Carapace (Aggressor Queen Book 1) Page 16

  The screeching brakes of a large truck sound through the warehouse. This will be the garbage truck with empty dumpster mounted to the front that my people are bringing. Trash trucks are the only vehicles the ants allow on these streets – and not often enough – we wallow daily in garbage. I turn off the laser pointer and wait. I don’t know where Khara is in the darkness.

  The door shrieks open, and a voice yells from the doorway, “YOO-HOO!” I am certain the booming shout can be heard for blocks around this building. I move behind boxes. I can see the dim outline of a human body standing in the open door. I can feel the pulse in my neck, hear the pumping rush in my ears.

  Laughter sounds. Light gleams from a flashlight in the hand of the man at the door.

  “Come on, Mate, transport has arrived. Where are you?” Bell’s voice. My breath bursts from me in relief and adrenaline anger.

  “Bell . . . Jesus,” I say, loud enough for him to hear. The light beam flashes toward me.

  “Asshole,” Khara whispers from behind me. At the moment I agree with her.

  In minutes, my people have loaded the dumpster to the top, and Bell leaves me with a clap on the back and another laugh. “Be back soon, Mate,” he says as he switches off the flashlight before going out the door. I hear the trash truck move away down the alley, picture my people hanging to the outside like infant marsupials.

  Khara and I go back to marking ammo and moving boxes toward the door.

  The door screeches open again. I can’t hear the trash truck outside. Again, I kill the light and duck behind boxes, although I half expect another of Bell’s jokes.

  “Halt!” grates the unmistakable voice of an ant.

  Through the pounding pulse in my ears comes Khara’s calm whisper.

  “Fucking hell.”

  CHAPTER 30

  NESTRA

  It is evening when I am called once again to the queen’s bedchamber. The halls are quiet and empty except for the small scrape of feet against carpet – mine and that of my ubiquitous escort.

  In the past, I would have preferred this setting – the silence, the darkness, the lack of courtiers and public nature of the session. I would have used the setting as an additional calming factor to help ease me to the trance. This evening I regret there will be no court audience, no courtier in private meetings with the queen.

  I need information.

  Sister Khara has asked a favor of me, a favor I am only too willing to accomplish, despite the personal risk.

  Sister Khara has told me of a human resistance, a group of humans who hope to survive the annihilation planned by the queen. I have long sensed the underground river of resistance in sister Khara, the secrecy, and now I understand. I, having already betrayed my queen, have no trouble siding with the humans in their efforts. I know humans and my people can co-exist in peace, as evidenced by my bond friendship with sister Khara, and to a lesser degree, with Diane and Tanner, the humans first courageous enough to approach me and generous enough to share with me. And now there is a human traitor – a wash of guilt coats the inside of me as I remember that the word applies to me as well – who threatens this life-preserving effort. Sister Khara wants to discover the identity of this human.

  This will be difficult, as humans cannot be identified by the scent/flavor visual/voice patterns that allow my kind to accomplish sure identification. However, even brothers refer to certain prominent humans by their names for this reason. I must discover the name. And to do this, the queen or a courtier must reveal this information during a downloading session upon which I can eavesdrop.

  This quiet night session will bring me no information.

  Indeed, the queen has been summoning me more and more often in the evening. I do not doubt this is so the queen can rest after being depleted by me – another wave of guilt – instead of needing to proceed with the business of court. As such, my failure to help sister Khara is caused by me, which causes another surge of guilt.

  This is no way to approach a downloading session. I push my thoughts away from my negative ruminations and began the preliminary treading toward fugue state.

  Bright light glares from the opening to the queen’s bedchamber. For a moment, I think there might be an evening meeting planned after all.

  The scene that greets me as I step to the doorway sickens me and breaks me from my efforts at tranquility. The razor spears bursting down from the ceiling above the bed cushions glint with the recessed bright lights that shoot down through them. Impaled on several of the centermost is a human, one long knife stabbing through the back of its head and emerging through a torn eyeball. Blood is still falling, in slow droplets, down onto the bed cushions, and onto the queen, who lies there enjoying the mild suffocation induced by having her pores blocked by the sticky thin red substance.

