by Gini Koch
She went to the ground, Christopher still on her back. The Lecanora, sensing that the Gods and the whatever they thought the Amazon was were occupied, tried to make a dash back up the trail. Ginger, however, was pissed off and she blocked them, snarling and doing the low growl-and-yowl that cats do when they’re saying, “yo momma” and “bring it” in feline.
“You five will stop or I will rend you limb from limb,” I snarled at them. “Or I’ll just let Ginger do it.”
“A little . . . help,” Christopher said through gritted teeth. “She’s down but she’s not out.”
Opened my purse to see what I could use or surreptitiously ask for without Christopher noticing that would allow us to tie her up, and saw Bruno and the Poofs. Shoved the thought that that would be a cool name for a band aside and focused on the situation at hand.
“Bruno, my bird, help Ginger keep the five Lecanora traitors at bay and not doing anything Kitty wouldn’t like, please and thank you. Poofs, assemble!”
The Poofs poured out of my purse. Every Poof that corresponded to every person with me in Haven right now showed up. Then, when they had the Lecanora’s full attention, and the Amazon’s too, they went large and in charge.
The Poofs at normal size were merely adorable bundles of fluffy cuteness. However, when roused and in fighting or protective mode, they were as tall as Jeff, with giant mouths filled with razor sharp teeth. The teeth were there when they were small—anyone watching them devour a fallen foe could attest to that—but you just couldn’t see them for all the fluffy fur when they were tiny.
Large, however, the teeth really stood out. Especially when the Poofs bared them and did the same low growl Ginger had been doing. Only there were more of them and their growls were a lot deeper, meaner, louder, and longer. The area we were in, being made of hollowed-out rock and all that, assisted with a lovely echo.
The corresponding screams were, as was so often the case, impressive.
CHAPTER 49
LECANORA SCREAMED LIKE, well, small animals being taken off by a bird of prey. Only the sounds were coming out of human-sized beings, meaning the noises were much louder. And painfully high. Was glad Wilbur and the other chochos weren’t here, especially if they had canine-like hearing. As it was, Ginger, Christopher, and I all winced, and Bruno shook his head like crazy.
Of course, after the screaming stopped, other exciting things happened.
Grover flat out fainted. Brown wet himself. The other three whose names I hadn’t bothered to get started to cry. They weren’t exactly starring in The Brave in Action. And these people had not lost their heads when the snakipedes were attacking. Filed that away, but right up front, for immediate consideration once the Amazon was contained or eaten, depending on her attitude.
She hadn’t been prepared for the Poofs, either, but she was a trained warrior, so she only screamed a little bit. But she’d still screamed, meaning she’d never seen a Poof before. Also meaning she’d never hung out on Earth or watched the Earth TV Channel so many of the planets in this system seemed to get on their version of Intergalactic Cable.
She also started struggling even more. Hit her head with a side blade kick and she shut up.
Helped Christopher up while the Poofs surrounded her and us. “Think she’s out?”
He shook his head. “Doubtful. You might have stunned her for a second, though.”
“Great.” Looked into my purse. “Amazonian-level handcuffs, I wonder if I have something like that in here.” Dug around and sure enough, came up with some handcuffs. “Thanks,” I whispered to my purse. Put them on her, hands behind her back, and closed them tightly. Didn’t find a key. I’d pick the lock if events warranted, which I doubted they would.
“How the hell were you carrying something like that?” Christopher asked, as I hauled the Amazon into a sitting position.
I was saved from having to come up with an explanation guaranteed to make him blush by the arrival of Jeff, Chuckie, King Benny, and Fancy Corzine.
“What is going on here?” Fancy asked. Realistically a good question—sincerely doubted our tableau was normal for this world. Frankly, it wasn’t really normal for my world, either, though we were all a lot more used to the weird than this world seemed to be.
