The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) (20 page)

             
“
Listen
, Gid!”

             
They paused together, Reece with a hand on Gideon's arm, Gideon with a bunch of Reece's shirt caught up in his fist. Nivy skidded to a
whishing
stop in the sand beside them, her eyes bugging.

             
“Go back!” Scarlet was screaming. “Not this way!
Go back
!”

             
Every hair on Reece's arms tried to stand on end as that watched feeling returned tenfold. He turned.

             
A sequence of violent blue and green flashes froze the picture, made the shape of the hill a stark outline and turned the sand a sickly white. The three creatures crested the hilltop at a calm prowl, then stopped to observe Reece and his friends. Monsters. That's all they could be. They didn't even look animal, though they moved on four legs, with hind feet that were long and flat like a rabbit's. Their hairless skin looked black and slick; spiked vertebrae stood out in a ridge down their backs. But their faces…their faces were the worst.  Their heads were almost canine, except their snouts were longer, with gums and teeth their lips couldn't quite cover, and fanned ears pressed flat against their protruding skulls. Lidless albino eyes rolled in deep sockets, making them look rabid. Not that them being rabid would've made much of a difference at this point. More a tip of the iceberg thing.

             
The middlemost creature suddenly tilted back its snout and let out a long keen, something like the screech of an eagle and the scream of a woman.

             
Nivy latched onto Reece's sleeve and started pulling him, and despite Scarlet's words, he stumbled after her, shocked senseless. He didn't look back to see if the creatures were giving chase, but he thought he could hear the dull, bass
thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum
of padded feet thumping against sand at a gallop. Gideon spun the barrel of his revolver back over his shoulder, let off two rounds, and cursed. He fired again.

             
They were headed for a collision course with their friends and whatever it was they were running from. More monsters, unless Reece's guess was wrong. How many were out there? Three was bad enough…but seven? Eight?  He didn't much savor the idea of becoming these things' own personal Reece-on-a-stick. He veered right with Nivy and Gideon and drew out his hob. If Gideon wasn't having luck with his revolver, Reece doubted his hob would do much, but dirt if he was going to get bleeding eaten alive without letting a few bleeding rounds off!

             
“Run! Run!” Hayden shouted as the two groups crashed into one. He yelped, tripping after Po and Scarlet, who were running hand in hand.

             
Reece didn't bother pointing out there was nowhere to run
to
. He dove, grabbed Hayden under the arm, and heaved him upright.

             
“They came out of…nowhere,” Hayden gasped. “Owon…saw them coming...”

             
Reece looked sharply over at Owon, who was keeping pace with them, and not even breaking a sweat besides. In fact, Reece got the feeling that he was actually hanging back to match their stride.

             
“You can try to be rid of us, Reece Sheppard,” Owon said as though hearing Reece's thoughts, “but we
will
return you to our brethren first. Only then will you die. Besides. We have no wish to be eaten alive. That is a fate we would only wish on a select few.” The glimmer in his black eyes made it clear that Reece had made the top of that list. Well, today just might be his lucky day.

             
Twisting, Reece growled. Mordecai and Gideon had fallen back to the halfway point between the crew and the creatures—there looked to be about six in all—and the creatures were still bounding forward, making less sound than a breeze, even when a Pantedan bullet took one right between the eyes. It took the last of Reece's willpower to not shout a curse when the creature skated forward on its stomach, fountaining up sand, shook out its head, and started forward again.

             
“It might interest you to know, Reece Sheppard,” Owon went on almost conversationally, “that there is a tall brass hatch in the sand to the west.”

             
“What?”

             
“And there are men rising out of it. Flagging us down, it would seem.”

             
“
What
?”

             
Looking slightly deranged with her hair half out of its bun and her skirts held up to her knees, Scarlet shrieked at Owon, “Then take us there, Vee! Or you're as dead as the bleeding rest of us!”

             
Four gunshots went off in quick succession, and either Gid or Mordecai shouted. Reece dropped out from under Hayden's arm and gave him a shove in the right direction, shouting at Owon, “Just take them!”, then adding for Nivy just as desperately, “Shoot him if he runs!” He turned on his heel, bringing up his hob, only to grunt when Gideon hurtled into him, knocking every last scrape of wind from his lungs. Gid had shoulders like bleeding boulders.

             
“No good!” he growled, pushing Reece on. “They ain't goin' down!”

             
Reece wheezed out, “Mordecai?”

             
With a wicked grin, Gideon looked over his shoulder. Reece squinted. Mordecai had picked a grand old time to go and act his age—one of the creatures was pounding at his heels, about to make a killing bound. As Reece started to shout a warning, the creature pounced. Mordecai spun down into a deep-kneed Handling stance, simultaneously bringing his gun arm around as if throwing a right hook. Hand and revolver both disappeared inside the thing's maw. The creature didn't even have time to clamp its teeth over Mordecai's fist before he fired, one dampened
crack
. Reece was just as glad he couldn't make out the details of the creature’s head blasting apart, of the dark chunks falling against the green-tinged sky. Before the creature's headless body had finished slumping lifelessly into the sand, the rest of its pack dove at it with claws as long as steak knives, shredding it greedily while Mordecai made his getaway.

             
“It's like I always said,” the crazy old Pan said cheerfully as he caught up to Reece and Gideon, hiking his knees high as he ran. “Sometimes problems are best solved from the inside out.”

             
Reece barked a hysterical laugh but saved the rest of his breath for running. He'd yell at Mordecai for scaring the wits out of him later. Handlers.

