Otherborn (The Otherborn Series) Page 9
A broad, flat face stared back at her, set with two forward-facing, feline eyes—a predator. The pale face was bordered in a haze of white fur, which caused the golden eyes and black lips to dominate the other features. But Si’dah took everything in. The nose was wide and the dark lips nearly nonexistent. They curved in a crescent smile, and she bowed with respect as she had done before. She knew this face. She was sure of that.
“Welcome,” Degan spoke from his stone in the center of the grove. “It is good to see you again Zen…and Kim.” He moved his head from Si’dah’s right to her left, and she saw now that another figure had emerged from the trees there.
This one was also male, but much shorter and squatter than the furry one. It moved with some difficulty, leaning heavily on a living staff for support, which sprouted at the top into a miniature tree with sculptural branches and emerald leaves. His skin, if you could call it that, was rough and brown like bark, and the back hunched beneath a tangled shell of limbs and branches all tied and hanging with an eclectic mix of ornaments. The face seemed almost hidden behind a mask of twigs. When she located his eyes peering at her from between the leaves, she noted that they were the color of the Midplane itself, lush and lovely as a forest canopy. There was a great tide of kindness there. Again she bowed, knowing this, too, was someone familiar to her.
But an unexpected rustle brought her head up quickly. A person had emerged somewhere on the other side of the grove, and the crowd of onlookers parted to let him pass. A man made his way to the circle. His years were many, Si’dah could see that, yet his strength had not waned.
What appeared to be a simple cloth covered his bulging shoulders in a broad collar, stretching down the chiseled chest, where it fastened at the waist, hanging near to the knees. But a second look revealed a networking of iridescent blue and copper circuitry across the cloth, or in place of it—Si’dah could not decipher which—so fine and advanced it appeared almost as filigree. Except for his flowing black beard, streaked with silver, which was braided and hung with several colorful tassels, he had no other decoration. But his regal hair hung down his back, nearly as long as her own. Si’dah felt a new and unanticipated urge rush through her body at the sight of him. She faltered for a moment, losing sight altogether, her vision clouded over.
The fog cleared and she saw him again. He was watching her with an uncanny expression on his dignified face, the ice-blue of his eyes glowing with recognition. The pattern of red spots near his hairline framed his features.
“Welcome—” the one called Degan began to say, but before he could finish, Si’dah opened her mouth and completed the greeting for him.
“Roanyk.”
TEN
Hole
It was a rude awakening.
London bolted upright, the coals of their fire still glowing warmly in the dark. Her back ached from lying on the hard tiles, and she put a hand to her chest as she gulped in lungfuls of air.
Across the fire, Rye was sitting up, too, watching her.
Before either could speak, Zen and Kim began to stir. Kim groaned softly then opened his eyes. Zen rose and stretched uncomfortably. They all took stock of one another. No one knew what to say.
“Did…?” Zen started.
“Yes,” Rye said before Zen could continue, his eyes burning into London’s.
“Holy—” Kim began.
“Shit,” London finished.
“What happened?” Kim asked. “It was over so fast.”
“I don’t know,” London answered. “I…I think it was me again. I was afraid.”
“So was I,” Rye told her.
“You were…the girl one,” Zen said to London.
“Yes,” she blushed, grateful for the dark, realizing now that just as she’d seen each of their Otherborns, they’d seen hers. “And you were the furry one.”
“Hey! That wasn’t fur. I mean, it was, but…” Zen was obviously offended by her choice of words.
London grinned. “I didn’t mean any disrespect. I thought you were kinda cute, actually.” She also thought it was poignantly ironic that the biggest, toughest guy in their group was really a poetry-writing momma’s boy, blanketed in peach fuzz. But then again, his Otherborn was huge and powerful-looking, a real manimal. Fur or no, he was not to be messed with.
Zen frowned. “I just mean there’s more to him, er…me, than fur.”
“I know,” London said, chucking him on the shoulder then digging her cigarettes out of her backpack.
