Vengeance (8 page)

Their
chests are broad and bare, boasting intricate patchwork of unusual
red patterned scarring.  A great silver gun hangs between the
four beings; its weight appears greater than any a man could
withstand.  A large black cannon protrudes from the end. The air
seems to shimmer before it.

“I’ve
dreamed of these creatures before…” A flashback from a
time back on Earth when I had a vision of what I was capable of if I
should allow myself to unleash the shadow within flits through my
mind.  
I
saw these creatures, saw what horrors they are capable of when they
decimated Earth the first time.  I can’t let that happen
to Calisted.  I won’t let it happen!

“Get down!”
Bastien throws himself upon me a second before the door bulges.
 There is a series of taps against the door, small and tiny in
sound, almost like a pinging instead of the explosion that I had
expected.

“What are they
doing?” I gasp as I look toward the door.  It no longer
resembles solid metal but something closer to a liquid.  The
surface oozes and distorts, beginning to spiral like a pinwheel.

“I think they
are disintegrating the door but I don’t know how they are doing
it!”  Bastien’s breathy response is filled with
terror as he raises his head and looks about us. There is nowhere for
us to hide.  Nowhere to run.  A safe house is meant to be
the last resort and our luck has just run out.

“Make us
invisible,” he growls in my ear, clasping his hands painfully
to my wrists.

I don’t even
ask how he knows that I am capable of this as I instantly throw up a
veil around us.  Within seconds the door implodes.  Scolding
globs of the metal rain around us.  I throw up a force field to
protect us from the debris but as the giants step inside the room it
falters, sputtering, and then fails me completely.

My vision swims
before me and I can see Bastien’s mounting terror.  “What
are you doing?  They can see us!”

I try to respond, to
say something as darkness encroaches in but I hardly feel Bastien’s
weight lifted from me. I hear his cry of pain as he is thrown against
the wall.  I roll my head to the side and watch as he leaps to
attack but he is caught about the throat in midair with a fist the
size of my head.  His legs kick wildly as a large metal clamp is
placed over his wrists.

A shadow falls over
me.  I blink and try to see past the haze filling my mind to
glimpse my attacker.  Two crimson eyes burn brightly before me
as something cold clamps around my neck and the darkness takes me.  

The
air feels thick in my lungs as I suck in a pain-filled breath.  It
tastes of something putrid and decaying.  My ribs feel as if
they have been shattered, the pieces floating aimlessly through my
stomach, slicing small nicks in my organs.  
Perhaps
I will die in this place
,
I muse with only a touch of lucidity.  I have been like this for
a while now.  Sanity returns from time to time only to taunt me,
calling out my name.

I have no sense of
passage of time, nor movement nor much of anything beyond these
walls.  The metal bars are too hot to touch, hot enough to melt
the prints from the tips of my fingers.  I made the mistake of
bumping one in my sleep.  Now I imagine a great swollen blister
has risen on my right leg.

I can see my breath
hanging before my face against the dim lighting overhead.  Everything
appears muted, distorted.  A distant clanging captures my
attention but when I try to roll my head to the side I find that I
can’t move more than an inch to the right.  I wince at the
sound of heavy metal shifting beside my ear and the throbbing in my
head intensifies.

“You’ll
get used to the chains and the lack of proper oxygen,” a voice
calls from my left.  I know better than to look in that
direction.  I tried that the last time I awoke and a splitting
pain stole my vision just before I blacked out again.

“Where
am I?” I croak against the near darkness.  A droning hum
reveals that I am on some sort of a ship, though I have never known
of one to exist like this.  The heat is sweltering, not all that
different from what I’ve been told the rainforests on the
emerald moon that orbits Calisted are like.  Sweat pools in the
creases of my arms and knees.  My legs are bent to the side and
chained to the wall.  I have only a few inches to wiggle before
the chains pull taut or I hit the heated cell bars.

“You are
aboard a D’Hatil ship.  One of the largest I have ever
seen.  Seems to me they were pretty intent on making sure they
got their hands on you, little lady.”

The voice sounds
deep, rough around the edges if that were possible.  “I am
not familiar with the D’Hatil race.”

