Lightning (11 page)

A laser burst exploded at the edge of the road. All three of them dove back over the rise, sliding onto the hillside.

Laser fire shot up at them from the bottom of the hill. Two shots ricocheted off the top edge of the boulder below them. One shot went left, the other, right. Bodhi fired right, Glade fired left. They concealed themselves behind trees on the slope.

Taraji was far enough up the hill that she was covered in the treetops. She slid up to the edge of the road and fired off a couple of tracer shots to get the direction of the shooter.

Bodhi tried to watch for movement below him and analyze why he knew what defensive moves Taraji would make.

Movement in the bushes below. Bodhi aimed ahead of the object, waiting for it to move into his range. He fired. A loud thump. No further movement.

The other laser below started firing wildly. Glade engaged, moving down the hill tree by tree as the target moved away but still returned fire.

Bodhi, hearing more than one weapon firing at Taraji, scrambled up the hill to her position. Just as he reached
her, she ducked. He ducked. Two shots. Opposite directions. Taraji looked at him. He nodded. Back to back, they rose firing at the same time. For Bodhi, it only took two shots for him to zero in on his target. The laser hit center mass on the man's chest, and his feet jerked up as he sailed through the air and skidded to a stop in the center of the road.

Taraji hit her assailant, exploding the weapon in his hands. The dark-clad man held his arm and fled down the road toward the caravan depot.

“Clear,” Bodhi called as he stooped over the downed man.

“Clear,” Taraji yelled as she walked back up the road.

“Clear,” Glade shouted. His head appeared at the top of the hill.

Bodhi and Taraji swept the area around them. He watched Glade come over the hill just as Taraji whistled.

Bodhi and Glade turned. A bubble-topped security unit from the caravan depot hummed above the road. It pulled up beside them, lowering to the road. The side door swished open, and a female agent with close-cropped hair and wearing a beige flight suit and headset leaned out. “Would you folks be the Rishon party we're supposed to escort away from these local malcontents?”

If Bodhi hadn't felt so tired, that would have made him laugh out loud. As it was, he could just manage a smile and a nod. They piled into the well-shielded security unit, and the agent handed them each a water flask. Bodhi felt comfortable for the first time today.

“By the way, our second unit picked up the two wounded men trying to get away. I've called Wilmington security to
pick up that body back there. At least they can do that much work, since they'll just let the wounded guys go in a couple of days after you've cleared out.”

“They'll be let go?” Glade seemed to lose his calm. “The Wilmington Lander Council won't charge any of them for a capital offense against a novarium? That used to be against the law.”

“Any of them?” The agent pushed her headset off her ears.

“These two and the ones captured from the attack when we landed,” Taraji said. “I saw them drive away in the commander's vehicle while we were talking. They were seated in the back, but they weren't in restraints.”

“Hmm, forget them. They never got logged in at the Castle. And I'm sorry, sir, but novarium aren't a protected class anymore. Any crime that could befall a novarium could befall a regular person, so those offenses were already covered by laws,” the agent said. She turned to speak to their driver in the secured front section, which contained a plascine-domed turret area for a laser cannon.

Bodhi looked at Taraji. “Did you actually see the commander call for backup?”

Taraji tilted her head for a moment, then looked up and smiled. “No, I didn't. That's a good catch. And I must say I'm impressed at your prowess with a weapon.”

“So am I,” Glade said. He patted Bodhi on the back. “You've surprised me.”

Bodhi jerked. His heart pounded. Acceptance at last.

The agent turned back to the group. “We're all set to go. Could you imagine being stuck in this craziness all night?”

Bodhi wondered how bad it would be in Baltimore overnight tonight. They'd arrive there just about dark, and the caravan wouldn't leave until five in the morning. It would head south to Richmond, and they'd get off in Stone Braide.

“So what's the Castle?” Bodhi leaned back against the seat wall, the hum of the engines soothing.

“The Council building is one of those gothic castles from mythology. It's a couple of hundred years old, a dark gray stone building. It's massive. There are places inside that monstrosity that people are reported to have never seen,” the agent said. They pulled into the depot, and the security vehicle lowered to the ground.

