The Vigilantes (The Superiors) (38 page)

Wouldn’t he?

That no longer mattered, though. Draven had no money. Not one anya. So he had to take Cali and leave.

He struggled to maneuver her limp arms into the sleeves of the heavy woolen suit she wore. Once he had dressed her, he did up the clasps on the front of her garment. He had crawled into a small, dusty passageway that ran along the front of the room. Somewhere nearby a small animal had made a nest, and Draven could smell its droppings and the animal scent it had left. He groped along the wall, looking for something his eyes couldn’t tell him. But he found no exit.

No way out. He would have to leave his sheltered space and go into the room where the fight wound down at that very moment. To the right of the curtain, near the bottom of the room, he’d seen a door. If it didn’t lead him outside, at least he could escape to another room and perhaps escape the killing as well.

“Cali,” he said, touching her face and shaking her. “Cali, awaken. It is I, Draven. Cali, Aspen. Awaken.”

“Who…are you?” Her voice sounded dreamy, and she touched his chin with her fingertips. Though her breathing changed when she woke, her heartbeat stayed slow and steady, and her body remained as limp as if still unconscious.

“Cali. It’s me.” He kissed the tips of her fingers, a swelling of frenzied triumph rising inside him. He had her, he had her. At last, she was his. He wanted to kiss her, crush her, eat her, bathe in her blood, adore her every incredible living aspect. Her sap would be his for as long as she lived. He’d make sure she lived for a long time. He would be so good to her.

“How do you know my real name?” she asked. Her fingers moved away from his mouth, exploring his face with soft touches.

Before Draven could answer, the curtain was torn away and Byron stood pointing a gun at them.

Draven had been so focused on Cali, and on escaping, that he had forgotten the dwindling noises. Now a wave of smell washed over them, fresh sap and death and all the smells that accompanied it. The room had fallen silent except for a quiet moaning sound, and a baby crying, and the sound of one heartbroken sob following another.

“Draven,” Byron said, looking quite confused.

“Master,” Cali said. She tensed and shrank back against Draven.

“Cali?” Byron said, now looking back and forth between his sapien and his friend.

“My love,” Angel said, descending on them like a parachute, gentle and open, reaching through the bars to touch Cali’s face. “Now you can come home with me.”

Draven pushed Angel’s hand away. The boy looked at him in surprise. “You have saved my love,” he said to Draven. “Thank you, friend.” He pulled Cali under the bars and folded her into his arms. She looked dazed but made no protest.

Draven slid from under the bars and stood looking down at Angel. “No.”

“Pardon?”

“I did not know this was the human you saw,” Draven said. “I already have a claim to her. She is mine.”

Byron started laughing. “You’re all a bunch of fools, fighting over a human like she has that much worth. She’s mine, obviously. I have her papers.”

Both men ignored Byron and continued looking at each other.

“Do you love her?” Angel asked.

“How can he love her?” Byron asked incredulously. “She’s a sap. Draven, can’t you see, he’s gone crazy. He’s an incubus.”

“Yes.”

“Then you know he’ll kill her,” Byron said. “We found his lair already. He tried to kill me and my partner, stuck us in the tomb where he keeps all his human corpses. He left us there to rot. You can’t listen to him.”

“
Cali
,” Draven said, and she looked at him. “Where do you wish to go? With which one of us will you leave?”

Byron laughed, the sound echoing off the ceiling of the room. “You ask a human what she wants? You’ve lost your mind. It doesn’t matter what she wants. I own her. I bought her, and you know this. And you come here to try what? To steal her? I told you ten years, soldier.”

“Do you love her?” Angel asked again, cradling
Cali
’s limp body in his arms. He still sat on the floor at the feet of the two other men.

Draven looked at Byron, and then at Angel, and at
Cali
, and back to Angel. “Yes.”

Angel looked up at Draven, and his big eyes filled with tears. He released
Cali
, and she rolled from his lap onto the floor and lay motionless except for her eyes which followed the conversation. Angel crawled away, sliding on the twisted curtain on the floor, sobbing. The sound wrenched at Draven’s insides, and more than anything, he wanted to make it stop, to give the boy what he wanted so he’d stop crying. The baby wailed on and on behind the sound of Angel’s sobs, creating a mournful chorus.

“I came here for
Cali
,” Draven said. “And I intend to get her from you.”

“She is not for sale,” Byron repeated through clenched teeth.

“Then I will have to get her by other means.”

Byron gave Draven a pitying look before laughing again. His laughter reached high up the vaulted ceiling and echoed back at them. “You’re a fool, or insane, or both. I’m your superior, don’t forget. You must do as I say, and I command you to stand down.”

The carnage from the slaughter overshadowed all inclination towards obedience and civility, and something of the lawlessness in the room gave Draven courage. “No.”

“No? Do you mean to challenge me? And with what? I see no weapon.”

“I do not wish to challenge you. I only wish to secure what I came for, what is rightfully mine, and go in peace. I was prepared to pay her full purchase price, and more.”

