Page 139

He nocked the arrow and let it fly. It pierced the widest target, the chest of the closest one. The bulging body jerked. A flickering current danced through me.

The aphid flopped to the ground and exploded in a fountain of innards.

The remaining bug raised a claw. It snapped and snarled with quivering jaws. The approaching army stopped.

A howl barreled next me. Jesse was actually laughing. I wanted to laugh with him until I saw Roark sprinting back, his face twisted in rage.

“Beckett,” he yelled. “It’s Ivar, his sons.”

Jesse stilled beside me. “They’re all dead.”

Roark skidded before us. “Something like that. I’m sorry.”

My heart sank.

“Evie?” Michio’s voice turned me around. He scanned the horizon then my face. “How are you holding them?”

I shook my head. “I’m not. They’re nervous. It won’t last. What about the nymph? Did it work?”

My answer shuffled out of the door behind him. Njall carried his wife, both squinting in the sun. Her face was sallow, and her arms hung. But blue irises glowed in her human eyes.

“It worked, Nannakola. Just one injection of your blood and Frida’s human genes reactivated. She’s confused…doesn’t remember anything since the infection took over. I’ll run some tests—”

Whoosh. Whoosh.

My stomach turned over violently. A cold voice swept up my spine. Eveline.

I jerked up my head. From out the sky, a black form shot toward us. Waspy wings blurred in flight. Muscles jerked under a soaring sable cape. Claws and teeth shot out.

My guardians appeared in front of me, weapons raised. But the Drone’s onyx eyes were locked on Frida. His body turned in mid-air and Njall screamed.

Deep in the fundamental heart of mind and Universe there is a reason.

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Frida’s cries joined Njall’s as they rolled away from the outstretched talons of the swooping shadow.

The Drone landed in a crouch, wings tucking under his cape, his body blocking the door to the lab and Njall’s intended escape.

Njall scrambled back, regained his footing, and half-walked, half-ran toward the waterfalls, his gait hindered by Frida’s limp body bouncing in his clutch.

I drew myself up as tall as I could and sighted the carbine around the swell of muscle flexing against me. I steadied the aim on his chest. Squeeze.

The bullet skidded somewhere behind him as he rose from a crouched position he hadn’t been in two seconds before. “Try harder.”

Exhale. Squeeze.

That one pinged off the door. He stood beside it, the sun ringing his black eyes in red, their maddened depths locked on the lumbering escapees. “She’s human.” A hiss pushed past his fanged jaws. “So why is she emitting a pulse like one of my own?” He cocked his head. “It’s residual. Fading.” He bored his eyes into mine and floated forward. “There’s only one explanation.”

Jesse’s bow stretched beside his cheek. “Back the fuck up.” His arrow plinked off the rock wall, missing the Drone’s side-stepping blur.

A blast of wind grabbed hold of the Drone’s cloak and thrashed it against his boots. “You murdered my brother, Eveline.”

Roark raised his sword in a two-handed grip. “Aw now, me girl might’ve taken the ballbeg’s knob, but ‘twas me who relieved him of his cranium.”

A roar ripped from the Drone’s throat. “Even you, priest”—he spat the word— “are not immune to Allah’s judgment. It will be an honor to cast you into hell’s fire.” His eyes jerked across the lava field, targeting Njall’s retreating back. “But first, I must deal with the creature who carries Eveline’s blood.” He glanced at Michio. “She, too, now sustains the missing element for my serum.”

The terrifying truth of his words robbed my arms of strength and the carbine took a nose dive. He didn’t want a cure, just an antidote for his own fucked up mutation. Then he would resume the design of his perfect race. I grappled to readjust the barrel. A wall of muscle supported my back as Michio stilled his most effective weapon, his body.

The Drone had been faster than me in every confrontation. But was he faster than a bullet? I aimed the carbine—God, Buddha, the Great Mystery, fucking make me a believer—and squeezed the trigger, again and again.

He shot to the sky in a snap of wings, bullets dusting where he’d stood. Mother fuck. His hellish shape whipped across the field and dove past the swarm of aphids chasing Njall. Then he rose from the chaos, Frida’s body lolling from his grip in a misshapen arch, Njall arms stretching skyward and clawing at air. His gut-wrenching lament for his wife turned to gargles as heaving shadows fell upon his back.

I fired rounds from too far away. My heart sprinted as did my feet, a string of Irish curses chasing me.

The distance closed, aphid eyes bursting with black blood under the spray of my volley. The flex of Roark’s shoulders followed the fluid swing of his sword. Bodies separated at the neck. Purpose tightened his freckled face and hardened his jade eyes. The fierce protection he put into action swelled my chest. It wasn’t just the heart of the world’s last woman that propelled him. His fight was born long before the virus, on the sectarian streets of Northern Ireland where young boys were beaten by the cruel fists of soldiers.