She picks up the cup and Blice flutters out. "Blice, where's Byron?"
"He left about an hour ago without his medicine. He had his shotgun with him and a bottle of tequila. We have to go stop him before he does this."
"What was he going to do?" Katarina asks.
"He's going to kill himself so you can marry Doss."
Katarina goes outside where she is met with Doss and Zach. "We have to go look for Byron."
"Then let's go." Zach leads the way out past the city gates and across the snow-covered plains.
Katarina spots a set of boot prints in the snow that she immediately knows are Byron's. They're not too old, but are already partially filled with fresh powder. They lead straight into the woods.
Just as they reach the tree line, they stop when the sound of Byron's shot gun echoes out in the night. The deathly quiet of snow falling is the only sound that follows. Katarina knows. Doss clutches her to his chest as he gives orders to the others. "Zach and Blice, you go check it out. You're staying right here, Kat."
For what seems like hours, Katarina stays bundled up in Doss's coat with his wings wrapped protectively around her. They don't speak because there's nothing to say. The night has a deafening silence that even the blowing wind can't penetrate. The cold seeps into her bones and no amount of heat will warm her or her darkened thoughts. Could she have made a difference? Was there anything she could have done to avoid this? Only time will tell.
Zach is the first to reemerge from the woods and he only shakes his head as he walks past Doss and Katarina.
"Zach?"
He stops and crosses his arms as the wind continues to pick up. "There's nothing we can do. You don't want details. Looks like he put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger."
Katarina pulls away from Doss and slowly walks back towards town.
18
Jarred tosses the rock up at the ceiling where it hits and knocks loose a shower of dust. As he coughs and brushes it from his face, he realizes how stupid that just was. Samuels is laughing at him, but he doesn't care. At least he's trying to entertain himself rather than whatever Samuels is doing. Jarred scratches his face where a thick beard has grown. He hasn't had a beard in years. He knows he probably looks like a complete mess. Well, it has been a month now since he was captured and brought here. He takes off his tattered shirt and dips it in the water bucket then wipes his face with it.
"Is that a tattoo?"
Oh. Jarred pulls his pants up. No one was supposed to see that. "Uh, no."
"Yes it is. Is it what I think it is?"
"Just forget about it, okay? Pretend you never saw it."
"Oh my God. You're one of them." Samuels says, sounding a bit panicky.
Jarred throws his wet shirt at Samuels as his anger flares up. "Shut up. No one needs to know. Do you understand me? If you mention my tattoo to anyone, I will kill you then eat you. Don't test me, inquisitor. I'm very hungry so it wouldn't be difficult."
"When did it happen?"
"What? I don't know what you're talking about."
"Give it a rest, Jarred. I had heard the stories, but I never believed it was true. So is hell still hot this time of year?"
Jarred shakes his head. "You're not funny."
"And you're not human."
"That's not true. I'm not one of them. I swear I'm human and that I was born on Earth."
"Then why do you carry their mark?" Samuels asks.
"Only one person on this planet knows about what happened to me and that's Jayce. It's going to stay that way."
"Then I'll have to kill you. I can't have any Nymphs invading Earth now."
"I'm not a Nymph." Jarred insists, hoping that his persistence will convince him.
"You have a tattoo of a spider with a golden apple on your ass. You're a Nymph."
"Stop. That's your final warning. I'm not possessed, I'm not a Nymph or a demon of any kind. Is that clear?"
"So, does your husband know that you're hell spawn?" Samuels asks.
"I'm not hell spawn. I'm not a devil or anything like that. Now stop! You're just pulling out ideas from stupid children's stories you've heard. That's not even what Nymphs are. We're misunderstood." Jarred clasps his hand over his mouth. That was just a big giveaway. Damn it. He's losing his way with words.
"So, you admit it. You've been in contact with them. If you claim not to be a Nymph, then why don't you tell me how you got their mark? That's all I want to know. Plus, you did kind of let it slip that you're a Nymph after all. Remember, we're supposed to be partners here. You help me, I help you."
