“I’d be better if it didn’t stink so bad here. Fuck, it smells like something died.” She gagged as the nauseating smell of death bore down on her even stronger.
“The entire city carries the stink of death,” Veral said.
True enough. Setting down her pack, she felt around until she came across her lamp, and her small bundle that contained a portion of oil, flint, and steel. Setting the lamp down, she filled it and after a few attempts caught the wick with an ember, sending a soft light illuminating the tiny area around her. Picking up the lamp in one hand, she lifted it and stepped forward only to pale and stumble back. She couldn’t hold it in this time; she bent over and puked until her throat burned and nothing more came up but bitter stomach acid.
“Anastha?”
She rolled her eyes upward but admitted it was better than being called “female.” It was actually kind of sweet in a weird way.
“I’m all right. There’s just… fuck… there are a lot of dead people in this attic.”
She felt another wave of nausea as she looked at the bloody mess she’d made of the body she landed on. Her hand shook as she lifted the lamp closer to the decomposing body and blanched. Aside from the damage that she’d accidentally done, the body had huge bites taken out of it that made her stomach roil. Turning slowly, she lifted the lamp higher and crept to every single body, four in total, to inspect the remains. All of them had terrible bite wounds.
“Fuck,” she whispered, her eyes widening as her mouth filled with saliva and her throat worked sickeningly. “These people look like they’ve been eaten!” she called down to Veral. Silence greeted her observation until a low, angry snarl followed her into the cramped room from below.
“Retreat. Get out of there now!” Veral snapped.
“Yeah,” she mumbled, “I think that may be a good idea.”
Turning back to the window, she took two steps and the wood creaked loudly under her weight. Terri froze, her legs braced wide apart and she stared wide-eyed at her exit still too far away.
“Female!” Veral shouted, his voice literally vibrating with anger as it carried to her through the dark room.
“Veral…” she whispered as a deafening crack surrounded her. A high-pitched shriek came out of her mouth as the floor gave way beneath her and sent her hurtling down below.
Rotten floorboards and dust fell all around her as her hip and rib cage slammed against the floor of the third-level hallway. Her breath rushed out of her in a wheeze. Choking on the thick dust, she gagged and drew in a long, unsteady breath to regain control of herself between hacking coughs that sent spasms through her body until they settled. Distantly, she could hear Veral shouting her name as she lay there staring up at the broken ceiling.
With a painful groan, Terri rolled over onto her belly and pulled her elbows and knees beneath her before slowly pushing herself onto her hands and knees, and then finally to her feet. Bending over, she picked up her oil lamp, the flames thankfully extinguished by her fall, and set it upright before refilling and lighting it.
Light spilled through the corridor, showing off the faded wallpaper. She recoiled from a dark patch staining the floor and wall near a room, the door of which had been left ajar. She began to back away from the door before she caught herself and swiped a hand down her face. Obviously, whatever had happened there was some time ago. It was unlikely that anything dangerous still remained in the room, if it had even been inside there at all. There was a thick coating of dust undisturbed on everything. Whatever had eaten the bodies upstairs must not have left the attic—at least as far as she could tell. As both the far ends of the hallway were collapsed, that didn’t leave her with very many options for a starting place. She might as well start there.
Stepping around a dried bloodstain, Terri pushed her way through the door. The room itself, though covered with dust, was elegant as if caught in time. Although yellowed with age, white lace and linens graced with what once had to have been lush comforters adorned the room against what appeared to be a pink wallpaper that was browning in many places.
Holding her sack tightly against her shoulder, she crept through the room, her fingers skimming over surfaces. On one chair, a pile of teddy bears watched her through smudged glass eyes as she explored the space. Despite being watched by her inanimate audience, she ignored them, a wide smile breaking over her face as she came across a jewelry box set in the corner of a large wooden vanity.
