Chapter Thirteen

Thirteen

The power of the lodestone sang to Noel, tingling to the tips of her wings and making her feel as if she could fly even in Earth’s thin air. She stepped forward from Gorman’s dark-shadowed room, her feet finding a thick, fibrous floor mat. It would be a soggy pad Nextdoor, but here, the dry fibers cushioned her. Large glass panels opened to a view of mountains and trees, the air so empty of moisture that she could see forever.

She resettled her wings, and the motion reflected in the panels of glass drew Tayler’s attention.

The human stood, unfolding herself from one of those indulgent puddles of fabric and cushion. Her eyes went to Noel’s bloodied hand and arm, and, face white, Tayler reached for what had to be a weapon.

The small pop of exploding gas shocked through Noel as she strode forward, hardly recognizing the flash of pain through her wing. Expression placid, Noel backhanded the woman, sending her pinwheeling over the chair until her head thumped against the plate glass table and she fell.

Noel followed her, but her reach to pick her up faltered. Tayler wasn’t moving apart from her slow, even breaths. Satisfied, Noel fingered the hole in her wing before going to the wall and finding the camera atop a picture frame. Plucking it free, she flung it to the sun.

“You will not be so lucky, Tayler,” she whistle-clicked as she turned to study the room. Again she used the wand from the portal floor, setting the tech to search for a heartbeat. But all she found were the souls belonging to small creatures. Tayler had foolishly been alone.

The thought to strangle the human and leave her as a warning was a quick flash, stifled by the need for a longer revenge. Tayler was why her people still woke in the middle of the night. Tayler was the one who had cut Raphael’s wings from her, had sawed Han’s hand from his body. Tayler had starved, and tortured, and isolated her people in the perverted name of science but was really nothing more than cruelty.

Wings high, Noel dragged Tayler to a small floor mat. The bullet with her blood she left in the wall. This was justice when humans had failed to provide it, and she would have them know through deduction.

Motions fast, Noel used the mat to swaddle the human as if she were an ill child, leaving only her head showing.

The motion stirred Tayler and the woman woke, twisting and struggling to escape.

“What…” she slurred, then rallied, her gaze holding a foolish arrogance as her eyes found Noel’s. “What are you doing? Let me go. You can’t do this! Monroe will have your head.”

Noel leaned over her, teeth bared in what they called a smile. “Monroe is hiding. Hancock will thank me,” she rasped, catching her breath before she started to cough in the dry air. It was worse here, even if the tang of spent fossil fuels was less.

Tayler’s eyes went wide. “How did you know where I was? I never told Hancock. Was it Gorman? That slimy little toad. He told you where I was?”

Noel put a foot on the woman, pinning her down as she ripped the blinds from the window for the cord to tie her up more securely. “I make Gorman say,” she said, blanching at the stars beyond the trees. It was so clear here, and she didn’t sense any other sentient soul. She must be far from any city.

This will work, she thought as she gazed at the trees and the earth thrusting to the sky. She could create Sidriel’s hidden labyrinth here, leaving the fifty sparks at its center to hold their way open should they have to abandon the Earth again. Once in place, she would have an unsanctioned, no-customs door to Earth anytime she pleased. Even if it did lead to a virtual hellhole of cold, dry air.

“Let me go!” Tayler shouted, her short hair flipping comically as Noel rolled her over and over to wrap the cord, tightening it until the human groaned in pain. “I know you can understand me. What are you doing, you white devil!”

Noel hoisted the human to her hip, staggering at the unexpected weight. “You made a mistake, Doctor,” she said as she opened the door and the cool air flowed over her. Again she coughed, one hand holding the human, the other the doorframe. The fifty sparks about her neck were a faint, demanding presence, and she was glad they weren’t trying to heal the lump rising on Tayler’s forehead.

“Put me down!” Tayler wiggled as Noel coughed, and the human shrieked when she fell from Noel’s grip and hit the hard steps.

Why am I bothering to carry her? Noel thought as she grabbed Tayler’s shoulder and dragged her down the stairs.