A throaty laugh
leads into a phlegmy cough.  I close my eyes and wince as I hear
the man spit to the side, praying that it didn’t land anywhere
near me.  “They are not called D’Hatil.  It is
the type of ship.  A slaving ship.”

“Slave?”
My head jerks around to try to look at the man but something
unforgiving clamps my neck in place. I can feel the skin about my
neck has grown raw.  A fresh patch of aggravated flesh stings as
I still my movements.  “I am no slave.”

“None of us
are.”  The way his voice trails off makes me wonder if
there is any more to his statement.  A moment passes without
another word.  

“Who
are you?” I ask, staring up at the ceiling above.  It is
not made of metal as I would have assumed, but instead of a
glass-like material.  If I do not close my eyes I will be ill
from the sight of bright flashing lights speeding past.  
Stars
,
I muse as I cast my gaze aside and stare at the cell room bars
instead: solid, firm and not moving a single inch.

“A name no
longer matters where we are going.”

His response sends a
ripple of apprehension down my spine.  I fight to suppress it.
“All the same, we have not yet arrived so I assume that you do
still have a name.”  

His laugh comes
again and I guess that he sits less than ten feet from me, possibly
with his back turned in my direction.  “My name is Vondran
Sterling.”

“It is nice to
meet you, Vondran...sort of.”  I bite on my lower lip as I
shift and feel pain lance through my side once more.  “My
name is Illyria.”

I hear an intake of
breath but Vondran says nothing more.  I lay in silence as
seconds turn into minutes.  I begin to wonder if he has somehow
left or fallen asleep.  

“I suppose I
know now why they made a pit stop for you then,” he finally
mutters.  I hear the clanking of chains and realize that he must
be caged as well.  Like me.  A slave.

“You shouldn’t
be speaking to her,” a second male voice calls from somewhere
near my feet.  I stiffen, surprised to realize that I am not
alone in my cell.  I had assumed that I might be in a room with
rows of cages, small and confining but by my best guess now I would
say that I am in some sort of large and obviously crowded space.
 This voice sounds slightly younger though hardly any more kind.
 

“Who is
there?” I call out, shifting my legs closer toward me.  My
dress is torn into tatters, that much I can tell by the way heat
seeps through the large tears in the fabric.  How much of my
skin has been exposed to this man’s eyes?

“The name’s
Hyde.  Wish I could say that it’s nice to meet you,
Queeny, but that would be a bald faced lie.”

“Oh, come off
it, Hyde,” a higher pitched voice pipes up from my right.  

How
many people are in this place?  
I
begin to feel exceedingly self-conscious, but even as this emotion
begins to overwhelm me, one with far greater potency slips in to
takes its place: anger.

“Can we do a
head count here?  I don’t know if all of you can see me
but I sure as heck can’t see you and it’s getting on my
nerves.”

“She feisty,”
a gravelly voice calls from my left though I can’t tell if it
is a male or female.  “I like.”

I clench my fists,
ignoring the pain of the clamps digging into my wrists.  “You’re
all enjoying this.”

“Of course we
are.”  I hear the clanking of chains being shifted and a
shadow covers my face.  All I can see is a mass of snarled red
hair and pale skin, two brilliant green eyes and a splash of freckles
over a small nose.  On Earth and with a proper bath this girl
would be cute, perhaps even beautiful, but here on this ship she
looks washed out.  “You’re the only entertainment
we’ve had for nearly a week.”

“A week?”
 My voice cracks as terror eats away at my anger.  “Have
I been here that long?”

Her smile almost
seems genuine apart from the fact that her gaze hardens into
something calculating.  I will have to watch my back around this
one.  “Yes.  They caught all of us before you though.
 Made the full rounds.”

“They?”
 It is infuriating to be the only one in the dark, figuratively
speaking.  “Who are these...creatures.”  I draw
out the final word, knowing without a doubt that the towering giants
resembled more of a snake than a human.

“We call them
Roamers.  They search the stars for slaves and transport them
back to their home world to be sold.  I’m not really sure
you would be able to pronounce their real name.”

“Why not?”
I ask.  

