Reluctant Mates - 21 Paranormal Romance Stories (Werewolf, Vampire, Minotaur and Monster collection) (26 page)

A crane loomed near the center of the camp, circled by ramshackle buildings, mostly rusted and dilapidated. Several tents dotted the area, old military-style ones. Olive green canvas, all with the flaps open, all draped with mosquito netting. To my left, a flashlight spilled out from behind a wooden building that I told from the smell was a latrine. I ducked into the shadow of a tent and held my breath tight in my chest until the light passed.

Moments later, I heard a
crack
from Kel’s position, and a second later, the light flicked off.

I crept back into the greasy air that seemed to stick to my skin. The only thing on my mind was getting out – finding our friends and getting out – and then warming the blankets in Kalak’s tent again. Or possibly warming the blankets in more than one tent, since as I’d learned, beastmen are not as jealously possessive of love as I’d been used to back in civilization. A sound to the west snapped me back to reality.

I heard a hiss. Kalak, his form barely visible through the wretched fog, was crouched three tents over. He gestured back in the other direction. “There, go! Go!” He whispered.

No time to look, no time to worry. Straight forward, right through the darkness, through the smoke, I willed myself to not look back, to not look for Kalak. I had to do this on my own. There was no choice.

I moved so silently that when I reached the first cage, a big square made of bamboo pickets and woven vines, the inhabitants didn’t stir. Knife in my teeth, I cut through two layers of vine binding and slowly lowered two slats to the ground. Still, not so much as a sound from inside the cage, just still air and a cicada off in the distance somewhere. 

Squeezing inside the cage, the smell hit me full on in the face.

Death. Sweet, sticky and awful, death hung in the air like a cloud. One of the jobs in my long, sundry past was field reporting. Each and every time I came across a corpse, I flipped out. No time for that, no room for self-indulgence, I knew. I pushed back out of the bars and found the next two cages in similar states.

Something about it struck me as odd, though, out of place. In the third cage, I finally summoned the courage to inspect the corpses. There were no wounds, and no outward signs of disease. They were just dead. Bent up and twisted

My extensive experience with reading Agatha Christie novels immediately made the word “poison” scream in my mind. More specifically, strychnine, but again, there was no time for musing over whodunnit in the library with the rope. I had to keep moving. All of the dead were beastmen, all of whom had facial tattoos like Kalak and his sons, but none the same color or pattern. Making a mental note to ask about it when we had time, I felt my way out. I groped around until I found another free standing prison cell.

“Gina? Gina? Is that you? What in the hell?” I immediately recognized Dana’s voice. The producer for my TV show who I thought lost and dead weeks ago.

“Shhh. Yeah, it’s me. Shut up, keep quiet. Is Paul here?”

“Yeah, well no, I mean. Jesus.” His voice was shaking so badly he could hardly breathe. “Yes, he’s in the camp. But he’s on the other side with the other new... er... whatever we are. He only wandered by a few days ago.”

“Okay. Keep quiet. We’re going to get you out. But you have to stay quiet. Are there any other new captives aside from him?”

“Yeah, one of those things we were filming. We’re the only humans here, the rest of their workers are those creatures.”

“Did you see him? Did you make eye contact, I mean? Did he recognize you?”

“Recognize me? Are you crazy? These savages don’t think, they just scream and pound their fists into the floor.”

“You’re in for a surprise.” I turned away before he could answer.

“Are you wearing furs, Gina?”

I shook my head. “Look, this other cage, where is it? Far?”

“No, no, not far, just on the other side of that – I donno, crane or whatever it is.”

“Okay, last question – did you see the leader? I assume there’s some kind of pit boss or something?”

“Holy shit Gina, yeah I did. He’s only been by a couple times, but you’d recognize the guy. Looks different in his Fidel Castro lookin’ uniform, but it’s the same fuck that dropped us off in the first place. I got no idea what’s going on. All I know is that I’m a forty-two year old television producer stuck in the fuckin’ woods with a slave collar around my neck, and I’m chained to some kind of Neanderthal.”

“They’re not Neanderthals.” I said, although the thought had crossed my mind at least once.

“Whatever they are.”

“How many are in that cage with you?” Chains stirred behind him. I assumed someone woke up. Or a lot of someones, there was no telling.

