by Aline Ash
She shrugs. “You were too slow. Let’s go. We need to find your sister and then we’re getting the hell out of here.”
My heart swells as a deep wave of emotion washes over me. I stoop and pick up the guns they’d carried, knowing that if we hope to get out of here, we’ll need more ammunition than we have. That Eva’s first thought is to rescue my sister pushes a lump into my throat. I did not expect that from her. But perhaps I should have.
I give her a quick nod. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Eva
I lead Tulo through the twisting labyrinth of corridors in Wylto’s estate. There is an audible, repeating chime that punctuates our every footstep. An alarm. It’s just another reminder to me that Omna is out there. Hunting us.
“Stay alert,” I say. “Omna is here somewhere.”
Tulo grunts. With his heightened senses, if anybody was going to be able to detect the Gargolian bitch before she got the drop on us, it was going to be him.
“Do you know where you are going?” he asks.
I nod, hoping it looks more confident than I feel. The truth is, I had cobbled together a map in my head based on my own wanderings around the manor house, along with what Ilfa was able to tell me. I’m fairly sure I’m headed in the direction of his sister’s chambers, but I’d be lying if I said I was certain.
We turn down a corridor with the soundtrack of the alarm still playing throughout the manor. At the end of the hall is a door and I feel my heart lurch. This has to be it. We get to the door and Tulo looks at me, his eyes wide and alarmed. The sonic shielding over the door ripples and glimmers, a faint humming sound filling the corridor around us.
“How are we going to get past the security—”
I hold up a datachip and smile. “I lifted it off one of the guards I killed.”
Relief crosses his features, and he seems to visibly relax. I slip the datachip into the slot and the sonic shield comes down, cutting off the humming sound. Tulo rears back and kicks the door with all of his strength. The sound of screeching metal and splintering wood fills my ears as the door is blown inward by the force of his kick.
The female Tabiean in the room shoots to her feet, startled. Her eyes are wide and fearful. She looks just like Tulo; she is white but has soft purple stripes across the fur on her body. She’s also a few inches shorter than he is and has a curvy body. Her movements are elegant, graceful, and very leonine.
When she sees Tulo standing there, her expression changes to one of relief, which quickly gives way to unfettered joy. She is across the room in a single bound and throws herself into her brother’s arms. He sweeps her up and spins her around, making my heart swell at the absolute joy in their reunion.
Tulo steps back, his face tense and apprehensive. “Wylto is dead. We should go,” he says. “Daca, we are going to have to fight our way out. Are you prepared?”
She nods as a dark shadow crosses her face. “I am more than prepared.”
“Then let’s do this.”
“We need more weapons,” I say.
Daca turns and looks at me, as if noticing me for the first time. I can see the cold appraisal in her eyes and don’t need to be a mind reader to know what she’s thinking.
“I’m tougher than I look,” I say.
A faint smile curls her lips upward. “We shall see.”
“Do not underestimate her,” Tulo says, a smile on his face. “I have seen several Gargolians pay the price for doing just that.”
Daca nods. “Well then, let’s make these bastards pay for what they’ve done to all of us. I know where we can get some weapons.”
Daca leads us out of her cell, carefully moving down the corridor, alert for the scent of Omna and her men closing in. We wind our way through a warren of corridors, pausing at a corner. Daca leans around it then turns back to us and nods.
“The guards are gone,” she says.
“Probably looking for us,” I say.
Tulo nods. “Then we must be quick.”
We hurry down the corridor, and I fish the datachip I’d swiped from one of Wylto’s bodyguards out of my pocket and press it to the keypad. There is a shrill beep and a loud clank as the door opens.
We hurry into a large room filled with weapons: handguns, rifles, and blades of every type imaginable. I quickly move over to the guns and strap on a belt, holstering a pair of laser pistols onto my hips like I’m a gunslinger or something. The belt was made for a much larger Gargolian, but I cinch it down as tight as I can, and decide it’s just going to have to do.