The human took a huge breath. “Help me! Someone help me!”

Noel backhanded her, and Tayler gasped. “No one else here. You and me.” Noel hesitated at the edge of the poured stone for a moment, then strode into the sticks and trees, dragging Tayler behind her. Earth was like a park. A park that had been abandoned and left to go wild. There had to be a place where she could make a labyrinth that would stay hidden.

“Who brought you?” Tayler said, voice ragged, and Noel said nothing, moving faster when she slipped under the trees. It was easier to breathe now that the stars weren’t staring down at her. “You snapped? You lied to us?” Tayler added, angry now. “You can snap anywhere at any time.”

“No lies.” Noel dragged the human up a small rise. “You…jump to conclusion. Can snap far because I have fifty sparks, not one.” She stopped at the top of the hill, nodding as she looked down onto a small clearing. It was open to the stars, but it was clear of sticks and trees. “Lodestone,” she said breathily as she touched the heavy locket about her neck. “It will hold labyrinth open even if we leave. Earth is ours now. We take slow. You never know. Is okay.” She gave the human woman a smile, patting her head.

“No. No!” Tayler shouted, her eyes wide. “You can’t do this. Noel. Madam Noel. Wait!”

Unmoved, Noel dropped her at the clearing’s edge, not caring if the human woman watched or not.

“You can’t take Earth,” Tayler said, but there was a new tightness to it that Noel guessed was fear. “We’re too many. We’ll kick you out and close the portal.”

At the center of the clearing, Noel used her foot to dig a hole, her wing hem curling at the filth. Puck help her, there were little squirmy animals in it, all in a chaotic mix that made her stomach turn. “Is why I make secret portal here, held open by lodestone, not Neighbors.” She dropped the lodestone in, thinking it was a crime. “A portal that no one knows,” Noel said, and the human lying on the dirt went still.

“I know about it,” she said, her words soft.

Noel cracked her toes in mirth. “Soon just me know,” she said, thinking she got her smile right when Tayler began to struggle. “Happy state, Doctor,” she added as she hoisted the woman onto her shoulder like a sack of blok fruit. “You be the first human to go Nextdoor. Renee be second. Renee go home again, though. Renee have good soul.”

“No. Stop!” Tayler gasped as her breath whooshed out when Noel resettled her. “Please.”

Noel frowned at the dirt that pattered down to stain her ribbon shirt. “Don’t want to risk Renee. We see if you can travel a labyrinth and not go insane. You my guest. See how you breathe air. See what I can take out before you die. Maybe you grow new leg?”

“Don’t do this. Please!” Tayler begged. “I won’t tell anyone about your secret portal. It was Monroe! He wanted me to do it. He told me to. I would have lost my job. I’m sorry. Please, don’t do this. I’m sorry!”

Noel jumped, startled when the human made a noise like an animal, high pitched and ear-hurting. “Help me! Someone help me!” the human shrieked.

She could not concentrate with that noise.

Noel swung the human down, holding her so their faces were inches apart. “Tayler,” she said, and the human seemed to rally, her great heaves to bring in the air easing as she stared at Noel with eyes running with water. “I already find out human need heart. Gorman lasted five seconds before he died. Maybe you last more. You make noise again, we find out. Right now.”

Tayler’s eyes were still leaking water as she gasped for air. “Please, no,” she whispered. “It wasn’t me. It was Monroe. He told me to do it.” She licked her lips, her eyes going to the stars past Noel’s head. “They will find out. They will know what you did. Stop now. I’ll never tell anyone. Anyone!”

Noel lifted her wings in amusement. “Jackson not care. He angry at you. Hancock will fly an updraft backward if Nextdoor people forget about Han and Raphael. My people.”

“Noel, please!” Tayler begged.

She would not stop talking, and Noel knocked the woman’s head against a tree until she did.