“Jeez, twenty? We’re broken up into work gangs of twenty or so. I don’t think we lost anyone yesterday.”

I made a mental note that he inadvertently called the beastmen “anyone” instead of “savages.”

“Alright, sit tight. I have to go find Paul, and I have to find the beastman you say is with him. We’re going to break you out of here, but we’ve gotta get some muscle first. Are you alright for now?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. I – wait a minute. Who is ‘we’?”

“Y’know, your loyal TV host, and two of her closest eight foot tall friends. Look out for the one with the silver mane if you see him. Makes Bigfoot look like a real baby.”

I crouch-walked away from the cage. “Be right back. Stay quiet.”

He didn’t respond, though I heard him adjust the chain around his neck.

Following Dana’s instructions, I stalked around the base of the crane, past a dozing guard – a human – and to the cage on the other side. Paul was slumped over in the corner, hands resting on his belly. Much more exciting than a sleeping cameraman was Makel, who sat straight up and stared straight ahead. I drew up behind him, and heard the giant beastman pull a deep breath through his nostrils.

“Good you make it,” he rumbled. “Thought maybe lost.”

“Shhh... Kel and Kalak are around somewhere. As soon as I crack this cage and let you out, they’re going to start a fight and we’re getting out of here.”

He snorted a laugh. “Dat what Kel say? Start fight?”

“Something like that. Are you okay to walk? Are you hurt?”

“No, Makel fine.”

Of the three young beastmen, Makel was the largest. He was almost of a height with Kalak, but his silver-maned adopted father was half again as thick across the chest and arms.

“Krizik got worst attack.”

“Yeah, he’s resting at camp. I painted him up with that awful yellow stuff.”

Makel cocked an eyebrow. “You make out of leaf? How you know?”

“Kalak remembered the leaves, and then I just boiled it. Smelled awful.”

“Yeah, dat da stuff. Sticky, smelly.”

“So you’re okay to move? Can you get the collar off?”

That made him chuckle again. “Broke four today in hole. Gave up when dey put da fifth.”

It would be very difficult to look more pleased than Makel did. Still, he rubbed his throat, slipped a fingertip underneath the cuff that bit into his flesh. “Dis one too small. Guess dey won. I can break, at least break chain.”

A few seconds later, the plan had been explained, and we huddled together, waiting. While we sat there, trying to figure out what Kel meant when he said he was going to start a fight, Makel tapped me on the shoulder.

“You not one of us. Why you do dis Gina?”

As I opened my mouth, another flashlight-equipped guard made his way past our prison. Stopping not three feet from where I sat, he slowly painted his light back and forth across the cage. Makel grabbed me, put his hand around my mouth and clutched me to his chest. The guard kicked my foot.

“She alive?” It wasn’t English. Not exactly. I couldn’t place it, though.

Makel, playing the part of the simple savage, grunted quizzically.

“I said she live?” He kicked me again, hard in the shin. Makel held me tight and I tried to stay quiet. By then, the other inhabitants of the cage began to shuffle around. “What happen?” I heard from a beastman to the left and behind me, his voice sounded very young. “Why guard?”

Things took a fast turn.

The man stooped and struck Makel with the butt of his flashlight, which earned him a nasty glare. “Who she anyway? She not supposed be here.” He bent again and pushed the giant hand away from my throat. He turned, cupped his hands to his mouth, and-

Thunk!

He fell forward from a blow to the back of the head from a very excited, and irritated, Makel, who bludgeoned the squat man again with the flashlight. Squeezing the chain on his collar so hard that the bones in his knuckles creaked under the strain, Makel grunted, spat out a curse I didn’t understand, and finally tore through the bond that gave way with a metallic snap.

“I think we start fight.” Makel tossed me the flashlight.

I flicked it on and off in the direction where I’d last seen Kel, and Kalak, hoping one of them noticed the signal. Either way, I immediately set to popping chains. Thankfully, they were all very old, very rusted, and gave way easily with just the bolt cutters I had. No reaction had begun in the camp when we emptied the first cage, including Paul, who slept through the whole thing, but was rather surprised to see me, and made our way back to the one holding Dana.

“Why are they so quiet? I expected a lot more, I donno, excitement.”

