The Second Dark Ages Boxed Set, page 31
part #1 of The Second Dark Ages Series
“It was,” he answered.
The slug became real. “Hey!” he exclaimed, giving her his whole attention. “I said it was my first, not my last and greatest.”
“Ooohhh!” She grinned at him and then grabbed his arm to pull him close, looking up to kiss him.
“What was that for, now?” he asked, completely confused by her quick change of attitude.
“For knowing the right thing to say at the right time to make my heart feel better.”
Mark blinked at her a few times. “But what if I have the right thoughts, but the wrong words?”
Jacqueline considered his question a moment before answering. “Well, it will suck to be you. Just like every other guy for thousands of years.”
Mark wisely stayed quiet. Moments later, they looked up as a large box started descending towards them.
Yuko shook her head, a small smile playing on her lips. “Young love. Who would have thought it could blossom around Michael so easily?”
“I doubt even the vaunted ArchAngel could stamp out the attraction of hormones,” Eve replied as they ignored the outside monitors once they understood what they had been seeing. “Plus, maybe Michael has changed significantly. He has been gone a long time.”
Yuko nodded that she understood the statement, but she didn’t offer a confirmation that she believed a word Eve was suggesting. Even Eve’s own calculations didn’t support a significant chance that what she said was true.
But even though the chance was small, the evidence that love was blossoming had been displayed on their screen just a moment ago.
The large container settled on the ground some hundred and fifty paces away, where it was level enough. Eve went to the back and unlocked the doors, then pushed one half open.
Moments later, the two youngsters came jogging up.
Holding hands.
Akio nodded as Sabine explained that the group inside the city would welcome two more warriors gladly. “We’ll take you to your friends,” Michael said to the young lady, “but first we have a need to do some research on a person who seems to be pulling together packs like the ones who chased you last night.”
Sabine’s eyes involuntarily darted to the dead bodies and back to Michael. She asked, “You know that there are more like that, yes?”
“Oh?” Michael replied.
She nodded. “Oh yes. I’ve heard there are at least three large groups. They have camps in some of the small cities around Paris. We’re expecting them to attack, and that’s why I was trying to make it to my friends.
“You were coming here to fight?” Akio queried.
She turned to answer. “Yes. I lost friends and family last winter to a group that attacked my town. I was on a foray to gather food when it happened.” Her eyes glistened as she remembered. “I can’t fight much, but I can scout, and I know where three packs are. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to believe the ones last night…” She looked around, noticing the false dawn approaching. She shivered. “Well, that they were human.”
Michael nodded, getting what he needed from her memories.
“I wish I had weapons and could have killed them myself,” she murmured.
Akio pursed his lips, then turned to walk a few steps back to the Pod before reaching in and moving aside two boxes. He pulled out a third, lifting it up and over the side. He brought it back to them before he handed it to her.
Michael raised an eyebrow.
“Here,” Akio said as he gave her the box. She grabbed it with both hands, then made a small squeak as she had to grip harder to hold the weight. She lifted it back up.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Two pistols and five hundred rounds of ammunition. We have two hours before we can safely approach your friends. If you truly want to be able to fight back, I will teach you how to fire that weapon and defend yourself.”
“But,” she looked up at him, “this will only hurt humans.”
Akio shook his head “Not anymore. Those bullets are meant to hurt werewolves as well.”
“Silver?” she asked, looking down at the box.
“No, better.” Akio replied. “It is something a friend created when she was bored. The little tiny machines in the bullets will affect any who attack you.”
“Any?” Michael asked.
Akio looked up. “If they have the wrong type of nanocytes, hai.”
Michael slowly nodded his head. “That’s an interesting development.”
“It was based on something TOM and Bethany Anne concocted early on. Eve modified it with the instruments in the cave.”
“Sabine,” Akio said to the young woman, “please be so kind as to make sure you shoot the right people with that. Now,” Akio pointed behind her, “let’s go use some of those heads as targets.”
Waste not, want not. Michael sent to Akio.
It will help her understand how to shoot at people and bodies, more than, say, a tin can, Akio responded.
Michael looked around as they walked back towards the dead bodies. “Where would you find a tin can out here?”
“Oh my God.” Mark looked at the screens. He felt pain in his hand as Jacqueline once again reminded him of his latest and greatest love, which was not tech.
“Aww, c’mon honey.” Mark turned to her. “You have to know that this,” he waved a hand at the inside of the container, “can never make me feel as good as you.”
She smiled. “Or hurt you as much.”
Yuko wanted to roll her eyes at them. “My name is Yuko, and this is Eve.”
They looked down at the shorter woman. “I am an android,” Eve informed them.
“What’s an android?” Jacqueline asked her. “You just look short to me.”
Eve turned to her. “I am a sentient AI housed within this fabricated body.”
Jacqueline put up two fingers and pointed to her own eyes, before switching the hand around to point the two fingers at Eve. “I found him first, so keep your advanced technology sexiness away from him, understand me?”
