Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop (18 page)

Kayt took her Lord’s name in
vain, something Davion would have quickly condemned her for. I
would have done the same if my brain hadn’t insisted on proving
what she’d said. I squinted, hoping it would improve my sight. As
the crowd pushed, I stepped out from the edge of the group. Amos
fired and fired again. The Belovore walked slowly; a cruel thought
occurred – the Belovore was baiting Amos. When Amos stopped to
reload, his hands shook as he fumbled an energy pack out of his
pocket and thumbed it into the chamber set in the handle of the
gun. The energy chamber locked. He fired – the Belovore twitched.
They were close enough so that I could see why. Small chips on the
Belovore’s plates glistened in the sun, making dents no larger than
the cusp of a fingernail. Amos had hit him maybe a dozen times:
eight or nine in the chest, two in the face, and one in the neck.
It all resulted in the same thing.

My mind went elsewhere in that
second of realization.

I saw the
Belovore from
outside the tree farm, and
the sudden plummet of the boulder onto its skull. I tried to look
closely – to remember it cleanly – but the truth is that I couldn’t
remember what I hadn’t seen. Chest rising and falling, maybe the
guttural moan of dialect; my mind tried to remember anything that
would tell me we hadn’t horribly maimed the creature and left it
there. If the Belovore could survive Amos’ onslaught, then what did
Davion do to the one outside the tree-farm? Was it still alive,
even with his spine cracked and head busted open? Surely, if Davion
knew that it was a Belovore, he would have known if it was dead. He
must have. We would have seen a sign. Right? We were too eager to
leave.

But then, why was I caring
about something that had helped annihilate an entire city?

BLAM – CRACK.

Amos hit the Belovore’s right
chelimb, and the Belovore staggered. The limb cracked off just like
Melanie had done with the other one. Vertebrae growled and started
towards Amos. A person in our group yelled. Third found the man and
snapped his neck before he could finish warning Amos. The rest of
us stayed quiet. I’ve never seen that many people be so wordlessly
loud in my entire life. The amount of ambient noise increased with
the tension, and rang in my ears as if every sensitivity in my body
had sprung to life.

Chip after chip, bullet after
bullet, Amos aimed at the Belovore’s remaining chelimb. He managed
to sever the rest of the injured chelimb, but didn’t come near
hitting the second one. But Vertebrae reached him just as quickly
as they’d broken down the door to Bruce’s house and captured
Annalise and I. For giant, hulking creatures, they moved
quickly.

Vertebrae stayed true to the
nickname I’d given and snapped Amos’ spine by shoving a claw into
Amos’ back. The crunch was almost as loud as the gun’s crack. Amos’
legs and arms seized. The gun fell to the ground and misfired twice
as it came to a rest. Vertebrae dropped Amos. From that distance, I
could see Amos’s chest lumbering, grabbing at any air it could
hold. Blood trickled down from his lips. We all expected to die
because of Amos’ actions, and the crowd shifted behind me once
more. The shuffling sounded like gravel being swept across the
road. The weeping dulled in my ears to a low thrum; the mutterings
of angry neighbours had turned into uninspired threats balancing on
the wind, and were gone just as quickly.

Vertebrae muttered something we
felt in the pits of our stomachs. He picked up Amos’ makeshift
weapon and tossed it towards the house. After a moment, Vertebrae
ordered the fourth Belovore away. With them standing close
together, I could see their plate colours offsetting each other.
Vertebrae was more red, and the lines where his plates met the skin
were close to the same colour; the fourth Belovore was dark and
crimson.

The fourth walked to the end of
the street, towards their pods. Vertebrae returned to Chest-Plate,
scowling at us the entire time. They spoke between themselves.
Chest-Plate growled and looked at the group as well. They were
talking about us. Vertebrae barked short, hoarse grunts. It was
hard to imagine they were conveying everything in such coughs and
sibilants – they looked at each other as if there was a deeper
understanding. Chest-Plate placed a hand on Vertebrae’s chest and
bowed. Vertebrae was silent. Whatever we’d witnessed, we all felt
it was our death warrants being signed.