“Stunned. Been beaten, been almost starved. In one turn of da sun, three beaten to death, one dead from thirst. They throw into dat cage.” He tilted his head to indicate the terrible prison full of corpses behind us. “Leave dem to rot. Many born here. Many never known anything but dis.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Born here?”

Makel nodded and pointed at a cabin where already, three hunched, scarred – but still elegant and beautiful in their way – female beasts had broken in and snatched up babes in each arm.

“I thought all your women were dead. But these...?”

“Not ours. Different tribe, called Tuk. We Tuk were dead, all disappeared. To here, I guess.”

“An entire tribe is working this mine?”

“Mhm,” he grunted. “Looks like. At least dey not dead. Come, hurry.”

From a tower ahead and to the left of us, the unmistakable sound of gunfire cracked the darkness. Two short blasts of fire, and then another. The silhouette turned and took the rifle to his face preparing for another shot. And then a second shadow joined him, this one much bigger.

Kalak’s roar both startled the guard, and broke the stupor of everyone milling about, newly freed, in the camp. Moonlight glinted off his silver mane, and he grabbed the man by the top of the head, held him aloft, and then tossed him over the side of the tower’s rail. Suddenly, the sullen, stunned crowd surged. One tent fell, another, and another. Then, fire.

Flames from an exploded oil lamp licked up the sides of a tent and then the whole thing exploded as several more lamps within went up in a huge fireball that reached almost to the basket on the crane’s arm.

Another burst of gunfire joined the confusion, alongside panicked shouts that seemed to be in the same strange language the guard who kicked me spoke before Makel relieved him of the need to talk. There was very little resistance to the ongoing riot. Except for the three guards, the vast majority of the damage was being done to tents and machinery.

Certainly, I thought, there must be some connection between this camp and a headquarters, since this wasn’t one. No radio towers were to be seen, so only a shortwave could...

“Makel!” I cried. “Make them search the tents! There’s a radio somewhere. One of these tents must have a way for the guards to talk to the leader – to the shiny rock man.”

He nodded, but looked confused. “Radio?”

“A box, they talk to it.” I gestured with my hand as though I was using a telephone. That struck a chord.

“Ah, ah! A man carries box on his back. Talks to it like dat.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. We have to find it before they call whoever is in charge.”

Makel grunted in acknowledgement.

“Gina!” Kalak shouted from his tower, “where Gina?”

“Here, over here!” I called back. “Makel’s safe!”

He dove off the tower and disappeared into the night. A few moments later, he was with us, nursing an obviously sore ankle.

“You probably shouldn’t have dived off that tower,” I said.

“Ha! No hurt. We need go, shiny rock man here soon.

As he spoke, and threw his arm around his adopted son’s shoulder, a whipping sound split the air. No time to look for the radio, whoever had it already used the thing. I tugged Kalak’s arm and pointed to the horizon.

“It here. He here. We go now.” He grunted a series of commands to Makel who immediately began to shout instructions to the freed slaves. Many listened and started to group up and move to the west side of the camp and into the forest in the direction of Kalak’s village.

“Did you have any idea there were so many of your kind here?” I asked.

“No. We thought all Tuk dead. Good they not. Have room for Tuk in village. Gina you go to Kel, get Kel. I find you. We all be safe. Go, go!”

I ran off in the direction he pointed, to where Kel was supposed to be.

“Come, come! Follow!” Kalak barked.

“Holy hell, they talk?” Paul said, finally waking up. I nodded, laughed and ushered him in the same direction as the rest of the crowd.

A surge of activity burst through the tree line a few hundred yards from where I searched for Kel among the tents, among the piles of trash, dirt and dead.

Kalak shouted for me, pounding his fist against his chest. “Gina! Come! Come! Kel here! We go!”

It struck me like a fist in the jaw. I was alone, at one end of a slave camp with a diamond mine in the middle. Kalak, my lover, my protector, was at the other end, along with everyone else.

Behind me, another crash, and a heavy, deliberate, plodding sound of feet hitting the ground one after the other.

The last thing I heard before the world went black was Kalak shouting for me in the distance. Run, he shouted, run and we’ll find you. Before I could react, burlap slipped over my face and cinched down around my neck. I screamed, God how I screamed.