by Pam Godwin
Georges dropped the hood and whooped. “C’est bon. She’s ready, Monseigneur.”
Standing from the curb, Jesse rolled up his maps. “Never doubted you, Georges.” He caught my eye and jogged over, grinning.
Roark stepped from between my legs and propped a boot on the bumper. “Your Lakota looks unfashionably happy.”
It was a good look on him, too. He still exuded his usual fierceness, with the bow and arrows on his back, the wild mess of fuck off hair, and the aggressive square of his shoulders. But that smile… yeah, that smile made me think of cozy campfires and tangled blankets.
Jesse perched beside me on the hood and lowered his mouth to my shoulder. For a maddening second, I thought he might kiss me there, but he paused just before making contact. “Still pissed at me?”
What was he up to? I narrowed my eyes, our breaths mingling. “I’m suspicious.”
“What if I told you I found the animal safari on one of my maps?”
“No shit?” I jumped off the hood and landed on feet that felt sturdier than they had three seconds ago.
Roark joined me, his jade eyes darkened by the ink of night. “Where?”
“Four-hundred miles south of here.” Jesse leaned back on his arms, his smile glimmering.
We could be there by morning and cure the nymph by lunchtime. Hope burst through me, tingling my skin and energizing my blood.
“Jesse Beckett…” I started toward the truck and turned, walking backwards, unable to contain my grin. “You get us there, and I’ll let you teach me how to use that bow.”
He slid off the hood, following me with a smirk on his face. “I’ll remind you of that after we find the nymph, when you’re kneeling at my feet and yielding to my better judgment.”
Roark threw his head back and laughed. “She’s not the kneeling, yielding type, lad.”
Maybe I wasn’t. But I could be. I would do almost anything for their happiness. The more they laughed and smiled and worked together, the more optimistic I was about the journey ahead and our future beyond that.
The future I wanted…God, I didn’t have a word for it. But it looked like my guardians, smelled like them, felt like them. The future was theirs. That was what I wanted.
The four-hundred mile drive ended up being a gruelingly slow trip through the night. We took turns sleeping and driving, and stopped twice to refuel with the gas we carried. And we weren’t alone. Through Virginia and North and South Carolina, the hissing snarls and scraping of feet and nails joined the static that traveled through my insides.
Despite our attempts to avoid infested urban towns, aphids skittered out of the darkness, cluttering the lonely roads and chasing the rumble of our truck. Several times, we had to angle out of the windows to shoot, stab, and smash them off the hood.
The constant attacks, the lack of human life, the mystery surrounding what we’d find at the animal safari, all of it had me on edge. The short naps I managed to grab in the back of the truck didn’t ease the burning in my eyes or the tightness in my shoulders.
About fifty miles outside Atlanta, the sun peeked above the horizon. Warm air flowed in with the light and caressed my face. I shifted to my other hip in the V of Roark’s thighs and resettled my head against his chest. With his cassock back on, the row of buttons dented my cheek. Beside us, Georges and Tallis snored softly, their necks crooked at awkward angles.
Roark’s fingers lazily combed through my hair, and just as I began to drift off, a rustle of papers drew my attention to the front of the cab.
Jesse bent over his maps on the dash and squinted in the glare of dawn. “Doc, slow down.” He pointed at something on the left. “Pull off there.”
I crawled away from Roark and knelt between the front seats, my sleepy voice cracking. “What do you see?”
Dark circles smudged the rims of Jesse’s eyes but didn’t dim their intense focus. “According to the map, it should be here.” He leaned forward, staring at a dirt road that led into a thick clump of woods. “Fresh tire tracks.”
A flutter skipped through me as I took in the various widths of ruts in the mud. Multiple vehicles? Survivors? “So we follow them.”
“It’s a risk.” Michio stopped the truck and rested his forearm on the steering wheel. “If there’s a nymph, she could be guarded.”
Because the man in the safari truck, presumably her boyfriend or husband, might’ve left her in the care of others.
His brows lowered, and a frown line etched between them. “Are we prepared to confront armed men who might not be happy to see us? Maybe a couple of us should scout ahead?”