“What was that place?” Rye asked.
“The Midplane,” London answered on impulse. Everyone looked at her.
“Well, isn’t that what you call it?” she asked self-consciously.
“I didn’t call it anything,” Rye said. “That’s why I asked.”
“I, my Otherborn, that is, called it The Between,” Kim said.
“Mine, too!” agreed Zen.
They fell silent again, each reflecting on where they’d just been and what they’d just witnessed.
“You…you two knew each other,” Kim blurted, looking from London to Rye.
London froze. Busted.
“Yeah, we did,” Rye confirmed.
London quickly added, “We talked.”
Kim looked stung.
“You talked about your Otherborns to each other?” Zen asked.
London felt guilty. She hung her head. Maybe it had been a mistake. “Yeah.”
“Just once,” Rye said, as though this made it better.
Zen ran a hand through his tousled blonde hair. He blew out a large gust of air and dropped his shoulders. “That explains it.”
“Explains what?” London asked, lighting her cigarette.
“Why it ended so suddenly. It was you two. Something happened when you saw each other, recognized each other. It…it threw us out.”
London looked at Rye through the dark, who stared back with russet eyes full of something she couldn’t quite place. Was it anger…or desire?
“Sorry,” she said simply.
“Don’t be,” Zen shrugged. “Now that we’ve all seen each other, it shouldn’t happen again.”
“But we didn’t all see each other,” Kim said.
“Hey, you’re right!” Zen practically whooped.
“What are you two—” London scowled before she realized what Kim was saying. “Avery! Avery wasn’t there.”
“That means she’s not dead, right? She can’t be dead or we’d have seen her like we saw Degan, right?”
Zen was desperate for validation. London’s heart went out to him. “Right, Zen. She must be alive somewhere.”
“Then why didn’t she show up like we did?” Rye asked. It was a valid question.
“Maybe because she wasn’t with us,” Kim suggested. “We were all together, like you and London tried before. Avery’s alone, wherever she is.”
“Not alone, just not with us.” London was certain that Avery must be with the Outroaders now that they’d confirmed she wasn’t dead.
“Now what?” Kim asked. “It’s still dark. Should we get moving? Stay here? We’re all awake.”
“I don’t want to move in this darkness,” Zen replied. “Even if the Ten is visible in the moonlight, we won’t know what’s around us.”
“But it’s so hot in the day,” Kim whined.
“Zen’s right,” Rye said. “Better to lay low until we have some light. I’d rather sweat a little than get stalked and eaten by those dogs we heard.”
Weary and shaken from their dream, London was glad they weren’t going just yet. She settled back onto the ground, her backpack crammed under her head like a pillow, and attempted to relax. It didn’t seem to matter how she tried to forget it. Her mind returned again and again to the image of Rye as Roanyk in the grove of trees, the sensation that swept her Otherborn’s body as she saw him standing there, and the intense look his white-blue eyes held as they locked on her dark ones.
London knew they weren’t thrown out of the dream si
mply because she’d recognized Rye’s Otherborn, though she couldn’t say that. She’d seen Zen and Kim’s Otherborns first, without the same powerful reaction. It was because of her feelings for Rye, which had clearly carried over to her Otherborn. What she was feeling for Rye in the waking world, Si’dah was now feeling for Roanyk in the dreaming one.
Finally, after a lot of shifting and sighing, the four of them managed to find a restless, shallow sleep. They didn’t wake again until morning, when the light of dawn chased away the possibility of dreams, Otherborn, or the Midplane.
London was positively baking in the searing sun, the pavement of the Ten acting like a giant griddle radiating heat from all angles, trapping her hopelessly in the humid climate. Gratefully, the dense overgrowth lining the interstate was beginning to overhang the Ten for brief stretches, providing a spotty respite from the misery of their excursion. Her water was low and her lips were beginning to crack. She’d only had one cigarette that morning, which dried her mouth out so bad she didn’t think she could stomach another.