Taraji stepped out and looked around before she let Glade or Bodhi descend. She nodded. Glade stepped out.

A barrel-chested man in a blue tunic rushed over. He had to huff and puff several times before he could get enough air to speak.

“Glade Rishon! We are so glad to see you again, old friend.” He and Glade clasped elbows, then pulled each other in for a back-slapping hug.

Bodhi was a little taken back by Glade's display of camaraderie. Glade, always so tightly reserved, had even smiled at the man.

“Come, your accommodations are all prepared, and we leave right on time in fifteen minutes.” The man led the way.

Glade talked to their caravan master while Bodhi sidled up to Taraji, leery after the events of the day. “Is there any way for us to get a communication back to TicCity?”

Taraji shook her head. “No way unless someone travels
there. They've been trying for years to get the towns along the route to band together and create a string communication for the whole line, but they could never get all of them to cooperate.”

“I'm seriously worried about Selah's safety. These splinters seem deranged.” Bodhi felt helpless to keep her safe at this distance. Why had he let Glade talk him into coming?

Taraji stopped walking and fisted a hand to her hip. “Selah is in the safest place she could possibly be. TicCity is a security fortress and I'm in charge of it, remember?”

Bodhi felt his face warm as he realized the words that had slipped from his mouth. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you. I'm just worried.”

Taraji smiled softly. “I understand your concern, but TicCity
is
the safest place for her to be while we're gone. Jaenen Malik will ensure her safety.”

S
elah tried to watch the scenery, but her mind kept drifting—to the people she loved, the earthquake she couldn't explain, this new ability. As soon as she rationalized one situation, the next would take its place. If she could just—

Lightning burst, colored stars radiating before her eyes. Just what she needed right now. She needed to sleep—for days.

Cleon reduced speed and the magnetic force field kicked in to make for a pleasant ride. For as much as she could concentrate, the landscape intrigued her. At home in Dominion, large multi-acre sections were cleared to cultivate crops and to use for herds of livestock. Here the forests went on forever, with very few clearings and impossibly tall and wide-based trees. At the road edge she noticed wires strung between poles shaped like tall letter T's. Her heartbeat quickened.

She pointed up to the wires. “What are those for? Is this another trap?”

“No, this land between the two waters is controlled by a regent who has embraced the old technologies from before the Sorrows. She has an energy source that generates electricity the old way,” Cleon said. “Those wires carry power to the homes. I've heard they're even experimenting with communicating through the wires.”

“That sounds a little backward if you ask me,” Selah said.

“Yes, but you must remember your Borough always bought technology from the Mountain,” Treva said. “And the Lander communities—I'm not sure where they get their technology, because they've got applications far beyond Mountain capabilities.”

“True on both counts,” Selah said. “And farther south in Waterside, they use petrol-powered energy sources more than we do in Dominion because they produce their own petrol.”

“So in this land they must have extended amounts of fossil fuels, or extreme sources of it,” Cleon added. “I never thought about it, but I've never seen any mining or reclamation operations, so I don't know where they'd be around here.”

He navigated off the road and into a small clearing, following the field around a stand of large trees and then into another clearing of long grass and wildflowers. Obscured by the tall forest to the west, the sun drew long shadows on the field. Selah could guess the time. It would be dark in a few hours. She hadn't slept under the stars since traveling from the Mountain. It brought back memories and a shiver, causing her teeth to momentarily chatter.

As they entered the field, Selah picked up on a low continuous rumble hard to describe. She had nothing to reference it by—maybe horses. It sounded like thundering horses. The farther they traveled into the open area, the greater the sound grew in intensity. The air felt heavy, moist. Selah felt a misting on her face. The AirWagon drifted to the ground. The roar vibrated through the earth, making Selah tingle.

“What's causing the vibration?” Selah said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the rumble.

“Where is it?” Treva yelled to Cleon. He pointed to the right.

Treva took Selah by the hand and said into her ear, “Come see this. You'll love it.”

Jaenen stayed behind with Cleon to get their weapons out for hunting. Selah reached in the AirWagon, grabbed her bag of kapos, and stuck them in a lower pocket of her pants. They banged against her calf, but the feeling gave her a sense of security. Treva motioned impatiently. Selah picked up her gait and trailed her around the next grove of trees.

