PHOENIX (The Weaver Series Book 4)

by Vaun Murphrey

  He rolled his shoulders and knocked her head forward then smiled at her irritated grunt. “More or less, Leoght Cor.”

  Manuel Reno looked gray around the mouth, and bags big enough to make a trip to Europe with a spoiled socialite hung under his dull eyes. I snapped my fingers and motioned crisply at the sidewalk. “Let’s get this show on the road, people. We don’t have time to stand around all day.”

  As if by magic, at my gesture the cantankerous, grizzled man buckled at the knees and the two Johns just barely caught his shoulders to keep his head from cracking on the unforgiving tar-covered lot. Ramon knelt by Manuel with the speed of a man twenty years younger.

  Malcolm looked down his nose with his lids half lowered at the action on the ground then canted his chin at James. “I guess you need to add Tim’s farts to the enclave arsenal log.”

  Two of Ramon’s blunt fingers searched Manuel’s carotid, then his brachial in the bend of his arm. The wrinkled skin around his dark eyes folded tighter as they met mine.

  “We need to get to the clinic. His pulse is almost gone.”

  James pointed an index finger on each hand at Silver and I. “You two ‘port Ramon and Manuel while I escort Doe and John on foot. Malcolm can give Maggie a heads up in the Web. Mez can go with you, Silver.”

  Mez wove his neck and clicked his teeth. “Mez can go wherever he likes.”

  Silver hip bumped her lover and purred low, “Down boy.”

  My twin and I stepped forward, thinned the shield over our hands and bent to make contact. Silver chose Manuel and I placed a palm on Ramon’s shoulder. As he opened his mouth to protest I warned, “This could be a little discombobulating, so no worries if you lose your breakfast, its normal, dude.”

  I aimed my next comment at my twin. “Clinic lawn, you go east I go west, then we’ll carry Manuel in the front. Ramon can catch up after he tosses his cookies.”

  She nodded and the periphery of my vision began to blur as I imagined the green grass carpet on either side of the walk to the clinic front steps. The bend began with the sparkling soda water fade of our current reality and then something abnormal happened. It felt like a lasso on my waist or spaghettification in a black hole.

  Where we arrived was nothing like the destination image in my head. For one thing it was dark and since my shield was still temporarily down from the bend I could feel the cool, slow moving air on my skin. I turned in place then picked up my boot-clad feet one by one and shook the soft soil off the smooth leather as Ramon retched and convulsed behind me. An arched earth ceiling with wooden beams sunk into the rock and hard packed dirt stretched overhead. I could see because of my enhanced vision, but I knew Ramon was blind. A faint light shone from an oblong tunnel to my right and I could hear indeterminate sounds from above, as if a radio were turned down low on a talk show. We had to be deep underground which didn’t immediately alarm me because of my time in the subterranean city of Bleo on Axsa, but I figured I had better start reassuring Ramon or he was going to panic.

  An immediate tug from the Web made my jaw clench as I tapped Ramon’s shoulder. “We’re being hailed. I’m sorry your first ‘port went sideways. It’s not usually like this. Our transit was redirected by an unknown outside force, and I’ve got no clue where we are. It’s happened a couple times before. Go in the Web with me and maybe your stomach will calm down while we’re out.”

  Ramon’s face and form were dim and filmy even with my superior ocular skills. He didn’t turn his head toward my voice but he threw an arm out and gripped the denim covering my thigh so tight my waistband cut into my hip.

  I closed my eyes and disconnected from the physical to soar and stretch on the path of the opened mind. The essence awaiting me wasn’t Silver as I’d thought. Sil’s glossy orange crust contained blooms of white obscuring the obsidian bowling ball core.

  “I’m a little tied up at the moment, Sil. What do you need?”

  Ramon’s forest green and orange essence materialized to my left and Silver’s bright lavender tinged white popped in at the same time.

  Mental voice acerbic, Sil replied, “I am not the one with the need. You asked me to research Silver’s condition and I complied. Would you prefer the information now or never?”

  Silver bubbled outward like blown glass, overriding Sil’s prissy fit. “Where are you, Sister? Are you okay?”