“
You have
witnessed the weakness of blood,” Chest-Plate said in fractured
English. This was a term not meant for human language. His voice
was back to having a stiff, Russian twinge to the words. “Keldorac
is amongst the eldest and best of us. You will kneel and thank him
for allowing you to see such a human characteristic.”

I’d soon learn that the colour
determined strength and age. They grew stronger with colour. But,
as a result, the chelimbs grew weaker - which was why Vertebrae had
been able to use his to such strengths. Chest-Plate confirmed
this.

“
Kneel!”

The act began like a wave,
starting from the outer rim of the circle until it reached the
centre. Chest-Plate again spoke with Vertebrae in their native
tongue. Vertebrae clacked his chelimbs together as he walked around
us. We were no more than thirty, or so I’d thought, with two dead
bodies within sight. Kayt and Annalise had managed to stick next to
me, which wasn’t too hard since nobody else really wanted to be on
the outer edge. This is the problem surrounding large groups. We
all acted as one, and hoped we wouldn’t be treated individually if
something were to happen. When the ritual began, though, nobody
could doubt that we were all under the Belovore’s influence.
Chest-Plate treaded around the other side of the circle, where the
other two stood guard.

“
What is
taking them so long?” Annalise mumbled.
Time had slowed way down, who knows how long had passed. To
the others, there probably wasn’t
enough
time

Kayt interjected, “They’re
probably still trying to find out how to get us out of this.”

“
I’m not
sorry,” Annalise said.

“
She’s not
accusing you,” I whispered, hoping to stop a disagreement before it
began.

Annalise looked up to
Chest-Plate, who ignored us. “Half of the plans ever concocted are
stupid, the other half are made without rational thought,” Annalise
said. “I don’t want to die here, so I’d rather make one of those
options work for us. I call it being obscenely adaptable.”

Chest-Plate came back around
and we stopped. We bowed our heads in mock servitude. He watched us
for a moment, and then continued circling the group. He and
Vertebrae started chanting. Third continued to hold sentry near the
end closer to Annalise’s home. He tilted his head to the side as if
he could hear something. I focused intently on him, ready to stand
and put Annalise’s method into practice if he called attention to
Annalise’s garage.

I twitched when Third swivelled
around and came towards the circle. He looked over us, which is
what saved me from doing anything irrational. Chest-Plate urged us
to stand. We did so in the same way we’d knelt – with fear making
us keep the Belovores in sight at all times, and our hands
flattened out in surrender. From the other side came a group of
three more prisoners pushed forward by another Belovore. This one
was coloured bright red -a young one. She didn’t have distinctly
feminine features, but I knew for the first time that this was a
Belovore of the opposite gender. I’ve been associating male and
female roles to them, but there is nothing to say that they didn’t
have three or four genders. Her under-skin was bright, and the
chest plates were the same as the others. Around her legs were
large indentations along the thigh. On her torso, just below the
chelimbs, were holes that looked capable of fitting a size of
smaller chelimb claws. They were the only things separating her
from the males. From what I have been able to discern from scouring
my memory, over half the Belovores acting in the field - instead of
guarding prisoners - were female.

The prisoners were an older
woman with a stout look on her face and bulging white eyes. She was
followed by two girls – both her daughters. They couldn’t have been
older then sixteen and seventeen.

Chest-Plate left us to greet
the new Belovore, took charge of the prisoner, and ordered the
female Belovore back into the field. The three new neighbours were
forced to join our huddled mass. They saw Annalise instantly.

“
You,” said
the older woman. Her daughters grabbed on to her shirt as she
skirted the circle to join our trio. The old woman walked as if the
Belovores were a passing interest.

“
Me,” replied
Annalise.

“
They walked
in and killed my husband,” the woman said.

“
I’m sorry,
Abilene.”

The name struck me in the
chest. This was the Abilene from the letter. A slight sense of
disdain in the way she approach us affirmed this for me. She looked
about right for the tone in her letter.

