Enhanced: Brides of the Kindred 12 (The Brides of the Kindred) (50 page)

Mei-Li frowned. “What do you mean ‘the
Kindred Goddess? And how will you injecting Six affect me or the baby—if I’m
carrying one?” The thought seemed strange but not terrible. She had always
loved kids and if she happened to be pregnant, well, she was okay with it. As
long as the baby was healthy.

“Some of the immunity Six now possesses
will carry through your bond, yes it will, yes it will,” Yipper explained. “And
the next time you have sexual relations, his seed will carry the rest to your
womb. I just had to be certain that he got the injection before it went bad.
Yes I did, yes I did. I knew I wouldn’t have time to make another batch before
the pathogens that used to be in his blood affected the fetus. If there is one.”

“Oh my…” Mei-Li felt faint. “That was
close, I guess. But you’re sure it will be okay?”

“I am absolutely positive. Yes I am, yes I
am.” Yipper nodded. “But it would be best if you had sexual relations sooner
rather than later. Yes it would, yes it would.”

“I am not adverse to that.” Six gave her a
hungry look and Mei-Li felt herself blushing again. “Especially if you will put
back on the lacy panties and let me pull them off with my teeth again.”

“Six!” She felt like she was blushing all
over but she was more than willing to comply with his idea. However, there was
still something bothering her. She turned to Yipper. “There’s one thing I don’t
understand—if you’ve been working on the serum all these years, why didn’t you
give it to Six before?”

Yipper shrugged his hairy little
shoulders. “Well, he didn’t need it before. No he didn’t, no he didn’t. And
besides, I was missing a few compounds that are difficult to find near Z4.
Luckily Commander Sylvan was able to give them to me. So now, even if the
Mother of All Life should bless your bond with a child, it will be healthy and
well. Yes it will, yes it will.”

Mei-Li suddenly felt weak.

“Wh-what did you say?” she managed to ask
Yipper. “About the Mother of what?”

“The Mother of All Life—the Kindred
Goddess,” Yipper explained patiently. “She is the deity that all Kindred
worship—all but the Dark Kindred who bow only to the Collective. She
does
exist, however and now that the two of you are living on the Mother Ship, you
would do well to acknowledge her. Yes you would, yes you would.”

But most of what the little Tolleg was
saying went right over Mei-Li’s head. All she could concentrate on was the
strange dream she’d had the night before.
But it wasn’t a dream!
screamed
a little voice inside her head.
It really happened! The Kindred Goddess came
and talked to you specially and gave you a specific warning to give to
Commander Sylvan. And instead of doing anything about it, you’ve been lazing
around in bed and having lots and lots of unprotected bonding sex!

“Quick,” she said to Six. “Do you have any
idea of when the next Kindred Council meeting is?”

He shrugged. “How should I know that?”

“I know,” Yipper replied unexpectedly. “It
is going on now. I saw Commander Sylvan this morning before I came to your
suite and he was on his way to it. Yes he was, yes he was.”

“Oh no! No, no, no!” Mei-Li gasped. “Oh,
we have to get there! Where is it being held?”

She started to run look for her dress from
the night before, but Six caught her by the shoulders. “Mei-Li—what is wrong? I
can feel your anxiety through our bond.”

“It’s the Goddess—the Mother of All Life,”
Mei-Li babbled, scanning the living area for her discarded dress as she spoke.
“She came to me last night and told me all kinds of things—that you were going
to remember something important. And also that there is some kind of intruder
here on the ship. Somebody plotting to hurt the Kindred.”

“Well we knew something of that already,”
Six said, frowning.

“Indeed.” Yipper nodded. “You told
Commander Sylvan that Two had said someone here was working with him, Six. Yes
you did, yes you did.”

“Yes, but he didn’t seem to believe it was
possible,” Mei-Li said. “And the Goddess said to tell him he had to be ready to
catch this person—this dark one she called it—and lock them up in prison. If
they escape, all hell is going to break loose!”