  Through the umbilical-like cord of our bond I pushed the recent experience of our arrival underground. “I’d prefer to explore and see where the tunnel leads. There has to be a reason for the redirect. What if Noemi and Gerome are meddling from the other side again, trying to tell us something?”

  Ramon’s orange core flared like an ignited match head. “I don’t appreciate being manhandled or having molecularization forced on me. If it was natural for my body to do, I wouldn’t be vomiting. Return me to your enclave immediately.”

  Silver’s worry cascaded in a liquid ice rush through our sisterly bond. It felt weird and unnatural to recognize her emotions from the outside in.

  “Do what needs doing, Cass. Be safe. I’ve got to help with Manuel. I trust you to stay alive. Should I send Mez?”

  I thought hard. “No, keep him with you. I can manage. I won’t stay longer than I have to.”

  My twin’s essence faded as she concentrated on Manuel’s healing with Maggie. Since they weren’t in our conversation anymore they’d moved to an orbiting distance in our solar system of attachments. It was all about attention and will.

  Sil’s white puffs had turned storm gray with streaks of blue lightning flashes, and his dark core was spinning with a slight wobble. “You were deflected during a bend? How is that possible? I have no records of such things in Axsian memory! You are truly a fascinating Singularity to study!”

  Ramon pulsed with a mental foot stomp of impatience. “I’m going to join your sibling and Dr. Johnson. For your sake, I sincerely hope she saves Manuel’s life or I will hold both of you responsible.”

  I looped a sinuous arm of white around Ramon in a caress that he contracted from. “Be gone with your threats before I lose my temper and squeeze you like a lemon!” I let go even though I was tempted to shake him in frustration. Ramon’s anger was a thin metallic whip of a wake trailing his essence all the way to Silver and Maggie’s cluster of intense light.

  Something was off about him. Manuel wasn’t the only thing on his mind, and his threat spoke of an underlying panic he wasn’t sharing. Maybe Silver would figure it out.

  I had other questions for Sil while he was handy so I shuffled the Ramon issue aside to address the scientist. “Sil, Silver freed herself and she’s no longer trapped in Kara’s shell. We still aren’t together but mainly that’s because we’re a little occupied. You know the way life goes for us.” A thought occurred to me, more of a shakily supported suspicion due to what I knew about Sil’s participation in Axsian genetic experimentations gone wrong. “When you tampered with Kai and Kal did you use any non-Axsian resources?”

  Sil’s concentration sharpened and his core became obscured by electrically charged thunderheads under his transparent orange crust. “You know I am forbidden from speaking of such things with you. Fid Tal made that clear.” He paused and the swirls of simulated atmosphere hardened as if time had stopped. “That said, do you remember learning in The Hub about sentient planets that go Adeorcian?”

  I felt a burn inside at the use of the grim word used to describe sentient planets that go dark—consumed by their own folly. “I do.”

  A deep thunder-like rumble broke the stalemate of his internal storm. “They do not all become Adeorcian without…assistance.”

  The heat inside me turned molten. “Are you telling me the Galactic Alliance of Sentient Planets has killed whole worlds because they deemed them a threat?”

  Sil’s pregnant silence was answer enough.

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Shadows of Creation’s Destruction

  I forced myself to draw the fury down a notch. “What does this have to
do with my original question, Sil?”

  His orange crust darkened to a rust color. “Samples and readings of such places are sometimes kept for the purpose of knowledge and for posterity. Kai’s mutation was based on the lone sample from a planet filled with Daedscua.”

  “What the hell are Daedscua?”

  Sil’s crust cracked with the inner pressure then resealed in a flash of bright yellow. “Those who act in the dark. Not all sentient life is the same, freond. Some life is born and honed to destroy and prey on the weak. This is not a case of good or of evil, but of balance.”

  I concentrated on calm again, pulling my placid pool to mind—it helped. “If it’s a case of balance then why did this ‘dark world’ get destroyed? How could they do such a thing? Think of the billions of years of evolution and cycles of destruction and creation that made just that one world! There had to be a better way, Sil.”

