Nemesis: Book Five (12 page)

* * *

M
ichael hadn't found
what he wanted before she arrived, but better late than never, right?

He sat in the oversized, plush chair, his skin clean and his clothes new. He hadn't been able to control the blood flowing in, nor its outflow, yet when it stopped, he found that he controlled the rest of this place. With a shot, a rainfall shower started in the corner of the vast room, and when he stepped out from the water, his bloody clothes discarded on the floor, a fresh, new pair waited—folded just the way his mother used to.

He cried for quite some time when he found out his father lived. He listened and watched as they shuffled him to Morena and as she wrapped him in her aura; she then took all of them to the house everyone now resided in. He wanted to make sure Wren was okay, that his survival wasn't a momentary lapse in death's chase after him.

After all of that, the crying, the showering, he went back to the only thing he could do. He started reading again, listening as Briten and Morena spoke—moving in and out of the words on the page with the words from their mouths.

And he understood now.

The paragraph he just finished showed him the truth of it all.

Who these two were. Where they came from and why they arrived here. He thought he understood before, understood enough to know that she meant to kill humanity, but he hadn't known the
why
behind it, and that why dictated her resolve in a way that made him realize he previously knew nothing.

She wouldn't stop.

She couldn't.

Morena, Mother, had nowhere else to go. No ship to release her from this planet and no planet to return to. This was her last chance at her species' survival. And Briten?

Perhaps Michael should be more fearful of him than her. He read what Briten did in that room when the two of them were nearly executed. The creature was lethal, perhaps in a way that Morena never could be. And more, he was dedicated to her—all of this, everything that he put Michael and his family through had been to find Morena.

She felt the wrongness, though, didn't she?

Michael thought so, based on the questions she asked. She felt what Michael saw earlier, though she didn't know what it meant yet. She felt the black that Briten still didn't notice, and that was because he couldn't focus on anything but getting to Morena, and now his mind was switching to how they would survive the coming onslaught. He spent no time paying attention to the body he inhabited, and that's why he didn't know death was eating him.

She didn't know yet, either. Because if she did, Michael wasn't so sure she would continue on with her conquest plans. He thought she might sacrifice everything, the whole world, to try and save Briten. Morena would find out though, either through Briten or by herself, and when that happened …

This creature had hurt before, Michael saw that. Hurt a lot. But to be reunited with the only thing she loved in this universe, and then to have it ripped from her?

What could Michael do from in here, though? What could he do to stop any of this from happening?

Michael closed the book and lay it down next to him.

No one saw this, not as clearly as he did. Not the two of them, and certainly not anyone outside of this little circle they now formed. These two … they weren't simply dangerous or destructive. The power residing in them could destroy universes, and neither understood that one would be taken from them. One would die.

When this perfect storm finally gathered together, Michael didn't think anything would survive. Not her species and not his own.

* * *

R
igley knew
the kid's face, knew his name too. He had been on the reports she received, him and the rest of his friends. He didn't have red eyes on those reports, though, and none of them told her that Morena was in love with a teenager, so despite his resemblance to the pictures, Rigley didn't think this was Michael Hems.

The other two, Wren Hems and Bryan Yetzer, had been shuffled to the back of the house. Rigley didn't want to remain inside any longer, so she walked to the porch to sit alone.

Briten—or as Rigley was coming to think of him given the newest revelations, Junior—sat on the other side. She didn't know he would be here, had wanted some space, but she actually needed to talk with him.

"We need to go back in," Rigley said. "Their reunion has to wait."

Junior didn't look over to her, didn't rock on the chair like she did. He sat perfectly still, his hands in his lap, and that blue haze flowing freely. "No. Var needs her time right now and we will give it to her. There is still time for what we must do."

"Time? I'm shocked that they haven't attacked yet, but they're going to."

"And what will they do? Our domain stretches over a third of this land mass. How long will it take them to reach the Var?"

He wasn't getting it. Maybe he couldn't get it, couldn't possibly see that his Var—Morena—wasn't invincible. That right now she only had two functional creatures like her, and soon she would face the entirety of the world's armed forces.

"You have to listen to me or we're all going to die. You have to understand that basic premise. If you don't listen, we will die."

