Escape (35 page)

Kieran smiled.
I think you'd be surprised.

Jilly's mouth opened in a silent
oh
, then she said, “That's going to take some getting used to. You want to explain how we can hear each other think?”

Kieran turned and started toward the gray wolvin. “I'll explain along the way.”

Dimmi sighed with relief when the wolvin turned around and began walking again. The other wolvins were nowhere to be seen, but an occasional glint of gold shining through the mist gave testimony to their presence. “He was starting to get impatient,” Dimmi said. “I was seeing images of him eating us.”

Kieran turned to her with eyebrows raised. “So why didn't he? Seems like an empty threat.”

“I don't think he's realized in his furry little brain that we can read his thoughts. He was considering the idea, or fantasizing about it, not trying to threaten us.”

“Makes sense. So what did you tell him?”

“I think he's scared of us, so I fed that fear with images of him and his pack of being torn to furry little pieces.”

Kieran nodded absently. His foot caught on a rock that was hidden in the long grass, and he stumbled, almost fell. He recovered with a grimace.

“Watch it, man!” Ferrel growled.

Jilly came limping up beside Kieran, a hand pressed to her side, blood trickling out between her fingers. “So, how about that explanation?”

He frowned at her, then turned to Dimmi. “Put those daggers away. I need you to carry Ferrel.”

Dimmi tucked the daggers into her belt without argument, and then took Ferrel from him.

Ferrel grinned. “That's more like it. I like the view better from here,” he said, his eyes on her chest.

“Don't get too comfortable.”

He went on staring. Kieran turned to Jilly and picked her up, sweeping her legs out from under her. She gasped and blinked up at him. She was a few inches taller than he, and more than a little surprised that he could carry her so easily.

Dimmi glared down at Ferrel as they followed their wolvin guide. “I can see what you're thinking about, you filthy little shakra.” She squeezed his arm until she could feel her fingers pressing against the skinny bone.

He let out a yelp and glared sullenly up at her.

“That's better.”

Kieran gave a short laugh and shook his head.

“Explanation
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Jilly prompted.

Kieran sighed. “I don't know much more than you do, only what I've noticed so far
—
telepathy, unnatural speed and strength, inexplicable regenerative abilities
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Kieran glanced at Dimmi. “Memory gaps.”

“We don't know that that's part of it,” Dimmi said.

“At this point, anything unusual that we experience is probably a symptom.”

Jilly frowned. “Wait, what are you talking about? A symptom of what?”

Kieran shrugged. “I don't know. But whatever is happening to us, it's not normal. It's not like anything I've ever heard of. Telepathy is impossible without a cerebral implant, and I don't know about you, but I don't have one.”

Jilly shook her head. “Cybernetics are outlawed throughout the Union. What about regenerative abilities? I haven't noticed that”

“You're the doctor,” Kieran replied. “Think about it. Both you and Ferrel suffered injuries from which you should have bled to death. By the time I got to you, you had no pulse. There was a gaping hole in your side, and precious little blood to show for it. I reasoned from that that your heart had to have stopped almost immediately, due to some unseen internal injuries
—
maybe hemorrhaging.”

“But I woke up.”

Kieran met her gaze. “Exactly.”

“Your eyes are really red, Kieran.”

Kieran grimaced and shook his head. “I haven't been getting a lot of sleep.”

“No
 
.
 
.
 
.
I mean your irises are red.”

“My eyes are green, Jilly.”

“Well, now they're red.”

Kieran frowned. “Add it to the list of strange shakra that's been happening to us.”

“Has anyone thought to wonder where it all began?” Ferrel asked.

“That's the easy question to answer. It began when we disabled the lockdown on that UBER facility. The first incident of memory loss occurred that night. Come to think of it, probably sooner. Dimmi had amnesia when she woke up in medbay. We assumed it was from her head injury. In reality, it was probably from whatever the kefick we came into contact with on that station.”

“What station?” Jilly asked.

Kieran explained about the too-good-to-be-true encounter with UBER officers desperate to disable the lockdown aboard their station. He explained how he'd contracted Ferrel's help, and from there Dimmi, Brathus, and Garlan. All the while, they followed the pack of wolvins through the mist. After a while the ground leveled out, the grass thinned out, and they were crunching through bare gravel. When Kieran was done explaining the situation to Jilly, she stated the obvious:

“The officer you met aboard the station when you first arrived, Kieran
—
he said he couldn't end the lockdown due to a head injury and associated memory loss.”

“Right.”

“Don't you think that means he was suffering from the same thing that we are now?”

“He also said he was alone on the station. We later found out that there were a few dozen officers there. I don't think we can take his word for anything.”

“Maybe not,” Ferrel said, “but he knew Brathus's name without ever having been introduced. Sounds like telepathy to me.”

“Good point,” Kieran said.

“Fits the profile of some kind of contagion
.
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Jilly mused.

Kieran saw a gaping shadow begin to emerge from the mist directly ahead of them. A few seconds later, it resolved into the mouth of a cave, the same one he'd seen in the wolvin's thoughts. It was dug into the side of a steep, rocky cliff, carved out of solid gray-green rock.

The air suddenly came alive with howling.