  His core became more visible as if a deep breath had cleared the storm away. “It was before my time, Cassandra. Do not aim your righteousness at me. The practice is rare because of all the reasons you just mentioned. All other sentient life has to be in danger for the Galactic Alliance to interfere in such a brutal, final way. Why did you ask about Kai and Kal?”

  I wavered on whether I should divulge my suspicions but Sil had earned my trust. “Well I’m pretty sure when G.A.S.P. killed that planet they missed a Daedscua and it ended up on Earth. I’m also fairly certain that it might be…related to us.”

  Bright marbled snakes of yellow danced on Sil’s crust and startled humor washed outward in a shockwave. “G.A.S.P.?” His amusement faded but a faint taste of it remained. “I fail to see how you could know this. I highly doubt it is true. The likelihood of surviving a directed gamma-ray burst is nil. Without an atmosphere life cannot be sustained.”

  Doubt gnawed at me. “I’m not stupid, Sil. Please look at our DNA again with what I’ve told you in mind.” I tightened into a compact pearl. “I would also ask that you not share this conversation with Silver, Kal or Mez.” The gravity of my words pulled him closer.

  Sil’s core began to cloud again. “Secrets—there are always so many secrets that never cause anything but pain and remorse. I will honor your request with reluctance, freond, but only for now.”

  I broke off a missile of memory that held our interrogation room meeting with the Soul Eater, Silver’s reaction about her healing abilities compared to his, my partly dead meeting with Gerome and Noemi and our half-formed plan to defeat the being that had killed our parents and terrorized Earth for too long.

  Its path to Sil was a graceful slow moving arc, betraying none of the intense emotions within it. “I have something for you that might give you a reason to hold your tongue longer than ‘now’. I have to get back and figure out where the hell I am underground. Keep in touch—and thank you for being my friend, Sil. Pass on my hellos to everyone.”

  He parted his orange outer layer and allowed my memories in. It reinforced my trust in Sil that he would accept something so willingly into his essence, knowing the things that Silver and I could do. The distant encircled lights that were Maggie, Silver, Ramon and Manuel made a shining faerie ring behind Sil. Warmth that held the memory of our first meeting in his lab wrapped around me in a brief but welcome squeeze.

  “I will tell of your well wishes to the others. Goodbye, freond.”

  My reciprocation of his affection was the final feeling as I disconnected from the Web to return to the dark tunnel with its timeworn support beams. A faint scuttling in the dirt made me look down. My eyes sought the source of the sound and found the downward curve of a scorpion tail as it made its way in Ramon’s direction. My shield was back so I extended it to the older man’s slumped unconscious form. It wouldn’t do for him to be stung while I was off exploring.

  The beams above looked old and unstable, but when I put a hand to one it didn’t splinter or flake. A coating of coal-tar creosote protected the wood from rot. Someone had meant for this rough construction to last. The ceiling was close. I could stand straight, but anyone over my five foot one inches would have to crouch. Silver was right—sometimes being short had its advantages.

  The steady hum of noise leaked through the soil from overhead and occasionally a bit of loose dirt would sift down from the activity an unknown distance above. A dim and yellowed luminance beckoned, and I stepped carefully across the uneven, coffee ground soft dirt toward it. My hand trailed on the tunnel’s side, skipping over each exposed support and digging a shallow line in the wall. It was taking longer to get to the source of illumination than I had estimated. Maybe Ramon would be smart enough not to panic if he came back while I was amateur spelunking. I picked up the pace at the thought of him screaming in the dark. That would be cruel to do to anyone, even someone I was pissed at.

  Light began to make shadows on the scattered rocks, and I contracted my iris in preparation for the blaring sun. I imagined heat would have invaded by now into the cool confines of the narrow manmade tube I was traversing, but I couldn’t feel it with my shield up. I began to have to slump to avoid the roof until I finally ended up creeping on my hands and knees. The sides were still wide but the ceiling had lowered drastically. The light source leaked in and around the twisted and bare looking foliage of desert plant life blocking the exit.

