Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (21 page)

“Damn Scrags. Ah probley should kill ya. I know how yas are. Sendin’ the little’uns in places ‘dults can’t go. Lookin fer stuff ta steal. Yer gonna go back and tell ‘em all about my fortoon.” He waved at the stack of crates.

Althea gnawed for a moment, swallowed, and drew a quick breath. “I don’t want to steal from you. I’m hiding from a dog man.” She explained the chase, and the pipe. “Please let me go, I promise I won’t steal anything.”

“Yer people not ‘elp ya?”

He dropped into a dirty folding chair, strips of orange material suspended in a metal frame. His weight spread the legs apart and he raised a cup made from an old coffee can to his lips.

“Guess’n they lef’ yas behind, ah couldn’ find any o’ ‘em.”

“I am not a Scrag. I’m alone.” She pulled a large chunk of meat away from the dead animal with her teeth.

“Lotta ‘dem critters here. Good eats… Hmm… alone.” He rubbed his chin.

She finished off the rest of what he brought, neither of them speaking until two squirrel skeletons lay scattered on the plate.

“Please take this off. I promise I won’t steal from you.” She shook her hand to make the chain rattle.

“Cain’t.” He pulled a sip of some foul-smelling alcohol and twitched it down.

With an innocent face, she whined. “Please, I’m not a threat.”

“Ah cut them things few months back offa some dead slave. Never found no key.” His breath skittered away in a dry chuckle. “Was some good meat, that. Might still be some grillin’ sauce on ‘em.”

Althea stared at the not-bloodstain touching her wrist.

When the wave of disgust passed, she glanced back and forth from him to the rusty handcuffs in disbelief. “You put these on me and have no key? How will you let me out? Are you a stupid?”

“Well, if’n you wasn’t jes a kid, you’d be on me grill now.” He convulsed after another swig. “Ain’t much care fer veal.”

“Nibbler?” She slid as far away from him as her arm would allow. Cannibals did not care about Prophets.

The chain had been on someone he cooked, while he cooked them. She wanted to touch them even less now.

“Naw. Them Nibblers is shit nuts. Ah ain’t crazy, I’m just practical. Meat is meat. Ah beleeb yas ‘bout the dog and not stealin’, tho. Since you not stealin’, I ain’t gonna eat ya. Now, seein’ as how you’s so pretty and all, Ah figure ain’t no big deal not havin’ no key. No reason fer ya ta go any’war. You kin be mah wife.”

The squirrel almost came back out. “I’m…” She gulped it back down. “A child. Y… You can’t w… wife me. I’m tw―only ten.”

He looked her up and down. “Yer big ‘nuff. Tho mebbe I wait fer yer titties to come out. Mebbe.”

Most of what he said fell into an unintelligible burble in her mind as she thrashed her wrist bloody trying to escape. His emotion felt the same as what radiated from Vakkar when he tried to drag Rachel out of the cell, and it got stronger as he watched her struggling. No one had ever felt
that
way while looking at her before―at least, not that she noticed. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work; she wasn’t old enough yet. She sniveled and kicked at the cot, trying to back away from him. The pain of the metal biting her skin snapped her out of the panic. Why did she sneak away from Rachel in the night? Why did she do something so damned stupid?

Freedom was okay, but she would not let anyone do
that
to her. If she had to remain the pet of a raider camp to avoid being wifed, so be it. She knew how Rachel felt; she would rather die.

“No. I will not be your wife.” She shivered, staring at him. “Sell me to the raiders. I’m the Prophet. See my eyes? They will give you riches for me.”

“Purdy lights.” He grinned toothlessly.

Althea hung her head. This man had no idea who she was. The idea of a person not knowing about her seemed unthinkable, but yet this fool didn’t react at all to the name she so hated. Somehow, she found room between fear and revulsion to be astounded at this fool’s idiocy. There was no bandit camp here, and this man had no armed militia at his command. The tickling droplet of blood had made it halfway down her forearm. There was also no one here he could threaten to force her to obey out of guilt. She had no reason to continue being so…
pathetic
. Zhar’s voice spoke the word in her memory. Fear gave way to shame, and to determination. The cut on her wrist faded back to undamaged skin just before her head snapped up to stare at him.

