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Sean
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Where the hell is she?
It’s 7:21. She should’ve been here one minute ago. That was the deal.
I try to lower my blood pressure by reminding myself that Geri McKenna is known for being late. Her dad used to call her Hurry-up Geri or sometimes just Hurry-up for short. She always moved at her own pace.
But this time, I really needed her to be punctual. I mean does she not get that there are men looking for her who want her dead?
7:23.
Okay, I gotta start thinking that maybe something happened to her.
I head down the path, looking for her little feminine prints in the mud and only find her tracks in the direction of the hunters; there isn’t a set of return prints. She’s getting her exclusive and lost track of time. Hurry-up Geri.
I run the rest of the way at a reasonable human speed in case someone sees me, every so often catching sight of one of Geri’s muddy footprints and seeing a few left behind from a Migoi too. I’m thinking it was Kasnid staggering back to the warren last night after the couple of beers he had with Joe and me. He left a visible trail, which was kind of sloppy, especially since the hunters are around. I should’ve made sure he made it home okay.
The tracks lead me almost back to the hunters before I spy one of Geri’s prints going in the opposite direction. I backtrack, following them, and then they’re just gone.
Okay, now I’m feeling uneasy. She started back and then disappeared? There’s no way Bale made it here in this short amount of time... unless he had a dirt bike or something. But a bike would leave tracks, and I don’t see any.
She can’t have just disappeared. I broaden my search to try to pick her trail up again and finally, thankfully, find a partial print that leads off the path and into thicker forest. Why did she veer off the path?
Her tracks in the thicker forest area are harder to pick up, but I find enough of them to assume that she was headed back toward our meeting place. What if we passed each other, me on the path and her undercover in the forest? I turn on the speed and jet back to the rock. She’s not here.
“Geri,” I call out, looking around in case she’s hiding nearby. Nothing. She’s not here.
I go back into the woods, taking my time, looking for a trail that might have led here, and catch sight of a soggy white tissue under a big tree with a big branch that has recently broken off. It roots me to the spot. It’s common for the Migoi to tear off the thick top branches of trees to use as weapons for both hunting and defense purposes. And those sloppy tracks a Migoi left behind on the path...
Something’s happened.
I’m about to break into a run when I hear her coming at me. She’s running full speed, head down, looking as though she’s being chased, but I don’t see anything behind her.
I move to stand in front of her, blocking her path, but she’s so focused that she runs right into me.
I grab her around the waist to halt her. “Geri,” I say sharply. “Where were you? I’ve been—”
“A wolf,” she says in breathless desperation.
“A wolf is chasing you?” I ask, looking for it, but she’s shaking her head, trying to get her breath.
“A wolf has a... a...” She swallows and takes another deep breath. “You’re not going to believe me, but I think a wolf has an injured Sasquatch cornered.”
I feel the blood drain out of my face. “Take me to him.”
Two wolves are stalking Kasnid by the time we arrive, but he’s holding them back with a thick branch.
“Stay here,” I say to Geri.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asks.
I don’t take the time to answer her. I pick up a rock as I stride toward the scavengers and whip it at one of them. It makes a thud when it connects with the dog’s ribcage, and the animal barks out a yelp. Both animals turn tail, run a few steps, then turn around to stand their ground again. I unsheathe my machete and go after them. They immediately get the idea that there will be no dinner tonight.
“It’s okay,” I call out to Geri, who is still standing on top of the woodpile. She quickly makes her way down, nervously looking behind her, probably worried that the wolves are backtracking.
Kasnid is in a bad way. Judging by the angle of his left leg, his tibia is fractured. There’s a deep gash over his left eye and vomit on the ground next to him, leading me to wonder if he has a concussion.
“What happened?” I ask in his language, kneeling down beside him.
“The Saurian confronted me, asked me questions about you. I said I didn’t know anything, and then it attacked me, told me it would kill me if I didn’t tell the truth.”
I give him a closer examination. “Does it know what I am?”
“I think it just suspects,” Kasnid says.
“You can communicate with it?” Geri is standing there, watching us, and I can only imagine what’s running through her head.