Michael walked away from Akio and Sabine as he thought about what he knew of the Japanese vampire’s skills, and what he thought he understood from his little experiment on the ArchAngel.
Where he had argued with the energy of the cosmos, and at least this time, he won.
Another hundred and fifty paces away was a small cluster of trees, so he continued there as he spread his senses to confirm nothing unsafe was around.
Unfortunately, there were only animals keeping their distance, nothing to fight at the moment.
Michael walked up to the first tree, its six-inch trunk stretching a little above his head before the main limbs branched out. There were three branches at eye level. Michael rolled up his sleeve and created a minute cutting edge along his forearm, then used it to cut away the limbs stopping him from easily getting closer.
He kicked away the fallen branches and looked at the wood, wondering if this idea was going to go anywhere.
As near as he could tell, the Etheric was energy. Perhaps raw energy, perhaps something he could manipulate into different forms of energy.
He needed to figure this out, and frankly, he had always enjoyed fires.
When he was fighting the storm, reveling in the power and the pain as the lightning was drawn into his body to be channeled into the Etheric, he had come up with the idea that perhaps he could create fire as he pulled energy—heat—back and forth to try and disturb the clouds.
Michael pursed his lips, trying to remember what he knew. Fire, or at least flame, was the physical manifestation of exothermic reaction when things were heated above their combustion point. Some objects had lower combustion points, some higher.
Wood, at least in the green state, required more than five hundred degrees Fahrenheit to combust, if he remembered correctly. What he couldn’t recall was how much more than five hundred.
Michael considered what he was about to do and smiled. He reached up, used the monomolecular edge on his forearm to cut off the branch, caught it, and then cut three, foot-long segments. Taking his three pieces, he walked away from the grove and shook his head.
He might have accidentally started a damned prairie fire if he had tried something inside there. After thirty paces he found a halfway-sandy area and cleared it out. He squatted and placed his first piece of wood in the center of the sand. Staring at it, he willed it to burst into flames.
Nothing happened.
He ran a hand across his head, then shook it. Maybe if he could figure out fire, he could figure out how the hell to grow his hair back. He probably looked like a future version of Yul Brynner, walking around with pistols and a sword.
Thinking a moment, Michael put his hand on the wood and started to feel for the energy—the core that seemed to be inside him—and tried to place it within the wood. There were no flames, but when he lifted his hand, there were scorch marks where his fingers had held the log.
Michael chewed his lip. His eyebrows drew together in concentration as he placed his hand back on the log, then he deliberately thought of the annoyance he felt about having to wait before he was able to see Bethany Anne again.
The Universe was fucking with him.
That perhaps, just perhaps, she might die before he had a chance to tell her he loved her once more. Gott Verdammt…
“Fuck!” he said, jumping back from the log that exploded in front of him. Parts were in flame, falling from the sky. He felt a twinge and reached up to his right cheek, where he pulled out the two large splinters that had impaled his face. Looking down, he quickly pulled out another fifteen slivers. He sniffed and turned to his right. Jogging over, he stomped out a small grass fire that had started from a chunk of the log.
Lesson learned. He was touchy about not seeing Bethany Anne again.
Two more logs, two more chances to figure out what might start a fire without exploding the damn material.
“This suit,” Yuko said, “is made of a very stretchy fabric.”
“Can it handle it if I change into a…” Jacqueline stopped and looked at Mark. “How tall was I?”
“Uh,” Mark paused a moment. “At least six and a half, maybe seven feet? I was mostly on the ground under your foot, so size was relative at that moment.”
Jacqueline blushed. “I… uh, I’m sorry about that.” Mark pulled her close as she turned back to Yuko. “If I’m six or seven feet tall?”
“So, you can turn into a Pricolici?” Yuko knew this, but wanted to make sure they spoke about it openly.
“Yes.”
“The materials can stretch that much, but when you change back, you might have to get it wet and allow it to dry so it will shrink back to the normal size. It could be loose on you until you do.”
“Better than walking around buck naked,” Jacqueline said.
“Why?” Mark asked. “I’m kinda of fond of...”
“Others?” Jacqueline asked him. “I mean, I’m Were, so I can handle walking around naked in front of a bunch of guys.”
Mark turned back to Yuko. “So, do you have another set of these for her? If one gets ripped in a fight or something, we wouldn’t want her to be without.”
The android came up. “We have plenty. For some reason we are full up on clothes.”
“The reason,” Yuko turned to look at her friend, “is that you went through a design and creativity phase back in the fifth decade, but didn’t have enough people to use them.”
“Not my fault that Japan went all insular again,” Eve argued.
“My people have always been a bit insular,” Yuko replied. “It is close to what ‘Japanese’ means in most languages.”
Eve just shrugged.
Chapter Eleven
Sabine aimed the pistol and...
“Don’t,” Akio told her. “Don’t aim the gun, make it an extension of your thoughts, of your being. It isn’t there to be aimed. It is there to send the bullet where your mind wishes it to go.” He held a hand out. “Let me have one.”
