Rex Aftermath (Elei's Chronicles) (12 page)

Yeah, as a matter of fact.

Elei elbowed the man in the chest, the impact rattling his bones, and the hold on him relaxed. Twisting, he dropped into a crouch as a fist swung over his head.

A whoosh; a ripple of calm.

The next moment he was up and running again, his breath coming in painful gasps. He streaked down an unknown avenue of throbbing colors and shifting shadows. The sounds were sucked into an eddy, his pulse ticking time, howling in his ears.

Rex kept flashing targets at him — anyone crossing his path, anyone who seemed armed — and he fisted his hands not to pull his gun. They swung at his sides as he sprinted down the avenue and turned into the quiet of a narrow street, the stitch in his side moving up, reaching for his heart.

Have to stop. Have to breathe.
He stumbled and slowed, struggling to draw air. Where were Kalaes and Alendra? In his mad stampede he’d lost sight of them. He straightened, wiped sweat off his face. By retracing his steps, he’d get back to the street where he’d lost them.

Shouldn’t be too hard.

The wind whistled as he turned around and headed back, checking that the avenue was clear and no patrol was about.

There.
The street he’d emerged from. He was pretty sure, and he took a bracing breath before stepping onto the avenue, pulling his hood up.

Shouts and laughter erupted from a diner, or maybe a bar. Kalaes had said the regime had closed all bars down. Was it a sign of the new order that they had reopened? Less control, more freedom.

Aircars drove by and he perched on the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for them to pass, hoping Kalaes and Ale had noticed his absence and hadn’t gone too far. The world still pulsed with colors, and his heart still pounded.

Pedestrians weaved between the vehicles. Seeing a lull in the traffic, he stepped down and hurried across, trying his best not to run, not to shove others aside.

He’d find them. He hadn’t run far, it would be okay.
Hear that, Rex? Everything’s okay.

Rex responded by upping the tension and brightening the pulsing colors; laughing at him.

Son of a bitch.

Sidestepping a passerby whose head was bent against the wind, Elei jogged between aircars and hopped onto the opposite sidewalk.

Someone was waving at him from a street corner, a smaller form by his side.
Kalaes
.

A smile tugged at Elei’s mouth, and the colors of the world finally paled as he started toward his friends, the wind blowing his hood off. He reached up to pull it back.

Alendra set off toward Elei but Kalaes grabbed her arm, jerking her back.

What the...?
Elei narrowed his eyes and started to turn around, realization dawning too damn late.

He didn’t have time to draw his gun; Gultur poured from the unmarked aircar and swarmed around him.

But they wouldn’t get Kalaes or Ale. He wouldn’t let them.

The thought filled his mind from end to end, and he kicked and twisted and landed punches. Orange and gold pulsed around him, and Rex gave him targets to attack. Keep them busy, let them not look around. Hands fell on him and he punched a forearm, hearing the bone crack, then bent and jabbed his extended fingers into a stomach.

Let the others escape and set the plan in motion.

Hands grabbed him again and he wondered why he hadn’t been shot yet, when his hood was yanked all the way off.

“It’s him,” a woman’s voice said, “bring him.”

The hells they want?
was his last thought before pain exploded in his jaw and crashed in the side of his head. The world sparkled black and then shattered, falling away to nothing.

***

‘Bumpy ride’
was a huge understatement, Hera thought as she fought to stay standing inside the aircar, to finish taping every crack in the windows and door. She hoped the control panel was airtight, but why should it be? The aircar Mantis had provided, surely stolen, was an old model, for private use, small and rusty in places. Not an air-and-water car, like those Silver Bullet models had to be.

“Anyone in pursuit?” Sacmis called as they rocked their way over the sodden, uneven ground. “The reflections on the water are blinding me.”

Not only you
, Hera wanted to say, shading her eyes, tape roll still in hand, and squinted through the back window. “It seems not.”

“They think we’ll die here anyway,” Mantis said, his cheekbones flushed. “If we make it across, we won’t have them breathing down our necks.”

Hera said nothing. What was there to say?
If and if.

“We may yet make it.” Sacmis smirked. “We never gave up before, so why start now?”

The aircar dipped and shook. “Here, let me drive,” Hera snapped. “All the brilliant ideas and courageous words will be for nothing if we drown in the swamp.”

Sacmis nodded, sheepish, and relinquished the driver’s seat to Hera who slid into it and grabbed the controls, fighting with the equalizers.

At least by doing something useful she’d feel more in control, more at ease. Because this plan may have been suicidal, but it might have worked if they’d gone with Mantis’ idea of the tried path across the swamps.

Instead, they fled through uncharted territory, more likely to die than ever — and that was not what bothered Hera. It was the fact she was failing everyone.

Mantis had not been mindlessly reckless; he’d been carefully reckless, having studied the map and found a way to make it to the machine on time and without pursuit. So what had her caution contributed?

And how will obsessing over this help?
Hera snarled at herself, righting the aircar when it dipped into a hollow and then splashed into a pond of stagnant water, startling clouds of mosquitoes.
Neither of you had the perfect solution. There was no perfect solution — to anything.

Depression clung to her like a film of oil. Somewhere deep down she knew it also had to do with Regina’s reawakening as the drugs left her system, the horrible mood swings she knew so well. But knowing did not alleviate the weight on her shoulders.

“I’m glad we left the kids behind,” Sacmis murmured, taking up the co-driver’s seat.

Hera nodded, her jaw clamped too tightly to speak. The swamps stretched in every direction now, white mist curling over them like ghostly fingers. The ground evened out, shimmering water spreading below.

It was beautiful. And treacherous, as beauty often was. Like the symmetry Regina wrought, the deadly perfection of the Gultur.

