DarkWind: 2nd Book, WindDemon Trilogy (39 page)

The Reaper and his men were already on board the retrofitted Orion. The exterior of the ship bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Medivac ship that had been built on Earth. The sleek primary hull of the vessel was elongated, encased in a shiny black metal alloy. The ion engines had been replaced with twin atramentium induction units that would increase the speed of the ship by 500%. The sensor and communication arrays fanned out in a mesh-like material at the aft section, resembling the tail feathers of a giant bird. The curved wings were equipped with plasma torpedo bays.

“It looks like a damned humongous crow!” Marti complained as she stared at the ship in its docking harness.

“More like a thesion,” said Iyan. At Marti’s irritated glance, he shrugged. “A Terran raven?”

“She’s a thousand times faster than anything your world can build and she’ll be able to outrun and outlast any ship in the Rysalia Fleet,” Sinjin Wynth bragged.

“You gotta a name for this hunk of junk?” Marti asked.

Sinjin’s crooked grin was infectious. “The DarkWind.”

Marti snorted. “Damned stupid name.”

“Stop insulting the man, Martha,” Lisa warned. “He’s gonna have to show you how to fly this bird of prey.”

“Raptor,” Sinjinn corrected.

“Same difference,” Lisa pronounced with a roll of her eyes.

Iyan swept his hand toward the vessel. “We’ll be leaving in less than twenty minutes, ladies, so I suggest you get settled in unless you plan on staying on Corinth.”

“And miss the thrill ride of the century?” asked Cathy Atherton. “Not on your Serenian hide, McGregor!” She winked at Barb.

Barb was standing very close to Iyan. So close that when either moved, their bodies touched. Neither seemed to mind the contact. Occasionally, they would glance at one another and the looks that passed between them did not go unnoticed.

Half an hour later, the newly christened DarkWind moved out of her docking harness.

“How long will it take us to get to Rysalia Prime?” Caitlin asked the Reaper. She was seated beside him at the captain’s console, in the seat that would normally have been reserved for his second in command.

“By your time reference,” Khiershon said, “five days.” He settled back in the command chair and braced his hands on the arms. “Mr. McGregor?”

“Aye, Captain Cree?”

“Take us out, Mr. McGregor.”

“Aye, Captain!”

Helen’s eyes grew wide as saucers as The DarkWind thrust forward. The G-force of the catapult pressed her into her seat and made her face ache. “Mother of God!” she managed to say as the acceleration increased and she momentarily blacked out. When she regained consciousness a few seconds later, she turned her head and looked at Lisa. “That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.”

“They forgot we aren’t used to that kind of pressure,” Lisa said hoarsely. “They’ve adjusted the cabin pressure and we should be okay now.”

“Not until I change my damned underwear,” Helen hissed. She plucked at the seat restraint and threw Iyan McGregor a nasty look as she stomped off the bridge.

“In normal circumstances, I would have called her back and reminded her to ask permission before leaving the bridge, but..” He grinned. “I don’t think that would have been wise.”

“Not in the least.”

Khiershon Cree stared into his wife’s beautiful face and answered her gentle smile. He reached for her hand then brought it to his lips. He placed a soft kiss in her palm. His wife’s slow inhalation of breath brought an instant reaction in his body.

“Mr. McGregor?” he called.

“Aye, Captain?”

“You have the bridge, Mr. McGregor,” the Reaper told his 2/IC.

Iyan looked around to see Cree helping his lady to her feet. He glanced at Barb who lifted one black brow. McGregor shrugged and went back to instructing Helen on the intricacies of navigation in that quadrant.

“We are being studiously ignored, my love,” Caitlin whispered to her husband.

“And why not?” Khiershon asked. “They know gods-be-damned well where we’re going and what we’ll be doing.”

“Really?”

In answer, the Reaper swept his lady into his powerful arms. His knowing look said it all.

Kamerone Cree
was very ill.