  “Majesty,” I croak, wishing to turn away from the sight. The required bend of my head backward only brings the dead human into better sight. Perversely, I focus one lens on the drop of human blood growing fat at the end of one of the rapiers before it falls to the bed cushions.

  “Come.”

  When I lower my head, the queen is gesturing to a long cushioned lounge to the side of the room. Cruelty pinches across her face as she again gestures away from the bed, as though she is punishing me by failing to allow me to wallow on the foul bed cushions. I hold back a sigh of gratitude. Let Queen Tal believe she is being cruel.

  I fall into the trance that prolongs my sanity. I fall deeper into it than I thought to allow myself, craving the unconsciousness it brings me during downloading. I feel little guilt as I sip at the queen’s strength.

  Then the climbing swirl from unconsciousness at the end of the session. It must have been a long session as the bedchamber has been cleared of the human debris. The body no longer hangs impaled, floating in the silver teeth. I suppose the queen’s workers are quite practiced at cleaning such things with efficiency.

  A groan grates from me as I move to stand, a groan which is echoed by the queen. For the first time ever, I think I catch the red scent of fear from the queen, but then decide it is merely trance-confusion of the scent with the visual of red blood still covering parts of her shell.

  After an initial flail of effort, the queen rises with a jerk, and I am washed with the passionate black anger that pours from her on the heels of the fear. Before I can wonder at the cause of the queen’s anger, she strikes out at me, throwing me to the floor at the side of the bed cushions. I lie without moving as she advances to stand over me. With another flashing movement, her pincer bites at the edges of my throat, scratching into my shell.

  The crimson scent of my fear balloons through the room, and I know it to be my last sad excretion. I wait, motionless.

  “No,” says the queen. “I cannot... yet.” Then she turns and moves toward the lounge we have just vacated, only now revealing exhaustion in her motions.

  “Get me Dev’ro,” she says, and a brother scurries toward the back entrance to the room.

  Before I can finish my obeisance, the queen bellows, “Get out of my sight!”

  The flavor/scent of fear remains fresh on me all the way back to my rooms.

  CHAPTER 31

  KHARA

  I can still hear the echo of the ant’s grating bellow of “halt.” Samuel doesn’t move. I don’t move. I can’t breathe. My heart seems to want to drown its own beating in the churning fluids of my stomach.

  Samuel’s hand touches my arm, slides down my wrist to clasp my hand. He pulls me with slow, quiet steps toward the back of the warehouse through the ebony darkness.

  Piercing light blazes throughout the open warehouse. I close my eyes against the sudden brightness and stumble. Samuel pulls me along by my hand, strong fingers squeezing mine. I’m happy for the contact and for his strength.

  We run, crouched, around towers of boxes. I hear the scraping and pounding of many ants entering behind us. I have no desire to stand and count the number of our enemy.

  We’re going t
o die.

  Samuel crashes against a stack of boxes with a shoulder as we run past, and the tower topples and falls. The loud zing of a shot is followed by a ricochet of light as an ant fires toward the crashing sound. Samuel weaves and wends his way around crates and metal boxes like a mouse running a maze. My mind screams through an accelerated monologue of curses, but I don’t voice them.

  We’re trapped at the back of the warehouse, a cinderblock wall cutting off any further escape. A vision flashes into my mind of Samuel and me, still clasping hands, being fired upon – firing squad fashion – against the impenetrable wall. I grind to a halt behind Samuel, but before I can gain my feet, he pulls me again along the wall to the left.

  Samuel climbs crates, which teeter but don’t fall. I stand at the base, abandoned, although I know I can’t climb after him without bringing him down with the wobbling crates. I hear ants searching, but no speech between them. I can’t distinguish how many search, or even how close they are to finding us.

