Catastrophe Jones

This is Issue #154 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘DeathWatch’ then go to ‘#0 – A Beginning’ and read from there, or go find the issue # you remember, and catch up from there!

Happy Reading!

PREVIOUS

* * *

Garrett knew, but didn’t know, didn’t believe, couldn’t, didn’t want to. He laid on the ground, the dead body of the Guardian pinning him as he slipped into unconsciousness. He was unaware when the blood against his skin seemed lit aflame. He was still lost in his own black nothingness when Jet pushed himself up off the ground, off Garrett’s body, one hand laid to Garrett’s scarf-and-goggles-covered face, pressing it further into the mud as he regained his balance.

Jet snarled, shaking his head, shaking off the brief out-of-focus his revival sometimes gave him, and ran for the grouping trying to get up the wall. His knives were fierce, were sharp and unforgiving, and the sword at his back sang as it whistled through the air, severing spines, dropping men and women left and right.

The black mud ran red; what was already slippery terrain grew slick and treacherous.

* * *

Watchers howled and laughed; money traded hands as Ilonan and Westlander alike fell to the Guardian’s killing blows. Lucida and Gemma smoked, drank, gambled, watched, and did nothing to fend off the various interested parties who pestered Jules to the point that the woman had curled into a shivering ball, staring up at the screen in both horror and hope.

Jules watched Nathan run, watched him check on the fallen, watched him push Sha and Kieron to the wall, watched him look off to the jungle, where Coryphaeus disappeared. She looked at the wedding ring she still had on her hand and marveled, for a moment, forgetting the party, the hunt, the thick tang of aetheris that hung in the room, that no one had taken it from her.

* * *

“Climb!” Nathan shouted at Sha and Kieron. “MOVE!” He hung from the wall, one arm still faintly useless as he struggled to climb up. The Ilonans had done a remarkable job of patching him up after the crash, but considering the number of times that arm had been dislocated or all but torn off, the fact that he could hold the vines in that hand was nothing short of remarkable. He worked hard to scale the wall, shouting encouragement at his compatriots.

The last surviving crew of the Jacob were on the wall and were pulling themselves up, vulnerable to any weapon the Ilonans had at their disposal. For Djara, it was the Guardian’s sword of black glass. He ran it through her back, letting it come out her belly, pinning her to the bed of green vines the others clung to and climbed.

“DJARA!” Kieron cried, seeing the pilot’s eyes go wide as her body spasmed, blood painting the wall. He watched the Guardian pull back and let the woman fall at his feet. “No — NO!” he begged, moving to climb back down — as if there were anything he could do.

“Sha! SHA! STOP HIM!” Nathan’s voice was a panic as he reached down to try to grab Brody.

Jet lifted Djara’s head up into his lap, letting her look up at the wall. She flailed at him weakly, blood running from her mouth. He looked up from his pose to see the Westlanders pause in their escape. Even animals had some sense of pack loyalty, he mused, moving to hold Djara’s head back by putting a hand to her chin.

“NO!” Kieron cried, tears on his face, rage in his heart. He remembered being dragged from the palace by guards, being told what awaited him in the Hunting Grounds. He remembered being thrown into the back of the transport, at Djara’s feet, and how she’d picked him up and looked over his wounds and sat down with him.

A sharp glass knife was in the Guardian’s fist; he pressed it to Djara’s throat and watched the blood well sluggishly. She was close, already. He could simply let her slip away — but the panic on the faces of his prey was worth it.

Kieron’s heart broke. Djara, who let him lay his head in her lap. Djara, who was likely just as frightened as he. Djara, who had been a damned fine pilot. Djara, who had turned around the ship. Djara, who had loved Penny. Djara, who had grieved for Penny’s loss enough to fight Ilonans as though she had nothing left to fight for.

The Guardian’s masked face turned up to them as he opened Djara’s throat to the night and rain, discarding the knife to put his fingers in her blood and paint the mask’s smiling face with it.

Djara, who was no more. “NO! NO, you BASTARD! I hate you! I’ll kill you!” Kieron’s voice was raw, wounded. He shouted down from where he clung to the wall, his hair in his face, obscuring the red hot rage that choked him.

“Venit pugnare, caro!” The Guardian laughed, rising, painting a bloody X over his chest, opening his arms wide. Come and get me, you piece of meat.

* * *

“No,” Jules pled quietly. “No, just run. Oh just run,” she begged, watching Nate, Sha, and Kieron climb back down. “Please,” she begged, wringing her hands, tears running down her face.

* * *

It was Sha that hit the ground first; fierce with determination, she launched into an attack, a knife in her hand shredding the Guardian’s skin to ribbons. She bared her teeth as she bowled him over, and was astonished at how easily he fell — right up until he used her momentum to keep rolling, driving a fist into her chest.

Breathless, she struggled to free herself from his embrace, and was rewarded with a knife against her ribs for her efforts. The fire of it was excruciating; it kept her from being able to get a full breath, for the pain.

The Guardian kept rolling, bringing a foot up between them, and threw her off — she hit the base of the wall, her head hitting the stones with enough force to make her teeth clack together. She dropped, boneless, unmoving.

When Kieron dropped down, savage, desperate, furious, Jet was ready to meet him. In the rain, in the dark, scarred, muddied face to savage, masked face, the boys did not recognize one another, but met hand to hand, Jet playing, Kieron murderous.

