Army of the Goddess: A Bona Dea Novel (Stormflies Book 2) (20 page)

Behind them the Hall of the People's Council bore similar scars. Charred from flame, chalky limestone walls looked as though sooty fingers reached up and tore through the upper floors. A gaping hole allowed a flood of rain into the corridors and stairways. Ladders, tarps, and nails were put to use to protect what remained. The damage appeared contained to the upper floors of the eastern wing.

With the council room occupied, the members convened outside, making use of the stone benches that framed the partially paved area of the courtyard.

“Our first order of business this morning is a report of casualties. Foster, you have that report,” Lelle prompted, gesturing to the white-haired councilor to her right. “Thank you for staying on until the election.”

“Yes, Ma'am. The current count of the dead continent-wide is three hundred twenty-six. Two hundred eighty-six in Undun city. Injured six hundred eleven. Infected two hundred sixty-three. A number of parasites were contained during the events of last night, bringing the total in captivity up to one-forty-one. Lastly, we have a large number of people missing and unaccounted for—forty-eight.” Foster attempted to deliver the numbers stoically, but his voice caught roughly in his throat and required a number of coughs to clear. “A number of buildings damaged by fire have not been entered as of yet. The Safety Watch suspects the missing will be found once cleanup operations can begin.”

“So, Undun was the single hardest hit community,” Mark derived from the counts. “Either due to our size, our proximity to the former home of the Stormflies, or certain members of our population.” His eyes blatantly fell upon the Protectress, and his gaze was followed by several others.

“Any or all of these reasons, Councilor Osander,” Axandra granted calmly. She had no doubt her existence was the most prominent reason why Undun suffered the brunt of the attack. The Prophets had clearly come for her when they breached the Palace.

“On a positive note, I believe this attack gives us a reasonable estimate of our enemy's number. It is much smaller than I expected,” Mark Osander vocalized. “Eight hundred on the outside, if we assume that not all of the parasites are being hosted currently and that we do not have all of the parasites in custody. As we are aware, the parasites can be harbored without detection for great lengths of time.”

“It's impossible to make such a guess, Mark. We still have no way to prevent their attacks, nor can we adequately detain them,” Homer added gruffly. “The information you describe does us little good. These creatures don't appear to be subject to death and injury as we are. When a host dies, they leave that body for another. We haven't come up with a way to keep them out, and we haven't come up with a sure-fire method of containing them. Glass only holds them for a short time and the creatures can still affect people. Right now we have twelve dozen canning jars locked in a cellar at a house two kiloms outside of town. We haven't captured any free-range. It's impossible to nab them.”

Axandra pinched her lower lip between her teeth, restraining herself from making any comments. Anticipation churned her stomach into a sour volcano. She wanted to close her eyes and when she opened them again, she would find herself ascending from a terrible dream.

“Because we won't allow ourselves to act aggressively enough against the Stormflies,” Mark blasted at Homer, moving forward onto his feet. “We are living in a fantasy world believing we're going to be able to convince the parasites to leave us alone, or that some miracle will drop from the sky and secure us. We've got to work vigorously to find the answer and devote as much resource as possible, or we will be enslaved by these creatures for the foreseeable future. We have to stop thinking of them as rational, intelligent beings, and consider them an infection that requires an inoculation. We have to eradicate them.”

“Mark is right,” Foster voted. “We may already be too late to act, but we've got to try. We can't just lay back and die. I move to authorize Mark's previously proposed measure—investigating lethal methods against the parasites and transferring Healers, biologists, and chemical specialists in all four regions. The groups should work independently as a security precaution.”

“I second it,” Maris Golden declared.

Antonette called for the vote and found fourteen to two with one absence, Casper Ross. The older gentleman had left the Palace once they were released from the bunker. Each assumed he had personal reasons for his abrupt departure, and not one member of the Council appeared to care that he was missing. They doubted his senility in recent months.

“Then let's draft the instructions. Mark has done most of the work, but I feel we should add a letter of intent.” Annie sighed with resignation, settling on the fact that they were opening a door that most likely could not be closed again. The humans were forced to defend themselves violently, which reversed all of the principles the Covenants stood for. “I want to explain why we have to do this.”

29
^th
Trimont (Hundsday)

“What's this?”

Controy found himself staring into a large vial of viscous fluid, and at the center was suspended a pale, lowly-lit orb the size of a wheel bearing.

