Alien in the Family

Moira flipped us, so she was on top of me. She felt as heavy as Martini and she was definitely as strong. But I had to wrestle him all the time after I harpooned him. I wrapped my arms and legs around her and held on.

“Mmmm, I like this,” she said against my neck. I was sort of surprised—in my experience, anyone being this close to my neck would cause me to start to lose control. Apparently not when I was fighting for my life. I was thankful for small favors and worked to get out of the under position.

I heard someone shouting instructions. To me, I realized. “Move, move, move! Don’t let her hit your head, block with your arms!” It was Tito, and I did what he said—just in time. Moira rained some blows down, but they hit my forearms. She reared back, and I slammed the heel of my hand into her nose. It knocked her back.

“Release your legs!” I did as Tito said, pulled my knees to my chest, and slammed my feet into her sternum. She went onto her back and off of me. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed a staff as I did so.

“Tito, you okay?” I couldn’t see him. Anywhere. I looked around to see someone rolling on the ground with Gregory.

Moira tried to get up; I kicked her in the head and sent her flying back. Tito was on top of Gregory, pounding him. Moira flipped onto her feet, I slammed my staff into her side, and she went down again. Tito was still pounding Gregory—A-C or no A-C, Gregory wasn’t looking like he had much, if any, fight left.

Moira crawled to her hands and knees and went for her staff, but I kicked it away. “You won’t fight me equally?” she asked. Tito was off Gregory now, and Gregory wasn’t moving at all.

I thought about it, spun the staff, and rammed it right into her head. “No. Oh, and, by the way?” I pulled the staff out. There was a huge hole in her head, and I felt confident she was dead. “When I punched you, that was really for me. This was for James.”

CHAPTER 52

TITO AND I LOOKED AT EACH OTHER. “Grab a staff, not that you seem to need one.”

“Never hurts.” He picked up Moira’s.

“Is Gregory alive?”

“No.” He shrugged. “I’m used to someone tapping out or a ref telling me to stop. Got carried away.” He didn’t sound upset about it.

“Restraint is not exactly my watchword, either.” I took a good look around. Claudia and the Major Doggies had cleared out their portion. I could see bodies down, but they didn’t look like ours. Glanced toward where I’d sent Chuckie. We had a lot of people over there, and most of them looked like crap.

Jareen ran over to me. “We have just two battles still going on.” She pointed. One was Martini and Neeraj against Kyrellis. And the other was Lenore and Uma against the Cat People and Queen Renata.

Kyrellis did a leaping splits kick and hit Martini and Neeraj in their guts. They both went down. She swung her staff up, over Martini. He wasn’t moving.

“KYRELLIS!” I bellowed as loudly as I could. She stopped and turned. I bent down and yanked Moira’s head up by her hair. “Guess what?”

She arched back and screamed. It sounded how I figured a thousand banshees in an echo chamber would. And while she was occupied, I decided to see if the rusty javelin skills were up to the task. Did the little run, aimed, and threw. Kyrellis wasn’t looking at me or at the staff heading toward her.

Jareen and I ran forward. I didn’t have to ask her plan. Get our guys, get them out of the way of danger. My impromptu javelin hit just as Kyrellis straightened up. Unfortunately, it speared through her hip, meaning she wasn’t dead.

She bared her teeth at me. “I will kill him in the worst way possible.” She spun her staff and aimed it right at Martini’s groin.

Jareen’s staff hit Kyrellis’ and knocked it out of her hand. It fell, missed Martini by a hair, and rolled away. Kyrellis snarled and pulled my staff out of her body. Now she aimed it at Neeraj. I decided it was my turn to represent again and went for the long jump.

Hit Kyrellis in her chest. Due to her injury, it knocked her down. Due to her being the Amazonian Super Bitch, she held onto the staff. I tried to scramble away, but she got me, dragged me back, and slammed me up against her, my back to her chest. She also wrapped her other arm around me and started to squeeze. My arms were free, but the best I could do was lock my hands against her chin to keep her from headbutting me.

I had perfect clarity. I could see Tito drag Martini away and Jareen do the same with Neeraj. Others ran up to help them. I saw Claudia slam adrenaline into Martini’s chest, heard him bellow, saw Claudia and Tito throw themselves on him, saw Jareen do something to Neeraj to bring him back to consciousness. I had the clarity because Kyrellis was squeezing the life out of me, and I got the feeling I was getting to see everyone before she crushed me to death.

“I will make you pay,” she whispered. “My God will take you to the depths of hell.”

“There a lot of men in your hell?” I gasped out.

“Yes. They will have their way with you constantly.”

“Sounds like heaven to me.” Maybe I’d luck out and when Martini died, he’d end up there. I could spend eternity with him ravaging me.

She snarled at me. “I am not confused by you. You are a warrior. You don’t belong to any man.” She spat the word. “You belong with us, with the Free Women.”

“I like Renata. I could hang with her. You, not so much.”

“Renata is weak.”

“She’s your queen.” I was starting to black out.

“I serve my God.”

“Your ‘god’ is taking orders from a man.”

“You know nothing about my God.”

“I know everything about your god.”

“I will not kill you,” Kyrellis whispered to me. “I will save you and show you the true way.”

I found myself wondering what ACE was doing, since I wasn’t feeling like I was going to survive this encounter. Then again, death might be better than what I guessed Kyrellis had in store for me if she let me live. My arms were weakening, and my vision was at pinpoint. I wasn’t out, but I was close. I wondered when I’d feel my ribs crack.

I heard a crack, and Kyrellis let go a bit. I took a breath—the crack hadn’t been my ribs. My vision came back a little. Someone was on his knees next to us, hitting Kyrellis in the head. With his bare fists. He was doing damage . . . and he was growling.

She released me and shoved me away, presumably to focus on the stronger threat. Martini was high on adrenaline, and he was at “lion takes over the veldt” with his roar. His hands were moving so fast I couldn’t see them anymore. Kyrellis was still in it, and she managed to grab him around his waist and use that to turn herself and get onto her knees.

Before she could capitalize on this, Martini made a double fist and slammed his hands down on the back of her head. He did this until she stopped moving—then he did it some more.

I could breathe, and nothing seemed broken. My feet hurt, but I’d run around barefoot in the desert before; I could ignore it. Good. I got to my hands and knees. “Jeff.” He didn’t stop. “Jeff, baby . . . stop. I think she’s dead.”

He looked at me and his eyes were wild. “I know what she wanted to do to you.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” My body was shaking. “Jeff, it’s not over.”

Martini took Kyrellis’ head and twisted. If she hadn’t been dead before, she was now. He threw her body away and grabbed me. His hearts were pounding, and he was shaking. I held him and let him rock me for a few moments.

A scream rang out. We both turned toward the sound. Tito had, as near as I could tell, just broken Lenore’s neck. Claudia had Wrolph’s arm around her shoulders and was trying to get him back to the others. Queen Renata, Felicia, and Arup were nearby. But the scream was from Uma. She was swinging her ax in a circle, and as Claudia and Wrolph got closer, I could see he’d been slashed.