“Uh...” I start, trying to come up with an explanation. Then I realize I need to focus on helping Kasnid, not spin a trail of lies. Besides, at this point, there’s no way around messing with her memory, so I decide to go all in with the truth. “Yeah. He’s a friend.”
“A ‘friend’?” Her voice raises an octave on the word.
“I need to concentrate on helping him right now. I’ll explain later.”
Kasnid is shivering, probably more to do with shock than the cold. The Migoi can tolerate temperatures as low as thirty below before they have to hunker down next to a fire. I slip the machete harness over my head and lay it on the ground beside me. Then I take off my jacket and spread it out on him, tucking it up under his chin even though it’s meager cover for such a broad chest.
The long dark hair on Kasnid’s fractured leg is wet and matted, so I gently probe the area to make sure it’s a closed fracture I’m dealing with. He sucks in a sharp breath when I touch it.
“Sorry, buddy.” I lean back to look at him. “No bones sticking through, but I’m still going to have to immobilize it before I move you.”
Wordlessly, he nods, still catching his breath from the pain my examination caused him.
I pull off my t-shirt and start ripping it into long strips. “When did it happen? When did you get in a fight with it?”
Kasnid lifts his right hand and points to the sky. “Luna was there, and Jupiter there.” The Migoi tell time by the rising and setting of the sun and the position of the planets and constellations.
“I thought you left right after your beer with Joe?” I ask.
Kasnid gives me a toothy grin. His teeth are stained by the bark he likes to chew. “I stayed for another beer, and then Joe gave me a chicken for dinner. I peeked into the restaurant and saw you with your pretty friend.” He whacks me in the arm as if we’re sharing a secret about a girl, which we kind of are. I may have mentioned Geri a few times.
Geri looks at my bare torso. “You’re going to freeze.”
I look up at her from my kneeling position. She’s standing on the other side of Kasnid at a cautious five-foot distance, breathing more heavily than anyone should while just standing still. I admire the fact that she’s not losing her shit.
“It’s two degrees above freezing.” I throw a crooked smile her way to diffuse the tension. “I’ll be okay.”
She regards me with uncertainty. Her lips are slightly parted as if she’s about to say something, but then she takes two steps toward Kasnid and squats down on the other side of him. “Can I help?”
“Thanks.” I hand her the strips of fabric I have so far, studying her facial expression for any cracks in the veneer. “Do you mind tying these end to end? We need to make two ties long enough to go around this big guy’s leg.”
She takes them from me and starts knotting them together. “So you know him?” she asks, looking at Kasnid. “I mean, this particular Bigfoot?”
“Yeah, we’ve been friends since we were four years old.”
Her eyes grow round. “Are you kidding?”
I shake my head.
“Did he live with you? Is that why you never invited any of us into your house in Pembroke?”
It takes me a few seconds before I get it, before I remember the awkward discomfort I lived with all three years of high school because I could never reciprocate the McKennas’ hospitality. How many casseroles did Mrs. McKenna bring me, each one more delicious than the one before, and I couldn’t even invite her in? I couldn’t run the risk of being caught living alone, of having the authorities show up at my door and start running background checks or take me into protective custody, especially after all the trouble Mary went through to convince the emissary that living among humans was the only way to cultivate my humanity.
“No, he didn’t live with me. He would’ve been hard to hide,” I say with a smirk. “I lived alone, and I was technically underage. If the authorities got involved, it would’ve caused a lot of problems, so I never invited you inside my home.”
Kasnid is silently watching us, his dark brown beady eyes flashing white at the corners as he looks from one of us to the other.
Geri huffs a huh. “So my mom was right.”
I rip my shirt into the last two strips. “I figured she knew. All those casseroles.”
Geri and I smile at each other, a shared memory from two different sides of the same coin, and I hand her the last two strips of material.
She takes them from me. “What’s his name?”
“Kasnid,” I say in his language, which is really the only language a name like that can be spoken.
“Are you choking?” she asks with mock sarcasm.
Kasnid wheezes out a couple of guffaws, and I chuck him on the shoulder. “No, I’m not choking. The Migoi language is guttural, their words pronounced deep in the throat, like this.” I make sure she’s looking at me when I say, “Kasnid.”