“A dormant parasite in preservative jelly,” Adese explained, her face reflecting a sense of satisfaction. “Completely inactive.”

“Completely?”

“We're still standing in the same room with it, aren't we?” Adese remarked.

“Standard preservative jelly?”

“It appears to be the perfect concoction to hold the little bugger in stasis,” she confirmed, her eyes glued to the jar as they had been for the last two hours.

“But not kill it.” Controy asked because they had just received Council orders to devise a permanent solution to their problem. That's why he'd come to Adese's lab.

“No. At least not yet. This specimen's only been in the jar for twenty-four hours. I wanted you to see it at this stage.”

“How did you manage to extract it?”

“I didn't” she sighed. “Unfortunately one of the patients expired during rounds yesterday morning. I suspect the Stormfly was simply waiting for the next convenient host when the small rounding team passed by. I grabbed the nearest container in reach, which happened to be preservative. I'd never even thought of it before, since we only use the stuff to store dead tissue. We were focused on the container itself, not the contents. As soon as it sank into the jelly, all emanations stopped and it physically slowed down, the tendrils withdrew completely, and it stabilized in this state. Ever since, it's been quiet.

“Excellent!” Controy began to cheer boisterously, but quickly decrescendoed his excitement, remembering his location. He continued in a whisper. “So we need to get any specimens still in storage into the jelly immediately.”

“Already sent the order,” Adese stated, and Controy silently praised her presumptuous nature. They'd had more than one roe about her consistent method of jumping over his authority.

“Our next dilemma is extraction,” she continued. “It's the one thing holding us back from a complete treatment.”

“So, the plan is to induce coma, extract, and retain,” Controy voiced the progression, organizing his thoughts. “We have every available chemist working on the whipgrass extract at the highest concentration. Preservative jelly is in stock in vast quantities already, but we'll have to restock. Containers can be collected from anywhere. Do we have any lead on an extraction technique that won't kill the patient?”

Adese studied the gray sphere of matter suspended in the transparent, green-tinted fluid inside the clear glass specimen jar. The sight and smell of the jelly struck a temporal chord, taking her back to the first years of anatomical training, identifying common species, analyzing collected organs. She'd never experienced gastric discomfort peering at the interior of any creature on Bona Dea, native or not.

But this…thing…made her head spin just at the sight. She felt a visceral aversion to its very presence and a hatred for its natural predation of all things with any amount of emotion.

“I believe I'm close,” she informed her supervisor vaguely. “As long as I have no stipulation to keep the parasite alive, I am very close.”

Controy's nostrils flared as his lips tightened into a thin line. “Fortunately for you, the People's Council has already granted such freedom. The orders arrived several minutes ago. They have arrived at a decision that the Bona Dean people are no longer responsible for the well-being of the Stormflies.”

Adese's facial muscle twitched, but she managed to restrain herself from a full-blown grin of morbid pleasure. She nodded acknowledgement and began to roll back her tunic sleeves.

“But I want a full disclosure of the process before you attempt it on any patient.”

“Of course,” she replied impertinently, as though offended that he think she would do otherwise. “I'll tell it to you now. I believe a direct electroshock transmission into the host brain, aimed at the parasite's location in the frontal lobe, will cause the tendrils to retract and loosen the parasite's hold. Using suction, we can remove the Stormfly surgically, either through the optical orbit, or through a surgical cavity.”

“Electroshock? No one has used anything like that for hundreds of years—never on this planet. On Old Earth, they used to treat emerging telepaths with electroshock to disrupt their abilities and 'cure' them of their mental defect.”

“I know. That's where I got the idea,” she said pointedly. “These parasites are telepathic in nature, and the shock will almost definitely stimulate a defensive response, hopefully to protect itself and not the host. It could very well cause the creature to force the host to act violently. Restraints and sedation would be required. The coma should reduce the risk of an outward reaction.”

“We risk damaging the eye and possibly the optic nerve. It could result in blindness.”

“Yes, it could. I for one would rather be alive and free of the parasite even if it meant being blind in one eye.”

“But you can't make that decision for the patient, now can you,” Controy scolded. Adese clearly feared he would balk at the idea of such an invasive treatment. He preferred more subtle methods. However, those options had already dismally failed. He had his orders from the Council to adhere to now, and thousands of human beings to save and protect. At the same time, he needed to uphold his authority and not allow Adese even a modicum of free decision. He needed to keep her in line for the sake of his reputation. He also wanted to make sure she'd considered every angle.