Suddenly she saw the edge of the green
sheath dress sticking out from under the couch. She reached down to grab it and
started pulling it on while trying to keep the sheet around her shoulders.

“Hurry up and get dressed, Six!” she said,
throwing a glance at him. “We have to go find that Council meeting
now!”

Chapter
Thirty-eight

“The next order of business is one I fear
cannot be put off any longer,” High Chancellor Terex announced regally, looking
around the council table. “It is the sad business of war. Just this morning I
have received an official declaration signed by all the members of Earth’s
World Council. It avows that they intend to keep us from calling any more
brides from their planet and if possible, to drive us from their sovereign air
space—indeed, their very solar system!”

Sylvan frowned and the other Councilors
muttered together anxiously. This was indeed terrible news. Although the Earth
had been boiling over with tensions against the Kindred for some time and
several nations had declared war over the open airwaves, he had still been
hoping that somehow the unrest could be settled. But now, to hear that a formal
declaration of war had been issued from no less than the entire governing body
of Earth, well…it was bad. Very bad.

“In light of this very serious news, I
feel we must arm ourselves and fight back,” Terex continued. “After all, Earth
is our main source of brides right now.”

“This will be no easy task,” one of the
other Councilors said. “Their armaments have grown—they have been building and
stockpiling new and better weapons since the Scourge attacked them years ago.
They may well be a formidable enemy.”

“We must not consider the people of Earth
the enemy, no matter what misguided things their leaders say,” Sylvan
protested, rising to his feet. “Think how many of our brides have kin there! If
open war breaks out between us and the killing starts, how will it affect them?
And how will it affect the willingness of other Earth females to be called as
brides in the future?”

“So you recommend we should continue to
parlay with them?” Terex scoffed. “No, Councilor Sylvan! They are training
their weapons on us as we speak—already we must stay to the far side of their
pitiful moon and keep our shields at maximum strength.”

“They’re jamming communications too,” one
of the other councilors said. “One by one our viewscreen connections to Earth
are becoming useless—all but the direct lines. They’ve even found a way to keep
us from bespeaking those on Earth that we care for.”

“Most of our warriors have been
evacuated,” Terex said. “Though a few do remain here and there.”

“Among them is Garron,” Sylvan said,
speaking up again. “The male you have kept from coming back to the Mother Ship
again and again because he will not return without his bride who you had banned
from the ship.”

“The one who can turn himself into some
sort of beast?” Terex raised an eyebrow. “Well, I dare say he can take care of
himself, Councilor.”

“Another remains with him—Commander
Stavros who commanded the HKR building in Asheville,
North Carolina in the US,” Sylvan
continued. “He refuses to leave while even a single warrior in his care is
stranded on Earth, even though he is one of the Cursed.”

“The Cursed?” Terex frowned. “Whatever are
you talking about?”

Sylvan raised an eyebrow at him. “Surely
as a fellow Blood Kindred you know of the Cursed, Chancellor.”

“Oh. Oh, of course—the Cursed.” Terex
frowned and for a moment, Sylvan could have sworn he saw a flash of red in his
ice blue eyes. “Forgive me, Councilor, for my momentary lapse of memory. I have
had other things on my mind—more important things like
war
. Now…” He
raised his voice and stared around the table. “As Earth’s weapons have become
so advanced and there are considerably more of them than there are of us, we
are going to need allies in this war—brothers in arms to help us take what is
rightfully ours.”

Sylvan felt cold all over. He remembered
Six’s warning and suddenly knew what was coming next. But he felt frozen to the
spot, unable to move or speak.
Surely Terex wouldn’t…he couldn’t…

“Behold.” Terex pressed some buttons and a
large, transparent viewscreen rose from the center of the council table. “I
would like to introduce you to our allies—this is Two, of the Enhanced Ones
otherwise known as the Dark Kindred.”

The viewscreen flickered to life and a
tall, thin male with a metal prosthesis covering the right side of his face was
suddenly revealed. He was wearing a black leather coat and part of his skull
had been cut away to reveal his brain, where several blinking electrodes had
been implanted.

