by Platt, Sean
“I wouldn’t need to wipe your memories this time.”
“I don’t care. I’m going with you.”
“Even though we could die?”
“I’d rather die fighting than live hiding.”
Noble talk. John wondered if she had any sense of just how dangerous this was, and that neither he, nor their small army, might be able to protect her.
He flashed back to their life in Saint Augustine in what now seemed like forever ago. There had been a time when she was sure that a cook in the kitchen at the restaurant where she worked was abusing his girlfriend, one of the servers. She was determined to end it, even if that meant incurring the guy’s wrath. She came to John, not asking what to do so much as making sure she would be doing the right thing in confronting him. She had such a fire in her eyes, standing up for a coworker.
It was dangerous, but John knew there was no talking her out of it. He offered to handle the matter, but Hope had refused. Said she would take care of it, and if she couldn’t, then John could be a tough guy.
But he never had to.
Hope scared the guy straight. He started going to anger management classes, and last anyone knew, had actually changed for the better.
She had that same fiery look in her eyes now, on the cusp of war with Jacob and whatever forces he surrounded himself with.
Hope was pissed, partly at John, yes, but even more so at his brother Jacob, who had brought this hell into their lives.
“Okay. I won’t try talking you out of it. But before we go in, you’ve got to promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“If anything happens to me, anything at all, you can’t try to save me. Go with whoever is left, and get somewhere safe.”
She met his eyes then shook her head. “No. We’re in this together, for better or for worse.”
John was thinking of something else to say, but the command unit door opened and Sanders stepped out, gear bag slung over her back.
“You all ready to kick some ass?” she barked.
John wasn’t sure what to expect, maybe a Marines “Hoo-rah!” battle cry. Instead, he saw only solemn nods.
John looked at Larry and sent a telepathic message to his friend: This is a suicide mission.
Shaking his head, Larry sent one back: “Then let’s make sure we take as many of these fuckers as possible.”
Five
Abigail
The agony was intense and immediate, like being doused in flames.
“Down!” Talani shouted, throwing herself atop Abigail and covering them both with her cloak.
Arrows hissed overhead as Abigail surrendered to Talani’s darkness, hoping her friend wasn’t getting hit with arrows.
Judith screamed. Abigail didn’t know if it was pain from the sun, because she’d been hit with an arrow, was reacting to Solomon’s murder, or was launching an attack of her own.
A man shrieked then choked: Judith was striking back.
“Get up!” Abigail shouted. “We’ve gotta help her!”
Talani was frozen. Abigail wasn’t sure if it was her fear of being hit by the still-flying arrows, exposure to the sun, or an urge to keep shielding her.
After a long moment, Talani launched herself up as she pulled her cowl around her face and seized on an enemy.
Abigail leaped to her feet, secured her hood, and looked around.
The sun was blazing, but the cloak and hood provided enough shelter to keep Abigail from burning. She didn’t dare expose any flesh for fear of both seeing what damage had already been done and getting burned again.
The arrows had ceased. Dozens of men and women, dirty and dressed in tattered leathers and cloth, rushed toward them clinging to all matter of weapons — blades, spears, long staves, and axes. Some of the blades were a deep, dark black, which some part of Abigail sensed was dangerous to her kind. She wasn’t sure what these people were — bandits, pirates, savages, or what. Their look reminded her of wild animals.
Bandits.
Abigail’s eyes caught sudden movement to her right.
She turned in time to intercept a skinny, filthy man swinging a knife with a chipped blade, then fell backward, hand reaching out to balance herself and catching hold of the man’s forearm.
Her fingers locked on. Energy coursed through Abigail.
No matter how many times she fed on another, there was no getting used to the euphoria that flooded her mind and body.
A part of her wanted to freeze time and live in the bliss.
But she knew the dangers of staying too long.
Victims’ memories followed the energy, and given the man’s appearance — a poor beggar who’d been forced to do God only knew what to survive — his memories would surely infect her spirit, spinning Abigail into a depression that would make her useless in battle. There was also the danger of being frozen in the feeding for so long that she’d be blind to the world, and any threat hurtling toward her.
She flung the man away as his memories crossed into hers, then spun toward the footsteps behind her.
An axe swung at her gut.
She fell backward again, but not soon enough.
The blade licked her stomach, a trail of blood following the tip as it finished its arc.
Abigail wasn’t sure of the wound’s depth, but her body was on fire as her back slapped the grass.
Her hood askew, the sun assaulted her face.
A shadow fell over Abigail and graced her with protection.
Time seemed to stop again as she looked up and locked eyes with her attacker — a girl, not much older than her: grimy-faced; eyes wide and dark with fear; dark, rotting teeth in a savage snarl.
The girl grunted as she dove blade first toward Abigail.
She rolled out of the way. The girl hit the ground with a grunt, then turned on Abigail, too late.
