It should have hurt, some corner of my mind decided, but I barely felt it. Little more than an odd, numb tugging sensation. Elise was at my other side now. I couldn’t move my head to see what had become of my attacker. I tried to ask, but I’m not sure much came out.
“She’s running,” Elise said, her face tight, her hand on my cheek, though I couldn’t seem to feel it.
A ruckus in the hallway outside. Sounds like a full company charging into battle. With effort, I flicked my eyes toward the door. Legionnaires were pouring into the room, sweeping with their rifles, a squad of medics right on their tails.
Elise yelled something I couldn’t quite understand. Added something to Johnny in a tense tone. And then they were gone, replaced by half a dozen medics, all buzzing about my bed like a frenzied colony of grasscutter bugs—all serious faces and methodical movements. Something turned my world, and then there was Melanie, standing where Johnny had just been, eyes wide with concern. Her lips were moving. She was talking to me, touching my face, shining a light in my eye. I couldn’t seem to hear a thing. Couldn’t feel her hands on my face.
Something was wrong, I knew. It was impossible not to know with this army of grim-faced grasscutters busy at work around me. My world was closing in. Melanie abandoned her light. Put her face right in mine, mouthing something with big, deliberate movements of those goja fruit lips. She did it again. And again.
Hold on.
Hold on.
But I couldn’t.
21
Rumors
I woke to dimmed lights, a world of pain, and an unstoppable need to vomit.
“Medic,” someone rumbled in a deep voice to the right.
There was a gasp to my left. Then I lost it, lurched forward, and retched into… into a bucket?
Where the scud had that come from?
“It’s okay,” said a gentle voice, an equally gentle hand rubbing my back. “Get it all out.”
I didn’t have time to question or argue. I retched again. And again. On and on for what felt like an hour, until I was left simply shaking, clinging to the bucket like a life raft. Cold sweat on my forehead. Hot, tangy bile coating the back of my throat, the taste seeping unpleasantly along the sides of my tongue.
“He’s good?” the deep voice asked—Edwards, I realized as my sleep-muddled brain finished rebooting.
“He’s good,” said the second voice. Melanie.
I pulled my face from the bucket opening with a groan. “I think…” I tried. Alpha, my mouth was dry. “… think good’s a pretty scuddy choice of words.”
Edwards chuckled in the corner. “Damn, kid. Keep it up and I might actually start believing the rumors about you.”
“Rumors?” I tried to sit up. Winced. Glanced weakly around to where giant Edwards was crammed into an arm chair, his feet propped up on a smaller stool, uncannily large sidearm in hand and heavy rifle propped nearby. Beside him, the windows had been covered over with some dark opaque polymer, shutting us off from the outside world. “But you’ve seen me.”
“Oh yeah,” Edwards said, following my gaze to our newly installed privacy panels. “Catching slugs and jumping buildings, sure. But I’m talking about the rumors that’re saying you can’t be killed.”
I snorted, then profusely apologized when the act spewed a few lingering flecks of my sick onto Melanie’s hand, still holding the bucket at the ready. She barely seemed to notice, finishing her professional inspection of me before handing over the bucket, shooting each of us a stern look, and going to the sink.
“Just to be clear,” she said, washing her hands with a kind of absentminded precision, “we won’t be testing that rumor anytime soon.” She smiled at me, patting her hands dry. “Medic’s orders.”
“Alpha be kind,” Edwards affirmed quietly.
I touched fist to chest in a casual salute, my lips returning her smile of their own volition—at least until everything else started coming back to me. The reason for the dark panels stifling us in place of windows, and Edwards’ presence, and the fireteam I felt outside my door.
“Where are Johnny and Elise? What happened to that… person?”
That telepathic person, I wanted to say, but I wasn’t sure it was wise to broadcast what had truly happened here. Because if that woman had been what I thought she was, I wasn’t sure what was safe to say, or whom it was safe to say it to.
Who did you turn to when a Seeker of the Sanctum tried to assassinate you in the middle of a Legion stronghold?
Maybe I was being paranoid. Maybe I’d hallucinated the entire bit about her being a telepath. How would I know? It wasn’t like I’d been clear of mind. But at least the fact that I had armed guards and that Johnny and Elise had deemed it safe to leave me here suggested they’d talked to Glenbark and had the situation under control. Hopefully.
I came back from my thoughts to find Edwards and Melanie watching me expectantly.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said they stormed off to catch your, you know,” Edwards said, with a wave of his fingers, “your person.”
“What?”
“Wingard and your lady. They left after the medics told them they had control of your situation. Went to go try to find—”
“No, I got that part. I meant what as in what, you just let a pair of teenagers go chasing after the woman who infiltrated Haven and nearly killed me?”
“They’re both okay,” Melanie said, taking the bucket from my hands and sitting down to begin a series of light exams.
“It was fine,” Edwards said, waving a dismissive hand. “Half the base was already sweeping for intruders by then. You couldn’t throw a stick without hitting a legionnaire out there.”
“And yet they came up empty-handed?” I guessed.
“Yeah.” Edwards frowned. “Kinda spooky, right?”
