A roar ripped from the Drone’s throat. “Even you,
priest
” —he spat the word— “are not immune to Allah’s judgement. It will be an honor to cast you into hell’s fire.” His eyes jerked across the lava field, targeting Njall’s retreating back. “But first, I must deal with the creature who carries Eveline’s blood”—he glanced at Michio—“for she, too, now sustains the missing element for my serum.”
The terrifying truth of his words robbed my arms of strength and the carbine took a nose dive. He didn’t want a cure, just an antidote for his own fucked up mutation. Then he would resume the design of his perfect race. I grappled to readjust the barrel. A wall of muscle supported my back as Michio stilled his most effective weapon, his body.
The Drone had been faster than me in every confrontation. But was he faster than a bullet? I aimed the carbine—God, Buddha, the Great Mystery, fucking make me a believer—and squeezed the trigger, again and again.
He shot to the sky in a snap of wings, bullets dusting where he’d stood. Mother fuck. His hellish shape whipped across the field and dove past the swarm of aphids chasing Njall. Then he rose from the chaos, Frida’s body lolling from his grip in a misshapen arch, Njall arms stretching skyward and clawing at air. His gut-wrenching lament for his wife turned to gargles as heaving shadows fell upon his back.
I fired rounds from too far away. My heart sprinted as did my feet, a string of Irish curses chasing me.
The distance closed, aphid eyes bursting with black blood under the spray of my volley. The flex of Roark’s shoulders followed the fluid swing of his sword. Bodies separated at the neck. Purpose tightened his freckled face and hardened his jade eyes. The fierce protection he put into action swelled my chest. It wasn’t just the heart of the world’s last woman that propelled him. His fight was born long before the virus, on the sectarian streets of Northern Ireland where young boys were beaten by the cruel fists of soldiers.
We slaughtered our away through the pile and reached the center. Gone was Njall’s torso. In its place, a still-quivering knot of mutilated organs.
A tremor moved through me and the dagger’s hilt wobbled in my hand. I soared it end-over-end, ceasing another mutation. Another loss to mourn later.
Between my rounds and Jesse’s arrows, we annihilated the last of the immediate threats as the distant horizon swelled with more.
Above the carnage, the Drone bounced between the air and the ground in an oddly insectile movement of legs, and landed on a steep ledge over the highest waterfall.
I retrieved the blade from Njall’s eye socket and reloaded the carbine. “The added weight is slowing down his flight. We can catch him.”
My guardians exchanged looks.
“What will he do to her, Michio?” I glanced at the Drone atop his rock belfry. How far away he was up there, but close enough to see his black soul dancing in his eyes.
“He’ll imbibe her blood, if he hasn’t already. Since it’s treated with yours, it could cure him. Strengthen him. Or maybe it’ll kill him.”
Jesse stiffened beside me. “And if we let him get away, we won’t know. Evie will never be able to take her eyes off the sky.” He scratched a whiskered cheek. “Let’s cut off his wings, Spotted Wing.”
I wanted to respond with a fist pump. Instead, my body buckled with the sickening buzz of hundreds of aphids beating a rhythm inside me. I knew it well. It had crawled under my skin enough to become a part of me. “They’re coming in droves.” I backed into a crevice in the cliff, shaking. “Is this why we haven’t seen aphids since Reykjavik? The Drone gathered them here?”
“Could be the dearth of mammals left on this glacial island.” Michio shrugged out of his coat and shirt. “Maybe the scent of food—our horses, or us—led them here. I have a plan to diminish their numbers.”
Tallis sprinted along the river with Georges at his heels. “Better hurry,” he shouted through heavy breaths. Then his eyes widened and he pointed over my shoulder.
A vibrational draft whipped my back. I spun, instincts jerking me out of a spell of hesitancy. The sharp point of a mandible stabbed the air. I swung my forearm, redirected it. The tiny pupils dilated, brimmed with a knowing. I sunk the blade.
Strong arms encompassed me. Hickory breath warmed my cheek.
I let my forehead fall against the naked ridges of Jesse’s chest and waited for my heart rate to slow. His was a steady beat against me. I held tight to the moment, wishing it was another time, another place, that heartbeat pounding beneath me with the labors of desire. His chin lifted. I followed his gaze.
A sea of green bodies filled my vision.
