Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) (40 page)

He hesitated, then placed his free hand on her shoulder. She stiffened. “What do you fear?”

“Regina,” she whispered, voice taut and thin, and for once she sounded as young as she looked.

“Why now?”

She shook her head. “No matter how much I want to protect you, Regina is maturing. Soon it will try to control me. It’s already reacting to my positive disposition toward you.”

His stomach clenched like a fist. “Reacting, how?”

“It rewards me with pleasure when I snap at you, stings when I help you.” She took a step back, and his hand fell away. “My Maturation Day is coming soon.”

He frowned. “And what in the hells does Maturation Day mean?”

“Regina comes into full power and tries to turn me against mortals.” Hera looked down at her fisted hands. “Make me into what I was born to be, an Echo princess.”

The implications slowly sank in. “You’re afraid you’ll hurt us?”

“Hurt you?” She sneered. “I’ve just done that.”

“Hera—”

“No, you listen to me, Elei.” She looked up and this time sought his gaze. “I’m afraid I’ll kill you.”

The words lingered like the echo of a gunshot. Silence rippled around them, spreading in waves.

“You were given drugs to weaken Regina. You can control it,” Elei whispered. “Can’t you?”

“I’m trying.” She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “But it may not work. I have not had the drug this year and its effect is waning.”

“You have to try harder.” Everything was going to the hells. “Dammit, you can do this.”

“And if I cannot?”

“You can. You have to.” He avoided her frightened gaze and turned his back, trying to control himself as a terrible thought slithered into his mind. “You can control it. I know it.”

Just like Regina, Rex pushed him to kill her, to tear her to pieces. Rex was trying to take control of him, and it was succeeding. What if Rex too was maturing — much faster than Regina, turning him into something he wasn’t, something violent and dangerous to the others?

What if Alendra was right to be afraid of him?

He squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe he should just go now, make sure he didn’t place them in worse danger.

Because, if Hera couldn’t control Regina, after living with the parasite for a lifetime, then what chance in the five hells did he have of controlling Rex?

***

When Elei returned to the cockpit, it was to a silence broken only by the hum of the engines. Alendra didn’t turn around, and a glance at Kalaes showed him scowling at the rearview mirror.

“Our tail?” Hera asked, entering behind Elei.

“Still there.” Kalaes rolled his shoulders with a groan and buried a hand in his hair. “Any ideas what to do?”

“Maybe there’s place nearby where we could lose them?” Hera said.

Alendra gave them a cursory glance, face expressionless, and returned to the console. “According to the map there’s a factory not far from here, a food packaging plant, on the road to Dakru City. I think I’ve passed it by in the past.”

“We could hide there and hope they’ll overtake us,” Kalaes muttered. “Eh, Hera?”

“Put more distance between us,” Hera said, voice curt, “and that may work.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Kalaes gave a mock salute and a crooked smile, and grabbed the steering lever. Elei clenched his fingers around the head of his walking cane, watching him, trying to decide if the old Kalaes was back or not. The mocking tone fit right in, but there was a darkness in Kalaes’ voice, his face, his posture — a tension, a coiled potential for violence he couldn’t remember from before.

Rex drummed on his senses, hammered the back of his right eye, as if waiting for a strike.

Hera shoved past him and grabbed the back of Kalaes’ seat. Elei’s fingers twitched on the grip of his gun. With both of them trigger-happy inside the small aircar, accidents could happen. He deliberately shoved his free hand into his pocket and moved away from Hera.

“There’s the factory.” Alendra pointed at a huge black shape, a rectangular building ahead. “Tail’s about thirty feet behind and closing.”

“We need to move fast,” Elei muttered, leaning closer to see.

“I’ll take us in,” Kalaes announced.

“I’ll do it,” Elei said.

“No.”

“Then I’ll drive,” Hera said.

“Don’t you pissing touch the lever.” Kalaes corrected the suspension values and raised the speed. “Keep an eye on our tail. Going in.”

“Is there a problem?” Hera growled.

“No problem.” Kalaes kept his eyes on the road and the factory, his hands steady on the steering lever. “Apart from the fact that you tried to kill Elei, all is peachy.”

“I see.” Hera adjusted the mirror, a slight tremor going through her hands. “Elei and I discussed that. All is fine.”

Is it?
Elei gripped Kalaes’ seat as the aircar accelerated, fighting the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

“Whatever.” Kalaes turned the aircar into a parallel road for trucks that passed outside the factory. “I can do this. Stand back.”

“Kalaes, you should not be driving.” She caught his arm and gave a light tug.

He shoved her. “I said, back off, Hera.” His fingers were white on the lever. “For days I’ve been trapped in my past, watching people die, people I couldn’t save. Not this time.”

Hera paled, and Elei thought he understood a little why Kalaes insisted on doing this.

Then a sudden turn sent Elei crashing into the wall, the walking stick falling from his numb hand. He slid down, hearing Alendra curse indistinctly as Kalaes drove them full speed into a dark shed. The vehicle wheeled around and stopped.

The aircar powered down, the lights dimming, though colors flashed around Elei in steady pulses. He drew in breath after breath, trying to get Rex to relax its hold. His heart thumped.

“Are you certain they did not see us turning?” Hera asked.

“With any luck, they won’t realize we didn’t turn back to the main road,” Kalaes said, leaning back in his chair. “They’ll just continue. Let’s give them a few before we head back outside.”

“Fine.” She eyed him carefully. “Feeling better now?”

Kalaes said nothing.

Cat meowed pitifully and jumped on Elei’s leg. He reached down to pat its head, and Cat licked his hand, its warm presence calming.

