Protector

by Sam Ryder

  She tapped her chest. “Munzy,” she said.

  “It’s nice to meet you. What are the rest of your names?”

  The human guy who’d fought so well against the demon horde the night before was quick to step forward. “Asfandiar,” he said.

  I looked at Beat and could see the laughter in her eyes. Ass-fan? I mouthed, cupping a hand so none but her would be able to read my lips.

  She looked ready to pee herself.

  It was immature and inappropriate, given my pathetically unremarkable name—Sam—but I wasn’t your typical Protector. I wore immaturity like a coat of armor.

  “Good to meet you, Ass-Fan—dee—are,” I said, earning another snort from Beat. “Where are you from?”

  “Kinjarun,” he said.

  I looked at Beat again, but she didn’t have anything to offer but a shrug. “Where is that—Africa?” I asked.

  “I don’t know of this Africa you speak of,” Ass-Fan said.

  Lace interjected, her fangs gleaming. “He’s from the past.”

  I had a really smart follow up question for that. “Huh?”

  “It’s true,” Beat said. “Eve learned a new trick while you were away. On her last Finding mission. She not only travels through space, she also travels through time now too.”

  Time traveling? Color me impressed. “How?”

  Lace’s eyes narrowed. “The Three leveled her up,” she spat out, disgusted. Apparently she still held a grudge that she hadn’t been leveled up yet.

  In any case, it was good for us. Especially if we could recruit badass ancient Warriors like Ass-Fan, from Kinjahad, or whatever he’d said.

  “Welcome,” I said.

  He bowed slightly at the waist. “At your service.” I was liking this guy already.

  Next up was the lioness, who’d also fought against the horde. She growled out a name: “Nrrrf.”

  “Like the football? You know, the soft, squishy ones that don’t hurt when you get hit in the head?” Blank looks all around, except for Beat, who seemed to be enjoying herself. “No? Nerf football? Anyway, I like it. Welcome Nerf.” My pronunciation was way off. She stared at me like I needed a lobotomy. Join the club, I thought.

  The cat dude introduced himself next. “Chestah,” he said.

  “Like the cheetah,” Beat said, before I could say it. Two people, one brain. I grinned at her.

  “Good to have one of Lace’s kind with us,” I said. “She always brings such joy to camp. I’m sure you will do the same.”

  Lace stared daggers at me, but I ignored her.

  Last was the Oceanian, who was at least eight feet tall. “Merlin,” he said, and I couldn’t help it—I flinched.

  “Merlin?”

  “That is my name,” he confirmed.

  I nodded, feeling suddenly solemn. We’d had a Merlin from Oceania before. He’d been a decent guy and a helluva Warrior. He’d died too soon. I hoped this fellow would last longer. Much longer.

  Gods, I’m such a sap, I thought. I wondered if past Protectors got so attached to their Warriors. Probably not.

  Beat said, “You’ve met all the newbs. Should we go somewhere to talk?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. Carry on with training. I need to speak with Eve and the Three.”

  “Of course, Protector,” Lace said. “Go and do all the important things you need to do while we take care of the children.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that,” I said, which earned me a snarl from the cat-woman. I really had missed her.

  “Don’t take too long,” Beat said. “I want to hear your story before the next Black. You know, just in case you don’t survive it.” She winked at me. I’d missed Beat even more.

  I turned away, realizing something else. No one had asked about Belle, not even Millania, which felt out of character for the gilled newb-whisperer. Especially since she’d helped Belle through some very hard times. For a second I thought it was incredibly mean and heartless, but then I understood. They assumed she was dead. They didn’t want to hear the bad news, so they didn’t ask.