“That's why a surgical opening is also an option, though I'm afraid as soon as the creature realizes we're coming in, it will force the host body to shut down completely in order to effect an escape through the eye, thus killing the patient. Exactly what we are trying to avoid.”

“How are you going to test this? How will you determine the proper amplitude of the shock.”

“First, we'll use the parasites already detained in the empty jars, ones that haven't come in contact with the preservative. I expect ten of those to arrive within the hour,” she stated, her hands on her hips like a cock during a challenge. “I will start with the lowest setting and duration and work my way up until I receive an acceptable reaction. Then I will have to experiment on a real patient.”

Controy hesitated, clearing his throat, frequently the signal that he is about to give a negative response. His mouth opened, stalled, his teeth clamped down on the left side of this tongue, then his mouth closed again.

Adese used his silence as an opportunity to push her case. “I just need one subject to the test the theory. Just one.”

Controy's dithering was unreadable to Adese at this point. She couldn't tell which way he would lean. He kept his emanations carefully guarded, and she feared speaking again as much as staying silent.

Just come out with it!
her mind screamed.

One finger rapped the countertop. “Do it. I may regret this, but do it. And I will take full responsibility if something…negative happens.”

With her heart in her throat, Adese couldn't even muster a thank you. Controy did not wait to hear one.

30
^th
Trimont (Farensday)

Morgan Mainsteer observed the wreckage that was once the Peoples' Hall. He never imagined he'd be trapped in Undun City for the largest attack on a trip to meet with Lawrence about their election strategy. Ushered to an underground shelter overnight, he emerged into a smoky, rainy world when the worst was over. While he didn't wish anyone any physical harm, he found that perhaps the Stormflies would take care of certain aspects of his overall plan, such as tearing down this building misnamed the Palace in order to move the capital city to a centralized location. Half the work was done already. The inability of the Council to prepare or prevent this disaster would clench his argument that the group had grown ineffective in recent years, catering to their personal greed rather than the well-being of all people. The mollifying words of his next speech swirled in his head as he surveyed the city street before him. People passed by in grief for the loss of their status quo.

A lot of people needed help at this moment, so Mainsteer put aside his personal agenda and approached the first Safety Officer he identified to ask how to get involved. Pleasantly relieved, the officer sent him to the staging ground for search and rescue. At this location, families and neighbors provided information about people believed to be missing, supplying descriptions, names and often photos, as well as last known whereabouts. Groups of three headed out in search parties as directed by the coordinators.

Mainsteer was given the address of 86 Dell Street. With his teammates, Burleigh and Edward, they hopped a dray heading to that corner of town. He borrowed gloves and a hardhat, expecting to be clambering through the ashy stone frame of a house in search of remains. In his hand, he carried a photograph of a woman named Ella Bercaw. Late twenties, dark wavy hair and pale blue eyes, wide lips over a dimpled chin. She lived in the house with her brother, who supplied the photo and said he last saw her standing at the top of the staircase in the house, refusing to leave despite the raging inferno behind her. Morgan did not hold out hope of finding her alive. He had faced death before on such details.

All wooden components of the house were now charcoal. The roof collapsed into the upstairs, which in turn partially collapsed into the first floor. Cinders and fragments of furniture littered the visible area. Water dripped from bits of wall frame. A complete loss, this house would be demolished and reconstructed.

“Let's split up,” instructed Burleigh, pointing in two directions. “I'll take this half. Morgan, see if you can get into what's left of the second floor, but be safe about it. Edward, over there.”

Proceeding cautiously, Morgan studied the bulk of the staircase. Risers jutted at irregular angles, cracked and splintered from the forces of gravity, buckling after supports burned away. Portions of the upstairs remained intact, while others existed only as gaping, singed holes.

Testing his weight on the lowest step, which creaked a warning under the pressure, he used the support of the remaining wall to begin a slow ascent, prepared to leap at the slightest indication of further collapse. Each sound of strain caused him pause and reconsideration of the attempt. He tuned his ears to listen for any sound of human life, whether a cry or even just the hint of a breath.

At the top of the stairs, he found only bubbled paint, a scorched table, and a broken picture frame. No sign of a body. Using his eyes to investigate all visible areas, he found much of the same in all direction. Some crevices were dark and obstructed from this vantage point, but most were too small to hide a grown woman.

Returning to the starting point, he waited for his team to finish the survey. The other two men returned empty-handed.