“I don’t even know if what you said is a word.”
“You can try sounding it out,” I say.
She ties the last pieces. “Or I can just call him Karl.”
“Karl?” I ask with a smile.
“Yeah, Karl. That’s what it sounds like.”
I think about that for a second, figuring out that when the “a” is rolled in the back of the throat, it makes a subtle “r” sound. “Okay. I see where you get Karl.”
“Kar,” Kasnid says, trying to say Karl, and I nod my approval because he did a pretty good job. Thing is, he can understand English, but he has a hard time getting his thick tongue around the words.
“I need to find something to immobilize that leg,” I say to both of them, standing up.
Geri shoots to a standing position, her voice edged with panic. “Where are you going?”
“He won’t hurt you. I promise.” Then I admit, even though I probably shouldn’t, “That roar you heard when you were running from the, uh, coyotes, yesterday? That was Karl. He was letting me know you were in danger.”
Her eyes dart back and forth between the two of us. “Really?”
“Oo oo,” Kasnid says. It’s the Migoi word encompassing general approval, in this case meaning yes. He smiles, giving Geri that stained toothy grin, even though the distress of his wounds is showing in his eyes.
“I’m just going to find something I can use as a splint.” Turning away from them, I go to the big pile of wood and pick through it for something sturdy enough to use as a splint for a four-hundred-pound Migoi. But it quickly becomes apparent that these logs have been here for a while when I find a healthy colony of termite ants living in them. I need a branch that isn’t going to disintegrate if Kasnid has to bear weight on it.
Abandoning the woodpile, I redirect my search upward, scanning the trees for a likely branch, and my eyes light on the shimmering outline of a cloaked Saurian sitting fifteen feet up in an oak tree that’s still bereft of leaves.
Well, shit.
Did the sneaky bastard follow me here, or did it camp over Kasnid to see who or what would show up to help him? Hopefully it’s been here the entire time, because if it was following me, it would’ve seen me jetting through the forest with Geri over my shoulder, confirming that I’m a hybrid. If it didn’t follow me, if it has been here the entire time, then I’m safe. I haven’t done anything unhuman-like yet. I ran here at Geri’s pace and used the knife to scare off the wolves. While it’s true that a machete isn’t the usual weapon of choice to take hunting, it’s not completely unheard of, right?
Keeping up the pretense of looking for a branch, making my way back to Geri and Kasnid, I carry on as if I haven’t seen it because the human eye isn’t capable of seeing it cloaked. Then I remember I’m naked from the waist up, so I shiver and rub my arms.
Bending down, I pick up an unlikely branch and turn it over as if it’s a contender while I try to relax my thoughts enough to send out a distress call to the emissary. This is another one of those times I wish telepathy was as easy as hitting a number on my phone.
My phone! Bale is roaming around these woods looking for Geri, and he might actually be of use in my current predicament.
But Geri has my phone, and she’s more than forty feet away from me, beside Kasnid, where my machete is.
“Geri, can you get a handle on our location?” I ask, making my way to her. “I think your phone has a GPS, right?”
“What are you talking about, Eastman? You know—”
“I’m a little turned around,” I interject before she says something. “We need the GPS.”
Her expression begins to transform from confusion to “oh,” and she digs into her pocket. Behind me, I hear the Saurian land on the ground with a thud.
Geri’s eyes jerk in the direction of the sound. “What was that?”
“I’m not sure,” I lie. “The phone, Geri.”
Her eyes slowly begin to widen, and the rosy patches on her cold cheeks suddenly contrast sharply against a face drained of blood. I don’t need to be telepathic to know it just de-cloaked behind me.
There’s still about fourteen feet between Geri and me, and it’s a challenge to resist the urge to flash into overdrive so I can get to her and make sure that scaly lizard doesn’t touch her. But I can’t. As long as it doesn’t threaten Geri, protecting the program is my priority. So I need to handle this diplomatically, convince it I’m with the EUC and that it’s operating outside of treaty law.
I hear the whistle of its tail sailing through the air on a direct collision course with me. I brace myself for impact, ready to take it like a human because I won’t compromise the program just to save my own ass.
