Sarah glanced away from the deforested shoulder lining I-93. It was hard to make out much within the starlit cab of the car; however, Raul had never had trouble controlling the intonation of his voice. This time, he sounded bemused.
"It was," she agreed, her own words distracted and flat. "Did the staff give you any trouble for wandering around their camp with a gun?"
Raul peered into the backseat like he'd forgotten the rifle was there. "Oh, uh... no, not really. They were actually pretty understanding about it since they do so much work with the seed. That wasn't what I was referring to, though; I meant your conversation with your partner. ...Girlfriend? Stop me if I get close."
Sarah's gaze silently returned to the road. She didn't have much interest in explaining the trainwreck that was her relationship with Amanda. Not when it felt like the warspawn was already living rent-free in her head.
"It's complicated," she grunted, her fingers tightening upon the wheel. "It also doesn't have anything to do with either us or this trip."
Raul wasn't content to let her dodge the question. "Are you sure about that? Because I'm willing to make the first move, but you're sending me some mixed fucking signals."
That wasn't much of a surprise; Sarah barely knew what she wanted, let alone her deviant wreck of a host. As for Raul himself, he was... fun. To fuck with. At least, in the metaphorical sense. Actually letting him stick his dick in her was more of a fraught proposition.
It probably didn't help that she was stuck behind the wheel of a car. The position was giving her flashbacks to the predicament that Huffman often put her in - of the way he'd wait until she was busy on the phone and then loom over the back of her chair. A shiver rolled down her spine at the memory of his breath on her neck. Despite her best efforts, she'd never been able to divorce his behavior from her history with literal predation. The proximity to her true form hadn't helped matters; it'd always left her with the vague fear that he could see through the skin of her host.
The notion was bullshit, of course. Huffman was just some pushy asshole. The sentiment returned in a rush, though, the longer Raul refused to be dissuaded.
Sarah licked the top of her lip. She hunted for an explanation that would shut down this entire train of thought. "What can I say," she told him. "Sometimes you're more attractive than others. For example, this self-conscious, 'Does she really like me,' crap? It's not exactly doing it for me."
Raul stared at the taciturn brunette from the corner of his eye. He sucked on his left incisor until his cheek dimpled in a puckish frown. "...Yeah, I don't buy it. Why don't you just admit how you really feel, instead of trying to blow me off?"
The dismissal sent a flash of indignation boiling up Sarah’s throat. She scowled at the offended parasite and then grabbed him by the cowl of his shirt. They didn't so much kiss as she assaulted his tonsils with her tongue. In between her fury, and the hand she'd placed on his thigh, Sarah spared a brief thought for the highway, so they didn't plow into a tree.
Raul's mind was mostly on his dick.
"Better?" Sarah spat once he'd drawn back long enough to breathe. "Or was that still not 'clear enough' for you?"
"I don't know," Raul coughed. "Maybe you should do it again."
There was a faint flush to his cheeks that betrayed his enjoyment and the lie. Sarah found it bitterly ironic. Mostly because her own realizations rarely came with a fun prize. Instead, there was merely a gut-wrenching lurch that matched what her braked caused when they pulled into the upcoming parking lot.
"Whuh?" Raul muttered, still half-stunned by the kiss.
"We're here," Sarah announced before abruptly killing the engine. "Shut your mouth and grab your gun. There's a good chance we're both going to need it."
The double entendre flew over Raul's head in a flash of serendipitous wit. It might have been for the best; Sarah could feel Pallsburg stirring from her mental funk, and she didn't want to deal with the woman's libido while she was busy handling Raul's. There was already too much chance that she'd mistake the former as her own.
'Fuck you for putting me through this,' Sarah growled, the reverberation bouncing from her fangs to her crest. 'Why can't you just have normal interests and screw my ex with a strap on?'
Pallsburg didn't reply. How could she when the question had been strangled before it'd even crossed her tendrils? All the woman knew for sure was that her shoulder blades itched, and her guest was writhing around. After a day spent sharing space with the injured warspawn, it probably seemed perfectly natural.
