Page 8 of Rifted Hearts
Everyone else on the stage got out of the way. Kat scrambled backward and hopped off, and Snow flapped skyward and landed on the barn’s roof. Flutterberry hissed and translocated back to her humans at the outskirts of the audience.
Kaveh pulled up short on the bridle, and the colt came to a halt.
Now close to 150 kilograms in weight, the animal certainly looked demonic, with scarlet scales gleaming in the sun, and small horns jutting out from his head. The colt opened his mouth and bared his poison fangs at the crowd, his forked tongue lashing out to taste the air around him.
Several children burst out into sobs, and members of the audience shrieked in distress, some clutching at their ears as if to block out the sounds they heard only in their minds.
Like all drakones, Kaveh had mental shields that made him resistant to psychic attacks. He could see the disturbing images the colt was sending toward the humans around him in his mind, but the overwhelming fear they invoked was blunted by his natural defenses.
The visions of terror had been ripped from the mass subconscious of the crowd. Undead zombies shambled across battlefields littered with bodies, a pit of snakes hissed and rattled, and a yawning abyss stretched far below a swaying rope bridge. Given the number of crises in the world today, from rising sea levels, super hurricanes, and sandstorms larger than some countries, the humans around Kaveh had rather unlikely primal fears.
Nonetheless, Kaveh had to stop the psychic assault. He flooded the colt’s mind with positive thoughts that involved all the senses, from the warm scent of Amanita’s fur to the sweet nourishment of milk from her teats, and then onto the playful whinnies of the colts and fillies the young repoequus had bonded with since his birth.
The colt lowered his head then turned back to let Kaveh stroke the reptilian smoothness of his nose.
“That was amazing.” Remi’s voice boomed out, loud and cheerful. The vid streamer came up to Kaveh and the colt, still talking at his drone. “Not only does Dr. Salehi have ademon unicorn on a leash, his little mon can live-stream horror flicks into people’s minds.”
Remi came up to the baby horse before Kaveh could stop him, hunching his shoulders and putting on a mock expression of terror as he hammed it up for his audience. The colt flicked its long, forked tongue at the vid streamer then went back to allowing Kaveh to rub his neck.
“Hey doc, what’s this little mon’s name?”
“We’re planning a contest to pick one for him.” Kaveh forced himself to steady his breathing.
No one was screaming or running away, and a few of the braver audience members took a few steps toward the colt. Garreth came the closest, and he gave Kaveh a slow nod of encouragement to keep talking.
“This is a repoequus, born to Amanita, one of our mares here on the ranch.” Kaveh used his authoritative “I’m the doctor” voice, sounding calm and knowledgeable, even though his heart was pounding and the little he knew about the species of animal now nuzzling his neck came from drakone texts describing any Riftworld being with psychic powers as a menace. “As you guessed, Remi, the species has a mental defense mechanism that allows it to detect and magnify the fears of intelligent creatures nearby. Now that everyone is calm, the foal has settled down. Maybe your viewers could send Moon Star Ranch their picks for a name for our newest Riftworld animal ambassador, and our visitors here in person today could do the same.”
Remi waved at the drone, once again placing his head next to the colt’s in a selfie pose. Kaveh couldn’t decide whether the man was too dense to realize the danger the repoequus posed to him or if he simply was willing to take the risk to get more views for his online show.
“Well, you heard the good doctor.” Remi moved to standnext to Kaveh and once again draped his arm around Kaveh’s shoulder without asking first. “Send in your votes to name Moon Star Ranch’s first demon unicorn. This is Wandering Monster, signing off near the famous Saguaro Rift.”
5
Remi sauntered into the bar for happy hour, projecting both confidence and a cheerful “I’m on vacation”’ vibe, instead of the uncertainty and annoyance he felt.
He had made no progress with Kaveh today. Granted, the man had been distracted by a crowd of clueless humans and a juvenile repoequus—and, wow, Remi had not expected the petting zoo to feature that deadly Riftworld species. Did the ranch keep a great white shark in the swimming pool as well?
Remi’s psychic abilities hadn’t doneanythingto Kaveh, even with the added benefit of close physical contact. He wanted to do a lot more than put his arm around Kaveh’s shoulder, but even that amount of touch should have helped him overcome whatever mental shields the man had. Instead, the only person turned on by those bro hugs had been Remi. He could still feel the warm muscles flexing underneath the vet’s shirt and the sense of desire that had flared through him when their bodies touched.
He shook off that memory and tried to focus on hismission. Plan A, walking in with his seductive powers blazing, hadn’t worked. Twice. Time for plan B—attack a softer target.
Remi mixed with the ranch’s crowd of guests, which included everyone from older clientele who clearly had serious money to a smattering of families with adolescent and younger children. All of the seats were Western-style saddles mounted on chair bases, and the alcohol and snacks were laid out on an honor system. He wasn’t sure which one of those unique features was more shocking to his sensibilities.
He spotted Kat in one corner patiently answering questions from a girl about eight years old. Coming within listening range, he heard her rattle off a series of queries about baby dragons, magic cats, and of course, demon unicorns. Most of the vet assistant’s answers were along the lines of “dragons don’t live here on the ranch,” “maybe if you ask politely, you can pet her,” and “the baby unicorn is too dangerous to play with.”
That was an understatement. As young as the repoequus appeared to be, the animal had still held about fifty human minds in thrall for a short period of time. Remi had put serious effort into getting fewer than ten reporters randy enough to leave him and Kaveh alone.
If that was how powerful a juvenile was, Remi didn’t want to meet an adult repoequus.
He considered bribing the little brat with candy to get her away from Kat, but an even younger and more excitable child swooped in to tug at the girl’s arm, squealing something about a show with live scorpions, and they both ran off.
“You must get an earful of questions about the mons you care for here from the kids.” Remi started with that as aconversation opener, not that he knew anything about children, human or not.
“I love showing the animals to the little ones. It’s my favorite part of our zoo lecture every week.” Kat hesitated then continued. “There’s still so much we don’t know about Amanita’s baby, and today was the first time he was around that many people. I hope what happened didn’t upset you.”
“Are you kidding?” Remi hadn’t made any progress on his goal of seducing Kaveh, but his Apocalypse Data account had raked in the cash, thanks to the repoequus. “My views on that stream were through the roof. And adding the teaser about naming the demon baby was genius. Now I need a killer follow-up interview with the doctor who delivered the little monster.”
Kat looked confused, so Remi turned on a low buzz of sensuality, enough to keep the cute hottie focused on him but not enough to stun him into a state of dazzled lust. “Let’s get some drinks, and you can tell me all about Kaveh.”