“
Let me out
.” Flickering with each word, her eyes emanated magic.

The hermit shuddered in the seat, emitting a whispery wheeze from deep inside his chest. Moonshine burbled through his half-closed mouth, dribbling down his chest. “No… key… cain’t.” His face and fingers twisted as he recoiled, his body reacting to an impossible compulsion.

Althea stood on the cot, held in a stoop by her shackled hand. Rising over him, she tapped her anger at what this man wanted to do to her. The glow intensified as she growled, burning fear into his mind and a malodorous emanation into his pants. His stare widened, his mouth hung agape, and he clutched at the cheap plastic armrests of the trembling chair as it scratched deeper into the concrete. He would never look at her without being afraid again; his lecherous stare would never trace the curve of her leg again.

This man would not wife her.

He fainted when she ceased channeling. She examined the bed frame, studying its various bolts and screws. There had to be a way out even without the fool having a key. Despite the futility of it, she strained against the metal for several minutes until she ran out of breath and fell to her knees. As she slouched there, panting, she spotted the handle of a pistol stuck in the nomad’s belt. Rachel wanted Zhar to shoot the chain out―a gun could set her free.

She leapt at it, jerking to a halt at the end of the chain with her fingers still an arm’s length away. Althea screamed, wailing with pain as she tried to drag the weight of the steel bed on one wrist. Her fingers got an inch closer. Her feet slid through the dust. She grunted through clenched teeth, turning to grab the ponderous bed with her free hand. After a few tugs, she tried again, her fingertips stalled a thumb’s width from the weapon. She roared, leaning every scrap of her strength into the restraint until she bled. Metal legs scraped concrete. Her finger touched the wooden handle.

“Calm yourself, child.”

That voice again, the placid woman from Vakkar’s camp with the strange accent. Althea yelped and dove into the mattress to hide.

Terrified of what she might see if she looked, Althea whispered. “Who are you?”

“I am Aurora.”

Althea grabbed the bars and pulled herself to the head of the bed, taking the tension off her arm. She ventured a glance at the hermit, still slumped back in the chair. The gun so close, yet so far. There was no flesh apparition.

She shivered in a ball. “What do you want?”

A spectral hand ran down Althea’s back, over the skin in spite of her chest-cloth. Cold and phantasmal, it caused an involuntary tremble. “So innocent, so young. You are like us, and we are coming to help you. You do not deserve this life.”

She jumped away from the touch, putting her back to the headboard, eyes darting about and finding nothing.

“Like you? Who are you? You are scaring me.”

In the dark, the faintest glimmer of light hinted at the shape of a woman as it slid past. Around to the hermit it went, and vanished. A cloud of luminous fog appeared in his gaping mouth, exuding several inches out before it drew back into itself and vanished down his throat. He twitched and sat up, more moonshine bubbled out. He drooled, face turning at her with gaze unfocused. Melodic feminine words came out of him, trailed by the faint raspy wheeze of his real voice.

“You do not know what you are?” She made him stand; the body moved like a zombie.

Althea sank into a crouch, hating feeling trapped. “I’m the Prophet. Are you a Prophet too?”

A haughty laugh rang through the room, continuing through the maze of sewer pipes as the hermit shambled towards her. “That is adorable.”

She was unable to run away from the hand patting her on the head. Althea did not want whatever this creature was touching her, and she desired that man’s touch even less.

“You are psionic, Althea. It is not
magic.
You have abilities most people do not, but you are even more special than an ordinary psionic.”

Her right hand turned purple as she leaned away from the rough caress. “I don’t understand.”

The man jerked around in the dance of a drunken marionette, shambling across the room. Althea crouched on the bed and pulled at the chain with both hands, snarling; she did not care if it hurt.