"If I tell you, you have to swear on your life that you will never speak a word of this to anyone."
Samuels shrugs his shoulders. "Okay. Deal. I just want to know that I can trust you."
"Despite what you've heard, Nymphs aren't mystical creators or demons." Jarred says. "They are simply humans who were victims of nanoweapons then sent out to the far reaches of the galaxy so no one would ever have to be around them again for fear that their nanobots would infect everyone else. Some of them are rumored to have come from distant galaxies, but no one has been able to prove that. People call them aliens, but there's no way to know for sure if their populations were humans to begin with or if they mixed with some invading force. Either way, all they want is to be left alone and live their lives with their newfound immortality."
"The nanobots and radiation made them immortal?"
"Yes, well . . . the five percent who survived and the ones who seemed to have it initially from wherever they came from. It mutated their genes and DNA. Now, I will admit that I am a Nymph, but not by birth. I was a victim of slavery and a terrible nanobot accident when I was on the IGR planet of Strafe seven years ago."
"You've left Earth?" Samuels asks.
"Yes. Once, and I never plan on doing it again. Jayce came down with a cold and wasn't feeling very well so I took a mysterious contract on my own. It was a very wealthy citizen down here who had his own space transport. He wouldn't show me his face, which should have been a red flag, but I needed the money. We hadn't had a good contract in months and we were living on the streets, scraping by on restaurant scraps and what I could steal from bakeries. Anyway, it was business as usual until I fell asleep one night after having a drink with some members of the crew. When I woke up, I wasn't on the transport anymore. My weapons were taken and my clothes were missing. Everything I had was gone. I was only seventeen so I was starting to freak out. I found myself naked and alone in a concrete cell. Well, I thought I was alone, but I really wasn't. A woman emerged from the shadows and I jumped when I felt a hand on my knee. She was naked and terrified as well. She luckily spoke English and informed me that we had been sold into slavery on the IGR planet of Strafe."
"So your client ended up selling you?"
"Yep. I later found out that he was one of the people I turned into the Inquisition for killing his androids at the android market when I worked security there." Jarred says. It still makes him angry to think about.
"So he was angry that you reported him and he decided to get revenge and a pretty nice payday at the same time."
"Exactly. Well, this is where this story gets weird."
"As if it wasn't already weird?" Samuels asks with a grin.
"Let me tell the story. You can ask questions later. So it turned out that the woman and I were paired up to mate."
Samuels starts laughing. "You and a woman? Oh my God."
Jarred picks up the rock he was tossing around earlier and sends it flying at Samuels, hitting him in the arm. "I could get a woman if I wanted to. I just don't want to. Do you want to hear the story or not?"
"Go ahead. I'll behave." Samuels says.
Jarred sits down next to him up against the rough cavern wall. "Thank you. Where was I? Oh yes. So we were supposed to mate, but I have never had any attraction to women so I just held her to comfort her. She was so scared and crying. What felt like hours went by before two men in black with
their faces covered came into the cell and examined the woman. I guess they figured out that we hadn't done anything and they got pretty pissed off. Then they started hitting me, but I wasn't gonna just take that so I fought back. I was able to easily overpower both of them then knock them out. I took the clothes from one of them and got dressed. The woman ran off and I never saw her again. I wasn't about to risk getting killed to look for her. I know that sounds awful, but I was running for my life. I found my way through the building that I found out was a ship that had landed on the planet of Strafe. I was running down a hallway when some guards were coming. I went into a room and immediately tripped over some equipment and the lights went out as someone screamed. I tried to crawl, but I was surrounded by broken glass. The last thing I remember was an alarm sounding and an intense searing pain all through my body. I woke up on a tiny space transport with a man who was flying it and informed me that I had been exposed to a condensed form of radioactive nanobots and managed to survive. He then told me that I had been marked as a Nymph. He was very friendly. Apparently, after I passed out, I was taken to the medical lab where he bought me and found out that I had changed like the other Nymphs. Turns out that he was a Nymph as well and was taking me to one of their colonies to live with them."
