“Come on!” Tym yells as he slams one guy face-first into a table. “We’re not here to fight!”
“Fight?” I ask as I duck a shiv and slice the guy up the inside of his armpit, leaving a nasty little gash in his lat muscle that’ll hurt like a motherfucker but won’t kill him if he gets to the infirmary quickly enough. “I’m making friends!”
Still, we hurry outside, where I cover the rear while Tym leads the three of us to our packs. I’m barely able to keep a grip on my left-hand knife and quietly sheathe it before I possibly drop it. Unlike the cheap ‘Damascus steel’ blade that the idiot in the market was trying to sell me, these knives are the real deal, lightweight steel alloy that’ll slice a hair in half lengthwise if I want them to. So no way am I dropping one of these babies unless I don’t have any other choice. Like losing a hand.
Tym’s got our packs, and I run up, grabbing my pack and slinging it over my shoulder. “Well, that was a hell of a start to the mission. What’d you say to piss them off so much?”
Cerena, who’s somehow fought her ass off without taking off her travel pack, shrugs as she studies a cut on her travel cloak. “Don’t know. Came in looking for you two, one of them hit on me . . . and you came in twenty seconds later.”
Hmm. I mean, I’ve been shot down by plenty of women, even with my charm, but then again, none have been as hot as this one. Still, seems strange. “Understood. By the way, the name’s Lance. The big hunk of muscle with the hammers is Tym.”
“Tymond,” Tym hopefully corrects her, then sighs. “Tym’s fine.”
We slow from our quick jog, and Cerena shakes hands with Tym, who’s put one of his hammers across his back for safekeeping. “Cerena Lightmoon.”
She turns to shake hands with me, and it’s only too late that I realize she’s using her left hand. I clasp with her and groan when she shakes, and she pulls back quickly. “What?”
I chuckle, holding up my already swelling left forearm. “Like I said, great start to a mission. Think we can make a stop and get this set?”
“We can stop at the med clinic and—”
“No,” I interrupt her, waving her on. “I just need a splint. I don’t want to deal with the autodocs right now. Come on, let’s keep moving. Don’t want to waste the moonlight.”
Chapter 5
Cerena
The moon’s just reaching its apex as I bring the three of us to a stop, finally turning to Lance and shrugging off my pack. “Okay, let’s get that thing looked at. Why you didn’t want an autodoc, I don’t know, don’t care. But I’m not going to Bane with a one-armed man.”
“One-armed, three-legged,” Lance jokes, his face a little pale from the pain. I’ll give him credit. He’s stupid for not wanting better treatment, but he didn’t complain at all about our moving out. Instead, we made good time leaving Ringtown. Considering we have to walk the whole way to Bane, I don’t want to waste another minute if we don’t have to. “Trust me, that third leg’s a doozy.”
“I’m sure I’ve seen bigger,” I deadpan, looking around. I see a stunted tree in the distance and lead them over, pulling out my swords as I take off my pack.
Lance laughs disbelievingly. “Wait, you had those things in your pack and didn’t use them? Tym, I think they sent us out here with a Girl Scout, not a Huntress.”
“Careful, or else I’ll show you what all I can do with these things,” I reply before chopping off one of the dead branches from the tree. I get a fire going while Tym and Lance set their packs down, Tym pulling out a medical kit from his bag. “I’ve got a med kit.”
“I’m sure,” Tym says quietly, his voice rumbling in the darkness, “but you do not need to use your supplies.”
“Solace is footing the bill. No need for you to incur costs,” I order, sitting down. “Show me the arm, Lance.”
My med kit scanner shows the break’s pretty clean, a simple crack that’ll heal cleanly. “Grit your teeth and turn your thumb to the sky,” I order, watching as the bone slips into place. “Now hold still.”
“You know, you could use some pain meds . . . or at least some bedside manner,” Lance quips, making me roll my eyes.
“If you want bedside manner, find a bed first,” I remind him. “And without a DNA scan, I don’t know how you’d react to any meds.”
