Trials

by Kady Cross

  “You said you were going to do what with my eyes, little girl?” the massive mule growled.

  “You heard me, you piece of shit. When I’m done with you, you’re going to be a pile of bile. You won’t be fit for dogs to eat.” She connected with a punch to his groin. He flinched, but didn’t double-over like a human male would have. Then he lifted her as high as he could, releasing one hand to grab her securely around the throat. He squeezed.

  Alaska could already hear Jeep gasping, trying to say something—probably trying to threaten her strangler. Jeep should’ve been able to break his grip with some flashy mule move, but she didn’t. She just hung there, dying. Sacrificing her life . . . as a distraction.

  And then, all of a sudden Hawkes was choking. It was nothing Jeep was doing. Or Alaska.

  Keeping his hold on Jeep’s ankle and neck, he turned to glare bulging eyes at Marta, the Air mage at Alaska’s side. The girl stood still, shivering in the cold. Sweat broke out on forehead, and she looked like she was going to faint. Another sacrifice. Another distraction.

  And Alaska wasn’t going to waste it.

  She eased back into the woods, and once out of the sergeant’s sight, rushed a short distance to the side, to emerge in Hawkes’s blind spot. Sneaking up behind the mule, she got as close as she dared and aimed the weapon directly at the back of his head, careful not to risk Jeep. “Help me now, oh Lord. You owe me,” she said, squeezing the trigger twice. Two swift bullets into the man’s skull. Hawkes stood motionless in front of her, no longer struggling with Jeep. Without waiting to see if he still lived, she fired another two rounds into his head.

  Pieces of skull bone, blood, and brains spattered her, as a fist-sized hole formed three inches above the back of his neck. His body toppled forward, onto Jeep. Alaska heard a terrible snap beneath him, and Jeep screamed in pain. Alaska dropped the gun and scrambled to move the big mule from atop her. She couldn’t budge him.

  “I got it. I got it,” Jeep said, her voice muffled. Slowly she edged her way out from beneath him, using her legs and one arm. Her left arm dragged limp at her side. Jeep started to lever herself up, but an explosion jerked her attention to a point in the distance. “Holy hellhole,” she whispered.

  Along the access road leading away from the main compound, they could see vehicles driving away, including the flatbed carrying the Darkness. Behind the vehicles ran Jeremiah, the orange flame he’d befriended hovering above him. Soldiers in the turrets of the Humvees and perched atop the container on the truck fired rifles and RPGs at him, but the flame extended itself into a shield in front of him, deflecting the bullets and letting the grenades explode harmlessly inches away from his face.

  The vehicles picked up speed, starting to pull away from the “human,” but Jeremiah raised his arms and the flame flowed onto them. Balls of fire formed in his hands, and he threw them at the escaping vehicles. The fireballs streaked through the air, unerringly striking soldiers, who fell from their vehicles engulfed in flames, screaming. One burning soldier fell back inside his Humvee. The vehicle swerved and crashed into the vehicle behind it, forming a burning barricade stopping the flatbed truck.

  Jeremiah advanced on his target, launching fireball after fireball at the container on the flatbed. At first, the fire seemed to have no effect on the metal container, but then, with a load groan, a hole ripped through the door of the container from the inside. A scaly, dark arm emerged, and a bolt of black lightning lanced out at Jeremiah. The orange flame extended itself into a shield around the human, but more lightning bolts arced from the Darkness to strike from all sides. The dark energy danced around Jeremiah’s flame-ringed body, and in seconds the flame was overwhelmed. Lightning flashed through a gap in the flames, and with a massive “pop,” Jeremiah exploded.

  “No!” Alaska yelled, as her best friend flew apart, burning limbs soaring away from the detonation point. Tears flooded her eyes as grief crushed her to her knees, but unable to tear her gaze away from the scene, Alaska watched the fiery fragments that had been Jeremiah reverse course, coalescing into an orange ball of fire that rose into the sky. In the midst of it, they could see an image of Jeremiah’s face entwined in the flames. The image rotated and the fire-Jeremiah seemed to see them. He looked oddly happy as the image slowly broke up into licks of flame that winked out one by one. Alaska tried to reach out her mind to his, but she felt nothing, not a ghost of a memory.

