Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (10 page)

Her mother’s hands cradled
her head. Slow and easy, she swayed one way, then the other,
holding her daughter tight against her bosom. “There are no answers
to questions like that, my love. At times, life can suck beyond
question.”

Clarisse wept for a few
more minutes.

Her mother moved no more
than to rock her, a peaceful swing back and forth.

“
I love him, mama. Why did
they take him from me? He’s so kind and gentle. Even with those
huge hands of his, he would never hurt a fly. He’s so careful
around me like I’m made of crystal or something. His touch is so
light, so -.” She choked up and had to clear her throat. “Why?” she
croaked through her tortured esophagus, a broken young woman
now.

Her mother’s grip
tightened for a few seconds as if she were trying to squeeze all
the torment from her only child. “I don’t know, sweetie. I don’t
know.”

Silence
followed.

Another thought sprang to
her and Clarisse gazed up into her mother’s chin. “He’ll be alright
though, right? Even if they hurt him, he’ll survive, right? He’s
strong, mama. He is real strong. They won’t be able to hurt him too
much, right?”

Above Clarisse, her
mother’s face became hard, her mind seething at the only remaining
ribbon of hope left in her daughter.
They
won’t be able to hurt him too much…?
What
kind of shit was that? How could this have happened? Why had the
world bludgeoned my daughter with such cruelty? Why did she have to
be so young?

Not once did she question
whether Clarisse in truth loved the boy. It would have been a gross
waste of time. She knew it for what it was. Joaquin Barrientos had
swept her daughter off her feet.

And now…

“
He’ll be okay, right,
Mom?”

She gazed down at her
daughter, a wan smile etching her lips. “If there is anyone out
there who could survive an ordeal like this, it would be him,
Clarisse. You are right, baby-girl. He is a strong, young
man.”
He was
, she
thought.
He is only seventeen and he is
already much taller and broader than my husband.

She had not quite believed
though, what she had told Clarisse. She knew a gun or a knife could
overwhelm anyone’s God-given strength with ease, but the effect on
the teen in her arms was amazing. No more than a few heartbeats
after her words died out. Within the confines of the room did
Clarisse fall asleep. A sleep so deep, she was conscious one
minute, then dead weight the next.

Unwilling to be farther
away from her heartbroken offspring, Mrs. McIntyre stayed upon the
bed. Her legs, she curled beneath her, Clarisse’s head in her lap.
It was necessary. It was a mother's work.

With a parent’s care, she
held onto her, sang her lullabies from when she was a toddler,
rocked her and cradled her for hours on end.

Through it all, she could
not shake the feeling – though things were bad – they were going to
get even worse. The disappearance of so many children was, in
itself, terrible. Whatever it was lurking just beyond the horizon,
it was without a doubt pure evil. It would have to be the essence
of hate itself.

And, it had yet to show
its’ face.

Without thinking, she
shivered, holding onto her daughter tighter than ever.

…
It had yet to show its’
face…

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

~ 7 ~

Retrieval

Day Four, Sunday, 6:51
am…

“
You
leave my Sophie alone…!
” were the words
upon the wind, deep within the fourth universe, upon a continent in
the Melded World; so far away it was
unimaginable.

“
I will kill you! I will
kill all you terrible things!” She had screamed so loud, the moment
the words left her throat, it was on fire, scraped raw with
abuse.

Her tiny feet hit the
ground at such velocity; she sent snow flying in all directions,
leaving behind a good-sized crater. Its’ bottom cleaned of all the
sticky precipitation that had fallen for four straight
days.

The sun was finally out,
the sky blue striking, the air icy, though crisp and
fresh.

Yet, she noticed none of
it. To her, the landscape had slowed to no more than a crawl. To
her, it moved at a glacial pace. She was a blur to anyone watching,
in one place for no more than a quarter-second.

Mikalah Herrera rocketed
from the crater. She sent a rooster-tail of sleet streaming out
behind her three times her height, double that in length. It took
her less than a second to spot the trail left behind by the
Crawling Creep. The deep, undulating furrow in the snow was
unmistakable. It led off into the forest, angling left through the
trees and underbrush. All were overburdened with the white
precipitation that blanketed everything.

With no more than the time
it took to make the decision, the 3rd grader streaked after the
beast, hoping she could catch it in time. She had to get to the
creature before it began to ingest her brother’s girlfriend. She
was a sixteen-year-old beauty that Mikalah was fast upon loving
herself.

She rounded a stand of
pines, leaping over the snow-laden plant-life. To her, she was just
stepping where she could. To anyone else, she was taking strides
thirty to forty feet in length.

She dodged a crooked
branch, plowing through a fern. The entire plant exploded as if
doused with nitroglycerin. It ceased to exist. She surged forward
demanding more speed. The faint smell of rotting meat tickled her
nostrils.
It’s ahead
, she told herself, leaping over a jumble of misshapen rocks.
Landing with what she figured was ease; she pulverized a wild rose
bush in reality. It had died during the cold of the storm. Its’
stalks and shoots had been brittle to the touch. Mikalah’s tiny
feet reduced it to particles no bigger than ash.

She wound her way through
a pair of oaks. Then blasted through the low-hanging branches of a
willow, denuding its’ entire lower portions. She scurried around
some sort of shrubbery overgrown with Ivy. Every last wilted leaf
ripped free in the violent turbulence of her wake.

The putrid smell
grew.

Close!
The word was unspoken.

Then, she did leap.
Completely over a dead-fall, a great jumble of trees that had
succumbed to the cold of the storm. Her landing stripped the earth
down to the discolored grass and frozen dirt.