“Spooky,” I muttered. “That’s one word for her.”
“Go on,” Edwards said, leaning forward expectantly.
It was my turn to frown. “About what?”
“No. Nothing.” Edwards glanced hesitantly at Melanie, then back to me. “Rumor just has it she was, shall we say, on the pretty side. Confirmed?”
“I don’t know, man,” I mumbled, my hand drifting to the earlobe she’d quite unexpectedly molested. “I was kinda busy dying in the dark. What is it with you and rumors anyway?”
Edwards gave an innocent shrug and leaned back into his chair, looking disappointed.
Honestly, aside from the clear conclusion that someone wanted me dead, I wasn’t sure what to make of any part of the dangerously close encounter. Mostly, I just wanted a damn shower. Which wasn’t surprising considering my last one had been before I’d crammed into an armor skin, gotten kidnapped, fought through an incursion, and then spent a day mostly unconscious in the medica.
It was turning out to be a rough couple of days.
“Did Elise say…?”
Again, I faltered over the thought of revealing that my attacker had been gifted.
“She didn’t say much,” Melanie provided when I failed to continue. “They came back to check on you a couple hours ago. She, uh… well, she wasn’t very happy.”
Something about the way she said it, the way she pointedly avoided my eyes.
“Wasn’t happy about…?”
“About any of it, I’d think.” She turned away to consult the machines at my bedside. “I’m sure they’ll be back soon. Guess you can ask her yourself.”
Behind her back, Edwards gave me a pointed look then hooked his fingers like claws and bared his teeth like a hissing feline.
What in the love of Alpha was happening? Pervy assassins in the night, and now what? Had Elise and Melanie butted heads when I’d been out?
My heart beat faster at the thought. Had I been caught? Caught at what? I hadn’t done anything wrong, had I?
I suppressed a sigh and tried to ignore Edwards as I swiped out messages to both Johnny and Elise that I was awake and wanted to talk. Then, chiding mys
elf for not thinking of it first, I added a message to Franco.
Franco, for his part, responded in the time it took Melanie to finish her inspection of my vitals. She settled into the armchair at my bedside with a contended sigh as I pulled up his message.
That was for damn sure. Between the hybrid attack at Humility and the one on my life right here in the medica, the run-in with Pasty and Hawk Nose almost felt like it was just a dream that had never really happened at all. But I couldn’t forget those ancient texts, and that strange telepathic helmet Pasty had forced on me.
Could those two really be some kind of remnant of the Emmútari? Descendants of the original members, maybe? Sworn guardians of what knowledge remained?
Each explanation that occurred to me felt more ridiculous than the last. Maybe I’d get lucky and the raknoth would manage to finish me off before I had to worry about any of this mess.
But then I remembered what Glenbark had said last night, and Carlisle’s words weren’t far behind. True guilt poured through me. Because there was an entire planets’ worth of people to help before I could earn the right to even joke about giving up.
I had to find Pasty and his tomes again. Or I had to figure it out myself. Either way, I had to do something other than lie here in this damn bed, resting. I glanced at Melanie, wanting to ask for something I knew was impossible. I was too fried to be useful to anyone, no matter how badly I wanted to be.
Somehow, Edwards chose that moment to stand up, stretch, and declare he was going to check in with the fireteam out in the hall. I swear to Alpha it was like he was mocking my bedridden corpse—swore it firmly enough that I forgot to say anything. Melanie just gave him a tired nod.
Once he was gone, silence stretched between us, tinged with an uncomfortable edge.
“Do you need to go see your other patients?” I asked.
Her lip twitched. “Trying to get rid of me?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, I just don’t wanna be a burden or get you in trouble or anything.”
“Well, that’s sweet of you, but…” She yawned. “But I’m technically not on medica duty right now.”
Not on duty? Had she stayed here all night for me?
“Orders came down,” she said, reading my unspoken question. “I volunteered.”
Somehow, the admission made her look three times more exhausted.
“Melanie… You should get some rest.” My eyes flicked to Edwards’ hulking form out in the hallway. “Rumor has it they already work you medics to the bone as it is.”
She bobbed her head in tired agreement, but didn’t move—warring with some unspoken thought.
“What is it?” I finally asked.
“I just… I’m worried. About you.”
I patted my chest as if to say Look, all good here. It hurt. “I feel fine,” I said anyway. “Whatever she gave me, whatever you did, I think I’m okay.”
She frowned a little, like she wanted to launch into an extensive list of the reasons I was not okay, but the look passed. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not worried about your immediate physical health.” She cocked her head. “Although we might have to talk if you’re looking to make a habit of jumping off worship halls and everything.”
When I said nothing, she pushed on.
“It’s just that… there’s been a lot of talk about you.”
“In the medica?” I asked, knowing full well that wasn’t what she meant.
“In Haven. On Enochia.” She swiped a few commands on her tablet and handed it to me. “Pretty much every headline on the WAN and anywhere else is either about the attacks or you.”
Glenbark hadn’t been kidding last night. Mostly, the reels were filled with news of yesterday’s planet-wide attacks—reports, reactions, and wild speculations about what it all meant. But there, peppered with unsettling frequency between the real news, were the pieces that made my pulse race and my stomach squirm.