  “We can toast marshmallows in his honor later, Ala. Now we move.” Alaska allowed Jeep to pull her toward the forest. “You and the girl follow the trail Colin and Davey blazed for us. I’ll take the rear.”

  “Wait. I can help us.” Marta raised her arms and the wind picked up, ripping the snow and ice away to hide their footprints and their scent, tossing obstacle course equipment about to complicate pursuit, whipping snow horizontally to hide them from normal sight and infrared sensors. Then she collapsed onto the snow.

  “I got her,” Jeep said. She handed Alaska her rifle, and lifted Marta over her good shoulder. “You take the rear, Ala. Keep checkin’ behind us.”

  When dawn broke they were still plodding through the snow. They kept their heads down and kept moving, their fear of recapture barely holding their exhaustion at bay. Before noon fatigue won.

  “Halt,” Alaska called, her voice raspy, and softer than she’d expected. She was thirsty. She was tired. She was cold. “I need . . .”

  She collapsed against the frozen bark of a tree. Her whole body hurt.

  Colin found a tree and placed his brother down beside it. Davey had been drifting in and out of consciousness for hours—mostly out. Without medical care that none of them could give, Alaska knew he wouldn’t make it.

  Jeep eased the mage from her right shoulder and put Marta on her feet. Her left arm still hung useless. The neomage huddled beside Alaska. Only Jeep remained standing. She took back the rifle and faced outward, senses alert for pursuers.

  “I’ll keep watch in this direction,” Alaska said. Jeep only smiled as Alaska quickly drifted into a troubled sleep.

  Shooting and explosions sounded all around her—the attack on her hometown. On the ground lay her sweet mother, her lifeless blue eyes staring into nothingness. Aunt Cora lay nearby, her dead hand still outstretched to Alaska. And the Army officer—he shouldn’t be here, and yet it felt somehow natural that he was. Alaska stood looking at her lost family…lost herself, unsure of what to do.

  The people moved around her but there was only silence.

  Then a man bent in front of her, lifted her chin with one hand, while the other held her arm. He was beardless and looked kind. His hair was long and dark . . . and he had wings . . . beautiful wings of interweaving purple and red . . . wings like the seraphs in the kirk paintings.

  “Are you hurt, little one?” he’d asked. His voice was deep, musical.

  “I want my Momma,” she’d cried, and he pulled her to his chest and held her close, rocking her while she wailed into his neck.

  “This pain will pass, little one. It will strengthen you. You will have the strength to lead the weak to safety, to banish those who would do humans and mages harm, to help the deserving overcome what your world suffers, and to kill those who cause the suffering, whether they claim to be of the Light or the Darkness. That is, if you choose to use your pain.”

  He kissed her forehead and said, “Know that I will always be watching you.”

  Then Jeep was saying something, but Alaska couldn’t quite understand what it was. It was getting louder, though.

  “Wake up, Ala. Wake up!”

  She jerked awake. “What is it?” she said, her hands searching the ground for the handgun. “Are they here? Have they followed us?”

  “I woke you because you were goin’ on in your sleep. You were distressin’ Marta,” Jeep said, and she needs her rest.”

  Alaska felt her face, and there was moisture freezing there. “Was I . . . crying?”

  “Yeah. It was weird. I never seen you cry before. It’s
unnervin’.”

  “Sorry. I was having a dream from the Before Times”—what they called their lives before Suarez—“a dream I haven’t had for years.”

  “I’m cold and hungry,” Marta said from the ball she was rolled up in, her head barely peeking out of the coat she wore.

  “Davey’s hurt bad,” Colin chimed in. “Jeep’s arm is swollen to three times its size. We need help.”

  A pang of guilt struck and Alaska sighed. “I’m afraid I didn’t have much of a plan when I said we should save Marta. There wasn’t time to prepare. We have one rifle, a handgun, no extra ammunition, no food, no clothing, blankets . . .”

  “Don’t feel bad for us,” Jeep said. “We volunteered.” Colin chuckled. “We have our lives. We have us,” said Jeep. “The rest is details.”

  “She’s right,” a deep male voice came from a few yards ahead.

