“Ew.”
“Daddy ate the soldier without cooking him.”
“Sh!”
“Why does it take so long to poop out a baby?”
“The baby has to decide whether it wants to be a boy or a girl.”
“Why would it decide to be a boy?”
“Babies are stupid.”
“Oh.”
Dayo had seen the boy in her dreams, but rarely. Irish Walsh said he talked to the boy a lot and the boy showed him a place somewhere in America.
“It’s a meeting place,” Irish Walsh told the doctor over breakfast one day. “The boy says he has something for me to do and I won’t like it. But if I do it, he said more than half our problems will disappear. Maybe more.”
“Doesn’t sound too promising given the scope of our problems, does it?” Sinjin-Smythe asked.
“Jaysus, yeah, I know. The kid really knows how to sell an idea. But what do you make of it?”
The doctor was mean to Irish Walsh then. “What do I make of it? Telepathy defies all physics and it’s stupid…but we all seem to be dreaming of the same person. What am I to make of it? A few months ago there were rules that applied universally. Now…” The doctor got up from the table and tried to smile at Aasa as he squeezed past, but she knew he was going to his room to cry.
The boy didn’t visit her little sister. Aasa made Aastha promise she was telling the truth and she pinky swore, like a little kid. Of course, Aastha was a little kid, which worried Aasa. She worried her sister told the truth. No dream visits from the boy meant that she was too little to help in the war ahead, or she wasn’t going to be around to see it.
The boy insisted he couldn’t see the future. He only said what The Way of Things told him to say.
Aasa knew he told the truth. What the boy didn’t know — what Aasa told no one, not even Aastha or Dayo — was this: the Way of Things did talk to Aasa.
While she slept, she dreamt of wrecks, half-buried in the ocean floor. Sea creatures who made their own light swam and slithered and crawled beneath her. She wondered if the fish and sea monsters heard the voices, too? What else was there to think about, down in the dark, but the voices and echoes of the clanking and hitching gears that turn the world?
Forgotten histories slunk beneath the Amundsen’s hull as they cut West, slicing the Atlantic's waves through the night.
Voices slipped into her head from out of the deep dark (from above or below, she couldn’t be sure.) The voices whispered the same words at once — sounding male and female…perhaps neither, perhaps both. Even though she couldn’t detect any accent, Aasa liked to pretend the voices were those of her parents, Aadi and Riya, watching over her forever.
The Way of Things said they could see her future. They said she’d have to be stronger than she thought she could be. They told Aasa that if she survived the war, she would have to lead the new world. “New leaders will be needed.”
“Will I be a princess in a castle?”
“If that’s what you want, you can build a castle, yes.”
“Is the boy going to be my prince someday? He’s old. Like seventeen.”
“No,” the Way of Things said. “The boy will be your dragon.”
“Why can’t Jaimie Spencer see the future?” Aasa asked.
“Because if he could see what We see, he might turn away from it.”
After each dream, Aasa awoke and reached for her sister’s hand. Aastha’s skin was baby soft and the back of her hand still had dimples. As Aasa held her sleeping sister’s hand, the older girl willed herself to remember that feeling. Aboard the Amundsen, they were still safe from the monsters.
If Aasa lost her little sister to the monsters, at least she’d keep this memory. If that faded, perhaps she'd keep a memory of a memory. When she became a very old princess in a castle with high walls, she wanted to keep this feeling.
When all memories went away, she hoped it was like cutting the string to a kite on a windy day. The kite might be off and away, but the memory of this time aboard the rescue ship, of her sister’s soft hand in hers, would remain. Aasa’s dearest wish was that her sweetest memory of her little sister would be left in the last of the spool of string, still in her hand as the world went away.
Red, raw, bloody and messy
Shiva looked up into the sky and pointed. “There’s the plane.”
Lijon strained her eyes and ears. She could not detect the aircraft bearing the Alpha emissaries their way. Her leader’s curious and creepy white eyes were as sharp as her other senses. What sort of infection could make people stronger and better?