Tilting up the lid, she jumped and nearly dropped it when a mechanism moved, sending a few notes of a melody chiming out of it. It sang so cheerfully in the empty quiet of the room that she could hear a trace echo of the brief melody in the house. Enchanted, she thrust the box into her bag instead of just upending it like she’d planned. Working her way through the room, she picked over the offerings, tossing anything that Veral could possibly have use for into her bag. When thoroughly scouting through the room offered nothing else of possible value, she slipped back out the door and proceeded to the next room.
A room in shades of blue ended up being a complete waste of her time. Despite its palette of restful hues, it seemed like no one had resided in that room. She settled for stripping a tiny frame painting of flowers and another of an ocean scene off the walls before departing. The other two rooms weren’t much better. They both had large open bags sitting on their beds, although each bedside stand held personal electronics that she broke before removing their delicate inner pieces.
Burdened with the pleasant weight of her findings, Terri hummed a tune, almost able to forget the grisly scene upstairs. Almost. It kept intruding into her thoughts like an unwelcome visitor, reminding her there was something not quite right about the entire scenario. She descended the dark stairs, each step creaking ominously underfoot. She paused at the first one and breathed a sigh of relief as it held. Not wanting to tempt misfortune, she sped down the stairs, stepping as lightly as possible. It wasn’t until she was panting at the bottom of the steps, safely on the second floor—really the main floor since the first floor had appeared to once have been a large garage and daylight basement—that the thought which had been niggling in the back of her mind came to the fore.
All the blood and decaying bodies. It wasn’t right. It didn’t fit with what was normal in Phoenix if it had happened some time ago. It had been oddly fresh… the desert typically dried corpses out quickly. Wood rot was expected, not mushy corpses. That meant that whoever it had been must have been in and out of the house recently. There had to be a way in and out that was so well hidden on the outside that neither of them detected it. She thought of the garage level.
Even though the roof appeared to be completely collapsed over the garage, what if there was space to wiggle in and out?
She grinned, relieved that she wasn’t going to have to figure out a way to scurry back up through the ceiling onto the fourth floor. Terri raided the living room, busting open electronics and removing metal components and even taking some decorations from the walls.
A pungent scent wafted through the lower level of the house. Until that moment, the scent had been contained in the upper levels of the house. Why was it penetrating the main floor now? Saliva filled her mouth as her stomach protested the strong scent of rot. Groaning, Terri slapped a hand over her mouth and nose, trying not to breathe it in.
Fuck, that was awful! How was it even worse than it had been upstairs?
Her eyes flew to the side as she heard a creak from the kitchen, her muscles freezing. Quickly she snuffed out her light, throwing the room into darkness. She’d been an idiot not to connect the dots, but she assumed that no one would have been able to get inside.
She’d been wrong. Very, very wrong.
Terri jumped when a door banged open in the kitchen just off the living room where she stood. Heavy breathing broke the silence. Inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth, she breathed as silently as possible, unwilling to even move in her desperate bid to not be discovered.
A chu
ckle broke the silence, the pitch sliding unevenly through the laughter, making her skin prickle and the fine hairs on her arms stand on end.
“Little girl,” a voice called out, shifting into falsetto as a male voice called out to her. “I know you are here. Come out, sweet little thing. I won’t hurt you.”
Terri pressed herself against the wall, staring blindly, searching through the darkness.
“Oh, don’t be shy. You aren’t scared, are you? I wouldn’t hurt a sweet girl like you.” He paused and giggled. “Ah, you saw them, didn’t you? A man has to eat, sweet girl, but I wouldn’t do more than taste. I would sip you like the sweetest water.” He growled and thrashed as he stumbled through the kitchen into the living room.
Terri inched along the wall, her body shivering in fear. He was insane! His words fell disjointedly as he spoke to himself almost as much as to her.