  Jeep shifted the rifle muzzle at the newcomer. His hands were held up, empty of weapons—the only thing that prevented Jeep from shooting immediately. He was tall wearing a heavy coat. The features beneath his hood looked Native American.

  “How did you sneak up on me?” Jeep demanded.

  “I’m no threat to you, young ones,” he said, not moving. The rifle didn’t move either. “I’ve come to bring you the details. Here is food and other supplies,” he said, his boot-toe nudging a heavy-looking sack on the ground.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I’m, Noah, servant of the watcher Rama, once called Ramiel, before he sinned and fell from the Most High. My master had been the “angel of hope and interpreter of visions. He sent me to help Alaska Stanhope and her friends get out of here.”

  “I’m not Alaska Stanhope. My last name is Jonas.”

  “Jonas is your mother’s name. You are also the daughter of Jason Stanhope.”

  “Fine. The father who abandoned me was named Stanhope. Big deal.”

  “Your cousin Jeremiah is . . . was . . . son of Sharon Anne Stanhope.”

  “Jeremiah was a long-lost cousin that I didn’t know about? Is that it? Is Jeremiah the only one or do I have other cousins? Aunts? Uncles? Brothers and sisters?” her voice getting louder, angrier with each question.

  Noah just shook his head. “I don’t know. Your father’s still alive, so it’s possible. I do know that you’re descendants of the Mole Man.”

  Alaska stood up, her face a mask of confusion. “Mole Man? Now I’m a descendant of the Mole Man? Like in the stories?”

  “Enough about mole people,” Jeep interrupted. “You said someone’s watching us?”

  “Rama, has been watching over you, Alaska Stanhope, since he first encountered you in the mountains.”

  “Watching over me? A seraph watching over me?”

  Noah hesitated before answering. “Not—yes. Effectively, yes.”

  She thought of the winged being in her dream, the flames, the screams. Tears welled up in her eyes, rolling down to freeze to her cheeks. “If that’s true, he’s done a terrible job.”

  “You were where you needed to be, Alaska, as was Jeremiah.”

  “He let me be imprisoned? I needed that? I was just a little girl. And what about the other kids? All of us kids! Jeremiah!” she yelled.

  “Lashon, was Rama’s servant flame, sent to Jeremiah when he was most needed. He helped you escape. I’ve been sent to start you on your next journey.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Yes. I was told you’d be stubborn.”

  “A strange man accosts me in the woods and tells me he’s here to save us, and I’m expected to just go with him? I’m not letting you take me from one prison to the next.”

  Suddenly Colin was standing to the left of Alaska, brandishing a butcher’s cleaver menacingly, his glare grim. Jeep stood on Alaska’s right with the gun.

  “I am here to help you, not imprison you,” Noah said. “But have it your way. These supplies are yours. Five miles from here I have a truck that can take you to a town where they won’t ask questions—or further, if you’d prefer.”

  Alaska turned to Marta and Colin, “I think maybe you should go with him. He can get you to safety and help Davey. I need to go back. Suarez wasn’t there last night, but he’ll be coming when he gets word of what happened. I want to make sure he pays for what he did to us.”

  Noah sniffed the smoke-filled air. “You and your friends have destroyed his camp—though I know he has others. You’ve killed several of his trainers and troops. But more importantly, you’ve taken away some of his best—alive. He won’t sleep comfortably until every last one of you is dead. You can barely stand, and his men will be ready for you. You’ve done plenty for your first day of independence, Alaska Stanhope, don’t you think?”

  When Alaska didn’t reply, Noah shrugged and started walking west. As he wove through the trees, he began singing Jeremiah’s frog song.

  The group watched him go, and then turned their eyes to Alaska. Half a minute passed in silence.

  Marta broke the silence. “I trust you. I go where you go.”

  “What the mage said,” Jeep added.

  “We’re in,” Colin said, rifling through the supplies for food, and brandishing a package of crackers triumphantly above his head. He threw his brother over his shoulder and tossed the crackers to the neomage with his free arm.

  “Holy hellhole,” Alaska said, stealing Jeep’s favorite term. “This isn’t over, Jeep. Suarez will die at my hands.”

  “Agreed, Ala.”

