CARNAL, The Beast Who Loved Me (37 page)

Sychon, Free, and Forshep had agreed on a plan that might, admittedly, have holes, but was the best they could come up with on such short notice. The three stood on a table in the center of the room, side by side, to address the troops.

Forshep spoke first. “The first wave of attack will be handheld weapon only. We will give Exiled back up in their attempt to extract their captive. If we’re able to lay down fire cover for them, without endangering them, we will do so. If not, we will wait for their signal that they have the prisoner and are clear. In that event, and only in that event, will we utilize the pipe cannons or advance with automatic riflery.”

Forshep looked at Free, who took over. “It’s eight miles back through the city to the beginning of the wasteland and another twenty miles to the Rautt settlement. Those of you who have been out already know it’s cold
and
raining. Hopefully, the Rautt will be nestled peacefully in their beds.” Some people laughed. “Our goal is to be on them before they know an attack is possible. Sunrise is imminent, but we have the advantage of cloud cover. If we leave now, it will still be early morning when we arrive.”

Sychon was last to speak. “If you have a Rautt in your sights, remember that they have done monstrous things to humans and to Exiled. No adult prisoners. Pull the trigger and move on to the next one,” she said. Rosie thought it sounded rather bloodthirsty, but she knew someone had to say it and it probably carried more weight coming from a woman.

“Let’s move out,” Forshep said.

Carnal pulled Rosie into a last impassioned kiss. “Wait for me.” He grinned. “I’m coming back with my brother.”

She nodded and let him pull away.

Rosie climbed the stairs and watched the newly formed allied army load the vehicles from the window. Dawn was breaking. There were streaks in the sky, but it was still raining hard. The headlights provided enough light for the Farsuitwailians to see, but it was far from bright. Armed humans were paired with hybrids for transportation purposes until everybody had a ride.

She kept Carnal in sight as long as she could, but he was one of the first to leave. He and his crew flanked Free at the front of the horde. There were no battle standards, no fanfare, no feathers of silk colors, just a lot of people determined to live without being terrorized.

The mood was entirely different below ground, the opposite of high energy. Those who had not been selected were somber and gradually began to disperse, heading back to their quarters. Rosie doubted any of them would go back to sleep. Some stayed and brewed coffee, quietly chatting about how long it would be before they’d know the outcome. She noticed Comstock sitting off to the side. Somebody brought him a cup of coffee and included him in their conversation.

By her estimation, it would take them twenty minutes to reach the wasteland and another twenty minutes to cross it. She sat with fingers and legs twitching for half an hour then asked for directions to a restroom. Once inside, she simply vanished and emerged from the passes seconds later to stand on a plain just below the foothill that was supposed to be the site of the Rautt fortress.

To her left was the settlement. Its appearance was nothing like the descriptions she’d heard. It was reputed to be formidable, surrounded by a high wall, with a massive gate from which they could hang prisoners to discourage their enemy from attempting entry. Rosie’s conclusion was that the stories were either planted or made up. Rauttown, as the humans called it, turned out to be little more than a hastily thrown together encampment, completely indefensible. It was a stark contrast to the careful planning and meticulous building of Newland, the Exiled’s home.

She surmised that they never expected to be attacked, much less without warning. They relied on their reputation as monsters and the expanse of desert between themselves and Farsuitwail for protection.

All was perfectly quiet. Just as the Exiled had hoped it would be.

When she could make out the legion approaching from the south, she blended clothes and body into the surroundings like a chameleon, making herself virtually invisible. She wasn’t sure how she knew to do that, but was grateful to know it was a tool available for use at will.

The allied force of warriors was close. No more than a quarter mile away. And still there was no sign of movement in the Rautt settlement. They were quiet, perhaps lost to a hibernating slumber accompanied by the sound of rain. The plan had worked. They were going to be surprised. And not in a good way.

Rosie was practically shaking. She didn’t know if the shakes were being caused by the nerve-wracking anticipation of what was to come, outright fear of what might happen, or if it was a physical manifestation of her struggle with Kellareal’s directive to not use her abilities. No matter what.

She’d made a promise to Lally, which was what she’d called the angel as a child, and knew from her inherited memories that it was important to keep promises. She understood morality as an abstract grouping of principles that seemed to have no practical use other than to keep people from killing each other off while they pursued self-interest.

The vehicles stopped fifty yards from the settlement, feeling confident that the Rautt had no weapon that could travel that distance. She watched as the humans dismounted the bikes, apparently planning to stay behind while the Exiled looked for Crave. Leaving humans, guns, and only a handful of hybrids behind, the Exiled charged forward on their silent running motorcycles with one thing in mind; find and extract Crave, without raising an alarm if possible. Every one of them knew that was unlikely, but not one of them cared. Each was equally committed to the mission. Rescue Crave or die trying.

Rosie’s respect and admiration swelled so that it felt like her heart was actually enlarging, pressing on her ribcage for more space.

Her eyes felt misty as she watched the people she served daily rush headlong into a conflict that might mean their deaths. Still wearing a cloak of invisibility in the sense that her cloak changed to match the background she passed with each tiny movement, she walked up the incline toward Rauttown and, as she went, noticed that the rain was slowing. By the time she’d made it to the first building on the perimeter, it had almost stopped.

She kept going. Her field of vision was alive with Exiled running from place to place. Many of them were wearing blood evidence that they’d killed Rautt before they were even able to raise an alarm. Finally, a shout escaped from a Rautt before he was silenced, piercing through the stillness of the early morning and alerting his brethren to danger. They emerged from their various shelters almost instantaneously, but it was too late. Their numbers had been seriously depleted by Exiled stealth as they crept silently from one habitat to the next, killing occupants quickly and efficiently before their bedmates knew that their lethal counterparts had invaded their home.