* * *

NEXT

This is Issue #153 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘DeathWatch’ then go to ‘#0 – A Beginning’ and read from there, or go find the issue # you remember, and catch up from there!

Happy Reading!

PREVIOUS

* * *

“Get up,” Lucida wept. “Oh, Gemma. Amare. Please. Please?” She knelt to put her hand to Gemma’s cheek, and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

When Gemma’s eyes fluttered open, Lucida thought she might expire purely from relief. She threw her arms around the woman and sobbed openly, kissing her face, saying, “My love, mylove, my Gemma, don’t you ever dare leave me.”

Gemma leaned against Lucida, dazed but all right, finally reaching up a hand to pet Lucy’s head. “Shhh, meabella, I am fine. I am,” she promised. “Shaken, but fine,” she said, sitting up a little further. She looked over to the crumpled form at her feet and wondered, “Your pet — does it live?”

Lucy nudged Jules with her foot, and the woman gave a low, awful groan.

Jules slowly curled up, sobbing, the circles on her back running with blood.

Lucy lashed out with a sharp kick to Jules’s ribs, hissing, “On your knees, milkskin. Get up!” She pushed fury back into her voice, to keep it strong, to keep herself from betraying her weakness, her love for Gemma, her worry for her brother. “Gemma,” she said quietly, “The collar. We do not want to miss our Prince’s finest hour.”

Soon, Jules found herself prodded down the hall, in soiled, bloody robes, her hands and feet shackled, a collar and leash at her throat. She walked with as straight and even a gait as she could muster. She did not want any more encouragement or punishment in the form of an aether taser, or hard kicks. Her head felt muzzy and stuffed, her tongue thick, and she could hardly think straight — she only knew there was terror along the edges of all her thoughts.

Awful things were coming.

The trio were welcomed into the Prince’s study, to sit before a giant telescreen. Other screens were placed about the room at other angles, showing off dozes of other locations in the jungle. Lucida made Jules sit, front and center, watching the show. Whenever she turned her face away, her collar was given a sharp jerk.

Jules kept her face turned up toward the screens, and the fog in her head slowly began to lift.

She began to remember.

* * *

The night grew darker, thicker. Lightning sizzled and arced across the sky, throbbing blue-silver against the purpleblack of the clouds.

As they went further north, the terrain grew harder to navigate, until it was straight up climbing over rock formations, following an ever-widening stream.

The group clung together, helping one another — if the best way out was somewhere in the northeast, no one wanted to be running alone, or in a different direction.

Ilonan, Westlander, criminal, soldier — they were all prey.

Nevertheless, as they made their way further, faster — some of the group began to lag behind.

The people of Ilona and all their sister-city-states watched with wide eyes as the gap between predator and prey began to close. Quickly. The cameras within the walled jungle showed side by side the beasts giving chase, and the prisoners running like hell for leather.

It was Jet who drew first blood — he pulled knives from where they were strapped and hurled them through the dark, letting fly his weapons, golden eyes bright as the black blades found their mark.

The first to fall was an Ilonan criminal, a man who had been jailed for repeated violent crimes. He was running beside Djara when he uttered a cry and fell. She saw him go down, three knives embedded to the hilt in his back, blood welling up, spreading quickly over his torn wet shirt.

“FASTER!” she screamed, “FASTER–THEY ARE HERE!” Djara’s eyes were wide and white in the dark as she veered left, ducking around a stand of trees to try to get some cover.

“Dividare!” one of the other men shouted, turning on his heel. He pulled a pistol he’d had tucked in his waistband, and began to fire into the night, behind the group, blindly, hoping for a hit. A bullet grazed Immanis’s left bicep, but then the man was cut down only moments later. He screamed until he hit the jungle floor, and then Immanis took out his throat, and kept running.

The grouping split, running so that both the Prince and the Guardian would have to choose who to chase, and perhaps that would allow some to escape.

Kieron could hear the sounds of his comrades-in-arms falling. Some of them screamed, high and shrill, and some of them simply fell, the grunting effort of their breath suddenly cut out, silenced. He darted around trees, leapt over logs, and then he burst into a clearing, and saw ahead of him, the wall. It wasn’t too high, but it might as well have been Damnation Ridge — his pursuers were close behind, and he had weapons, but no climbing gear.

And then off to the right, the terrain went up, and then dropped away. The river became a waterfall spilling into the inland sea, and the fall was hundreds of feet into a small pool surrounded by mossy rocks below.

Cameras could not quite grasp the look of profound despair that touched the faces of the hunted — nor the way it gave to desperation.

More than one Westlander turned to face their end with a weapon in hand, while the rest ran for the wall, and began to scramble at the vine-covered stones.

Coryphaeus turned to run back to the trees, shouting at the Ilonans to draw the Prince and the Guardian with him. The Prince gave chase, gleeful, but the Guardian waited, turning back toward the few left who struggled their way toward freedom.

Garrett pulled free his own guns and began to fire on the Guardian, to distract and wound him as much as possible; he was astonished at the man’s speed, worried at his skill. He dropped his shoulder when the Guardian simply ran at him, painted mask snarling in animalistic delight, and even as he felt his head connect with a rock on the ground, and the world go black around him, he knew he managed to send several bullets into the Guardian’s body.

He felt the warmth of the Guardian’s blood rush over his hands, felt the body grow heavy, fall lifeless against him. He managed a triumphant exhalation, almost laughter, and let his eyes flutter shut as dizziness overtook him, and sent him into the dark.

One down, he thought. One to go.

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