“Disgusting, filthy Reapers. They tried to attack me, but I made them sorry. I locked them in a room. All but one. Him, I pushed against the wall and gutted right there, devouring his innards while he screamed. It was a precious sound. Not as sweet as your screams will be, my sweet one. No. Not as sweet.” His voice quickened with excitement. “I kept the others until I hungered again, and again I took one. They kept me fed for weeks, those nasty Reapers, while they were fed the bloated corpses of their brethren to keep them alive. But they know all about eating people. Can’t fault them for doing that. Survival of the fittest, as my father would say.”
He darted forward, slamming into the wall just feet away from her, his fingernails scratching along the wood, loudly tearing into the wallpaper as he screamed. “Where are you?!”
She bit her tongue, feeling blood well into her mouth with its iron flavor as she tried not to scream in terror. His hands slapped the walls, scratching, pounding, searching for her. Terri took a step toward the kitchen and then another before bolting. She couldn’t muffle her steps as she ran terrified through the kitchen, his footsteps pounding as he called out.
“Come back! Come back! Mine! You are mine!”
Her heart raced as she rounded a corner. His long fingernails caught on her shirt before she broke free, her blood curdling with his screams of rage. She could hear Veral’s furious roar outside, and something heavy began to strike the outside of the building, making the weakened walls tremble from the brute force.
She needed to get out of there! She needed to get to Veral before he brought the entire house down in his attempt to get her free. Twisting to the left, she flew away from the banging, appreciating that the loud noise would confuse the man pursuing her. Knowing that the entrance was blocked, she plunged down the steps into the garage, her breath coming out in loud, uneven pants.
Fingers scraping against the walls, tears sprung to her eyes. It had to be there somewhere. He wasn’t getting in without some kind of entrance. Soft wisps brushed her hands and she shuddered, willing herself not to think of the spiders that made dark basements and garages their homes. She gasped involuntarily as he bellowed from the top of the steps. Her fingernails broke low beneath the quick as she dug them between boards until she found one that was loose enough when nudging it that it shifted, spilling sunlight into the room. That was it. On the other side, Terri could hear a loud snarling as something dug and scratched at it.
“No!”
“Fuck you!” she screamed as she wrenched open the board.
Sunlight spilled in, illuminating the waxen face of her pursuer. He threw his arms up to shield his eyes, but not before she saw the terrible grin pulling unnaturally at his face and the pustules rupturing on his skin. The moment she got the board open, Krono surged in, his massive jaws snapping violently. The whips on his head vibrated and wrapped around his prey, latching tight as his jaws dug in and brought the man to the ground with an inhuman scream.
Unwilling to look back, Terri bolted out into the sunlight, colliding with a huge, muscular form. Black body armor creaked as Veral bent to look down at her, his eyes scanning her with hints of metallic silver in their arctic blue depths. His mandibles expanding fully, he inhaled as he flexed them, and his lips peeled back from his sharp teeth. Spinning around, he plunged into the darkness after Krono. The dorashnal’s snarls fell silent and Veral’s growl echoed with raw ferocity out to where she stood shivering despite the heat of the afternoon sun.
When the man began to scream, Terri shuddered. When he stopped, she sagged against a wall with relief. Veral came out moments later, Krono by his side. Both of them were heavily splashed with blood, but she welcomed the sight. As he stood over her, chest heaving, covered in the blood of her attacker, Terri stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. The alien froze in her embrace, but she pressed her face against his upper abs and whispered into his armor.
“Thank you.”
His body vibrated, a shudder easing down its length, before two solid arms descended around her and he held her until she stopped shaking.
9
Veral held the trembling female in his arms, his teeth bared and his mandibles flaring in a warning to any male who might be watching in the vicinity. He did not pick up on any heat signatures, but he was determined that there be no mistake. He had not picked up the male inside the building until he had moved out of the lower level of the domicile to seek out Terri. The dense stone had blocked his heat signature. Veral had been furious when the male had suddenly turned up on his scan of the building. When the human had dared to threaten her, Veral’s anger turned terrible with his inability to find a way to her.