Lance shakes his head but keeps his arm still as I get the bracing material out. “Forgot about your kind and that DNA bullshit.”
“Bullshit?” I ask, glancing over at Tym, who says nothing. “What do you mean?”
Lance glances at Tym, who only shakes his head. “Not my concern. She can believe whatever she wants to believe as long as she fights like she did in the bar.”
“Yeah, well, considering the issues we’re going to have, we might need to get some things clear,” Lance says, flexing his fingers as I finish with the first layer of bracing tape. “Good. You can do another.”
I finish up, and when I’m done, I put my materials away. When it’s all done, I sit down across the fire from him, watching as he moves his arm back and forth, wiggling his fingers and looking frustrated. “Too tight?”
“No, but until this thing comes off, I’m going to be as weak as a kitten in this arm,” Lance replies. “A whole fucking week of doing everything right-handed.”
“Wait, a week?” I ask, sitting up. “What sort of paranormal are you?”
“Not a paranormal. Demigod,” Lance says calmly. “Like I said, the name’s Lance. Grandson of Loki. Well, that’s the name he prefers, according to my mother and grandmother.”
I blink, stupefied for a moment. “Huh?”
Tym sighs and looks over at Lance. “Remember, she’s a Hunter, Lance. She’s ignorant.”
“Fuck you very much!” I growl, tempted to grab one of my swords but stopping because Tym’s voice doesn’t sound mocking, just . . . matter of fact. “Fine, educate me. How has my education been lacking? In a world where most people don’t even have electricity, I can field strip a hologram generator in three minutes.”
“Science is only half the story,” Tym says. Lance looks like he’s going to add something, but then he leans back on his good arm, letting Tym lead the way. “You were raised with a very atheistic mindset, were you not?”
“If you mean I was raised to think that stories of mystical beings in the sky who love us, leave us rules to follow, and want us to worship them in order to make the world perfect are a bunch of shit . . . of course,” I shoot back. “Come on, guys, I think we took the whole ‘he’s watching over us’ story and blew it straight to nuclear hell, don’t you?”
“Yes and no,” Tym replies. “Imagine . . . well, they don’t have to be metaphysical beings, but I tend to think they are. Imagine Earth is a grand experiment to them, and for a long time, they stirred the pot as they liked. Which is where a lot of the old mythology comes from.”
“So, wait. You mean that instead of the Judeo-Christian view, the Greeks had it right?” I ask, struggling to remember what I can from ancient literature. Academy studies didn’t quite go back that far, other than a few stories in literature class. “Zeus . . . Apollo . . . Mercury?”
“Some of the names they’ve gone by,” Tym says. “They were known by different names in different cultures. But as time went on, the gods began to squabble with each other, so they were forbidden from interfering in their grand experiment.”
“Then when humanity decided to blow itself to hell, they were let back in to try and save what they could,” Lance explains. “You see, their DNA, their genetic material, is immune to all the shit we left behind. Gamma rays, alpha waves, strontium 90 . . . no different from a sugar pill to them. So they were allowed to stir the pot again, with limits.”
“Limits?” I ask, setting aside my disbelief to at least hear what Tym has to say. After all, if I’m going to travel with these two men, I need to know just what’s going on in their heads. “Like what?”
“Like they couldn’t just go stomping around the Scorched Earth, dropp
ing Gardens of Eden in their wake,” Lance replies. “More or less, they could sow some wild oats and could communicate with their progeny, but their powers were, at least in this realm, cut off. But the different groups, the paranormals . . . they’re the result. As are we.”
“We?” I ask, and Tym nods. “Great, and just which great spirit in the sky do you claim?”
“Tyr, sometimes called Mars or Ares,” Tym says. “Although the stories aren’t quite right. Tyr and Thor are the same being, which is why I tend to like using hammers.”
I snort, shaking my head. “Insane. I’m ten miles outside Ringtown with a couple of escapees from the insane asylum. And why are you telling me this?”
