Page 3 of The Lure (Maelstrom Duology #1)

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Night fell, and the reflections off walls and slanting through open doorways lessened to almost nothing. They hadn’t travelled in far from the chasm, but moonlight wasn’t enough for her to navigate by. The room slowly took on a gray darkness impenetrable to her eyes.

Until he returned bearing gifts and a flashlight.

He’d brought tan leggings that looked as if they’d fit and a red sleeveless shirt that was too loose, plus underwear from some nearby bedroom. They seemed clean. Not that she could wash them. Water was scarce, he’d said. Along with most everything humans held dear or required to survive.

She was reborn into a world of need, devastation, and desperation. Only this baby had teeth. Sharp ones. She’d cut a Ghoul Lord and killed a man, and her only a day old.

“Thanks.” She smiled at Vargr.

“Not a problem. If I had to see your naked octopus-ass for one more hour, minute, make that second…” He winked. “I’d do something I wouldn’t regret. Feel well enough to dress?”

Cyn made a dismissive sound and shook out the shirt, wondering if the old her would’ve said something to put him off the… her scent. He was attracted to her? Thing was, she rather liked him too, this imposing, exceptionally solid man, who’d become a winged beast. Wing-soldier he’d called his form?

She supposed they needed to make new names for themselves. New names for a new world.

The flashlight he’d salvaged lasted another minute before it flickered and died.

“Battery’s fucked. Most are.” Vargr dropped it to the floor

Cyn dressed by touch, wincing as the wound was pulled by her contortions.

The bandage wrapped about her belly had no new blood seeping through.

What had she been thinking, dragging out that metal bar? It’d been instinctive in the moment—what she’d felt she needed to do, despite the possible dire consequences such as bleeding out. Truthfully, the consequences hadn’t occurred to her. Had she gone mad for those few seconds?

She’d lied to him too.

Lying to her rescuer was ungrateful, and she’d seen suspicion in his eyes. He suspected her of something , and she didn’t know what because she knew less of her situation than he did.

Five years up there with those monsters and she’d forgotten almost all of it, years, except for a blur of memories and that fight when she freed herself.

The lie about that fight between her and the Ghoul Lord had slipped out easily, as if she’d thought it through and went, yes, for the best . Again, no, she hadn’t.

Perhaps it was for the best? What would Vargr think if he knew she’d killed a man with a knife and done something else to the Ghoul Lord she didn’t comprehend? That had been weird. Vargr was suspicious of her and for good reasons.

She chewed off a torn nail and frowned at the blood taste on her tongue. Brooding on where she was and who she was with, how she’d arrived… she slid her tongue along her lip, gathering the bitter-sweet taste. Was surviving five years up there not your average deal?

Duh. Of course it’s odd.

She buckled the belt atop the tan leggings, surprised at how her stomach felt less painful than it had a few minutes ago.

“There’s something here with us,” Vargr whispered sharply. She could see him standing over her, craning his neck back. “Somewhere above.”

“Crap.” The ceiling had holes, part had caved in, spilling plaster into the bedroom corner. Not all the floors in this building were separated by concrete. “If anything leaps down onto me, I will either A, scream or B, kill it with fire.”

“You can’t see in the dark though, can you?” His voice had risen in a distinct question—a pointed one.

“Only some.” The darkness was lighter than it had been. Had the moon slanted light down the hallway? No, her eyes must’ve adapted. The door to this apartment was in a line, opposite this bedroom door, and had long ago had its door torn off the hinges.

That door lay in the hallway, partly visible, and green.

She could see colors. The blue threads and dots swirling over his furled wings were always visible, but they twinkled.

“Humans can’t see much either, so maybe you are human?”

Am I? She shivered. This was surely good. Not that she’d been wondering, much.

Cyn rose to her feet, feeling the resilient mattress push up under her butt. “But you can.”

There was a faint scuttling, as if many legs were moving.

“Yeah. Beasters can.” Absentmindedly, he rambled through a list, “The foot-soldiers, the wing-soldiers, the biotechies, we all have nanomachines in our blood, and all of us can see in the dark.” With her following closely, he went into the living room entrance, drawing a huge pistol that’d been strapped to his right hip. The twin to it was holstered to his left. The marks on the pistol butt stood out clearly, as did the water-stained walls, the dangling light, the vanes of the wing feathers.

The pistol, wall, and light were not glowing like the motes and swirls. She could see in the dark—very well.

Should she lie again?

“You know,” she said nonchalantly, “I am seeing better.”

“Oh?” He twisted to look back at her.

Something clinked above their heads, and she reached and drew that second pistol while he was preoccupied. Heavy in the hand, and a revolver that used a large caliber, from the feel of it under her fingers.

“Hey. Put that back.” That was said softly, but with stern male authority to his tone.

“Moi?” Tenderly, she lifted it to brush the cold metal across her cheek, flicking off what appeared to be the safety.

The weapon felt good, smelled good.

Vargr, his neck twisted so as to get her in his focus, in the throes of an outraged stare, reached back with his unoccupied left hand to retrieve his gun.

She smirked and spun, standing back to ass with him, to face whatever foe might charge in, both her hands wrapped about the gun.

A few heartbeats passed, then he sighed heavily, but she could tell he’d faced away again. The unknown creature worried him more. “Do you even know how to shoot?”

“I could, I’m sure. I have once…” Upon a time. She was certain of this, but the precise occasion escaped her memory.

“You’d break your wrist when it fired.” He remained back to back with her. The noises lessened then stopped.

“Don’t bet on it.”

Silence out there.

Nothing moved or made noises except for a few insects and the building, which creaked and groaned and made her wonder how long a scraper lasted once the maintenance engineers ceased to monitor them. Not forever.

“Thought it might be stinkers, sent from above to retrieve you.”

“Stinkers?” His broad back, with the folded wings to either side, was warm and hard against hers. Reassuring. His butt was even warmer, stirring her below, in a way she was sure it hadn’t been stirred for a long time…

Excluding that tentacle? Ick.

“Stinkers smell. They’re white, all white like the GLs that we have documented images of. They look like a parasite, or a big, saucepan-sized spider with legs all crooked and sticking up like a bunch of mini Eiffel towers when they run.”

“Interesting.” Just one of her worst nightmares come true then. A madhouse version, a French spider. She almost giggled. Eiffel towers?

“When you see them, you’ll know. Can I have my gun back?”

She hugged the gun in her hand for a last second. “Here.”

The beast man thought they’d send something after her? Oh joy of joys. This was her lucky day.

Her legs chose then to tremble, and she hissed as the pain returned to her side. “Ouch.”

Little Mo.

Day of Observation 1692

Found the female, Cyn. She has joined a male that has wings. Male and therefore one of the GM beast horde with a probability of ninety-six point… something. It lifted one leg and tapped its globular head. The ding, ding, ding resounded in Little Mo’s sound receptors but caused no improvement in the data.

Data corruption was a bitch. Memory was overflowing, and there were possibly physical defects in the core. Too long. Too long following Cyn. It needed to back-up at Big Daddy. Sadly, she was going the wrong way.

It continued observing the pair but more silently, as much as possible. One leg was glitching and the servo-motor was stubbornly refusing to obey some signals.

Little Mo was getting old, and it knew it. Back-up soon, it prayed.