by Jan Stryvant
When she dropped down to her hands and knees and then belly crawled forward, he did the same. He'd find out why she hadn't shifted when he got there, he figured.
"Here, take these and look over there!" she said in a soft voice as she thrust her binoculars at him and pointed to the southwest.
Putting the binoculars up to his eyes, Trevor adjusted them slowly. He hated binoculars; they didn't fit his hybrid leonine face very well. Truth was, he preferred a spyglass. They were smaller, easier to carry, and he knew he looked quite dashing when using one. Back in his pirate days, every…
"What the fuck?" Trevor swore loudly.
"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Jessie said.
"If you mean thousands of humans in slave pens, then yes, I sure as hell am seeing what you're seeing!" Trevor growled.
"Those aren't slave pens," Jessie hissed.
Handing her back her binoculars, Trevor sighed. "No, no I guess they're not. Damn."
"We need to tell the First about this."
"You can if you want to, but I already know what he's going to tell us to do. You know that, right?"
Now it was Jessie's turn to sigh. "Not like we have a choice, is it?"
"Let's go tell the others. We need to get ready."
On the way back to join the others, Trevor noticed Jessie was shivering a little. Putting an arm around her, he pulled her close.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"It's just…" She shook her head a moment. "They don't deserve that. They may not be our children, they may not belong to us, but to have their souls consumed? To destroy that most fundamental part of your being?" She shivered again. "I know humans can be cruel, hell, we've all seen it! But I don't think they've ever been that cruel."
Trevor nodded. "Mom once told me even the First can't deal with it. That's why he decided to fight them."
"Which is saying something, when you consider all he's done," Jessie agreed.
"Yup, Mom said it was nice to know even he had limits. That's why I know what he's going to tell us to do."
"Tell us what to do?" Jake asked as they walked up to the group.
"We found their feeding pens," Jessie said with a sad look.
"Feeding pens? Huh?" Lena asked, noticing the look on Jessie's face.
"Oh, no…" Grism growled. "Don't tell me…"
"Yup, they're full of humans," Trevor said with a sigh. "Thousands of them, and they're big enough to hold thousands more."
"They're not just food," Krista said.
"They're not?" Jake asked, looking confused.
"They have to move as many souls as they can here in order to help make that permanent gateway the First and Sean are so worried about."
"Oh…Well, shit. When do we attack?" Grism growled and started putting the rifle he'd been cleaning back together.
"As soon as somebody pops in and tells Renee what we found, and what we're going to do about it."
"Do you think we have enough ammo to kill them all?" Jake asked.
"No, but we have these," Trevor said and, reaching under his shirt, he pulled out the chain that was hanging around his neck, which had a strange looking device on it. It almost looked like a nautilus shell.
"I have one, too," Jessie said and pulled out another one on the chain around her neck.
"What the hell is that?" Jake asked.
"You know those silver bombs Sean makes?" Trevor said.
"Oh…Oh! He gave us two of them?"
"He gave Jessie and I, each, one of them, with some pretty dire threats about using them. Seems he had his wife Daelyn make eight of them back when they were planning this. He and the First took six, and after a long talk with Jessie and me, they gave us these two. Well, I think we found a use for them that won't get our asses handed to us."
"If they don't like it, you can put my ass right up there on the line with yours," Grism said. "No way I'm letting those bastards get away with herding humans like food."
"Me, too," Lena said.
"I'm in," Krista agreed.
Trevor nodded as all the others got onboard.
Grism got up and walked over to Trevor. "Well, show me how it works."
"Huh?"
"Trev, you're in charge; you need to lead everyone back to the gate and out of this nightmare of a reality. Whoever sets those off is gonna be at risk. So I'll do it."
"Ha! You just don't want to have to walk home!" Jake teased.
"Yup! I'll be back on the mountainside with the gals, rolling in the sun, while you're all still hoofin' it on foot," Grism said with a grin.
"Well, there's no way I'm not getting in on that action!" Jake said, grinning back. "I'll go with Grism, two've got a better chance getting through than one."
"Wait a minute…" Trevor started, but Jessie put her hand on his arm. "They're right. Don't argue."
"Yes, Dear." Trevor sighed. "Krista, go let Renee know what's going on while Jessie and I go over these bombs with our two heroes here."
Trevor pulled the chain off his neck and put it around Grism's.
"Okay, first you have to wind it, here…" Trevor started off, going over each of the three steps. It really was a simple device; set the timer, wind it, pull the safety, then trigger it and run like hell.
He and Jessie went over it with them again, along with making them both pace off the size of the area that would be destroyed just by the explosion itself.
"Damn, these are big!" Jake laughed.
"And this doesn't even take into account the secondary blast damage," Jessie told them. "These are nasty. When you set it off, you run like hell."
"Yeah, if either one of you intentionally gets yourself killed, I can guarantee you the First will be all over your ass just as soon as Sean's done with it," Trevor added.
"I thought Sean was an F3?"
"No, he's more like an F2. The First thinks it's because of his magical abilities, but I've heard Estrella teasing him that Sean's probably an F1 and he just doesn't want to admit it."
