CHANGELING: Book Two in the Weaver Series Page 30

  Fid Tal shouted, “The abomination speaks the truth!”

  A thunderous crack came after with outraged outbursts of shock. The tide shifted. We couldn’t see a damn thing and our only cues to follow events were auditory. The crack must have been something that broke the light fields around the imposter Elders.

  Nyt screamed but we didn’t know why. Mez blinked into being next to us with a blindingly bright smile. His scent was full of energy and made our nostrils flare as we sucked it in.

  Kal yelled over the chaos, “Take them out of here, Mez!”

  I barely got out, “Wait!”

  He nodded at his uncle and we were gone. Wind hit our cheeks and the contented low of a wog replaced the screams and fear we’d left behind. Mez released our elbow and tilted his head back with his eyes closed, breathing it all in. The carnivorous trees rustled at the scent of our bend, dark green waxy leaves rustling not just from the strong breeze plastering our robes to our skin but from the knowledge of new and different prey.

  Cass started to pace across the grass. “What the hell just happened?”

  Insect noise resumed and a shambling gray beast pushed against our back, begging for a scratch. Mez wasn’t immune from the friendly attention—he rubbed wrinkled hindquarters to keep from being knocked over as he spoke.

  Mouth betraying a sly humor, Mez said, “Sil may have forgotten to detail exactly how much Kal can see through a light field in his reports to the Elders all those years ago. The game was up as soon as the fake Elders bent into the hall. Modor already knew things were not as they should be from Fid Orn and Ayl. They had not been able to reach their Elders directly, even in the Web, for measures. That is an unheard of amount of time.”

  I asked, “What was the point? What could she have gained, why all the drama with the Baelc guy and the unity rant?”

  Mez wove his neck and parted his lips to speak but whatever he would’ve added was interrupted by a strong, double blast of ozone with a sour tang. Whoever they were, they had their light field engaged and our body hadn’t seen fit to absorb Kal’s knack for seeing through them. Not fifteen feet away the agitated vines in the trees were moving so fast in the foliage that our brain pictured a thousand snakes writhing in an aerial nest. The creep factor increased exponentially. Cass coated our body in light and from the corner of our eye we saw Mez disappear.

  A very familiar female voice cut the once peaceful air. “There is no one to save you now, Leoght Theof. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by killing you.”

  Cass was flicking our eyes everywhere trying to detect any visual sign of where our attackers were. The field was covered in the springy green grass the herds grazed on but no depressions gave anyone away. They must have extended their concealment to cover the ground as we had. That didn’t do you any good if you wanted to move around at more than a snail’s pace, though.

  I cautioned, “Stay next to the wog, when it moves move with it.” The gray beast in question was leaning on us just slightly with its protruding barrel side and munching with oblivious contentment.

  A shriek split the air and Lil rolled, limp limbs at unnatural angles to land in the open between Mez’s last know position and our own. Her robes were soaked through with dark splotches and we couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not—our friend’s beautiful ruby red hair had been shorn so close to her scalp parts of it were nicked.

  Cass gave a mental scream of frustration, “To hell with it, Silver! Lil’s bleeding—we can’t let her die to save our own ass.”

  Mez shredded his light field and ran at where Lil’s unconscious form had appeared only to suffer a slash to his cheek and then disappear again. The copious amounts of blood on the air were making the wogs skittish and the rustling of the carnivorous trees was an angry hissing in the background. We ignored the thought of attack, trusting Mez to serve as a distraction, and dashed to our downed Imini friend.

  I said, “Alert Kal. Tell him Fai and probably Tai are here. I’ll try to assess the damage. Hurry back. I need you to pilot while I patch Lil up.”

  Cass didn’t even answer; she just took off like a coked-out cheetah. I couldn’t go into the Web and leave our body vulnerable while my twin was away so I concentrated on what I could do. First of all Lil needed to be in a better, less mangled position so I carefully rolled her onto her back, freeing her trapped left arm. It wasn’t immediately apparent where her injury was because of the amount of blood covering her front. I ripped her ruined robes in a semi-straight line to her belly button. On her left side a slow ooze of blood leaked out steadily. If it was her spleen she could have already lost too much blood. The blade could have been dipped in that damn anticoagulant and that could be causing all the extra blood loss.

