Authors: Michael P. Spradlin
“Three reasons. One: it’s a higher elevation so it’s harder for us humans to attack; two: it’s an abandoned mine, so it solves the problem with the sun; and three: it’s been deserted a long time—no one coming in or out of town they need to worry about. A stranger who might report something,” he said. “Also, if he’s going to send soldiers out to turn humans, he’s going to need a base. It makes the most sense, given where the other attacks have occurred.”
Chee studied the map for a second longer then, nodded. No matter what, they needed to find this Malachi. Before he attacked Denver or some other densely populated place. The major’s plan was as good as any.
“Chee, would you take the map to Monkey Pete and show him where we are headed?” Chee took the map and left.
“What if you’re wrong?” Shaniah asked.
“Then I guess we’ll just keep looking,” Hollister said. “Until we find him, or he finds us.”
M
onkey Pete had the train resupplied and on its way in a matter of hours. When it came to his train, Pete did not mess around. If Clady was the best choice, it was also the farthest away, and it would take them longer to get there.
While they traveled Chee and Dog made themselves scarce. Chee was clearly uncomfortable around Shaniah and she felt the same about him. He stayed in his bunk most of the time. Hollister had no idea what Monkey Pete did; he appeared with meals and the rest of the trip he remained in the front of the train doing Monkey Pete things.
Hollister and Shaniah spent most of their time in the main car talking, asking each other pointed questions and generally passing time. Each of them knew the other was trying to gather as much intelligence as they could on humans and Archaics, but their conversation was easy. Hollister supposed he should have been more wary, but something about this woman convinced him she was no threat. She would fight, she would kill if necessary, and she wore the mantle of leadership uneasily. And if forced to she would defend her people to the death, but she would not seek out confrontation.
But what he mostly saw in her was someone who wanted to protect her people and be left alone. She told him that until Malachi had gone rogue the Archaics had not fed on humans for centuries. They realized it was a losing proposition and so retreated high into the mountains and fought no more. He had no evidence of this but for some reason he believed her. According to her only a few hundred of her people remained. They were vastly outnumbered and once Malachi was stopped, she repeatedly assured him, they would pose no threat to humankind.
Hollister found her fascinating, and not just because of her beauty, which was immense, and not just because he had not been with a woman in literally years. She had a curious mind and she didn’t laugh often, but when he made her laugh, it was like he’d won some sort of prize. As the miles rolled on, he found himself more and more attracted to her. He also knew this attraction was probably not a good idea. And he didn’t care.
Nothing would likely have happened had there not been a problem with the train. After they had traveled a couple hundred miles from Denver and they were almost to Wyoming, the train slowed and stopped. Monkey Pete poked his head through the door of the main car.
“Got a problem, Major.”
“What?” Hollister asked.
“Don’t rightly know yet, something’s gone wrong with one of the baffles. Might have sprung a leak and we’re low on water, going to have to wait here a spell while I figure it out,” he said. He went on with another long explanation, but to Hollister he might as well have been speaking Russian.
“I thought this train was indestructible,” Hollister said.
“It purnt near is,” Monkey Pete said, his face starting to redden, “but ain’t nothin’ mechanical that can’t break down now and again. So you want to keep insultin’ my train or you want me to fix it?”
Hollister held up his hands, “Fix it, by all means, Monkey Pete, I didn’t mean anything by it. Do what you need to do.”
“Hummph,” Pete said, turning on his heel and leaving them behind.
“He makes all of this work?” Shaniah said, waving her hand in the air.
“He does,” Hollister said.
“He is a genius?” Shaniah said.
“I guess that’s as good a word as any to describe him,” Hollister said.
“Where does it all come from?” Shaniah asked.
“What’s that?”
“This. All of this,” Shaniah said waving her hands again. “Your trains, your weapons, your ‘tactics’—where does it come from?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Hollister said.
“We Archaics live in our mountains, away from humanity. We do so purposely, but we do not invent, we do not make advanced weapons or trains,” she said. “We hunt. We live simply. It is not in our nature to ‘invent.’ But the human capacity for invention is . . .” She struggled to find the words.
“Without limits?” he offered.
