Blood Legacy Origin of Species (31 page)

No, Susan didn’t like this at all.

It seemed like days had passed although Susan knew it could not be more than hours. They had traveled for some distance underground, then come out of a utility tunnel where more of Petrus’ kind were standing by. They ushered them into several limousines and they set off for small local airport. Petrus sat across from Susan while Ryan leaned heavily against the side of the car.

“So why don’t you tell me who you really are?” Ryan said. She was angry but her fatigue blunted her anger.

“Who do you think I am?” Petrus said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No more games,” Ryan said, “no more therapy, no more conversations. Just tell me who you are.”

Petrus became aware that Susan was scrutinizing him.

“What are you looking at?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” Susan said, embarrassed that she had been caught staring. Still, her scientific curiosity was overwhelming. “You are clearly our Kind, so were these mutations present prior to your Change or a result of it?”

“I am not your fucking kind!” Petrus screamed, nearly frothing at the mouth. “Do I look anything like your kind?” He jerked his chin toward Ryan. “Do I look anything like this perfect specimen of humanity, or even anything like you, Red?”

“Stop being rude,” Ryan said, “Dr. Ryerson’s been treating me like a laboratory experiment from the day she met me, so you’re in good company.”

Susan wasn’t sure which comment she should be insulted by, so chose neither. Petrus was not finished, however, and he leaned over into her face. To her credit, she did not flinch or react in any way, even when his spittle struck her shirt.

“Don’t pretend you’re not disgusted by the way I look. Don’t pretend you would be ‘okay’ if you turned into something like me, or if your son transformed into an abomination with two heads or four arms or gills or wings.” He shoved himself back into his seat. “Don’t patronize me.”

Silent before his onslaught, something in the way he moved caught Susan’s eye.

“You’re in pain,” she said quietly.

Petrus slunk down into his seat. “No shit,” he said, “we’re all in pain.”

“And who is we?” Ryan asked.

Petrus turned crafty once more, giving her a sideways glance. “You know who we are.”

Ryan understood and she lowered her gaze. Susan did not, and turned to her friend.

“Ryan?” she asked uncertainly.

A long sigh escaped from Ryan, part exhaustion, and part unwilling acknowledgment to a truth she had known all along.

“Petrus is one of the Survivors,” she said.

Petrus narrowed his gaze. They had been given many names over the centuries, most in the vein of “Abominations” or “Monstrosities,” and they had given many names to themselves, such as “Unfortunate” or “Forgotten.” But never had this name been uttered, odd since it was so undeniably perfect.

“I hate you,” Petrus muttered.

“I know,” Ryan replied.

Susan looked from one to the other. She wanted Ryan to continue with her explanation, but she was intrigued by the odd relationship that had formed between Petrus and her friend. It was difficult to assess, a bizarre mixture of familiarity, rivalry, humor, dislike, admiration…

And then it hit Susan. They acted just like siblings. She turned back to Petrus, but he was remaining stubbornly silent.

Ryan examined Petrus’ deformed features, features that no longer even seemed out of the ordinary to her.

“When Victor was left on this planet, there was a ‘search’ for suitable companions for him.”

“What kind of search?” Susan asked, noting the peculiar emphasis and the discomfort in which it was uttered.

“It was more of a large-scale biological experiment on humanity,” Ryan said, “one that had fairly catastrophic results. Hundreds of thousands grew sick and died. There were mutations, deformities, suffering inflicted in an attempt to find the handful of humans who could successfully survive the hybridization with this other species. It’s what we refer to as the Change, and it resulted in the first generation of our Kind, the Old Ones.”

The story weighed heavily on Ryan as Petrus sat glaring at her. Susan had grown very pale at Ryan’s account, appalled on so many levels it was hard to separate out what she was feeling. Ryan had recounted portions of this history before, but its brutality was still difficult to bear.

“Some who were not deemed ‘successes’ by this invasion force somehow managed to survive. And they have continued on in a parallel development with us.”

This last statement was largely guesswork on Ryan’s part, and it seemed there was something on the edge of her consciousness that almost came to light, something that she was almost able to remember. It slipped away, frustrating her because it seemed very important right now. Petrus took up the story line.

“So we went underground, in more ways than one, hiding in plain sight. Humans couldn’t see us or touch us unless we wished them to, and neither could your kind. That is,” he said with another sidelong look at Ryan, “until recently. Someone got another gift from grandma.” He snorted. “I get a fucking pig nose, and what does she get? X-ray vision.”

“And why are all of you in pain?” Susan asked.

“I don’t know,” Petrus said bitterly, “another one of our gifts, I guess. Our best scientists can’t figure it out, and our best scientists were able to figure out nut-job’s phase shifts when you couldn’t.”

“That was pretty clever,” Ryan admitted.

“Thank you,” Petrus said gruffly, and Susan was again struck by how odd their relationship was, beyond even the extremes of love and hate.

“So then who are we going to see?” Susan asked.

Petrus went abruptly silent, merely shaking his head. Ryan leaned back against the door, resting her head against the window.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but somehow I have a feeling that I should.”

Ryan was asleep, her dreams haunted by a pair of green eyes that she simply could not place. Even in the dream the eyes were disembodied, floating unattached to any person, place, or event that she had ever known. The anxiety caused her to start from her sleep, and the green eyes quickly faded away, replaced by a more present danger.

“Where are we?” she asked.

Susan was overcome by Ryan’s sudden apprehension and Petrus picked up on it as well.

“We’re still a few miles from the airport. We had to take a detour through some city blocks.”

“We’re not going to make it,” Ryan said.