The ghoret bite had thrown off his Transition cycle and he knew he would be entering the first phase of a new Transition within a few hours. Before that happened, he had to put as much distance as he could between him and the Amazeens.

The trek into the interior of Montyne Vex was torturous.

Fever had reclaimed him and his body temperature was rapidly climbing. In Terran reference, a Reaper’s normal body temperature was 105 degrees Fahrenheit. During Transition, the temperature could elevate 10 to 15 degrees higher. With fever, that number would go even higher.

He sweated profusely. Not even stiff wind blowing across the desolate land was enough to dry the perspiration. It dripped down his face and into his glazed eyes. His joints stiff, beginning to hallucinate, he stumbled along half out of his mind with pain.

He knew from reconnaissance missions when he was a young ensign that Montyne Vex was a vast system of underground caves, honeycombed with lava beds to the south and glacier fields to the north. He knew he could hide for months, perhaps years, within the subterranean complex. With his highly developed sixth sense, he would be warned of an approaching hunting party and would have time to go deeper into concealment.

With the blood inside his weakened body boiling from the ghoret venom, he turned doggedly toward the north and the cooling tunnels that would take him to the subzero regions of the planetoid.

Dorrie paused to
pull the collar of her pilfered jumpsuit tighter to her neck. Assaulted by the frigid winds, she shivered, her numb lips trembling . The cold stung her cheeks and made her eyes ache. She had been following the fault line that separated the eastern and western sectors of the Vex for over an hour now. Reasoning that Cree would head into the more inhospitable region of the planetoid in the hopes anyone tracking him would be loathed to venture into the volcanic areas, she had originally headed south toward the smoking craters. But she remembered his words as he lay sweating in the grips of the viper bite and had stopped, reversing direction.

Snowflakes were beginning to fall sparsely from the thick gray sky and she could feel the moisture of it as it landed on her nose and eyelashes. Blinking away the intrusion, she ran her arm under her nose and stopped to survey her surroundings.

Ahead of her was a soaring outcropping of rock that resembled a chimney built by a drunken bricklayer. At the base of the outcropping, she could see a dark blob of a hole and it was toward that perceived entrance that she set her course. Forcing one foot ahead of the other, she started on again.

A shadow moved in the gathering darkness and she stilled, turning her head to look. She drew in a long breath, going as still as the craggy rocks looming over her.

The weretiger was ten yards away, off to her left, its gleaming teeth sharp and pointed, dripping with saliva as it grinned. Even through the skirl of the icy wind she heard its warning growl as its red eyes fixed on her. The animal was rail-thin, its ribs showing through the matting of its dark fur. As it licked its chops, its feral eyes glowing in anticipation of a meal, it lowered its mangy head and slithered a few steps toward Dorrie, its tail tucked between its spindly legs.

Dorrie began to tremble, a blossom of urine spreading across the front of her jumpsuit. She moaned, wincing at the sound, knowing the big cat had heard her. She took a step back from its steady advance.

“Don’t move, Dorrie.” His words were soft, barely audible.

“Cree,” Dorrie whispered urgently, risking a glance toward the sound of his voice, but he was nowhere in sight. “Cree, it’s...”

“I see him. Don’t move.”

The beast stopped its advance and switched its lethal gaze from its prey to the intruder. Its lips peeled back from its fangs several times in warning; it growled low in its thin throat.

“I’ve no quarrel with you, brother,” Dorrie heard the Reaper say. “But the bitch is one of mine. I will protect her.”

The weretiger’s tail swished violently and its lumpy head swung toward Dorrie.

“Mine,” Cree repeated. He materialized beside Dorrie and she flinched as his hand fell on her shoulder.

Sidling closer, the weretiger lifted its snout and sniffed the air, evaluating the scent of the prey as well as the intruder. Being upwind of the pair, it could not latch onto their smell and scuttled closer still.

“Oh, God!” Dorrie groaned.

