The forest had taken on an ominous feel. In the dim quarter-light of the forest floor, the air pressed on a person, hot, almost syrup-thick. Kylee swallowed hard. Experienced that prickle of anxiety running through her muscles as she climbed up onto the root tangle. Perched on high, she balanced. With her quetzal-enhanced vision, she searched the high canopy. Up there, in the tracery of branches. She could sense it: the old, dark memory.
If she closed her eyes, she could feel a cold and hollow hunger. Something ancient. A sentience so alien it tickled her soul with feathers of terror.
Didn’t count that it was a matter of honor, that she owed this to Mom and Mark. Fact was, she’d rather be back at Briggs’ with Tip and Flute. Safe. Not here in the dim forest, knowing that she was being hunted.
Flute had been willing, would have endured another flight, taken a chance at being killed. That he knew the risks, would have done it for her, said something about quetzals.
Maybe, because she’d said no when every fiber of her being wanted him here with her, it said something about her, too.
The chime rose and fell, ending in its uniquely atonal harmony. She was learning. Each region of Donovan where she’d traveled had its own unique chime, always a composite of the different species. The Tyson chime was as much a signature as Mundo’s.
A faint rime of perspiration dampened her cheeks, her neck and chest. Warily, she shifted, following the slow twist of the root mass beneath her feet. Something called out in the heights, the sound low and warbling. Tree clinger? Hopper? Some unknown creature?
She tensed her muscles, flexed her legs as she shifted her balance in time to the root’s movements. Her heart was thumping, driving adrenaline-charged blood through her veins.
“Hey!” she shouted. “Fucker! You up there! Come get me, you piece of shit!”
Kylee could imagine Talina’s reaction. The woman always cringed when Kylee cursed. As if she’d forgotten just who taught her those choice words to start with. Madison would be horrified. But then, Madison was tens of kilometers away.
And this was personal.
Cupping her hands around her mouth, Kylee thundered, “Asshole!”
There, was that movement? A shift in the IR, a change of pattern? She’d have sworn the branches wavered for an instant. Not the sort of thing a quetzal would notice, but human eyes, trained by eons of terrestrial evolution caught the wavering shift of image.
“There you are!” She pointed. “Right there. Ha! I see you! Got your ass now.”
Even vigilant as she was, she almost missed it. Was looking at the body. Not down below. Not where the spike appeared out of nothingness, curling toward her with ferocious speed.
Fast as she was, the thing missed her by a bare finger’s width as it ripped past. She barely caught herself, dropping to one hand to keep from losing her balance on the high root. Shot a look to follow the ropy black barb as it was pulled up high again.
“Got it?” Kylee called.
“Got it!” Talina’s head popped up on the other side of a clump of roots no more than thirty meters away. She braced her rifle on the top, sighted, and released a cracking volley as she emptied a magazine.
Staring up, Kylee watched the IR shift as the rounds hit home, drove deep, and exploded.
The creature sucked up its wounded part, rolling it up inside a fold of hide. How damn big was that thing? Those rounds would have torn a quetzal in two.
Kylee tensed as the black tip of the tentacle came whipping down again. Instinctively, she dropped down in front of the top root. Timed it and skipped sideways.
The impact as the sharp spear drove into the barrel-thick root toppled her from her hold. She fell, bounced off a root, and threw herself backward onto the mat below.
The whole mass went crazy as quetzal shit. She scrambled backward in a crab walk, watching the massive root, impaled as it was. The tentacle kept tugging, trying to break free. Would have, but the root, like a giant rolling drum, twisted around itself. Acting like a capstan it wound the impaled tentacle tight, trapping it.
From overhead, a deafening shriek sounded.
Even as the roots under Kylee’s hands and feet erupted in movement, a thrashing began shaking the branches above. The sound of snapping, the rattle of leaves, a whipping back and forth as branches cracked overwhelmed the chime.
Careening for balance, Kylee found her feet. Arms extended, she scampered across the now-writhing mess, barely avoided being trapped as she fled over a bundle of interwoven roots.
Over the tumult, she heard Talina’s voice shouting into com: “Dek? Where are you?”
Kylee raced across an open space, vaulted another bundle of roots, and barely skipped out of the way as a sidewinder whipped out from a hollow.
Heart hammering, she beat feet for the next tangle—and somehow got across before they convulsed with the intensity of God pulling the Gordian knot tight.
Panting, she located Talina, saw the woman backpedaling, struggling for balance on the squirming footing as she kept her eyes skyward.
Kylee chanced a glance. Followed the trapped tentacle up to where the great beast clung among the whipping branches. How big? Maybe fifty meters across the body. The legs weren’t legs but elongated tissue that ended in prehensile tentacles that wrapped around the high branches. Even in its extreme, the creature tried to mimic its surroundings, but the patterns were off, almost random, like a riot of alternating shapes.
“Dek?” Talina screamed.
Even as she did, the sound of the airplane was faintly audible over the creature’s ear-splitting screams and the thrashing forest.
Kylee bit her lip, fought for balance, then turned and ran again as the roots began to roil.
“Run!” she shouted at Talina. Saw her friend turn, bolting across the traumatized roots. Together they scrambled across a high tangle of trunk-thick roots.
“Come on, Dek!” Talina said between ragged pants. “Where the hell are you?”
“He’ll . . .” Over her shoulder, Kylee caught a glimpse of the tentacle thinning under the tremendous strain. It broke. The meaty parting of tissue and tendon like a clap of thunder. With the power of severed elastic, the trapped length snapped down onto the bundled roots. Above, the remaining stump shot up into the creature’s body, its path marked by spewing fluids.
Then movement. Something big. Indistinct and incredibly fast. Accompanied by crashing and tearing, branches were being whipped back only to lash angrily forward. The entire canopy seemed to erupt.
“What the hell?”
“Kylee!” Talina screamed. “Duck!”
The detonation blasted downward as the branches where the beast had been were torn asunder. In the deafening explosion’s roar came a clutter of broken branches, shredded leaves, and cascading detritus.
“Fucking run!” Talina shouted. And turning, she sprinted, leaping roots, pounding her way up tangles.
Kylee was right with her, matching her step for step.
“That’s for Mom and Dad, you piece of shit,” Kylee averred, and then she put all of her efforts toward speed as agitation spread through the roots like a tsunami racing toward a distant shore.
A last thought was: This whole thing might have been a mistake.
Any second now, the roots were going to be too wild, the footing too precarious. All it would take was a single misstep . . .