Lady Grace & the War for a New World (Earth's End Book 2) (27 page)

“Are you all right?” she unzipped the tent flap as fast as she could and stuck her head in. The smell of feces and urine assailed her, but nothing moved under the bulletproof vests. She piled into the tent and lifted one of the vests. “Bobby! Are you …?” His blue eyes looked into hers. “Oh, my God. You were so quiet. I thought …” She slumped. “Well, you are good children. I told you to be quiet and you were.”

What to do? She shouldn’t leave her guns out there. She should be out front herself, watching. But she couldn’t leave the children in there, stinking and lying in shit. Maybe they’d done that all their lives, but she couldn’t allow it. She decided to take a chance and tend to the kids.

Flossie was gone when she came out to get towels and water to clean the children. Lena looked around. She saw Ellie sitting in a tree behind the camp. She’d been there all day. A huge gray ball like a wasp’s nest hung from the branch. It must have been four feet across. An egg sack, Lena thought, having seen Ellie’s other “babies.” This one was many times larger than the others, though. Lena thought Ellie would help the others, but apparently her maternal duties had deep-sixed her involvement in the battle.

Lena felt better tending to the children. They loved to be touched and talked to. “Everything’s gonna be fine. Don’t you worry. We’re gonna be fine. I’ll take care of you the rest of your lives. We’re gonna get out of here and you babies are going to run across that pasture havin’ fun.

She knew some of their names. Bobby. Patrick. Ellen. James. Billy. All she had to do to know a child’s name was look at him or her, and the name came to her. They had the Bigs’ intuitive abilities, but theirs had kindness behind them. She knew how the new food was agreeing with them, and who wanted water and who needed formula. They were wonderful to be around—and very alert, now that their fluid levels were up.

“All right, children, I have to cover you up again. I’ll be right outside, but don’t make any noise.”

Shadows lengthened. She had a bad feeling about what was happening to the others. She hadn’t heard a thing, but the oppressive quality of the Bigs’ presence weighed upon the camp. It was much worse than what she’d experienced with the smaller Bigs. She had the feeling that Sam Big and all the others were working on her friends’ minds. She repeated Jesus’s name, hoping that she could withstand the urge to leave her post and march directly into the underground. Flossie and her pups curled up underneath her, as though she could provide them with protection from the darkness.

Lena heard a whirring sound and looked up to see Ellie flying toward the main battlefield. Light glittered off her faceted body plates, shooting flashing beams around the meadow. Her wings moved faster than the eye could follow, beautiful iridescent things like flying knife blades. Ellie looked at Lena. Her eyes were brilliant silver orbs devoid of feeling or expression.

She shuddered. Ellie reminded her of the exhibition of military planes she and Henry had seen at the air base. Streamlined fighter jets rose high into the air in tight formation, swooping down and over the field where they stood. They thrilled and terrified at once. Ellie was like that, beautiful and horrible. She streaked toward the field where the others were massed.

45

“Ah, ‘tis the beautiful Mrs. Egerton,” Sam Big’s voice emerged from the hole in the ground like an oily balm. He sounded like a gracious host welcoming his guests, “The dear friend of my ancestor, Sam Baahuhd.” He spoke normal English, tinged with the village’s burr. “Ah welcome ye with all the love in dear Sam Baahuhd’s heart. For ah am his true son and heir.”

They stood in the lawn area between Jeremy’s computer center and the blown open rear entry to the underground. Jeremy had pushed a wand-like periscope over the edge to see what was going on down below and found all seven levels to the underground were wide open.

As Jeremy withdrew the scope, Sam Big began his courtship of the group—and that was what his words amounted to. He had perceived the subtle movement of the periscope from the shelter’s depths. Grace was surprised; either Sam Big’s eyes were very sharp or he had highly responsive computerized sensors functioning.

“How lovely to have you and your friends. Jeremy, the great Tek himself, is here. And Henry, whose drinking powers Sam Baahuhd could not best.” He seemed to know some of those who were present, but not all. He missed the two Indians and Mel and James. And he didn’t speak to Sam.

Grace looked at her friends and found them spellbound, focused on the opening and the voice coming from it. The man was charming. They drifted closer to the hole as they listened. Sam beckoned them back from the edge. Grace moved away, along with the others. She sensed that it would be harder to resist that voice the closer they got.

