Don’t panic! Don’t panic!
I dropped Grief and grabbed at my nose, the stings on my upper lip telling me they had my airway nearly covered. I ripped a handful away and took a deep breath. I wanted to scream. God! Cry. Stamp my feet and hyperventilate. But if I let go, even just a little bit, I’d die. Eaten alive by infant gnomes.
I felt Vayl’s hands on me. Tearing larvae and skin. Pulling out hair along with the nasties. He yanked off my shirt and I moaned. So many of them feeding at my legs and belly. But more trying to get at my neck, my ears, and I only had two hands.
Vayl came at me again, and then I felt warm liquid. What? Didn’t know. Didn’t care. Where it hit the larvae dropped. And it left behind a soothing tingle. I finally cleared my eyes. Yeah, my face was okay. I felt my head, my neck. All good.
I risked a look at Vayl. He’d stepped back. Okay, so he hadn’t miraculously discovered that Crindertab’s coffee killed gnome larvae. What—I looked down. At Astral. Who was spraying me. Out of her butt. Like a tomcat.
At her paws lay the larvae, twitching.
“What?” croaked Tabitha.
I kept running my fingers through my hair, over every part of my body. I didn’t feel anything. Could I really be free?
“Bergman? Why didn’t you tell me you’d invented a larval spray for Astral to carry? It’s knocked them out!”
Cole piped up. “I can see them through my scope,” he said. “I think they’re stoned!”
“How did she pass the spray?” Bergman asked.
“Ass projectile!” Cole hooted. “Took those larvae down like beer on slugs!”
“But it’s not nearly that potent!” Bergman insisted. “Just a mist that’s supposed to neutralize her scent in case the target has dogs!”
“What’s in it?”
“A few chemicals I’d rather not talk about. The base is salt water.” Tabitha’s screech didn’t last long, but it came straight from the heart.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
Vayl and I raised Tabitha upright. She tottered slightly, but finally stood in place, like a life-sized collectible with a steel rod shoved up her back to make sure she didn’t slouch to one side and ruin her pretty costume. At her feet lay Tykes’s remains, his torso a mass of blood and pulp, made even more obscene by the perfect intactness of both his legs, encased in tightly creased gray trousers lightly spattered with red. They reminded me of the wooden figures old towns set up to commemorate historic events. Except they usually keep their mannequins out of the streets.
I leaned in, holding the tails of the shirt Vayl had lent me back so they wouldn’t touch her and somehow become contaminated. “How come you’re so ticked about the salt water, shammy?” She was so angry her hair shook as she said, “That’s what the nursemaids cocoon the larvae in, you interfering piece of shit!”
“Tut-tut. We can’t have the leader of a major religious movement like yours swearing in public, now, can we?” I asked.
Vayl said, “So are you saying the salt water triggered the larvae into beginning their next developmental phase?”
Tabitha sneered at me. “You like your lovers dumb, don’t you?” No thought. Just a windup followed by one hellacious slap that snapped her head sideways. I said,
“He’s too much of a gentleman to seek revenge for what you tried to do to him before. But I was raised by a woman who’s now doing time—in hell. I suggest you remember that before you insult him again.” Cole hissed, “Heads up! The Ufranites are coming!”
“Cassandra brought our reinforcements?” I asked.
“If you count the whole warren.”
“No kidding?”
“I’m watching them through my scope. Cassandra’s riding on a cushioned stool in the middle of the crowd. I’m not sure what that means, but considering all the adoring looks she’s getting, we may have to buy her a tiara for Christmas.”
Vayl adjusted Tabitha’s stance so her back was fully turned to the oncoming crowd. They came quietly, their approach made all the more threatening by the total absence of background murmur that let us know they’d come with an agenda.
He waited until they could overhear our conversation. Then he said loudly, “Go ahead, Lucille. I will allow you to execute Tabitha since her larvae nearly killed you just now.” I retrieved Grief. Made sure the shaman watched me chamber a round before I said, “You got any last words? Or are you okay with going down in history as the cult leader who was willing to sacrifice her flock’s children so Ufran could run around in his boxers all day?” Tabitha laughed. “You believed that nonsense? You’re as much a patsy as the rest of those bow-legged cretins.”
I said, “You mean you didn’t want to kill off the kiddies?”
“Of course! That was the point! When Ufran spoke to me, he told me what I needed to do in order to have my own child. He said that I should sacrifice the gnomes’ children, an entire hatching. And he told me how. The longer the plan evolved the more beautiful it became. First it was just Australia’s bunch that would tear into Canberra Deep Space Complex’s connections. Then I convinced the Ufranites in Madrid and California to join in. But the closer the time came, the more jittery they got. Only my partnership with the werewolves, and their generous donations to each church involved, have kept our plans on track.”
“What about your people? Don’t you think some of them will want your head on a platter when they learn how you’ve betrayed them?”
“Why would they? I’ve earned them enough money to buy new sun generators for the entire colony.
They’ll be able to grow crops without worry for the next twenty years.”
“And all it took was the death of everyone’s larvae.” Okay, they weren’t all dead. But I was going for dramatic effect, okay?
“Who cares? I am the shaman! And now I’ll have a child of my own.”
“I don’t think so.”
She’d recovered enough by now to nod. Even her skin had pinked up. “Ufran promised me!”
“That’s just it. He didn’t.”
She laughed. And stopped when she saw neither of us were joining in.
I went on, “The guy you saw was a Domytr named King Brude. He was just posing as a god to get you to do his dirty work.”
Denial in those darting eyes. The lips, however, trembled slightly as she said, “I don’t believe you.”
“He has a tattoo on his stomach shaped like a scythe. There’s one on his left shoulder that reminds me of a sea turtle and a lawn chair doing the horizontal mambo.”
“H-how did you know?”
“Like I said, Tabitha, you don’t talk to gods.”
“But I do,” said Cassandra. The Ufranites had lowered her to the ground. She stood among them, wearing a heavy, shapeless robe and a green woven hat that added at least eight inches to her height. Still she managed to look like a beauty queen. How fair is that?
Vayl spun Tabitha around, and when she saw Cassandra standing safe among all her followers I heard her gag.
“As I was leaving the shaman’s quarters, I laid my hand on the traditional headdress. And Ufran came to me,” Cassandra said softly. The light in her eyes was new. Otherworldly. “He had tried to speak to me before, but I have not acted as an oracle in so long that I missed his message the first time.”
“How could that be?” snapped Tabitha. “He always spoke loud and clear to me.”
“You were talking to Lucifer’s bounty hunter,” I told her.
Cassandra nodded. “Ufran speaks in a gentle, quiet voice. Because he is not a god who would want his people to sacrifice their young for any reason.”
“Yeah!” came the roar from the crowd.
“Nor does he want them entering life having cannibalized another creature. Dead flesh works just as effectively for them and is much more humane.” Cassandra threw a package of hamburger into the street.