Lijon had to credit the Sutr-X vaccination she’d received for making her Desmoid tumours disappear, but the Sutr-A strain had not chosen to turn her into a new species of superhuman. Watching the muscles ripples beneath Shiva’s tan skin, she wished she had that power, if only to defend herself. The boy had told her to kill Shiva, but by then Dear Sister had already become the formidable thing she was. Lijon wished life were a comic book. Then if she managed to kill Shiva, she could have her power, too. She was sure it wouldn't be that easy.
“What do the Alpha emissaries want, Dear Sister? Do you have any idea?”
“I’ve met their leader. I made him. I’ll be pleased to add their numbers to my cause. They need me if they hope to win against the boy.”
Lijon noticed that Shiva often spoke of her cause now. She never said “our” cause. Not anymore. Since waking from the fever that left her a Sutr Alpha, Shiva was unique and singular. The Alphas terrified Lijon, but she held some small hope that either she herself would become an Alpha or, failing that, Shiva’s power would be diluted by joining more of her own species. Her leader wasn't much of a team player.
Shiva pointed Lijon to the boiling pot in the sand at their feet. “There’s still time for a bite before our guests arrive.”
Lijon looked at the pot warily.
As if reading her thoughts, Shiva giggled. “Go ahead, Little Sister. It’s a gift. You like the high life. You’re on a Bermudian beach. The sun is shining and it’s a breakfast feast. Enjoy the pink sand while you can. You won't find the head of the manager of your hotel in that pot, I promise.”
Lijon used the tail of her shirt to pull the lid from the pot, gritting her teeth, scared to look.
“It’s lobster, silly!” Shiva said. “You better hurry up and have a bite before our guests arrive.”
The seaplane, a Citabria stolen from somewhere in Georgia, landed a couple of hundred yards offshore.
Shiva darted forward and scooped the lobster straight from the pot, ignoring the boiling water.
“Shiva! Doesn’t that burn?”
The pregnant woman straightened slowly, holding out the steaming sea creature in her bare hands. Her hands did not even tremble. Shiva smiled. “Lobsters are so very interesting. Looks like an insect yet is served…well, was served, in the finest restaurants in the world. Do you know there were once riots over serving prisoners lobster? It was considered a poor man’s meal of last resort. Cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, they are related to lice and they are the carrion eaters of the sea so…”
“Dear Sister…your hands…”
“I’m new and improved. This wasn’t what I signed up for. I thought my job was done once I engineered Sutr-X. Sutr-Z worked out better than anyone in my position could have hoped. The infected. Ha! The zombies made excellent bio-weapons. But this?”
She cracked the lobster’s hot, hard shell with ease and held out a morsel of claw meat to Lijon. “I’m the weapon now. I wish you could see what I see, Lijon. Every thought and deception ripples through a beautiful field of energy around your body.”
Lijon grimaced and her hands shook.
“I can see the shock a lowly lobster experiences as he’s dumped in boiling water.” Shiva smiled wider to reveal canine teeth that were slightly longer than before. “You think I could miss your treacherous thoughts? The quickening of your shallow breaths? Your elevated heart rat
e? Ha! Tell me, do you think you could outrun me along the beach? To the water?”
“I know I can’t.”
“Not even with your new legs. They’re lovely, by the way.”
Lijon began to cry.
“Don’t do that. C’mon, Lijon. Have a bite of the lobster. The sweetest meat is in the claw.”
Lijon did as she was told, leaning forward to take the lobster meat in her teeth as she reached for the long serrated blade hidden in her belt in the small of her back. Lijon gripped the tang and, in one fluid motion, lashed out with the knife with a fencer’s desperate lunge.
Shiva saw the thrust coming, as slow as if Lijon had attacked her underwater. The terrorist leader held up her empty palm and the tip of the blade punched through the flesh.
“That actually hurts a bit,” Shiva smiled. “Lots of nerve endings in the hand. Wakes up the brain a little, like a stiff cup of black coffee.”
Shiva grimaced as she twisted away, the blade still sunk through her hand. She pulled the knife out with her teeth and grinned. Shiva licked blood from the steel and held her hand high. Blood was lost to the pink sand, but the wound began to close almost immediately.
