Cassiel Winters 1: Sky's End (19 page)

Chapter 18

Finally, a decent stretch of sleep. My morning back arch is stopped short by the presence of Onegin standing less than three feet away. I yelp and pop up, grasping the sheet close to my chest. The gorgeous nutter is just standing there, staring at me.

“Watching a woman sleep’s perverted!”

“You sleep too much!”

“Excuse me? I’ve barely slept at all!”

“You humans. Pathetic. The Aeons would destroy you like the lazy pushtar that you are!” The word doesn’t translate, but I can just imagine the reference.

“Get dressed. We would eat,” he adds.

“No,” I say, remembering my plan, wishing I’d had more time to build up some fortitude. His eyebrows, with their delicate markings, rise in a challenge, so the next bit comes out shaky. “I won’t do anything until I know what’s going on.” I clear my throat. “When are we going to arrive at Taxata?”

His face grows ugly with anger. He moves toward me, fast, and shouts, “You would do as I say!”

I don’t move fast enough before he tears off the sheet. My bare legs stop him short.

Good, he should be embarrassed
. Oh. That’s not the emotion on his face.

“Onegin!” Or’ic shouts, stepping in from his side of the partition, barely pulling on pants in time. So he has been sleeping there the whole time (
naked
) and I just never hear him come and go. These bastards never make a sound! I could slit his throat, if I had a weapon! Sleepy, his face is softened, beckoning, like it was in that meadow.
Cassiel!

“You would have your questions answered today. After you eat,” he mutters, his eyes falling to my legs. Last time I sleep in only a long shirt and underwear.

“Fine.”

They both wait.

Realizing they’re not leaving, I stand up, crouch down, get some clothes from my kit under the downcore, and walk into the tiny privy to change, trying the whole time to pretend my legs aren’t bare.

When I emerge, Or’ic is gone.

I brush my hair and tie it back with one of the metal-like ribbons the Thell’eon women put in my kit, hyper aware that
that man
is just next door. Maybe gone back to sleep. Zeke passes me another ribbon. I forget sometimes he’s always near, ready to serve. Cinarians excel at being invisible. Meanwhile, the madman watches me intensely, like I’m an animal exhibiting fascinating behavior by merely tying up my hair. I mutter “pervert” under my breath, and follow him to the mess.

Once seated, Onegin tells Zeke what to bring. I wait in a tray table across from Onegin, and shortly, Zeke places a bowl of globby, snot-like crap, a weird green fleshy thing, and a glass of purple froth on my table.

NO TORN NUTS!

“What’s this?” I ask rudely, feeling my stomach churn. I haven’t asked what I’m eating up until now in case it’s something gross, like animal brains.

Onegin glances up from his plate of carnage.

“Zeke, I want what I usually have,” I say, ignoring Onegin’s glare.

“No! She would eat this!” snarls Onegin.

Only once has Onegin not incited fear in me. Yesterday, when I tripped walking down a corridor. (Out of nowhere, he grabbed me to keep me from falling, and asked rather gallantly if I was all right.) Nevertheless, this morning something snaps in me. Not only have my escape plans been thwarted by this morning’s change in diet, I’ve had enough of being told what I can and can’t do. Of being watching. Of being forced to wait, while my brother’s life is at stake.

“No! I WILL NOT!” I shout. My hand hits the tray table harder than I anticipate. I watch, surprised, as the bowl bounces right off (who knew they were so light?) and smashes on the floor, some of the globby crap splattering Onegin’s arm.

The next seconds pass in slow motion. Everyone absorbs what has happened much quicker than I. It’s the Cinarians’ faces that alert me to the seriousness of the situation. They’re positively terrified. I think Zeke’s calling to someone on a communicator. When I glance back, Onegin’s staring down at the offensive stream of snot-like cereal across his sleeve like a deranged animal.

What’s the big deal?
I’m sure it cleans out.

For safety’s sake, I slide out from my tray table, which turns out to be a wise decision. Onegin glances up in that moment, and in record time reaches out with his food-streaked arm to throttle my neck. Before I turn to run, narrowly escaping his grasping fingers, I’m alarmed to observe that he’s so intent on following me that he doesn’t even bother to slide out of his tray table so much as stand up with it on him.
Holy stars!