She shrugs and I
realize that I can see a large portion of her fair skin exposed at
her shoulder when she does.  “You’ll figure it out
when you hear them speak for the first time.”

I blow out a slow
unsteady breath and nod as well as my neck clamp allows.  “Fair
enough.  You haven’t given me your name yet.”

“I’m
Callisto Cervantes, or at least I used to be.  That gruff guy
over there by Vondran is Satal.  I’d stay away from him if
I were you.  His eyes really freak me out.”

“Why?”
 I can’t help but ask.  My agitation begins to grow
with the inability to see my companions.  I need to asses if
they are potential allies or enemies.  

Her grin broadens as
she leans in close.  “He’s an Aeondaemon.  A
shape shifter.  I’m not even really sure if the guy over
there is really who he says he is.”

I open my mouth to
speak but realize that I haven’t quite figured out the words to
express my confusion.  “I’ve never met a shape
shifter before.”

“That you know
of,” Vondran mutters.

I ignore his quip,
through the goosebumps rising on my arms are a telltale sign of my
discomfort.  If such a creature does exist, anyone could have
been replaced in my security detail.  Someone could have easily
lowered our defenses in the night to allow these Roamers to slip in.
 

Could Bastien
have been the one to betray me?  I know nothing of him apart
from my dreams, and how much can I really trust those?  Perhaps
they were implanted in my mind when my guard was lowered by sleep?

“Was I brought
in alone?”  My voice wavers dangerously and I see
Callisto’s gaze sharpen.

“Do you care
for the man?”

I struggle against
the chains holding me down.  “Bastien?  Is he here?”
 She nods but gives nothing away.  “Please tell me.
 I need to know that he is safe.”

She sinks back onto
her knees.  I can hear the rattling of chains when she moves but
I can’t see where they are attached to her.  Probably at
her ankle which would make sense why she is able to move around.  Are
all of the others chained in the same way?  If so, why am I the
only one who is restricted so much?

You
know why and so do they.  
With
my abilities I should be able to break free with hardly a thought but
no matter how I try, I am helpless to escape.  The wide clamp
around my neck bites into my flesh.  I long to be free of its
hold.

I shift my gaze as
Callisto crosses her leg and sits near me.  She draws her hands
toward her face, flicking one nail under the other at the grime
packed beneath chipped nails.  I can tell at one time they were
most likely long.  “You called out for him in your sleep.
 I think that made it worse for him.  He tried not to cry
but the fever took him.”

“Fever?  What
fever?  What do you mean it took him?”  I can feel my
anxiety rising far too quickly but the idea of being completely alone
with these strangers, bound for a place of obvious hopelessness
brings me to the brink of terror.  Bastien can’t be gone!

She waves her hand
at me and returns her focus on her task.  “He had a burn
on his hand that became infected.  Kinda surprised they didn't
just chop off his hand.  It looked pretty gnarly.”

“Bastien!”
 I croak, straining against my restraints until blood begins to
seep from beneath my manacles.  “Bastien, answer me!”

“Now
look what you’ve gone and done,” a male voice chides as
he shifts into view.  He has skin of ebony and a wild mane of
coarse black hair that sticks out in all directions from his head.
 Though his gaze is intense, his smile seems genuine enough.
 “Be calm, child.  That boy be fine.  They fixed
him up real good.”

“Who…”
I clear my throat when it gives out on me.  “Who are you?”

“Name’s
Marius.  Don’t reckon I know my real name anymore.  People
who found me told me I was a Talbot due to the name stitched on the
pocket of my shirt but I don’t right remember anything before
the explosion.”

I swallow, gritting
my teeth against the pain as I slowly ease my spine back to the floor
and the clamps at my neck, arms and ankles release a bit.  “How
do you know your name is Marius then?”

His teeth look
brilliantly white against his dark skin in the dim light as he
smiles.  “Don’t you think I look like a good
Marius?”

Despite myself I
laugh.  That single laugh expands into what I can only think to
be hysterical laughter because soon tears stream from my face.
 Marius’ grin only seems to grow wider, though I don’t
see how he can manage much more.  “See there, laughter is
the best medicine during god awful times like these.”