by Laken Cane
It was a crow.
A wet, bloody crow, black as evil and bright as hope.
It opened its beak, a sharp, wicked beak, and gave a call so harsh, so loud, that no one there was able to stand against it.
No one but Rune.
For she was its master.
Z and the crawlers covered their ears and screamed in agony, and then the crawlers fled as though fire licked at their backs.
“Fly,” she whispered. “Fly, little crow. Bring me my fucking army.”
It lurched and staggered drunkenly until at last it fluttered its sticky wings and shot into the sky.
What the fuck was it? Why was it?
She did not know.
She did not care.
It was simply hers. A miniature jet-colored force of feathers and beak and shiny black eyes.
It became a speck high in the sky and then, it was gone.
Blood dripped from Rune’s claws, bathing the hot, hard ground with her essence as she stood half-naked, bloody, and proud.
She’d given birth to life, death, and freedom.
She would call it Shiv Crow.
And finally, Rune Alexander—or maybe her monster—grinned.
Chapter Thirteen
The world might have been empty but for her and Z.
They walked a high, narrow cliff path, careful not to step too far to their left and lose themselves to the miles of nothingness below.
The sun burned the top of her head and lay like strips of melting tar on her shoulders.
Neither one of them wanted to say what they were both thinking.
Their three companions were surely dead.
“They know where we’re going,” Z said. “They’ll meet us there. Blue and Naddy are both too powerful to get taken by legislators.”
“Yeah,” she said. “How much farther?”
He ran his hand over his face, gathering sweat to fling away. “A million miles, sweet thing. It might as well be a million miles.”
She didn’t ask him why.
She was pretty sure she knew.
“Are you Z?” she asked, instead. Her voice was steady. Her heartbeat was not.
“I am,” he answered, and took her hand. He laced his fingers with hers, and they walked on.
Marching toward almost certain doom.
“You should have stayed behind,” she murmured.
“If I’d stayed behind,” he replied, “I would not be Z.”
He was right.
“How’s Ellie?” he asked.
She smiled, glad he remembered. “Ellie is…” She lost her smile. “He’s changing.”
“He’d have to change. But he’s still Ellis, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.” She pushed at the bloody, raw mess that was her chest, trying to ease the pain that Ellie’s name brought. “And I hate these fucking changes.”
“Say it one more time.”
“I love you, Z.”
“A love that’s meant to be,” he said. “A love that’s different.” His breath hitched, and the rest of his words were whispered. “A love that’s necessary.”
She frowned. “You sound like you’re repeating something you heard.”
He nodded, but said nothing.
“Z,” she insisted. “What does that mean?”
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “You’re my purpose, Rune. You’re my reason for being. But…”
His voice held sorrow, but something more. Anger, maybe. Terror, certainly. Dejection and knowledge. Knowledge she already knew he would not fully share with her.
And she wasn’t going to push him. She didn’t want to know. Not really. It wouldn’t do any good to know.
“I love you,” she said. “No matter what.”
He smiled, but his eyes were wet.
They exited the cliff path, and Rune pulled him toward the first tree she saw. The grass was green, fragrant, and sweet, and the shade of the tree offered some relief from the boiling sun.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I want to…” she gestured, then bent forward, clutching her chest. “God, this fucking pain.”
He grabbed her to him. “I know, Rune.”
And then there were no more words, just whispers, hitched breaths, and soft moans as they forgot the horror of their situations in each other’s arms.
They loved each other.
She kissed his wounds, his scars, his tattoos.
He looked into her eyes as he pushed himself inside her, his stare so clear and pure and full of love she knew, knew without a single doubt that she had never and would never again be loved in such a way.
Never.
Her stake wounds throbbed with overwhelming pain, an overflow from the pain her heart could not contain.
The wounds from the crow she’d birthed were healing, slowly.
“One moment at a time, sweet thing,” he murmured. “We have this moment. Let’s be happy with it.”
She wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding on as tightly as she could as he moved inside her. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
She knew her tears were running in red tracks down her cheeks. Knew her skin was dry and peeling and her hair was filthy.
She also knew that to Z, she was the most beautiful woman in all the worlds. She was his sweet thing and he saw her.
Just as she saw him.
Two perfect souls.
“You’re worth everything that ever happened to me,” he said, later. “And everything that will happen.”
They lay on their sides facing each other, neither of them ready to get up and move on.
The Flesh Shimmer waited. She was rotting. The war was raging. Damascus needed to be finished. But she put that aside because she knew with everything inside her that the time she spent with Z was just as important.
It would not last forever.
And oh, how she needed it to.
“I talked to you,” she told him. “I heard you answer. You were never dead.” She swallowed hard. “You were always with me.”
“And I always will be.” His voice was fierce. “I always will fucking be. I swear that to you. Part of me is inside you. I may forget something, but I will never forget this.” He put his palm over her heart. “I will never forget this.”
He wiped wetness off her face. “Say you believe me. Say it, Rune.”
