Page 44 of Rifted Hearts
Kaveh hadn’t considered how Remi had gotten from his cabin and the bed they had recently shared to the monstertown. Amanita knew the way of course, but how had Remi taken her out here? None of the wranglers would have allowed a guest out at night on any horse, much less the repoequus.
Remi let go of his arm and walked toward the monstertown gates, his gait still wobbly, and Kaveh pushed aside those questions. He gave as swift a bow to Raion as etiquette would allow and caught up with Remi, linking their arms.
When they arrived at the entrance, Remi peered through the metal gates as Kaveh gave José a brief rundown on the worsening situation. That devolved into an argument about the cadejo joining him at the base. The phantoms were a drakone responsibility, and Kaveh wanted José to stay right where he was. Besides, Amanita was the quickest way for him to get to the military facility, and the half repoequus wouldn’t tolerate the cadejo anywhere near her.
“Amanita’s on her way.” Remi nudged José, interrupting the discussion. “You could sniff out Lyall if he was anywhere close, right?”
Kaveh had forgotten Kat had texted Remi that the terrier was with him. He prayed the ratkind hadn’t injured or killed the fairy hound.
“Sure I could. Got a great nose.” José answered Remi’s question without stopping the argument. He pushed his finger into Kaveh’s chest. In anyone else, Kaveh would have taken it as unacceptable aggression, but from José it was more like an overexcited puppy jumping up on him. “You need backup out there. I’ll stay downwind from the repoequus.”
“You need to stay here and protect the town and your wife.” Kaveh tossed that in. It was a low blow, but the bond to protect Jessie was too powerful for the cadejo to ignore.
“Okay, fine, but I don’t see why Remi gets to go with you and I have to stay here.” José made a face at the gate that couldn’t be described as anything other than a pout.
“He’s not going with me.” Kaveh turned back, but Remi wasn’t leaning on the gate anymore. He was on the other side of it, seated on Amanita. She was in her repoequus alter form, with the addition of a saddle and full tack, all in pearl-white scaled leather. She bared her fangs, hissing in José’s direction.
“Sorry, but this is something I have to do myself.” Remi gripped the reins and gasped as the repoequus launched into a gallop.
19
Remi had seen the wranglers and other guests riding their horses at a quick pace. He had even been obliged to take a riding test during which the horse bounced him around on the saddle before building up to a decent speed for about a minute.
None of that had given him an inkling of what riding Amanita at a full gallop would feel like. She raced into the night, her mind unhelpfully sending images to Remi of him falling off and cracking his head open. Remi pushed back with more horse porn, and the mare went faster, her giddy sense of freedom downright infectious.
The emotional swing from terror to exhilaration was distracting enough that he ignored the significance of the spitting moisture against his face until a green flash illuminated the desert around him.
A rift storm was coming.
Remi could feel it now, the power of it tugging at his alter form. Given that he was riding an animal who would pounce and eat him if he transformed, he gave his innerchinchilla a firm lecture about shutting up and staying in the background.
He pulled up several meters from the outer perimeter of the military base, a fence topped with barbed wire, broken up by empty guard houses. The growing storm had blocked out any moonlight, and the looming walls of the structure were only intermittently lit up by flashes of green in the sky.
Sliding off Amanita, he patted her on the neck. She tossed her head and the saddle and reins disappeared into her scaly hide. He expected her to flood his mind again with pictures of the terrifying jellies, but she sent an image of Kaveh at him.
A warning? Or maybe a suggestion?
Remi sighed. “I know going in by myself is stupid. But this is all my fault, and I have to try to get Lyall to listen to me.”
If that didn’t work, he could try to psychically push Lyall into feeling aroused by the vet assistant, which might make him hesitant to hurt Kat. Lyall’s mental shields were good, but Remi had played this trick on him once before with success. His abilities were strongest when sexual attraction already existed.
Amanita didn’t seem impressed with his logic. She ignored him and began snuffling around, probably hoping to find something small and furry to eat.
Remi walked over to the closest guard station, pulling a small shroom light out of his pocket. Its bluish glow was brighter with the increased power from the storm, and it. It gave him enough light to walk without falling over the debris scattered around. He stepped over the shattered remains of the raised gate that had let in vehicle traffic, his sneakers crunching over the broken glass that had once protected soldiers in the guard shack. The shroom lightsalso emitted ultraviolet light, and he hastily moved the beam away from what had to be old blood stains.
The base hadn’t switched hands without casualties, most of them on the human side. Remi had skimmed over background history on the base while prepping for this job. He had even considered shooting a vid or two at night here to play on the spooky monster reputation the place had.
As the ominous reality of the place sank in, Remi put that thought on the Terrible Idea shelf. If he got out of this mess, he was going to do an entire stream on Flutterberry, the spoiled mothcat.
Something clattered across the ground, and he shivered. If that was a scorpion, it was an awfully big one. The sound came from his right, and he had to make a quick decision on how to begin his search.
Remi turned left. Circling the main building seemed to be a reasonable option. Heading away from the scuttling noises appealed to him.
His light picked out the rusting remains of army vehicles and weapons tossed away during flight. A pocket of shadow in the building wall attracted his attention. It was a hole about two or three meters in diameter, too regular in outline to be caused by a remote explosion.
He was gathering his courage to go inside the dark scary opening when the screaming started.
Startled, he pressed himself against the wall as a horde of clacking insectoid Riftworld animals poured out of the opening. They were each close to a meter in length, with shells studded with debris and a shape that approximated that of a scorpion. He hadn’t been that off with his hearing, then. They were a Riftworld species he had never seen before and hopefully would never see again.