“Yes. You have an answer for everything. If you don’t have an answer, you build something. Or solve it. Or destroy it. How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” Hollister said. “Maybe it’s just how it is. You mentioned lions earlier. Lions don’t invent. They just are. Maybe that’s the way it is with Archaics. They just are. They are faster, stronger, more ruthless, so they don’t need to invent.” Hollister smiled.
“I had a dog when I was a kid. Little black mutt. Named him Apollo, after the Greek God of the sun. That dog loved to chase birds. Chased them every day of his life but never caught one. The birds saw him coming and just flew away. They didn’t have to invent anything or shoot back at the dog—they just took to the air. Maybe some things are just like that. Humans like Monkey Pete have to figure things out. You and your people, you don’t have a need to.”
Shaniah thought about this for a moment. “Perhaps you are right. Except perhaps now it is a skill we need. It is far too late for us to develop this skill, and it is not in my people’s will to surrender. So what do we do?”
“I’ve seen you in action. You don’t really appear to need trains or advanced weapons when it comes to fighting,” he said.
“Perhaps, but you humans learned not only weapons, but the elementals”—she pointed to the devil’s traps—“while we learned nothing but hunting and killing. And now, if Malachi succeeds, we are done.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If we do not stop him, you will send armies against us and we will be destroyed,” she said.
He said nothing for a moment, because he knew she was right. If word of the Archaics spread, there would be an all-out assault and they would be wiped out.
“If for some reason we don’t find him what will you do?” he asked.
“If we don’t stop him, if we are discovered, we will die. I will do what I can to prevent that.”
“But you just said yourself, you can’t win,” he said.
“True, Mr. Hollister, but what would you do?”
“I guess I’d do the same, fight, try to survive.”
She said nothing else for a while and Hollister tried hard to think of something more positive.
“It’ll be dark soon. What would you say if we took the horses for a ride? They could probably use the exercise.”
“I would welcome that.”
The stock car was at the rear of the train. Hollister had Rose saddled in a short while, but Demeter was unwilling to let anyone but Shaniah come near him.
“Beautiful animal,” Hollister said. “Little temperamental though.”
“Demeter is bred for Archaics. Most horses, animals in general, shy away from us. He has been taught since birth not to fear us.” She removed her cloak from her saddlebags and shrugged herself into it.
They rode up to the front of the train. Monkey Pete, covered in grease, stuck his head out the window of the engine.
“Pete, we’re going for a ride, we won’t go too far. When you’re ready, give a couple of blasts on the whistle and we’ll come back.”
“Sure thing, Major. And don’t worry. I nearly got this licked.”
“I have no doubt, Pete, no doubt at all.”
From the back of the train, Chee watched as they spurred their horses and rode away from the train, heading west until they disappeared into the trees.
W
hile Shaniah and Hollister had talked on the train, Chee had lain in his bunk, thinking about the woman, Dog taking half the bed as usual. After Absolution, he could not deny that her fighting skills were unparalleled. If what Hollister had told him about this Malachi was true, then she would be a valuable asset. And he had no reason to doubt the major.
Still, there was something off about the woman. There were words she did not speak. Important words. Things Hollister needed to know before he went into battle against this man, and yet she kept secrets. Chee was very good at telling when someone was lying. And what’s more, the woman knew Chee was aware she was lying. He made her uncomfortable. Maybe it was his juju, maybe the spells and signs his grandmother had taught him as a boy—the things one could do to protect oneself from the supernatural.
He had tried to tell the major of his concerns, but so far, his suspicions had fallen on deaf ears. And the reason for that, Chee knew, is because the major was smitten with Shaniah. More than smitten. Chee could tell the man had feelings for her. It was obvious in the way he looked at her. And Chee understood the major’s desire. She was a beautiful woman. No, she was more than beautiful.
Stunning
was the word. The major had been in prison for many years, and before that an unmarried officer on the frontier, and had had little opportunity for female companionship.
But though he could not explain it, this woman brought trouble with her.
Trouble for all of them.
T
hey rode west over a slight rise through a small stand of aspen. The land flattened out some into a large valley. The weather was cooling down, a breeze coming out of the north and Hollister was sure it would bring rain, probably before nightfall. The floor of the valley held a large meadow and they rode along at a gentle pace.
