The truth about the blood curse the humans had unleashed on the raknoth—or at least an approximate version of it—had circulated rapidly through HQ following the battle with Zar’Golga’s forces weeks ago but had been met by heavy skepticism by most.
For that reason, Jarek wasn’t overly surprised when calls of bullshit and raknoth lies lit the crowded street.
“Why should we believe any of that blood virus crap?” someone shouted from near the front of the line—Rodgers, Jarek realized with a sinking stomach as he followed the voice.
Only it wasn’t open scorn on the Resistance fighter’s bulldog face, as Jarek had expected, but uncertainty—his eyes flicking back and forth between Rachel and Jarek as if now searching for some reason not to believe them.
That look seemed to be spreading through the crowd. And, judging from the tension on Rachel’s face, she was preparing herself to give them their reason.
“Because it was my mom who made that virus,” she finally called.
Anyone who heard the waver in her voice would have had a hard time believing it to be a lie. Jarek had the impression she felt nearly as naked in that moment as he actually was.
She visibly forced down a swallow before continuing.
“She was trying to do a good thing for the world. Was trying to save us all. But she was wrong. And the raknoth who decided to pull the trigger on Earth fifteen years ago were sure as hell wrong too. Mistakes were made. Big mistakes. On both sides. And we can all keep blaming each other and holding onto this negative shit until the rakul are picking our bones. Or we can suck it up and remember that we’re all in this together, whether we like it or not.”
She shook her head, catching her breath as the crowd watched, waiting, hanging on her words with uncertain looks.
“I won’t tell anyone they should forget the past. I know I sure as hell won’t. But if you don’t wanna die right alongside everyone you know and love, we need to stop letting that past rule our lives. We can’t change it. But we can try to do better.”
For a long while, the street was quiet but for the scuffs and rustles of the Resistance ranks shifting and exchanging questioning looks and whispered comments.
The uncloaked civilian army stood as still and vigilant as the red-eyed statues of their raknoth commanders.
Jarek barely dared to breathe for fear of ruining what tenuous peace seemed to be fighting its way to life between them. He didn’t even want to hope at this point.
Then the closest of the vacant civilians began to stir and look around in concerned disorientation. It started slowly, but soon enough, hundreds were coming to their senses, and several of the raknoth were shifting from their scaly battle modes back to their human appearance, red eyes dimming.
“Despite our duty to obey,” called the raknoth Drogan had nailed with the late Zar’s severed head. “There are several among us who did not agree with Zar’Taga’s decision to trust Kul’Gada. If you truly speak in earnest, we will agree to end this conflict and depart for Zar’Krogoth’s battlements as your allies in this fight.”
Maybe the raknoth had already held their own telepathic council, but if any of them felt otherwise, they didn’t say it.
The bigger question was whether the men and women at Jarek’s back would choose to accept their word—or their presence as allies, for that matter. The spreading sounds of the civilians’ pained awakenings didn’t exactly help matters.
But then Alaric strode out to join Rachel, Jarek, and Drogan in the small clearing that had formed around them.
“We agree to cease hostilities,” he called. “Once these people are free from your influence, with the guarantee they’ll stay that way, we’ll move north to join the fight.”
The raknoth who appeared to have asserted himself as clan leader looked a shade irritated by Alaric’s insistence on how they treat their human puppets, but the request seemed to have already been granted anyway, as witnessed by the growing activity of the men, women, and children coming to, checking on one another, being physically ill, and otherwise reacting to the scene in which they found themselves.
Apparently deeming Alaric’s words sufficient, the new clan leader tilted his head and turned to bound off to the south, his eight kin leapfrogging after him.
The Resistance army watched them go, mercifully silent of any challenge to Alaric’s decision, then they set to lending what aid they could to the recovering civilians.
It was only then that Jarek’s exhausted mind caught up enough to remember he could probably return to his armor.
Rachel’s tired eyes on his pushed the thought to the side of his mind before he could work up the will to move, though.
