Prodigal (Maelstrom Chronicles) (6 page)

According to Claire, that was something no sentient could risk. A few stupid seconds of trying to throttle a black blob, and he’d be as dead as most of the humans here.

“Mama!” a small voice cried. Adam whirled. A child, tearful and clutching a cat, stood near the entrance of a building. “Where are you, Mama?”

The shades sent a wisp toward the building, questing for the child’s life force. Her view of the oncoming threat was blocked by a truck in the street.

Adam’s heart pulsed with fear.

“Run, kid!”

The kid didn’t hear him. Her pink parka was ripped and stained. She stood on her tiptoes, searching for her mother. “Mama, I found Rainbow Sparkles!”

Thank God he was closer to her than the shades were. He took off as fast as he could, leaping a bicycle, some fallen supplies, a mound of dirty snow. His hurdle took him farther than expected. Ten, fifteen feet. Startled, he fell on a knee when he landed.

What the hell?

No time to worry about that. Maybe it was that training Claire mentioned. He popped upright and resumed course to the child, who squeezed her pet like it was going to save her. The cat yowled and struggled. The shades closed the distance quickly. The child finally noticed them, screamed, and started running down the mucky sidewalk.

Away from Adam.

The thin rope of shades curled behind her fleeing figure, streaming between Adam and his goal. He cursed, sped up, and bounded over the shades like he had the bicycle.

This time he was ready for the distance and the landing. He hit the ground running. The cat broke free from the child and darted away.

“Sparkles, come back!” The child veered after the cat and promptly slipped on some ice.

Adam reached the kid before the shades, grabbing her under his arm like a football. She screamed hysterically. “Get Sparkles, get Sparkles.”

Legs pumping, lungs heaving, he didn’t know how he managed to catch the mangy beast, but he nicked it by the scruff in seconds. He held onto kid and cat as best he could and pounded toward the bridge that led to the shuttle. It was in an open field a quarter mile out of town. With Shipborn aboard, they hadn’t been able to risk landing on the shade-heavy side of the river.

Cullin manned the cockpit, blasting away with the shuttle’s laser cannon at any shades that crept toward their tiny safe zone. Horatio worked the shuttle’s door. He assumed Dr. Sarah was in the clinic, bandaging wounds. Two survivors from town had climbed atop the shuttle as lookouts.

Adam chugged through frozen grass, reaching the shuttle in short order.

“Incoming!” he yelled. The door slid open. Adam tossed the kid and the cat to the pilot and pivoted to return to the settlement.

“Adam, hold up,” Horatio yelled. “There’s a big white tent down by the river filled with people too sick to walk. Claire’s clearing you a path.”

“I’m on it.” Where had he seen Claire? He took off, hoping he remembered soon. The bridge was still clear, thanks to Cullin.

He hurried past a convenience store and a car dealer with no cars. Shot a few shades. Kept going. Was this the right direction? The last he’d seen her—ah, there.

She was atop a tanker truck that was part of the barrier the townsfolk had erected, blasting away at shades with both hands. Her lasers emanated from the silver bands on her wrists instead of guns. The locals had lined one side of the barrier with packed snow, solidifying it.

Claire concentrated her lasers on the left flank of the horde, and it was beginning to part like the Red Sea. She’d ditched her parka at some point, freeing her blaster bands, and her silver torso armor gleamed while her active sensor array lit her head like a halo—like the angeli Adam couldn’t quite remember.

She was magnificent. The sight of her etched itself into Adam’s brain, and he didn’t think amnesia could make him forget it.

He couldn’t gawk. He had work to do. The direction she was clearing must be the way to the tent, where the townsfolk had been trying to stem the highly contagious measles virus by quarantining sick people.

Adam huffed out a breath and charged forward. The foul taste in the air was nauseating, but he seemed to have a strong stomach. He reached Claire in less than a minute and was atop the tanker beside her in two jumps.