Quiet slowly reasserted itself, and Noel exhaled, shoulders slumping as the sound of Earth’s insects became obvious. Noel checked her wrist holo for the time, then began to walk, slow and measured, beginning at the end, spiraling to the outside before doubling back and creating a second spiral into the center once more.

Each step seemed to wake the fifty sparks she’d left in the ground, and a faint glow began to rise, growing with her movement until the very earth was alight, sparking from her steps. Her breath came in with a rasp, lungs aching as she struggled with Tayler’s weight even as she calmed her mind and let her own creation spark take control, bringing her in line with the universe.

Until at last she reached the end and she stood where she had begun.

It is done, she thought. And done well.

Giving Tayler a little hitch deeper up her shoulder, Noel took one more step…

…and was home.

The damp air hit her like a balm. Grateful, she pulled it deep into her even as she let Tayler drop to the tiles. The woman made a pained grunt, but she was not conscious. Only her head showed past the roll of the floor mat. If not for Noel knowing it was Tayler, she’d never recognize who or what it was. Hair covered her face, sticks and leaves clinging to it as if the Earth itself could not let her go.

“Madam?”

Danail’s voice pulled Noel’s attention across the dark portal floor, and she brushed what filth she could from her. It smelled strong and foul in the damp air. Gorman’s blood had stained her ribbon shirt, and there were little sticks and leaves stuck to her feet.

“I’m snapping home,” she said, her lungs already feeling better even as Tayler began to gasp, clearly struggling. The woman’s eyes fluttered, and Noel picked her back up and gave her a warning squeeze, not wanting her to make that hideous, loud shriek again. “You will take a verbal report to Sidriel. Let her know that the task is done and I have an Earth volunteer for the anatomy stress-test studies.”

Danail stared at the roll under her arm, wing knuckles rising when Tayler began to struggle. “Yes, madam.”

“Clean the floor before you go,” she added as she relaxed, bathing in the sensation of creation sparks dotted all over the city. Feeling generous, she swung Tayler up so her head wasn’t facing the floor. “You do well, Doctor,” she said in the Earth’s language. “One more fling.”

“No, no!” the human shrieked, but it was too late, and Noel stepped forward…

…her filthy feet finding her apartment’s jump pad. The ugly groan Tayler made echoed against the walls of her home. “I can’t breathe,” the human rasped. “There’s too much humidity.”

“You do fine.” Noel grimaced at the dirt she was leaving on her floor as she carried Tayler across her front room. The blinds were up, and the sun was beginning to light the clouds. It was going to be a marvelous day. “I have feeling you not suffer long.”

“Please, help me,” Tayler gasped, then began coughing. “I’ll give you anything.”

Noel balanced the woman under her arm as she opened the door to an unused room. “No one know your words here, Doctor,” she said. “No one care to.”

“Please…” the human said, and then she cried out when Noel dropped her on the floor and walked out, shutting the door behind her.

“Stay here until I’m ready for you,” Noel said loudly, her wings rising when the human shouted something, her feet thumping on the floor. She’d eventually wiggle out of the rug, but she’d never figure out how to open the door. It required the energy from a creation spark.

Her wrist holo hummed as it linked to her home’s security system, and Noel glanced at it. Her first flush of angst at seeing Sidriel’s name vanished, and, feeling smug, she ignored it, going to her bathroom instead. Even the new hole in her wing couldn’t dampen her joy, and as her home’s holo began to chime for attention, she unwrapped her filthy ribbon shirt and flung it to the sun.

Immediately the complex, uncomfortable scent of Earth became less, and she got into her shower pod. There was no regret for Gorman, and nothing but anticipation for Tayler.

Her wing tips curled as the woman began to pound on the wall. She would take her time with the doctor, just as they would with Earth. It would be done in the name of science and kindness, not revenge. That humans could use creation energy she would keep quiet lest she find herself stationed on Earth. The fifty sparks were safe beneath a labyrinth. She had a way in and out that no one knew of, one that she would never tell Sidriel to ensure her own safety. It was over. All that was left was the slow slide.

The humans would give them the grease.