  At the top of the stack, Samuel stands before a mesh-wired window we can’t break or open. He turns his back to the window looking over the whole of the warehouse. He shouts, an incomprehensible guttural roar, and then jumps down toward me. Several shots are fired, and through my panic that Samuel has been shot, the crash of glass sounds above us.

  Samuel runs back the way we came, but as I race to follow he whispers, “Go back!”

  I’m confused, but as I hesitate, he picks up a heavy metal ammunition box and turns to run toward me again.

  “Hold this,” he whispers as we reach the crates at the window, and “stay here!” He runs again. He runs farther this time. Just before I lose sight of him among the boxes, he ducks his head and slams a shoulder into a tower of crates like a professional football player. The tower totters, and Samuel pushes again until it too crashes to the floor. Several more shots light up in that direction, but Samuel races toward me.

  He grabs the ammunition box from my hands and again climbs the boxes toward the window, hampered only a little by the heavy container in one arm.

  I know what he’ll do. He’ll be lased before he can do it.

  Samuel doesn’t hesitate as he reaches the top of the stack, but slams into the window, ammunition box held in front of him like a ram. The glass doesn’t shatter, but breaks away from the rotting frame in a jagged flapping sheet. More shots, and now they’re burning and splintering the wooden crates and cinderblock around me. Samuel is out… but is he alive?

  I pull the lid off a nearby broken crate and reach inside. My hand closes on a pistol, which I pull out and throw as far as I can to the right of where I stand. Scraping of scurrying ant feet and more bright shots. I imagine the burning sensation of a laser blazing through me. I round to the darkest side of the tower of crates and climb with all the strength of my panic fueling me. Shots and more shots, light lancing around me, no longer spaced by brief pauses. As I reach the top, a searing burst of fire lances across my cheek.

  I kick against the crates and throw myself over the sill, ignoring the ragged flap of mesh-wired window hanging from the top of the frame that swings outward with my passage. I’m still falling through the air when I hear the crates crash to the ground inside the warehouse. Samuel breaks my fall with outstretched arms and then I’m on my feet again.

  “Thank God,” Samuel says, before he again smashes my fingers in his grip and pulls me into a run.

  A phalanx of ants rounds the corner moving toward us. I slam into Samuel as he turns to run in the opposition direction. The ants close on us with unnatural speed, the length of their legs and stride eating up ground. Samuel jerks left into an alley and my joints feel as if they’ll separate with the strain at shoulder and wrist. Samuel pulls trashcans and broken furniture down to fall behind us. A chair hits my leg, but this doesn’t slow me down.

  Down alleys, across broad streets, more alleys, over walls, through buildings, again Samuel runs as a mouse in a maze. Samuel knows this maze as no other can, and the sounds of pursuit are no longer nipping quite so close. Samuel dashes into the entrance of a crowded bar. The loud music, blue and green lights, and dank close smell of other humans drown the smell of my own sweat, the sound of my breathing, the cacophony of my heart.

  Samuel slows and moves with leisure through the crowd. His hand remains clamped on mine. Then we’re out a back entrance, and Samuel breaths, “That ought to dilute our scent.” We run again. I’m lost, but Samuel isn’t.

  We run, and continue to run. Samuel no longer holds my hand, pulling me along behind him. This makes it easier to run. I keep pace with Samuel, although I’m not sure whether that’s because he’s slowing his pace for me, or whether my panic makes up for his better physical condition.

  I expect any moment for ants to encircle us. I know why Samuel continues to run – the greater the distance between the ants and their quarry, the more our scent will have dissipated.

  The humans around us move toward their nighttime destinations – frames in a slow motion film. We run and leap past them, amongst them. They all ignore us. Defense mechanism.

  Another turn and I’m in familiar territory, but am lost to Samuel’s secret navigation of it. He dodges to the right up a tight alley just past one of the dorms in which I sometimes crash. We scramble and jump over piles of trash. He turns into a low doorway, which leads to another alley I don’t recognize. The pace slows only when we round corners. The muscles in my legs burn. I need Samuel to help pull me over a chain link fence. His large hands are strong and sure with me. We run, and turn. And run. Again I recognize the neighborhood, but not the connection to the one we just left. Samuel understands the maze of this city with a clarity that is stunning, confusing.