I dart nimbly around several Thell’eons sitting at scattered tray tables, deciding to break into a run when Onegin tears the table from his legs and throws it to the side. Maniac!

“You would do as I say!” he roars behind me.

I look to the other Thell’eon, hoping they might protect me. Not a chance. This is sport. Entertainment.

I’m not sure whether ancient evolutionary prey senses kick in, but somehow, don’t look!, I sense Onegin’s just inches behind me. I head toward a serving bar ahead, and throw myself legs first under the bottom. The floor slows me down but I squirm under and through just before the big thug can grasp me.

But when I pop up, something isn’t right. The nausea’s expected, considering I’m being hunted by an insane Thell’eon. But it’s the sense of familiarity that halts me in my tracks. I stand up straight.

There’s a rift—

Wham!
The wind’s knocked out of me as Onegin tackles me at the same time I hear a huge crash. He must have ploughed right through the buffet!

Dishes clatter to the ground smashing into tiny pieces all around me as I brace for impact against the wall I know’s in front of me, with Onegin on top of me.

Instead, I fall into what feels like empty space. My body lands on the ground hard.

Somehow I managed to prevent my face from hitting the surface.
Ah, that’s how
. My palms ache from the impact.

And, oddly, there’s silence.

Wait
,
why isn’t Onegin on top of me, choking me or something?
I’ve had another concussion! Is Or’ic in my mind?

The smell’s also different. A mild sulfur or something. My confusion’s worsened by the darkness that surrounds me. I hear something crawling (dragging?) on the ground.

I try to hold in my own heaving breaths and strain to see in the dark.

A face appears just inches from mine suddenly. I let out a tiny yelp.

It’s
him!
The Aeon I saw yesterday. His flat eyes are shockingly full of expression; they seem to be screaming
Food!

Finally, my brain gives the command, and I scramble backward, away from it, at the same time hands grab my feet and legs, lifting me off the ground, pulling me back away.

But the Aeon’s quicker. He reaches out, snake-like and so fast, grasping both of my arms with waxy deformed fingers.

It hits me. I’m halfway IN another dimension. But . . .
Swoosh.
I’m back in my dimension, and the Aeon has caught a ride with me.

I scream the only thing I think of, “Aeon!” but it’s too late. The Aeon’s body gets halfway through, enough for him to haul himself out of the rift.

He’s here. And I brought him here.

I watch his entire face and body transform, but subtly. Like he went from dead to alive. Then, in a blink, he vanishes before me.

A blade slams inches from my arm.

A solider aiming for the Aeon way too late.

I’m hauled back and propped up on to my feet.

“RUN!” Onegin’s voice screams in my ear.

I’m shoved toward the exit of the mess. Thell’eons are shouting. The ship’s alarm is screeching.

I glance back, senses returning.
Holy fuck
. Like the vision I’d had yesterday! The Thell’eons are in big trouble. Being ripped apart, limb-by-limb. The Aeon moves too fast. An arm flies by me. Onegin and several others parry with the waxy alien. No chance.

“Cassiel, this way!”

I hear Zeke’s voice beside me. Bent over, he reaches for my arm, hauling me behind him. As we near the exit and I taste safety, I’m jerked back and off the ground by a vise around my waist. Zeke, still holding my arm, is thrown back with me.

I think,
Let go!
faster than I can say it. His long, narrow head tilts back and to the side, just in time to see the same flash of silver that I do.

Then, his head is gone.

A gaping, bloodied stump’s all that remains.

His hand releases mine gently.

I can’t scream. I’m being hauled backward too forcefully. I try to twist, expecting to see another flash of silver, knowing I’m unable to stop it. But there isn’t one.

In one fluid movement, from capture to release, the Aeon hurls me through the air, in the direction of the rift, never once breaking in his fighting with Onegin and other Thell’eons. As I sail backward I watch it fight with both hands again, easily slaughtering Thell’eon while working somewhat harder to fight off Onegin.

I land on my butt, hard. Only slightly winded.
Why am I not dead?
Why would it throw me near
. . .?
Oh, it hits me, as the Aeon is slowly but surely backing up toward me and the rift. He’s going take me back with him! Aeon use sifts, Or’ic’s words replay loud.