After that, I sling a rifle over my back. Its’ relatively light weight surprises me, and I grab a smaller sidearm, tucking it into the waistband of my breeches. After that, I clip half a dozen objects that look like grenades of some sort to my belt. It’s then I notice that both Tulo and Daca are looking at me with amused expressions on their faces.
They’ve both got daggers in sheaths on their belts and the hilts of more poke out from the top of their boots. They each have swords slung on their backs, and each holds one in their hands. I feel heat blossom in my cheeks, and I give them a shrug, realizing I probably look like a reject from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.
“You fight with what you’re comfortable with,” I say. “And I’ll fight with what I’m comfortable with.”
They exchange a look and a small laugh, but then Tulo turns to me. The smile fades from his face and his expression is serious.
“This is not going to be easy,” he says. “And before we go out there, I want to tell you—”
I cross the room and cut him off by pressing my mouth to his. Our kiss is slow and lingering, my lips tingling with the feeling of the passion-fueled electricity flowing between us. But I’m keenly aware of the sand slipping through the hourglass and know we need to get moving.
“Tell me after,” I say, my voice hoarse. “I want to hear it after.”
He looks at me for a moment, then nods. “After.”
I catch Daca glancing from her brother to me, her eyebrows raised in curiosity, but a small smile playing upon her lips.
“Okay, let’s go,” Tulo says. “Be vigilant. Omna is coming for us.”
I lead them out of the armory, and we wind our way through the corridors. Every muscle in my body is tense, and I find myself trying to look everywhere at once. We step through the doorway of one of Wylto’s gaming rooms and stop. Across the room from us are a dozen heavily armed and armored Gargolians. They’re scowling and don’t look like they’re screwing around.
“Drop your weapons and return to your chambers,” shouts the one who appears to be in command. “Omna will show mercy if you do.”
Without missing a beat, I step forward and raise the rifle in my hands. Not being an expert in Gargolian ordinance, all I can do is hope it works. I squeeze off a few shots and the recoil rattles my bones. The rifle kicks so hard I’m lucky I don’t drop the damn thing. But the lasers lance out and hit two of them in the chest. They drop instantly, their blood spraying onto the wall behind them.
Seemingly stunned, the Gargolians hesitate for a moment, but it’s long enough for Tulo and Daca. I watch in amazement as the two Tabieans cross the room in the blink of an eye. Before any of them can even react, Tulo and Daca are moving and flowing in and around them. They’re like wraiths dancing and spinning, floating in and out of danger. I see the flash of steel and hear the agonized wails of the Gargolians being torn apart.
As I stand there, watching in stunned amazement, a shot rings out, and the next thing I know, it feels like I’ve been hit in the shoulder with a baseball bat and I’m being spun around. A pain like fire erupts in the shoulder and I fall heavily to the floor, the breath being driven from me as the rifle spins out of my hands and clatters to the floor, spinning away from me.
I cry out and fall onto my stomach, my entire arm throbbing. I try to move it but cry out as the purest agony I’ve ever felt erupts all through my neck and torso. I know I need to move. Need to roll
over. To lay here would be the death of me. I have no doubts the shot came from Omna and that if I don’t move, she’ll kill me.
I grit my teeth and steel myself against the pain. Before I can do anything, I see her boots drift into my field of vision. I raise my gaze and find her glowering down at me.
“You are far more trouble than you’re worth,” she hisses.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“My father should have had you destroyed long ago.”
I grin at her. “I think he would have preferred to have me as a daughter. He seemed to like me better.”
Her face darkens and she slips the pistol she is holding into the holster on her hip. That done, she withdraws the dagger from the sheath on her belt, a malevolently maniacal light filling her eyes.
“I’m going to take my time cutting you to pieces. A quick death is too good for you,” she says. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
A grimace of agony crosses my face. The pain radiating to every corner of my body is nearly unbearable and it’s all I can do to keep from crying out. Omna looks down at me, triumph in her eyes.
“Are you ready to die, human?”
