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Chapter Twenty-Five

Roland

It’s dark when I open my eyes. I don’t know where I am. Can no longer remember where I’m supposed to be. Or when. The violent collision of my past with my present makes me feel like I was hit by a dump truck filled with sand, and every move I make to claw my way up and out of the pit only spills more sand into my face, into my eyes, so I try to burn my way out, but everything just turns to glass. I shatter.

Groaning, I roll from my back onto my side. Feels funny. My stomach pitches. I taste bile and, through sheer force of will, swallow it down. My head is on the ground, being propped up by something, and I’m reminded of my new look at the sound of clattering and the realization that my forehead and cheek aren’t touching the cold concrete because there’s something else there, between the side of my face and the floor. Horns. I have horns now. No—I have horns again .

I remember ...

When I left my home world, my horns hadn’t fully taken shape. They’d been nubs starting above my ears, sticking straight up and out. Now, if the vision I saw of myself in the mirror before I smashed it was correct, my fully developed horns still start above my ears but now curl down and forward in a backward C before moving past my temples and ending in stabby twin peaks a foot above the top of my head. They’re thick, sharp, and big.

It takes a lot longer than it should for me to revolve entirely around, for my chest to hit the concrete. My chest is puffed out, twice as thick as it was, all roided out. My chin barely grazes the ground past it. I don’t feel right, and I’d be shit scared about it if I weren’t already shit scared about everything else.

Where is she?

I cough, clearing my lungs. It’s like I’m waking up for the very first time. I didn’t even feel like this when I was a child and my pod hit the ground. Disoriented, I crawled up and out of a hole in the ground half a mile long only to see beings who looked ... strange to me. That had been my first thought. But then, later, I saw my own reflection and recognized that I looked a lot like they did. Now I understand my human appearance for what it was: a clever disguise imprinted into our genetics to help us blend in until we recovered our memories, our purpose, our weapons ...

Then we’d revert to our original forms. Then we’d be ready.

I’m not fucking ready.

Slow clapping pulls my attention to the present. I reverberate a low, intimidating sound, but the clapping continues. “Sixty-Two, so glad you’ve returned,” a female voice calls. “You honor us by returning to your true form. The first Tratharine among us who has.”

I manage to get one knee underneath me, then the other, then both palms. My claws are thicker and longer than they were and clatter over the floor as I roll up to standing, feeling powerful in ways that I don’t know I should enjoy as much as I do. But I do. I love it and fear it because I know why I am built like this, why I was chosen, and what I’m supposed to do next. I remember all my training, combat and otherwise, the vow I made to the Tratharine Elders standing on the pulpit, gazing up at the planets our armies would soon conquer.

But there was one thing the Elders didn’t account for in all their planning.

They sent us as children, hiding our true purpose and our true forms until we’d successfully embedded ourselves into the societies we would later conquer. They encoded keys into our own biological strands; I remember the moment they did it. A creature built even more deadly than me told me my key. He told me I’d be awoken by a feeling of hatred so strong, I’d commit terrible acts of violence. He described it to me as a feeling, a single sensation sparked by a single act, a single moment ...

How could the Elders have been so wrong?

Because I know now as I lie on the floor, tasting grit and rage on my tongue, that it wasn’t anger that triggered me. It was her. I saw Vanessa, and for whatever reason, supernatural or of this earth, all I wanted was to protect her.

Protect and have her.

As a war child on Tratharine, the only thing I never had was one thing that was mine. Vanessa’s mine now, and neither the past nor the present nor any of these fuckers can take her.

Where is she?

My hearing was always exceptional, and now it’s beyond that. I immediately count the cadences of four different sets of hands clapping to their own beats. I shrug my shoulders back, flex my hands, and when I blink, I meet each of their gazes.

I’m looking for Three, the one who hurt her, and I find them instantly. The compulsion to rip their head off before any of them can speak is strong. My right foot jolts forward, but I manage restraint. There are four of them, and while I might be strongest, I don’t remember what their powers are, and for me to get what I want, I need to survive this.

“You all work quickly,” I say, surprised by the sound of my voice. It sounds exactly like it did this morning. “What time is it?”

