On the other side was a vast courtyard paved in rough dark stone. A cloud-covered sky hid the top of a steep mountain looming in the distance. There were more of the squid-armed monsters, and belos’, and a cohort of ’ponera. But in the center of all this was a woman. Dressed in deep red, her head wrapped in cloth to hide her hair, she held some kind of serpent-like creature with multiple heads draped over her shoulders. Her face was dark and slender, eyes like clear amber, and she met Vida’s gaze directly.
Everything else faded to little more than background noise. The sound of gunfire became distant crackles, and the bellow of the only remaining monster that had made it through the portal was reduced to the hollow boom of a far-off sea. Vida pushed to her feet, never dropping her gaze from the woman on the other side. She drew back, throwing the blade with all her force. It flickered through the rift, nearly hitting the other woman before one of the belos’ blocked it with its own armored body.
Her implants were fried, the burns on her arms throbbing in time with her heartbeat. It didn’t matter. Vida dropped her pistol, oblivious to the fight between her crew and the remaining invader. She took a deep breath, focused on her heartbeat, the very center of her being. Gracefully, like an exotic dance, she made the forms with burned arms and aching fingers. The last of her active implants, those above her left ear, glowed and seared her as she called more power from them than they were made to deliver.
Across the rift, the woman in red nodded, turned away and disappeared among the disparate monstrosities that surrounded her. The rip in the air burned, first electric blue and then white hot, twisting like a rising cinder from an unseen fire. Then it closed, a scar upon the fabric of reality, and was gone.
The last creature fell, only yards from its fellows, and rank fluids from its dying body soaked the clean earth of the meadow. Vida saw it fall, saw that the Cobalts and their girls were still whole, that the rest of the crew had survived. Then the darkness that had filled the other side of the rift drifted over her, and she knew no more.
The world was soft and warm, and rumbling. Vida opened her eyes, feeling as though she’d slept for a year. She was stiff and immobile, for a moment thinking she’d been restrained. But no, it was the Cobalts. One lay on each side, wedging her between them, and their contented purring made the camp bed she lay on vibrate.
“She’s awake.” The light voice belonged to one of the girls. Vida wasn’t sure at first which one, until Tchaz leaned over her. “Welcome back.”
“Where?” Vida asked, her throat dry and voice hoarse.
“Hope, Idaho,” Kai said from the other side of the bed. She smoothed her hand over Faina’s flank, and smiled at Vida. Her right arm was bandaged from shoulder to elbow, and a colorful bruise was just beginning to fade from her jaw. “We’ve been here three days.”
Rakehall appeared then, bringing her a cup of water. “How are you feeling?”
“Like death warmed over,” she replied, taking the cup gratefully.
“Slowly,” he advised. “I’ve had you on IV fluids, but there’s nothing in your stomach. Don’t push it.”
“How long was I out?” She forced herself to sip the water, instead of guzzling it the way she wanted.
“Six days,” Tchaz answered. “You sealed the rift without any tech. Aio was afraid you wouldn’t recover.”
Vida glanced at her arms. The burns were well on their way to healing, but she could feel that the implants had been removed. She felt… lighter. “Why here? Idaho?”
“It’s a good, quiet place to regroup,” Rakehall said, taking her now-empty cup and filling it again with fresh water. “No new rifts since that day. No sign of any OHs. Tighe decided to take advantage while it’s clear.”
“The calm before the storm,” Vida mused, and pretended she didn’t see the way Tchaz and Kai exchanged looks.
Later, when she’d managed to talk her way out of bed rest, and eaten a little to fill her empty belly, she sat in a camp chair on the shore of Lake Pend Oreille. The air was calm, the sun low above a bank of clouds, and birds flew over the water on perfect curved wings. She sat in the quiet, listening to the soft slap of wavelets on the narrow rocky beach.
“Mind some company?” Harris asked, joining her with a second chair.
Vida shook her head, but didn’t look away from the lovely view.
“How are you?”
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Alive. We’re all alive. So, good.”
“I wanted to thank you.”
That surprised her, and she turned to look at him. There were thin scratches along his temple and cheekbone, more on his neck that disappeared beneath his collar. He’d had blood on his back when last she saw him, in the clearing fighting the ’nychoteuth — that was the name Tighe had assigned to the latest monstrosities they’d encountered. Nate had certainly proved his mettle, and his ability to be a member of the Bani.
“You saved my life. All our lives.” He reached over, and very lightly touched her hand. “You’re a hell of a woman, Vida Calder.”
“Maybe,” she said, and she didn’t return his touch, but didn’t pull away from it, either.
He was silent beside her. She could tell by the way he pursed his lips that he had questions, something he wanted to say to her. But perhaps he felt this wasn’t the time, because he kept the words to himself.
“Do you know why I volunteered for the Bani?” she asked after a while. The sun had fallen behind the clouds, and bright ribbons of topaz and saffron streamed across the sky. “When I was a child, my father was away. And one day, a doorway opened into the world between our house and the sea, like the air was a curtain and it was pulled aside. Something, some horrible thing came through and reached for me. But my manman intervened. She stopped it from getting me, and so instead of taking me, it took her. I was eight years old, and a monster like something from a nightmare stole my mother.”
Harris nodded once, understanding in the movement.
“And now, I have to figure out what to do,” she whispered, closing her eyes on the tears that welled and slipped down her face.
When her hand turned to hold his, he returned her firm grasp; she was sure he could feel her trembling.
“Because regardless of how they originally broke through to our world,” she went on, “They have someone else to open their doorways for them now. Someone who can do it almost effortlessly. I saw her through the portal, and I recognized her.”
“No,” Harris breathed.
Vida knew he’d seen through the opening before she’d closed it by sheer will, but had he seen the woman’s face?
“I don’t know why. I can’t imagine any reason good enough. But my mother is helping them. I have to stop her.”
Harris squeezed her hand, and she turned to look at him. Already the light was fading from the sky; from behind them the lights from base camp were shining. When her eyes met his gaze, he gave her a promise. “I’ll help you.”
Hungry Eyes
— A Valducan Story-
Seth Skorkowsky
“The second one is coming up now,” I said into the radio. From my vantage point, crouched behind a rooftop wall, I watched an orange basket stretcher emerge from the manhole. It stopped as it reached the tripod straddling the opening and swung there, dangling above the pit. Blue-uniformed officers carefully pulled it out and began unstrapping the black body bag secured inside. Colored lights flashed atop the response vehicles, parked to shield the grisly work from the view of onlookers pressing against the nearby barricades. Shouts in French echoed up from the crowd and the police trying to contain them.