She grasped his fingers and kissed them feverishly. “I do believe you. I know it’s true. I felt you there. You’re in here.” She thumped her chest, still holding his hand. “You’re here.”
“Forever.”
“Forever.”
It had to be true.
She couldn’t live with anything less.
Neither one of them could.
Maybe he wasn’t completely Z.
But there, in that cold, strange world, she wasn’t completely Rune Alexander.
Finally, they rose and continued on.
There was nothing else they could do.
And she was getting sicker.
The bird’s birth had shredded her flesh and the rot was now stronger than her body’s ability to heal the vicious wounds.
She walked with her hands over her chest. The wound throbbed painfully, and she had to stop walking to force down nausea.
The crawlers and the crow had taken nearly all the fight she had left.
“Can you smell it?” she asked Z, her voice dull.
“Smell what?” His voice was full of worry. “Death?”
“Me.” She pushed her palm a little harder against her wound. “The rot.”
He averted his eyes, and that was all the answer she needed.
“Fuck me,” she whispered.
“It’s not you, Rune. It’s the disease.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close to his side. “We have to get your cure.”
“Yeah,” she said, grimly. “As soon as we find our three missing friends, I’m going to have a talk with the Flesh hand.”
And there was no
time to waste.
Carnage was destroyed.
“Dammit,” Z muttered. “She’s destroying the world.”
“And not slowly.” Rune blew her hair out of her face and looked around, desolate. “By the time we finally kill her, there will be little left to save.”
They stayed on high alert as they walked through the rubble, saying nothing as they stepped over and around dozens and dozens of bodies. Some were recent kills, some were long dead.
And there was no sign of Roma, Blue, or Nadaline.
There was no sign of anyone.
Not anyone alive, anyway.
Then she was proven wrong when two figures darted across the destroyed street in front of them.
“Hey,” Rune called. She started to run after them but her body refused to let her. She leaned over, her hands on her thighs. “Shit.”
Z helped her straighten. “We don’t need to chase anyone, sweet thing.”
“They may know what became of our crew.”
“They wouldn’t tell us if they did. After Damascus is finished with a city, the few remaining people aren’t able to help anybody. The ones who were healthy would have been taken for her army.”
“To fight for her?”
“Maybe,” he said, once again looking away from her. “And other things.”
She closed her eyes. “Fucking…” But there were no words bad enough for the witch.
The city smelled of blood and smoke. Blood ran in rivulets over the crumbled pavement and smoke from burning homes rose into the sky.
She stepped gingerly over those who’d been murdered by the legislators, and forced herself to glance at those who still had faces.
Hoping Roma, Blue, and Nadaline weren’t among the dead littering the streets.
And almost certain they were.
“We shouldn’t have sent them,” she murmured.
But Z shook his head. “The fighting would have been over by the time Blue and Naddy got here. They’d never have entered a war zone unless they had no choice.”
“Something delayed them,” she said. “If not the legislators, then something just as bad. They wouldn’t be wandering the city knowing the hurry we’re in.”
“No. They wouldn’t have. They’d have grabbed some supplies and got the hell out of here.”
“Listen. Do you hear that?”
He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as he listened. Finally, he heard it. He grabbed her upper arm and dragged her into the shadows of a building, only half of which still stood.
She heard his throat click as he swallowed, and knew without being told that something horrific was coming.
Barely breathing, she waited.
Finally three vehicles appeared. They rolled slowly down the street, the one in the lead scooping bodies out of the way of the two that came after.
The vehicles were armored, and only a tiny, barred window would allow the driver to see. Nearly every inch of the strange cars—if that’s what they could be called—was fortified with defensive objects meant to protect those inside as well as injure any attackers who made the mistake of getting too close. Vicious, huge hooks, giant, sharpened screws that spun eagerly, and razor sharp sheets of metal ready to slice up anyone too slow to move.
“What are they?” Rune asked.
“Rebels.”
She shot him a glance. “Shouldn’t we stop them? Rebels aren’t the enemy, are they?”
“Some of them are. I don’t know if these are friend or foe.”
“We need to figure that out. They might have seen our people.”
Our people.
He nodded. Then, before her rot-stricken body could stop him, he stepped out of the shadows and into the street.
Right in front of the caravan of unknown rebels.
“Damn you, Z,” Rune muttered, and shot out her claws.
It took her a few seconds to realize her claws hadn’t come. Her fangs hadn’t dropped. Something that had become second nature to her was now…
Gone.
Her monster was dead.
And Z was tempting fate.
“Z,” she cried.
He heard something in her voice, some panic, perhaps, that he’d never heard before—because when he jerked his head around to look at her, his eyes were full of fear.
“I…” she held up her hands. “I have no weapons.”
His face darkened as he yanked a blade from his belt. “Now you do.” He tossed it to her, silently begging her to be okay.
But she wasn’t okay.
She took her blade, puny and insignificant when compared with her claws and fangs and speed, and stepped out to stand at his side.