Gathering them in front of the tent, Sam whispered, “It is the Voice. Do not believe anything he says. He welcomes you to your deaths. You
will
go down there if you listen to him.”

Grace shook her head to clear it. She
did
want to go down the stairs. Worse, she felt a throb of desire deep in her body. Sam Big was magnetic and knew her weaknesses. “What can we do, Sam?” she implored.

“What ye did before, say your holy words and remember Him who made all this world. This is the easy part. It will get worse. He will change.”

Jeremy ran into the computer center and came out of the tent wearing big, padded headphones from his computer. He pulled them off in disgust. “I thought they’d cut the sound, but they make his voice louder.”

“You have to call on what power you have. He will call you until he dies. Or you do.”

The Voice continued and they withstood it using the means Sam had suggested. Sam Big’s tone changed when no one marched down the stairs.

“Ye’re a whore to beat the best, you lil’ cunnie.
Lady Grace.
” Sam Big’s laugh rolled over the lawn, almost toxic enough to poison the grass. “Named yerself a new name, but it can’t hide the bitch beneath. Veronica Egerton. That’s a proper whore’s name. Ah’d take care o’ ye so ye’d stay put, ye and yer nice little quim …”

Grace felt herself pulled forward, wanting to run straight to the beast. The malevolence in his voice throbbed through the air. And through her. She wanted him, though she would have died before admitting it. What he said seemed the absolute truth.

“Ye’ll never change, hell-bitch. Come down to me and get what ye want. I’ll give ye what’s yers. Com’ere, hell’s wart!”

She moved forward three steps. Sam grabbed her and pulled her back.

“Ah, me Sammy,” the voice recognized Sam’s presence for the first time. “Me love. Do yer friends know that you and I been rammin’ it home since we was lads? Y’ were fourteen when ye let me have ye, body and soul. Th’ bitch thinks she’s got you, but we know, don’t we?

“Ah
own
ye, Sammy. Get down here, now!” The Voice became ferocious. For the first time, they could feel Sam Big’s power and rage. “I
want
you! The bitch will na’ steal ye from me.”

Sam backed off in horror, but couldn’t turn away.

“Ah, Sam, did I tell yer secret? Those jolly boys w’ ye ain’t nuthin’ ‘pared to you and me. Ah’m
embarrassin’
ye? Ah’m so sorry …”

Sam covered his ears and bent over. They couldn’t see his expression.

“We had such great times. ‘Member the way ye squealed?” Sam Big laughed uproariously.

Sam dropped to his knees, holding his head in his hands, groaning, “No, no …”

“Ah is embarassin’ ye w’ yer new lady, the cunnie from hell? Aw. I’m sorry, but yer
my
pretty. An’ ye love me, na’ her.” He paused artfully.

“That ain’t what really bothers ye, is it? It’s the
punishment
ye got. Ye’re a very bad man, Sam of Emily. I had to punish ye. So I took yer sister. Ah know ye remember wha’ happen t’ her. A fine piece a’ flesh, she was. Didn’ need legs for what we did. Didn’ last long, though.

“And that girl ye fancied? Th’ skinny one? Jennie? Ah—she hardly lasted a day when my boys had a’ ‘er. Ah know ye fancied ‘er, Sam, but ye don’ allus get wa’ ye want.

“Ye got
me
, luv. Ye love me, an’ ah love ye. Think yer new friends will want ye now they know about ye?

“C’mon down, Sammy boy.
Ye know ye want to.
”

Grace could hardly bear to hear it. She covered her ears, but it didn’t do any good. The words covered her like filth. She turned to Sam.

He leapt up in anguish, tearing open his bulletproof suit and exposing his chest to the others. He screamed, “KILL ME! KILL ME!” He turned to each of them, offering his chest. “SHOOT ME! I WANT TO DIE!
Kill
me or ah will go down there …”

When no one would kill him, he pointed his gun at himself. Wesley grabbed the weapon.

“Excuse me, Sam. I need to reach over here for a second.” Bud spread his hand wide, touching Sam’s chest. Sam collapsed. Bud softened his fall and laid him on the ground, squatting next to him with his hand remaining over Sam’s heart. Sam Big’s voice continued to belch out of the hole. Bud turned to Wes. “Would you shut him up?”

