Eve of Man (The Harvest Book 2)

by Ferretti, Anne

  Austin leaned on the table gripping the edge so hard he felt it begin to crack within his grasp. The picture Kyle had given to Charlie caught his eye. He reached across the table and picked it up. He looked at the picture, not seeing the images for being blinded by his thoughts. He didn’t see the tall petite woman standing with her arm draped around Grace’s shoulder. He didn’t see the woman until he focused and then he saw her. First her long blonde hair, braided and hanging over one shoulder, caught his eye. Styled similar to how he remembered his mom wearing her hair. She wore hers like...she looked like....just like his mother.

  He set the picture down and pulled out his wallet. From behind his driver’s license he slipped out a photo. It was old and frayed around the edges. Although his hands were steady, his heart thumped hard and fast against his rib cage. He picked up Kyle’s picture and compared the two. The similarities were undeniable, removing any doubt that the woman in Kyle’s photo was the same one in his. The same woman who had abandoned him when he was five, leaving him behind with an alcoholic father, leaving him to fend for himself, leaving and never coming back.

  Bitter pills were the hardest to swallow and Austin had taken his fair share, but he never thought he’d be faced with this biting rancid truth. As a child he’d pictured her living a miserable lonely life, or dead, and not coming back for him because she was unable. But she’d gone on to start another family, never returning for the one she’d left behind. He’d been replaced and forgotten. Austin’s hand itched to crush the picture, but he laid the photo gently down on the table. He would ask Kyle who she was before jumping to conclusions. He needed that validation first, because maybe, yes maybe, he was wrong. The odds were not good; in fact the odds were the greatest odds in favor of him being dead on right.

  ***

  The lighting in Grace’s room was dim, but they could see she was asleep. Kyle looked at the girl lying on the bed. Tears welled up in his eyes. He walked over to the bed and gazed upon his sister’s sweet face. For so long he’d given up hope, thinking she had to be dead. He touched her hair, her face. She was real. She’s real, he thought, trying to assure himself he wasn’t hallucinating or dreaming.

  “Grace,” he said.

  Grace stirred and murmured in her sleep.

  “Grace wake up. It’s Kyle.”

  Grace’s head turned back and forth fitfully, perhaps hearing Kyle’s voice in her dream. Her eyes opened. For a few seconds she lay there not moving, waiting for sleep to subside, waiting for her dreams to subside. She frowned remembering her dream and turned her head.

  “Hey kiddo.”

  Grace rubbed her eyes. “Kyle?”

  “In the flesh.” He smiled.

  “Kyle?”

  “Yeah it’s me sis.”

  “Oh my... How’d you get here? When?” Grace frowned. “Am I dead?”

  Kyle laughed and leaned down giving her a big hug. “Not at all. I arrived by pick-up truck, well by foot, then truck. It’s a long story. Anyway, what about you? Gonna be a mommy I hear and see.” He pointed to her stomach.

  Grace looked away from Kyle, embarrassed. Not for being pregnant, but for how it had happened. “Did they tell you?” Her voice wavered.

  “Tell me what?” Kyle didn’t like the sound in her voice. If that kid hurt Grace he wouldn’t live to see the end of the day. “Did that boy hurt you?” Kyle demanded.

  Grace turned back to look at her brother. “What boy? You mean Jeremy?”

  “Yes Jeremy,” he spat out the name, already planning the various ways he would torture him.

  “He didn’t hurt me. It wasn’t his fault I got pregnant. I wanted to. I needed to.”

  “What? Why? I mean why would you need to get pregnant? Help me out here sis.”

  Grace sighed. Where was she supposed to start? When General Roth’s men rescued her and their mother? When they wouldn’t let her bury their mother? When Roth lost it and turned their safe haven into a den of nightmares? The entire past year existed of bad things, bad news, and bad all around. Except for Captain Reynolds killing Roth and bringing them all to the bunker, but a silver lining around a pile of shit didn’t change the pile from being shit. This brought her back to Kyle’s question and still not knowing where or how to start.

  “It’s probably not a good idea for Grace to relive all that right now,” Zack said from the doorway. No one noticed Zack coming in, but his disheveled appearance was a sight to behold. “Zack Londergan, bunker physician of sorts, nice to meet ya.” He held out his hand to Kyle.

  Kyle shook his hand. “Maybe you can tell me what the hell’s going on.”

  “Be glad to, but not right now.” Zack replied, holding his ground. Kyle was under a lot of stress and needed to process having found his sister, before he heard the circumstances of that which brought her to the bunker.

  Kyle turned back to Grace. “Where’s mom?”

  Grace looked broken. “She died. The cancer was too much. She was too weak and without treatment...”

  “When?”

  “About a month after the Sundogs arrived. She didn’t suffer. She died in her sleep,” Grace said, hoping to ease his pain. “I was with her. She didn’t die alone.” Grace would never tell him about the deplorable treatment she’d received, his wounds were deep enough without that knowledge.