If they were taken down, they’d be taken together.
They waited.
The cars had grumbled to a wheezing halt and sat rumbling quietly, as out of place in Skyll as a TV would have been.
And for a few breathless moments, no one moved.
Finally a whirring sound interrupted the hot quiet of the day, and the lead vehicle’s roof began to open.
A man popped his head through the hole. “We’ve been looking for you.” He looked down into the car. “I reckon they were telling the truth. They’re both out here now.”
The passenger front door, barred and creaky, opened. A bald black man only slightly smaller than the berserker stepped out and stared at them. “You,” he said to Rune, “don’t look like no princess.”
She started coughing and leaned weakly on Z as she spat out a mouthful of blood. “If I don’t get to the Flesh Shimmer soon,” she replied, “I’m just going to be dead.”
He didn’t have to know she was immortal.
“You got that rot we heard about?”
“Yes,” Z said, answering when she could not. “Damascus poisoned her and her world. We have to find the cure or our world will be gone as well.”
“Well then,” the man said, “let’s get her to Flesh. We got a war to win and the way I hear it, we’re going to need us a princess to get that done.”
Part Two
No Return
Chapter Fourteen
Inside the vehicle was Blue, shackled, gagged, and very, very angry.
“What the fuck?” Rune said, falling into the seat beside Blue.
Z glared at the men inside the car. “She’s one of mine. Release her. Now.”
The interior of the vehicle was like a metal box with two filthy, uncomfortable metal benches built into the sides.
It was dark and hot, and the stench of men spending too many hours together in such close quarters caused Rune to wrinkle her sensitive nose.
The big bald man shrugged. “She’s mad. I let her loose she’s going to come at me. I don’t want to have to hurt her.”
Blue struggled harder, her face red, her eyes watering over the dirty rag that had been tied around her mouth. Her hands were cuffed behind her back.
Z yanked the rag down to reveal a filthy cloth that had been balled up and stuffed into her mouth. “Oh hell,” he muttered, and yanked out the cloth.
“You son of a bitch,” Blue shrieked, almost before the cloth cleared her mouth. “As soon as I’m free, I’m going to slit your throat. I’m going to cut off your ugly bald head and smash it like a fucking melon and stuff it up your headless ass!”
Z drew back. “Uh…”
“Told you,” the bald man said, grinning. “She’s pissed. I’ll let her settle down before cutting her loose.”
Blue screamed and thumped her booted feet against the floor. Her ankles were restrained by a chain attached to a heavy ring mounted on the wall. “What did you do with my swords, motherfucker? Give me my swords.”
“Nah.”
“You’re a skunk,” she said, her voice shrill enough to send shards of pain into Rune’s brain. “You’re a son of the witch! Damascus is your mother.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
Blue roared and banged the back of her head off the wall.
“Blue,” Rune said. “Sh
ut the hell up or I’m going to stuff that piss-soaked rag down your throat.”
The bald guy grinned. “Thanks, little princess.”
“Fuck you,” Rune growled.
He snorted. “My name is Elias Burken.” He pointed at the driver, who remained silent and never bothered to turn to look at the new arrivals. “That’s Lem.”
There was another man in the car, and he glared at them all, his face set in what appeared to be permanent lines of hatred. He looked to be around forty, older than his two companions, and was tall and skinny. “And that’s Jeremiah. We’re the lead team of Rachel’s Rebels.”
“Rachel?” Rune asked, curious despite her quickly worsening condition.
Elias hesitated. “She wore hope like a dress. Never lacked faith that everything was going to be all right. Legislators hung her on a pole and skinned her alive. She was dead when we found her.”
No one spoke for a few long moments. Not even Blue.
“Can you get us to Flesh quicker than we can walk there?” Rune asked, her hand to her chest.
Elias studied her. “Yup.”
“Then let’s get going.” She slumped back against the wall of the car, panting. “I’m going downhill too fucking fast.”
Elias gave a sharp nod, and the driver, perhaps seeing him in the mirror, released the brake and got the big, boxy vehicle rolling.
“You fought the crawlers and birthed a crow,” Z said. “It took too much out of you.”
“No shit.”
“Birthed a crow?” Blue asked. “What does that mean?”
Rune lifted her palm away from the stickiness of drying blood and choppy flesh of her chest. “It was inside me. I called, it came.”
Z grinned, despite the worry in his eyes. “Shiv Crow.”
Elias was more interested in the crawlers. “You got crawlers on your tail?” He frowned, and held up a hand.
The driver put the brakes on.
“You’re taking us to Flesh,” Z said. “Crawlers or no crawlers.”
“Crawlers are more trouble than we need,” Elias said. “They get our scent and they’ll never leave us be. You know that.”
“Chicken shit,” Blue spat.
He ignored her and continued looking at Z. “If they catch us, we’ll be no good to anyone.”
Z leaned forward. “Then don’t let them catch you.”