  My lungs ignite with a chill fire. I can’t breathe. My lungs can’t process the air I need. Samuel must have a destination in mind and I stop trying to anticipate it, concentrate only on continuing to move. My abdomen tightens into a knot that stabs and stabs with each step. Samuel doesn’t appear to be slowing, nor to be in need of slowing.

  “Samuel.” The word comes between bursts of breath. “I need. To stop.” More bursts of breath.

  I need a drink. The thought comes unbidden and I don’t like its intrusion. I recognize the cop-out it represents. Again, with pain and a stab of breath, “Samuel!”

  “Hang on. Hang on, Khara. Hang on.” Samuel almost sings the words in time to his steps. I marvel at his controlled singsong whisper.

  As we turn another corner he reaches a large hand back for mine to pull me along. With his efforts to move me again supplementing mine, I risk a glance behind us. I don’t see the closing black mass I’ve been imagining.

  “They’re gone,” I gasp. “Samuel!”

  He pulls me sideways into a brick alcove in the alley wall. His iron grip on my arm keeps me from smashing into the wall, but jolts my arm again. Pain shoots through my shoulder. The alcove is ten feet deep and ends at a large metal door with a large lock in the bar across it. I hope I’m right that they’re gone. We’re trapped.

  Samuel pulls me to him, back and into the deepest shadows. With his arm across me, body pressed along my side, I feel protected. Samuel squeezes and rubs at my jolted shoulder while watching the mouth of the alcove. After a moment pressed against each other, both breathing in sharp bursts, Samuel creeps away toward the entrance. I have an almost uncontrollable urge to grab at him. I want his protection.

  He moves against the brick. Despite his size, he melts against the rough wall. His fingers dance along the jagged surface, his feet move without sound. He controls his breathing until I can hear nothing but my own. I concentrate on slowing my own breathing, but my body still screams for air. My lungs are determined to snatch it from the night around us.

  I hold my breath, listen. Breathe. Hold my breath again and listen. Nothing. I’m torn between my desire to melt farther backward into the darkness, and to join Samuel in gazing up the alley. He shifts, and I tense myself for running. He watches for another coup
le of seconds and then relaxes. He presses his forehead against the brick.

  My God, we made it.

  Samuel creeps back to join me. He puts his mouth close to my ear and whispers. “I don’t think they’ve tracked us.” He looks toward the alcove entrance again. “We can go soon.” He touches the warm metal collar at the base of his throat no longer covered by his torn shirt. It rests in a mist of sweat on skin.

  His eyes move over my face and he groans. “Jesus, Khara.” I reach my hand up to the burning area on my cheek. “Here,” he says and pulls my cheek toward his shirtfront. When I back away there is a red gash across his shirt. He looks at my face again and says, “I don’t think it’s still bleeding.” He pulls my cheek toward the opposite side of his chest, and holds me there longer than the dabbing requires.

  Through the tear in his shirt, Samuel’s chest hair tickles against my chin. I’m torn whether to pull away or relax in this comforting warmth. I close my eyes. Even above the sound of my still loud panting, I hear his deep, quiet breaths.

  I can’t remember the last time a human held me. It flashes through my mind that I want to back away, put distance between our flesh, but I realize before the thought is done, that it’s just habit. I like the feel of Samuel against me. I raise my hands and rest them against Samuel’s back. It is broad and strong. I slide my hands across and down his muscular back, thin shirt wet with the sweat of his exertions. I breathe in the smell of his fear, his skin. He is delicious. I fight the sudden urge to lick his chest and taste the salt on him. The muscular pliant softness of his body – so unlike the ungiving press of ant armor – strikes me as weakness and yet arouses me.

  My skin tightens into gooseflesh, but I’m not cold. I look up at Samuel and realize with a hot shiver I want to kiss him. I want his thick lips against my mouth where only hardened mandibles have ventured for months upon months.