“It’s been half a day. We took you this morning,” says the same female who spoke before. She’s a white woman—she presents as a white human woman—with brown hair and freckles scattered across her nose. She’s short for a female, but her eyes sparkle blue. “I am Thirty-Eight.”

I scour my memory like a Rolodex, finally finding the correct entry. Meeting her gaze, I say, “You are a caster of spells, capable of creating powerful illusions in the mind.” She gives me a bow, but it is not a customary Tratharine bow. I frown. “You are Thirty-Eight, but you are not reverted. You do not remember the Tratharine ways.”

Her lips tighten. She is younger than I am by several years, but she was my senior in another life. In our other life. But she doesn’t know that. She shakes her head, her gaze lowering.

“No. I have yet to revert. For some of us who fell, our neural implants were faulty. Either our memories were somewhat intact or we regained them over time. But only partially. And the ...” Her lips twist as she fights an anger I can feel wafting from her as powerfully as a breeze. “The SDD was too difficult for us to crush without our true forms and without our weapons, and with our diminished numbers. We have not found our maps, and we don’t know how to find them. We need you to lead us, show us how, so that we may regain our true forms and claim victory over this planet and the pitiful creatures who inhabit it.”

“If that’s still what you want,” number Three interjects. Three ... the most powerful being here, the third most powerful within our ranks on Tratharine. At least, they were ... until I reverted before they did. I cannot let them revert. I don’t know how to stop them from it, so killing them will have to do.

I look at Three and quickly rein back in the fire that threatens to explode from my eyes. It’s easier to control as I remember all my training ... years and years and years of pain. I thought so little of the humans when I first arrived and was taken into the SDD facilities. But where I am from, Tratharine, the beings are perhaps even more simplistic, for the Tratharine are only one thing: cruel.

“You think I would have changed my mind?”

“I don’t know what to think, if I’m being honest,” the impish, dark-haired number Three coos. “I didn’t expect the Elders to make our keys so ... supple.”

I don’t let them bait me. I refuse. “The Elders, in case you’ve forgotten, didn’t make our keys at all. They expected us to find triggers on this planet that would manifest reactions in our physiologies so powerful, we would remember who we are.”

“The term key was a poor one, wasn’t it?” Three shakes their head, a dark wave falling to cover one of their eyes. They brush it back. “It led us to believe our keys would be objects . But yours isn’t an object ... Or is it?” They smirk. “She is absolutely delicious. I only had the pleasure of a taste. I can imagine that having a feast every day would weaken your desire to follow through on the plan to rip her home world out from under her.”

I keep my tone calm. Cold. “The plan to enslave humankind? Combine our weapons into a gate and open it to the Elders so that they can take control of another planet? This one?”

There’s a stir among the gathered four. Three and Thirty-Eight stand alongside numbers Sixty-Nine and Twenty. Those two have powers I do remember. Sixty-Nine, a very young male with light-brown skin and black hair, has power over sand. Twenty is an older male with dark skin and white hair now, one of the oldest who was sent as part of our mission. He is powerful, with an ability to cause bodily pain through mental projection. He watches me critically as I flit my gaze back and forth over them all. No, I won’t be able to fight my way out of here like this.

I clear my throat. “Yes, I know their plans. I remember.”

“ Their plans?” Three asks. “Don’t you mean our plans?”

I am already making mistakes. Because yes, I may know our plans. And I know that, as the first reverted Tratharine, my purpose is paramount. I also know that plans change.

I growl, “No. The Elders have their own plans. Our plan is to get them here. We can only do that with our weapons, which I don’t seem to have.”

I glance around stupidly but with the express purpose of cataloguing my surroundings. I’m in a large warehouse. Much larger than I initially thought, though I suppose, at my new size and with massive structures hanging from the ceiling, that tracks. Airplanes. There are planes up there and planes scattered all across the concrete floor of various shapes, models, ages, and origins. But this isn’t an airport. It’s clearly a hangar of some kind but, based on the ages of some of the planes, one that’s very out of date.

“Where are we?”

