Rutger rested a boot on a sturdy brown suitcase and overlooked the lounging group. Only Orm and one winged guard were missing.
He looked more like the leader than what he truly was—the outnumbered representative of another tribe. His horns were twice as wide as his head, and as grand as a twirling ballerina. Seen this close, the blueness on the horns seemed to vibrate the air about them. Specks drifted outward, only to be extinguished as if they were embers dying in the cool air.
She wanted to reach out and touch them, to see if her eyes lied.
God-monster they called him. She could understand why. He had the look of a ruler or a god and, when seen from the right angle, the look of something beyond reality.
“My tribe is gathered beside an edge of a scraper where our quarter looks over an old game reserve. They should remain there for a month. Nature refreshes the spirit, and the view is spectacular.”
That had resembled a tour guide’s summary, though he possessed a deep, sexy, and cultured voice. Listening to him was as potent as swigging whiskey, with the molten glow sinking through you like radioactive rain. Falling in love with a beaster’s voice seemed wrong. At Vargr’s enquiring quirk of brow, she only raised her own. According to him, she couldn’t or wouldn’t fuck another.
And really, Rutger seemed a dangerous man to be lusting after.
There were other priorities, such as making sure she was tested and found to be something beasters liked and did not want to kill. Being dead was not good. Her red nanites had better behave themselves for this biotechie with the blood skills… or whatever it was he did. If he was a he? Maybe there were more women among the Worshippers?
She’d had aspirations to go searching the bottom stories of the scrapers for evidence of her previous life, but everything was conspiring to say,hey, that’s fuckin’ dumb.
Maura, for starters, who’d said she knew Cyn. Even said only once, even if her name did not register, it was a potential clue. And the monsters out there were more real now she’d seen Toother. She’d need an elephant gun to take one of him out.
The Lure was also a problem she was not sure she could beat.
Yup. Her brain kept serving up roadblocks.
Maybe she’d been a bit crazier after fleeing the Ghoul Lords than she had thought? As long as these guys did not want to cast her out, she’d stick with them. Plus, Maura needed her, had sort of adopted her. Cyn blinked into the campfire. Correction,sheherself was human. Really.
Never forget that. A little bit of nanomachine did not make her non-human.
A few screeches made everyone look up.
“Rats,” one of the guards muttered. “Toother.”
The squealing came from the other side of the partly demolished wall. It was so dark there that she could see nothing except some debris from the train and the tops of cars.
“How does a nanodog that size get enough food from rats?” She nodded toward the wall.
Vargr bit off a chunk of whatever meat they were frying, chewed, and swallowed. “Not sure. Not just cans of soup though. Toother might be feeding but Orm went scouting too. He heard something, sensed something. The man may not be a biotechie, but he has that weird biotechie sense.”
“What weird sense?” Cyn hunched forward to spear a piece of meat from the frypan with a fork. If it was rat, she was determined not going to think about it… much. She bit down. Tasted meaty. Tough, but it was certainly food. Her stomachgrumbled, reminding her of the lack of anything healthy and green it’d been given for ages.
That game reserve Rutger mentioned would have land you could grow crops on—once the Ghoul Lords were gone. If they ever did leave. Apples, oranges, lettuce, broccoli. She’d never thought she’d fantasize about eating broccoli.
“Orm can feel electronics and shit. The biotechies do too, only better. It’s how they see the nanomachines in our blood. Or so I was told. He’s been helping Thadd figure out the weapons the ghoul guards use.”
“Oh?” She turned the bone in her hand, squinted. Rather big for rat. The damn things must be growing. Was it evolutionary or something else? “You mean the thing we were shot at with the day you found me?” She recalled the bolts sizzling past.
“Yep. Those. Fuckin’ evil. The few we’ve captured have Chinese writing on them. Not alien. Those came from us.”
“That’s startling news.” Voice dripping cultured honey, Rutger turned from where he’d been staring toward the source of the noises. He stepped over the suitcase and sat beside her on a cement block, gingerly, as if worried it’d crack under his weight.
Curiously, she heard and saw part of it crumble, the dust and pieces rolling out from under him.Dayum. Weightwatchers would love to sign him up.
He was on one side of her, and she had Vargr on the other. Sandwiched between them, she really felt tiny. It was strangely delicious. Her breath was sucked away.Whoah.
A little trapped, squeezed between two men, two beasters, she swiveled her gaze left, then right.
Breathing optional. With her eyes stuck wide, she waited for him to speak.
“Do you think their weapons are ours then?”