“Greetings, brothers,” he said, smiling to
reveal a mouth full of spit-shiny gray metal teeth.

“No!” Sylvan found his voice at last. “No,
I was warned of this but I could not believe it! Terex, how could you dare to
make a deal with these soulless creatures without consulting the Council
first?”

“Enough!” Terex pounded on the table with
the Speaking Rock.
“I
am the head of this Council and
I
have
decided to bring in allies who can help us in this war.”

“This war
you
started,” one of the
other Councilors muttered.

“The Dark Kindred do not even worship the
Goddess,” protested another. “They bow their necks only to the Collective and
seek to eradicate emotion everywhere they go. They—”

“Excuse me! Pardon me!”

The council room door opened abruptly and
Mei-Li, Six, and the hairy little Tolleg healer they had brought with them from
the Z4 medical barge suddenly charged in, right past the guards standing watch
outside. Mei-Li was looking much better than the last time Sylvan had seen her,
if somewhat more disheveled. She was wearing a wrinkled green dress that
appeared to be on crooked. Six, for his part, was shirtless and the little
Tolleg had a strange device in his hand that appeared to consist of a short
length of metal tubing and two sensor light disks. All of them were highly
agitated.

“Apologies, Chancellor, we will take them
out,” one of the guards said.

“No, wait!” Sylvan said. “Let’s hear what
they have to say.”

“Thank you. I’m so sorry to interrupt,”
Mei-Li said, speaking to Sylvan. “But I got a message from the Goddess last
night that I was supposed to tell you before the council meeting started.”

“A message from the Goddess?” Sylvan
asked, surprised. “What did she want?”

“To tell you that you have an intruder in
your midst,” Six said, striding forward. He stopped dead when he saw the image
of Two up on the viewscreen.

“Well, hello Six.” Two’s smile widened,
showing even more metal teeth. “How very nice to see you again. And it seems
you’ve defected to the Mother Ship. How
interesting.”

“I tried to tell you.” Six rounded to look
at Sylvan and the rest of the Council. “Two comes in the guise of a helper and
ally when really what he wants is to make a conquest of the whole Earth. He and
the Collective have plans to subjugate the entire planet and to kill or enslave
its inhabitants.”

“But my dear Six, that simply isn’t
true,”
Two protested, giving the assembled Council a look of exaggerated
innocence. “We are here as your brothers in arms, to help you defeat the Earth
infidels and take what is rightfully yours!”

“This is exactly right,” Terex declared,
striding forward to glare at Mei-Li and Six and the Tolleg. “And that is why—”

Suddenly the device the Tolleg was holding
in his hairy little hands began to emit a piercing wail. At the same time the
sensor lights lit up, one flashing emerald green and the other a blinding
crimson.

Everyone looked at the device in surprise,
even Yipper who was holding it.

“This is most strange, yes it is, yes it
is,” he declared in his high pitched voice. “According to my soul finder, there
are two beings within this one body.” He nodded at Terex.

“Impossible,” the Chancellor blustered.
“What is he raving about? Guards, get rid of him!”

He would have had Yipper thrown out but
Sylvan raised a hand to stop the guards at the door from coming forward.

“Hold a moment. Yipper, please explain.”

Yipper withdrew the device from Terex’s
vicinity and thrust it at Mei-Li and Six who were standing together, holding
hands. At once the wailing alarm stopped and the lights turned green.

“Do you see?” he said, turning to Sylvan.
“This reaction indicates two souls bound together in harmony. Yes it does, yes
it does. But this…”

He thrust it forward at High Chancellor
Terex and it began to wail once more, the lights flashing brighter than ever.

“What does it mean?” Sylvan asked,
although he was beginning to get the idea.

“This indicates a disharmony of the
strangest kind. Yes indeed, yes indeed.” The Tolleg frowned. “There can be no
mistake—two beings inhabit this body and one is repressing or smothering the
other.” He nodded at Terex. “Though I do not know how this is possible, no I
don’t, no I don’t.”