Zen thought they were gaining on the Outroaders. Some barely visible tread marks in a patch of dirt shouldering the Ten indicated humans had passed there recently, or something else in sneakers. And a still sticky pink wad of chewing gum suggested he was right. London prayed they’d find them soon. She’d skipped lunch and her stomach was protesting loudly, but another meal of dry cereal, stew flakes, or canned sausages did not sound appetizing.
Suddenly, Zen stopped dead in the road and tapped her on the shoulder with the back of his hand. He raised a finger to his puckered lips, insisting on silence. Rye and Kim froze mid-step, and they all looked and listened for whatever Zen was tuning in to.
It took a moment, but a distinct sound carried on the muggy breeze across the Ten from the North. It was nothing like the anonymous knocks of the ruins or the singing dogs from the night before. It was human. Like a laugh. At the same time, a scent tickled London’s nose, something cedarish and dry.
“Smoke,” London whispered, and smoke meant fire. The smoke carried with it a richer scent, one that made her stomach growl with need. Fire meant food.
Overcome with relief, the four of them burst into the undergrowth to their right, running and tearing at weeds and twigs with their arms.
“Avery!” Zen hollered. “Aaavverry!”
“Zen, wait,” London said as loud as she dared, but he was already gone. Whoever was out there, they needed to keep their mouths shut until they knew if it was Avery or someone they could trust. Unfortunately, Zen hadn’t gotten that memo.
A thin branch swung back as Zen tore through and smacked London’s left arm hard. Pain erupted like fire under her skin, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out. The taste of iron filled her mouth as the blood flowed from her tongue and tears stung at the corners of her eyes, but she couldn’t stop to look at her arm now. The others were running ahead, passing her in their excitement. She could lose them in the thick brush.
She pressed on, her wounded arm tucked tightly against her chest, her other hand outstretched to fend off more unexpected blows. She could make out an expanse of blue, reprocessed knit up ahead, which she knew was Zen’s back, and the blur of Kim running to her left.
London turned right to look for Rye when she saw Zen disappear out of the corner of her eye, his blue-clad shoulders and blonde hair simply dropping out of sight.
Immediately, she skidded to a frantic halt, her feet teetering on the edge of a deep hole. A hand reached out and grabbed her backpack, yanking her away from the void, and London fell against Rye’s chest, out of breath.
“What the—” she exclaimed as Kim dropped to one hip and slid to the edge of the hole. His feet dangled over, but he’d managed to stop himself from falling in.
“Zen!” Rye called, setting London aside and getting to his feet. “Zen! Are you down there? Are you okay?”
A moan emitted from the hole in the ground. Then they heard their friend’s voice respond, “Yeah, I’m here, I’m okay.”
London crawled to the hole’s rim and peered down. Zen had fallen into a crudely dug opening about ten feet deep. It was dark, but his face smiled up at her from the bottom. The walls were lined with carefully packed layers of dirt and scrap.
“What is this thing?” she asked aloud.
“It’s a hole,” Kim answered, dusting leaves and dirt off his pant legs.
“I know it’s a hole, Kim. But what made it? What’s it doing here?”
“Hey! There’s a tunnel down here,” Zen coughed. “I think. There’s a screen across it. There isn’t much light. It’s hard to make out. I think something’s coming!”
“Come on,” Rye said, laying on his stomach at the edge and throwing an arm down. “You take my hand, Zen. London, Kim, you guys grab my feet. We gotta get him out of there!”
London and Kim both snapped to their positions, the alarm in Rye’s voice shaking them from their confusion. No one noticed that the sound of laughter they were following earlier was now mysteriously gone, replaced only by the occasional crunch of leaves.
Zen clapped hands with Rye as London and Kim strained with their combined weight to pull him up. Zen was trying desperately to get a foothold in the earth to leverage himself against as he climbed out, digging the toe of his boot in just above a large rusted can.