Over my dead body!

I scramble to get up and look over at the exit relieved to see a fresh batch of Thell’eon entering, including Or’ic and Kell’an. They assess the situation and head for the Aeon determined. Grim-faced.

When I, too, look at the Aeon, my stomach drops. Onegin has been hurt. Badly. He’s collapsed on his knees before the Aeon. Blood’s pooling in his eyes. Just like what I saw through the rift yesterday!

The Aeon risks attacks from all sides to draw out the most deadly instrument I have ever seen from a holster on his leg.
This is the moment
. He’s going to point that narrow, piercing arrow-like device at Onegin, who appears helpless. I don’t think, I act. I run toward its back. The Aeon’s finally outnumbered now. I can help. Its waxy flesh, torn all over from blade slashes, melts like bubble gum from close-range fire.

“Stop!” shouts Or’ic at the Aeon, and, surprisingly, it does. Its weapon is still pointed at Onegin, but waves of some kind of force come out of it. They pulse like heat beating down from the sun, but it goes right around me whereas every other Thell’eon in sight appears to be . . . Frozen!

It’s too late to stop my mid-air launch, even if I could, and I land on the Aeon’s back. He must not have been expecting me (why didn’t I freeze, too?) because I manage to get my legs around it and put it in a chokehold, though I sense I’m posing no more bother than a tiny insect.
Holy crap
,
this is not good.

The sense of familiarity has not left me the whole time this is happening, and, glancing up, before me is ME!, staring at us, in the other dimension, from yesterday. There I am, a tiny slip of a girl surrounded by strange monsters, both of me’s wondering, How can this be? Then I sense the Aeon sees me. No time to digest that.
Onegin!
I slide my arm down and manage to knock the Aeon’s gun ever so slightly—

I watch with the relief as the Aeon’s fire misses Onegin and vaporizes the floor just inches away from him, still frozen, kneeling on the floor.

Okay. Now is a good time to RUN!
I notice the second rift is gone. But the one behind me is still there, I think. I still feel a sense of familiarity of this moment.

The Aeon’s way quicker than me. Before I release myself, it grabs me and swings me around until we are face-to-face, my back to the frozen Or’ic and Kell’an and the others.

I glance at Onegin desperately one last time. Frozen. On his knees.

A whole ship of warriors and what good are they now?!

A tear rolls down his cheek. Can he still see me?

Unable not to, I shift my focus and meet the Aeon’s eyes, bright with malicious intent. His skin continues to change, from a plastic-like material into organic flesh.

I’m shaking so bad, I think I might pee myself. Or vomit.

“Please!” The Aeon examines me. He raises his free arm above me with intent.

I close my eyes and scream inside. He’s going to hit me or kill me, for sure.

But nothing. I don’t want to open my eyes, but keeping them closed, not knowing, is almost worse. Why no pain? Am I already dead?

Okay, just take a peek.
Oh no! There’s nothing human at all about those eyes. Utterly flat. Artificial.
What does he want?

He leans closer, then back.

“What are you?” he asks with a rattle that is reminiscent of some kind of animal on Earth that I can’t place. He must be speaking Thell’eon, which is being translated to English.

I glance around desperate for an escape. I kick empty air, squirming in his grip, pushing against him.

“What are you, sifter?”

He rattles my entire body so hard I bite my tongue. My hair pops out of its ribbon as my neck’s whipped back and forth violently. Black and white dots cloud my vision.

He wants an answer.
He called you a sifter.

He doesn’t know about humans.

“Ire,” I squeak.

He examines me, all the way down my body.

“A female,” he says, this time with a mild twinge of expression.

I don’t respond.

“What are you?”

This time he shakes me so hard I think he might kill me.

Instead, he throws me on the ground and leaps as though to dive right into me. The move’s so strange that I can’t make sense of it before darkness overtakes me.

Ah, the smell of ESE
. A kind of fresh pine, flowery antiseptic, and,
wait for it
, the aromatic scent of espresso brewing. I jolt out of downcore, clammy. I’ve had a bad dream, but I’m not sure about what. Relieved it’s over, a familiar coppery-haired arm reaches up and tugs me back down beside him. “Did it happen again?” asks King.