  I heard the step behind me before the whistle of wind as something passed through the air and instead of crouching down or rolling away and risking more injury to Lil’s prone form I dove toward where I guessed Fai or Tai might be. Rage was pounding in our ears and I didn’t care if we took a hit as long as it wasn’t fatal—these bitches were dead meat. Luck was with me and I felt bony muscled leg and a shout erupted as our shoulder tried to hyperextend still invisible knees. A storm of light took my sight for a matter of seconds as I army crawled up our assailant’s body gripping tough leather and then it revealed Fai’s snarling lips and bared teeth. I caught a right hook to the mouth and felt the split of soft skin and warm liquid coat my tongue in a salty wash. Fai’s hands were currently empty and I wanted them to stay that way unless I had a weapon, too. Fingers balled into a lopsided fist I jabbed my knuckles hard into her throat.

  She gagged but instead of grabbing for her neck she swung at me right as Cass popped back into our head. Even choking for air that bitch had good aim and the cartilage in our nose crunched. Our chin jerked up and to the side. An intense throb hit our cheekbones like the strike of a gong. As soon as the bony knobs of Fai’s knuckles withdrew Cass turned our head back to its former position with literal blood in our eye.

  Angry and spoiling for a fight, she knew there was no time for Cassandra synched up, pooling strength in our arms to grab both sides of Fai’s head. One rough jerk sideways and it was done. We sat for precious seconds looking at her dead face.

  Cass hissed, “I’m not sorry. Sorry can kiss our ass. Let’s go heal Lil.”

  I spit blood from lips that felt three sizes larger than normal. Fai’s punch had turned our mouth to hamburger. We weren’t feeling any damn pain at the moment but our nose was broken, so broken it was whistling and we decided to breathe through our mouth.

  As we crawled over to Lil I asked, “Is the cavalry coming?” I was doing my best not to think about Mez fighting Tai. Sound was an ocean of rushing blood in our ears and I couldn’t pick out individual noises yet or make sense of them. Our adrenaline was spiked.

  Cass swung our head in a quick half circle to survey the immediate area. “They should be on the way.”

  I spotted Mez immediately and he was too close to the tree line. Vines were twining in a bulging mass behind him. Tai took a step forward and swung a short blade in a wickedly fast arc and Mez just wasn’t there anymore. The momentum of her swing almost made her stumble forward when it met no resistance and then she blinked out, too. Pride swelled; what a clever boy trying to trick her into the carnivorous vegetation. I couldn’t think of a better way for Flotsam to bite it anyway.

  I tore our eyes away and looked down at our unconscious friend. Her café au lait complexion had turned a sickly yellow. Cass leaned us forward to hover over Lil’s barely open mouth; moving air was a faint ghost on our cheek and I used two fingers to feel for her heartbeat in the hollow by her windpipe. The flesh over her carotid felt rubbery and moist.

  In a hurry my thoughts tumbled out, “There’s a pulse but it’s slow. Watch our back, Sister.”

  I was gone before Cass could answer. Pitch black with foggy trails of discarded memories trailed off into twinkling stars and the Web had never seemed so cold or u
ncaring to me before. It was only half a home without the people that mattered in it. Maggie’s orange flames dispelled the icy taint to my thoughts and the two yolks of my cousins glowed where they belonged in her healthy essence. They looked more mature and were starting to get color of their own. Maggie could go into labor any time now since twins rarely went to term. How had she known to come?

  Her voice split space with a reassuring crack, “What do you need, dear?”

  I shot a comma of myself toward Lil’s faded pink ball. “Lil has an abdominal wound that looks to be from a stabbing on her left side. It could be a hit on her spleen. The same drug that we dealt with last time might be involved as well. The blood loss needs to stop before we do anything else.”

  Maggie broke off a tiny orange comet and followed our probe past Lil’s surface.

  She said, “I can’t fault your reasoning, Silver. Lead on.”

  My aunt couldn’t directly assist but I’d noticed her presence encouraged faster healing. At first I’d thought it was just because company made quicker, less lonely work but she really seemed to be a factor in measurable terms. I hadn’t managed to tell her yet.

