Her true voice still rings in my mind—
Aster! Help me!
What I wouldn’t give to change the past. But I can only influence the future. Only protect her as best I can.
I whistle low. Soleil responds, head emerging and bright eagle eyes blinking. She tips off her branch and glides to the ground. I rest a hand on her beak. She keens quietly in greeting.
“Ready to hunt?” I ask, knowing she understands me but cannot answer.
She tilts her head and her golden eye swivels to mine—an eye weighted with the wisdom only a human soul can own; a human soul tied to a mutated form. I sense her eagerness.
I holster the pump-action shotgun across my back and check my ammo belt. On one hip hangs my grandfather’s xiphos. The old man gifted the ancient Greek blade to me when we brought Soleil home. Both are my responsibility now.
“Let’s go then.”
The forest never welcomes. It despises our presence here, holding its secrets close. I press forward into the sombre wall of green and black. The vegetation parts reluctantly around me. Spikes pluck at my shirt and the rotten stench of carrion flowers fills my nostrils. I flick away a fly and shoulder my way past a dense curtain of broad-leafed vines. Soleil follows, her cat-like reflexes gifting her silence as she moves through the undergrowth.
A branch creaks.
No sounds are accidental in this place. I ease my loaded shotgun free from the gun slip. The xiphos remains in its scabbard. That’s for close fighting and I’m hoping it won’t come to that.
Another creak.
My gaze snaps up.
The forest canopy falls silent.
I stretch an arm wide across Soleil’s chest. Her wings flare as she shoves her feathered breast against me. Then she stops also, her neck arched back.
We both sense it.
Something approaches.
I lick my lips. A beat of sweat slides down my neck and a mosquito whines by my ear. I glance at Soleil. Her gaze is fixed on the trees.
Snap.
Crack.
The forest erupts.
I squeeze the trigger and the shotgun roars, recoiling through my shoulder. The stench of gunfire chokes the air. The shot hits its mark. A peacock-scaled, half-serpent, half-human female falls from a tree, screaming. Her sibilant cry, slithering from a fanged mouth, burbles away, drowned in the blood-soaked ruin of her lungs. She lands with a muted thump, curled auburn hair a shock of color splayed like a carrion flower across the undergrowth. Her viper tail thrashes, scattering leaf litter and gore.
Two more creatures follow. First, a male with muscled forearms and the wicked glare of a deranged psychotic. He aims for Soleil. Her battle cry cuts the air in a shriek that speaks of high places and quick kills. She launches, wings raised and talons extended.
The last creature is mine. I fire. And again. The trigger clicks. Damn. Gun’s jammed. But my attacker’s been hit—left arm bleeding. He snarls, venom on his lips. He isn’t ready to end this fight yet. I toss the firearm aside. I’ll get it back later. The xiphos rings clear of its scabbard.
But the mutant has already crossed the distance. No room for me to swing. He lunges and the flat of my double-edged blade slaps against his chest. He drives me down, coiling his sleek tail to pin my legs. This close, his hot breath smells of rot and sulphurous venom. Clawed fingers find my throat and squeeze. A grip like iron.
My gritted teeth slip and cut my tongue and I taste blood. My lungs burn. I buck and push harder on the blade, trying to twist it, trying to cut the scaled chest pressing down on me. The viper-man’s mouth widens, fangs just a handspan from my shoulder.
This is a stupid way to die.
A stupid place to die.
The soundtrack of Soleil’s battle plays somewhere behind me. Hisses versus eagle cry.
“Hih! Hih!” A stranger’s voice.
The pressure on my neck eases. A trickle of air rakes its way into my lungs. I cough. The mutant looks up and away. His features change—a predator suddenly made prey.
He slithers off me. With a flick of his tail he retreats, scaling the nearest tree and disappearing into the canopy. Nearby, the rustle of leaves betrays the departure of Soleil’s opponent. I lie on the rich-smelling ground, exhausted. Soleil, breathing heavily, moves to stand over me, her stance tense. She cries out a challenge.
I sit up. Everything hurts.
And I see him.
In the clearing with a worn blaster held in one hand and my shotgun in the other.
A buru.
Shit.
The buru points both weapons down and away. A sign of peace? Impossible. His kind doesn’t collaborate. They care only for the conquering of planets and the mutation of any native species. Universal domination is their aim.
I keep my blade raised.
The alien moves forward with languid grace—long-limbed and lithe with blue dreadlocks coiling past his gold-skinned cheeks and over his shoulders. His eyes are the cruel doorways to his soul, solid orbs of scarlet.
He points to Soleil. “How did you tame that griffinous?”
I’ve never heard a buru speak before. Heavily accented, he sounds something almost between a Greek and French person trying to speak English.
“She’s got a name. Soleil.”
His chin tilts. “Soleil. How is it she is so quiet?”
I can’t tell him even if I wanted to. She has always been that way around me, like I tether her to reality or the past, somehow. “She’s special.”
He moves closer still, a cautious step—the type you take when approaching a wild animal. His black metal armor seems to soak up the light.
“Were either of you bitten?” he asks. “I can help you, if you will let me.”
My hand tightens around the hilt of my blade. “You help us, buru?”
The alien’s thin lips quirk up. “I have a name, also. Dinuth.”
“I don’t care.”
“Perhaps you should. Some say I am special too.”
I get to my knees. “I don’t believe you.”
But before Dinuth answers, Soleil stumbles. Her legs crumble and her head collides with the ground.
“No!” I cry, scrabbling to her. Froth bubbles from her beak, her gaze roams wildly, following shadows that I can’t see. The buru appears by her head. He runs a long-fingered hand over her beak and down her neck. His blood-colored eyes flick to mine.
“She’s been bitten. Viperion venom will kill her within the hour unless you let me help her.”
Viperions. So that’s what his kind calls those human-snake hybrids.
“You bastards made those things.”
“Yes. But I can save her from them, too.”
I glare at him then look back at Soleil.
I can’t help her.
But maybe he can.
“She dies and I’ll kill you. You hand us over to other buru to experiment on and I kill you.”
Dinuth moves to my side and hands my shotgun over. “We are without issue then, for I have no desire to depart this life, I assure you.”
Dinuth leads me, deeper than I have ever gone, into the forest. At over seven feet tall, he is plenty strong enough to carry Soleil. Still unconscious, she hangs draped over his shoulder, her avian head bumping gently against his back. I’m reminded of a chicken I saw as a child—a bird with a broken neck strung up on a line and swaying in the wind.
The forest floor gives way to bog, and the trees here show signs of dying—withered leaves on finger-like twigs and bark peeling away to reveal silvered heartwood. The stink of decaying vegetation rises around me, a miasma that clings like a damp, mouldy shirt. My boots mire in black mud, but it doesn’t slow Dinuth. Head down, he’s on a mission and it’s my problem to keep up. My bruised throat aches as I suck in urgent breaths.