Abigail’s hands found her throat, and again she drank.
More energy!
Abigail could feel the burns she’d suffered already repairing.
Abigail disengaged, but instead of shoving the corpse away, she let the girl’s burned but not yet ashen body fall on her, shielding Abigail from the sun and hiding her from enemies as more scurried from the tree line into the clearing.
She stayed perfectly still, her face buried in the girl’s grimy blouse, playing dead, eyes closed, hoping none of the bandits saw through her ruse and rushed to finish her off with a well-placed blade through her chest or head.
Staying still was almost impossible. She’d surely hyperventilate under the dead girl’s weight and the raw panic clawing at her insides as footsteps multiplied around her.
How many of them had stopped to look down, to consider the dead girl? How long before one of the bandits realized she was faking? Or maybe pulled the body off of Abigail and exposed her to the sun? She could never play dead through that.
Abigail had to stay calm. Had to be still, like death, long enough to heal her quickly knitting stomach wound and take the enemy by surprise.
If they don’t kill Talani and Judith first!
No, don’t think of that.
Think of something happy.
Her mind flashed back to that night that she, John, Larry, and Tiny had taken the van out for their “last meal” before going to war with Jacob back on Earth.
She was enjoying her chocolate shake, and the giant man named Tiny told her to dip her fries into the shake.
At the time, it sounded like the grossest thing ever. Until she actually tried it.
She had tried to shove fries into John’s mouth, but he closed it, grossed out.
“Don’t be so lame,” Larry had said.
John shot Larry a look then turned to Abigail with a reluctant sigh. “Fine.”
And he liked it.
It was the last first time Abigail had felt part of something since her family had died. And while dipping fries in a milkshake might be a silly memory not amounting to much for most kids with awesome lives, it wa
s one of her most cherished.
Soon the memory’s warmth turned to ice as Abigail remembered accidentally killing her instructor and friend, Katya, before running away from Larry and John, the only family she had.
Talani’s scream tore Abigail from her self-pity.
She turned toward the battle sounds, her heart sinking as she saw a small crowd of at least twenty bandits surrounding Judith and Talani, wildly swinging their blades.
The crowd was a wall — she couldn’t see how much damage they’d done, or how close they were to killing her friends.
Abigail looked around and saw that nobody was paying her any mind. All of the bandits — at least those who had come from the woods — were circling her companions.
She ignored the pain in her gut and ran toward the chaos.
No time for planning. Abigail simply acted, laying hands on the necks of two men closest to the edge.
Her touch was fire.
She let go as they screamed, knowing she wouldn’t have long before weapons were on her, too.
That meant injuring, not killing, or draining the men dry — yet.
She flung the screaming men far away from the circle, hoping they were too injured to get up and fight back.
Three others, two men and a woman — all scrawny, filthy, and wild-eyed — turned on Abigail, gripping their weapons and sizing her up.
She had seconds before one, or all, would strike her, or call out to the others still focused on Judith and Talani, whom Abigail could no longer see.
Surveying the situation, Abigail lost her advantage.
Two of the bandits started forward, one with a spear and the other with a blade.
Adrenaline, and the fiery life force of those she’d already attacked, fueled Abigail as she rolled forward, beneath their weapons and between the bandits.
She popped up behind them, grabbing their bare arms and squeezing tight.
Energy flooded her system, and she held on longer.
Just a little more to heal my wounds, to give me …
Lightning split through Abigail’s back.
She screamed, releasing her prey and falling to the ground.
Something was lodged in her back — the most intense pain she’d ever felt. She reached around awkwardly to find it with blind fingers. With her sleeves falling away from her hand, the sun punished Abigail’s efforts, burning her fingers.
She pushed through the torment as her fingers felt the hilt of what was surely a blade lodged in the small of her back.
Have to get it out!
Something then struck her hard in the back of the head.
She fell, face-first into to the grass with a whimper.
The pain in her back radiated fire, a different kind than the life force she fed upon — more like the sun, threatening to devour her entire body.
If she didn’t get the knife out, she was going to burn alive, just like her victims.
She struggled through the pain to pull at the blade, doing God knew what kind of damage to her insides, but her hand refused to cooperate.
It was locking up.
Paralyzed. Maybe the skin burned to a crisp, inflexible.
She cried out.
Have to get away!
Footsteps behind and above her.
A hand ripped her cowl back, grabbed Abigail by the hair, yanked her to standing.
She screamed, the sun’s rays searing her face, sure she would burn to a husk and crumble in the coming breeze.
Her attacker yanked the knife from her back with a grunt.
He threw her back to the ground then rolled Abigail over and dropped atop her, straddling her, one large beefy gloved hand on her neck, choking the life from her body.
He was a mountain of a man, his weight impossible to flee.
At least she was momentarily cast in shadow, staring up at his horrible bucket of a face, a big black messy beard covering where a neck might have been. An awful scar gashed his lips and twisted them in a permanent snarl.