“You don’t know?” Three’s voice makes me want to punch them. They’re number Three and pissed off they didn’t revert first. I remember their original form vaguely, from before. Like number Four, they had an ethereal body. It made them powerful and extremely difficult to kill. I will not want to deal with them once they’ve reverted and, for all of our sakes, hope they never do. “You never solved your map?”

My growl picks up again, and I take a step forward. “I don’t answer to you, human . I had better things to do than solve riddles.”

“Like burying your head in that woman’s cunt? And it’s Three to you, Sixty-Two.”

They’re baiting me; I know that. What’s surprising is that it’s working. They can throw hierarchy power bullshit at me all fucking night, but I’m not gonna last if they keep talking about my girl. My growl reverberates more loudly.

Three takes a step toward me. Bold. Too fucking bold. I glance at their hands, knowing that these were the hands that touched her body, and I struggle to hold when I see that they filed their nails to sharp points to resemble the claws they had in a previous life. How cute. My own claws clatter against each other as my fingers flex. I feel vindicated when Three glances down at them and their nose wrinkles.

“You will tell me where we are and where my weapon is, or I will leave and continue my mission without your assistance. With your claws , you have hardly more utility than a human as is.”

Three’s upper lip curls away from their straight white teeth. They are a handsome human, but they are much prettier in their original form. They want it back. I can feel their envy as tangibly as a touch. They take another step, hard shoes echoing over the concrete.

“Easy, Three. We’re on the same team. Sixty-Two, we saw your map formed on your skin in the news coverage of your heroics on that mountain,” Thirty-Eight says. “Don’t worry. We know you hadn’t recovered your memories or you wouldn’t have engaged the humans like that. The point is that we solved your map, and it brought us here. The Old Sundale Airport. We believe your weapon might be in one of these planes, but we couldn’t identify it. We were hoping you could.”

I nod slowly, turning toward Thirty-Eight. “I can, but it won’t be easy.”

Three balks. Ironic, because I’m not lying. It’s a thin blade, sharp but utterly unremarkable until it’s in my hand. “It was attached to the back of my pod.”

She nods. “We know. We have your pod. We have most of the pods already, but yours was sadly without weapon.” Suggesting that some were with weapon.

“How?”

“Three.” She points at the Tratharine I’m going to murder first. “They have extensive experience stealing from the COE.” She gestures then to Sixty-Nine, and the young male lifts a hand toward a large metal supply cabinet. Sand billows from his palms, and the doors to the cabinet fall open. Mr. Singkham and Dr. Larsen tumble out onto the floor.

I glare, the pattering of my heart stopping, then resuming. Don’t give a shit about Mr. Singkham, but Dr. Larsen? Emily? She’s my friend. The Elders were fucking fools to think that taking away our memories would help ingratiate us within the society we were meant to kill without repercussions. Because now, I care.

My pulse picks back up when I see Emily roll onto her back, groaning loudly. Twenty approaches her, and she moans in pain. I hiss, trying to keep my rage under wraps, and speak loudly, hoping to pull their collective attention back to me. “Hm,” I say, voice breaking slightly. I growl to try to mask it. “But you didn’t bring my key with you?”

“Why would we have?” Three blurts.

“She has fulfilled her purpose,” Twenty adds, voice low but filled with question, and I grin. They haven’t realized that the key unlocks both the reversion and the weapon. And since it’s clear our keys on this planet aren’t wholly intangible, I imagine Nessa could help unlock my weapon—or even find it herself. Not that I plan to voice any of that to them.

I shake my head. “Let’s search.”

“He’s right,” Thirty-Eight adds. “Let’s work on finding the weapon first, before we take it back to the others.”

“The others?”

“The Marduk.” Thirty-Eight grins. “You might remember him as number Four. He’s among those of us who fell with most of his memories from Tratharine—a mistake, but one we now are grateful for. Clever male, he’s been leading us. It was his idea to distract the world with this whole idea of villains and heroes. He created the first of them, the Meinad, shortly after watching so many of these superhero movies.” She makes air quotes around the word, and the other three around her snicker. Even Three.

“The humans were so eager to jump on the idea of these cute, fantastical little kids. They formed two corporations within the decade that have so much control. The villains shield those of us Tratharine doing actual Tratharine work with little villainous theatrics to distract and appease the world. The heroes who formed to counter them are just a bunch of bumbling morons.”