“Relax, child. You have nothing to fear from me. I am your friend.”

“Please take this off me.” She stopped struggling, sensing the man’s thoughts no longer his own. Another presence had taken over, something capable of blocking out her ability to see into the mind.

“I am here only as an astral wanderer, girl. I cannot touch real things except when I wear someone.” The body convulsed and gurgled for a moment. “He is not lying; he does not have the key. Other friends are on their way; now that I have found you, I can tell them where to go. You are in no danger here, child. Do not worry yourself.”

There was something about this person Althea did not trust. The ease with which she shot the harmless old man at Vakkar’s camp was part of it, but another feeling joined it―an inexplicable sense of foreboding. She curled up against the cold headrest, letting her arm dangle loose.

“What did you mean when you said I was not ordinary soya… sayo… soro―”

“Psionic.” Aurora’s voice echoed. “Your mind has the ability to project your desires into the world. I bet you can hear people’s thoughts, and I know you can force your body to repair itself. Tell me, little one, can you see the future?”

Althea thought for a minute, idly picking at the fringe of skirt by her knee. “Sometimes I get feelings something bad’s gonna happen.”

“You do not make a habit of telling people’s future, then?”

Guilt pulled a tear from her eye. “No. If I saw future, I’d have stayed with Rachel.”

“I suppose the simpletons out here just call you Prophet because they don’t know what it means.”

Something about the woman’s tone made her feel insulted, and she pouted. “How did you find me?”

“The same way you looked in on your little boyfriend. I have been searching for others like us for a long time now, child. We call ourselves the Awakened. Our power is far greater than most psionics.”

“Why?”

Althea tried to conjure up one of those weird feelings that could lead her to a way out of this mess. She had a suspicion she did not want to wait for these supposed friends, the same kind of feeling that made her go after Den.

“The reasons are various, but for now you need only know you have enemies out here.”

The look of shock on her angelic face made Aurora laugh again.

“Me?”

“Yes, little one. But not living ones.”

“Ghosts?” She curled up tighter.

“You have seen ghosts?” The borrowed man swiveled to almost face her.

She shook her head. “No, but I have heard stories.”

“Not ghosts.” Aurora shuffled him away once more, taking a step toward the exit. “Did you ever wonder why so many people are so mean to you when all you want to do is help them?”

Althea sulked at this person. Teasing a girl tied to a bed was pretty mean too. “I… Yes.”

“The Badlands has a king. It is not a man, a woman, or even a beast. A rogue sentience has formed from all that has happened here. It feeds upon the hate, the death, and the sorrow.”

“A senshins?”

“Bloody hell, girl. You really need to get your arse in school. Sentience.” Aurora spelled it, and sounded it out thrice. “It’s a personality, a mind without a body.”

“A ghost.” Althea nodded.

Aurora lost control of the man for a second as her level of frustration mounted. Debating the semantics of something that never lived would be painful. “Look, mite. Forget it. I can explain later when you are safe. In simple terms, there is a bad thing out there that likes to make you cry. It wants your power, and we are going to get you out of here.”

“I have a home.” A stern glare chased her words.

The haughty laugh came again, and with it, Althea’s skin crawled.

“That bush boy will forget you in a week. When I was your age, I had a different boyfriend every month, and most of them I never even kissed.”

Althea hid her face in her knees and sniffled. Den would not forget her so easily, would he?

“Now sit tight and don’t go anywhere. You should be safe here once I get rid of this piece of shite.” The man’s head rolled around to look at her as if his neck was broken. “Don’t cry for this one. If I could, I’d kill him twice for you.”

The zombie-hermit shambled off into the maze of pipes, bouncing between walls into the distance and out of sight. If not for knowing he was being marched off to his death, the sound of him falling into a puddle would have made her smile. She flopped down on the bed, staring up at her trapped arm. The woman kept calling them friends, but she was amused at Althea’s struggle to free herself, and could kill with no more hesitation than changing her shirt.

No
.
I won’t wait for these “friends.”