  19 The Harvest

  While Kyle was wondering why life must always turn out bitter sweet, Austin sat in the dark of his suite wondering what to do about the picture. When he’d first seen Kyle something familiar had struck him, recognition maybe, but he’d brushed the feeling away. The chance that they were related, brothers even, was irrefutable. Although, Austin reasoned, Kyle could be a stepchild and no relation at all. This was plausible, but a theory Austin disregarded immediately. He knew they were brothers and the blood ties ran deep.

  Austin felt the air around him stir and the hair on his arms popped. Eve had returned. “You came back,” he said, trying to sound casual, trying to ignore the way he felt when she was near.

  “Why do you hide your feelings from me?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Human nature I guess,” he replied and wondered if that might sound stupid to her.

  Eve touched his arm. “I would like to take you somewhere. A place I used to go before everything changed.”

  Austin nodded and thought to ask if they were going far, but distance wasn’t a relevant measure where Eve was concerned.

  She reached out and took Austin’s hand, pulling him from the bed. “We’ll only be away for the night.”

  The air around them expanded and contracted like a giant breathing entity. Eve held Austin close to her as she whisked them through space. Moments later Austin found himself standing in the middle of an imposing bedroom. The walls were made of hefty stones, the windows stood floor to ceiling, and the furniture was built for a man of immense stature. An immense canopy bed sat in the center of the room and two fireplaces took up entire walls on opposite sides of the room. Several tall candle pillars provided globes of dancing light.

  “Where are we?” Austin asked, watching his breath mist in front of him.

  “Eastern Siberia.”

  Austin walked to the window, pulling aside the heavy drapery, he peered out over a vast wilderness of mountain peaks and valleys covered in snow and ice. “How high up?”

  “Eight thousand feet.”

  “Is that all?” he joked.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Nothing. I was being... nothing.” He turned back to her. “I thought you didn’t want me to go to Russia with you?”

  “I am going to another place not far from here and I will go alone.”

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  Eve considered his question, but had no answer that would satisfy him, other than the truth. “Because I wanted to be alone with you.” With that she raised her hands, palms outward, and gave a gentle push. Soon both fireplaces were crackling with fire, spreading heat into the frigid room.
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br />   “How do you do that?”

  “Transfer of energy.”

  “Where does the energy come from?”

  “Everywhere.” Eve walked over to Austin. “We don’t have much time. Are these the questions you wish to ask?”

  Austin shook his head. He didn’t want to ask questions or talk, he only wanted to kiss her. Eve stepped into his arms. Their lips met, tender at first and then more demanding. Austin picked her up and carried her to the bed. Inside, hidden behind the black velvet curtains, their bodies entwined, becoming one with each other.

  For the first time in her long existence Eve experienced the ecstasy of physical contact. She’d never desired to mate with a human, not even as Roxanne. During her years as Roxanne, she’d become her and had relied upon her memories and desires in order to behave in a manner appealing to Austin. She’d performed an act, one she’d been mentally removed from, one she treated as a necessary means to an end. However, tonight she was being Eve, mentally, physically and without a hidden agenda. And she found the experience to be unlike anything she’d ever felt or imagined. The satisfaction was not unlike her first kill.

  These were not the words Austin would have used to describe what took place between them. The only word going through his mind was more. He wanted more of her. And later, as he lay on his back, bathed in sweat, he wasn’t thinking of anything other than his desire to have her. He didn’t notice his heart rate being normal; the beats per minute being no indication of the efforts expelled over the past hour. That his heart rate was normal and that the cause was related to his mutated genes, were not in his thoughts. Eve’s hand touched his, sending a spark through his body. He pulled her on top of him, losing himself again.

  They spent the better part of the night with few words passing between them. In the early morning hours, before dawn’s first light, Eve lay in Austin’s arms listening to him breathe. She’d observed the human mating ritual many times and always thought the process complex and strange. The efforts taken by the male to entice the female were often covert and she didn’t wonder why they seldom came away with the fittest female, if any at all. The Svan mated in the year of the ninth moon. The strongest female chose the strongest male to produce the fittest of the species. Humans applied no such consideration into selecting a mate. Their process was driven by visual attraction first and foremost. For the males, especially the young, the need to satisfy the desire outweighed the need for procreation. Although after tonight Eve felt she better understood this drive, she still couldn’t grasp their unwillingness to strengthen their species, as the Adita did, as other civilizations did.

  Austin pulled the heavy blanket up to his waist. He knew Eve didn’t feel the cold air, but he was still human enough that his body temperature fluctuated.

  “What is this place?” he asked.

  “A fortress, or castle if you like, built by my great-great-grandfather Sattya. It has been here in these mountains for centuries, but no human has ever been here,” she paused, “until now.”

  “Should I be honored?”

  “Be whatever you like,” Eve replied.

  Austin smiled over the fact his sarcasm fell on deaf ears. He never thought pure honesty would unnerve him, but delivered by Eve had an unsettling effect on him. Many things about Eve were unsettling, but not all were negative.

  “Would you like to hear more about the Adita and the harvest?”

  After several seconds Austin replied, “Yes.”

  “You will not like what you hear about the harvest.”

  “I know.”

  Eve spread the drapery aside to allow in the warmth of the fireplace and rolled over on her back, keeping a hand on Austin’s arm. Touching him gave her a sense of being something different, something she imagined being human might feel like. Feeling at peace was not a sensation Eve recognized, all she knew was the hunger inside was satisfied for the moment.

  “The history of the Adita is known only by the Adita. The secrets I share go far beyond those of the Adita alone. By giving you this knowledge I give Agra more reasons to kill you. Are you sure you wish to know?”

  Austin nodded. “I think Agra was going to kill me anyway, but I don’t want to put you in danger.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. I have already broken many rules and fear I’ve outworn my welcome with my father,” she replied. “But let me begin, before the day appears and we have to return.”

  I don’t want to leave, was his first thought, which he pushed aside, feeling disgusted with himself for thinking such a gutless thing. Of course they would go back. Hiding from the Adita wasn’t an option and he wouldn’t abandon his friends.

  “We will return to your people,” Eve assured him and then began her story. As she spoke Austin forgot about the bunker and his guilt.

  “The Adita’s arrival on this planet took place in the middle of their extensive history. For you to understand the middle, I must start at a point earlier. We don’t have time to go back to the beginning as the history in-between is vast and made up of events too numerous to relay in the few hours we have. Thus I will tell you those that are most important. The first thing you need to understand is the structure of the universes. There are seven.” She drew seven perfect circles in the air that radiated light from the energy force within her. “These seven are separated and connected by dark matter.” She indicated the black space surrounding the seven circles. “Earth is here, in the third.” She pointed to a circle in the middle. “The universes are commanded by a group of Elders. They control everything within this realm. The suns, the moons, the winds, life. For countless years they were in agreement and wars were non-existent. The Adita lived and commanded the second and third universes. They lived in the second on a planet much like Earth, but smaller in size.”

  “Why did they leave?”

  “A vicious battle took place with the Mahat, a species from the fifth universe who make the Svan look less dangerous than your domestic cats. The Mahat had lost their Elders in an unsanctioned war with the Adita. The remaining Elders held a meeting to discuss appointment of a new governing group for the Mahat. During this time the Mahat attacked the planets of the second universe in retaliation. A grievous departure from the laws, but the damage was done. The Elders desperately wanted to prevent an all-out war and asked the Adita Elders to give the second universe to the Mahat as reparations. Our Elders acquiesced and in turn kept the third universe. Sort of an appeasement for their losses.”

  “Earth was the only inhabitable planet?”

  Eve nodded. “The Adita have not always been in the advanced form you see them today. The first of our kind evolved from a more primitive species. A savage beast you humans would say. They were the first inhabitants of Earth. When they arrived on Earth only the twelve Elders and maybe fifty guards remained; all others had been lost in the battle. As I told you before, Earth was inhabited only by the wildlife, and an abundance of it. Within a few months the Elders had settled into their new home. Unfortunately it wasn’t long before the Zari, also an unprincipled group, discovered the fertile planet. They arrived and with them brought the first humans.”

  “Brought them here? From where?”

  “They were purchased from the trade colony. The Zari used them as servants and some were kept like pets. They were not as advanced as you are today.”

  “Meaning?”

  “They were like your pet dog, but slightly smarter and more obedient.”

  Austin nodded.

  “The Elders avoided the Zari and the humans, keeping to the caves and only coming out at night. Food was plentiful and they had no need to fight. But then one of the Elders was caught stealing a goat. He was discovered by a male human tending his master’s property. Of course the man tried to fight, to defend his master’s possessions, but he was no match. The Elder, as was custom for the victor, drank the blood of his kill. This fateful encounter was the turning point in the Adita’s future. An event whose consequence changed our way of life forever. Fo
r you see, the blood he drank was the rarest of types. One they’d never tasted before. The Elder shared this blood with the other Elders. Their physical form took on a rapid transformation, turning them from beast into the Adita as you see them today. The change took thirteen hours. Within ten years they’d multiplied from twelve to twelve thousand and did so without the Zari’s knowledge.”

  “That’s a thousand babies a year.”

  “Our reproductive process is only forty-five days. The latter part of those years saw the biggest surge in reproduction. Without the Zari realizing it, they were sharing the planet with the Adita. And by the time the Adita outnumbered the Zari it was too late. On the night of the ninth moon they waged war, killing all the Zari, but sparing the humans.”

  “And claimed Earth as their own.”

  “Yes and then some.”

  Austin nodded for her to go on.

  “For millions of years the Adita thrived on Earth. They learned the difference in your blood types and sought out the rare blood they needed and only took selections from the fittest humans. The Adita grew stronger, more intelligent as the years went by, and at their peak they were the strongest species in the universes, defending the third universe from all others. They reclaimed the second from the Mahat, forcing them to become nomads. They elected themselves supreme leaders of the council of Elders. They thought they were invincible.”

  “They found out otherwise?”

  “They discovered just how vulnerable they’d become,” Eve replied. “When the plague hit, they were unprepared. Now they are weak and without the blood they so desperately need in order to regain their former power. If they were challenged in battle they would most likely suffer great losses, if not total defeat. The only thing saving them is their ability to shield their weaknesses from the prying eyes of their enemies.”