“She must have escaped the blaze. She'll show up somewhere in time, probably just lost in the shuffle,” Burleigh said with a lack of emotion in his deep voice. “Hope it ends happily. Let's cordon off the area and mark as surveyed. Then we can move on the next house on the list.”

Morgan grabbed one end of the yellow rope while Burleigh and Edward took the spool. Before tying off the end on what remained of a porch post, Morgan threaded on the laminated sign that read “CLEARED. READY FOR DEMOLITION.” The sign hung clearly visible from the street. In a week or so, a crew would arrive with power jacks and rubbish drays to remove unsalvageable portions.

Standing with his fists at his hips, he surveyed the nearby homes. On either side of the Bercaw bungalow, the houses showed signs of slight damage to wooden elements caused indirectly by the heat of the fire. Fire crews arrived at this location fairly quickly, saving the adjacent structures. Across the street to the immediate north, a ten room inn bore a dozen broken windows, wet curtains flapping in the new morning breeze. Four houses over stood another fire-wrecked two-story. Debris littered the paving bricks, including scraps of paper and fabric, shingles, flower pots, and broken glass, disarray as far as the eye could see.

A woman appeared at the end of the walkway. Donning scorched clothes and a blistered forearm, she resembled the photograph stashed in Morgan's pocket. Hair disheveled and face smudged with soot, she stared straight ahead at him, skin the color of bone, pale and expressionless.

“Hey, Miss!” Morgan called out. “Are you Ella? Ella Bercaw?”

She did not respond or even blink, but remained stock still.

“Miss? Hello.” Morgan waved an arm and called out. “Miss Bercaw, are you all right?”

He started toward her. Perhaps the trauma of escaping a house fire left her in shock. If he got close enough and in the line of sight, she might finally react. “Miss Bercaw, I'm here to take you to your brother. He's looking for you.”

In a flash, she swung a hammer through the air. Quick to evade, Morgan ducked down before the hammer made contact with his skill. In one long move, he grabbed the offensive arm, twisted, and sent the tool clattering across the sidewalk. Ella's knees met the flagstone while he twisted her arm back, pinning her.

A patrolling Safety Officer ran up, having witnessed the attack. “I've got her, sir. Thank you. Looks like she's infected. We'll get her to detention.”

“Good idea. Fortunately for my head, she's weak and slow.” Morgan involuntarily fingered his scalp to check for any divots. The hammer came close enough to snag a few flying strands of hair.

“Mid-cycle. They all seem to hit a low after they rampage,” the Security Officer stated with an air of expertise. “We've been watching them all night long. The Healers wanted detailed reports on as many as we could get.”

“Really? Interesting.”

Morgan followed the captured offender as she was led away. By the look in her eyes, she had no recollection of her previous night's activities and could barely register her current reality. With hollowed cheeks and a jutting collarbone, she appeared to be wasting away, one of the primary physical symptoms of Stormfly infection—according to the information mandatorily distributed to each individual residence throughout the continent. Slurred speech, erratic behavior, fatigue, and malnutrition were all listed. Not everyone experienced mania. The effect varied per person. Morgan wondered if those with strong mental talents were afforded greater protection, an ability to fight the infection. He did not have enough empirical data to form a true hypothesis on the subject, but the beginning of any good theory was a curious question.

With this home cleared, Morgan and his team moved to the next damaged building.

+++

“Daylin,” Mainsteer addressed his faithful assistant. He was aware that she raised her eyes and pen, prepared to capture his upcoming request.

He paused, arguing internally whether his desired course of action was the correct direction to proceed. Too many variables derailed his original intentions. However, after investing such vast amounts of time and energy into enacting fundamental change within the system, he felt unwilling to completely abandon his agenda.

“Take some notes for me. We're going to head home tomorrow; but I want to have another rally in Undun City, so set that up for next month.” Among the many options wheeling from one side of his brain to the other, Morgan fumbled for the three that would grab the most attention immediately, leading into his other propositions. He rummaged through his thoughts for anything benign yet relevant. “Firstly, I want to discuss the possible relocation of the People's Hall. Other locations could be Jake, Westland; Sunflower Lake, Eastland; or Westrange, Southland. Each of those villages is more centrally located and more accessible to all citizens.”

The pen scratched on the coarse paper of her notepad without comment from Daylin.

“Secondly, I'd like to open up a dialogue about changing the office of Protectress to an elected office with a set term. Ten years or twelve at most.”