There was much protesting by those Lecanora who were still conscious that they hadn’t been doing anything wrong, Ginger and the Poofs were growling, Bruno was squawking while he helped Ginger keep the Lecanora in place, and Christopher was right—the Amazon wasn’t out. Sensing a new audience, she started sharing what she was going to do to us in just a moment. This involved a lot of rending and beating and such.
Jeff listened to all of this for about two seconds, and then he lost it. “Shut UP!” he bellowed.
No one bellowed like my man. The reverberations went on for quite some time, which had the double effect of hurting everyone’s ears even more and shutting everyone up, though now all five of the Lecanora traitors were crying, albeit quietly, including Grover, who’d rejoined us in Conscious Land, probably due to Jeff’s bellowing. One for the painful win column.
“Now,” Jeff said when everyone, Amazon included, quieted. “I want an explanation for what’s going on. And I want that from Shealla Kitty only.”
“Okay, in a really fast nutshell, this chick is a shapeshifter from another planet. Either she’s been pretending to be Karason for a long time or she’s killed him off and taken his place.” There were gasps of horror from all the Lecanora. “She, as Karason, and the five of King Benny’s followers there were trying to open the door to let the Horrors on the other side in.”
“No,” Brown said. “That is not what we were doing! Under-Clan Leader Karason said that Clan Leader Corzine had cast out some of her people and he wanted to bring them in to join with our clan.” He shot a pleading look at King Benny. “We wanted to bring more wanderers under your leadership, Musgraff, not do wrong.”
“What the hell do you think is pounding on the other side of this door?” Christopher asked.
“The castouts,” Grover said shakily. “At least that’s what . . . she told us.”
“I’m going to tell you a different story,” I said. “One where there are these freaking ginormous monsters that cruise the air and land looking for things to eat. They don’t have any problem in any type of climate, and they can smell their prey. An absolute tonnage of prey just walked through this door. And my bet is that what are slamming their horrible heads against this door are not more Lecanora but a whole bunch of hungry Horrors. You pick which story sounds the most believable,” I said to Fancy. “I’ll wait.”
“Shealla is, of course, correct,” Fancy said. “I have cast none out of Haven.”
“I was going to tell you that you had five traitors, but, honestly, I’m not convinced.” Shot a look at Jeff, who nodded. Good, he’d be paying attention empathically. “One of you, and only one of you, explain what you were told,” I said to the five who were cowering together, still crying quietly.
“That,” Grover said, as he pointed to the Amazon, paw shaking, “we thought was Under-Clan Leader Karason. He told us that Clan Leader Corzine had cast out some of their clan, but since she was accepting ours, hoped that these others would be allowed to return to Haven. He said that he had sent a message to them to return and plead their case and that he would need help to open the door. He didn’t want to ask Clan Leader Corzine for permission, since he feared she would say no, but hoped that if we presented the outcasts as being part of our clan, she might reconsider.”
“And never, at any time, did it occur to any of you to ask King Benny what he thought?”
Grover shook his head. “Under-Clan Leader Karason said he’d chosen the five of us specifically, based on our positions within the clan.”
“So you’re saying that the supposed-Karason here didn’t ask Skunky and Nanda to join in?”
The fi
ve shook their heads. “No,” Brown replied. “He said that we were the ones he knew would be most sympathetic.”
Rather, the Amazon felt they were the most gullible. Looked at Jeff, who nodded, meaning he believed their story.
Turned to the Amazon. “So, what’s your story? Aside from being a Beta Twelve traitor, I mean?”
She sat up straight and sniffed at me. “I am no traitor. I am loyal to the Empire.”
We were all quiet for a few long moments. Chuckie broke the silence, and, unsurprisingly, he spoke for all of us.
“Empire?”
The Amazon shot a very derisive look at Chuckie. Not a surprise, really. He was male, after all.
“We’d like an explanation,” I said to her. “Or we’ll let the Poofs eat you. Alive.”
On cue, the Poofs increased their growling. The Amazon looked at them just a little nervously.