He added his laser to hers. The horde burbled with a stomach-churning ripple. When the monsters puddled up, he couldn’t tell them apart. The laser beams sizzled them, almost uselessly, like trying to push back a wave at the beach with a fire hose.

Two and three story buildings hemmed in this part of the settlement, turning it into a death canyon—but clustering the shades for easier picking. Globs peeled off to ooze in the direction of the bridge and the shuttle. Hopefully Cullin could handle those. They hadn’t had many handhelds to distribute, and the survivors they’d armed had disappeared.

Adam had no idea where they’d gone. For all he knew they could be dead.

Without ceasing fire or looking at him, Claire issued her commands. “If you can get to that side street, you can get to the hospital tent. My sensor says it’s partly clear.”

The street in question, speckled with shades, looked like a dubious outlet at best. Still—he’d do it. “Have the shuttle fly to the tent. Meet me there.”

“Can’t move the ship. It’s already too full for optimal maneuverability.” She shook out her arms, lasers ceasing. On either side of the bands, they’d left reddened, angry marks on her dark skin. Damn. His handheld had grown hot, but not that hot. “We need to save the power for when we lift off with so many people on board.”

“Are those blisters?” he asked, stepping closer so she could hear him.

She frowned at her arms. “Fuck. I didn’t realize it had gotten that bad.” She shot more shades anyway, grimacing.

He reached for her. “Should you—”

“Get over it? Yeah. I’ll heal.” She didn’t seem to notice that he’d placed his hand on her shoulder. Her armor was body temp, a flexible mesh. “You ready to run? You don’t have to, but if you’re willing…”

He had the strangest urge to kiss her. Again. Say something about a sweet memory to chase away the bitter. But he stopped himself. “I’m willing.”

“Right.” They made eye contact. His heart flopped. The noises and smells, the cold, everything around them dimmed as he stared into her dark brown eyes and she stared back. “Adam, you’re doing good work here. I never thought… No. That’s all I have to say. I’m glad you decided to help. Keep it up.”

“It’s the least I can do.” He got the feeling it wasn’t all she had to say, but their time was limited. “How many survivors are in the tent?”

She seemed to come back to herself. “Don’t know, don’t care. We can’t leave people to die.” She shrugged off his hand, but he couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or because she’d swiveled to shoot more shades. “Ship’s sending another shuttle, but it may not reach us in time.”

“Where are the two soldiers from our shuttle?”

“Still handling the daemons.” Her intense gaze tripped his be-a-hero switch, and when she smiled at him, wild and fierce, he inhaled it like smoke. “Trust me—the shades are easier.”

Adam mapped out a route off the tanker. “I’ll take your word for it.”

She laughed. “Wise of you. Make it a habit. Get ready.”

Adam slid off the truck, bending his knees when he landed. Claire blasted past him, over and over, until he could see a bare pathway to the side street.

He tensed for the race.

“I’ll be clearing them around you. Do not zigzag,” she commanded. “Go!”

He surged into the breach. The hissing deepened until he couldn’t hear Claire, couldn’t hear the lasers discharging on either side of him. It seemed like the longest run of his life—considering he could only remember twenty-four hours of it. He reached the other side of the shade pool just as the shades closed the gap.

“Adam, no!” Claire shouted. “Don’t touch them!”

It was too late to jump.

Chapter Five

Unable to halt, Adam plowed into the shades. Knives of frost lanced through him as the blackness surrounded his body.

The moment stretched out, became interminable. His ears roared. Hunger surged inside him, an odd counterpart to his last moment alive.

Sudden heat scorched his back. With a shout, he vaulted free, panting, and waved his arm in the air to show Claire he was all right.

Never mind that his whole backside felt like Claire’s blistered arms. Panic response? Fight or flight? The horde fizzed behind him ravenously.

Flight it was.

Dodging lumps of shades, Adam clambered over a makeshift wall of cars, furniture, and debris that blocked the street. On the other side, not as much foot traffic marred the snow, and the land sloped downward. The skin on his back tightened whenever he flexed, but the cold winter air dampened the pain enough that it didn’t distract him. Much.