He dodged the dance of pincers and striking jaws. Where his arrow struck, blood spouted.
Someone grabbed my arm, handed me my recovered dagger. “Take them, Evie.” Michio’s calm voice. “Take them over the falls.” Then he screamed over his shoulder, “Jesse. Roark.”
To free my hands, I dropped the carbine on its sling. My guardians encircled me, bathed me in warm muscle. I didn’t know where one chest ended and the other began. Their hearts thundered with the torrent of water chuting off the icy bluffs.
Rifles boomed around us as Tallis and Georges protected our huddle. Michio pressed us onto a rock ledge. “If they get close, we jump.”
Water rushed by, spraying froth at our boots. Spasms rioted beneath my skin and the army pushed closer in battle ready lines, the sun’s golden reflection at their backs.
The tide crashed off the ledges above. Moss covered cliffs jutted on all sides and guided the crash of melt water over multiple tiers. The Drone watched, Frida hooked under his arm, his body vibrating.
“Anytime now, darlin’.” Jesse’s chin, buried under stubble, sawed side to side.
My waiting energy—my Yin and Yang—uncoiled from my backbone. I exhaled the image, the destination, like an emotional sigh.
The army continued their race toward us. I needed to turn them ninety degrees. Goose pimples cropped along my arms. My body temperature dropped. Roark pressed closer at my back, his whiskers scrubbing my hair.
I tried again, visualizing my breath as it escaped through my nostrils. I cleared my mind of all thoughts except the image I projected. Then I felt, rather than saw, the army turn.
The chill locked up my limbs. Michio rested his cheek against mine in welcome support. The threads battering me, itching my skin, spiked with fear and bristled the hair on my arms. The army reached the water’s edge. The front line wavered.
I focused on the ranks behind.
Push, push, push
pulsed from my chest.
They fell like dominos over the ledge. A barrage of rifle fire picked off the stragglers escaping my command. The icy wind carried dozens of squeals as the aphids plunged into the rushing falls.
My muscles ached from strain and my hold on the threads slipped. The Drone leaned over his perch and bellowed, “Nooo.”
I pushed harder, reaching through the electrical veins invading my mind. And there, at the center of the intangible web, the Drone fought me. For every link I grasped, he pulled three away. Nausea swished in my stomach. The threads untangled, snapping free from my hold, and the thrum in the air gathered strength.
“What’s happening?” Jesse’s hand in mine clenched to pain.
“The Drone.” My lungs labored. Arms held me vertical. “He’s out-Yanging me.”
Roark cupped my face. “Deep breaths, love. Most of the snarlies are dissolving in the river.”
The soft pads of Michio’s fingertips glided along the strap of my sports bra, followed it over my shoulder, and traced new spots. “Let them go. The rest are scattering—”
A woman’s scream followed the rush of water down the crag. A black flash blotted the sun. Then Frida’s body plunged headlong over the highest fall. “Helllp meeee.”
Her plea sent me barreling from the iron grip of my guardians. The terror in her eyes, as blood spurted from the puncture marks in her throat, arched my body into a dive.
I tensed for the frigid onslaught of water. It never came. The howling river rushed away as I was yanked into the sky in a whir of wings.
Beneath my dangling feet, Frida’s body slammed into the cliff and battered back and forth against boulders, bloody and broken.
Numbness encased my heart. I bucked, pulling up my knees to bring the carbine closer.
It wasn’t there. I scanned the rapids, a useless search, fighting back the scream in my throat as my hands twisted in the Drone’s claws.
He dropped from the sky and my stomach bottomed out. Moments before hitting ground, he rose again, wings pumping, his grasp digging into my arms. He bobbed through the air and righted his flight. With each wrench of my arm, his grew tighter, more painful, until it hurt to breath.
Panicked shouts chased us toward the tip of the sun as it began its six hour repose. Without the carbine, vulnerability fisted my throat. If I could free a hand, I could reach a blade.
The Drone’s talons dug deeper, rending my wrists. The arctic wind enveloped us, carried us up and away from the black sand terrain and the ripple of aphids following by segmented foot.
I strained to see my companions as they fought through the throngs, maintaining their pursuit. They were but tiny dots, growing smaller as my captor followed the slope of the earth. He soared higher over dikes and trails etched into the steep faces of rock, darting into the maw of the volcanic mountain.