“Be very still,” Cree warned her. “Let it sniff you.”

“Let it...?” She shut up when his hand tightened on her shoulder.

The beast sidestepped toward them, never taking its red eyes from the intruder. When it was only a foot or so away from Dorrie, it lowered its head and sniffed again.

“Mine,” Cree said once more and when the creature raised its head and locked gazes with the Reaper he put his hand out to the beast.

“Kam, no!” Dorrie hissed, fearing the feline would pounce. She was stunned when the scrawny beast tucked its tail between its legs and crouched down until its belly was resting on the sharp rocks underfoot.

Cree hunkered down beside Dorrie, laid his hand on the beast’s head and rubbed the sparse fur. “I understand,” he said. “I, too, am hungry.”

A low whine came from the animal then it began to purr raggedly. It swept out its rough tongue and licked Cree’s wrist. Its red eyes rolled and it whined again.

“I know.” The Reaper sighed. “I crave blood like you, but not this bitch’s. She is one of my pack.”

Dorrie shuddered and had to bite her lip to keep quiet.

The werebeast laid its head on the rocks and sighed as though in defeat.

“Cree?” Dorrie questioned.

“It’s sick and it’s starving,” Cree said and stood. “The most humane thing would be to put it out of its misery.”

Dorrie’s attention was riveted on the beast at her feet. She saw its shaggy eyebrows twitch, watched as its tail thumped once against the rocks, and felt pity for the animal as it became still.

“Please don’t kill it.”

Cree took her hand in his. “It would have killed you.”

She felt the raging fever in his touch and reached out her free hand to feel his brow. “Oh, lord, you are burning up!”

The werebeast raised it head and looked up at Cree. It whimpered.

“Ghoret,” Cree responded to the whimper.

Unsteadily, the beast got to its feet and staggered to the Reaper. It rubbed its matted fur against Cree’s leg then locked its feral eyes on the man at the female’s side.

It whimpered again.

Cree nodded, seeming to understand the creature’s vocalization. He looked to the rocks ahead of them. “Shelter. I need to lie down.”

Her hand burning from the heated grip of his, Dorrie took his arm and, trying not to look at the sick animal tagging along in their wake, allowed Cree to lead her toward the crazy chimney.

Kahmal was
infuriated.

She was also freezing.

She held up her portable transpositioner and took another reading. The screen was iced over and she had to use her thumbnail to scrape away the rime. Since night had fallen and the dark skies were black as tar around her, she could easily read the two major heat sources showing on the screen but was perplexed by a third minor heat source. The heat signatures were coming from the outcropping of crags ahead of her and it was toward this cantilevered structure that she set out.

By the time she was within ten feet of the place where Dorrie and Cree had ventured, the Amazeen Major was suffering from acute hypothermia. Her fingers and ears were frostbitten and every fifth step she took was slower than the one preceded it.

His body was
so hot there was no need for a fire. Dorrie cuddled against him, his heated breath fanning her hair, and soaked in the warmth from his flesh, the comfort of his strong arms around her.

“How soon?” she asked.

“D...don’t k...know.” Cree’s  body was wracked by shudders of pain. He tightened his grip around the Terran woman. “Hour. Maybe longer.”

“Maybe less?” she whispered against his throat.

“Maybe less.” The venom infiltrating his blood made his parasite wriggle with displeasure and caused him nearly unbearable agony as the thing undulated along his spine.

The werebeast lay curled on a ledge above them, its own feverish red eyes glowing in the darkness. It seemed to be watching over the restless Reaper and the Reaper’s bitch.

Dorrie stared up at the creature, wondering if it would attack Kamerone Cree when the Reaper began to Transition.

“No,” Cree told her. “It will run away.”

As though in agreement, the weretiger raised up, shifted its position on the ledge then lay down again, its hindquarters positioned so it could spring from the ledge and propel its body deeper into the cavern in which they had taken shelter.