by Leyton, Bisi
“You are a traitor, aTerran jaga,” Mina seethed. “Anfos, Mateu, get this Terran rodent out of here.”
There was bright light, followed by a thud.
“Didan,” Alba called.
“Alba.” Enric shook his head. “Do not.” Above all things, it appeared that he was loyal to Bach.
“Didan, there is a jaga hiding here,” she called out.
The empirics laughed as Wisteria was dragged out into the open and dumped a few feet away from the motionless Jason.
“I see no need to bring the traitor back to Jarthan.” Alba examined Wisteria’s sword. She seemed particularly taken by the red handle for a moment, but then tossed it across the room. “Or the Terran jaga.”
“We only need the mongrel.” Didan signaled to Mina.
Mina stepped forward, taking out a blue sword. Advancing toward Wisteria, she raised it above her head.
“Please.” Wisteria struggled to get up.
“Shut up, mongrel,” another empiric stated. “Do not speak in the presence of your betters.”
“Wait; we should not hurt her because her family is Red Phoenix and we cannot risk outraging the humans,” Bach explained. “Her family is very powerful...”
“Sen-Son, do not worry.” Mina stopped in front of the fallen girl. “We will not underestimate her people again. We will raze this island to the ground before we leave. This time, we finish it properly.”
“Please don’t hurt anyone else. I promise most of the people are clueless,” Wisteria implored.
“Are you saying something, jaga?” Alba asked.
“No,” Wisteria muttered.
“Look, the stupid creature is still talking,” one of the empirics remarked. The others laughed.
“I can fix that.” Mina stepped forward, bringing her blue-bladed sword down.
Wisteria reached for her wakizashi sword, to defend against Mina’s weapon, but it wasn’t there. She remembered Alba had tossed it across the room.
“She is not part of this,” Bach said. “Just let her go; we have the traitor.”
“He is trying to protect her,” Alba blurted out.
“What?” Mina staggered back in disbelief.
“We should take the mongrel back to Jarthan.” Even though Enric was livid, he seemed to defend Bach. “And we will leave the Terrans to continue their little war outside.”
“Wait, Mina,” Didan ordered.
Reluctantly, she lowered her sword.
“I heard the rumors about your proclivity for free Terrans, Bach. I thought they were lies, but I was clearly wrong.” Didan gestured to someone. “Bring it to me. Let me see what you have defiled yourself with.”
A man lifted her to her feet.
“I can walk.” She tried to resist, but he dragged her to the lead empiric.
“Do not...” Bach moved forward, but Enric and another empiric blocked his path.
Didan’s green eyes darkened when the empiric brought her to him. “What is your name?”
Closing her eyes, she tried to move, but they were holding her too tight. She prayed that somehow this was not actually happening.
Grabbing her hair, he pulled her head back. “Look at me when I speak to you.”
“Didan!” Bach broke past Enric and charged at the empiric. “Let her go.”
Mina pulsed him in the chest and he fell to the ground. “Stop making a fool of yourself.”
Bach pushed himself back to his feet.
“Bach,” Wisteria cried breathlessly.
Enric grabbed Bach and held him back. “The empirics have the Terran now, so you cannot do anything about it.”
“What is wrong with you? Why do you hate us so much?” Wisteria asked.
“Because you people are poisonous. Just by existing, you are trying to bring down the greatest Pillar in the Family. Drop her,” Didan instructed.
She moaned as she hit the hard floor.
“Mina, get rid of it,” Didan snapped.
The woman strode over to Wisteria with her massive blue blade glistening.
“No.” Again, Bach fought to get to her.
A very deep groan echoed across the chamber. This didn’t sound like the normal biters.
Wisteria tried to look for the source of this more vicious groan, but saw nothing.
“What is that?” An empiric glanced around.
“It is just one of the infected.” Alba giggled.
“Are you certain?” Enric looked around.
The groan came again, louder this time.
