>>Bethany Anne, there is a positive confirmation. Jermom walked out of here with the seven Leath on the video security backup.<<
The police didn’t try to look at it?
>>The local stuff was wiped. The backup is a tiny stream copy, easy to track if you are looking for it. The security on the other side was pitiful.<<
Baba Yaga thought a moment. They must have shrouded those minds in the bar.
TOM interrupted. One of the Leath was probably housing two minds in one body, and now they have split back into eight.
“New information.” She looked back at the Queegert. “Your uncle’s body is hosting a Kurtherian. I’m sorry, little one, but that isn’t your uncle anymore.”
She stood up and looked over her shoulder at the cop, her eyes flashing a warning. “Stay out of my way if you don’t want more deaths on your hands, Captain.”
With that she stepped around the shorter alien and nodded to the Shrillexian. “Another time,” she told him as she swept out the door.
He looked at his captain. “Tell me we aren’t going to try and take her down.”
The captain looked at his patrolman, surprised. “You don’t want to fight her?”
The Shrillexian jerked a thumb towards the open door. “No, and I don’t wish to jump off a mountain and go splat on the ground either. There is no valor in proving yourself an idiot, or going to an ignoble death by stupidity.”
Baba Yaga removed her hood as she stepped through the bar area. A couple of the patrons stared at her as she passed them.
As she left the bar she heard a policeman’s audio announce they had a positive hit for Jermom.
She took off, running hard to make sure she got there first.
4
>>Turn left!<< ADAM fairly shouted in their connection.
Baba Yaga, arms pumping, turned the corner of the street and bit down a curse. The buildings in Cleerk were constructed of some sort of porous stone, often grey with occasional streaks of green or black running through them.
Ahead of her the street became a sort of bazaar of temporary shops and shoppers. Street lamps and lights on the buildings provided more than enough illumination to cast everything in a bright glare.
Baba Yaga looked up and pushed off her right leg, jumping about fifteen feet and then crunching down on the street.
“Gott Verdammt, ADAM!” she huffed. “Change the fucking weight on this stuff!”
>>A little notice that you were about to jump would have been helpful!<< he shot back.
Baba Yaga’s second thrust produced the result she had been looking for as her armored body flew above the heads of the shoppers and merchants. The buildings rose three and four stories.
She kicked off the first building and showered those below with the small pebbles her armored boot dislodged as she jumped across the street high enough to just barely clear the roof line.
“FUCK!” she screamed when she noticed the roof she was about to land on was made of some sort of glass.
Baba Yaga disappeared into the Etheric before crashing through it.
Turning to her right, she moved forward fifteen steps in the amorphous fog and then peeked out. Taking another step, she dropped to the roof of the building on the right of the one whose roof she had almost crashed through.
She landed on her feet and took off running again. “Where is that bastard?” she yelled as she dodged a couple of pipes that protruded through the roof.
Dammit, running through the Etheric with this new armor was a bitch!
>>Two blocks to the right and one up,<< ADAM replied.
“Pay attention to my weight!” she commanded and took two steps. She caught the edge of the rooftop with her right leg and pushed as hard as she could to catapult herself across the street toward a red building that was in the correct direction.
Fortunately this building was a story lower, and she knew it had a solid roof. Her cloak fluttered behind her as she landed on her left leg and kept running across the building, then jumped up about twenty feet to the roof of the next building.
A quick kick and she rebounded off a stone wall, then landed at the edge of another roof, arms windmilling to make sure she didn’t slip off and ‘do a Tabitha’ four stories down.
Her head flicked back and forth. “Where is the little fucker?” she hissed in anger.
You know, TOM took a moment as she looked around to find Jermom, it would be possible to save the uncle.
“What?” she replied. “I thought you said if a Kurtherian took over the body like that they got rid of the host.”
In the long term, yes, but it probably hasn’t been long enough. Jermom could still be in there, screaming as the Kurtherian keeps him down.
“Well, how the fuck are we going to pull a Kurtherian out of him? Or can we kill the Kurtherian inside?”
Best chance is to get the Kurtherian to come out.
“How?”
Not sure. Tempt them using their sense of superiority. He or she will want to move to a better host than they have now.
“You want me to find a tempting host around here?” She put a hand on her waist. “We could get one or both of the aliens killed.”
Technically the uncle is going to die anyway, but I wasn’t suggesting we use a random stranger as the bait.
It took her a microsecond to realize what TOM was suggesting. “No fucking way!” She started jogging down the roof. “You want me to use my own body so I can have two Kurtherians duking it out?”
I’d rather think that there is no way another Kurtherian can beat me.
“How sure are you of that?” she asked, her eyes scanning the street below as she continued moving along the roof.
Not terribly, TOM admitted. That is why I’m not saying we should absolutely do this.
“If you fail that fucker will have my body and I’ll die, and you along with me.” She caught sight of a Queegert and zeroed in on it as it wove through the bodies below. “That would end my revenge and breach my promise to save my people. Is one random alien criminal worth that?”
>>Confirmed! That is Jermom.<< ADAM interrupted.