They all laugh openly at that, Thirty-Eight so hard she’s wiping tears from her eyes as she speaks next. “They’ll realize how dumb they were when it’s all settled. Once we Tratharine have all returned to our true forms and positioned ourselves in our rightful places in this world with these pathetic humans enslaved beneath us. You’ll lead us there. And when we finally amass all our weapons and open the gate, you’ll greet the Elders first.”

Lovely. I swallow hard and force myself to nod and say, “Good. My weapon first. You’re sure it’s here?”

“This is where the map led.”

“You don’t feel it?” Twenty says.

“No.” And I need it. I’m going to need a weapon to get out of this. Because if I escape and leave these beings alive, they’ll keep coming and put Nessa at risk. So I’m going to have to find my weapon—any fucking weapon—and kill all of them with it.

“What do you feel, Sixty-Two?” Three hisses, taking a slow turn around me while the others at least have the decency to pretend to look around the hangar. “A solidarity with Tratharine and its people? With the Elders who trained us to be the most feared and savage warriors in the universe? Or do you think now of her ? The little human with the soft skin and the soft heart.”

“He’s not thinking of a human,” Thirty-Eight insists. “Stop trying to provoke him.”

“He’s not thinking of a human? Don’t be blind, Thirty-Eight. He’s not with us.” Three seethes. “He’s compromised.”

“A key can’t compromise one of us,” Thirty-Eight says. “The keys are but tools to be used and discarded; you remember that part of our training, don’t you? The Elders wouldn’t have sent us somewhere where a key could derail their entire plan.”

I shout, “Don’t speak about me like I’m not even here. I want to find my weapon ...”

“You want to get back to her!” Three roars.

“Maybe the Elders did not know,” Twenty says, soft voice cutting through the rising tension. “Maybe this planet has its own defenses ...” His bleak, soulless gaze searches mine, and I know that I’ve lost.

A short silence reigns. I can feel the four turning their attention toward me in a way that spells doom. I need to say something to get me out of this. Even Thirty-Eight’s gifts are pushing at me. I can feel a softening of the air, but I fearlessly make direct eye contact. I am still stronger. Their powers may work on me, but we are Tratharine. Everything about our world is based on the strong overtaking the weak. Their powers will not work on me fully. Not yet.

“Are you with us, Sixty-Two?” Thirty-Eight asks me.

I don’t even try to lie. I just say nothing and prepare for battle ...

“Do you hear that?” Sixty-Nine says, interrupting my thoughts.

I think for a moment that he’s attempting to distract me, but then I hear it. The wings of a helicopter.

“Fuck. Must be the COE. They must have tracked him already.”

“But they were distracted. Fifty-Five and Sixty-Eight were there, and I left my illusion with them. How could they have failed? Two of ours should have easily leveled the whole block, the whole city!” Thirty-Eight snarls, curls swirling around her face, turning momentarily to snakes in my mind’s eye.

“Open the roof. Take them quickly, and in the meantime, I’ll restrain the Wyvern ,” Twenty says slowly. “Unless you’ve come to your senses and you remember your mission.”

“You think I’m your commander ready to lead the army to vanquish the planet. This planet and the people on it think I’m their superhero sent to save them.” I shake my head and laugh, brandishing my claws and funneling flame through my horns to illuminate the darkness. “Sometimes superheroes don’t give a fuck about the world. Sometimes they just want the girl.”

“I told you he was corrupted!” Three shouts.

Sixty-Nine throws open the metal roof in a burst of dust and sand. It clangs violently as it opens, and the sound only grows more deafening when three helicopters appear in sight and—bloody hell. It isn’t the COE at all. Is this ... a rescue?

With my improved hearing, I can hear Vanessa’s idiot brothers shouting at one another over the chaos. “Fuck,” I hiss at the same time that a sense of urgency pulls my attention across the room to an old model helicopter.

I start to run toward it, trying to outpace the weight of all four Tratharine warriors hurling their gifts at my back, because Vanessa is in one of the helicopters circling overhead, and I’m going to need that weapon to save her life.

And I’ve found it.