"Which means," Jessie said, " you don't want him on your ass. Mom's told me he and the First have actually come to blows."
Jake laughed. "Oh, man, what I wouldn't have given to see that! I don't think anyone's laid a hand on the First since that time he and Sampson had that big smack down!"
"Yeah, Sampson raised him, so maybe not pissing him off might be a good idea," Grism said as Jake winced.
"Okay, enough yapping. Everyone ready?" Trevor called out, looking around the group.
Everyone gave him a thumbs up.
"Here's the plan: We get as close as we can without being seen. Once they have seen us, Jessie's group will pick off guards, while my group will move in as close as we can to give Grism and Jake the time they need to get in position to plant the device.
"Once we're close, we'll herd them all as close to where Grism and Jake are as we can, then let the guards run us off.
"When we stop shooting at the guards, Grism, that's your cue to trigger the bomb and run."
"Remember, everyone! DO NOT break down any of the fences. Once the guards start chasing us, pop a few grenades to discourage them, then take cover. We'll have twenty seconds. After the bomb goes off, we'll make a quick sweep to kill any wounded or any other survivors. Then we run like hell.
"If you thought they were pissed at us before, they're going to be even madder at us after this. So we're going to shed as much weight as we can and hightail it to the next gateway. Got it?"
Everyone nodded.
"Great, let's go."
Shifting into their lion forms, they split up into two groups and trotted off towards their objective. There weren't any trees in this area, but there were a lot of bushes. However, black bushes on black ground didn't do a lot when it came to hiding large, brown predators. Thankfully it was nighttime, so there wasn't a lot of the 'black' light that worked in ways Trevor still couldn't understand.
They got nearly to within a hundred yards before they were noticed. Jessie's group shifted
immediately and engaged the guards, while Trevor led his in closer at a dash, using the distraction of Jessie's engagement.
Shifting as they got to the fences, Trevor's group spread out and started killing people right and left, driving them into a tighter group and pushing them back towards what looked like older and sturdier built pens. Grism and Jake were doing their best to sneak around towards those pens.
Many of the guards immediately starting herding the humans away from Trevor's group as well, not wanting their food to be slaughtered by the lions, who were obviously trying to keep them from eating it. Trevor had been counting on this; he wanted the guards to move everyone into a tighter group to guarantee the effectiveness of the bomb.
Grism and Jake slid to a halt in the shadows of one of the walls of the older pens, and shifting back, Grism pulled out the bomb. "Thirty seconds, right?" Jake said.
Grism nodded as he wound up the spring and removed the safety. It wasn't long before he heard the shooting stop.
"On three. One, two, three!" he said, and Grism triggered the bomb and started to slowly count as they ran to the spot they'd noticed on their way here. Grism had gotten to five when he jumped up on top of the pen's wall and threw the bomb down into the center of the crowd while Jake covered him.
One of the humans noticed it and bent over to pick it up, so Grism shot him and looked to be sure no one else was going to be messing with the bomb.
"What are you doing?" Jake yelled as he looked up at Grism, taking shots with his rifle.
"Run, Jake! One of them picked it up, I got this!" Grism said. Looking down into the pen, he saw another idiot had found it and had picked it up.
"Guess I'm taking the easy way home." Grism sighed and shot them, and then another person who tried to grab his bomb, as Jake sped off into the distance.
"What the hell is Grism doing?" Trevor growled.
"Who cares! RUN!" Jessie said as she flew by with the rest of her team.
Shifting, Trevor took off after her. She was right, best guess they had about twenty seconds left, and there was a slight rise they wanted to be on the other side of when the bomb went off. He almost tripped over his rifle; he hadn't taken the time to stick it in the sheath on his back, so he just let it drop as he ran full out.
He counted in his head, starting from twenty and working his way quickly down. He was almost to five when Jake caught up. He was panting loudly.
"Three…two…One…"
They all made it over the rise as Jake collapsed and slid to a halt.
"Did I count too…"
White. It was white. For the first time since they'd gotten here, Trevor saw white. There was no black, no gray, just white. He squeezed his eyes closed, but even then all he could see was white.
And then he heard it, the sound of the explosion; it was loud, louder than any explosion he'd ever heard before, and a wind whipped over his head as the sound went by.
"Okay! On your feet!" Jessie yelled while blinking to get her sight back. Trevor jumped to his and looked around as his own eyes started to come back into focus, apparently healing from some kind of damage. There was a white ball of fire rising up into the sky; he could even feel some heat from it.
"Let's check for survivors!" he yelled, and he and Jessie led the way back towards where the pens had once stood. All the walls were gone now, knocked flat, along with the structures that had been around them. Everything seemed to be on fire as well, but these were the more typical black flames they had experienced since coming here.
He found his rifle as he ran back, but it was a twisted piece of metal now. Apparently it had been too close to the blast, which made him glad he'd been a lot farther away.
Surprisingly, they found a lot of human survivors, hundreds actually, but they were all horribly burned and blinded, as well as deaf. It didn't take long to kill those they found; everyone was trying to use up as much of their ammo as possible so they'd have less to carry.