“Let’s start with your name,” I said pleasantly. “Or I’ll give you a name I’m certain you won’t like.”
“My name is Usha, and I have no fear of you ‘giving’ me a name. I know you are not a real God,” she said with a smirk.
“Well, Usha, I know you’re not a real Free Woman.”
She stared at me. “What do you mean?”
“Your eyes are wrong.” In a big way, but that wasn’t important at this moment. “And the Free Women are a whole lot more straightforward than this. You’re a spy, and I don’t think you’re a real person.” That was a lie. I’d fought supersoldiers and androids as well as Amazons, and she felt real. And, realistically, Kyrellis and Moira had used guerilla tactics, some of which involved subterfuge.
But I knew that Free Women reproduced via a cloning process, and the Mastermind and his nearest and dearest were using a very advanced form of cloning, undoubtedly perfected in this solar system somewhere. And I found it difficult to believe that Queen Renata had a spy in Haven who wanted to destroy all the Lecanora inside. However, the Beta Twelve insurgents had wanted to destroy everyone on all the other planets, at least all the men.
On the other hand, Fancy was female and she was the leader here. Meaning that a Beta Twelve spy who wanted to have women run things would be helping her, not trying to destroy her, in part because spies had specific orders, and I knew that Queen Renata’s would not be “kill ’em all.”
Having met two of the Beta Twelve insurgent leaders up close and personal, there was no way one of them had managed to hide in here effectively pretending to be a male for as long as I suspected Usha had been in her deep cover. And no Amazon I’d met yet would have ever asked a male for help, even if it was just to lead them to their horrible deaths. And it was five males huddled in front of Bruno and Ginger.
“There is nothing wrong with my eyes,” Usha snarled. “My eyes are as they should be.”
Of course, there was one other option, and one I hadn’t considered before. In part because I’d only just found out that LaRue was an Ancient, and a traitor working for and with the Z’porrah, when I’d been in Bizarro World. You know, the world I’d been back from something like a whopping three days.
Really hoped Jeff was paying emotional attention and that Chuckie was watching for tells and such. Because it was again time to put on my Megalomania Girl Cape and make a guess that fit with my go-to strategy—the crazy.
“Yes, they are . . . for the race we call the Ancients.”
CHAPTER 50
IT WAS A HUGE GAMBLE, but my guessing skills remained sharp—Usha jerked, just a little, but I caught it, and I was sure Chuckie had, too.
“I have no idea what you mean,” she said. Had to say this for all-black eyes—it was really difficult to tell if they were shifting around or not. She might have been telling the truth. Though, on a scale of one to ten, I gave the likelihood for truth from her to be about a negative two.
“I mean you’re not actually from Beta Twelve. You’re actually from the galactic core. Or your parents or test tubes or whatever are from there originally. And you’re not spying here for any empire we know about. You’re spying for the Z’porrah’s empire.”
Her jaw dropped. “What . . . how did you . . . ?”
“I’m Shealla, and I just get to know these things.” Looked over to Chuckie. “You want to use some ‘fun’ interrogation techniques to get what we want out of her?”
“Happy to,” he said with the smooth menace in his tone I was, by now, certain he’d learned in his first week with the C.I.A.
“Let’s make sure the door is still secure first,” Jeff said, as he zipped over at hyperspeed and verified the lockup. Good thing, too—what Christopher and I hadn’t noticed, what with Amazonian Ancient fighting and dealing with the Lecanora, was that the bars that should have been flat on the ground were raised just a tiny bit. Meaning that if the Amazonian Ancient got free, she could slam the door open.
Jeff motioned Chuckie over, and they hit what looked like the same pattern Fancy had when we’d come in. The bars lowered back and I heard the mechanism lock again.
That the Amazonian Ancient had known the secret codes made sense, since she was impersonating a trusted leader. But having the others along didn’t seem necessary. “So, Usha, why did you want to blame your traitorous actions on these Lecanora? I’m willing to believe that they were just pawns in your scheme, but why these five and why now?”