“That was a hell of a speech, Goldilocks,” he said quietly. “And here I was thinking naked guy between two armies couldn’t be beat.”
Rachel gave him a wink, looking both exhausted and yet somehow lighter than she’d ever been. “Maybe you just need a bigger stick, sweetheart.”
And then she surprised them both and slapped his pale white ass.
He stared at her, not quite understanding the volume of feelings pouring through him in that moment, standing there stark nude, staring at this beautiful woman in the aftermath of the slaughter they’d so narrowly avoided—that he and Rachel had somehow put a stop to.
The words tumbled out all on their own.
“God, I think I love you.”
He might as well have plugged her lungs to a vacuum.
Her mouth worked soundlessly for a few beats, until the floundering apparently grew too much to bear and she dropped her gaze—only to end up staring directly at the exposed stick in question.
She snapped her eyes back up to his face, cheeks reddening, but Alaric’s voice interrupted them before she could say anything.
“I think you’d better put that thing away before you blind someone.”
The commander drew up beside them with some kind of paradox etched across his face, stern yet amused.
Jarek threw a stiff salute, which only left him more exposed and added exasperated to the mural of Alaric’s expression, then he stepped into Fela’s waiting boots.
“Say no more. I’m not nearly Irish enough for this shit anyway.” Once he was safely back in his armor, he glanced surreptitiously around and waved a finger between them. “And just for the record, angry armies on either side does not a turgid Jarek make.”
Rachel closed her eyes, trying to suppress a laugh, or maybe a shudder.
Alaric just frowned. “I’m sure the boys and girls’ll all be happy to hear that, son. But in the meanwhile, I think we’d better focus on hurrying our asses north.”
Jarek gave a sober nod, the reminder of the fight to come—of facing down Gada once more—evaporating what good humor their momentary victory had conjured up.
As if in response to his emotional shift, the street dimmed around them, a cloud passing in front of the sun. He looked up just in time to see a raknoth ship—presumably that of the late Taga’s clan—rocket by overhead, bound northeast toward Central Park.
Further in the distance, along the same trajectory, several dark storm clouds were rolling along toward Camp Krogoth with the promise of shady gloom and terrible fighting conditions.
Wonderful.
“I think,” Alaric said, frowning at the distant storm clouds himself, “you’d better get your ship in here and get as many as you can carry to Krogoth’s line.”
Jarek gave a casual two-fingered salute. “Sir, yes sir. You heard the man, Al.”
Alaric started to turn away from them but doubled back and added, in a low voice, “Good work, by the way. Both of you.”
A small grin pulled at Jarek’s mouth. “Probably not exactly what you had in mind when you gave me that leadership talk, huh?”
Alaric’s eyebrows twitched upward by a few hairs. “You don’t know where I’ve been, son. Still, I’m not sure we would’ve survived if and when Taga’s clan decided to join in. You saved a lot of lives.” He cocked hi
s head. “For now at least. And you too, Al’Drogan. Your assistance is appreciated.”
Behind them, Drogan gave a slight shrug, watching for Jarek’s approaching ship, clearly impatient to be moving.
Alaric glanced up as the ship crested into view then clapped his hands to Rachel’s and Jarek’s shoulders. “Now get moving. We’ll be right behind you.”
Twenty-Four
“Two thousand,” Jarek said slowly, turning the word over in his mind. “Two thousand trained, armed men, marching to help destroy humanity.” He gave his head a sharp shake, jolting himself out of the thought, and looked back at Drogan, who stood at attention next to Alton in the cockpit with a clawed finger to his earpiece. “Where the hell did Gada find a real army?”
“Ashida,” Rachel said before Drogan or Alton could answer. “Bastard’s got an army, and if anyone was gonna turn on us, it was definitely that tea-sipping asshole.”
Drogan lowered his finger from his earpiece and nodded. “Rachel Cross is correct. And Nan’Ashida’s treachery is not necessarily the worst of the news.”