“Because our heritage gives us capabilities . . . and weaknesses,” Lance admits. “For example, Loki. To the Greeks, he was known as Prometheus, and in both instances, he was bound and stripped of his powers. My arm is bound right now, hence the weakness. But I’ve got other strengths . . . like how I just appeared out of nowhere in the tavern.”
I hum, thinking. Regardless of whether he’s nuts or not, he did pop out of nowhere to help save my ass. “Okay, you’ve got a nifty ability . . . and since you aren’t a wolf—”
Tym growls, his lip lifting in a sneer that Lance waves off. “His kind doesn’t like wolves too much. Go on, I’m looking forward to a big compliment and your saying you think I’m hot.”
He’s so ridiculous, so over the top, that I can’t help but bark a laugh. “Lance, keep dreaming. You did well. You fought, and yes, you both saved my ass. But that doesn’t mean you’re demigods, or partial gods, or . . . whatever. The paranormals and all the other non-pure human strains are mutations, that’s it.”
“Right,” Lance replies mockingly. “It just so conveniently happened that the laws of evolution, which had pretty much been predictable for hundreds of thousands of years, in the course of two or three generations while your ancestors were buried below ground doing . . . well, whatever it is they did to entertain themselves down there, split off into a bunch of different directions, most of which looked like they came right out of a fairy tale book. I mean, werewolves, vampires, fairies . . . sure, no problem at all.”
“It’s more reasonable than saying the residents of Mount Olympus waltzed on down to Earth to have a massive orgy,” I shoot back. “I don’t mean any disrespect when I say that you guys are genetically drifted from my background.”
“Sure . . . and that’s because our ancestors faced a very serious choice,” Lance counters. “Have you ever asked yourself, Huntress, what happened to all those humans who weren’t in the shelters when the bombs dropped?”
I purse my lips, nodding. “I did a thought experiment on it once, even though it was just idle thinking. The major population centers, they had to have been wiped out pretty quickly. With the tectonic shifts, I can only guess where they are or what exists of them nowadays, but New York, Los Angeles, Washington . . . it had to have been over quickly for them.”
“For the most part,” Tym says quietly. “But there were quite a few people who lived in rural areas or areas where the missile defense system actually worked. They were people who were underground in basements, or working inside strong buildings, or just happened to be on the right side of a mountain when the warheads hit. Maybe only five percent of the population . . . but five percent of North America’s seven hundred million are still a lot of people.”
“What the fallout didn’t take, the nuclear winter devastated,” I continue, trying not to sound too heartless. After all, these men can trace their ancestry back to those survivors. “But obviously, they survived. It’s actually a pretty heroic tale, if you think about it, fighting against nearly insurmountable odds.”
“Not nearly insurmountable. Just insurmountable,” Lance shoots back. “At least when the dinos got wiped out, there weren’t tons of radioactive isotopes atomized and spread willy-nilly through everything. The little mammals that eventually became us had a chance to grow into a fresh, if fucked-up, planet once the dust settled. We didn’t.”
“So you think that instead of using science or genetic manipulation or retroviruses or any of the other dozen ways people could have survived and adapted instead of checking out, They started letting the gods get them pregnant?”
“No, not all the gods are male,” Tym reminds me. “At least three of the major ones are female, and some are . . . gender fluid. It’s not something I fully understand.”
“And he knows more than me,” Lance pipes up. “At least his grandfather stuck around for a few birthdays. You try having the god of fishermen, tricksters, and thieves as your grandfather and see how far you get with the old family reunions.”
Lance stops, and I look back and forth between them before finally leaning my head back and laughing my ass off. I can’t help it, it’s just too over the top, and they’re so serious about it. “Is this . . . holy shit, guys, is this what outsiders do for religion nowadays?” I ask, still shaking. “I thought I was savvy to the Scorched Earth after going on all those Hunts. Guess I wasn’t poking around the right places.”
Tym just takes a deep breath and looks at the fire while Lance looks disappointed, almost hurt. Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit. I’m not on this mission to make friends, but they did save my ass at the tavern. And, while nothing can ever really come of it . . . they are both cute in a certain way.