Lijon’s knees went weak as she watched the cut heal. The edges of the hole, at first big enough to peep through, became a ragged smile. The wound's edges knit together with terrifying efficiency. Within a minute, the cut healed, erased without even leaving a scar. It was an awesome sight, but worse was Shiva’s grin, spreading wider, a rictus portending a terrible vengeance.
What would Shiva do to her?
Lijon did not suffer that mystery long. Shiva struck Lijon across the face with the lobster. The shell’s jagged horns and sharp edges opened a gash across Lijon’s forehead, blinding her with blood.
“The wild fluctuations of the lowly human are only slightly more interesting than a lobster’s little scream as it is boiled to death. Imagine that! I can hear a lobster scream. Maybe plants will start talking to me next! All your colorful indications are hard for me to miss. You’ve been treacherous for some time, Lijon. I’ve seen your doubt.”
Another blow came, this time to the side of her head. Bones snapped in her neck and Lijon fell back. She might have blacked out then, but mercy was not to be hers. She rolled through the fire. Scalding water from the pot ran across her back. Eyes wild, Lijon screamed uselessly against the pain, shrieking in climbing scales of agony.
Shiva bent to strike again. The pain was already too much. Lijon welcomed the black drape of unconsciousness that fell over her frozen brain with Shiva’s next punch.
The blue sky went black.
We each take our turn in the thresher
Two Alphas, a male and a female, left their seaplane anchored offshore and swam to the beach. Their lean bodies cut through the pristine water. The sunlight glistened down their muscular arms. Shiva stood to greet them.
The male gestured to Shiva before he was out of the water. “One of us,” he told the other Alpha.
“I am the only ‘one of us’ on the island,” Shiva said. “How is Adam Wiggins?”
The male shook his head. “He doesn’t go by that name anymore. You mean Misericordia.”
“Before I made him ‘one of us,’” Shiva said, “his name was Adam. He was the first. I didn’t plan it that way, but it was appropriate, no?”
“I've heard all about you,” the female Alpha said. “My new name is Purah.”
“That’s beautiful,” Shiva said. “How did you choose your name?”
“Misericordia named me. One of our number used to be a professor of comparative religion. She helped us come up with new names. Some of the inner circle were named after angels.”
“Fancy. What does Purah mean?”
“The fallen angel of forgetfulness who can conjure the dead. With the number of zombies rising in the world, it was a wink and a nod.”
Shiva regarded her skeptically. “And forgetfulness?”
“Before the Fall of Everything, I was a mouse. I may as well have been a zombie. I was dead inside.” She laughed. Purah’s laughter was a harsh, ratcheting sound. “I had a job that sucked and I didn’t matter. Now? I do what I want. I’m so grateful to have survived Sutr-X so I could get to Alpha.”
“What was your job in the old world?”
“I told you,” Purah bared her teeth. “It didn’t matter. If it didn’t matter then, it sure as hell doesn’t matter now.”
Shiva was not used to insolence, but she let it go and turned to the male. “And what about you, Six-pack? What new name came to you?”
“Rahab. A fallen angel whose name means violence. I brought Misericordia to America when he was still Adam. My name used to be Geary. I was a helo pilot on the Illustrious. At the Brickyard, I was the first he turned into an Alpha.”
He stood proudly, until Purah unleashed her grinding laughter again. “Heh. Rahab, the Violent. We just call him ‘Hungry.’”
Deflated, the male bared his teeth at Purah. “It amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?”
Purah ignored him and focused on Shiva’s belly. “The child will be strong. Good.”
“So you all see the auras?”
“Of course,” Purah said.
Rahab glanced sideways at his compatriot. “Take it easy. She’s one of us, but she hasn’t been among us. She just doesn’t know, that’s all.”
“Oh, shut up, Hungry.”
Shiva’s irritation rose. As soon as she felt her jaw tighten, she detected Purah’s amusement ripple through her energy field. Though she’d joined the new species, Shiva was used to living among humans. Humans were easy to deceive. “So. I’m entertaining you.”