             
They were so intent on running, they nearly missed the hatch: a waist-high, rusted thing that looked like it belonged in a fortress. Half a dozen cloaked figures stood in a loose circle around it with stocky rifles, wearing goggles beneath wide, flat hats that tied under their chins. When the colored lightning flashed, the lenses of their goggles gleamed opaquely.

             
“In!” one of them snapped, pointing his gun at the open hatch.

             
“The others?” Reece demanded as he skidded to a stop. He nodded for Gid to go on down the ladder peeking out the hatch, but the big Pan hung back. Mordecai waited with a foot propped on the pipe, watching interestedly.

             
“They're safe. Now
get in
, boy! You've made enough of a mess of things already!”

             
Exchanging a wondering look with Gideon, Reece hurried to the open hatch, waited for Gid and Mordecai to get in first, and then none-too-slowly swung himself onto the ladder descending into darkness. Surprisingly, the instant the rim of the hatch rose up over his head, the cloaked men outside slammed the manhole cover home, sealing out the meager green half-light of the sickly sky. There was nothing for it but for Reece to feel out one rung at a time and follow the murmurs of the others beneath his feet.

X

Welcome to Leto City, Now Go Away

             
Reece climbed until sweat pasted his bangs to his forehead, now and again catching snatches of echoed words, thinking he heard his name among them. It was hard to tell. With the vague hum of unseen crowds, grumbling machinery, and running water growing ever louder as he climbed, he could hardly hear himself panting anymore.

             
Blinking, he realized he could make out his hands gripping the rung level with his chin, and looked down. The tunnel ended in another dozen paces while the ladder continued down to a floor of water-slicked rock. He took the last few rungs two at a time and dropped to the ground with a breath of relief over the gust of not-quite-cool air that ruffled his hair.

             
When Reece straightened, it was to go cross-eyed staring down the barrels of the rifle pointed at his nose. The figure behind it—he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, the photon globe mounted on the lid of its cap hid its face—asked in a grainy voice, “Is this him?”

             
“That's our cap'n,” Po's voice answered, and Reece glanced cautiously over his shoulder at his crew, lined up against the rock wall with their hands raised. Three more cloaked figures had those hefty-looking rifles trained on them, and one, with his rifle strapped over his back instead, was holding in an armful the stockpile of their weapons, Gid and Mordecai's revolvers, Nivy's ALP, and a few knives, two of which were as sleek as letter openers and had a distinctly Scarlet look about them.

             
The room was a bubble of stone with a bolted door, a porthole window, and nothing else save for the overhead tunnel and the lantern hanging from a hook on the ceiling. As Reece let one of the cloaked strangers pat him down and confiscate his hob, he raised his eyebrows at Gid. Gideon shrugged a big shoulder with a grimace. If the Letoians (if these
were
the Letoians) wanted to take them prisoner, acting out wouldn't be in their best interest. Not with those rifles aimed at their heads.

             
As Reece was herded against the wall, the man with his rifle across his back raised a flat, palm-sized box to his mouth and muttered something in code.

             
“Everyone alright?” Reece asked under his breath as he squeezed between Hayden and Nivy. On the other side of Hayden, Po was clutching Mordecai's arm and half supporting Scarlet as the latter panted raggedly and fanned herself with a limp hand. Owon stood a full two steps apart, eyeing the cloaked Letoians with a cold smile that was doing nothing to ease the tension in the room.

             
Hayden nodded, wiping down his fogged lenses. “Yes, but I think there's been a misunderstanding. Something about those…those animals…”

             
“You mean the Rippers,” a woman's voice, deep and stern, said in a clipped accent. Reece had to squint to make her out; she was standing in the now open doorway with rifled guards wearing blinding head lanterns at either of her arms, which she folded behind her back, like an officer surveying troops.

             
“The Rippers,” Reece repeated slowly, with a glance for Scarlet, who was quickly straightening and smoothing down her skirts. Somehow, he didn't think looking presentable would make much of a difference with these people. Every last one of their nubby brown cloaks had patched shoulders, fraying seams, and muddy hems. “Aptly named, I guess.”

             
The officer paused. “Indeed.” She took a slow, calculating step forward and waved at her guards with a snappish hand. They reached and turned off their lanterns so Reece could finally make out her features, her square-jawed face and salt and pepper braid. Unlike the others, she wore no cloak, just an olive-colored uniform with tall black boots. She was also the only one without goggles. Those sharp but nonetheless pretty eyes studied Reece completely unimpeded. “You are the ones who broke atmosphere not long ago, then? And proceeded to land in the Rippers' Quarter?”

             
“We sent a log,” Reece said curtly, and paused when Scarlet very quietly cleared her throat. What? The woman was talking to him like he was a bleeding criminal. “We tried to make contact. But our ship is in bad need of repairs, and I couldn't afford to wait on a response I couldn't be sure was coming.”

After a moment, the woman stiffly nodded and said,
“Forgive us. We are not in the habit of housing guests, but neither do we turn aside those in need. But you do not realize what you have done, intruding on the Rippers' Quarter as you did. We have a tenuous truce with the Rippers, one balanced on a knife's edge.”

             
“A truce?” Scarlet repeated incredulously, drawing the attention of the rifle-bearers and woman. “With those creatures? Surely they aren't—”

             
“They are semi-intelligent,” the woman said sharply, “and terrible enemies. You, however, are Honoran. And you travel with two Pantedans and that one,” she nodded at Owon, “who I cannot be sure of at all. Leto was a close ally with Panteda in the war,” she added as if answering a question Reece hadn't heard. “We never forget an ally's face.”