  I turned back quickly. “Belle is alive,” I said. “She was extremely brave during the mission. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  The message delivered, I didn’t wait for their reactions, heading back toward camp.

  ~~~

  Eve was waiting in the gully, her faithful panther steed, Souza, sleeping nearby. She sat cross-legged, which meant her short, black dress was rucked up high on her smooth, tanned thighs, draped casually down the middle.

  I kept my eyes on her face to avoid losing my shit. It didn’t help, because her face was utterly alluring, her almond eyes sharply attractive, her small features and full lips tantalizing. I needed to get my mind off her sex-appeal, so I said, “Time-traveling, huh?”

  “Syrene blood, huh?” she retorted. We both smiled at that. I guess we both could do crazy things. It was strange, when I’d first met this remarkable woman, she was so far out of my league we might not have even been in the same galaxy. Now, I felt comfortable in my own skin around her. She was still several Levels above me, but we were in the same league. It seemed impossible.

  “I bought us some time,” I said. “Did you have any trouble while Finding?”

  She shook her head. “The time-traveling helped. It’s exhausting, but at least I didn’t get attacked.”

  “And you brought back a giantess and a lioness,” I pointed out.

  “They have potential,” she said.

  I nodded. “I didn’t know you could Level up too.”

  “It’s not something I advertise. There are five Levels of Finder. I am at Level 3 now.” The same level as me, I thought, though I was fairly certain the comparison wasn’t apples to apples. More like apples to watermelons. She was the watermelon.

  “When can you Find again?” I asked next. I was anxious to continue this trend, growing our army.

  “You get right to the point, don’t you?” She stood without using her hands. Strong calves. Strong thighs. Strong gluteus maximus. For a jaw-dropping moment, her dress clung to her hips to reveal the thin band of her black thong. The fabric settled—my heart did not. It didn’t help when she purred, “I need a distraction.”

  Oh…fuck. Like, literally. That’s what she wanted to do. It was the second time she’d offered. Gods, how I wanted to, too. I’d wanted her from the moment she ambushed me in that parking lot and offered me a ride on her motorcycle/panther. I felt like there had been innuendo in every meeting since, sexual tension, even when she’d been toying with me.

  She stepped closer and the pot got closer to boiling over.

  But…my Warriors were out there training and their leader was down here thinking with his cock. As usual. “Eve,” I said.

  “Don’t deny me again,” she said. It felt like a warning.

  “The time isn’t right,” I said, not saying the rest of what I was thinking: it probably won’t ever be.

  “Fuck you,” she said, and I knew I deserved her anger.

  I didn’t apologize, because that would only make things worse. I could tell it wasn’t really me she was angry at—it was this life she’d been forced to endure for so long. She finally thought of us as equals—though we were far from it—and that we just…made sense? Was that the right way to describe it? Even I didn’t know. But it really wasn’t the right time, not when I’d made a bargain with six beautifully deadly mermaids.

  “I owe the Syrene,” I said.

  To Eve’s credit, she moved on quickly from my rejection. “You got their blood to repair the ward shields. What did you offer in exchange?”

  “Fresh meat,” I said.

  “You don’t mean monsters, do you?” she guessed. As usual, her perceptiveness was impressive.

  “I tried that. They said no.”

  “Not surprising. So you offered up our Warriors. Great call, Protector.”

  “I offered them human flesh every one-hundred days.”

  “Living?” I understo
od why she asked the question. If corpses were okay, it wouldn’t be a problem. Enough of us died on a regular basis that there would be plenty. I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. I felt ill.

  I shook my head.

  “Shit,” she said. “Are you going to decide who gets to be the sacrifice?” There was no sarcasm in her voice—not this time. She sounded resigned to the unilateral decision I’d made. She, of all people, knew what it was like to make hard decisions because she thought they would give us the best chance. Like the Circle. I’d abolished the inhumane practice only to replace it with human sacrifice. I should give myself a pat on the back and a gold star for cruelty.

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” I said. In fact, the dilemma had taken over my mind for long stretches as I’d run back toward camp. “Before each deadline, you can recruit someone horrible from Earth. Not just horrible…evil. Someone who deserves to die, or was already going to. Murderers, pedophiles, rapists. Get them from Death Row if you have to. They get out of jail free, and we get our sacrifice without sacrificing our souls.”

  It was the best solution I could come up with, though it still felt wrong somehow. What if there was someone innocent on Death Row, who’d been framed for a crime they didn’t commit. It had happened before. The poor person would get thrown to the mermaid vampires and it would be my fault. Still, it was a risk I had to take.

  “You’re a good leader, Sam,” she said. “But if you reject me a third time, I’ll cut off your nuts and feed them to you.”

  “Kinky,” I said which earned me a sly smile. I changed the subject. “Where are the Three? Back in that cave at the other side of the gully?”

  Her gaze snapped to meet mine. “You know about that place?”

  “I, uh, went for a visit. While you were gone.”

  “Ballsy,” she said, looking impressed. “Stupid, but ballsy. You’re lucky they didn’t cut off your nuts and feed them to you.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t think now was the time to tell her that they’d done quite the opposite. Not if I wanted to keep my nuts where they were—which I did. Very much.

  “Yes. They’re in the caves,” she confirmed. “Persepheus and Minertha are caring for Airiel.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  There was sadness in Eve’s eyes now. “Airiel doesn’t have long,” she said.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “I repaired the ward shields. Our army is growing. You Leveled up.”

  “Yes, we’ve fared well as of late. Better than we’ve done in a long time. Without their hearts, think of the Three as massive hourglasses turned upside down. Every day, every second, the grains of sand that represent their lives are running down. You and I can’t see how many grains are left, but they can.”

  The revelation startled me. “You mean…they know exactly when they will die?”

  She nodded. “Just like they can tell how close one of us is to death. They can see our life meters like a glass full of liquid. The amount of liquid in the glass changes based on injuries, exhaustion and a thousand other factors. Rest, food and, of course, the ooze, can raise the fluid level. But we have one advantage over the Three. Our Levels always eventually go back to the top. Theirs, however, ebb and flow, but the trend is downward. Always downward.”

  “Unless we can recover their hearts,” I said. It was something I’d always been aware of, but never really thought much about. There were too many other things we needed to accomplish before we could even consider a direct assault on the Morgoss. “How long does Airiel have left?” I asked.

  “We can only guess. They won’t tell me. But I’ve never seen them act like this. Usually they leave the sky goddess alone to rest. Now…they are at her side almost every hour, whether she is waking or sleeping. I fear the end is near.”