Rye gritted against the pull on his arms, but London was the one who was really hurting. Her left arm blazed with pain under her sweater, and she accidentally let Rye’s leg slip out of her hand.
“Come on, London,” he shouted, frantic to get Zen out of the hole before whatever was coming down that tunnel got in. London grabbed hold again, but she knew it was no use. Kim would have to be strong enough for both of them.
Just as Zen caught the edge and hoisted himself, waist-up, over the rim, Rye shouted, “It’s people! There are people down there!”
London, who had fallen back on her butt, looked over to see the unwelcoming face of an older man in glasses and cut-offs, sporting a raggedy blue bandana around his bald head. He was standing across the hole from them with what appeared to be a loaded rifle aimed their way. Behind him, more and more men were gathering, until a small, ragtag militia of ten to twelve scrappy Outroaders were all pointing gun barrels their direction.
Kim looked up and went rigid with fear as Rye pulled Zen to his feet, too busy helping his friend to notice what was happening right in front of them.
London kicked Rye in the ass with the steel toe of her boot. “Look up, Rye,” she said slowly. “They’re here, too. And they look pissed.”
ELEVEN
The Camp
Apparently, they were hostages of the Outroaders, not honored guests.
The crunch of fallen leaves beneath their feet filled London’s ears as they marched wordlessly behind their captors’ leader, down a narrow trail carved out of the underbrush. London’s only hope was that Avery was already waiting wherever they were headed, and soon the Otherborn would all be reunited. Maybe then they could dream up a way to get out of this ordeal.
“Where are we going anyway?” she asked anyone who might answer. She couldn’t take the silence. This was ridiculous. They were kids. What did these Outroaders think they were going to do?
She got only a firm shhhh in reply. Rye pinched her elbow as if to say shut up, and London rolled her eyes.
There’d been no sign of life beyond the hole. Whoever Rye had seen at the bottom must have burrowed back out, because they never surfaced. London couldn’t help but wonder why the Outroaders, with all this uninhabited wilderness around them, would want to crawl through tunnels underground like a bunch of dirty prairie dogs.
Finally, they broke through the thicket to a large clearing. Towering oaks left standing at the edges filtered out much of the sun, but the ground had been cleared entirely of saplings and weeds. A large fire pit claimed center stage, but the smells London picked up earlier weren’t coming from it. The only thing it currently held was an imp
ressive spread of ash.
All manner of seating circled the pit, radiating out. London noticed several old, vinyl car seats punctured by protruding springs, some rusty folding chairs, a lot of plastic patio numbers, cracked and faded, and even a few sadly upholstered recliners and sofas. Where those didn’t serve, stumps and logs did the trick.
People filled the clearing, coming and going mainly from two main entrances, one west and one north. Like the group they’d spotted in the tunnels, many of them were young. Lots of twenty and thirty-somethings, a number of teens, a gaggle of children running amok, and some older adults. Their clothes were sordid and strange, oddly fitted together. Buttons were mismatched and put in unusual places. Seams were crudely patched in colored threads. Shoes didn’t seem to come in pairs here. They mostly wore one of each or went barefoot. Several unusual hats bobbed above heads of hair cut in random, angular fashions or not at all. But London lost interest in people watching when she finally spotted a curl of thick, delicious smoke at the western end of the clearing, rising from an extra-long barrel contraption on several sets of sprawling, rusty legs near a giant reflective disk. Whatever was inside was roasting nicely.
A makeshift, open-face shack leaned near it with tarp flaps for doors. A breeze revealed more than one carcass hanging inside amid stacks of unmarked boxes and piles of real potatoes.
They were filed in, circled by the armed Outroaders, marched to the fire pit dead center, and made to stand in the ashes. As though it were a call to assembly, many of the people dropped whatever they were doing and made their way to the fire pit, taking or dragging seats nearby. The eldest people took seats closest to the pit, and began to shush the growing crowd around them. With a little doing, everyone quieted down at their command.