Shaniah tried to watch Hollister without his knowing, staring at him through the folds of her hood. He rode nearly effortlessly, moving with the horse almost before the horse even knew where it was going. No doubt a result of his military training.
What an interesting man
, she thought.
The feelings confused her. Until she left the Archaic homeland to track Malachi, she hadn’t interacted with a human in nearly two centuries. She still had her human memories, and the Old Ones had reminded her that this made her different. As their leader, she would need to find a way through the coming clashes with humankind, and her remembrances were an advantage.
Was this why Hollister intrigued her so? Shaniah did not believe in destiny as the Old Ones did. Until she met Hollister and her memories of her long-dead husband, Dimitri, came flooding back.
Archaics did not have children, but they did have sex. In fact, they had it frequently, often, and athletically. But to her knowledge, she had never heard of an Archaic having sex with a human. In fact, she doubted any human could survive it. But looking at Hollister, with his long legs straining in the stirrups and his broad chest rising and falling with the gallop of the horse—may the Old Ones forgive her, but she wanted to find out if he could.
She wanted to find it out more than anything.
H
ollister had left the train not telling Chee where he was going on purpose. Chee was not happy with Hollister’s growing closeness to Shaniah. At first, it had been a purely tactical decision. She knew more about Malachi and the Archaics than anyone else; she wanted his help for some reason. It made sense to find out what she knew.
But the part that made Chee uneasy was that it had now gone beyond that. He had heard them talk about things beyond just Malachi and his plans, or the Archaics and their history.
Hollister was attracted to her, and it was here that Chee had a point. Maybe he had crossed a line. She was beautiful, intelligent, and unlike any woman he had ever met. As they rode through the meadow, he tried to watch her without her knowing, but their eyes kept meeting, even through the folds of her hood.
It had been so long since he had even been close to a woman. Were the signals he remembered the same? The furtive looks, the quick smiles?
Forgive me, Sergeant Chee
, he thought. But I need to find out.
H
ollister reined Rose to a stop, then walked her toward a small stand of aspen and dismounted. Shaniah pulled up next to him, a curious look on her face.
“I thought we might let the horses graze awhile. The grass is good here,” he said.
Shaniah slid easily off Demeter’s back, stroking his mane and patting him gently on the rump. Unlike most stallions Hollister had seen, he showed little interest in Rose and took immediately to the grass.
Hollister walked to a spot beneath a large aspen and stood looking at the valley. It was about an hour before sundown and the view was gorgeous. The mountains surrounding them were still snow covered at the peaks, the trees were a gorgeous green, and the grass and wildflowers dotted the landscape with brilliant splashes of color.
“Your home,” Hollister said. “It’s in the mountains, in Europe, you said?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What does it look like?”
“Why do you ask?” she said.
“No reason, I just . . . we . . . you and I survived a pretty horrible ordeal in Absolution and I feel like we’re friends . . .”
“Friends?” she interrupted.
“Well . . . yes . . . I’d say if you survive a fight to death and you save each other’s lives a couple of times, that qualifies as friendship.”
“Is that how humans choose their friends these days? It is not how I remember it,” she said.
“I just thought . . .” Hollister was thoroughly confused. “I only asked . . . I just wanted to know more about you . . . that’s all. . . . I didn’t . . .”
Shaniah stepped forward and kissed him. It was a nice kiss, soft at first, and Hollister was instantly aroused. She broke it off and stared at him, her hands on his shoulders.
“So, I guess this means we
are
friends?” he asked.
She laughed and kissed him again, pushing him back against the tree trunk. She removed her cloak and it fell to the ground at her feet.
“What about the sun?” he asked, concern in his voice.
She held a finger to his lips. “It is behind the mountains to the west. Do not worry.” The kiss was different this time—more passionate and forceful. Her hands went to his cheeks and she ran them through his hair. She stopped again to look at him.
“Friends don’t stop,” he said, his breath coming in gasps.