Her mind was focused now, but it seemed to be going in and out of focus regularly. Sometimes she found herself staring off into space without a clue as to what she thought about. Other times she realized she was at the end of a sentence, but couldn't remember what she said, her hand rapidly combing through her hair. And yet, other times, she felt like this, on point and ready to move. She couldn't tell if Junior noticed because he showed her no emotion, no thoughts.

She didn't understand the mix-up, but she didn't have time to think about it, either. The threat was real, even if no one else saw it right now.

Maybe you should take some time to understand?

No. Not right now. She needed to protect Morena's children and to do that, she had to use her mind while it allowed her to focus.

"I am not saying we do not need to act, only that Var needs some time right now. An hour will not mean her death."

"How far along are the others?" she said, switching targets. If he wasn't going to haul his ass in there and get her moving, then they needed to understand what they would be capable of when he finally was ready.

"They're moving rapidly, much faster than I did, but they need more time."

"Everyone in your goddamn organization needs more time. What I'm trying to say is humanity doesn't need more time. They're amassing and they're going to hit us."

Junior stood up but didn't turn to her. His aura moved rapidly, like snakes in a hundred different places. Rigley saw them coming for her, but she couldn't move. She didn't have enough time. They grabbed hold of her wrists, binding them together behind her back, and tied her legs together so that not an inch of space remained between them. The blue snakes trapped her neck and shut her mouth, then lifted her in the air, twisting her so that she lay straight, face down, staring at the porch.

She was completely immobile, unable to neither speak nor move.

"There is time. Perhaps you need to see
that
more than I need to hear your argument. We have a force amassing out there, too." Another part of his aura flared into the air before the porch, gesturing to the force—the Bynums. "And all of them will be able to do what I just did. All of them will be almost as powerful as our Var. Nothing you bring, nothing any of your kind can bring, will have a chance at destroying us."

R
igley finally saw
what she created. She didn't know it, but she had only needed a better vantage point. She only needed to walk around the entirety of this room, to find the stairs, and then she could see what she painted on the wall.

She had finally found the stairs though, which was most important, because the room felt like it might begin boiling the sweat on her brow. She had to get out of this place even if she didn't know where she was heading.

Rigley turned around just before she took her first step down. She still remembered how she first felt when she reached this room, like freedom had finally been bestowed from some all-loving God. Now, though, as she looked back at it, she didn't understand how any of that was possible. The place was a nightmare.

And, God, what had she been doing?

Marks' body lay collapsed on the floor with the fucking parrot feasting on his neck now, just digging in like his jugular was some kind of buffet.

The painting. She thought she had been creating something beautiful, something that she would want to live around. It wasn't though. At all.

She now looked across the room at her art work.

A huge, red, smiling face looked back at her. A large X stood where each eye should be, and the now dried blood had dripped from the
Xs
, as if they were crying. Long traces of blood ran from the smile, looking like the mouth had just feasted on some morbid treat.

She painted that.

With blood.

Rigley turned around, unable to look at what she had done anymore. Sweat dripped in her eye, and she reached up to wipe the stinging liquid away.

Just get out
, she thought.
Just get out of here.

The stairs were dark, just as dark as they had been when she climbed them, but darkness was better than light right now. Not seeing anything was preferable to looking at the gruesome face behind her. She started down, probably faster than she should, but she had to get away from the parrot, from everything in that room. She put her hand on the wall to steady herself and kept her feet moving.

Find the bottom floor. The real bottom. Where you started. Get there and don't ever come back up here.

She rushed down and down, nearly falling multiple times, but she managed to stay upright. She reached the first landing, her knee almost buckling as it realized there wasn't another stair to step down. At the end of the hallway a red sign beamed to her.
Where are you going?
it read.

The sign wasn't there when she ascended the stairs, couldn't have been.

It doesn't matter. Just keep going down.

She started moving again, a slight limp in her step as her knee swelled.

Her hands were her eyes, feeling the walls, trying to find an opening that meant stairs. Finally her hand touched air instead of the warm walls. She grasped forward, finding the wall lining the stairs, and she started down, if only a bit slower.

She found the door she wanted at the bottom of this staircase. She had traveled up two stories and now she had traveled down two. She sighed as her fingertips touched the door that would grant her freedom.

She pushed on it, knowing the moment light shone in from the first crack that she shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be upstairs; she shouldn't be downstairs; she had nowhere to go. Her momentum kept the door opening, though, and as it swung outward, she saw where the heat originated from.