“No.” Bach searched the area intently. “They do not sound like biters.”
“Do not scare us with your childish tricks,” Mina scoffed. “We are not stupid Terrans.”
“They are not—” Bach continued, but by now two more empirics were holding him down.
“By the Seven Elders, no one here believes you. I suggest you be quiet or someone might be forced to shut you up,” Didan warned.
“I am a Sen-Son of the Third Pillar. You cannot do this to me,” Bach declared.
“Beloved, it is because you are the Sen-Son we are helping you purge her,” Alba whispered.
“I promise if you hurt her, you will all pay,” Bach swore.
A cracking sound echoed across the room as the glass on the threshold began to fracture.
“Didan, we need to get through before the threshold breaks,” Mina suggested.
“No, return to the mansion and journey from the threshold there,” Didan commanded. “I am weary about trusting the mongrel’s artifacts.”
Just then, John Hodge, one of the scientists, staggered in. Hunching over, he moved toward them. Hhis eyes were blood-red and he gave that unearthly moan.
“This is what you were afraid of?” Alba pointed. “Maybe we should leave your pet for the infected.”
*****
Pol, one of the empirics, leapt off Bach and jumped over the stacks of books, landing a few feet behind the biter. “This is nothing for us to fear. Honestly, I am disappointed in you.”
“We should feed her to it,” Mateu piped in.
John continued to stumble toward Wisteria, as she was the only full human in the room and the only thing the biter wanted to eat. But this wasn’t what Bach had heard before. The first groans were different.
“Mateu, there is no time for games,” Didan informed the group, pointing to Wisteria. “Mina, finish this.”
“Of course, Didan,” Mina concurred.
“Pol and Mateu, get the mongrel,” Didan said. “The Terran will go with Anfos and—”
“Benet!” Alba cried.
Something that looked like Benet leaped down from the ceiling and grabbed Pol. The thing dragged the empiric across the room.
“D’cara, what is that?” Anfos turned to Bach, uncertain. “The Terrans cannot do that.”
“I told you that it was not a human,” Bach said uneasily.
“Then what is it?” Enric’s voice shook as he spoke.
It was Benet, but he’d changed. His face was melded and twisted, while his eyes were no longer green, but blood-red like he was infected with Nero.
“Be gone,” Didan commanded the creature, but it didn’t respond. “How is this possible?” he exclaimed. “What have you done, Jason?”
“Help me,” Pol screamed, fighting off the creature as it devoured him. “Ahh…”
Benet's flesher groaned deeply as it fed.
With everyone distracted, Bach moved to Wisteria, but she was out of sight. Scanning the room, he couldn’t see where she’d gone.
“Help me, please?” Pol pleaded.
Bach hurried toward him.
“No, Bach, stay back,” Alba implored.
Ripping the creature away from the wailing Famila man, Bach flung it back toward the door.
The flesher came back toward him.
“I need to remove its head,” Bach yelled.
It looked and acted like a biter, so that had to be the way to kill it.
Mina threw her
sword to him.
He caught it, just as the creature landed a few feet away and sliced forward, removing its head.
“D'cara, what was that?” Enric raced over.
“I do not know.” Bach wiped at the black blood on his clothes. “We cannot wait around to find out.”
The room fell silent as the boys returned to the group.
“We need to leave now,” Didan commanded. “Get the mongrel through the threshold now.”
“Hurry.” Alba darted through the threshold as the dark glass smashed behind her.
The remaining Famila were stranded.
“No,” Anfos cried.
“We will just travel back to the mansion and leave from there,” Didan decided.
The unearthly, deep moan sounded in the room with them again. It was not coming from Benet, but Pol. Now infected, Pol’s flesher rose, scanning around until it locked eyes on its desired prey.
Slipping away from them, Bach grabbed Wisteria from where she was hiding beneath the desk and moved to the rear exit. There was enough space underneath for them to crawl through.