Sarah's frantic squirming wasn't anything of the sort. To be honest, she suspected she was on the verge of a psychotic break. Maybe not to the point where she'd consider something untoward, but it was definitely enough of a distraction for her to miss that they had company.
Raul was more on the ball. The parasite paused to sniff the air as he retrieved his rifle from the back of the car.
Sarah took a deep breath and mastered her lingering self-disgust. In between tamping down on her frustration, and suppressing her raging libido, she spared just enough attention to parse the errant breeze. Raul was right: the fragrance didn't possess the familiar, astringent burn that characterized the Light's effluvia. Instead, the scent was almost festive. Cheerful. It gave her the impression that someone was cooking wieners on the grill and had been for the last three hours.
She tried cycling a splash of mana through her system to ensure there weren't any conceptual shenanigans going on. Sure enough, the field came back clean: the smell was entirely mundane.
Knowing her luck, he'd probably jump off the roof too. And why not? If the man did his research, he'd likely stick the landing. That was the appeal, wasn't it? The attraction of this new age of wonder? Why wouldn't these assholes take a chance if it meant they could steal a march on their competition?
An irritated growl rolled through the back of her throat. Sarah began striding through the forest before she was tempted to see if this latest group would bounce.
Raul chuckled and hefted his lumpy sports bag. No matter how he held the strap, the rifle released a series of metallic clicks as they wandered onto the dirt trail that connected the lot to the lake.
Plumes of dust circled their shoes for the first three or four meters. Then, after they'd left the illusion of civilization behind them, their soles sunk into the soil, leaving thick, well-defined tracks. Moisture didn't gather at the bottom, though, until they reached an abandoned jetty with a ladder extending down into the water.
A sign by the planks read, 'No fishing. No swimming. All boats longer than 4 feet must be secured to a mooring.' There was a little white doodle next to the warning, which described the anchor in question. Beneath it, someone had stapled a piece of loose-leaf paper to the board, but the words had been worn away by the rain and other inclement weather. All that remained of the message were a few discolored vowels and a date that said 'March 3rd.'
Sarah set the damaged notice aside in favor of the expansive view. The former just wasn't important; not compared to the orange pyres that dotted the northern shore.
Raul wasn't reassured by such an optimistic platitude.
How indeed. If Amanda was here, her ex would have no doubt answered, 'with diplomacy.' Sadly, neither of them had ever seen eye to eye when it'd come to the rules of engagement. It was simply a matter of ideology. Amanda approached the world as she wished it to be, whereas Sarah only took it as it was. Between the two of them, there'd always been an inescapable gap formed by their expectations.
'Is that still true, though?' Sarah wondered softly to herself. Hadn't she sworn to do better, even if she'd never said the words aloud? What else could you call her decision to spare Nickolas or shack up with Kennedy and the others? Shouldn't she grant these idiots a fraction of the same patience and grace?
The memory of stabbing Anthony in the back quickly flashed through her head. The circumstances were different, and the risk of exposure far lower; however, it remained hypocritical to pardon these brats and not the team she'd already murdered.
'What a fucking joke. Am I really going to commit a massacre out of principle?'
A cold wind blew across the rippling lake and up towards the mountain behind her. In the faint moonlight cast upon the rotting dock, it was easy to imagine the water reaching out with a tangle of inky tendrils. Should they grab her, it wouldn't take much to drag her down to those familiar depths.
The ringing in her tail decided it for her. "We'll go say hello. Be polite. Maybe it's just a bunch of boy scouts earning their fucking merit badge."
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Raul hummed low in his throat. "And if it's not?"
Then they'd burn that bridge when they got to it. It wasn't like they were in a rush. What the hell were the locals going to do? Drain all the mana and kill the golden goose? She'd like to see them try. The guardian must have produced almost eighty million motes during the course of their conversation. Even when spread across the interior of the seed there was enough there to flood Chicago.
Healing everyone within the city might be a little harder. Maybe. The current ratio seemed to be about one mote of 'Purity' mana for every twelve of 'