Both look to the smae direction now. Aaron understands Joseph's idea. There is an ecoboat by the riverbank, used to remove waste from the river. It's floating aimlessly. A possibility outside the sea of abandoned cars.
"Are you sure about this? Does this rives take us outside the city?" Aaron asks, concerned about the next steps.
"Yes, Tietê's course flows to the countryside and we're definitely going to have less obstacles if we choose this path."
"Good, you're the one who lives here. I'm going to let Carlyle know about out change of plans." The agent answers, as he turns towards the back of the bus.
Chapter 26
Yura and endless surprises.
"Over." "Shepherd, I have noticed a bike speeding through the debris. Also, a group of people have gotten down from a van near Tietê's riverbank. I'm waiting for instructions. Over."
"Zealot, your orders are clear. The survivor must be taken to the Temple and interrogated. If needed, employ leathal force."
"Yes, shephard, sir. Over."
◆◆◆
A few hours pass and it goes dark. While her companions try to find a place to get into the boat, Yura keeps doing her scouting.
She beheads another insane one with a precise axe blow. She is tired. Very tired. Despite her perfect physical conditioning, she is drained.
Were it not for the dark powers that move her, she would have fainted. Even then, she needed a quick stop to catch her breath, which would be the perfect time for the insane ones to attack.
Three insane ones, their skin covered by dark red blots, rush towards her at the same time. She tries to avoide them, but the exhaustion makes her miscalculate her movements and forces her to get down from the bike to avoif being hit.
An insane one, a bearded man, rushes in to grab her. Yura ducks to dodge his attack and hits him in the nose. Her adversary howls in pain without taking his eyes off her.
She can't catch a break. Another one tries to hit her with a crowbar. She is so tired she can't react in time. Yuna gets hit.
The wound is not superficial. The iron breaks her skin and hits her bone. She ducks in pain, steadying her body with a hand on the ground. She starts bleeding. The insane one who hit the blow removes his weapon from the wound causing Yura to suffer more pain. Her eyes are hazy. She feels her strength betraying her.
The enemy presses on. Another blow, this one to her back, slams Yura against the ground. The inane ones jump her, starting to bite.
Sudenly, the sond of a shot and a sequence of high caliber bangs.
The rifle rounds hit the enemies surrounding the Ukranian one by one, killing them instantly. The head of one of them explodes and its corpse falls on top of her. The bearded man snarls toward sthe shots but it doesn't take long until another barrage tears apart the body of the last insane one. Yura doesn't move.
As soon as Joseph sees Yura being hit, he screams to Aaron. Both run.
The shots they fire from afar kill the insane ones. They are coming from a building's rooftop. Aaron manages to see two figures shooting.
Several people in military outfits walk among the cars and take startegic positions, points their guns to Yura. Aaron drags Joseph behind a car, instinctively.
Both of you, freeze! Gund to the ground!" A commanding voice orders.
Aaron and Joseph look around. They are soldiers with dark fatigues, carrying war gear, most of it military rifles. All of the outfits have somethign in common, the symbol of the Christian fish, the Icthus.
"Put your guns on the ground and your hands in the air. You are under arrest, in the name of the Zealot Christ Church."
"They look at each other, confused."
"Last warning! Throw your guns to the ground and leave with your hands in the air!"
Joseph reacts to the threats first. He opens fire against the soldiers, who answer in kind. The whirr of shots bouncing off the cars overtakes the area.
The doctor is precise and takes one opponent down with a shot to the neck, followed by one on another's shoulder. Joseph feels confident, but looks for cover to avoid being hit.
"Excellent shots, doc!" Aaron congratulateshim.
"Don't celebrate, they are many. We need to get to Yura."
"Working on it, doc." The agent, despite being low to the ground, analyzes the situation judiciously, trying to come up with a plan to reach his fallen companion. "But keep distracting them!"
More shots against the agents, this time from the rooftop, force them to change position so as not to be ducks in a pond.
Joseph takes two opponents down shooting from the new position, but he is hit in the shoulder and falls down.
"Damn it!"
Aaron runs to check if the doctor is well.
"Lay still, I'm going to fix this."
The Blade veteran kneels and puts both hand on the asphault.
"Pele, goddess of fire and volcanos, I, Aaron, your initiate son, ask you to channel my flames through your veins."
The body of the kneeling agent bursts with blue fire and his hands sink in the melted asphault.
"Ke Ahi, Lua Pele, Ke Ahi, He’enemi!"
As he chants these words of power, the asphault puffs up. The ground breaks open violently in a radial pattern starting from the agent's hands, creating crack that spread quickly towards the enemies.
Cars are lifted, underground pipes burst, releasing columns of fire from the cracks. The soldiers are consumed by burning blue pillars.
Joseph has to cover his eyes to avoid being blinded by the glow of his mater's power. In few moments the screams of their attackers are replaced by silence and their bodies are reduced to piles of ash.
The veteran gets up without saying a word, lays a hand on the doctor's shouldr and walks toward Yura's body.
The Ukranina is not moving. She is badly hurt. Joseph crouches and tries to feels her pulse. Nothing.
"We lost Yura." He mourns.
"But... wasn't she invincible?"
"Nothing is invincble. Come, help me take her body close to the others, we'll take a boar through the river."
Carlyle and Angiolina take the news of Yura's death with sadness. But they stay quiet. There is no time to mourn. Carlyle performs the Blade's prayer towards Yura. They grab their stuff and get on the boar carefully.
The four survivors take the boat towards the countryside. They hope the amount of abandoned cars is going to decrease and allow them to move quickly again. They hope find, finally, the scientist they came to rescue. The long journey to Nix Observatory is still on.
Epilogue
The nurse brings Melissa back to her room. She is badly hurt. This time, her tormented lifted the tendons from her arms and legs, using tweezers and scalpels. Once again there was nothing to reveal and nothing she would reveal.
For the first time the nurse looks to her prisioner with sad, compassionate eyes. Melissa is still in shock. Her limbs move involuntarily, the damage to her tendons causes intense pain and random spasms.
Melissa repeats the frase "I didn't now anything, I always telling the truth" over and over while the nurse tries to clean her. She can't stop the bleeding easily. The frequent spasms open the stitches.
"I didn't know anything. I swer, I don't know anything." Melissa pleads, looking at her caretaker.
"I know that, but I can't do anything." She says compassionately for the first time, injecting a large dose of a dark fluid into the patient's veins. "I think this will help with the pain."
The scientist starts feeling the immediate effects of the drug. The pain passes but she is still awake. She feels as if her mind is apart from her injured body. She watches in silence as the nurse treats her.
"My name is Elizabeth. Can you believe I was a Chemistry teacher?" Elziabeth estarts talking.
Melissa looks at her and tries to communicate; the result is a groan.
"Unfortunately, you won't be able to talk to me now. This painkiller is very good, but it prevents the patient from having control over their body. T
he natives call it "silent death". For a few hours, no one will be able to distinguish you from a corpse."
Indeed, Melissa notices she doesn't control her body anymore. Elizabeth feels relived when she sees her patient is not in pain anymore.
"I don't know why you're going through this, but Nix Instute higher ups told me nothing. The last piece of information I had is that you hold something very important to them. Something related to the solar system."
The scientist listens attentively. Without the pain, her mind works better, trying to unravel Elizabeth's words.
"But don't worry. I'm done with being complicit with this monster. I won't let you suffer anymoe. Now you need to rest and recover. Leave the rest to me. This has to end."
Melissa falls into a deep sleep.
◆◆◆
The morning heat wakes Melissa up. Her vision is hazy, foggy. She doesn't know how many hours or days passed. Her mouth is dry, filled with dirt and leaves.
When her sight clearls, she tries to move and notices she is in the middle of a hospital waste pile. Her body aches slightly, but she thinks back to the serum she was injected with.
She is free and that's what matters. She is alive. Elizabeth fulfilled her promise.
With an impulse, Melissa rolls her body out of the pile and starts looking for clothes in the trash bags. She needs to get rid of the hospital clothes to avoid drawin attention to herself.
She finds a white T-shirt and sweatpants and wears them. The pile of waste is in bank behind Nix Institute. Melissa can see the complex's tall stone towers standing, imposing. Beyond these walls are the University, the Observatory and the research Institute.
She gathered lots of information while she was kept in the Institute. On how it is run by the First Apocryphal and his mimions. But some questions still remain: is he the leader of a criminal organization? Why did Elizabeth change? And what is the big plan behind her arrest and her escape?
These questions and many others cross Melissa's minds. Her thoughts are interrupted by continuous sirens. It's the end of the shift. She doesn't have time to think and runs towards the dense woods of Serra da Bruma.
Continues on Part 2
About the Author
Marco Antônio Loureiro.
Writes scripts, comic books, novels and RPG settings. Member of Associação Brasileira de Autores Roteiristas. Content Director and Script Writer at Canivete Films. Runs Dungeon Geek in São Paulo, a RPG assembly, and is part of Studio Dungeon Tower, creating settings and developing tabletop games.
He walks between Lovecraftian horror looks at his Brazilian influence as a potential fictional setting. Dark fantasy is his main focus, be it on contemporary or medieval settings.
The Star Eater Page 13