“Are you?”
Her laughter is rich but hateful. “Defiant to the end.”
As she starts to crouch, intent on cutting me into teeny-tiny bits, I grit my teeth and fling myself onto my back. My scream is long and shrill, the pain making me waver as I pull the sidearm I had tucked into my breeches and roll over in one motion. Omna’s eyes widen as I raise my sidearm and she starts to spin away, but it’s too late. I can hear my laughter over the sound of me firing, again, and again, and again, and it sounds crazed.
I watch as Omna’s body jerks and twitches like she’s on the end of the string of some sadistic puppet master as the bolts of sonic energy punch through her. I keep squeezing the trigger, sending shot after shot through her, my screams echoing around the gaming room. I keep shooting until the rifle clicks empty.
Omna falls in a heap to the ground and is still. I drop the weapon and cradle my arm as I manage to sit up. I stare at her, the Gargolian who tormented me, beat me daily, made my life a living hell, dead on the ground. I watch the dark, thick blood ooze from a score of wounds in her body, pooling on the floor around her. Omna’s eyes are open and she stares sightlessly at the ceiling above her.
It’s strange, but as I look at her corpse, it’s not satisfaction or joy that I feel. It’s relief. Omna was terrible, but there’s part of me that wonders if she would have been so if she didn’t have Wylto, a cruel and terrible man, as a father. Would she have been the way she was had she had a different example in life?
A hand falls on my shoulder and I cry out in both fear and agony from the sudden movement. And then Tulo is kneeling down beside me. His eyes search mine before he lowers them to the wound in my shoulder. He frowns as he moves to uncover it.
“That looks bad,” he says.
“It doesn’t feel good,” I reply.
“We need to go, before more guards arrive” Daca says from behind me.
Tulo gently gets me to my feet and I see the destruction he and his sister wrought for the first time. A dozen Gargolian bodies lay in tatters on the other side of the room. Blood is splashed everywhere, as are body parts. The pair of them, a deadly and ferocious whirlwind of steel blades and claws, had cut through a dozen Gargolians, and neither suffered so much as a scratch that I can see.
I clear my throat and grit my teeth, willing myself to fight through the pain in my shoulder. I do not want to confirm Daca’s suspicions about my fragility. But when I look at her, she gives me a nod and a tight smile, with something that looks like it could be respect in her eyes.
The three of us cross another corridor and then another room, heading for the front doors of the manor. As we run, we hear the Gargolian voices from behind, they must have already found the bodies of Omna and the guards. There are hundreds of them in this compound. The chances that we will get out of this alive are absurdly low, but we have nothing to lose, right?
My thoughts are disrupted when the entire manor is rocked by an explosion so powerful the ground beneath our feet shakes wildly, nearly dropping us to our knees. Tulo grabs hold of me, making sure I stay upright, and the three of us exchange looks.
“Come,” Tulo says.
We move quickly to the front doors and pull them open to find the world beyond is a hellscape of smoke and fire. We watch as a line of Gargolian soldiers, perhaps a hundred, maybe more, are driven back by an advancing line of Tabieans. The Gargolians start to break, turning to flee, but then I see Kon emerging from the wall of smoke with more Tabieans at his back. They run the Gargolians down, tearing and slashing.
The agonized wails of the Gargolians reverberate through the air around us. Tulo, Daca, and I all stand on the front porch area of the manor watching the slaughter with rapt attention. I look to my right and see the main gate in the wall that had surrounded the compound, as well as the wing of the manor closest to the gate itself have been reduced to smoking rubble.
“I guess that explains the explosion,” I mutter.
Though I watch a veritable parade of Tabieans marching by, moving deeper into the compound, Kon and Marissa turn when they see us. My heart stutters in my chest and it’s only then that I realize I was not expecting to see them again. That some small part of me had resigned myself to dying inside Wylto’s manor house.