“We stay together.” I gripped his thigh. “We don’t have a way to communicate if we’re separated, and we’re safer in this truck.”
“Men have fought for centuries without radios,” Michio countered.
“But they haven’t been fighting aphids.”
Their horrendous talons could break the truck windows, but it would slow them down and give us time to kill them.
A flex rippled in Jesse’s jaw. “I agree with her. Just be ready to turn us around, Doc.”
Michio nodded and drove up the path. Several miles carved through the woods and surrendered to a wide pasture. A gate lay discarded, its sign still attached.
PINE MOUNTAIN ANIMAL SAFARI. STAFF ONLY.
Excitement and fear bubbled through my stomach. “Wild animals without caretakers.” I scanned the barren landscape. One could assume all the animals had been eaten by aphids, but just in case… “Can a hungry lion break through the windshield?”
Roark leaned over my shoulder, his stubble scraping my face as he planted a kiss on my cheek. “Not if we kill it first.”
It would be a shame to kill one. Who knew how many species the aphids had eaten to extinction?
Michio followed the tracks across the plain. Halfway through the stretch of tall grass, he stopped the truck and rested on the steering wheel, his eyes searching the area before us.
Single story concrete buildings squatted on the horizon. Peeling paint. Broken windows. Cages separated a few of those lonely structures. But no beasts. At least, not the kind one would expect on a wild animal reserve. The cages crawled with aphids, all of them locked within, clinging to the bars, wanting out.
A stripe of blue moved between two chain-wire fences, there and gone before I could blink.
“Did you see that?” I pointed.
Roark handed a pair of binoculars over my shoulder. Jesse adjusted them and scanned the compound. “Blue shirt. Dark skin. He looks human.” A hiss pushed through his teeth. “Shit, he ran.”
I blew out a breath. “He saw us? Do we chase him?”
Jesse passed the binoculars to Michio. “He could be getting reinforcements. We don’t want to scare him. Let them come to us.”
Outside the truck, grasshoppers sprung through the feathery grass. Beside me, Jesse’s thumb slid back and forth on his bow string. The musk of anxious men saturated the cab.
A moment later, a tremor sparked in my chest, pulling and expanding to my stomach. “There’s…there’s something.”
Jesse pivoted, the scruff on his jaw glowing red in the sunlight. “Be more specific.”
Michio raised the binoculars, angled at the cages. “The aphids, Evie?”
I closed my eyes and mentally searched my body's responses, focusing on the weird sensations. Invisible pulses stitched across my skin and folded inward, colliding and forming a knot of hostility in my stomach. Magnetic feelers stretched from the coiling energy, reaching outward and strengthening.
I opened my eyes. “Aphids at one o’clock. They’re coming.”
Boots scuffed the metal floor behind me, and leather creaked as weapons were removed from holsters. I grabbed my carbine from the floor and checked the magazine.
Jesse strapped his quiver on his back, eyes on me. “How many?”
I followed the threads of vibrations. Ten…twenty…thirty came from the cages, growing closer. Lighter strands tingled fro
m farther away. “At least thirty are out of the cages. More are coming.”
“The fucker released them to scare us away.” Jesse nodded to Michio. “Get us out of here.”
Shit. I didn’t want to leave without talking to the guy or searching for the nymph. “He wouldn’t release them unless he had a safe place to hide. We could find him, flush him out.”
Michio ignored me and threw the gear shift in reverse. The tires spun.
Then I felt it. A keener pitch amid the vibrations. A twinge beyond the basic hunger. A spark of something...more. “Wait. I think…” The magnetic current didn’t feel like communication. Not like the aphids. The electricity knitting into and through me was neither attraction nor repulsion. It was simply a shared sense of each other. “She’s here. I can feel her.”
Jesse twisted to look at me, the skin around his copper eyes tight with impatience. “I thought you couldn’t communicate with them?”
“The nymphs on Malta...their pain leaked to me. And Elaine, I called her out of that cabin.” I rubbed my chest. “No wait, that’s not right. I shared her sadness and somehow controlled her with warm feelings.”
Jesus, that even sounded crazy to my own ears.
Jesse spoke through clenched teeth. “And now?”
“Same, I think.”