Baba Yaga eyed the building across the street, then she took two quick steps and jumped, angling like a billiards shot to the walls a bit ahead of her quarry. Her foot was tilted as she stiffened her leg right before slamming into the building, and she twisted to her left as she dropped down from above. “Look out below!” she growled as all sorts of aliens looked up in surprise.
Gorllet, Eighth of the Eight, was relishing his new-found freedom. As a passenger in Teret’s body he hadn’t gotten a chance to use the senses, so he was enjoying the sensations, smells, and other…
Shit. He looked down and wrinkled his nose. “What a dirty world,” he spat in disgust.
While this alien’s body was somewhat simple, he rather liked the three eyes. It allowed for broader spatial awareness.
Pretty handy, he had just decided when he caught the action above his new host. He stopped in his tracks and flicked up the three tentacles to block the rocks that started showering down on him as an alien dropped to the ground yelling a warning.
His middle eye opened in surprise as the alien landed in front of him. The well-lit street backlit the alien, whose white hair was floating around her head.
What surprised him the most was that she spoke Leath.
“Where are your brethren?” she hissed at him as he took in the armor. If this was to be a gun battle, he was woefully unprepared.
Good thing it wouldn’t be.
She pulled a pistol and casually shot him in the leg.
PAIN!
Gorllet fell to the side and grabbed his leg as she walked towards him. He hadn’t been prepared to deal with the body’s reaction, but now he shut down the nerve transmitters so the pain wouldn’t overwhelm him.
Blessed relief! He stared at the alien as she squatted next to him, her pointed teeth bared in the reflected light. “Hurts like a sonofabitch, doesn’t it?”
>
“I’ve had worse in life,” Gorllet replied as the pain diminished. Unfortunately, his body wasn’t going to operate too well at the moment.
Wits it would be.
“Not recently, I suspect.” She pushed on his wound with her pistol barrel, but he felt nothing. Two of his eyes looked down at what she was doing, and one kept looking at her. “In fact, the theory is you were a ride-along with one of the seven Leath that were seen leaving. Since you can’t seem to feel pain, I’m going to assume you are one of the Kurtherians I’m searching for.”
He sneered. “You are the Witch. I will…”
The vicious slap rattled the shit out of his vision and his head swung violently to the right. He shut down more pain connections as agony exploded in his ear from her slap.
She finished his comment, “Not do a damn thing or I’ll kill your host, and then you will die when I burn the body.”
Gorllet was refining the calculations for this situation, taking care to review the permutations, when she continued speaking.
She pointed a finger at his body, then at the ground next to him. “You will come out of this host.”
“Why?” He looked around at the locals, who had stopped to watch.
He could hear someone from local law enforcement working to push his way through the crowd.
“I’ll feed you so much pain, me shooting your leg will feel like ecstasy.”
“You will kill the host at the same time,” he replied with a glint in his eye. “Where will that get you?”
“Satisfied you are dead,” the alien replied. “He obviously wasn’t a good citizen since your people knew about him.”
Behind the two of them, a police officer finally made it through the crowd. “Get back!” the Shrillexian demanded as he took in the two figures on the sidewalk, the stones all over the street, and looking up, the large chunk of rock missing from the wall above them. “You with the pistol! Set it down or I’ll…”
Baba Yaga shook her head for a moment. “Just my luck Eddie the Ignorant was the first one on the scene,” she hissed to herself as she looked down at Gorllet. “Don’t you go anywhere,” she commanded before her head turned like a gun turret to look at the newly-arrived cop. “Officer, keep these people back or I’ll send you to a new dimension.”
The officer’s eyes narrowed as he reached down and pulled his pistol. He was lifting his arm to aim when the white-haired alien disappeared.
“Where did she…” He stepped forward and Baba Yaga appeared behind him. He was able to twist halfway around before she shoved him off his feet.
This time he disappeared.
Baba Yaga took three steps and resumed her squatting position near the Queegert. “There, now I’ve got some more time to play with you.”
>>Would you stop messing around? I’m showing five more cops only half a block away.<<
This fucker is going to tell me where his people are.
How are you going to make him do that? TOM asked. We can’t force him to speak, and killing him inside the body would kill the host.
Who said I had a problem with that?
Rather “Michael” of you to say that, Baba Yaga.
Perhaps he had the right of it, TOM, she spat back. My patience has grown thin.
No, your pain has grown too much, TOM argued.
>>Can you connect to Jermom’s senses?<< ADAM asked the two.
“What?” Baba Yaga asked aloud.
“I didn’t ask anything,” Gorllet replied, confused for a moment before he smiled. “You aren’t alone!”
The red eyes flared as the lips parted to show her sharpened teeth and she leaned forward, her right hand reaching for his forehead. “Well done, Kurtherian. That was your one hint that your future is about to be horrible. Welcome to hell…”
Gorllet watched through Jermom’s eyes as the fingers touched his forehead. It was a tiny intuitive leap for him to switch from using the eyes to sensing along the links Gorllet had connected to his host to find his synapses and nerve fibril heads connected by the alien just a moment before he started screaming.
The Witch had found him, and now he was on fire.