It reached out to her like a giant's hand, wrapping around her with fingers that only knew how to kill.

Fire blazed in front of her, eating everything. Furniture, walls, wallpaper, even the hardwood floor. Her home, the place she resided in for so long, gone. She tried to suck in air, but her lungs screamed in pain as she did—the hot air scalding the soft tissues inside.

Back upstairs, get back upstairs.

Death reigned below. She couldn't be here, not if she wanted to live. She couldn't escape by going down, and that meant she didn't know if she could escape. No choice though. Remaining here meant death.

Rigley ran, not bothering to close the door behind her. She ran back into the darkness.

T
he Founding Fathers
would not recognize the United States of America; even the people who celebrated the last New Year wouldn’t recognize it. Indeed, to look at it now from almost any viewpoint, one would wonder if they might have been transported to a different planet entirely—forget country.

From the air—a satellite view—the western coast still looked similar. At night, one could see that it wasn't exactly the same though, because of the raging fires. California clearly was accustomed to riots, but never like this. Businesses and homes burned all the way down the coast, and at night, the fires burned brighter than any lights left in the city—though the electricity was slowly failing across the state.

The further you moved east, whether by foot or air, the more things changed. The white strands looked like a vast snowfall, as if an ice age had descended upon America, while leaving the rest of the world to its normal climate.

The east coast had been heavily populated, from Florida to New England, huge numbers of people lived there. No longer. The strands reached out across the United States with such speed that most had no chance to escape. The hungry alien life simply gobbled them up. Houses draped with white wires, trees consumed for every bit of heat they could give. While the now dead President and everyone associated with him hid below ground, where the strands couldn't yet reach, the world above tried to survive. It tried, and for the most part, failed.

Some did make it out. As soon as they heard about the lava pouring down upon mass sections of the country, they fled. They ran north, south, and west—any direction but east. They poured across Mexican and Canadian borders, overwhelming the security in place. People died, some shot by foreign police, some trampled on by their countrymen as they all tried to escape the deathtrap of America.

The states still remaining untouched were overcome by desperate people. As the violence moved from Texas to California, people fled in massive numbers (not to mention those able to leave the East Coast). Shanty towns sprang up in every major city, and sewage overflowed into the streets. The rich escaped, of course, flying out in private planes and helicopters, not even bothering to pack. The threat of death, of complete overthrow, was much too real. They could buy new things elsewhere.

Colorful pods popped up across the country, and at night from that same aerial view, they looked truly beautiful. Each one glowed, and given that they grew over completely conquered cities, they had no other sources of light to compete with. Humanity's lights died and Bynum's were born.

Those underground, the elite of the elite, knew this of course. They saw the same things you now do, and they prepared the best they could. Ready to bring the crippling ice against the strands possessing their country.

The rest of the world prepared too, and the attack was near, but it seemed as if everyone had missed an important point.

The invasion wasn't coming; it was already here.

* * *

I
n America
, daylight ruled. On the other side of the planet, darkness. No eyes focused on the Indian Ocean, as everyone looked at America for what came next. In fact, not one satellite from any country circled around any part of the world besides those that looked upon America.

So when the object broke through Earth's atmosphere, no one saw it, or the fire streaking behind it. The object exhibited a similarity to the ship that fell weeks before, the ship that caused so much turmoil across the globe. It was different though, because it wasn't a ship.

An alien fell from the sky, naked, alone, and unsure where she would arrive.

Helos fell at a rate far too fast to allow her to see anything. Blurs around her, mixed with the fire that burned across her aura. She knew she had arrived because the blackness of her earlier travel was over; she saw things now, colors, even if nothing else. She didn't know how far she traveled, or, truly, how any of it was possible.

Down she plummeted.

When she hit the ocean, the water simultaneously boiled and exploded around her, creating an immediate fifty foot wave. It spread out in a circle, pushing away from ground zero. Helos barely slowed, sinking deeper and deeper into the increasingly cold water with each passing second. She didn't know how far down she was going, only that she couldn't stop. The force that propelled her across the universe now propelled her into a seemingly endless ocean.

Things got darker and darker; the fire around her eventually extinguished.

Helos reached the bottom of the Indian Ocean.