Wesley stood facing the opening and raised his hands above his head, eyes closed, apparently in prayer. A spray of blue sparkles appeared from his fingers, becoming a fountain that eclipsed the sun. A column of light arose from his head, spreading out, filling the area over the underground. It covered the meadow and went all the way to the sea. Inside that dome, peace reigned.

Bud laughed at his companions’ reactions to Wesley’s display. “You ain’t see ol’ Wes in his glory. He’s been known to sprout a giant over his head that would do in Sam Big and all of his dogs without no trouble at all. Unfortunately, he’s only done that in the Mogollon Bowl with Grandfather there.

“But let’s get to work; I don’t know how long Wes can keep that goin’.” Bud focused on his hand and his connection to Sam, who was passed out. “I needed to do this to get a little control here.” He closed his eyes and might have been thinking, or calling upon something unseen.

“OK, we know what happened to Sam down below,” Bud said. He kept his hand on Sam’s chest, squatting as he talked. Sam remained insensible. “And we know just how mean that sumbitch is, and how he plans to destroy us.” He looked up at Grace, who was white-faced and shaken. “Grace, ma’am, I don’t believe what he said about you.”

“It’s true, Bud, Absolutely true. I used my body to gain influence and power, not because I loved anyone. I was a whore …”

“Mom, that’s not true. You did some bad stuff, but you made up for it,” Jeremy stepped forward, appalled by what Sam Big had said about his mother and the effect it had on her. She looked shrunken.

“No, he’s right, Jeremy. I could feel myself wanting him as he was talking. I almost went down there. I’m no good.” She was distraught.

“OK, Grace, we know how he works now. He tears you down. Everybody here’s got stuff they want to hide. Bad stuff, maybe. I was a fallin’ down drunk. Spent so many nights in the gutter, only Grandfather and the Great One could pick me up.

“I had such a low opinion of myself that Grandfather had to send me out to save some dyin’ people lost in the desert. That’s how I met Will Duane and them. Only when I healed them an’ brought them home did I believe I could do anything.

“But that low down part of me’s still there. If Sam Big tuned into that, he’d probably have me down those stairs and drinkin’ all the hooch he’s got. That’s how he works. The way you look now is how he works.

“That SOB needs killing. All of them down there, ‘cept maybe a few of Sam’s friends, need killing.

“And Sam needs to do it. I got my hand on his heart. This is a good man. If he’s ever going to be 100% right with himself, he needs to kill Sam Big and do it quick.”

“Hurry up,” Wesley called. He stood in the field, blue lights coming from his hands, blocking out Sam Big’s voice. “I don’t know how long I can do this.”

“OK. Jeremy, you got that stuff you told me about?” Bud asked him.

“Yeah,” he handed out some architectural drawings. “They’re the original plans for the underground. The metal and concrete parts should be the same.

“People live on the lowest level, the seventh level. There are two more levels that can be inhabited. See level five and six …” Jeremy showed them catwalks that circled the three floors on the plans. “These are for maintenance. We can get to above where Sam Big is sitting, if the structure is still good.

“They Bigs are used to darkness. I’m going to zap them with light when we go in. That will be from the shelter’s lighting system. I can control it from my computer. I’m going to alternate bright light and darkness. Blind them.

“We have night vision glasses and …” Jeremy passed out black goggle things to everyone. “Gas masks. So we can use these,” he continued as he distributed canisters of tear gas. “I wish you’d had nerve gas, Mom.”

“We did, Jeremy. The people of Ellie’s planet took it out when they moved the containers.”

“Grace, come over here,” Bud said before they got going. He put his hand on her chest above her heart and closed his eyes. His face was relaxed but intent. She gasped and then smiled at him.

“Bud. What did you do?”

“I just messed with your energy, Grace. An’ you know what? I found out you’re a good woman. I hope you know it, too.”

“I do, Bud. I feel fine.”

Sam sat up, and stood slowly.

“How do you feel, Sam?” Bud asked.

“Good.” He closed up his commando suit. “What did you do?”

“Oh, I just reestablished the truth in you. You’re a good man, Sam.”

“OK, folks, we got a job to do. It’s show time.”