She rolled her eyes—beyond weird in this case since they were all black, but, as she rolled them, I could see shade differentiations, subtle but there—and didn’t reply. Shocker.
Jeff was behind her now, though, and I could tell that he was paying emotional attention to her, and I could also tell that he was reading her. We’d done this before, so it was time to pepper her with questions and let Jeff do his thing.
“I’m betting that you wanted fall guys so that no one would make the connection that you’d impersonated Karason.”
No reply from Usha, but Jeff nodded.
“So, how long has it been since you murdered Karason?” No answer and nothing from Jeff. Forged on. This was right in my wheelhouse, after all. “I’m betting you were in here for a long time as some Lecanora who was very quiet and so forth. You probably murdered some family’s child and took their place so that you could learn the culture.”
Usha stared at me. Jeff nodded, expression thunderous.
“And then, once Karason’s mate died—excuse me, once you knew things were getting closer to coming to a head and you murdered her—you also murdered him and took his place. Any personality changes or whatever would be put down to mourning on his part.”
Jeff nodded again. Had to wonder who was going to want to beat information out of Usha more—him or Chuckie. Jeff seriously looked ready to kill Usha right now. Had a feeling he was reading how she’d killed innocent, helpless people as much as that she’d killed them.
Saved from this guess by Fancy coming to stand next to me. “Karason sent his children off to live in other villages after his mate’s death. He said that he wanted them to ensure that all remained true to my leadership. Now it seems that they were sent away to ensure they would not notice that their father was not the same.”
“Sounds right to me. So, what’s your guess for why she wanted some of King Benny’s folks unwittingly involved? I ask because the chances of these five surviving the Horrors seems slim to none to me.”
Christopher jerked. “How many other doors are there like this?”
“Five,” Fancy replied. She drew in her breath sharply. “Do you think there are other traitors at the doors?”
“It pays to be sure.” Grabbed Fancy’s paw and Christopher’s hand. “Jeff, Chuckie, keep on with the interrogation. Bruno, Ginger, Poofies, ensure that everyone stays here unless Jeff and Chuckie say you all need to leave. Fancy, you lead, we’ll handle the speed.”
And with that we took off. “Farthest door first,” Christopher said.
Fancy nodded and we zoomed up the road that led up into the mountains. Because Christopher was at his Flash Speed Level, I couldn’t see much more than a blur. But the architecture, villages, fields, and such all looked similar. The Albino Clan kept to their theme, which was typical for what we’d seen of this planet so far.
Haven was like a gigantic rectangle, with four of its doors at the four corners and the other two roughly in the middle of the long sides. We’d entered Haven though the middle door on the right side of the rectangle.
The river also went all the way up, with waterfalls creating a natural boundary between one large set of villages and farms from the next plateau up or down. But nowhere along the way did we meet any sentries of any kind. Clearly once inside, the Albino Clan considered themselves completely safe.
Unsurprisingly, the farthest door was at the “end” of the world, where we’d first met Fancy. It was secure and undisturbed. Christopher took us back to the intersection where the hallway, so to speak, had broken off the main road to lead to the doorway, and then he mercifully stopped.
While Fancy and I both gagged and I missed having Siler with us, particularly his touch ability to quell the bad side effects of hyperspeed, even and in this case especially Christopher’s top speed level, I looked around. This main road went on for a ways, but right here we had a full intersection with the road that went to our left leading across the valley.
I also managed to gasp out a pertinent question. “How did your people near the cavern entrance let you know we were here?” Assumed Fancy had been alerted, since I also figured she’d been looking for oddities when Christopher and I appeared. She just hadn’t been surprised to see us, indicating an expectation that we were going to show up somehow.
She put up her paw and a part of the stone detached itself and turned into a golden beetle. “We have a communications network.”