Jarek glanced at the five Resistance troops crammed into the cockpit with them. Behind them, the ship’s cabin was packed to bursting with more soldiers, most of them listening intently to find out just how thick of shit they were about to fly into.
He wasn’t sure they could all handle worse news at the moment, but now still seemed better than once the bullets were flying.
“What’s worse than a freaking army, Stumpy?”
He was pretty sure he already knew, but somehow it didn’t soften the blow when Drogan said it.
“Zar’Taga’s clan was not the only one to be swayed by Kul’Gada’s recruitment efforts.”
Shit.
He opened his mouth to ask how many enemy raknoth they were about to be dealing with, but the look Alton shot him made him think better of it.
Better now than later for the nature of the danger they faced, maybe, but as for the exact details …
Maybe now wasn’t the time to delve into exactly how many raknoth were still trying to kill them after they’d just narrowly convinced Team Resistance to fly into battle beside a couple dozen raknoth.
It was the damnedest thing—a bunch of humans and raknoth trying to defend themselves against the big bad Kul, and what did they have to contend with? Freaking humans and freaking raknoth—not to mention the giant swords-for-claws monstrosity that would no doubt be coming for them on the battlefield.
Of course, it wasn’t like the humans on Team Apocalypse 2.0 were exactly marching to the beat of their own drum out there. Not much they could do about being telepathically enslaved. The enemy raknoth would be operating on a much weaker excuse, namely fear, but that hardly mattered now.
Al would get them there, they’d charge down that ramp, and they’d fight until they’d won or until they couldn’t. Simple as that.
Simple. But not even close to easy from the looks and sounds of it.
Through the viewport, the Hudson was drawing into view, and already he could see the smoky haze of combat permeating the distant air above Central Park. He almost thought he could smell the gunpowder too, but that was impossible, just a phantom sensation as his mind placed what he was seeing into context.
“Let’s have a better look, Al,” he said quietly.
Al adjusted their flight, gently gaining altitude as they drew close enough for Jarek to conduct a rudimentary visual survey.
He almost wished he hadn’t.
Gada’s forces were sizable, to say the least. An impressively large convoy of trucks, other land vehicles, and even a few ships was flooding into the city from the north, much of the traffic continuing on straight for the center of the line in Central Park and plenty more branching out east and west to test the flanks of the New York defenders.
Suddenly it made sense why Kul’Gada had been lying low for the past week. Setting whatever time he’d spent bending his fearful raknoth subjects back to his will aside, if those were Ashida’s forces down there, finding the ships to carry them all over from Africa by air and ocean would’ve been no small feat. Even if the raknoth had had them on standby, it would have taken days. But now here they were, marching on the wrong side.
And, without a doubt, Gada was down there with them.
And, as an added bonus, the clouds that were still rolling in at a good clip from the west seemed to be growing darker and surlier by the minute.
“Well if that’s not a bad omen,” Jarek muttered.
Rachel leaned past him and frowned at the incoming clouds. “What, you scared it’s gonna rain on our little parade?”
He studied her weary expression. “I think you may be spending too much time around me, Goldilocks.”
“Touching down next to Commander Daniels’ position in thirty seconds,” Al announced to the cabin. “And, sir, I don’t like the way those men down there are—”
The first shot pinged off of the underside of the ship.
“—looking at us,” Al finished. “Hold on, everyone.”
The ship dropped abruptly, dipping between the ruined buildings and leveling out maybe ten feet above street level, low enough to avoid taking much more fire as they flew in behind the central battlements.
Jarek went through the routine motions of checking his pistols and confirming his new Whacker was still strapped to his back. Behind him, the clicks and clacks of magazines and actions being double-checked filled the ship.
He turned to Rachel, who’d already concluded checking her batteries and bullet catcher and now stood with her staff planted and gripped in both hands.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
She looked pointedly at his shoulder. “Are you?”