Soon, in a park next to the river, he spotted the quarantine tent. A big red cross decorated its front awning, and a generator chugged outside it.

A concentrated blotch of shades formed a semicircle around the beleaguered tent, and the monsters were closing the breach. While the humans were stymied on one side by the river, the creatures didn’t seem to be affected, oozing into and out of the turbulent, icy water as if it weren’t there.

Laser fire streaked out of several tent windows, which explained where the survivors who’d been given weapons had gone. One lady ran from behind the tent, yelling, laser blazing, when the semicircle protruded toward her.

She sliced the tendril to pieces.

“Mister, we need transport!” he heard her cry over the hiss of the shades. “The field hospital’s full of sick babies.”

Sick babies? Hell. Babies should take precedence over the survivors currently weighing the shuttle down. Could he go tell Claire to have the shuttle ditch some passengers and fly here? Except, as he fried one blob after another, he realized his route to Claire had been sealed off.

The side street he’d traversed was now a solid corridor of black. The entities seeped toward the vulnerable tent, and Adam didn’t see any bridges besides the main one.

He jogged toward the gap in the semicircle on the opposite side of the tent. The surface pain in his back faded as he ran. Chill air numbed it.

“Get those babies out of there!” he bellowed. “The main bridge to town is still clear, and there’s a shuttle waiting for you.”

A woman carrying a child darted out of the tent. Then another. Then a third. They headed for the river, which was the only interruption in the wall of shades—the only escape. Shades could travel in water, but very slowly. If they’d had any boats, they’d already used them.

The shades burbled with what seemed like excitement. Several peeled off and oozed toward the humans. The armed survivors redirected their firepower to the rapidly closing gap.

Adam rounded the tent to get a better angle. Careful to go slow enough for steady aim, he shot at the approaching monsters. Ice water soaked his boots. The pistol heated like an iron pot on a stove. The burn in his hand soon matched the tight pain he was almost ignoring down his backside. He switched the gun to his left hand.

More adults emerged carrying older children. Adam couldn’t begin to comprehend the panic they must be facing.

He barely even felt fear. He’d been scared for that little girl and her stupid cat, sure, but for himself? It was as if, since he couldn’t remember being alive, he wasn’t troubled about being dead. The shades were horrific, terrible, skin-crawling—but they didn’t mash his fear buttons for some reason. He was more afraid he wouldn’t be able to save these people the way Claire was depending on him to.

A man with a crying kid on his back shouted at Adam as he jogged past. “Fifteen or so people left inside. Mostly adults.”

Adam picked off a shade in the man’s path as he followed the riverbank in the direction of the bridge to the shuttle. Hopefully, the route was clear. Nobody had returned. They were either somewhere safer or somewhere dead.

“Everybody keep moving. Let’s go, let’s go!”

“Thank the Lord Jesus the daemons are gone,” the next man with a kid said as he jogged to safety. “We burned through our lasers killing them.”

The semicircle of shades around the tent swelled until it brushed the back wall. The shades didn’t seem to be able to penetrate the material, but they started to mound up.

The tent sagged. By twos and threes, the stragglers emerged, supporting each other.

“We’re about to lose the tent!” Adam waved his arms frantically at them to hurry. Something painful crackled along his spine as he stretched his arms.

The survivors with guns surrounded the elderly invalids. Adam joined them. They shot outward, sweeping the shades away as the group shuffled along. Only the constant barrage of laser fire was keeping them all from being eaten. If one of them fell, if one of them let up, that could be it for everybody.

As if he’d cursed it with the thought, Adam’s overworked weapon chose that moment to sputter and spark. His beam grew intermittent. Shades surged forward, and Adam scooped up the slowest-looking old person.

“Everyone’s got to run,” he ordered, well aware some of this group wouldn’t be able to. His stomach twisted. They might not make it.

But an explosion of white flares came from the sky, ringing the survivors in safety.