Sulfuric gas steamed from fissures, filling my lungs and burning my eyes. The closest ledge waited hundreds of feet below. Why hadn’t he bitten me yet? Was he haughty enough to think he’d made it? That he’d have plenty of time to consume his precious serum?
If I twisted free, if I injured him, I would fall to my death. But as our elevation dipped, I knew my chance was moments away.
We rounded a tabular rock cliff and I rolled in his hold to face him, my arms twisting in an awkward way. Arrogance arched his brows. He knew I had nowhere to go and adjusted his hands to my nape and backside.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and breathed through the queasiness brought on by our intimate position.
The violet bands of dusk sharpened the angles of his face. Unruly black curls whipped around his head. And his eyes, cruel in their complexity, sucked me in, attempting to devour the last of my bravado.
I held my arms still, wrapped around my waist, as to not remind him of their unbound state. “Watch where you’re flying.”
Too much intelligence worked in those eyes, colder than the wind itself and fixed on me. “We’re almost to my plane. Just the other side of the mountain.” A vile curve transformed his mouth, yanking back his lips and revealing a jaw full of inhuman teeth. “Prayer time has come. Once on board, we will exult in Allah together.”
He was panting from exertion when we reached a gorge, where the earth’s crust fractured and wretched apart. Beyond it rose a massive basalt bluff. I sucked in a breath. “The only prayer I’m reciting is the Hail Mary.”
A vein bulged in his forehead. “Mary?”
The bluff passed below. Plumes of gas billowed, engulfing us in a blinding smog. I gripped my opposing forearms, released the daggers, and drove them into his neck.
Silence. A sulfuric haze of agonizing silence. Then the cloud cleared.
His eyes blazed as my name gargled low in his throat. Dagger hilts protruded from each shoulder. I didn’t have time to curse my aim before I was free from the cage of his arms and falling.
The bluff caught my hip, my shoulder. Pain exploded, threatening to steal my vision. I planted my feet on the slanting pitch, followed the rocks down on my back, feeling every bump like a punch in the spine.
My hand caught hold of a groove in a rock shelf. I shuffled my boots backwards, seeking purchase.
I clung there, fingers straining to hold on. The gray sky deepened the shadows waiting in the gorge below. Overhead, the Drone tumbled through the air, ripping the daggers free, and plummeting on the other side of the bluff.
Strength seeped from my fingers. One by one, they lost their hold. I slid down the bank, picking up speed, and landed in a heap in the pitch black gullet, my entire body throbbing from the impact.
I rummaged through my pockets and holsters, knowing what I’d find. Two daggers. No flashlight. No guns. Joel would have my ass if he were there. If only—
A gust of dank air smacked my face. “Eveeeline.” The Arabic bawl bounced along the canyon walls.
My heart propelled to a furious roar in my ears. I wobbled to my feet, felt along the rocky crag. My palms explored the rough edges, my footfalls echoing along on the slick floor. The moist atmosphere laded my nostrils with the stench of rotten eggs.
I followed the wall around endless bends, a maze of stone tunnels. Where the darkness seemed blacker, thicker, I slowed, blood freezing in my veins. Skittering sounds rustled around me, above me. What sort of creatures dwelled in volcanic caves? I strained my eyes for the telltale glow of aphids and focused on the biological alarm inside me.
The deeper I hiked, the more disoriented I became. How many forks had I unknowingly taken? Were Michio and the others still following me or were they halted by the remnants of the army?
A tapping noise trickled from the depths of the cavern ahead. The shadows there writhed, clustered together. Sweat slicked my palms and my throat dried up.
Something tickled my fingers. I raised my hand to my face. Tiny orbs peered back, as many eyes as legs. Its fangs grazed my knuckles. I flicked the furry body, felt more tickling on my other hand and both of my arms. I shook my limbs free of spiders, dread knotting my gut.
A shape emerged from the dark, filling the narrow space, expanding until wings brushed the walls. A rustle of fabric. Then a green glow exploded around me, blinding me.
I pressed against an overhang, dropped my last two daggers to the tips of my fingers, and waited for my eyes to adjust.
Mother, have mercy. The brilliant flicker of the Drone’s naked body pulsated beneath the caul of thousands of squirming spots. Eight-legged spots, falling over one another, rippling down his torso, his legs, over his feet.