“This…this is preposterous,” protested
Terex, backing away. “Put that thing away! Guards—come eject this hairy little
imposter.”

“No, Terex—or whatever your name may be.”
Sylvan came around the council table and approached the retreating Chancellor.
“I have seen how the Tolleg’s tech works—it is both precise and accurate.”

“Thank you, thank you.” The little Tolleg
nodded. “But Commander Sylvan, I do not doubt my results but how could such a
thing be? How are there two beings in one body?”

“I think I have an idea,” Sylvan answered
grimly. “It was not so long ago that we had a rash of demons from the Black
Planet invade the Mother Ship.” He turned to the Council. “We thought we cast
them all out, bonded to the black soul stone which we ejected into space. But
what if one escaped? What if it found the one unprotected male on the ship—the
unconscious form of Chancellor Terex? Remember, we never expected him to wake.”

“But I did wake up—thanks to your
excellent medical care.” Beads of sweat were rolling down Terex’s cheeks and
his eyes were flickering back and forth between burning red and ice blue.

“Look at him!” Sylvan roared, pointing.
“Look at his eyes! They’re glowing red—like the eyes of the males who were
possessed before.”

“We should have seen it sooner!” Councilor
Sarr shouted. “From the moment Terex woke and took charge of this Council, he’s
done nothing but try to sabotage us!”

“It was him that led us into this war,”
cried another.

“And now he tries to put is in league with
the Dark Kindred,” Sylvan said. He pointed at Terex. “Whatever unclean thing you
are, you are
not
Terex!”

“No!” Terex suddenly stopped retreating
and stood tall. His eyes were blazing crimson now, glowing in a way that lit
his face with a red, demonic light. “I am not Terex—
I am Ur!”
The voice echoed and boomed weirdly,
dipping into an unnaturally low register that even a Kindred voice could not
normally reach.
“I…Am…Ur!”

Sylvan felt sick. “We cast you out! You
and all your foul kind.”

“Yes.”
Ur
grinned ferociously.
“All but me, warrior. I found refuge in the last place you
would expect—the head of your Council. And since that time I have been working
to destroy your people as you destroyed mine.”

“You started this war on purpose by
antagonizing Mei-Li’s father and manipulating the situation to look worse than
it was.” Sylvan felt sick—why had he not seen it before?

“Correct, Councilor. And I also involved
the Dark Kindred. I knew how you care for your little Earthling pets. I knew
nothing would be more painful than seeing them hurt.”
The thing inhabiting Terex’s body nodded at the
viewscreen where Two was still grinning nastily.
“I told the Dark Kindred
they were welcome to kill or enslave the inhabitants and despoil the entire
planet. And so they mean to do.”

“They will never succeed,” one of the
other Councilor’s declared. “We will fight you every step of the way.”

“While you fight Earth as well?” Two asked
from the viewscreen. “The seeds of discord were well sown between you and this
war will not end soon. You’ll be trapped between the two of us, Councilor.”

“Two is right.”
Ur
smiled evilly, his eyes glowing red.
“My advice would
be to abandon the Earth to us and find a new world to call brides from.”

“Never!” Sylvan declared angrily. He
turned to one of the guards. “We still have a chunk of the black soul stone—it
is in my office. Get it and let’s be rid of this imposter.” The stone, being
chunks of their home world, acted like a magnet to any of demons it touched.
Sylvan had no idea how Ur had avoided its magnetic pull before but he was
certain if he put the stone right up against Terex’s skin the demon would be
sucked into it and rendered helpless.

Sylvan’s office was in the corridor right
beside the Council room and the guard was there and back in a flash. Sylvan
along with the rest of the councilors and the other guard kept the
Ur-inhabited-Terex surrounded. They formed a ring around the possessed male and
slowly moved closer.

“Here you are, Councilor.” The guard
pressed the jagged chunk of stone into Sylvan’s hand.