Dead of Eve (51 page)

We stood under the dome hangar in Lyon, France, wide-eyed and gape-jawed. The mass of metal before us bristled with cannons and barrels protruding from side-firing hatches. Four turboprops turned in the breeze.

Roark’s brogue cut the silence. “Who the hell’s gonna fly this deadly bird?

“
Je suis
.” A man stepped around the nose gear and made a beeline to me. His long white-blond hair slicked into a ponytail at his nape. The color of his beady eyes matched the plane’s gunmetal armor. His skin clung to his hollow cheeks, crinkled with age and weather. “
C’est l’AC-130 Spectre
gunship.”

“Meet the pilot,” Jesse hollered as he rummaged in the Humvee.

“
Je m’appelle
Georges Prideux.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed cracked lips against my knuckles. “Madame Spotted Wing.
Merde. Tu es de toute beauté.”

Jesse breezed past us. “Don’t let him fool you. His English is better than ours.”

Georges waved a hand after Jesse. “
Ta gueule,
Monseigneur Beckett.” Then he tugged me to the gunship, pointing at the black dots painted under wings. “You like it,
oui
?”

Jesse hunkered over our packs on the rear loading ramp. “Apparently, I didn’t keep you busy enough in Malta, Georges. Is the gunship fueled?”

“
Bien entendu
. We go to Iceland,
non
?”

Jesse looked at me, brows arched. Roark and Michio stood at my elbows in silent support. Did I harbor a sliver of hope that the Shard could validate Michio’s hypothesis about my blood? About the cure?

I nodded to Georges.

We transferred the remaining gear and weapons from the Humvee to the ramp. A wave of aluminum soaps and jet fuel hit me in the face as I made my way to the cargo hold. Cliff buckled Roark and me in the jump seats. Michio followed Jesse and Georges to the flight deck.

Cliff handed Darwin’s leash to Roark and shouted over the whine of the propellers, “You’ll have to hold him. It might get bumpy. And whatever happens, do not unbuckle those belts.” Then he settled next to Tallis behind an instrument panel and strapped earphones on his head.

The gunship soared down the runway and launched to the air. Five minutes into the flight, dials and gauges flashed on the panel in front of Cliff. He yelled into the headset, “Incoming. Incoming.”

All the air seemed to rush from the cabin. We dipped and my stomach landed in my throat. Roark’s hand found mine. The engines screamed and the plane shot upward, hard and fast. Through the tiny window, the steel body of another aircraft flickered by and dropped from view.

“Are we under attack?” The shrill of alarms drowned my voice.

My body bounced in the restraints and Darwin’s nails scraped along the metal floor. Minutes toiled by as the plane readjusted speed and height.

Tallis shouted over the beeping electronics. “Nineteen thousand feet…twenty…twenty-five…”

We leveled off. Tallis swiveled in his seat and slid his headset off one ear. “Near collision.” He shrugged. “Uncontrolled airspace and Beckett makes a lousy co-pilot. But we’re cool now.” He turned back to the weapons panel.

“Wow, that makes me feel so much better,” I mumbled.

The next six hours were uneventful in comparison, but I didn’t let go of Roark’s arm, even as we came to a stop on the Reykjavik airstrip.

Footsteps clattered down the ladder and Michio was on me, hands framing my face. “You okay? That was…it was rough up there.” He brushed hair from my brow. “I was so worried. Six hours, all I could think about was you. Wondering if you were banged up, hurt, scared. I wanted to get to you so badly.”

The concern in his voice caressed places it had no business touching, especially as I clung to another man’s arm banded across my lap.

Michio flattened a hand on the headrest beside my face and leaned into it as he lowered his mouth to mine. “Nothing can happen to you.”

Of course he didn’t want anything to happen to the potential cure. Something vulnerable flared inside me and I pressed into the seat, putting space between our lips. “Would suck if you had to return to the Shard empty handed.”

A fog clouded his black eyes, dulling the corners, and I wanted to kick myself. But just as quick, the clouds cleared, replaced with an impenetrable glare. “I get it. You don’t trust this.” He thumped the spot above my left breast. “You can fight it, try to push me away.” That determined stare narrowed, seeing too much. “It won’t work,
Nannakola
.”

Then his mouth covered mine and I had nowhere to go, nowhere I wanted to go. The attack on my lips skipped sensual and went straight to erotic. He kissed me as if trying to embed the truth of his intentions into my taste buds. Our tongues rolled together, drenching our lips, spiking my pulse, and the arm in my grip hardened. Oh damn, Roark. The heat from his gaze cooked my face.

A throat cleared and Michio took his time pulling away to glance over his shoulder.

Jesse dumped some insulated clothes on the floor, the skin above his turtleneck exploding in red.

All eyes shifted to me. The cavernous space suddenly felt too cramped for the four of us.

“Change your clothes. It’s just above freezing here.” Jesse eyed us, making a slow journey between our faces, his revealing nothing, and disappeared through the hatch.

I stifled the urge to sigh. My affection with Michio was a discomfort everyone needed to get used to. I turned back to him and caught the twitch kicking up his swollen, wet lips.

“I adore the transparency in your expression.” He pressed a kiss against my open mouth and followed Jesse out.

A pair of cargo pants swung into my view. Roark shook them at me. “I’ll wait with ye while they clear the area of aphids.”

“Roark—”

“He’s good for ye.” He squatted in front of me, fingers working the laces on my boots.

I nudged his hands away. “Roark—”

“They’re both good for ye, if I were honest.” His forearms dangled over his bent knees. The position stretched the fabric of his trousers over his thighs, magnifying the bulk of muscle beneath. “I want ye to be happy. Whatever or whomever it takes.”