Certainly a lot better looking than Crassus. If I have to put up with stupid men and stupid shit, I’d take both of these two over my betrothed any day.
Wiping my eyes, I take a few deep breaths and calm down. “Listen, guys, I’m sorry I laughed. Whatever your beliefs are, they are. I’m not intentionally going to shit on you about them anymore. I just . . . I disagree, okay?”
Lance looks up, a little hostile. “Is that so? Then what about your Elders? Rumor is that the Elders of Solace have been around since the Apocalypse. How’d they pull that off?”
“Science,” I explain quietly and logically. “Cryo-sleep, when you boil away the timing and the details. All the rest is just the result of better medicine, better breeding, I guess you could say. Listen, I don’t want to argue all night. You need rest for that arm, and I want to get a move on in the morning. We’ve got a lot of miles to cover. Just . . . I’m sorry I laughed, okay?”
Lance looks like he’s about to argue the point some more, but he stops after Tym shakes his head. Instead, Lance rubs at his face and sighs. I notice for the first time that he’s very smooth cheeked, which is rare among outsiders. Some Hunters will shave inside of Solace, but out on a mission, trimmed beards are the norm. Lance though is nearly as smooth faced as I am, and it looks all natural on him, too. Interesting. “Fine. Apology accepted. Now, can we get some food, maybe some rest? It will help the arm.”
In the distance, a lion’s roar splits the air, reminding us of just where we are. The Scorched Earth isn’t the sort of place you have friendly campouts sitting around the fire. Lions, giant scorpions, mega-rattlers . . . and that’s just some of the things that go bump in the night.
“I’ll take first watch,” Tym says, standing up. He walks over to his pack and grabs one of his hammers, hefting it easily to his shoulder. The lion’s roar was far away, most likely on the other side of Solace near the farms. There, the predators are seen as a constant nuisance, but that doesn’t mean we should let our guard down. “Just in case.”
He moves off to . . . well, probably take a leak. We’re in the Scorched Earth, which means he should be recycling what he puts out through his filter bottles, but still, some guys are sensitive about whipping out their schlongs to refill the travel bottle. I get it. I mean, I need an adapter. Science still hasn’t figured out how to stop a girl from needing to squat.
In the meantime, Lance just looks at me from across the small fire. In the flickering firelight, I realize I can’t yet trust him . . . but he is damn good looking. That baby face is appealing in its feigned innocence.
“I have an idea,” I
muse as I dig in my pack for my ration pack. “How about while we walk, you fill me in on what you believe? I’m not saying I’m going to start thinking the same way you guys do, but . . . well, it’ll fill the miles, at least. And you seem like someone who likes to talk.”
Lance thinks about my offer for a moment. Sure, it’s a pretty obvious peace offering, but I’m not known for diplomacy. Finally, he chuckles and nods. “Huntress, you’re going to find out that I love using my mouth . . . for all sorts of things.”
Yup . . . I’m out here with an idiot.
Still better than Crassus.
Chapter 6
Tymond
“I still can’t believe that they named a city after a god.”
It’s the kind of statement that I have become familiar with from Cerena as we make our way through the Scorched Earth. ‘I still can’t believe.’ It’s not offensive when she says it any longer, not after two days of walking through the dusty wasteland, using conversation to pass the time.
I’m about to answer when Lance’s laughter cuts me off. “Yep. Bane’s one of those gods who decided a name change for a new era would be appropriate. It’s why you don’t hear about him in the mythology that way . . . but once he chose the name, it stuck like a motherfucker. And since he’s the guy who happens to be responsible for two of the strongest paranormal groups . . .”
Lance’s words trail off, and we keep moving. Part of it, I know, is that Lance and I still struggle with background explanations. With Cerena not believing and just starting to learn some of the background on the real life in the Scorched Earth outside of Solace, lots of our conversations have gone this way.
How do you explain to a total atheist that the two most powerful paranormal races, werewolves and vampires, are genetically linked? That they might hate each other with a passion bordering on fanatical, but if you go up the family tree far enough, you’ll find the same origin?
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