The truck stopped, and Jesse gripped the back of my neck, his glare hard and pressing against me. “Be sure, Evie.”
The tiny spasm in my chest pulsed amid the frenzy of vibrations. Then it faded.
I jerked out of his grip. “Fuck if I know. I’m still trying to get a grip on this—” I waved a hand over my gut. ”Whatever this is.”
Heavy breaths in the close quarters marked the passing seconds. Metal gear and weapons clinked, and clothing rustled. The prickling feeling in my core spread to my limbs and seemed to intensify the anxiety bouncing between the six of us.
“Okay.” Jesse glanced at the buildings, his gaze darting over the sparsely-treed landscape and the woods beyond. “Tallis, Georges to the tree line. Your gunfire will draw the bugs away from Evie. The priest’s sword and my bow will cover the truck.” He looked at Michio. “Doc?”
Michio’s head dipped. “I’ll stay with her.”
I was the best aim in the group. And my weird genetics gave me a predator’s speed and reflexes. The genetics of the aphid’s natural predator. But my guardians wouldn’t risk it, not in situations like this when they didn’t have a perimeter in place or a full handle on what we were facing.
The truck’s metal walls screeched. The sound of talons scratched the rear door, and the vibrations inside me went ballistic.
My throat closed, and my finger jumped to the trigger on the carbine. The field of grass lay motionless around us. They’d sneaked up from behind.
A skitter scraped across the roof.
My pulse spiked, and Tallis’ whisper crept through the tension. “Oh fuck.”
A hard-shelled body dropped on the hood, its limbs folding into an aggressive crouch. Double-jointed legs propelled it to the windshield, and claws hammered the glass, cracking spider webs across the center. My muscles locked up as two more climbed onto the hood, the metal groaning beneath the weight.
Their eyes bulged like eggs, searching for a way in. I traced the psychic links, tapping into each jumbled brain. Their thoughts were uniform, simple. Catch. Feed.
The rear door rattled open, and sunlight rushed in behind me. The aphids on the hood cocked their heads and scrambled off, toward the noise. Shuffling boots signaled Roark’s, Tallis’, and Georges’ exit from the delivery truck. I tried to swallow down my fear for them, but it shook through my body with an almighty chill.
When the metal door slammed shut and a dark quiet settled over my back, the hairs on my nape stood on end. That unnerving feeling magnified as I watched Roark in the side mirror, his powerful frame sprinting around the truck and slicing his way through a throng of aphids.
Jesse clasped the door handle. “Evie?”
I nodded, my gaze glued to Roark, as I hissed through my teeth, “Stay behind like a good girl.”
Jesse jumped out, arrow nocked at his cheek. A scaly arm swiped from behind him. He spun. The arrow flew, and the door shut on a shriek. In a blur of muscle and flinging arrows, Jesse ran into the fray.
My guardians were so different from one another, but they shared a common skill in crude weaponry. Roark wielded a sword like Viking King. Jesse not only crafted arrows but flung them with mind-boggling accuracy. And while Michio’s agile body was his deadliest weapon, he carried a shinobi-zue. It was… well, I wasn’t exactly sure, but it looked like a thin, harmless wooden tube. Hidden inside, however, were retractable blades, chains, and deadly hooks. It was elusive, unpredictable, and he swung it with supernatural force.
Michio’s hand covered my white knuckles. “Still feel the nymph?”
The vibrations in my chest made my heart pound for two reasons. The aphids’ hunger was multiplying, and the nymph’s spark was gone.
I shook my head, focused on Roark’s cassock billowing around him. The sword’s pommel arced up in his two-handed grasp. Steel streaked, and death fell in its wake. He dodged a speared mouth, tackled the back of another.
I couldn’t stop shaking. If he made one misplaced step… “I need to get out there and help them.”
Michio’s fingers shot to my wrist, forming a shackle. His glower underscored his unspoken no.
A stabbing mouth lashed toward Jesse’s chest. He ducked, freed his tomahawk, and severed the head.
Stinging sensations lit my neck, the aphids’ hostile unrest overwhelming my own. Gunfire thundered from the tree line, and it seemed to be drawing the aphids. Would it be enough?