  I knelt to inspect the plants. They all looked the same—larrea tridentata would be the proper name, but in Mexico they might be called gobernadora. Americans would just call them chaparral or creosote bushes. They were known for killing off other plant life to conserve water for themselves, and they provided color with their delicate yellow flowers. They were evergreens, so they didn’t have a brown season unless they died. Their scent was reminiscent of rain as I took in a deep breath.

  My shielded knees dug into the now sandy ground as I gripped the root of one bush and snapped it in a clean break inward, just in case there was anyone nearby to observe the movement. The narrow window afforded me a view of heat shimmering desert. A deep wash that looked like it might flood in a rare desert rain storm tapered on one side upward onto flat ground as if nature had built a gentle ramp. I was willing to bet whoever had a hand in the tunnel had a hand in that too.

  Cautiously, I leaned my head and shoulders forward and flipped on my back to see above and behind me. The sky was a washed out faded-jean blue with the sun at high center, almost blinding me with its intense near-white light. Since I couldn’t see until my sight adjusted, I listened and smelled.

  Oil and exhaust. A thundering rumbling engine and the squeal of brakes right on top of my position had me cloaked in a light field faster than a hummingbird could flap its wings. My heart beat too fast so I stayed still, willing my nerves to untangle. Once I felt collected I wiggled until I was free of the fat green leaves from the waist up and sat. When no one screamed an alarm I scooted backward in the fine sand and stood upright with one hand shading my eyes and the other on my hip.

  A camouflage painted M927 long wheel-based 6x6 cargo truck sat idling with a front passenger door open. The diesel engine covered any noise I might make so I relaxed my shoulders. A lone man in a tan safari guide uniform stood pissing off the edge of the caliche road not ten feet from me.

  Another man clad in the same uniform but with a floppy desert colored Boonie Hat thrust his upper body out of the cab. “C’mon, Rainbow, this pit stop is gonna cost you. You know the rules, man. I’m not taking the fall for your tiny bladder.”

  My whole body sang with the surname so casually used. This was a Warp hit squad, or at least part of one. The M927 would only sit three in the front, but there could be others in the canopied cargo area that I couldn’t see. I decided to make my way to the back and snoop.

  Full Bladder Man threw an arm backward, shifting the stream of his urine across the parched earth. “Would you rather I piss my pants? Besides, they ain’t gonna get away out here. They’ve got nowhere to go but dead for miles.”

  The side of the wash closest to the road wa
s steep and the earth was too loose to climb, plus it would have made a hell of a lot of noise, so I ‘ported out, right behind the blocky, flat rear of the cargo truck. A cloth curtain barred me from seeing the interior and I despaired at peeking inside until the dark muzzle of an AK47 parted the mottled covering.

  Another man, this one strikingly familiar in looks to the two other men, yelled out, “Why are we stopped? Let’s get rolling!” He hit the metal tailgate with the black butt of his assault rifle for emphasis. I looked at his eyes and saw they were glittering ice-chip blue. The skin of his neck was smooth and unlined, but the permanent creases in his forehead put him somewhere in the late thirties age range. He had reddish-blond hair cut in a precise fade that reminded me of Chavarria’s hairstyle preference.

  My eyes danced to the side at a snuffling sound and my heart sunk as a little raven haired girl with a dusky complexion and baby doll bangs cried around the thumb stuffed in her trembling mouth. She looked around three or four, about the same age as Reb and Ray, in her paisley print sundress. Her feet were bare and her toenails were painted cotton candy pink.

  A boy just on the cusp of manhood pulled her closer into his dirt spotted t-shirt and turned her face into his ribs while he looked at the distracted guard and decided if he should make a move. His pupils were large but shrinking as they were exposed to the outside light. The iris was the exact whiskey shade as mine and the rust red baseball cap on his head had a black snake curled in a D for the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team.

  The Warps had raided Ramon and Manuel’s Mesa Verde clan while Laser Eyes kept their leaders distracted in Texas with ‘peace talks’. I wondered if the Soul Eater would have taken or killed them too today if we hadn’t been there to interrupt his plans. The goons in the sedan who had fired on us had certainly been packing serious heat for a reason. Why hadn’t Ramon asked us for help if he knew his clan was in trouble? This, at least, might explain Manuel’s sudden collapse at the enclave.