Rautt were ready with weapons designed to fight hand to hand according to their lifestyle of choice. They fought with a focused menace that reminded Rosie of dogs bred and trained for arena fights to the death. Their wild-eyed expressions bore little resemblance to the calm and deliberate Exiled.

Seeing that contrast in vivid comparison, Rosie wondered how the humans of Farsuitwail could have ever believed that all hybrids were the same. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that the humans were still waiting in a cluster. They had promised they would not engage until the Exiled signaled that they had Crave and were out of harm’s way. Rosie realized how smart it was to leave a few Exiled behind to watch the humans. It would have been easy to begin launching explosives and take out all the hybrids, Rautt and Exiled, at once as had been the original plan.

Rosie hoped the humans had changed their minds, but she wouldn’t bet on it. Humans, as a lot, were inherently untrustworthy and she hoped the Exiled would never forget that, even if they eventually shared grandchildren.

The fight continued for half an hour. The Exiled had been told to take no adult prisoners and apparently drew a line at killing children. Some of the young were being rounded up and held in a group. They looked terrified, as was appropriate under the circumstances, not to mention feral and filthy. Rosie saw that, when Riot, a hybrid she knew from the Commons, tried to guide one of them into the group, the child launched himself with a baby roar, biting and slashing with his little claws.

The grounds of Rauttown looked every bit the massacre it was. There was still no word of Crave, but Rosie had kept an eye on Carnal, Serene, Free, and Dandy, to the extent possible.

“We have him!”

Rosie thought the shout came from Breaker, but sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the voices of adult male hybrids. They all sounded gruff and rumbling to her.

When Breaker entered the clearing pulling a bound Crave with him, blood was smeared on the right side of his face, on his hands and arms, and down the front of his clothes. But he appeared to be fine, which meant it was somebody else’s blood.

Her eyes searched for and found Carnal standing in front of a stack of loose hay, no doubt stolen from Farsuitwail on a raid, near a livestock pen where frightened, monster-sized sheep bleated incessantly and tried to jump over each other. His head jerked in the direction of the news that his brother was found alive and she saw hope spring into his eyes just as a long knife was plunged through his heart from behind. A Rautt fighter had hid in the stack of hay and waited for just such an opportunity.

When Rosie saw the end of the blade protruding from Carnal’s chest, her camouflage dropped. She rushed forward to stand in front of Carnal. His eyes had glazed over with shock and confusion, whether that was from seeing Rosie appear out of nowhere or from the fatal wound was impossible to say. Either way he had only enough time to say, “Rosie.” He searched her eyes one last time and said, “Mine,” just as he fell to the ground.

Rosie’s agonized scream shook the ground beneath them and reverberated to the heavens. Everyone stopped what they were doing, even those engaged in mortal combat.

When the sound tapered off, she drew in a big breath. “NO!” she said, reflexively sweeping her hand toward the ongoing fighting and, as she did, every sign that Rautt had ever existed simply ceased to be. There were no buildings, no tents, or pens, or any sign of Rautt. Not even footprints remained as a reminder that they had lived.

The Exiled looked around, not quite able to sort through what they were seeing.

Rosie fell on Carnal’s body and turned him so that she could press her lips to his for one more kiss as the warmth left his body for good. Her tears fell on his face and ran to the ground in rivulets. “Yours,” she whispered against his mouth.

She felt, more than heard, people approaching behind. From her crouch over Carnal’s body, she looked over her shoulder to see Free and Serene running toward her. Rosie could see that they knew because both their faces were drawn into grimaced masks of grief. She’d heard that no one mourns like parents who outlive a child, but she found it impossible to believe there could be a pain more acute than the one that had just cleaved her in two.

Unable to deal with her own feelings and witness the tragedy that had become of Carnal’s family, she vanished.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Storm had just lit the oven-height gas fireplace in his kitchen at the vineyard villa. He was waiting for the coffee pod machine to finish gurgling, and thinking how much he was enjoying his two-week leave from Jefferson Unit. He’d slept late and was looking forward to leisurely reading the news on his tablet while Litha slept even later.

He wore a favorite pair of old faded jeans, some soft and slouchy topsiders, and a plaid flannel robe with a microfleece lining, just as old, just as comfortable. He untied the robe, rewrapped it over his bare chest, and tied it a little tighter around his waist.

He was staring at the dribbling coffee as if that would make it brew faster when he heard the sound of a sniffle behind him. Knowing that he and Litha were alone in the house, he whirled around, not knowing what to expect.

There stood Rosie, face red, eyes swollen with tears still coursing down her cheeks. She wore strange clothing that made her look like an extra from a “Mad Max” movie.

Storm’s lips parted in surprise. He was just about to form a question when she whimpered, “Daddy,” and walked forward into arms that opened to encircle her.

“Rosie,” he ground out. “What’s happened?”

Her only answer was sobbing into his chest.

Storm knew enough about women to know that they are better interrogated
after
they’ve had their cry. So he simply held her patiently, while his mind ran through imaginary scenarios of what might have happened to cause her to be bereft. Judging by the length and depth of the sadness she was expressing, he knew it was something more than Sephora being out of her favorite nail polish. That might seem random, but he had once comforted his Rosie through being stricken over the fact that Puma Pink had been discontinued. He’d tried hard to imagine how such a thing could bring a person, even an immature person, to tears, but fell short. That was when he’d learned that he didn’t have to fix everything; sometimes he just had to give a hug and a listen.