  On one hand we were right and on the other we were wrong. There was a drug in Lil’s system but it wasn’t the same poison we’d been dosed with. The anticoagulant factor was there but it was also responsible for her loss of consciousness and to put it simply—that wasn’t good. Her spleen was nicked not sliced and the damage was easy to seal off with healthy flesh after I upped her metabolism to burn through the foreign substance clouding her mind. There was jack crap we could do about the loss of so much blood. Axsian’s had physicians, and so as long as we could get our friend patched up they could do the rest on one of their nifty tables.

  I dusted mental hands and asked Maggie, “How did you know to come?”

  She pulled her concentration away from Lil, and seeing that we were done zipped back to her own essence in full. When I was settled too Maggie still sat silently burning, an eternal flame. Irritation crept to the fore as I waited for her to answer and chafed at the delay.

  She laughed. “There, that’s more like it, Silver. We work better when you’re slightly pissed at me. I’d miss it, dear. In answer to your question, I didn’t know, I just showed up to talk and wham-o! Coincidence is a funny thing. I’ll let you get back to your real world violence and death—just remember there’s more to life than just the struggle. I’m starting to think you girls should have stayed home with us.”

  I pushed outward, imaging a solar wind buffeting her in a playful swat. “Who says it would’ve been any better, Maggie? Trouble likes us with a capital ‘L’ and we do alright. I’ve gotta go.”

  Cass gave me a hard yank and I knew something major was happening. I just barely heard my aunt as the physical world began to form.

  “Take care of her, Silver, like always.”

  Chapter Twenty Nine: Clean Up on Aisle Six

  Lil was awake but we weren’t out of the woods. Tai had finally noticed Fai was no more and her screaming, crying bout over her dead sibling’s body had bought us the leeway we needed to finish the healing. Our time was up. Mez was standing off to the right a bit so we could still see our adversary. I liked that he didn’t have the heart to attack her while she was grieving.

  Tai didn’t bother to ‘port. She stood, staggering a step or two in her grief to reorient on us. Flotsam’s lips were moving but her voice was too low for us to make out what she was saying. The lenses of her eyes were flicking up and down in slow compulsive movements and she had the look of someone who’d been clotheslined then trampled. Wyle E Coyote flashed across my surface thoughts from my twin’s direction.

  Cass uttered a soft, “Where’s an anvil to fall on her head when you need it? Beep, Beep.”

  I posited, “How did they even find us here? Are we freaking bugged?”

  At the exact same time we both thought, “Translator.” The little electronic device under the skin of our left temple had likely been bugged from the very beginning with a homing device. That was nerve wracking all things considered.

  Ozone flared and a loud pop came from above our head. A blue edged metallic disk bloomed like a third eye on Tai’s forehead.

  Fid Tal stood with her arms extended, holding the tagging device in a shooter’s stance. Jaz was on Tal’s right and with a flick of her wrist the ground erupted under Flotsam’s feet, chunks of grass shrapnel and clods of dirt hit us as we curled around Lil’s head to protect her. When we looked up Tai was buried to her chest in the earth. The muscles in her neck and shoulders strained as she attempted to work her arms free.

  Captured and aware her life was about to get infinitely more uncomfortable than merely being held by the gentle but firm embrace of her planet, Tai spit at her captors, “I will escape. When I do I will finish this. Your son is dead, Tal! You are dead! You are all dead!”

  Tal growled then clicked her teeth. “I will not be tricked into anger so easily, traitor. You are to live many years yet to mourn your sustor as you rot. Death is a mercy I will not grant you this day. Perhaps if you tell me all I wish to know and beg sweetly enough I will slit your throat when I have forgiven you.”

  Cass griped, “Can we get a second opinion on that? I would definitely feel safer if she was no longer in the land of the living. I mean hell, what’s one more person waiting in the wings to off us, Silver?”

  I answered, “Could you really just shoot her while she was helpless, Cass?” I paused and soaked in her frustrated disquiet. “Yeah, me either.”

  Jaz knelt down and pulled her daughter into her arms. She cried and rubbed Lil’s scabby scalp. “I ordered you to Denu, Dohtor! Why did you not listen?”