No sooner had these words passed from her lips than the car they were in violently redirected, smashed sideways from the force of collision. The driver struggled to regain control of the vehicle but it spun out and crashed through a storefront. The car had barely come to rest when Ryan began struggling with the door, but it was trapped in a closed position by the damaged door frame. She cursed her present weakness, praying for a phase shift.

“Let me try,” Susan said, and braced her feet against the door. Perhaps it was her newfound abilities or simply panic, but she gave a tremendous thrust and the door pushed outward in a squeal of protesting metal. Both Ryan and Petrus were impressed.

“Come on!” Susan said, pulling Ryan from the wreckage. The driver scrambled out the front passenger side. He was a thin willowy man whose deformities gave him a tree-like appearance. He grabbed Ryan’s other arm a little roughly.

Petrus had also scrambled free and was looking fearfully out into the street. Ryan didn’t need to follow his gaze; she knew what was there.

“I don’t suppose you can beat ‘blue men’ in this state.”

Ryan shook her head. “Not a chance.”

The tree-like man and Susan dragged Ryan through the hole their vehicle had so recently created. Pandemonium was in full swing on the streets, and another vehicle from their caravan was now engulfed in flames. “Duckbill” and “Whiskers” were trapped inside, their terrified screams rising above the yelling and screaming on the block.

“Ryan, we have to go!” Susan cried, trying to pull Ryan away. Two very large muscular men with slightly bluish skin were exiting a black SUV, and Ryan did not even need to look to feel their frightening presence. But she could not let Petrus’ companions burn to death, even if they were her captors.

“Susan, help me get this door off.”

The two pushed from the inside and Susan pulled outward, and Ryan was quite certain she did nothing more than add her weight, but the door creaked open. The occupants tumbled out and Petrus grabbed Ryan’s arm.

“We have to go!” he screamed as the men rounded the corner of the car. Two more were exiting from a car further up the street. “The subway is right over here!”

Susan and Petrus half dragged and half carried Ryan, who seemed to be growing weaker by the minute. They nearly lost control of her down the slick stairs to the subway tunnel, but regained their grip at the bottom. The mass confusion and crowded conditions were the only things keeping their pursuers at a distance, but even so, the brutal soldiers were cutting a swath through the mass of people by smashing pedestrians right and left out of their way. The doors of the train were sliding shut in front of them, but with a last great effort Susan and Petrus dragged Ryan onto the train and the tree-like man squeezed in behind them.

The train started from the station and the group turned to the horrified stares of the other occupants of the compartment. The stares lasted only a second, however, as the train made it less than fifty yards before jerking to a violent stop. Everyone in the compartment was thrown forward into a heap. Susan pulled Ryan from the pile, glancing fearfully over her shoulder.

Ryan assessed the situation grimly. They had made it just far enough down the tracks to be trapped within the confines of the narrow part of the tunnel. The yelling and screaming coming from the rear cars of the train told her that her pursuers were approaching. Even if they could get the doors open, there wasn’t clearance enough on the sides of the train for them to squeeze through. She glanced up. There was the outline of an emergency hatch above her head.

Petrus followed her gaze. “We go out that way.”

No sooner had these words left his mouth than the rear doors burst open. Ryan was tall enough to reach the latch on the escape door. Without thinking about how tired she was, she lifted Petrus up and shoved him through the opening. She turned to Susan and despite her protests, lifted her bodily upward into Petrus’ hands. He pulled her free on to the top of the car.

Ryan glanced back and froze. One of the soldiers was pulling a weapon from his belt, a wicked looking three-bladed projectile. She turned to the tree-like man. “You need to get up there now.”

The man’s anger and indignation was palpable. “I’m as strong as you are, you go first.”

Ryan glanced back, realizing they were out of time. “You don’t understand—”

She didn’t have time to finish the sentence because the soldier cocked his arm back and let the projectile fly. It spun out in a deadly arc and Ryan had no time for any action other than to shove the other man backward as the deadly weapon spun between them. Had she not shoved him, the weapon would have taken off his head. She groaned as it instead sliced through her midsection. The man stared down at the blood in shock.

“Those weapons will kill me!” she said angrily, gritting her teeth, “so I know they will kill you.” She turned back to the soldier who was readying another projectile. It was clear to her that he was targeting her captor, not her, and the tree-like man’s terror indicated he realized this as well.

Perhaps it was her anger that gave her strength, or perhaps it was the clarity that the pain thrust upon her. But Ryan saw with perfect vision as the soldier loosed the razor-blade missile at them. It spun toward them with frightening speed, a blur of deadly sharpness as it cut through the air. The smaller man stared in horror as the blade came right at his face, then flinched as it came to an abrupt stop right before his nose.

Ryan stared down at the blade in her hand, the weapon that she had just impossibly plucked from the sky. She looked down at her smaller companion and very slowly smiled. Despite her fatigue, despite her pain, despite her injury, she turned and with great joy flung the projectile back to its originator with such accuracy, speed and force, it decapitated the man in a spray of acid blood. It also caught the soldier behind him, landing with a solid “thunk” into the flesh of his shoulder and knocking him backward. Ryan surveyed her work with pleasure, then turned back to her captor who was looking at her with amazement.

“I’ll lift you up, but you’re going to have to pull me through. I’m too tired to jump.”

The man nodded wordlessly and Ryan grimaced as she lifted him to her shoulder, paused, then pushed him all the way through. Petrus pulled on the other end. Then the two with the help of Susan pulled Ryan through the hatch. She went face down on the train for a moment, wanting nothing more than to sleep she was so exhausted.

“Come on,” the tree-like man said, although far more gently than before, “we have to keep moving.”

Susan helped Ryan to her feet and the four staggered down the top of the train. When they reached the front end, it was easier for Ryan to simply fall than to try and climb down. She stumbled upright, then began limping down the dark passageway toward a utility tunnel, supported by her three companions.