  ~~~

  Eve warned me not to do what I was about to do, but I did it anyway. Because I was pissed off. I was tired of all the Three’s secrets and lack of information. Maybe they thought they were being noble, protecting the pathetic mortals from things our minds were too small to handle, but enough was enough.

  Rather than take the convoluted route I’d used to cross the gully lengthwise before, I climbed out of the canyon and circled around to the hidden exit Airiel had shown me the last time. I fought through the foliage, pushing it away to find—

  A dead end. Bare rock.

  I shoved aside more vines and leaves, working my way along the wall. The entrance had to be here somewhere…

  It wasn’t. Duh. Why would the Three make it so easy for someone to get into their hidey-hole? It was an exit only, a quick way to escape if needed. Locked from the inside, by magic. I had to admit—I was feeling a little crazy at the moment. I’d been through a lot over the last few days—we all had. Instead of going back to the main part of the gully and working my way across the area with the cocoons and the pots of ooze and the small rapids…I mounted the hill and picked my way along the narrow shelf that led to cliffs opposite to the end where the Warriors continued their training. By the time I reached the tip, the shelf wasn’t more than a foot and a half wide, a sheer drop-off toward the mountains and a vertical drop into the gully below. One wrong step and—

  To hell with it. I jumped.

  The air rushed out of my lungs as I fell, my arms pinwheeling on each side. I hit the water with a monumental splash—ga-goosh!—creating waves on all sides, bubbles flaring up all around me.

  My momentum carried me to the bottom, and I pushed off with my bare feet, rocketing myself back to the surface. The water felt nice, especially after so many days on the road, my skin salty with dried sweat and filthy with creepy-crawly blood.