Sabine gladly handed the pistol over. “You forgot to take it off safe,” he said. He glanced at the bodies and heads. Some were close, others were farther away. Sabine watched him. His body was facing her, but his gaze was downrange before he turned back to look at her. “Each.” He fired a shot; it split a head in two. “Time.” He fired again, still looking at her. She saw a body twitch about thirty paces from the skull he had shot first. “You shoot.” Another squeeze of the trigger, another hit. “You just feel the bullet and the target become one, and will your body to make it happen.”
She saw his next three shots hit bodies farther away. Her mouth dropped open. “You didn’t even look!”
He shook his head. “I did look,” he said. “Then, it is in here,” he touched his head with his left hand. “and here.” His hand dropped to his chest over his heart. “A gun is a tool to make your will a reality when someone attacks you and your people. A tool for protection.”
Her mind was leagues away before his voice cut through her memories. “Sabine?”
Her head jerked around. “Sorry!” She flashed him a short smile. “I’m sorry. You mentioned protection.” Akio nodded. “I’m still thinking of my parents, my friends, and their senseless deaths.”
“That is good, Sabine. If you are going to take a life, you must have a reason to do so. The protection of your friends’ lives is a better motive than revenge, but justice for the dead is a very close second. I will share a few tricks with you that I have learned over the years,” he said as he flicked the pistol’s safety back on.
She accepted the weapon, verifying that the safety was on before reloading, as he had taught her. “How many years is that?”
“More than you can guess, little one,” he whispered.
Moments later, both pistols loaded and safeties off, Sabine stood ready. “You will walk forward, Sabine. Each time I call out, you will shoot to either your left or right, whichever has a closer target. But you will not be thinking of them as targets; you will be thinking and believing they are alive. They are the ones attacking your village.
Sabine nodded her understanding.
“Now, I want you to be ready, and I want you to walk straight and look straight, even if the target is off to your side. Do you understand what I am telling you?”
“Look straight, walk straight, shoot wherever I need to,” she replied.
Akio nodded as he insinuated himself into her mind. He tapped the memories she had pushed down, but still used to fuel her anger.
Her drive.
Walk, and let us kill those who attack the people you love.
The memories came back, but this time she could smell the smoke, hear the screams, and feel the wind blow across her skin.
Her breath caught in her throat.
You have the power to protect them, little one, the voice told her. She looked down to see the two pistols in her hands.
How did you two get here?
She took a step. Your future is ahead of you. Protect, or die, Sabine.
The buck of the first pistol in her grip barely registered. She stared ahead, aware of those who were attacking as she continued. She barely heard the commands to fire, then she lost even that guide as she felt the pain of those who were dying, the fear as children were murdered, their arms ripped off by the teeth of creatures that should not exist.
Those that were not killed by the people of her village. A creature went down each time her pistol bucked in her hand, and the ones she shot didn’t get back up.
Her right pistol shot twice, then her left once, and she continued walking forward. She looked into the distance, unseeing but uncannily accurate.
Turn around, five shots, duck!
Sabine spun, fired and ducked.
Left, left, right, left, right!
Back to the front!
She continued her twist and stood back up. She yelled into the morning light, “Bring it, assholes!”
In ten more steps, her guns went silent.
The enemies from her past all lay dead behind her.
She was coming back into her own mind when she heard the warning. “Attack above you!”
Both pistols whipped up as she turned around and found two pieces of wood flying towards her head.
Blam blam!
The pistols barked in her hands and both branches exploded into splinters.
“Safety!” came the command, and Sabine easily flipped them both on.
She looked towards Akio, who wore a small smile as he waved her towards him. He turned, and she watched him head toward the ship. She walked past the targets and was able to see where all the shots had hit.
All but two were close to dead center. One was high and to the right, the other barely clipped. She noticed the five shots she had made as she turned around. All five were on target, but not dead center.
She would have to feel for the target harder next time.
Akio was returning from the ship when she finished walking past the bodies on the ground. They smelled horrible, but she had smelled that odor before.
He was carrying a belt. “Here are holsters for your weapons.” She reached out and he shook his head. “No. I will put this on you the first time. Then, until you die, you will be the only one to don or remove these weapons. Is this understood?”
Sabine nodded and lifted her arms as Akio put the belt around her and cinched it up. He adjusted it so the holsters hung correctly on her hips. “It is time,” he said.
She lowered her hands and placed each pistol in its holster. As she settled the second pistol, she looked at Akio. “Thank you.”
He offered a half smile to her, then turned to look into the distance. Sabine wasn’t sure why, so she twisted to see what he was gazing at.
There were four people walking towards them. The two on the left were holding hands.
“Sabine,” Akio introduced everyone as they walked up. “The young man on the left is Mark, and those are Jacqueline and Yuko. The short one is Eve.”
Sabine nodded to each in turn.