"Trouble!" Krista yelled, and when Trevor looked over, she was pointing to the west.
"Looks like our prince has come!" Jessie called.
"Think he's got a glass slipper?" Lena yelled back, causing several of them to snicker.
"I think he's got a lot more than a glass slipper!" Trevor snarled. "Come on! We're done here! Time to go home!" Turning south, he shifted and took off as fast as he could. When they got further away, he'd shed the rest of his gear, but for the moment he'd hold onto it, just in case their friendly prince got a little too close.
Ξ
Sean was sitting upstairs with most of the others, digging through the history files, trying to track down something that had been bugging him for a while now, while Roxy and Wendy were taking apart the Inangar security systems. Roxy had made a few comments about 'not having seen anything this stupid since ROT13!', which had made Sean laugh, while the others just scratched their heads.
Just then Keairra ran into the room, slid to a halt, and announced, "Adam's dead!" and did a little dance in the center of the room.
"Am I missing something?" Peg asked, staring at Keairra, who was spinning around happily. "Isn't Adam her son or something?"
"Yeah, Mom," Estrella spoke up. "What gives?"
Keairra stopped dancing and turned to Estrella with what Sean had to figure was the biggest shit-eating grin he'd ever seen on her face.
"Adam, my Adam, led a team of lions to attack a prince, and then Adam, Adam of all the lions there, charged right up to him, attacked him, and made him burn out his magic so the others could kill him! Kell was there! She saw it and told everyone about it! Can you believe it? Adam leading people into battle? Adam being a complete hardass like his dad? Sacrificing himself so the others could win?
"Oh, Sampson is gonna be so proud when he finds out! I'm gonna kiss him when he comes back!"
And then she went right back to dancing happily in the center of the room.
"Um, is she for real?" Peg asked Estrella in a soft voice.
"Oh, come on!" Roxy laughed. "You saw what he was like when we got him!"
Estrella shook her head. "Apparently Adam has been a big source of disappointment to Mom for some time now. I missed most of it, being here, but trust me; my sisters have all filled me in."
Sean watched Keairra dance for a few moments—she was actually pretty good at it—before going back to work.
"I do not understand the cause for this," Mahkiyoc paused a moment, "celebration?"
Sean looked up at him. "Lions are what you would call a 'warrior' race. We're fighters, all of us. And, apparently Adam was something of a disappointment to his parents until all this started."
"But he is dead now."
"We're immortal. If we die, we come back."
"Like the demons."
Sean nodded. "Like the demons."
"So why is she happy, then? She is happy, right?"
"She's happy because her youngest son took on a demon prince and was apparently willing to sacrifice himself in the attack so the others could kill it."
"They are tough, then?"
"As far as I know, until now, only one lion has ever fought a demon prince and won. So while he may have died in the fight, they still got the prince, which is all that matters. Adam will come back. But the prince won't."
"Truly? The prince will not come back?"
"Truly. When a lion kills a demon, any demon, they stay dead."
"Just like a demon."
Sean shrugged. "I don't know if I'd say 'just like a demon'. Demons absorb humans when they kill them, but we don't. Far as I know, we can only absorb demons."
Mahkiyoc pondered that a moment.
"As Omushkego is responsible for your existence, I guess it would make sense that you can only take a demon's essence. Anything else would have encouraged you to become as they have."
Sean nodded. "Obviously he was a very smart Inangar and understood what he was doing."
As soon as those words left Sean's lips, he stopped and thought about that. T
he First had told him they'd eaten Omushkego, and obviously they'd absorbed his essence. They'd also eaten that demon, which they suspected may have been a prince, and absorbed his essence as well.
So why couldn't they absorb anyone else's essence? Why just those two? According to Mahkiyoc, Omushkego had gone looking for help, and Mahkiyoc believed he had succeeded in making changes to them, the lions, so they could eat the djevels, absorb their essence, so they couldn't come back.
But Sean knew for a fact that Omushkego's only contribution had been getting eaten.
What if, what if Omushkego's entire plan was to get eaten? What if he knew he wouldn't have the time, or possibly the ability, to enhance another race? What if he'd simply made the changes to himself, found a suitable predator, and then lured a prince in to get eaten while sacrificing himself in the process?
Sean sat back in his seat. The Inangar were an extremely selfish and self-centered race. For one to actually do something like that…
Giving his head a shake, Sean abandoned his current line of research to look up Omushkego, and started to page through his notes, his research, everything. What he found was that at first, Omushkego had been a junior researcher in genetics and genetic encoding, whatever that was. Looking further into it, Sean noticed that he never got promoted until people started dying.
Apparently something about Omushkego wasn't very popular with the leaders in his discipline. Then he hit a wall. Apparently about thousand years before Omushkego's last entry, everything was protected so you couldn't read it.
Now that was curious.
Getting up, he walked over to Roxy and Wendy and tapped on their shoulders, then made a 'follow me' gesture with his head.
When they got to his and his wives' quarters, Sean quickly cast a privacy spell.
"You're not planning on adding me to your little pride, I hope!" Wendy teased.
Sean shook his head, but smiled. "No, but I've got something important I need the two of you to break into."