lining the circular walls were fierce and forbidding, disquieting. With pikes and maces, swords and daggers in their hands, the statues looked down on him with milky-white eyes that set his nerves on edge. As he slid onto a bench before the image of Alluvia, the Great One, and stared up into her angry face, he felt chilled to the marrow of his bones.

  “You are an evil entity,” he said. “You, Who sanction the torturous deaths of my bloodsons.”

  The air grew colder around him and he knew he was no longer alone in the still room.

  “A time ago, I was asked to help Your women to throw off the yoke of the Empire and I did as I was asked. I held to my bargain but Your women did not hold to theirs.”

  The intense scent of lavender drifted through the room and a soft green glow pulsed at the left of the statue.

  “I was told I would be allowed to take my Lady and leave in peace. That she and I would be able to live in peace. Even as those promises were made to me, thos
e who made them were lying. There was no honor in the words of the women who made those promises and no honor in what they did to me and mine.”

  A harsh wind swirled through the room, tousling the Reaper’s black hair, buffeting him, but he did not move. He kept his intent stare on the raging face of the goddess.

  “I fought in honor and expected honor in return. What I received from Your women was treachery, deceit, and dishonor.”

  “Be quiet!” a voice spoke from the boiling green glow.

  “Your women were dishonest with me for they had no intention of holding to the bargain they made. I fought for them and in return was betrayed and sentenced to die.”

  “Do not continue!”

  “The truth has no meaning for You and Yours, does it, Alluvia?” he asked. “Honor is a word but not a concept. There is no honor among You and Yours!”

  “We are honorable!”

  “No, you are not,” he said. “You allowed Yours to lie, to cheat, to betray, and to condemn to death those who were striving to help You. Yours acted in ways that no warrior would ever condone, and as such, You and Yours are not to be treated with the respect due to other gods and goddesses in the heavens. You do not deserve to be worshipped.”

  “Do not dare say such things!” The green glow rose in a violent spiral and spread along the ceiling like tentacles.

  “The truth hurts, does it not, Alluvia?” he asked, cocking his head to one side as he contemplated the enraged façade of the statue. “To be called a liar, a cheat...”

  “We do not lie!”

  “You lied to me!” he shouted, his hands doubling into fists as he slid to his knees before the statue. “You cheated me! You allowed Your women to betray me! Was there honor in that, Alluvia? Was there truth in that?”

  The glow above him sparkled with angry red forks of lightning. There was the sound of a thousand enraged female voices arguing.

  “I did my best for You and Yours and in thanks for what I did, You allowed them to make me a marked man. I was labeled the most wanted man in the universe and You allowed Yours to come after me even to the other side of the universe where I was no threat to You or Yours and drag me from my home and my lady.”

  The angry voices rose in volume.

  “You have no honor, Alluvia, and Your women are not to be trusted or honored!”

  “You tread on dangerous ground, Reaper!”

  “You owe me!” he bellowed.

  The female voices stilled.

  “You owe me,” he said again. “I demand Attribution from You and Yours.”

  A soft whispering echoed through the room then silence.

  “What is it you want, Reaper?”

  Kamerone Cree drew in a long breath, held it for a moment then slowly exhaled. “Do not interfere with what will happen on Rysalia Prime. Allow me to take my bloodsons and leave this part of Your universe. Allow us to leave in peace.”

  Another soft whispering.

  “Will you vow never to return?”

  “It was never my intention to return in the first place.”

  There was a long silence then the whispering came and went, died out.

  “We will not interfere, but neither will we aid you, Reaper.”

  “I don’t need your aid.”

  “So be it,” the voice said.

  He waited but there was no further communication from the statues. He looked about him, then bowed his head and prayed.

  But it was not to the old gods of his pantheon: Alel and His Court. It was to the one his lady prayed to each night.

  “Help me, Blessed Mother,” he begged. “Help me get home to her.”

  He closed his eyes and felt the tears scalding him.

  “I will come home to you, Bridget,” he whispered. “One way or another, I will come home!”

  Epilogue

  Tylan Khan knelt in front of Bridget and waited until her eyes focused on him before he laid a gentle hand on her knee. “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

  Bridget drew in a long breath and pulled the shawl closer around her. Since that terrible day when her world had ground to a screeching halt, she could not seem to get warm. “Are you feeling okay now?” she countered.

  The former admiral shrugged. “The gods-be-damned headaches have tapered off but I still have a very unpleasant ringing in my ears.”

  For months, Kahn had lain in a coma, his vital signs fluctuating so drastically Beryla feared he would not survive. Now, he was up and about though still weak and rather unsteady on his feet.

  A low wail caught both their attentions and Khan stood, allowing Bridget to get up from the chair to go to her child.