“D'cara, d'cara, d'cara!” Anfos swore incessantly as Pol sped toward him. “What is this? You killed it.”
“Relax, Anfos, we will kill it again.” Mina pulsed Pol's flesher as it moved, but it had no effect.
The creature leapt up, landing on top of Anfos while clawing at his face.
“No!” Anfos wailed.
“Terran, how do we leave?” Didan demanded of Wisteria. “How did you get in here?”
“Bach, behind you,” Wisteria yelled.
Benet's flesher came down with its head now reattached, and lunged at Bach.
“How is this possible?” Instead of fighting it, Bach jumped over with her, landing a few feet away from the rear doors. “Let us go.”
“What are those things?” Wisteria asked as they moved away from the vicinity of the creatures.
“I have no idea.” He was steps away from the back entrance.
She pulled him back. “Bach, we need to seal the building or those things will get out.”
Pausing, he shook his head. “Go, I will stay and---”
“I’m not leaving you and we can’t leave Jason here,” Wisteria protested.
“You cannot stop them.”
“Neither can you. Look, maybe it only wants to attack Family? I might be safe or something.”
“This is not a debate.” There was absolutely no way he was letting her face those creatures. “Leave and I will be behind you.”
*****
Wisteria nodded and continued moving while Bach tried to control what was on the other side of the room. Leaving him felt like she was stabbing herself in the heart. As she ran to the exit, she tripped over something. Scrambling to her feet, she saw it was her sword. As she grabbed it, she felt a heavy thud behind her.
“Wisteria, run!” Bach was tussling with Anfos’s flesher.
Hissing, Benet’s flesher was standing a few feet away from her. It advanced toward her. Dark, thick blood was dripping from his thin, pale lips.
Okay, Wisteria. She took out her sword. The creature dove at her and she slashed back as hard and fast for as many times as she could.
It lay once again, headless at her feet.
As she jumped over to get past it, the creature grabbed her ankle, causing her to trip. She fell, but kept kicking at the monster until it stopped moving and let go. Grabbing her sword, she used it to poke at the flesher, and it didn’t move. Cautiously, she prodded it again, but nothing.
“Are you all right?” Bach landed in front of her.
“He’s been cured.” Wisteria got up.
“How? Those things are incurable.”
“My sword.” Really, she didn’t know why she’d succeeded. “That’s all I used.”
*****
Another creature, Pol’s flesher, landed a few feet away between them and Jason. It turned to Jason and charged at him.
As it landed on top of him, Bach grabbed it, throwing it against the wall.
“Thanks, brother,” Jason muttered finally coming around.
“I am not your brother.”
“We need to close the doors, so the creatures cannot leave. If they get out they'll infect others,” Jason groaned, ignoring Bach’s response.
“We know that. I just want to get Wisteria out.”
“We cannot risk it. We don’t have—”Jason was pulled away by Anfos’s deformed, half-eaten flesher.
Didan raced to Jason’s aide, slicing off Anfos’s head with his danor. As Anfos’s flesher fell, they all watched in horror as the creature’s body reattached its own head.
“Bach, seal the doors!” Wisteria yelled as she went to help Jason.
“Get out,” Bach shouted as Didan approached. “Wisteria, go.”
She was cornered by the empiric Mateu, who was now infected. Standing between Jason and the creature, she tried to fight the creature off.
Before Bach could get to her, Didan grabbed him. “Your Terran is right, we need to get these doors closed so these things do not reach the rest of the Family. After that, we will focus on getting out of here. Leave her to her fate.”
“Do not touch me.” Bach pulled away from the lead empiric.
He yanked Bach back and sent him careening to the ground. “She is nothing…” Didan’s voice faded as he turned back to Wisteria. “How is she able to defeat those things?”
Getting up, Bach saw Wisteria poking the unmoving body of Mateu with her sword. She’d cured it too.
“How come you can hurt them?” Bach reached her. “When we cannot.” As he spoke, another infected attacked Didan.