At once, she knew where it
was.

Its’ stench was the
key.

She turned.

It was behind
her.

She twirled about, forcing
the wind to change direction.

Then, she had spotted the
vile
thing
. It
had taken the girl that her brother loved near the base of the
fallen trees. She watched as it moved with a kind of corkscrewing.
It propelled itself forward, further away from the cave, even
deeper into the woods.

It was the most bizarre
creature she had ever seen. It was so long it was difficult to
describe it in any other terms than fantastic. It was snake-like,
sixty feet from tip to tip. From what she could divine in that
micro-second, it had Sophie wrapped in five or six huge coils. It
squeezed along the entire length of her body every time it moved.
It was about ten inches in diameter, but did not have the scales of
reptilian. Rather, its’ sick, green skin appeared more like bark
than anything else. It had long hair-like filaments protruding at
varying intervals. Even from a distance, she could see some of them
curling and twisting. They were grotesque, questing over Sophie’s
clothes and skin, trying to burrow into her pores. If it had a head
or a tail, she could not tell which end was which. It looked
exactly the same at either end.

So, she assumed the end
closest to the pale cheerleader’s face was her intended target.
Without a second thought, she shot at it like a
cannonball.

Out of the corner of her
eye, she saw Garfield. The great striped tabby – a member of the
Five Fingers of the Light – came bounding over the twisted morass
of the tree trunks. His huge jaws were agape, his long stinger-like
tail whipping this way and that. His incredible musculature was
catapulting him at a pace almost a quarter of hers. She was
impressed, because she was flirting with the sound
barrier.

Half a moment later,
Mikalah was upon the
plant-creature-thing
. She did the
only thing she could think in that instant. She kicked its’ front
end with all the strength she possessed. Adding the kinetic energy
she had built up behind her, the force of her foot was immense. She
smashed into the thing trying to eat Sophie with such effect; it
was monstrous… and immediate.

Its’ front end
disappeared. It turned into a thousand chucks and splinters of
flesh that spewed every which way, obliterated. A strange,
unnatural sap of blood and gore cascaded about the snow-covered
ground.

A heartbeat later,
Garfield’s jaws closed about the thing’s other end. The massive cat
gave it a huge yank backward, an attempt to arrest its’ forward
motion. He had not the time to see the havoc the little
eight-year-old had wrought upon its’ other end.

Both of the attacks served
to loosen the constricting coils about the white-haired girl. She
half-slithered, half-fell out of its’ clutch, then her body flopped
to the ground.

Mikalah released her
Gift.

At once, the Melded World
returned to a more normal speed.

She glanced around, trying
to get her bearings. Coming from the hyper-awareness while in the
throes of her Gift was always a bit disorienting.

“
MOVE!!!” came the
stone-grating tones of Kodiak. She was the larger of the two
bear-dogs of the Fist, their fearless leader and defender of the
Twelve.

The young girl turned to
see Joaquin and her brother, Anthony, had gained the top of the
dead-fall. The large, dark haired teen was a step ahead of her
sibling. Both of them were wide-eyed with fear. Their expressions
were wild. Their movements were spasmodic, wooden, like a newborn
fawn trying its’ legs for the first time.

Then, they both lost their
balance, in concert.

A second later the upper
third of the debris-pile erupted underneath them.

Both boys were flung
aside, tossed to the ground next to the Creep and the unconscious
form of Sophie Reed.

From the explosion came
Kodiak. Her snout pointing downward, the crown of her head was the
only part of her visible for a moment before her frame. As great as
a horse, she pounded through the dead wall of wood and into the
small clearing where Mikalah was standing.

The Bear-dog’s eyes were
already locked upon the supine form of Sophie. There was no
hesitation as she bee-lined for the injured teenager.

Garfield leaped up and
over the stunned plant-beast. His jaws clamped around a limp coil
still resting upon Sophie’s legs and pulled its’ considerable
weight off her.

Mikalah rushed forward,
holding her Gift in check, not wanting to make a mess of things.
She fell to her knees at the older girl’s head. She dug through the
snow, clearing it away, making sure Sophie’s nasal passages were
clear.

By then, Kodiak and Mr.
Patas were both at her side.

The tall rabbit-man, bent
at the waist. He grabbed the remaining coils of the beast and
tossed them, with all his might, away from the platinum blond,
young woman.

Sophie Reed was lying
unmoving upon the snow.

The moment they landed,
Garfield grabbed the snake-plant. He had it at its’ center and
dragged it farther from the group. He would take no chances with
it, none whatsoever.

“
Is she breathing, little
one?” asked Kodiak, her voice like the breaking of rock during an
earthquake.

Mikalah placed her small
hands on Sophie’s shoulder and under her nose.

They all fell
silent.

Seconds after, Mikalah
felt the other’s warm exhalation. The little girl peered up at the
Bear-dog with a huge smile, dripping with relief. “She’s
breathing!” she gushed, relieved, feeing a ton of anxiety lift from
her shoulders.

Then, her brother and
Joaquin were there, throwing themselves onto the snow.

Mikalah could tell her
brother was almost beside himself with terror. His fear of Sophie
hurt, the girl he loved, was overwhelming. He moved devoid of free
will, frantic, faster than was necessary.

She watched as he scooped
her up into his lap, pulling her close to him. His face was
stricken.

Joaquin edged closer, his
eyes dancing over the limp girl, looking for any signs of
injury.

“
She’s breathing, Tony,”
ventured Mikalah. “I think she’s just sleeping…” Her voice trailed
off, deadened by the intensity of the scene before her.