One of the soldiers had returned. From the air, unhindered by daemons, he was able to carve a path for the survivors.

Adam handed his gun to the old lady he was carrying and told her to use whatever was left in his battery. Her frail hand trembling, she aimed at the shades and blasted away, praying at the same time.

With the air support, Adam and the survivors stumbled along the riverbank to safety. Soon they were clear of the shades, though they could see the horde between buildings. The bridge came into view. At the head of the span, guarding it like a goddess, was Claire.

Adam’s energy level redoubled. He’d known her a day, but that amounted to all his life. She inspired him.

He mounted the steep bank from the riverbed, carefully holding his burden. He set the old lady down and scrambled back to the river to help others up the side.

“We lost Jantu,” Claire told him when he finished. They hastened the invalids across the bridge. “Daemons got him. Nearly dragged him to the shades. He had to activate emergency protocol.”

Her battle-hardened face didn’t reveal her emotions. “I’m sorry. Was he a friend?”

“No, but he was a good soldier.” Claire searched the sky, the road, the river. “The second shuttle should be here any minute.”

With the last of the townsfolk, they crossed the small field to where the shuttle had put down. The babies had been taken aboard, and adults now huddled around the perimeter. The shuttle’s motors whined as it warmed up for takeoff.

“Any minute now,” Claire repeated behind him. The sizzle of her lasers interrupted her before she spoke again. “I see you brought some new friends with you.”

Adam, at the rear of the refugees, turned to stare at the riverbank. The central shade blotch hadn’t reached it, but chunks of black hell had begun to slither out of the river like giant leeches. The aerial soldier blasted at the entities that emerged, as did Cullin with the shuttle’s cannons. Claire jogged after him into the churned-up field.

Had the monsters been lurking in the river? He pulled a face. “I didn’t bring them on purpose. Are there more guns? Mine’s dead.”

“Just blaster bands, and you probably can’t use them.”

“Probably?”

Claire spared him a glance. “Don’t worry about it. How’s your back?”

“How should it be?” They reached the shuttle where Horatio was organizing passengers. They weren’t all going to fit.

“Do you not realize I shot you?” She led him away from the crowd, grabbed him by the shoulders, and flipped him around. “You’re missing some parka. And some epidermis. Jesus.” She pressed his shoulder blades lightly. “You don’t feel this?”

“Uh.” Adam tried to crane his head to see his back but couldn’t. “I guess it hurts. Why did you shoot me?”

He rotated to face her, and she blinked a few times. “The shades got you, Adam. I took a chance. It worked.”

“What?” He recalled smacking into a clump of entities, but it hadn’t been anything like monsters “getting” him. Just cold, loud, and hungry. “I ran through them.”

“One doesn’t simply run through a shade horde,” she told him with a grim smile. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here, and so are all these people.” She lifted her chin and gave him an odd, almost proud look. “You’re a hero.”

He didn’t feel like one. “I did what you needed me to do.”

“I guess I needed a hero, then.” She kept him facing her, not the shuttle. The pressure of her hands on his shoulders took away his pain. “And that hero’s coming with me to Camp Chanute. Yellowstone’s off the agenda.”

He’d forgotten all about that. “I wasn’t going to agree to stay there anyway.”

She kind of smiled. “When these folks calm down, some of them are going to recognize you. Sarah didn’t want it to happen this fast. But yes. You were a movie actor. You were pretty famous.”

“I kind of figured that out,” he admitted as pieces fell into place. “Was I any good?”

“You sucked,” she said, but she laughed. “Actually there’s more. You were involved in the first—”

“The shades reached the bridge,” a woman yelled.

“Shit,” Claire said. The whirr of the shuttle’s cannons sliced through the air. “That transport needs to hurry up or we’re going to have to make a run for it.”

“Do you want me to get people moving?”

“We’ll give the shuttle another a minute. The shades are slow, and I can’t just…” She stepped closer to him. Her urgent grip on his shoulders softened, and her palms slid down the front of his jacket. She zipped it up the rest of the way like he was a child.