“We've arrived,” Dimmi said. “Time to meet our hosts.”

“Not a word of our symptoms to them,” Kieran said.

“They might need to be warned,” Jilly said. “If I'm right if we're contagious, we need to be isolated to prevent whatever this is from spreading.”

“Yes, but we don't know that we're contagious, and we can't afford to scare off our hosts. First things first, we need to attend to our physical injuries, get some food and a place to sleep, then we can worry about whatever else is wrong with us. Agreed?” There was a chorus of ascent from Ferrel and Dimmi, but Jilly gave no reply.

“Jilly?”

“Fine.”

Kieran nodded. “Good.” They reached the entrance to the cave, and hesitated only briefly at the threshold before following the hulking gray wolvin inside. The darkness inside the cave was lightened by a curiously-flickering orange glow that Kieran didn't remember from the wolvin's thoughts. They came to and rounded a corner, whereupon they saw the source of that light. Two old, rusty sconces with flames burning brightly out of them, flanking an old, rusty door. “Time to meet our hosts.”

They heard a heavy
clunk
and watched the door swung wide.

Chapter 17

“W
e've been expecting you.”

Kieran frowned. “You have?”

The man from Kieran's telepathic vision reached into a wheelbarrow behind him. He withdrew a giant, glistening red hunk of meat and tossed it to the wolvins, who were pacing restlessly around the cave. The instant the meat hit the ground, the large gray wolvin pounced on it. None of the others challenged his right to eat first. Once he'd torn it in half, and walked off with his chunk, a pair of smaller-than-average brown wolvins pounced on the remainder. Kieran watched the spectacle with a combination of awe and envy. For some reason, watching them eat was making him hungry. Chunk after bloody chunk of meat flew out of the open door. Kieran looked on, salivating. The others were similarly distracted.

They really are trained animals.

Dimmi elbowed him in the ribs.
Someone sent them to fetch us.

How? Who knew that we were out there?

The old nutbag?
Ferrel put in.

That's what I'm worried about,
Kieran thought.

So why sick the beasts on us?
Dimmi asked.
If old crinkle face wanted us alive, why not bring us here right away?

“I imagine you have some questions,” the man in the doorway said.

“You could say that,” Kieran replied, reluctantly tearing his eyes from the feeding frenzy.

“Keeper Deswin was wrong to leave you to the wolvins. He will be punished appropriately.”

Dimmi's eyes sharpened on their host's pale, leathery face. “You know that defalita?”

The man in the doorway gave a long, slow nod. “Please do not use that language here, but yes, he was a pupil of mine
 
.
 
.
 
.
before he chose exile. His methods of
 
.
 
.
 
.
enlightenment
are not sanctioned by the order.”

“The order?” Jilly asked.

“The Constantic Order.” He stepped to one side of the doorway and gestured for them to enter. “Please follow me. I will answer your questions as we walk. The Excelcius is very eager to meet you.” Without checking to see if they followed, the man turned and began walking down what appeared to be a long, torch-lit corridor. Like the cave, it was carved out of solid rock.

Kieran exchanged wary glances with Jilly.

Dimmi started after the man.
I don't know about you, but I'm not going to stick around until those creatures run out of steaks to eat.

Kieran frowned. Dimmi made a good point. He turned to Ferrel, and eyed the boy's crudely-bandaged leg.

“I can walk,” Ferrel said.

“You're sure?”

Ferrel's reply was to start after Dimmi.

“That was a fast recovery,” Kieran said, watching the boy walk with no discernible limp. He turned to Jilly to see if she needed carrying, but she was already walking straight and tall toward the old, rusted door.
Very fast,
Kieran thought, and hurried to catch up with the others.

As soon as he'd stepped through the old doorway, Kieran heard a grinding of gears and a clattering of chains echo from behind him. He whirled around and saw the rusty door swing shut. It connected to the metallic frame with a heavy
clang!
And then came the solid thunk of a bolt sliding into place. Kieran blinked and stared at the now-shut door, his heart pounding with adrenaline.

It shut itself.

“There are no ghosts here
—
”

Kieran whirled again. Up ahead, their host had stopped and was looking on with amusement. The others had noticed the door closing itself, too, and we're still staring at the door.

“
—
only those you bring with you.” With that, the pale, leathery man, wearing a coarsely-woven brown tunic, turned and continued down the corridor. He steps echoed ominously, in time to Kieran's frantic pulse
—
crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch
 
.
 
.
 
.

* * *

“I don't believe you mentioned your name,” Kieran said, catching up to walk beside their host.

“No, I don't believe I did. I am Prime Segurion.”

“Kieran Hawker. Prime
 
.
 
.
 
.
I'm guessing that's a rank of some kind.”

“Your guess is correct, Mister Hawker.”

A brief silence ensued, in which nothing but the echoing crunch of their footsteps could be heard. They passed a junction where the corridor branched to the left and right. Segurion continued straight.

“Where are we?” Kieran asked, gesturing to the rough, gray-green rock walls of the corridor.

“Proceeding down the adit of an old, changers' mine.”

“Changers?”

Segurion sent him an appraising glance, sizing him up in an instant. “Others like yourself. Those not content to live on what land, sun, and sweat alone provide.”