“Do any of you have any
ama
cigarettes? I could use one now.” Kalaes ran his finger through his hair, dislodging clots of dried blood.

Hera straightened and brushed her hands over her gray suit. She scowled. “At the safe house there are supplies. But smoking is not good for you.”

“Save your lecture, Hera.” Kalaes started to stretch, then his breath hitched and he groaned, wrapping an arm around his ribs. “Gods damn it. Ow.”

Guilt and worry twisted Elei’s stomach.

Kalaes turned his head and lifted an eyebrow. “I’d say you’re awfully quiet back there, but you aren’t exactly a chatty kind of person, fe. You still alive?”

“Yeah,” Elei grated.

“Good.” Kalaes frowned, then turned his gaze back to the front. “Cause you can’t expect any help from me.”

Elei froze in the process of trying to get up. “What?”

“You heard me.” Kalaes checked something on the control panel, his voice strangely empty. “You can’t expect anything from me.”

Elei’s hands shook as he stared at Kalaes’ back. “Why do you say that?”

“It’s the truth, fe.”

No
. “You’re not like that,” Elei muttered.

“Right.” Kalaes’ voice was hard. “And what makes you think you know anything about me?”

Elei shook his head and picked up his walking cane, his chest too tight. “I don’t,” he whispered.

Shaking with delayed reaction, he climbed to his feet and hobbled out of the cockpit to the passenger cabin, Cat winding between his legs. He took a seat and gripped the armrests, bowing his head.

A deep breath. Another
.

Then the aircar powered up and lurched forward and out of the shed. Thankful for something to hold on to, he watched from the window as they zipped out into the street and then turned back the way they’d come, returning to the intercity road. Through the open cockpit door, he could hear Hera snapping out instructions and Kalaes’ muffled replies.

The aircar turned right, toward what had to be the west, and the engines whirred. A look out of the window showed him algae ponds dully reflecting the morning light. Seeing how they were slowing, they’d most probably managed to lose their tail.

Pelia’s face haunted his thoughts, her words from the dream echoing in his mind, and he wished for her hand on his brow, her arms around him. He released his hold on the armrest as the aircar straightened and reached down to finger the grip of his gun.

His body ached with new bruises from where he’d hit the wall, and hells if he wasn’t sick and tired of being in pain. So he just ignored his body, pretended it didn’t exist.

The result, of course, was that his eyelids drooped, and before he knew it, he was drifting into sleep.

A little girl bent over him and offered her grimy hand. Her pale eyes regarded him with a seriousness that wasn’t childlike in the least.

“Come,” she said and he took her hand, grateful. Her palm was hard and her fingers cold, and she pulled him upright as if he weighed nothing.

“Afia?” He peered into her small face but it kept changing, shifting like a passing cloud. “Is that you?”

“What does it matter?”

A blond boy approached them, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Jek
. “What are you two doing here?” Elei glanced around, uneasy. Dark streets, high gray buildings, silhouettes shuffling in the shadows between lit shop fronts. The nagging feeling of familiarity shattered when he turned he saw
her
.

“Pelia.” Gods, why did it hurt to see her? He felt he was forgetting something, but what? “Where are we?”

Her dark eyes crinkled at the corners like she was smiling, but she wasn’t. Her lips were pressed together tight, as if she’d never open them to speak. Her white blouse was spattered with brown drops, like old blood.

Odd
. 

Afia pulled on his hand and Jek lifted an eyebrow. Pelia turned around and walked through a door. They followed her into her apartment.

He tugged his hand free from the girl’s and walked in a circle. The furniture, the shelves and the tables looked so shiny. A platter sat on the table, filled with nuts, and they glimmered like crystal balls. A light diffused through the room, making everything glittery.

“Happy birthday,” Pelia said, her voice soft.

“I don’t have a birthday,” he said, turning to look at her.

She held a gun in her hands, his Rasmus. It glowed on her white palms like a magical snake. “This is for you.”

“I know,” he said and took it, cradling it. “Should I shoot you again?”

“Don’t be silly.” She sat down in one of the armchairs, primly crossing her legs. Her soft trousers rustled. “That’s not why I gave it to you.”

“What for, then?”

Afia giggled. Jek snorted. He picked one of the crystal nuts and bit into it. He chewed thoughtfully, his lips bleeding.

“The registration number.” Pelia smiled, showing blackened teeth. He wondered what happened to them. “I told you this many times. It’s your birthday.”

“Nobody knows my birthday.” He lifted the gun. The number glowed on the barrel. “Not even you.”

“I know many things,” she said and her face contorted, as if in pain. “Remember, it’s your birthday.”

“My birthday,” he said, the word stumbling against his teeth, his lips. “Birthday.”

“We’ve arrived,” Hera said, very close to his ear. “What birthday are you talking about?”

He jerked, thrusting a hand forward in defense, opening bleary eyes. “Hera?”

She straightened and clucked her tongue. “Safe house.” And with that she turned and headed to the deck door.

Kalaes was leaning on the cockpit doorframe, arms folded across his broad chest, one foot propped against the wall of the cabin. He was staring at Elei as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite make up his mind.

By the time Elei bent to retrieve his walking cane, Kalaes pushed off the wall and headed out as well, then Alendra appeared at the cockpit door. She threw him a frosty look and followed Kalaes out, ponytail swinging.

Elei sighed. Remembering his dream, he drew his gun out and glanced at the registration number.

What was he supposed to do with it?

Cat came in and rubbed itself on his legs, purring, a spot of heat.

“Just you and me again, Cat. So, what do you think I should call you?” Elei ran a hand absently over Cat’s black fur. It glided under his fingers, warm and alive, and Pelia’s face flitted through his mind.
Dead. Gone
.