“I’m difficult. And high-maintenance. Might take all three of you.”

His delicious smile found its way to my womb. “Whatever ye want.”

I trailed a finger over one golden eyebrow, hypnotized by how the glow in his gaze flooded all my worries. “I want to fall asleep every night wrapped in your warmth, beneath the blaze in your eyes. My own private sunset.”

His breath sawed out, oaky and warm. “Ye got it.”

“I think we’re getting there. All of us.”

Another heady bite of oak fanned my lips. “I think your Lakota’s got a ways to go.”

The hatch swung open and Tallis poked his head in. “Boss cleared us to leave.”

Outfitted with enough artillery to make Joel proud, I jumped onto the tarmac and sucked in the cool Icelandic air. My hand flew to my nose against the onslaught of rotten eggs.

Michio stepped in stride with me. “Sulfur. The water underground is heated by lava and there’s a leak.” He jerked his head toward a bus standing on end and half-swallowed by a fissure in the ground. Water spouted from under it, spinning airborne tires.

Rusted debris scattered the broken clumps of concrete. Faded tail numbers rose from charred and twisted metal heaped on buildings and spread across the overgrown brush. Bones—human and other—poked out of scum covered rain puddles.

My nape prickled. “So, you know where the scientists are?”

“Yes. Beckett’s arranged the transport—”

A roar pulsated the concrete under our boots. Hazy figures emerged on the horizon. I raised the carbine only to be walled off by three large frames. “Move. You’re blocking my aim.”

My guardians didn’t move. Not when the rumble of dozens of motorcycles vibrated my chest. Not when foreign shouting carried through the sulfur-laden air. And not when the first boom of a rifle went off.

And give me silence, give me water, hope.

Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes.

Let bodies cling to me like magnets.

Come quick to my veins and to my mouth.

Speak through my speech and through my blood.

Pablo Neruda

“
Komagnor.
I dare you,” Jesse shouted. He stood in front me, feet shoulder width apart, arrow nocked. With Michio and Roark on either side, they formed a wall, blocking my view.

Twenty yards away, Cliff lay in prone position, rifle trained on the commotion I couldn’t see. Where were Georges and Tallis?

“
Snub
. Go back where you come,” a voice bellowed in a heavy German-like accent.

The volume of sputtering V-twins told me we were outnumbered, but that wasn’t what locked up my muscles. It was the familiar buzz curling through my belly. Beside me, the hair on Darwin’s ruff stood on end.

I wedged through Jesse and Michio. A line of motorcycles stretched across the horizon. Close enough to see the knotted beards and weathered goggles protecting human faces.

Pressed between battle-ready muscle, I whispered to Jesse, “I feel aphids.”

He didn’t move, didn’t look at me. “We cleared the area of them.”

My teeth clicked together. “Then you missed some, asshat.”

The bikers jerked heads in my direction and the man in front held up his hand. “
Kona.
” He gestured to the riders on his right and thrust his finger my way. The men on his left raised rifles.

Violent shudders rocked my body, shaking my hold on the carbine. “What’s
Kona?”

The red-hue in Jesse eyes, aimed at the leather-clad men, sparked to flame. “Woman.”

I fought the need to swallow. A shroud of stillness settled over us, each man waiting for the other to move.

A gurgling cry broke the silence. Followed by another and another, morphing into a symphony of terror. On the outskirts of the line, bikes tumbled. Bodies dropped, dodging jaws, and failing.

Aphids darted out of overturned trucks and shredded hangars. Screams and bullets tore across the airstrip.

I targeted white eyes and squeezed the trigger. Crimson misted the cloud-stuffed sky and stained the tarmac.

Roark’s sword swung to my left, slashing through aphids breaking from the fray. Arrows flew on my right. I could feel the smooth glide of Michio’s movements against my back.

“Are we surrounded?” I shouted over my shoulder.

“Eyes forward, Evie. I’ve got your back.”

The carbine popped in my grasp. Bikers bucked on the ground beneath bone-crushing jowls. Soon, the motorcycles were abandoned and the owners lay gutted and drained, awaiting transformation.

Heaving bodies bent over their food, sucking and slurping, then raised hungry eyes to us. Mouthparts retracted and they stood as one.

My companions backed up, all but Cliff. “Where’s—”

A few yards away, he clung to a mutated body, clenched in an embrace.

“Oh, no, no. Fuck no,” Jesse screamed, releasing an arrow.

The aphid dropped. Cliff rolled with it, his chest cavity open, hooked by the mutant’s mouth. Angling his head, his tortured eyes snared mine, his jaw convulsing in a silent scream.

I didn’t think, just aimed the carbine and pulled the trigger, ending his life before the teeth of un-life took hold.

A floodgate of nausea released in my gut. The spurting hole in Cliff’s head. Jesse’s bloodshot eyes latched on his friend. The twenty or thirty aphids, snarling and sprinting toward us. I swapped mags, choking down bile, and raised the carbine.

The windup of propellers whistled across the tarmac. The gunship rolled into view and turned. The side-firing barrels rotated as the minigun plowed through the approaching swarm. I hit the ground and cupped my ears against the deafening jackhammer noise. After a few minutes, the minigun fell silent.

The nearby fissure hissed sulfur into the air. Sheet metal rippled above the hangars. Blood soaked the turned up snow. Darwin paced a circle around me and sat on my boots.

When the propellers slowed to a stop, I raised a brow at Michio.

“Tallis and Georges.” He slid his cane inside his leather duster. “Quick thinking.”

I gave into a much needed swallow and found my mouth dry. Jesse pulled me to my feet, eyes on Cliff’s body. Then he spun on his boot heel and pitched over his shoulder, “Ivar waits.”