Purah’s annoying laughter crawled over Shiva’s skin again. “You’re just a baby vampire. We’ve come a long way. Misericordia wants you to join us, but when I see you flush red with anger, it makes me think of silly girls I used to know. I’m telling you this so you can fit in, okay? Among vampires? Tantrums are so uncool, baby. We see everything in each other. It’s one step down from reading each other’s minds. If you’re going to hang with us, you’re going to have to learn to stay cool. Misericordia says your child will be seething with venom when it comes out. You’re just the vessel for the golden child, I guess.” Purah chuckled.
Shiva glowered at her.
“Shiva,” Purah continued in a lecturing tone. “I admit, some of our names are ridiculous, but ‘Shiva’? That’s a lot to live up to. Many of us chose the names of fallen angels, not gods. You’re going to look awfully silly and vain…if you’re going to be one of us. I mean…I’m sure the baby will be welcome but — ”
“I will not be with you, Purah. You’ve got it the wrong way around.”
“I don’t —”
“You’re part of Misericordia’s ‘inner circle’, hm?”
Purah drew herself to her full height. Her long arm muscles flexed. “I’m one of Misericordia’s lovers, so yes, I’m in the inner circle. If I seem undiplomatic, I guess it’s just that I don’t think we need a baby to look after, or the self-proclaimed Queen of the Zombies.”
“I may be Queen of the Zombies, but I’m the Mother of All Vampires.”
Purah’s rusty laugh came again, but in a blink turned to a high aria of anguish.
Shiva shattered Purah’s right knee with her first kick. She drove her fist into the emissary’s abdomen. There came a ripping sound. Shiva pulled out Purah's intestines like she was paying out rope.
Rahab stepped back, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.
Before Purah could begin her second scream — and before the wound had a chance to heal — Shiva shoved a length of bowels into Purah's gaping mouth. Shiva's victim went down to one knee, her eyes swimming in their sockets.
Shiva clenched a fist tight, raised it high and brought it down on Purah’s head, hammering her so hard, vertebrae in the Alpha’s neck gave way with a loud crunch. Purah’s eyes rolled up and she collapsed into the sand face first.
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Shiva turned on Rahab panting with fury. He took another step back, both hands up, palms out.
“Am I going to have to tell them to send another plane with a nice, polite pilot, Rahab?”
He shook his head. “There aren’t that many of us. Pilots or vampires, I mean.”
She looked him up and down with an appraising stare. “You’re rare. So you’re valuable to me, then?”
“Aye.”
She nodded. “Good.”
“H-how did you do that? Your aura was fire engine red, but you didn’t telegraph what you were going to do at all!”
“Two things, Rahab. Anger is red. When you get as angry as you can get, there’s no deeper red to go to. The second thing you should know is, I do not feel fear and I never hesitate. ”
“Oh.”
“If there’s been some confusion on your part and you were misled by that idiot, I’ll clear things up. You were not sent here to pick up the vessel that happens to be carrying the golden child. You were sent to escort the woman in charge of the organization that destroyed, and renewed, the world. Together? Me? Your army of Alphas? We’ll make history and a glorious future. Without me, there is no future. Understood?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
She watched greens and yellows mix through Rahab’s energy field. He was confused and afraid, but submissive. She gave a satisfied nod.
“You meant to say, ‘Yes, my queen, absolutely.’”
“Yes, my queen, absolutely.”
“Damn right, Rahab. Now, are you hungry?”
“I’m always hungry.”
“Throw that shark bait into the water. I have a gift for you before we go to Misericordia. When you’re done with that bitch’s corpse, follow me back up the beach.” She pointed. “Beyond those rocks.”
“But Purah’s still breathing.”
“Then she’ll find that inconvenient when you shove her underwater, won’t she?”
Rahab did as he was told. The Alpha female burbled a moment, but there was nothing left for her but drowning. Purah, fallen angel of forgetfulness and conjurer of the dead, left the world in a watery cloud of excrement, a few bubbles, some blood and a school of colorful, excited, tropical fish.
This Plague of Days (Omnibus): Seasons 1-3 Page 63