If it hadn’t been for Krono discovering the opening…
He shook with rage, a low, threatening hiss escaping between his double tongues. Terri started to wiggle with a muttered protest. Veral pulled back just enough to look down at her curiously.
“What is that?” she muttered. “Something wet is pressing against my arm… oh fuck!”
He watched as her face went pale, her gaze fixed on the trophy hanging from his belt. She scooted back as far as his reach would allow, her face contorting into a grimace. Veral’s vibrissae puffed out with pride as he reached down to unfasten the metal trophy catcher from his belt. The hook impaled the severed head of her foe through the base of the skull, erupting through the eye-socket. He gave it a jiggle to make sure it wasn’t coming loose.
He frowned. It was secure. That wasn’t the source of the problem. His nose wrinkled in disgust at the pustules covering the pale skin and irregular skull formations. “Do not be concerned,” he assured her. “I will be certain to have this cleaned and sanitized for you to be a proper trophy in your honor.”
“Trophy?” The words left her mouth in a squeak and her throat worked as she continued to stare at it. Veral narrowed his eyes, attempting to work out the problem. He could see none and imagined that she was overwhelmed at the honor done for her.
“It is a privilege to honor you with the head of your enemy,” he offered. “You showed admirable skill in evading the male.”
“Right.” Her lips trembled into an uncertain smile. “Thank you for the honor. You can just hold onto it for right now, if that’s all right?”
He nodded and reattached the trophy catcher. His eyes tracked her movements as she continued to shake and glance around nervously. She was not going to be able to function like that. Veral was also now aware that the residents of Phoenix were far more dangerous than he gave them credit for if lone males were attacking outside of the threat that the Reapers posed. He disliked the thought. Males running together he could easily detect from a safe distance away, but the fact that a single male could potentially get through without alerting him pricked at him. It was a slim chance, but enough that his focus narrowed on an insistent, pressing need to prowl the perimeter, looking for signs of males coming too close.
“Enough for today,” he said abruptly, nearly surprising himself as much as her with his quick decision. Still, it was a sound idea. “I need to tend to the trophy while it is still fresh, and you are of no use to me whi
le you are on edge.”
He paused and huffed as he took a look around the quiet street, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. He had not anticipated any threat coming from that quarter and had been lax and dismissive.
He would not make the same mistake.
“We will resume tomorrow.”
Terri peered up at him curiously but slowly nodded her head without questioning him. A hot flash of approval shot through him at her submission to his authority. Although Terri was undeniably spirited and possessed a hard will, she surrendered to him in a way that he demanded… and even craved. With a command to Krono, he trailed after her down the street. Though he kept her within his sight, much of his attention was also trained on their surroundings as they made their way down the empty street.
A frustrated growl rattled in his chest as his eyes rested on her once again for longer and more frequently than necessary. He tilted his head in confusion as he watched the delicate female sway in front of him with every step she took. He considered that perhaps he was malfunctioning. He had never concerned himself much with the females of his own kind, much less been inclined to protect a female of another species. Though he honored her as was right, he shouldn’t be so fascinated with the human. He ran his diagnostics check as he continued to follow behind at a reasonable pace. He frowned as all his systems checked back fully operational.
Was he developing an attachment? The idea filled him with a certain amount of horror and an undeniable curiosity. He fisted his hands, his retractable claws sliding out into his palm with a sharp sting of pain. A welcome distraction. He pulled his gaze off her and returned it to their surroundings as they traveled for some distance. As it happened, he had been a little too effective in forcing his attention away from her, and hadn’t noticed that she stopped until he nearly ran into her after a rapid flash of light he caught on the edges of his vision.
Her soft body collided with his and Veral held back a snarl when a strange need whipped through him, far too quickly for him to identify before it was gone. All he knew was that it left him achy and bewildered. His nanos flooded his system in confusion, trying to correct whatever undeterminable error he experienced as he tried to make sense of what had happened.
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