“Lighten up,” Sacmis said, her gray eyes glinting. “We’re not dead yet.”

“Yet,” Hera repeated, shaking her head. “The tape sealing the aircar will not hold forever. It’s a long drive across the swamps.”

“I know.” Sacmis glanced over her shoulder at Mantis who sat in one of the back seats, his gun in his lap. A transparent mask covered his nose and mouth. Hera noted he looked pale.

“Is it the gas?” Hera sniffed. “I assume it’s odorless.”

“Maybe. Here’s your mask.”

Hera put it on. “Do you think it will do any good?”

Sacmis pulled hers on and adjusted the straps. “They’re cheap masks he probably grabbed from the hospital as we ran. They filter the air but I do not know if they can keep the gas out.” Her voice came muffled. “Nothing to do but try.”

“You seem to know more about these swamps than the rest of us.” The light reflected on the mask and teased Hera’s vision. It was damn uncomfortable. “And you look very relaxed for someone going to her death. What else do you know?”

Sacmis shrugged. “It’s all rumors. I do not know what’s true and what’s fantasy.”

“Sacmis...” Hera swallowed an exasperated sigh. “You promised not to keep things from me.”

“And you promised to trust me.” Sacmis scowled, which looked odd with the mask distorting her features.

“I do trust you. But I want to hear your thoughts.”

Sacmis stilled, then moved to check the thrusters, the fuel indicator. Stalling. Hera waited. Not much else she could do except grab Sacmis by the throat and demand the information, but of course she could not do that, no matter how loudly Regina groused inside her about unknown factors and distrust.

She trusted Sacmis. With all her heart.

“There has been no official investigation on the gas,” Sacmis said, her voice low. “The only information we have comes from tales told by mortals in the area.”

Hera nodded, wondering why Sacmis was practically whispering. “And?”

“And as Mantis said, the noxious gases seem to knock people and animals out, so they drown in the shallow water.”

Hera glanced at the water surrounding them, imagining corpses below the shiny surface. Beautiful and treacherous indeed. She shivered. “But there’s something on your mind, right? I know that smug smile.”

Sacmis pitched her voice even lower, so Hera barely heard her. “There’s no account of a Gultur succumbing to the gas. It might be that you and I at least can make it through.”

Ice gripped Hera’s spine and she glanced back at Mantis who seemed to be dozing, his blond head propped back against the seat. Dozing or passed out?

Oh gods.
A sting in her eyes, in her heart, like a thorn. She could not get the image of him as the young boy out of her mind — as she’d met him years back in Artemisia, fearless and yet courteous, determined and proud.

“Hera?” Sacmis laid a hand on her leg. “I know it is not good news, but...”

“The important thing is to remove the machine and march on Dakru City,” Hera heard herself say, even though her ears rang and drawing breath was near impossible. “That’s what we came for.”

Even though the thought of losing Mantis was like a blade in her chest. This was not about her, or Sacmis. Not about her feelings or weaknesses.

This was about the world, and she’d already accepted she might have to give her life for it, as had they all.

We are Dakru’s last frigging hope.

***

It was cold. The trashlands of Ost stretched far. The tall buildings of Sestos, the capital, rose high, grazing the sky and lining the horizon. Clouds floated overhead. The air was crisp and clean, smelling of burnt sugar, not the sourness of rotting garbage.

Odd, that.

Elei was walking among the mounts of trash, hands in his pockets, stuck there. He couldn’t take them out, and he felt a little trapped, but not enough to care. He knew this place. It was home.

Albi walked by his side, white hair hanging lank in her eyes, her mouth drawn in a tight line. That worried him, but she walked with a purpose and he could only follow, as always. She was his mother. She knew everything there was to know in the world, and would keep him safe.

Dogs barked in the distance, the sound jolting him. He missed a step but recovered. They were distant. No danger. No need to keep them away from the body.

He frowned.
What body?

The air swirled, darkness battering him like a gale, and he was kneeling on a sea cliff, a rusty knife in his hand, the dogs snapping at him, bloody froth dripping from their jowls, and he jerked, his heart banging.

“It’s Poena,” Albi’s voice said in his ear, and when he turned she saw her face was a grinning skull. “She’s dead.”

His chest ached and he bowed his head, finally seeing the body of the girl laid out before him, covered in a blanket. The wind tugged at the cloth, revealing her face. Ash-blond hair framed the fine features instead of dark, and when her eyes flew open, they were golden and cat-like.

Alendra
. She was dead.

With a gasp, he jerked awake, Rex hammering inside his head. Sweet scent told him Gultur were close by. He lay panting, blinking through blurry eyes at the dim interior of what had to be an aircar. A jolt confirmed it. They were moving. Because...

Because what?
He remembered meeting the gang leaders, Iliathan studying his screen, Alendra running in the streets, Kalaes waving...
And then?

What in the hells had happened?

He lay on his side, face mashed into the hard floor, and he couldn’t feel his limbs. He tried to move them but restraints bit into his wrists and ankles.

Tied.
This was bad. There had been a fight, he recalled, and his jaw throbbed as if triggered by the memory. He’d been hit on the head.

Taken by the Gultur.

Rex rose with a vengeance inside him, making everything pulse and glimmer.
Dammit, not now.
He blinked and blinked, struggling to control his breathing. At this rate he’d hyperventilate and pass out before he did anything. And wouldn’t that be just pissing great.

“He’s awake,” a woman’s voice said from behind him and he tried to roll over. Found he couldn’t.

Shit.

“We have the blood sample,
senet
,” another female voice said. “I do not think we need him any longer. Should we terminate him?”