What happened next, happened fast. She kissed him again, and then her hands were everywhere, pulling at his shirt, running over his chest. Her fingers probed the scars on his chest and back, the places where he’d been shot and stabbed during the war, but he was glad she didn’t stop to ask him about them then. Time for that later.
The last thing he had any control over was pulling her to him, this time kissing her, his hands running through her long hair, his fingers pulling at the buttons of her blouse.
When he came to or woke up or returned to reality—for he didn’t think he’d been unconscious but he couldn’t swear to it—they were lying next to each other on the ground beneath the aspen. The sun had set; he had no idea how much time had passed and didn’t care. His entire body ached, but not in a bad way. During the war, after battle he often felt a curious blend of fatigue and exhaustion, his body sometimes so sore it hurt to move. When you were fighting for your life, the aftermath left you completely spent. So tired you believed you’d never be able to stand again, much less fight.
Hollister felt like that now, except he wasn’t sore or fatigued. The exhaustion and soreness was there, but he felt unlike he’d ever felt in his life.
Shaniah lay next to him, naked and apparently not caring. Another reason Hollister decided he liked her.
“Can I ask you a question?” he murmured.
“Yes, of course. Anything,” she said.
“This . . . what we just did . . .”
“Lovemaking?”
“Yes . . . sure . . . we can call it that . . . lovemaking,” he stammered. “Is this the . . . usual way . . . of ‘lovemaking’ for your people?”
She tried not to laugh. “Yes, I would say it is ‘usual.’ ”
“Dear Lord,” he muttered under his breath. “And do you have a . . . over there, or back home, are you married or do you have a custom of . . . I guess what I’m asking is, do you have a husband?” Then he winced; this was probably the absolute wrong time to ask this question. He wanted to kick himself. Except he was too damn tired to kick anything.
If the question bothered Shaniah, she didn’t show it. In fact, it didn’t appear to affect her at all.
“I did once. No longer. We do marry; we take mates, for life. But in some cases our unions can be dissolved by the Council of Elders.”
“I didn’t mean to pry, but what just happened”—he turned on his side to face her, trying every way he could not to groan with the effort—“and what we just did was . . . trust me when I say it was indescribable. I just wanted to be sure . . . it was rude of me not to ask before . . . I . . .”
She interrupted him. Shaniah could not help but be charmed by his manners. “You broke none of our rules, Major Hollister, and you are right, it was quite indescribable.” As she turned to face him, she pushed him onto his back.
Try as he might, Hollister could not help but let a small groan escape from his lips. Then everything started again, and despite it all, he found himself quite capable of feeling “indescribable” again.
This time, when it was over, Shaniah stood and dressed.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Me what?” she said.
“On the ridge in Wyoming. When Malachi attacked me and my men. I was unconscious for a while. But I saw a face. A woman. Beautiful, with long blond hair. It was you.”
As she was pulling on her boots, the train whistle sounded.
“It would appear our timing is impeccable,” she said. Hollister studied her and knew she wasn’t going to answer him. He had just had one of the greatest days of his life. Why press it?
“It would,” he said. He made his way to his knees and tried to stand using the trunk of the aspen tree for support, hoping like hell she wouldn’t notice that it took him almost five minutes to get his pants on.
“Are you all right, Major?” she asked.
“Right as rain,” he said. He somehow managed to get his arms into his shirt and he stepped into his boots. He wanted to throw his gun belt over his shoulder but he knew if he rode up to the train like that, Monkey Pete and Chee would take all of three seconds to know what had happened. Finally, he was ready. Shaniah was dressed and sitting atop Demeter, looking everywhere but at him, trying to be polite so he wouldn’t feel self-conscious. He wanted to tell her it was already too late for that.
Before he mounted up, he walked over to her and took her hand. He kissed it gently, and then with his arms holding her, pulled her slowly out of her saddle until she stood in front of him. He kissed her, a soft gentle kiss.
“Whatever you need. Whatever you’re looking for. This thing you must do. I’m going to help you see it through. All the way. Do you understand me?” He looked at her, his dark eyes fierce and proud, seeing nothing but her at that moment.
It wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be. She was an Archaic, not a creature of emotion; but she felt a tear form in her eye.
She nodded and he kissed her again.
“All the way,” he said.