The amount of pain being sent up his connections threatened to overwhelm him, but pain had been his constant friend for decades. What he received, he sent back in spades. He struggled to keep his wits as he withstood the attacks and looked for an opening to go back up the channel to attack her. If he could grab her consciousness, he would be able to transfer from this body to hers.
Through his pain Gorllet kept internally focusing on finding the weak link, the forgotten thread he could use to move up through the host’s system and back to her. His laugh was maniacal, evil, as he realized he could end the war right now.
Let’s see who bends first, Witch!
Captain D221 was expecting carnage as he made his way through the crowded streets. “Move aside!” he yelled as he considered ways to try and direct the innocents away from the fight.
He really didn’t want to have a gun battle with an armored vigilante from another star system who was hell-bent on finding self-determined war criminals infesting the criminals of his city.
The paperwork on the destruction and death would take him a month.
Elbowing aside the last citizen in his way—some sort of alien with four sets of green ears and a yellow bump on their back—he stumbled into the cleared area to see the Witch.
He assumed Jermom was the Queegert on the ground. She must have shot his leg, since there was blood. Both bodies vibrated, their eyes closed and her hand on his forehead.
He made sure not to get near his gun.
A short Torcellan touched his arm. “Are you looking for your officer?” The captain looked down, his eyes narrowed in confusion. The Torcellan pointed towards the Witch. “She pushed him and he disappeared.”
D221 turned to stare again at Baba Yaga and Jermom. “Of course she did.” He grabbed his comm and clicked a switch. “This is Captain D221. Keep the civilians away from the two on the ground.” Releasing the call button, he nodded to another of his officers, who was making his way into the opening. “Get everyone to move back. We don’t know what’s going on with these two!”
He turned to the crowd and started yelling for them to give the officers more room.
He sure hoped Baba Yaga didn’t have any explosives on her body.
Gorllet found a link back through the connection to the alien’s mind and thrust his consciousness into it. Traveling past Jermom’s synapses and through the connection, he followed the path into the alien.
FINALLY!
You’re mine now, human! he crowed as he read her lineage from her mind. He was able to get some information easily, but it was proving difficult to dig deeper.
He didn’t notice that the path back to his body closed behind him.
I don’t think so, a new voice said, interrupting his efforts.
Who is this? He was mentally looking for the new traveler when pain spiked into him. This wasn’t like the pain from earlier, this was assaulting him in an area no other alien should be able to attack.
He had been hit through a Kurtherian Etheric connection.
Gorllet screamed in pain and frustration as the attacks continued hitting him, not allowing him time to get his bearings. He turned to flow back into his own body to get away.
That was when he found out he was blocked from moving back into his old host.
Welcome to Hell, the voice said to Gorllet. I’m your guide, Thales of Miletus. You may call me Death…
Gorllet screamed in frustration, then pain, and then his consciousness ceased to exist.
Captain D221 saw a couple of the crowd cover their mouths and point to the bodies, so he turned back, only to see Jermom’s mouth open and a large worm-looking creature start to crawl out. It stopped moving while it was still partially in Jermom’s mouth.
A few moments later, Baba Yaga started shaking her head and pulled her hand from Jermom’s forehead.
<
br /> She looked down at the worm and made a disgusted face, confirming in a hoarse whisper, “I’ve got to pull that out?”
D221 looked around to make sure the citizens didn’t move closer.
He watched as she grabbed the worm and pulled slowly, the emerging body growing longer and longer. “Oh God, this is gross!” she muttered. “I’d better get triple-time pay for this shit.” Her other hand reached over to grab another portion, and she continued to pull the creature out.
D221 hoped it was normal for this Witch to speak to herself.
She tossed about a body-length of worm off to her right side and shook her hand, flinging viscous fluid off her gloves. “Oh my God, I’m so burning these gloves.” She continued bitching for a moment before grabbing her right fingers with her left hand and starting to pull the glove off, “I know I can’t burn them, but I swear there’d better be a way to clean them or your ass is grass, TOM.”
She finished pulling her glove off and cupped her hand, and a moment later a red ball started forming above her palm. When it had grown to about the size of her head, she tossed it onto the worm that was now slowly wiggling on the street.
The sizzle of burnt flesh was immediate.
Baba Yaga jumped up and put an arm over her face. “Oh, the SMELL!” Then, looking around, she ordered, “Someone get Jermom a doctor.” She looked down at the quickly shriveling black worm and murmured, “That’s going to leave a mark” to herself before she turned to gaze at the captain.
“Captain D221?” she asked. When he nodded, she flicked a hand toward the Queegert. “Jermom should be ok.”
He nodded. “How about my missing officer?”
She smiled—not a very reassuring sight, as he would later write in his report. The Witch took a step closer to him. “I’d move a bit to your left.”
The captain took a step. “No, two more of those tiny things.” She watched him step twice more. “Good.” She disappeared, then his officer appeared and stumbled right past where he had been standing a moment before.
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set Three: Books 15-21, Never Submit, Never Surrender, Forever Defend, Might Makes Right, Ahead Full, Capture Death, Life Goes On (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 120