Didan barely managed to fight it off.
“I think it’s because I’ve covered my weapons with bean vine. I suppose the part of him that’s Famila is affected by it.” She took out her small pocketknife and offered it to him. “Take it. I’ve still got my sword.”
“Enric.” Taking the knife, Bach tossed it at his friend, who was trying to fend off Pol’s flesher.
Mina caught the weapon and sliced through the flesher’s head. Mina and Enric waited to see if the flesher moved, but it didn’t.
“Now we can go.” Looking exhausted, Didan walked up to Wisteria.
“Where is the last one? There’s one more in here,” she said.
“D’cara,” the lead empiric screamed as the infected Famila snatched him, dragging him through the piles of clutter.
Wisteria ran after him, stabbing Anfos’s flesher’s arm before removing its head. The creature fell.
Confused, Didan got up. “Why did you do that, Terran?”
“You saved his life?” Out of breath, Mina finally made it over to them.
Wisteria shook her head at the repeated question.
Speedily, Bach moved between Wisteria and the two remaining empirics. “This is over, right? Let her go; she saved your life.”
“I know.” Didan winced as he stared at the shana along Wisteria’s exposed shoulder. “Yet these spots she wears changes everything.”
Everything around her went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Waking up, all Bach could register was the foul odor of the rotting empirics. He was still in Jason’s lab, on the floor and alone. “Wisteria.” He tried to get up, but felt lightheaded. The empirics had drugged him with something. Using a table for balance, he slipped and fell again. His world faded to black.
When he woke up, he found he was in bed in a dark room without windows. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized this was his den in Hammond Village. The room was in the apartment far beneath the mansion. How did he get here?
Famila were murmuring in another room. It sounded like Enric was speaking with Alba. Getting out of bed, he moved through the corridor to find out what was going on.
“You are out of your mind,” Enric scolded his younger sister. “In time, he would have gotten over the thing with the Terran, but now when he does, do you think he wil
l ever name you as his intended?”
“He was going to break the pledge anyway. You heard him. Bach’s infatuation with the animal was out of control, so I was saving him from himself,” Alba said in a tone that he’d once thought sweet.
“And for yourself?”
“Please, Enric.”
“There was a right way to do it.”
“How? Your way? Allowing him to draw you into his secrets,” Alba scoffed. “He hates me now, but one day he will thank me. I have saved him from a wasted life.”
“Alba…”
“What I did felt right, so it cannot be wrong. In my heart it was the only thing that made sense,” she continued. “You know I am right.”
Enric didn’t reply.
“Enric, admit it: you are relieved Wisteria is finally gone, even if you did not like how I did it.”
“I am, but you humiliated my closest friend.”
“And he lied to you and to me, but I am prepared to forgive him once this all over.”
“Really? And when he finds out you used him to spread the Sleeping Fever across the Terrans in Smythe?”
“That was Didan’s decision and not mine,” she said defensively.
In that moment, Bach understood why some humans despised the Family. He walked into the living area where the two Famila were. “I am glad that you helped me.” Even though he wanted nothing more than to walk away from these two people, he needed them to find Wisteria. “What happened?”
“Mina put you to sleep with darkroot.”
Darkroot was sometimes used to force a Famila into deep regenerative sleep.
“Didan thought it would be better than fighting you,” Enric replied. “I brought you back the day before yesterday.”
“I see.” He tried to smile. “Thank you.”
“Beloved.” Cautiously, Alba came up to him. “I am so sorry for everything.” She wore a red obsidian coral necklace.
“I am ready to see my father,” Bach told them.
Alba gawked over at Enric nervously. “You should rest some more. Mina gave you a lot.”
“I have been regenerating for two days at least; nothing can be better than regenerating on Jarthan.” He stroked her short blond hair. “We can go together.”
Enric looked doubtful as he cocked an eyebrow at Bach.