  “When you’ve fed Jaelin, we need to talk,” Khan said quietly.

  Bridget’s face paled. “There’s been word of Cree?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  Khan shook his head. “No, but we’ll talk about it when...”

  “We’ll talk about it now!” Bridget insisted. She became aware of Lares and Raine standing just outside the door. Her heart began a wild pounding that sent pain through her temples. “Tell me!”

  “It may not amount to anything but we thought you should know,” Kahn said, turning to motion the other two men into the room. “You have a right to know what we’re doing.”

  Bridget looked at each man in turn. “You’ve found a way to go after him?” she whispered.

  “We believe so,” Lares answered for Kahn. “Troi has been working non-stop since the day those bitches took the Reaper, and we believe the ‘bot has developed a source of fuel for the LRC.”

  “There won’t be a big supply but we believe it will be sufficient,” Kahn explained.

  “Sufficient to do what?” Bridget queried.

  “To get us out of orbit. If we can break free of the moon’s gravitational pull and make it to Montyne Vex, we’ll refuel there and slip into the wormhole like a warm knife through butter,” Raine said.

  “From here to FSK-14 takes roughly ten weeks using the wormhole. They’ve got a two month lead on us, which means they’ll be arriving on Rysalia Prime in a few weeks,” Kahn, exchanging a look with the men.

  “And if you left today, it would take you those ten weeks to get there. My husband will be dead by then.”

  “We don’t think so,” Lares stated. “If our calculations are correct, they will wait to execute him when there is some national holiday.”

  “The more women there to see him die, the better,” Raine put in.

  “The Feast of Alluvia would make perfect sense to those bloodthirsty witches,” Kahn told her. “What better time to make an example of Cree.”

  “When is this feast?” Bridget asked.

  “By my reckoning, a little over three months from now. That will give us time to get there and rescue him,” Kahn replied.

  “Or die in the trying,” Bridget said.

  “We can do it, Bridie,” Raine insisted. “I know we can.”

  “Tealson, Alexi, the three of us,” Kahn said. “Between us, we have eighty years of experience in the military. None of us has any compunction about blowing those women to hell and back.”

  “We refuse to let Cree remain in their hands. He took Lares and me out of prison and we owe him our very lives,” Raine said. “He is our leader but more importantly, he is our friend.”

  “We can do this,” Lares said.

  “We can,” Kahn repeated.

  For the last two months, Bridget had spent hours sitting alone at the window, staring into the night sky. Every star that twinkled caught her eye and she wondered if that star was the ship that was hurtling her beloved husband into the void of the Abyss. She was numb, her heart broken, her only salvation the tiny being who needed her to care for him. Her tears had long since ceased to flow but the pain of Cree’s abduction was as fresh as the day she had watched him vanish before her stunned eyes.

  Only after the Reaper’s abduction did Beryla explain to Bridget why Cree would not hold his son. It was an explanation that made perf
ect sense to Bridget even though she knew in her heart that once Kamerone Cree had held Jaelin, there would have been no danger of him ever hurting their child. Such evil was no longer entrenched in the Reaper’s soul. Bridie’s love for him had changed the very essence of Cree’s being and she understood that whether the Reaper did or not.

  “Bridie?” Kahn questioned.

  She did not look at him. She turned from the men and headed for the growing sounds of displeasure that came yowling from her hungry son.

  “Bring him back,” she whispered as she tugged the shawl around her shoulders. “Don’t come home without him.” She turned and looked at them. “Alive or dead, I want him back.”

  Without waiting for the men to speak again, she walked from the room, a small, slumped woman with trembling hands and a voice devoid of happiness.

  Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  CHARLOTTE ‘CHARLEE’ Boyett-Compo is the author of over 30 award-winning speculative fiction novels. Married for 36 years to her high school sweetheart, Tom, she is the mother of two grown sons and the grandmother of two. She is owned and operated by six demanding felines for whom she must have a day job in order to buy catnip and cat litter. Her hobbies include reading, writing, and staying as far away from arithmetic as space will allow.

  Other Books in the

  WindDemon Trilogy

  BloodWind

  First Book in WindDemon Trilogy

  On frontier station Khamsin-14, Prime Reaper Kamerone Cree is a man to be feared. When the shapeshifting assassin comes on board, women lock their doors and warriors shiver in fear as he passes. Garnering his notice is something no one wants, but one woman has caught the vampire warrior’s eye. Dr. Bridget Dunne is terrified of the man they call the Iceman, but it is her job to seduce him and bring Cree over to the Resistance. Will she be able to control the Reaper’s dark passions or will they destroy her?

  Yet to Come:

  EvilWind

  Third Book in WindDemon Trilogy