  “Absolutely,” chimed in Marta.

  Alaska looked over her motley group and sighed. She could still hear the man singing in the distance. As she headed down the path he took, she couldn’t help but join him, singing the frog song.

  CHRISTINA STILES is an award-winning freelance tabletop roleplaying game writer, editor, and developer from South Carolina, who occasionally tries her hand at fiction and game publishing. She is the developer and co-author of THE ROGUE MAGE RPG: Roleplaying in the World of Faith Hunter, and her current project is the MEDUSA GUIDE FOR GAMER GIRLS. She teaches game-writing and critical thinking as an English professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC.

  Christina can be reached at https://www.facebook.com/christina.stiles1

  or on Twitter at @koboldminion7

  The Stars Were Right

  84 PA / 2096 AD

  Spike Y Jones

  “Okay, everybody, look smart: thirty-five minutes to launch.”

  “Thirty-five minutes to nothing,” muttered someone from behind his back.

  “Who said that? Who was it?” Jay Kelly’s face was already red from recent days of exposure to the Florida sun, and the rising blood turned it almost purple.

  After a few awkward silent moments, a man stepped forward. Kelly didn’t recognize him, but there’d been a lot of new people—replacement people—hired in the days immediately leading up to the launch.

  “I said it. Because it’s stupid. It’s not a launch. The fly boys’re just putting it there for you.”

  “Fly—? That’s it. Talking back to the launch director? Fired. Jeopardizing brand integrity? Fired. Dragon-loving blasphemy—in the presence of the High Host no less? Fired!”

  At the mention of the seraphim some of the other crew members glanced around nervously, but there was still only one seraph present, Ar-R’ad, Driver of the Clouds, and he was safely distant, apparently talking comfortably with the technicians making final checks on the refurbished satellite.

  The now-unemployed gaffer left with only a rude gesture at Director Kelly, who turned to yelling at the rest of TV crew. “This is the biggest thing that ever happened to SNN. Launching our own branded satellite will put SNN on the map—on every map. Everything has to be perfect, so just follow the script. Now someone test the smoke generator again; how many times do I have to tell you that everything has to be just right?”

  “Thirty minutes to launch. Going live in five, four, three, two . . .”

  “It’
s 11:30 a.m. here at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Welcome to this special broadcast of the launch of the SNN Satellite News Network satellite. I’m Matthew Thomas.”

  “And I’m Mary McGowan.”

  “We’re live in our special window-on-the-launch studio here at the New Kennedy Space Center, where in a few short minutes a septad of seraphs will launch the SNN satellite into orbit, to make SNN the only news network to have its own dedicated satellite in orbit. And, Mary, I believe you have a special guest . . .”

  “Very special, Matthew. As we watch live the final countdown to the twelve noon launch, I’d like to bring in Administration of the ArchSeraph Envoy Eustace Madder, who was instrumental in securing the aid of the seraphim for the launch of SNN’s dedicated worldwide broadcast satellite. Ambassador Madder, welcome to the broadcast.”

  “Thank you, Miss McGowan.”

  “Feel free to call me Mary. Can you tell our viewers a bit about your communications with the Herald Ar-Ra’d? Is he really as approachable as some have said? And have you met other seraphs? Is Ar-R’ad different in any respects from those other emissaries?”

  “Well, Miss McGowan, we must be careful not to engage in gossip. But I’d be happy to provide education to your viewers about this emissary of the Most High. When . . .”

  “Dragon’s balls! I thought I told you to get the godforsaken smoke machine working. This is all about visuals. If we get this right, our viewers will feel like they’re right here beside us. It’ll be as big as sliced bread.”

  “What’s sliced br . . .”

  “Shut up. But if you spawn-brained idiots screw this up . . .”

  “T-minus five minutes and holding. T-minus five minutes and . . .”

  “As you just heard Mission Control say over the loudspeakers, we’re still in a launch delay here at the New Kennedy Space Center. We’ve called our technical expert, retired Air Force pilot Colonel Richard Wainwright, into the studio to explain the technical issues that have delayed the launch of SNN’s satellite, and to talk about some of the dangers that make this launch anything but routine. Colonel Wainwright, welcome back.”