Drogan glanced over then as if he’d been wondering the same thing.
Jarek shot the raknoth a thumbs up and patted the shoulder in question, which, while still burning from their earlier engagement, had handled the fighting surprisingly well so far. “She’ll hold together.”
That was sufficient for Drogan.
Rachel seemed less convinced.
The look between them deepened, her expression mirroring all the fear and concern he felt wriggling through his own gut. There was something he needed to say, he was sure of it, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to find the right words to start.
Then the ship rocked beneath their feet as Al set her down, boarding ramp already beginning its mournful descent, and the time for words was past.
The sounds of battle poured into the ship the instant the rear hatch cracked open—sharp, aggressive, and impressively expansive. The soldiers in the back of the cabin wasted no time in thundering down the ramp, followed promptly by those closer to the cockpit.
Jarek grabbed Rachel’s wrist and held her back for a moment as their company left the cockpit.
Drogan, already shifting back to full scaly battle mode, huffed at them and gave a faintly disgusted shake of his head before stalking out after Alton, leaving them alone.
“Promise me neither one of us dies out there?” Jarek said quietly.
Her mouth drew into a tight line, then she stepped closer and kissed him. “Promise.”
“Good.” He slid his faceplate closed with a thought. “’Cause I’ll be damned if I’m gonna die with blue balls.”
“You’re a real romantic, you know that?”
He shrugged, smiling behind his faceplate. “I have my moments. Now let’s party.”
They jogged down the ramp. Al lifted the ship off and guided it to safety a little ways back from the battlefield as they moved after Drogan, Alton, and their Resistance shipmates toward the battlement that currently appeared to be serving as central command.
Daniels and Krogoth were there amid the human and raknoth fighters, along with most of the Enochians, who’d all donned light armor of some sort and were armed from simple with Haldin’s and Elise’s sidearms and spears right up to the walking arsenals of Enochian artillery that were Johnny and
Phineas.
Ahead, the gunfire both on the fortifications and beyond the ramshackle wall were building in frequency and volume as more enemy forces drew within range.
While Daniels issued commands to her men on the ground, Krogoth was snapping orders and watching events unfold from atop the wall, surrounded by a small contingent of his raknoth. After a brief exchange with his minty-green not-quite-lady-friend, Drogan leapt up to speak with his Zar.
Jarek debated pushing his way over to Daniels, but she already appeared to be getting updates from the soldiers they’d flown over, so he followed Alton instead.
Lietha eyed Jarek and Rachel distastefully as they approached. The Enochian’s greetings, at least, were slightly warmer, albeit understandably tense.
“Everything’s in place?” Rachel asked Haldin, forced to shout-speak over the growing sounds of fighting beyond the wall.
“As in place as it’s gonna be,” Haldin called back. “We’ve got cloaking generators covering the line here and the flanks as well. Should keep their men from getting too close without them risking their control. And the other bit’s ready too,” he added with a pointed glance toward a rough-looking patch of earth nearby—one of the pit traps Jarek had been hearing so much about, he assumed.
He was trying to picture exactly how they’d force Gada into the thing when Lietha and Alton stiffened.
“What is it?” Jarek asked.
“Word from our kin,” Alton said. “Gada’s raknoth are pressing the flanks. Hard.”
“No matter,” Lietha said, flexing viciously clawed fingers. “I will tear the traitors apart myself if need be.”
As if in response to her words, or maybe just her violent attitude, Alton’s skin began to darken to green hide.
“Preach, sister,” Jarek said.
That earned him multiple confused looks and a surprised scowl from Lietha, which reminded him he might well be the only one in the huddle—with the possible exception of Alton—who knew about Lietha’s Shieth status.
As soon as the thought occurred to him, a fearsome roar in the distance and a pair of concussive blasts that shook the ground beneath their feet reminded him they had entirely more pressing concerns.
Reaping Day: Book Three of the Harvesters Series Page 27