The thick appendage hits me with enough force to send me flying six feet—a tap by Saurian standards—but I gasp for breath, making it look as though I’m winded, and I clutch the arm it struck.
It’s about twelve feet away, and I take a good, horrified look at it, feigning shock. Well, not completely feigning. Although I’ve met Saurians while posing as EUC enforcement—the men-in-black kind of stuff that Bale does for a living—I’ve never been in an aggressive situation with one. Yeah, I’ve been trained since birth on how to defend myself against an attack, but holy crap, this guy is big, and my knife is on the ground next to Kasnid.
I roll up onto my feet, holding the arm it struck as if I’m injured, and face the ten-foot-something scaly lizard as I channel my inner Bale. “Explain yourself, Saurian,” I demand in English. The tunic it’s wearing bears the insignia of the Ninth Royal House, and I make a point of looking at it. “That was an unprovoked attack and by a royal representative, no less.”
Its yellow eyes with elongated pupils regard me with cold curiosity, and its leathery lips part into a smile or a sneer—it’s hard to tell which on a reptile. Point is, rows of spiked teeth are on display.
“I was just saying hello.” Its voice is a deep rumbling hiss.
Geri is rooted to the spot, and Kasnid has sat up. His head is most likely spinning with the change in elevation if the hand to his forehead is anything to go by.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have time to socialize.” I jerk a thumb toward Kasnid. “Maybe you missed it, but there’s a wounded Migoi who requires immediate medical attention.” Then I tilt my head and eye him coolly. “You wouldn’t happen to know how he got hurt in the first place, would you?”
Its yellow eyes follow a lazy path to Kasnid and then slowly return to me, translucent eyelids flicking. “No idea.”
“Well, if you’re done saying hello, I need help with the Migoi.” I turn away from the Saurian, as if to dismiss it, and return my attention to Kasnid. “Geri, can you please go and get my backpack. There’s a first aid kit in it.”
She’s staring at the Saurian, her breathing rapid, and I’m afraid she’s actually rooted to the spot, but she nods—the movement so subtle I could’ve almost imagined it—then takes a step.
The Saurian moves with a lightning speed that’s surprising for something its size and slams its tail down on the ground in front of Geri, blocking her exit.
“Hey!” I yell at the Saurian, my heart jackhammering. My hands curl into fists, almost of their own volition, and I start toward it, preparing to drill a fist into the side of its head. But its cold eyes are watching me with unnerving intensity.
It’s baiting me.
I stop and return its stare. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“This human means a lot to you.”
“She’s an EUC enforcement officer in training and currently in my care. She’s my responsibility.”
It throws its head back and emits a deep gurgling. That’s the first time I’ve heard a Saurian laugh. “You are not EUC.”
“Yes, I am, and you’re going on report.” I feel just as impotent as that sounded. “Now let the woman go.”
Its tail moves, snaking a slow trail to Geri’s leg, then rubs the side of her calf. “What are you going to do if I don’t?”
I catch a flash of movement—Kasnid throws my sheathed knife to Geri, who swings around and hurls it toward me.
I leap for it, both arms outstretched as far as I can get them, but the weapon thumps onto the ground just as the Saurian whacks Geri with its tail, sending her flying.
I hit the ground and roll, grabbing the knife as I do. The tinny sound of metal scraping against metal fills my ears as I pull the blade from its sheath and reel onto my back, holding it steadfast with both hands around the hilt. I point the razor edge outward, just in time to catch the tail as it slams down on me, hitting with such force that the machete shears right through it.
Cool blood splatters across my face and chest, and I hear a thump on the ground beside me as the severed end hits the ground. The Saurian snaps what’s left of its tail back, pulling the injury close to its body.
“What is that?” It demands, cold yellow eyes darting to the bloody blade in my hand.
Geri groans and moves. Relief floods through me that she’s alive.
Leaping off the ground, I rush the Saurian, taking full advantage of the shock it’s in from losing part of a limb. I raise the machete high and viciously aim for the soft skin under the creature’s chin. It shoots a defensive arm toward me, and the blade hits its forearm with a thunk, sinking into flesh and lodging into bone.