"So you were basically abducted by aliens?" Samuels asks.
"More or less."
"There are so many probe jokes I could make right now, but I don't want you to kill me."
"Good choice." Jarred says. "Anyway, on the way, we got to talking and I told him about Jayce. I begged him to let me go and take me down to Earth. He told me of a tradition their people had. If a Nymph does something for another Nymph, then the receiver is to repay that favor sometime later on by doing whatever is asked of them. I was so traumatized by everything that I quickly agreed. So, he dropped me off outside of Paradise and I found my way back in. It wasn't until Jayce saw my tattoo a week later that I had any idea about it. So there you go."
"Wow."
"There are many reasons why I hate the IGR." Jarred says as he tears open his last bit of food from his MRE. Instant coffee. It will have to do.
"So, you're immortal?"
Jarred chokes down a mouthful of coffee grounds. "Who knows? Probably not."
"And you pose a risk to everyone around you?"
"No. At least, I haven't hurt anyone yet, so I don't think so."
"And you owe some alien a favor that he could ask for at anytime and ask you to do anything?" Samuels asks.
"Pretty much."
"Incredible."
"There's no reason to be scared of me." Jarred says. "If I was capable of using some crazy power, I would have found out about it by now. It's been seven years and nothing else has happened. Jayce has been around my blood countless times and he's fine."
"So why is their mark a golden apple with a spider? Does that mean something?"
"Ever heard of Aphrodite?" Jarred asks.
"Ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty?"
"Yep. Remember the story about the golden apple where a man was asked to give the golden apple to the woman who he thought was the most beautiful goddess?"
"Gotcha. So they view themselves as the most beautiful race?"
"Hell if I know." Jarred says. "I'm not really one of them, remember? Then the spider is their holy symbol or something. I don't know. That's just what that one guy told me on our way back to Earth."
"Couldn't you just have it removed?" Samuels asks.
"And have everyone freak out when they saw it and accuse me of being a demon like you did? No thanks. I've managed to keep it hidden for this long. As long as I'm not running around Paradise naked, then it's not an issue."
19
Doss is exhausted after tending to Katarina all night long. Sure, he doesn't have to sleep, but the constant emotional draining is taking its toll on him. He knows that it's worth it and she has no one else she trusts to help her. Now he's running late. Doss is never late, especially on the morning before leaving for a mission of this much importance. Velex is going to skin him alive. Wait. Why is he walking there? He has wings that could get him there in a fraction of the time. He spreads his wings and takes off across the sky then not even a minute later, he lands in front of Velex on the runway. He bows to him. "Vice Admiral Doss, reporting for duty."
Velex doesn't look amused. "It's so unlike you to show up here unprepared."
"What?"
The line of soldiers snicker behind him. Velex quickly silences them with a sharp glare. "Doss, you look like shit."
"I'm sorry."
Velex pulls out a comb from his pocket and drags it a couple of times though Doss's hair. "Where's your sword?"
"I didn't think I'd need it if all I'll be doing is flying." Doss says. The truth is that he simply forgot it.
"Be glad that Chancellor Dressler had some things come up and he couldn't be here for inspection. This is completely unacceptable. I don't give a damn what you've been dealing with in your spare time. It can't negatively impact your performance here. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
Velex roughly pushes him backwards. "Get in line with the others, Doss. I'll deal with you later."
Doss takes his place at the far end of the line and stands at attention with the other pilots. He may be Vice Admiral, but he still has to follow Velex's orders just like any other man here.
Velex steps up to the line and addresses them all. "In two hours, you are to report back here fully prepared for a week-long expedition to Strafe. Take care of anything you need to address and then I want each of you focused solely on the information I sent you yesterday. That file contains all the necessary details and plans of our mission. I will be checking to see if you read and understood the material. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir." They say in unison.
What file? Doss begins to panic a little bit. He didn't receive a file. He has no idea what is going to be happening. He feels Velex's gaze drilling into him as he steps directly in front of him.