The roar was deafening. Selah stopped and gaped, and her breaths quickened to short, labored bursts. It was beyond anything she'd ever seen. Water. A lot of water. Pure power.

The water cascaded over the top of a narrow rock cliff at least three hundred feet high, dropped to another ledge a hundred feet below, then cascaded another hundred feet or so into a large natural pool surrounded by enormous jagged boulders. The torrents of water moved over the rocks so swiftly and with such force they churned white—a waterfall of milk that regained its clarity as it poured into the crystal-clear pool.

The mountain and cliffs on either side of the falls were covered with trees and bushes, moss and vines with beautiful large blossoms of yellow flowers clinging to the ledges and trailing to hang over the sides in long, colorful tendrils. Selah stared in wonder, not having words to describe the beauty.

“So what do you think?” Treva asked.

“I think I want to stay forever,” Selah said with a contented smile.

Treva chuckled. “I think a whole bunch of people would have something to say about you living in the wilds.”

“I wouldn't care. I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. We have nothing to compare with this in Dominion,” Selah said. She could imagine hiding away here with Bodhi forever.

“We have artificial waterfalls in the Mountain, so I recognized the sound,” Treva said. “But we don't have anything like this. The volume of the sound alone would drive them crazy in the Mountain. They'd demand a hologram falls where they could turn off or dull the sound.”

Selah dropped to the grassy slope and wrapped her hands around her knees. The roaring sound evoked peace, drowning out all the other things trying to talk in her head. Her whole body seemed to relax. She dropped her head to her knees and shut her eyes to rest for just a few minutes.

“Hey!” Cleon said as he nudged Selah in the shoulder. She jumped. Had she fallen asleep? She looked at the shadows. They hadn't lengthened much. She'd only been out minutes, but it was enough to refresh her.

“I need to do some hunting. Do you want to come?” Cleon asked.

Selah squinted her eyes, awakening her dormant thoughts and shaking off the sleep. “I heard you say that before, but I thought it was a joke. When did you start hunting?”

“After we came to TicCity. Treva convinced me the game was safe to eat.”

“Oh, excuse me—I try for years to get you to eat meat, and your lady love does it in a couple of months. Oh, my heart.” Selah clutched at her chest and laughed out loud. “So much for being able to have an influence on someone.”

Cleon grinned, holding out a crossbow and a heavyweight compound. “Do you want either of these?”

“I'll let you take down the big game. This I've got to see. I'll do small stuff with these.” Selah pulled out her kapos. She could peg a rabbit at twenty feet with one of them, and with her newfound strength she was pretty sure her range had increased exponentially. She tested the knife weight in her hand. It felt natural and familiar.

Cleon walked back to the AirWagon and deposited the compound. He slung the crossbow, cocked and loaded, across his shoulder, the quiver mounted lengthwise along his forearm.

“No one else coming?” Selah fell in step beside her brother. It felt good to be walking in the woods with him again. It made the time and distance from home melt away.

“Treva's going to set up the AirWagon for sleeping. We were lucky those bandits didn't realize we had side compartments.”

“Too bad we didn't have the food in there,” Selah said. They trudged away from the waterfall.

“That would have posed worse problems. If we didn't have something for them to steal, someone might have gotten hurt or killed.”

“What are we hunting for here?” She followed Cleon down a path that looked worn and traveled.

“The last time I was in this area, I got a wild pig, and one of the guys in our party got a deer.”

Selah stopped and looked at him. “Who are you and where is my brother, the fish and clam eater?”

Cleon shook his head, snorting with soft laughter. He held up a hand and pointed through the trees. About twenty yards away in a small clearing, three very large rabbits grazed outside a three-burrow warren dug into the hillside. As fate would have it, the breeze was blowing in the rabbits' direction.

One rabbit jerked up its head, put its nose to the air, and thumped its hind leg. The other two jerked to attention and started to dart away. Cleon swung his crossbow around front and fired at the same time Selah threw a kapo.