“And where is your money now, soldier?” When Draven didn’t answer, Byron only laughed. Each time he laughed, it grew larger than the last. “I see that you have none, so you’re a liar and a thief,” he said when he’d regained composure. “You haven’t lived long enough to know the world, my friend. You didn’t live through the War. You haven’t known anything but a simple, civilized life, so you’re a simple, civilized man. You didn’t know the world of chaos and murder and brutal savagery. You don’t want to make an enemy of me, I promise you that. I lived through those hundred years of war, and I know what man is capable of. I know what I am capable of.”

“I believe you, sir. But this human is mine. You have possession of her because you deceived me, not because she rightfully belongs to you.”

Byron’s laughter echoed again, filling the room and drowning the sobs, pressing in on Draven until he thought he’d go mad listening to it.

“She isn’t yours,” Byron said. “She never has been, and because of your greed, now she never will be.”

“You speak as if you know the future, sir. Neither you nor I can know what may come.”

“You know nothing, soldier, of past or future. She is mine because the law says she is mine, and that’s enough. We have laws and we obey them, because unlike humans, we have evolved beyond mere savages. Just because you mistakenly believe something belongs to you doesn’t make it so. The law makes it so. You can’t just come in and take something because you entertain some false notion that it is owed you.”

“I can’t?” Draven said. “That is yet to be seen.”

Draven moved forward to claim Cali but paused when Byron aimed the gun at his face. “You don’t want to test my loyalty,” Byron said. “If you cross me, I will cross you out.” He stooped to retrieve Cali and tossed her over his shoulder, trained the gun on Draven and backed away. When he reached Angel, he stopped and pushed the muzzle of the gun against the boy’s head. Angel didn’t move, only kept his face in his hands. Draven leapt at Byron. Byron swung the gun at him so that Draven came down on it, but it did not fire.

The four of them sprawled on the floor, scrambling, grasping for what they all wanted. Draven came up holding Cali, and Angel came up holding onto Draven. Byron had the gun. This time he put it to Draven’s temple and smiled. “Let go of my sapien, unless you mean for me to wrestle her from your arms.”

“I will not.”

“Very well, but if we are both pulling on her, she will come apart in pieces. Then I will have just cause to kill you for destroying my property.”

“You would kill me for a sap?”

“You would betray me for one.”

“I thought they meant nothing to you.”

“They are nothing. Your betrayal is something. Now let her go.”

“And you will leave me and Angel? We have broken no laws.”

“You defend the very creature that would kill your human, and yet I have been nothing but kind to her, and you despise me for it.”

“Angel does not intend to kill her. He wants peace, the same as I do. You can take the girl, and leave us.” Draven held Cali against him and breathed in her smell one last time, and then he let her go. She stumbled forward. When Byron pushed her behind him, she fell to the floor beside the bleeding body of Larry’s mother.

“I’ll take my sapien, whether you give her willingly or not. But your Angel, I can’t let him live. He’s killed Superiors, and at least six humans that we have proof of, and probably many more. That’s a waste of food that is scarce enough already. And he’s strong enough to kill us all, and crazy enough.”

“He is only a child,” Draven said, stepping in front of Angel when Byron pointed the gun at him.

“He tried to kill me and my partner.”

“If he is as dangerous as you imagine, he would have killed you if that is his desire.”

“Then I’ll take you instead,” Byron said. He thrust the cold muzzle of the gun against Draven’s head. Draven could feel the steel tip grinding against his skull. He remembered Byron explaining the gun to him once, how it would shoot a steel rod into the brain of a Superior in the exact position to paralyze his motor functions. It wouldn’t kill him, Byron had said, but the body couldn’t heal or push out a steel pin. Enforcers used it to paralyze criminals who attempted to escape arrest. Once they had secured the criminal, Enforcers could remove the steel rod and the brain would heal.

So Draven wouldn’t die, but he would lie frozen until animals came, drawn by the scent of the dead humans and their blood. His worst fear would be realized—waiting while animals came, waiting for them to eat him while he lay conscious but unable to move.

Just as Draven was thinking of the horror of the gun, Byron squeezed the trigger. Draven fell to the floor. Though unable to move, he could see
Cali
in front of him, staring at the dead woman beside her as if transfixed. And he could hear the baby still screaming, on and on. He wondered if the animals would eat the baby alive, too, or if it would have mercifully died beforehand.

Another gunshot sounded, and Angel’s body fell behind Draven.

Byron dragged Cali up by her arm and slung her over his shoulder, then picked his way across the room and retrieved the baby, laughing all the while. The door swung closed behind them, and darkness swallowed the room once more. Byron’s laughter echoed around and around Draven’s head long after silence fell over the room of the dead.

About the Author:

Lena Hillbrand is a lifelong reader and writer who lives in
Arkansas
with her family. She studied English and psychology at the
University
of
Arkansas
. Her first novel,
The Superiors
, is also available in print and ebook format.
The Vigilantes
is published in print format at popular online retailers if you'd like a print copy.

Look for the third book in
The Superiors Series
coming soon:
The Renegades.

Connect with her online:

Blog:
http://lenahillbrand.blogspot.com

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/lenahillbrand

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/LenaHillbrand

Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4836823.Lena_Hillbrand