But when she looked at him again, he could tell she wasn’t thinking of him as a child.

She touched his cheek with cold fingertips. “Ignore everything anyone says to you until you talk to me. Promise me, Adam.”

He caught her hands, warming her icy fingers. Unlike his cold feet, his hands were toasty. His turn to warm her up.

“I trust you,” he said, because it was true, and because she seemed to need reassurance.

She kept staring up at him. “I just can’t believe it. What you did today.”

“Wouldn’t you have done the same?” The awful person, the Hollywood asshole he’d been, must explain her astonishment—and her reluctance to let him near her child and her people at Camp Chanute. Could he overcome his reputation if he didn’t remember being that person? “It was the right thing to do, and I don’t have anything to lose.”

Not like she did. People needed her.

He needed her.

But nobody needed him.

“I would have, but…” She licked her lips, gaze finally dropping. “Later. I’m going to fry some shades.”

“Be careful. Nobody’s there to shoot you out of a shade ambush.” He didn’t mention her kid, but she was incredibly brave to take this on when she had the most primal responsibility anyone could have—a child.

“I’m not the one reckless enough to jump into a shade ambush.” She saluted and jogged away from him, blasters already flaring at the blackness on the bridge.

As if he’d been waiting for her to leave, a gruff voice behind him said, “Adam Alsing.”

He turned. A bearded man whom he didn’t recognize stood behind him, arms crossed. Several other brawny fellows backed him. “Yeah?”

“You piece of shit. You have a lot of nerve fucking up the first mission and then disappearing while the rest of us suffered and died.”

“I’m…sorry.” Various survivors, the ones who weren’t anxiously watching the firefight on the bridge, gathered around Adam and the bearded man.

Should he admit he had amnesia? Should he pretend to be someone else?

The guy didn’t give him a chance.

“I lost my brother to the shades in the first wave, you bastard!” He launched himself at Adam, thudding into him. Adam stumbled back. The stranger wrapped his hands around Adam’s throat and squeezed.

Bloodshot eyes stared into his. “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you,” the guy ranted.

Adam couldn’t swallow, but the guy didn’t seem strong enough to prevent his breathing. It was more annoying than frightening. Maybe living in primitive circumstances had weakened him, because he was pretty big.

He yanked at the guy’s fingers. “Let go, man. Let me talk.”

He didn’t know what he’d say, but this wasn’t what he’d expected from the survivors. It did, however, explain why Claire had been so concerned.

“Don’t do this, Jay,” one of the onlookers warned. “He’s with the Shipborn.”

“He’s hurt. His back’s all burned,” another put in.

Jay throttled Adam harder, as if learning those things angered him more. Adam began to cough, and the urge to meet violence with violence increased.

“I don’t care.” The man shoved Adam, strangling him, trying to knock him down. “Thinks he can just waltz back after what he did? He deserves to suffer.”

Adam dug his feet into the dirt and considered his options, making a choice before he lost his temper, too. The guy’s fingers loosened when Adam wrenched harder. He realized he could bend Jay’s fingers if he exerted himself. Break them, probably. And it would worsen the horrible reputation that seemed to have preceded him. But letting this guy choke him to make peace? No.

He’d readied himself to sprain a few fingers, toss the angry guy at his friends, and make a run for it, when a reedy voice interrupted. “What in heaven’s name—? Stop this right now.”

The onlookers finally pulled the man off of Adam. Adam cleared his aching throat and pointed at the shuttle. “You people need to talk to Claire Lawson and Dr. Sarah. There are things you don’t understand about me.”

There were things
he
didn’t understand—like anything before yesterday.

The owner of the chiding voice was the tiny old lady he’d carried from the field hospital. Using a rifle as a cane, she toddled toward him and inserted herself between Adam and his accusers. “Jay Quentin, you should worry more about that horde of black devils on our bridge than tragedies of the past.”