But they’re here. Standing right in front of me. And I’m overcome by the most profound sense of joy I’ve ever felt. I dash down the steps and throw myself into their arms, only recalling the fact that I’ve been wounded when the monstrous pain of moving my shoulder grips and squeezes me tight.
I cry out and stagger down to a knee. But then Tulo is there. His hand is on my back and he is looking at me with concern in his eyes. Marissa kneels down in front of me and pulls a hypo-injector out of her pack. She looks at me steadily.
“This is going to hurt for a minute,” she says. “But after that, it should dull the pain.”
I nod, giving her my assent to stick me. She does, and I hold back the scream that threatens to erupt from me. Tears spill from the corners of my eyes, but I grit my teeth and bear it. Marissa quickly rigs a hanging splint to cradle my arm and a few moments later, the pain fades as she said it would. It doesn’t disappear, but it’s a dull roar, making it manageable.
“Thank you,” I say.
Marissa kisses my cheek. “When we lost track of you during the raid, I feared the worst,” she tells me. “You’re never going to know how relieved I was when Ilfa found our camp.”
I look around, feeling just as relieved knowing that the girl is alive. I smile and can feel my entire face light up.
“Where is she?” I ask. “I need to thank her.”
“Back at camp with Ta’ra. It was not safe enough for her here,” Kon says. “My men are putting down the last of Wylto’s guards and then we will destroy this facility.”
“Destroy it?” I ask. “Why not use it?”
“Because although the day has been won, the Gargolians will come back,” Tulo said. “They will come back with more fighters and more devastating weapons.”
Kon nods. “Our best weapon is the cover of the jungles,” he says, his voice deep and rumbling. “If they cannot find us, they cannot kill us.”
I nod. It makes perfect sense. Marissa takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. Daca stands behind Tulo as he stands face to face with Kon. The two men stare at each other for a long moment before Tulo extends his hand. Kon grips the G’osha’s forearm in a traditional warrior’s grip. It is a sign of respect.
“I thank you,” Tulo said. “If not for you, I do not know that we would have made it out alive.”
And then they appear. Like ghosts stepping out of the wall of smoke, at least two dozen G’osha materialize. Tulo and Daca exchange glances, and it’s hard not to see the emotion welling up within them. Tulo turns back to Kon as Daca drifts over and starts to hug the others, t
alking excitedly with them.
“How? Where did you find them?”
Kon shakes his head. “They found us,” he admits. “They wanted to fight. There are more back at camp.”
“They made it clear they will follow your lead,” Marissa adds. “Whether you want to return to the mountains with them or stay and fight with us. You are their leader, and they will go where you go.”
“I will respect whatever decision you make,” Kon says. “As I have always respected the G’osha.”
Tulo nods and scans his people. I can see the conflict on his face as he looks from his tribe to the devastation around them. Bodies litter the ground—mostly Gargolian, but some Tabieans mixed in. And all around them are the beings from other worlds Wylto had collected. They were being set free from their cages, and although they were all different species, they all share the same expression of shock, pain, and fear on their faces. I can see it’s obviously having an impact on him.
“Let us get our people back to camp and tend to their wounds before we decide anything,” Tulo says.
Epilogue
Tulo
The night is dark, the trees around us full of shadows and gloom. But the moon sits high in the sky, rippling off the surface of the small lagoon before us dazzlingly. The soft golden glow of the moon turns the water into a pool of liquid gold. I inhale deeply, savoring the scent of the jungle, the free air I doubted I would ever breathe again. Enjoying the sounds all around us I never thought I would hear again.
I needed some time away from the camp. Away from all of the people.
Eva sits before me, my arms wrapped around her, pulling her tightly to me. Her small frame is engulfed by mine and yet, somehow, the warmth of her body fills me. It has been a week since the destruction of Wylto’s compound and she has received constant treatment for her wound. I fear she will always bear the scar, a final gift from Omna.
Overhead, a group of birds squawks noisily, their shrill cries reverberating through the air. It is peaceful in a way I had taken for granted. In a way I thought I had lost forever as a prisoner in Wylto’s manor.