I spat a chewed fingernail. “I’ll try to command them.”
“They can handle this, and we need you coherent.”
How many aphids did I control in Iceland? A whole damned army. But I had skin-to-skin contact with all three guardians. I had their energy source, their Yang, to fuel my command. If I tried to harness more than one with just Michio, I’d pass out in seconds.
“Evie.” Michio pulled my finger from my gnawing teeth. “They’ve fought off more than this countless times. Relax.”
To say I was incapable of relaxing was an understatement.
The bugs slowed their march toward the woods, and one by one, they turned back to Roark. A crimson smudge glistened amid the black splatter on his face.
No, no, no. I couldn’t breathe as I yanked against Michio’s hold on my arm. “Roark’s bleeding. They smell him. It’ll draw their hunger.”
Michio’s attention flicked from Roark to Jesse, the tree line, back to Roark. Muscles bounced in his jaw. His squeeze on my arm punctuated every syllable. “If we go out there…” He pulled in a deep breath. “If the aphids don’t kill us, your Lakota will.”
Roark stumbled backwards, outnumbered. A single arrow danced in Jesse’s quiver. Maybe fifteen…twenty aphids remained. Some were dragging themselves back up.
I flashed Michio a fearful smile. “I’d rather deal with a pissed-off Jesse than a dead one.”
“Shit.” He released my arm. “I’ll be right behind you.”
My fingers grazed the magazines on my belt. Sidearm on my thigh. Carbine on its sling. The brace of knives on my forearm. Michio’s door opened with mine.
I slammed into the foul stench of aphid blood and raised the carbine. My strides tangled in the overgrown grass. I ducked, missed a lunging body, and squeezed the trigger.
A green shoulder exploded in bone bits. Beside me, Michio released the spike from his shinobi-zue and pierced the aphid’s orb. Without looking back, I ran toward the center of the battle, making every bullet count.
Screeches haunted the air. The report of rifles boomed. And Jesse’s shouts. “Goddammit Evie. Back in the truck! Fuck no. Evie—”
The carbine reverberated against my ear drums, spitting brass and paring Roark’s attackers. I leapt over a tree stump, spun away fr
om the thrust of stabby mouthparts, firing at the bugs as they blurred around me. Their speed was supernatural, their limbs twitching with energy. Just like mine.
I fought like them, blurred like them. Good ol’ benefits of my creepy DNA. Only way I was going down was if all the creatures swarmed me at once.
One shouldered into my stomach, snarling and snapping. I kicked it away, but its taloned foot snatched my leg, stabbing my shin with five daggers. Its spiny hairs were like razors, shredding my jeans. I tried to swing a leg up to wipe my bloody scratches against its skin, hoping the contact would cause its insides to explode.
The damned thing evaded my kicks, but not my hand. I swiped the knife, and the hissing mouth tore away under the slice of high-carbon steel. I finished it with a stab in its gutted maw and shoved it off.
Another jumped toward me, and I spun the blade. Shit, I missed and quickly rolled out of its way. It fell on me, and I caught its shoulders, holding it away. Its jowls chomped toward my neck, slapping strings of warm, fetid slobber on my face. Son of a bitch, it was pissed.
My arms grew weak, its weight pressing down. I couldn’t hold it off much longer, couldn’t fucking push it away.
I met Michio’s fierce eyes across the field. He dodged a swinging pincer, his expression feral as he sprinted toward me, skidding and slamming into the aphid on top of me.
In a blur, he twisted its head halfway around. Bones cracked and ripped through green skin, but that wouldn’t kill it. I released my last blade and stabbed it in the face. As it dropped, I yanked the knife from its sightless eye and fell upon my stomach. Fuck. My pulse whooshed loudly in my head, and my body thrummed with adrenaline.
“Stay down,” Michio said through labored breaths.
Yeah. No problem. I dragged the carbine into position and sneezed against the swirled up pollen and dust. With shaking hands, I adjusted the scope, trained it down field, and picked off the ones bounding after Jesse.
Brain matter spurted and ribboned from punctured skulls. Those I missed dragged their bodies and crawled on stubs to continue their hunt.