His eyes were most terrifying — milky white and surely cursed.
Yet he was staring straight into Abigail’s eyes, spittle flying from his mouth as he snarled, “Time to die, monster!”
“Please, mister,” Abigail cried, tears streaming down her hot cheeks, hoping she could appeal to whatever part of this man might think twice about killing a child, monster or not.
Attempts to reach his humanity failed.
With his other hand, he brought the knife back into view — it was short, the same magick-looking black that she’d noticed before — then raised it, ready to plunge it into Abigail’s chest.
She gasped, trying to move, but the pain in her body, coupled with the man’s weight and vice-like grip on her neck, was too much.
She reached for his face, but her hand was burned and bloody, barely able to move.
She was trapped.
This was how she would die.
Abigail closed her eyes.
Thought of John and Larry.
Wished she’d never left them behind.
She waited to die.
Then a gurgle.
She opened her eyes to see the man’s body violently shaking, red fissures breaking through his skin as his body burned from within.
Talani — clothes, cloak, and hood coated in blood — was seizing the man’s face, snarling, “Get off of her!”
The man’s grip on the knife opened, as did the one on her neck.
Abigail grabbed the weapon, rolled out from beneath him, and struggled to stand, ready to fight.
But the rest of the bandits were dead.
Judith stood behind Talani, pulling her bloody, tattered cloak around herself.
Abigail couldn’t tell how much blood belonged to them versus the bandits, but both women looked like they had barely escaped death.
Talani let out an animalistic scream as she drained the last of the big man and let his burned husk fall to the ground.
Then she collapsed, body heaving as she gasped for air.
Abigail stood, staggered toward her — the pain from the blade, or perhaps the sun’s assault, now spreading from her back to her arms and legs.
Every step felt like it might end her, but she had to reach her friend, to hug and thank her.
Talani looked up, and there was a light in her eyes that said how glad she was to see Abigail alive. But then it vanished, and Talani’s mouth went agape.
“What is it?” Abigail asked, afraid to turn and see another two dozen bandits behind them.
But Talani wasn’t looking past Abigail. She was looking right at her. She stood, approaching Abigail, not to embrace her but to look closer.
“What is it?” Abigail asked, suddenly terrified. “What’s wrong?”
Talani looked back at Judith, now approaching. “Is she going to —”
“To what?” Abigail cried out, afraid to know what the women were seeing.
What did the knife do to me?
Abigail had to ask, even though she was afraid of the answer.
“Am I going to —”
She never finished the question.
Six
Abigail
Abigail woke to the sound of footsteps in sand.
She opened her heavy eyelids to blurred darkness.
Movement to her right.
She tried to scramble upright but was held in place by someone bringing her back to the cold ground as they sat beside her.
“Get off of me!”
“Shh, shh.” A familiar voice in her ear as hands touched Abigail’s shoulders — the only place she didn’t hurt.
Talani.
“What’s going on? Where are we?”
“We’re in a cave,” Talani said. “And you’re sick. The bandits had poisoned blades, deadly to our kind.”
“Am I going to die?” Abigail asked, voice cracking.
“Not if we can help it.”
“Where’s Judith?”
“Out getting help for you.”
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As Abigail’s eyes adjusted to the scant light, she could see that Talani’s face was no longer burned and was relieved to see that the burns weren’t permanent. Though that didn’t mean Abigail’s weren’t.
“I want to see what I look like.”
“That’s not a good idea. And besides, I didn’t pack a mirror.”
“Tell me what I look like.”
Talani’s eyes could barely meet Abigail’s.
“I wanna know.”
“Well, you’re burned, but we can fix that.”
“Okay. What else?”
“There are dark veins showing through your skin.”
“Dark veins?”
“Black veins.”
She held up an arm, but everything was blurry, so she could only make out vague dark lines on her skin.
Abigail did her best to stifle tears, her mind racing for explanations of what was happening to her body, or how she might end up dead.
Talani continued, “The blades are poison to the things inside us.”
“The parasites?”
“Yes. The blades kill them with a magickal poison, then — well, you know we can’t live without them now, right?”
Abigail nodded.
“So, Judith is out looking for someone to heal you.”
“Does she know someone here?”
“Solomon’s sister. She’s trying to reach her.”
“Is Solomon still …?”
“Dead? Yes.”
“Will his sister still help us?”
“I hope so, because I don’t know if we have any other contacts.”
Not knowing what to say, Abigail said nothing.
“How do you feel?”
“Not good.”
“Are you hungry?”
“For food or … the other?”
“Yes, the other.”
Abigail nodded.
“Hold on, then.”
Talani stood, then disappeared around a corner. Abigail listened to her footsteps echo off the cave walls before growing closer again.
Only Talani didn’t return.
It was someone else. Though blurry, Abigail was pretty sure it was a bandit.
What? How?