  Lil cupped the back of her mother’s hands in the palms of her own. “I could not leave the others. I bent Bel out first and then Qyl, but when I went back for Zay I could not find her. Someone stabbed me, I could not see them and then I began to lose consciousness. I woke here with Min Druta, Mez and—” she paused to swallow and point a trembling finger at Tai, “—that one.”

  Fid Tal turned away from her prisoner toward her son with an incredulous expression. “An Imini? This woman’s daughter is another mutation caused by It? What else is afoot that you have not confided in me about, Mez? Do not lie!” The last three words were yelled so loudly that the vines rustled in the trees and small game scattered in the underbrush. No wogs were close enough anymore to care.

  I looked up at the brilliant sky that was beginning to turn the blue of burning sulfur along the horizon and threw our arms out in exasperation. “Here we go with the ‘it’ thing again.”

  Mez and I made direct eye contact with Jaz. She released Lil to stand and dust off the knees of her leathers. “I can also bend light, Fid Tal, though I cannot travel. Your son was merely protecting me as repayment for saving his life. My daughter is not just a Bender, she also sings stone—Lil is one of a kind. Our plan was to reveal her condition this evening but your Elder’s attempted coup ruined those plans.”

  Her Highness was breathing like a mare after a fast race but she was making strides toward a calmer state when Tai opened her lips to spew more of Nyt’s propaganda.

  Chin tilted, Tai said, “You see what is happening, my Fid? The Galactic Alliance will shift its reliance for travel to another world! Axsa will become one of many with the ability to bend. You cannot let this happen. Nyt saw it. She was trying to save our people!”

  Eyes narrowed to dangerous obsidian slits, Tal fired back, “So now when it is convenient I am your Fid? Nyt wanted power and nothing more. You are an ignorant weak thing to follow another’s ambition against the Codes of Annis. Cease your empty words or I will do it for you.”

  Not to be deterred in her fanaticism, Flotsam opened her mouth to speak again.

  Fid Tal’s foot connected with the other woman’s face and the air became heavy with tension. Blood spurted in a fine cloud. Tai’s head slumped forward as a thin string of pink drool ran from the corner o
f her mouth to the overturned dirt.

  Jaz said, “I am not afraid of you, Fid Tal. Touch a hair on my dohtor’s head and I will hunt you with the earth until your screams are your only company in a dark hole.”

  Mez put a hand on his mother’s arm. “The Imini are not your enemy unless you want them to be, Modor. They would be powerful allies for your campaign to hold Nyt’s vacant seat.”

  Fid Tal planted her feet and wove her neck at Jaz. “Your dohtor has no hair on her head to touch.” Tal crossed her arms over her chest, knocking her son’s restraining hand aside before she continued. “Times are changing. I would be a fool to deny this. Give your female child in service to me when my male child is in residence with the Imini. She needs training to protect herself. I can provide what she needs. You would be welcome in my household as a retainer as well if you do not trust me.”

  Jaz hissed but it lacked heat. “No, I do not trust you, Fid Tal.”

  Lil struggled to stand on her own, skin still a washed out faded tan. “No one has asked me if I agree. I do have a say in my life. Mez’s modor offers a straight exchange with none of Nyt’s pretty words. I accept.” She swayed ruining her efforts to look serious and grown up.

  I grabbed Lil’s arm before she fell. “We need to get you more help. I could only stop the bleeding and you’ve lost too much blood.” My eyes found Tal’s and we decided to take a calculated risk. Today seemed to be a secret sharing kind of day.

  Cass asked Her Highness, “Do we have permission to escort Lil to see Sil?”

  Mez stiffened and Jaz sucked in a breath. Fid Tal closed her eyes and placed a hand on her forehead. She stayed that way for a long time. I was tempted to pick up a clod of loose dirt and lob it at her lowered head, interrupting her impromptu Web conference.

  Her Highness’s pilot light reignited and she sprang back into the now. “That you can manipulate DNA protocols like an Imini is not the secret you thought it was. Ayl and Orn have agreed it should not be common knowledge. Be most careful, Ellorgaest. You have my permission to leave. Sil has cleared the lab of his assistants.”