Gripping the hilt with both hands, I slide the blade out in one quick motion while trying to evade the punch it’s throwing at me with its other arm. But its fist catches me under the chin, lifting me off the ground and sending me flying, knocking the wind out of me.
By human standards, the blow should’ve killed me or, at the very least, shattered half my face. So when I jump to my feet with blade ready, beckoning him to come at me, we both know the game is up. He knows I’m not entirely human.
The Saurian lets out a battle cry, and I unleash mine. Each of us run at the other, and both of us know that one of us isn’t leaving here alive. Just before we clash, I deke right and use a boulder as a springboard. I catapult over it, swinging my machete as I sail through the air. I slice through the side of the Saurian’s neck, just missing the soft skin at its throat by inches.
Before my feet hit the ground, its tail strikes me, sending me into another tree, face-first this time. And before I can recover and turn around, it’s on me, scoring two blows to the side of my head. Then it just stops.
Stars explode in my vision, momentarily blinding me, but I move, pivoting around to face it. My head booms, but when my sight clears, I see Kasnid battling it—and losing by the look of it. It has him by the throat. I raise the machete and bring it down, sinking the blade deep into the arm that’s holding Kasnid.
The lizard throws Kasnid away, hissing at me, then reaches toward its hip. I see the flash of a pistol under its long vest—a laser, no doubt. None of us will stand a chance if it starts using that thing.
I hurl myself at it, hooking onto its back with one of my arms around its neck and my legs around its waist. I sink the machete into the flesh of the arm reaching for the pistol. It lets out a hissing growl and starts running backward, launching us both toward an outcrop of boulders.
I let go of it before we hit, sliding down its back, my feet finding purchase on its tail just long enough to launch myself away from it. I don’t get very far before it wraps a hand around the back of my neck and lifts me clear off the ground. My legs claw the air as I try to break free. One of my hands is under its fingers, trying to loosen the pressure on my esophagus, while the other blindly swings the blade behind me in a vain attempt to strike it. I can’t breathe, and my already booming head feels as if it’s going to explode off my shoulders.
Geri’s running toward us, and I try to speak. I try to yell at her to get out of here, but I can’t. She lobs a rock with all her might, clutching her side with her other hand, looking as though she’s in pain. The rock falls short of us.
In my periphery, I catch sight of Kasnid hobbling toward us.
The Saurian tightens its grip around my throat, sending my pulse into a roar, and a wave of black washes across my vision.
I’m going to lose consciousness.
I throw the machete to Kasnid before everything goes black.
When I come to, the first thing I see is Geri on the ground about ten feet away from me, struggling to push herself up on her knees.
I motion for her to stay down, and she looks at me, her eyes two dolorous pools set in a face streaked with blood and smudged with dirt. Her tremulous lips silently form the words you’re alive. I want to go to her, pick her up, and get her the hell out of here, but I’m not leaving Kasnid to die.
The Saurian has its back to me. One of its hands is wrapped around Kasnid, while the other one pummels him. I spring to my feet and leap at it, locking one arm around its leathery neck, and I use my free hand to scrabble for its sidearm. The element of surprise is in my favor, and I wrench the pistol out of the holster just as it drops Kasnid to deal with me.
I put the barrel to its head.
“Idiot.” It reaches up to take the gun from me as if I’m an errant child.
But I know the pistol won’t work for me. It’s locked, and only the Saurian’s prints will unlock it. So I slip my hand off the hilt as the Saurian clutches it, but my finger remains on the trigger. The second its hand is around the grip, I squeeze. My other arm eases off its neck so I can lean as far away as possible while I pull it. It all happens in the space of a second, maybe two, and as soon as the firearm discharges a laser pulse, I drop to the ground and back up a few steps.
I breathe in and out, in and out, waiting, but the lizard doesn’t fall or keel over.
It slowly begins to turn and face me, and I’m thinking I missed. One chance, and I blew it. The son of a bitch is not going to go down easily.
Where the hell is my machete?
But as the Saurian’s face comes into view, I see the flow of blood coming from an ugly zigzag wound on the side of its head. Its jaw is slack, and its mouth is gaping. Its elongated pupils are thick black stripes in its yellow eyes. It falls to its knees, stares sightlessly at me for a moment, then slams face-first into the ground.