Haldin Raish - The Demon Who Lived.
Haldin Raish - The Savior of Humility.
Demon of Divinity Strikes Again.
There were dozens of them. Hundreds. Praising my name. Cursing it. Saying pretty much everything else in between.
“Apparently there was an amateur videographer in the crowd,” Melanie said as I opened one and was greeted by a vid straight from Humility. “She caught it all. Threw the vid on the net within the hour, declaring you the savior of Humility.”
I watched with morbid fascination as a disheveled figure with the torn tatters of civilian clothing over his armor-skin leapt from the worship hall steeples, impossibly far. I flinched as he hit the ground and rolled. Hopped to his feet and took off like… Sweet Alpha, like a demon. Seeing it from the outside perspective, I couldn’t believe that had been me. It barely looked real. It certainly didn’t look human. Especially not when Screen Hal let out a blood-chilling scream and launched himself a good thirty feet into the air.
No wonder I was pissing blood.
The vid cut from the scene at Humility to a headshot of a commentator I didn’t recognize. Melanie reached over and froze the vid before the guy could get two words out.
“You’re a hero,” she said firmly. “Never mind what they might say.”
“I might have to mind it if the Sanctum decides they made a mistake playing along with the Legion’s pardon and suffering a demon to live.”
Assuming they hadn’t already decided that and sent a certain slippery Seeker to end me in my sleep—which, given the evidence, was kind looking like exactly what they’d done.
“This is why I was…” She sighed and took the tablet carefully back from me, avoiding my eyes. “You’re not a demon, Haldin.”
A dozen responses shot through my head, from No scud, all the way to You can’t prove that, and so what if I am?
“Do you believe in Alpha?” I finally asked.
She looked taken aback. “Of course I do.”
“So why wouldn’t you believe the Sanctum about me?”
She faltered and dropped her gaze like she already knew her answer wasn’t really an answer at all. “The High Cleric has yet to comment on any of this.”
“And what if he said I was pure evil? That I was a demon of the nether, and that I needed to be purged from Enochia?”
She was silent for a long while, conflict heavy in the furrow of her brow. I was about to tell her to forget about it when she spoke, quietly.
“I believed them the first time they said those things about you. And I was wrong. And I’m sorry for that.” She looked up to meet my eyes. “I don’t know what His plan is or how it’s going to work out for us in the end, but meeting you”—she gestured to her tablet—“seeing you fight for those people… I believe Alpha gave you these gifts to help us. And if using them means you face persecution, then I have to believe that’s part of His plan as well. I… believe in you, Haldin. And I’m not the only one. I want you to remember that when you’re out there, dealing with all the looks and the headlines, and the whispers behind your back. That, no matter what they might say, there are a lot of people out there who are alive because of you.”
Hot tears were pressing at my eyes by the time she finished. Part of me wanted to disagree with everything she’d said—to tell her that she was wrong, that she simply hadn’t been there to see the people I’d failed along the way. Part of me just wanted to fall at her feet, bawling like I had the day before.
I was opening my mouth to at least attempt a thank you—and to point out that Glenbark’s house arrest probably meant I wouldn’t be heading into the chaos anytime too soon anyway—when Edwards strolled back into the room with all the subtlety of a dancing bull.
“So Raish, what’s the deal with—Oh.” Edwards froze, looking between us. “You guys look rea
l serious.”
Melanie and I traded an embarrassed look.
“Should I go?” he added, making no move to do so and instead studying us like we were a particularly captivating storyvid.
I glanced at my palmlight, which was still uncomfortably devoid of responses from either Johnny or Elise.
“Actually,” I said, looking up, “I was hoping one of you might be willing to stand guard in case I fall over in the shower. My coin’s on you, big guy.”
Edwards looked at Melanie like he was hoping for her to shoot the idea down.
She considered me, then shrugged. “If he feels up to it, I won’t argue.”
“Me or him?” Edwards and I both said at the same time.
Melanie stood, smiling a little as she reached over to disconnect my equipment and fluid lines. “I’ll let you two figure that out. My orders were to see Haldin through to sunrise. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go give my report and get a couple hours of sleep before my shift starts. My replacement will be back in a few minutes to put you back together.”
“I should’ve listened to Evie,” Edwards grumbled as Melanie touched my shoulder in farewell and headed for the door.
“Melanie,” I said.
She paused by the door, turning back.
“Thank you. For everything.”
A small smile pulled at her lips. “Just don’t fall over in the shower, please. It’d be a pretty embarrassing way for the Savior of Humility to go.”
22
The New Normal
“This is humiliating,” I declared as water began cascading down my body in delightfully hot streams, carrying away entirely too much grime.
“For you or for me?” Edwards asked, taking a cautious step back from the open shower. “Actually, don’t answer that. It’s me.”
I didn’t argue. Getting over to the shower had not been enjoyable. Disrobing and climbing into the shower under the watch of the heavy gunner even less so. But now that I was here under the pour of blessedly hot water, sweet Alpha, did it feel good. So much so that an appreciative grunt escaped me before I could stop it.
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