  Focus, I reminded myself. I wanted to linger in the water, enjoy it for a while, but I didn’t have that luxury. Because of how Eve had compared the Three’s lives to hourglasses. Every second I enjoyed myself was another grain of sand from their lives. And, if Eve’s instincts were right, Airiel was almost out of sand.

  Why did I care? Because I had a feeling the ward shield was tied to their lives. If they died, then the wards would fall and it would put the Warriors at risk. I simply could not allow that. So if I needed to protect the Three, I would. For now anyway.

  I pushed through the waterfall and clambered into the space beyond.

  “Leave us,” was the greeting I got. It was Persepheus’s sharp rebuke, a sound that was all too familiar because I’d heard it often enough. She was a mixture of fire and rain, as hot as flames one moment and as cool as ice the next. This was the icy version of her.

  “He has a right to be here,” Minertha said, rising from where she’d been sitting. Persepheus did not stand. It felt like their positioning was that of two sisters sitting vigil. I didn’t want to think about what that meant.

  Regardless of what either of them said, I wasn’t leaving. Not until I had some answers. “You used to send Seekers to steal from the Syrene?” I said. The question—which came out more like an accusation—had been gnawing at me ever since the sirens had revealed it.

  “Don’t answer him, sister,” Persepheus said. “He will believe what he wants to believe.”

  “That’s because you don’t tell me anything,” I said. “You want us to protect you? Be your watch dogs? It’s time for you to help your own cause.”

  “You insolent little fu—”

  “He’s right, sister,” Minertha interrupted.

  Persepheus glared at her sister, but there was something different about her expression. Less cold. More scared. Oh goddesses, she’s…sad, I realized. All the venom-filled anger was a defense mechanism. I was still learning how complex these gorgeous creatures were.

  “Look,” I said. “Yes, I’m angry. But I’m also willing to listen. Just tell me the truth. That’s all I ask.”

  Minertha looked at her sister and Persephus looked away. It was the closest thing to acquiescence she’d get. To my surprise, Minertha crossed the cave, wrapped her stony arms around me and pulled me tight. I
hesitated, because I was supposed to be angry, but then gave in, hugging her back. I was surprised to realize I needed the comfort as much as she did. When we separated, she said, “You repaired our ward shields. You will be rewarded for your—”

  “Thank you,” I said, “but all I need is information. Anything I can use to protect you. All of you. And save Airiel.”

  Minertha looked slightly stung, but she nodded. “We never sent the Seekers to steal from the Syrene,” she said. “They chose to go. They wanted to impress us. But we also didn’t try to persuade them not to go.” Her tone was full of regret. “The Syrene are our distant cousins,” she said.

  Mind. Blown. Then again, looking back I should’ve realized they were related somehow. After all, the Syrene’s blood glowed like the vines that surrounded the gully. And it could be used to repair the ward shields. Too many coincidences added up to one thing: truth. “You should’ve told me,” I said, but I wasn’t angry. Not anymore.

  “I know,” Minertha said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Apologizing to a human,” Persepheus muttered. “Pathetic.”

  “Tell me about your life meters,” I said, ignoring the sea goddess.

  “If you reach Level 5, you will be able to read them yourself,” Minertha said.

  That was surprising, but no one had even told me what Level 5 was. 4 was Seeker. I wanted to ask what Level 5 was, but that wasn’t a priority. Not now. Anyway, as far as I knew, no one had ever survived long enough to achieve it. But that was a conversation for another day. “Tell me what your readings are. At this second. How long does Airiel have left?”

  “Sister, no,” Persepheus said, but her voice had been leeched of its mettle.

  Minertha ignored her sister’s protests. “We measure our lives out of one-thousand,” she said. “Depending on your levels, the rest of you—those hailing from the other seven planets—range between one-hundred and five-hundred. Because you are mortal, your meters will drop to zero over time, no matter what. Rapid drops are caused by injury, illness and exhaustion.”