“
They’ve been
going house to house. Anyone who fights back is killed, and even
the ones who don’t, someone is killed as an example,” she said. “We
passed Gregor on the road. They cut his throat. I stopped counting
the bodies after him.”

“
I know,
Abilene.”

“
God isn’t
here anymore, is he?”

“
I wouldn’t
know,” Annalise said, solemn.

Abilene covered her mouth with
her hand. She took a moment and composed herself, swallowing her
breath. The way she gulped made me think of the Blanc de Noirs back
at the Abbey I could almost smell it, as it spiced the air with a
certain aromatic twist. When Abilene started to cough, I realized I
wasn’t remembering it through sensory memory. Abilene had drunken
enough to taint her breath` – probably while the Belovores were
going door to door. Her daughters were pulled into the crowd,
slowly. Abilene took no notice, and the girls seemed fine with the
sudden lack of personal space.

“
Nothing we
can do,” Abilene said.

A realization dawned. A mimicry
of Daniel stood in front of me and taunted me. He stood just beside
the Belovores, in between Vertebrae and Chest-Plate. ‘Of course
you’re a prisoner now. What else would you be?’ he asked. I didn’t
answer. Daniel muttered, ‘even if you did try something, you’d be
slapped down faster than Amos. Wouldn’t even be worth calling an
inconvenience.’

“
Why are they
bunching us together? Why haven’t they just killed us all?” I
asked, hoping to remove the false Daniel from my mind. I made up my
mind to do something. It may have just been another way of running
from something – this time it was within myself – but I couldn’t
sit by and do nothing anymore. Of course, this was not true
aggression; it was fuelled by what Annalise had said earlier, fear,
and denial of what faux-Daniel meant. That didn’t mean I couldn’t
touch on some truth.

“
Because
they’re sadists?” Kayt said.

“
We’ve been
chatting like gossips while we’ve been here and they’ve done
nothing. As long as we don’t show aggression, then we should be
fine. We can convince the crowd to rally all at once, and fight
back the Belovores. They can’t take us all at once. Especially if
they think we’re just talking.”

“
How do you
propose we gather a bunch of terrified, defeated people who spent
their entire lives in the suburbs and convince them to fight
against something that can’t be shot?” Annalise asked. She had a
glint in her eye. She wasn’t asking these questions to challenge
me. She was prodding me on. Was this Daniel’s intention back on
Earth?

She also knew Abilene was
listening.

“
Tell them
how I killed one,” I said.

“
You killed
one?” Abilene made her way into the conversation.

Kayt turned and acknowledged
Abilene. It was the kind of moment we’d needed – the one where
every mind you’re surrounded by connects with yours. “Yeah. Smashed
its head right open. Poor thing never saw Leon coming,” Kayt
said.

Annalise leaned towards Kayt
but sent her words to Abilene. “He did it without any concern for
his own safety. It wasn’t hard, either. Just ran in headfirst and
it was done. Leon just kept rolling right along.”

“
What about
the bullets? We saw Amos from the distance. Hardly believed it was
him, but then again we always did recognize him as a troublemaker.
Amos shot clear at him, and so did my husband when the Belovore
broke in,” Abilene looked into the distance.

“
Amos shot
one bullet at a time, even though I doubt they were real bullets.
Projectiles made from household items, I’d bet, since no bullet
here would work in an unregistered weapon. He still did something
to hurt it, Which shows we, as a group, can take them down like a
thousand bullets all at once,” Annalise said. She looked around and
spied Third, Vertebrae and Chest-Plate at separate parts around our
circle. “We can do something. We just have to let everyone know,
and then we can spread the word on what to do.”

Abilene frowned, and then
attempted to change it into a smile.

“
I’ll see
what I can do,” she said. A band of tears streaked the makeup on
her eyes. The heat dried them instantly, and made it look like
she’d applied long, lightning bolts of mascara. Abilene turned from
us, casually surfing the crowd, starting with her daughters. I
couldn’t tell if her actions were because she had hope, or if it
was her attempt at saving them.