The rabbit on the left skidded back a few inches and fell with an arrow piercing its side. The kapo skewered the rabbit on the right, while the one in the middle escaped death by scampering into the warren and disappearing before they could shoot again.

“Two should feed the four of us tonight,” Cleon said. He leaned the crossbow against a tree and moved to retrieve the game.

Selah followed behind, shaking her head at his accuracy with the bow. Cleon removed the arrow, wiped it off, and returned it to his quiver, then proceeded to try to clean and
gut the dead prey. Selah watched with amusement. He hadn't quite got the hang of dressing game, and a few times he gagged trying to lop off the head. After all the years of abuse her brothers had given her about hunting, she almost enjoyed watching him retch. But Cleon was all she had left at the moment, and she did love her brother.

She reached over, stopped his hand, and gave a give-me gesture. “You go dig a hole to bury the entrails and skin,” she said. She figured that was the better of the two options, rather than watching Cleon continue to make a mess hacking at the meat.

Cleon, sweat beaded on his forehead, looked relieved. He eagerly handed over the kill and moved about five feet away to stab at the soft forest floor. The dirt moved easily while Selah made short work of stripping and gutting both rabbits. She laid the rabbit meat on a large flat rock and scooped up the entrails, skin, and heads and moved them to the waiting hole. She and Cleon pushed the dirt in to cover the detritus and wiped the blood from their hands.

Selah did a little extra tamping down of the soil. She always felt like she was completing a grave and owed the animal some small measure of respect for being her sustenance—for maintaining her life—even though she was going to enjoy the meal.

Cleon turned away from the hole. “Selah,” he said in barely a whisper.

“What?” She continued to tamp in a few errant clumps.

“Selah! Turn around slowly.” Cleon seemed to force out the words, still in a whisper.

“What?” Selah spun to face him.

Cleon was frozen in midstride, facing down half a dozen of the largest coyotes she had ever seen. They easily weighed a hundred pounds each, which was unheard of in the south. Their large black eyes and wide, sharp teeth garnered her instant attention. She tried to remain calm so as not to excite them further. The freshly killed rabbits were doing an excellent job of that. Three of the mangy animals stood poised between them and the crossbow, ready to charge. One other circled to their left, and the last two sniffed at the rabbits.

Selah eyed each one. With every particle of her being she wanted to flee. Not practical. Coyotes could run at forty miles an hour.
Even breaths.
One of the group of three curled its lip and bared its teeth, then took a step closer. Selah averted her eyes to the ground. No panic attacks. Calm—when she wanted to scream. The animal stopped.

She ever so slowly lowered herself to the ground. Watching the animals in her peripheral vision, she groped for the knife she'd laid down while burying the remnants. Letting out a breath, she slowly rose to stand beside Cleon. He had a knife in hand as well, ready to fight.

“How are we going to take six of them?” Selah felt her shoulders tighten. Her knees tried to shake but she willed the fear away. She would be an asset to Cleon, not a liability that could cause his death.

“I don't know.” Cleon's voice cracked with fear. “Can we scare them? You've spent more time in the woods than I have.”

“But I've never had to face down a coyote, especially ones this big. What should we try?”

“Hey, get away!” Cleon shouted and waved his arms suddenly.

The two animals sniffing around the rabbits startled at his voice and jumped over the rock, taking up tensed positions closer to their right.

“Well, I guess that didn't work,” Selah whispered. “Let's try to back away. On my mark.”

They began backing toward the trees on the other side of the clearing. For every step they took, the animals moved a tentative step closer. Now they had begun to growl among themselves, as though discussing who was going to eat whom.

Selah began to sweat. The coyote closest to her sniffed the air as though it could smell her. Lowering its head, the mangy animal bared its teeth and emitted a gurgled growl. It moved toward her slowly at first, then it began to gallop. Selah stepped back and into the middle burrow of the rabbit warren.

Pain shot through her ankle as it twisted, and she fell, her backside smacking against a pointed rock to the left of the burrow. She yelped in pain. Cleon turned to grab her. Their movement broke the standoff spell.

With a vicious growl, the lead coyote leapt toward her. The rest of the pack charged.

Selah screamed and raised her hands to fend off the attack.

Cleon threw himself on top of her.