"Vice Admiral, will you please give a summary of the mission briefing for our pilots?"
Oh hell. He looks straight ahead, trying to avoid eye contact with Velex. What can he say?
"I asked you a question, Vice Admiral."
"I don't know." Doss says.
"You don't know? You don't know what?"
"I don't know, sir."
"What don't you know?" Velex asks, his anger growing in his voice.
"I don't know about the mission, sir."
"And why is that?"
Doss knows this is going to end poorly for him. "I didn't read the file, sir."
Velex draws his short whip from his belt and with a flick of his wrist, the leather slices through Doss's face, directly below his right eye. "Don't you dare challenge my authority. This kind of behavior is completely unacceptable. You're a shame to the military and to the IGR. You will learn to submit to orders given to you and to address me properly. Three hundred pushups now. And get those wings up. Don't make me give you another scar."
Doss immediately drops to the ground and as he begins doing pushups, blood drips down from the gash below his eye. Velex wasn't joking. If it's bleeding that much, it will leave a scar. That's the first time Doss has been scarred for insubordination. He's seen others receive as many as four scars on their faces at one time. Once you get your fifth, then you're dragged off somewhere and never heard from again.
"Wings up, Vice Admiral. I expect better from you."
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."
* * *
After a completely humiliating and degrading inspection, eight stitches in his face, and quickly reading over the mission briefing, Doss meets Velex in the café for breakfast. He sits across the table from his friend who still appears to be fuming over Doss's infractions.
Velex shakes his head disappointedly as he looks over the menu. "Unbelievable."
"I'm sorry, Velex."
"What am I going to do with you? Did on
e Sunday night of not taking a beating really cause you to mess up this much?"
"I've been tending to Katarina who is an emotional wreck right now." Doss says. "I haven't had a single minute to myself."
"And you want to marry her?"
"It's because I want to marry her that I'm doing this. I care about her. I can't just let her suffer when I can help."
"Sometimes I think you're too caring." Velex puts down the menu and looks Doss over. "Nice stitches."
"I deserved it."
"Never thought I'd be giving you a scar for not following orders." Velex says. "Please don't let it happen again. You're not an android so your scars will show forever. Even half androids carry scars for years."
"I know. I've been shot before, remember?"
"That's true. So, did you finally read over the file I sent you?"
"I did. Everything's good now." Doss reassures him.
"Wonderful." He signals for a waitress then orders for himself once the robot gets to the table. She then leaves without taking Doss's.
"So what? I don't get breakfast now?" Doss asks.
"I took the liberty of ordering for you."
"This doesn't sound good."
"You're getting a bit pudgy. You could barely finish those pushups earlier." Velex says.
"That's not true and you know it." Maybe a bit.
"Oh really?"
"Yes, really."
"You'll eat what I ordered you and you're not going to complain. I'm losing my patience with you already and we have a long mission coming up. Don't push me any further."
Doss sinks down in his chair and stares down at his hands. This is his own fault and no one else's. He's not angry at Velex or angry at all. Actually, all he wants to do right now is crawl into bed, hide under his blankets, and cry. What is wrong with him? A vice admiral with a scar for insubordination? It's shameful. And it's not like he can pretend that it's from something else. The whip Velex uses leaves a very recognizable scar that is the exact same every time. Everyone in the IGR military knows what those scars are for and can spot them from a mile away.
After their food is delivered and Doss grimaces at the bowl of oatmeal in front of him, Velex sighs and reaches out to touch his arm. "Doss, I'm sorry. I shouldn't let our work impact our friendship. It's hard for me to punish you because you are my good friend. However, I have to be even stricter with you for that same reason. I can't have anyone believe that I give you preferential treatment. Plus, I am extremely on edge as it is that one of us will mess up and be put in the stocks or sent to Barren Void. I don't want to lose you so I'd rather give you a disciplinary scar and humiliate you in front of your troops than have you die out there."
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