Mainsteer stared into the opacity of his beer. Here, amidst the skeletons of charred homes, the café remained standing and serving anyone who wished to drown out their trauma temporarily. They promised to serve until their kegs and casks ran dry and the last bottle was emptied. Then they promised to find more. They posted a hand painted placard above their door, the promise in writing.

After the better part of a day recovering blistered, fire-eaten bodies—too many bodies—Morgan paid tribute to the dead with a silent toast. He could have been one of them if he'd been in another place at the time. Like so many on this planet, he took for granted his safety and longevity. The possibility of his premature demise was so unlikely; the near death experience shook him to the core of his being. Not even the stiff stout was able to knock loose his reservations about wherever his life might stand tomorrow.

This change in the status quo prompted him to rethink the forward momentum of his life. What was he doing heading up rallies and shuffling letters from coast to coast? What did he hope to gain for himself or future generations? For all these years, he gained only minimal ground, a hand-full of devoted followers, a second handful who sat on the fence, pressing his buttons, not nearly enough to enact change.

Perhaps he would run for Council at the next opportunity. Homer Spirton would likely retire soon, giving and opening in Northland for fresh ideas. He wasn't young, but he offered something different, an alternative way of thinking that appealed to some. Getting inside the Council Room would provide an increased chance of his ideas having a loud enough voice and ears required to listen. He could make changes from the inside out.

Clearing his throat, he remembered that Daylin waited with her pen at the ready. “Thirdly, and not for the speech, at least not yet, find out when Homer is going to retire. I'm going to run in his place.”

“I'll see what I can find out at the People's Hall,” Daylin acknowledged.

“Good. Go to it.”

With a confounded raise of her pencil-thin eyebrows, Daylin rose and scurried away.

The beer left a thick trail of foam and flavor along his tongue and into his stomach, already saturated with ferment. His head felt the slightest additional twinge of muddying, adding to the considerable slop already clouding his consciousness. He realized he'd just sent Daylin on an urgent mission to get the Protectress' attention, and he had no real idea what he wanted to say to that young woman. It wasn't possible to cancel already, not and save face for his reckless action. He tried to remember what had come over him.

“Oh, dear me. You fool,” he chided himself. He was thinking about how lovely a woman she was, not only physically, but psychically. He remembered their first meeting and how quickly her emanations inundated him with a sense of kinship like he'd never experienced before. No one was like her. No one possessed the incredible prowess of her mind, at least not that he'd ever met. He believed he never would find anyone like her.

He felt shameful for his lustful thoughts that day and those that resurfaced now as he thought about her. She was much too young for him, and she was married. She so clearly showed no emotional interest in him at their first meeting, and she wasn't likely to show any tomorrow. Yet, his inebriated brain toyed with the idea of trying the same trick on her she had attempted on his, using his own strong emanations to influence her emotional state. Would he be able to pull off something so brazen, if only he would have a chance to hear her say something pleasing to his ears or, perhaps, steal a kiss while in the shadows?

Shaking his head, he attempted to rid it of such corrupted thoughts. Once he finished this beer, he needed to return to his room and sleep off these immoral notions, clear his conscience, and then compose a real agenda for the meeting his so carelessly requested. He could only hope her schedule would not allow for a visit from him.

+++

“Healer, these are all of the remains we found on the upper floor.”

Ben gestured to the sheets spread out on the cots in what had been a storage room adjacent to the underground bunker. Needing a space to store the bodies, the guards significantly lowered the temperature of the room, brought in cots and covers, and lay them out in neat rows, side-by-side. Only an aisle existed along the center of the rows, three in all, with thirteen cots in each. Several of the sheets covered only portions of bodies, the barest outline of shape.

“We have marked the identification of those who could be verified. We are…uncertain if some of the remains might belong together. Several of these bodies are burned beyond recognition.”

While he felt sorrow for each and every one of the individuals who lost their lives, there was one foremost in his mind, the one the Protectress wanted to find.

“Miri?”

Ben's nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply. “Third on the right, sir.”

Gage approached carefully and raised the covering. Indeed, beneath this thin layer of cloth, the lifeless body of Miri Stockers lay in grim repose, void of color save the charred flesh on one side of her face and body. Her clothing was burned and tattered and stained with fire foam, exactly as they had found her.

Knowing he would be questioned, he examined the body for the precise cause of death. Narone watched from nearby.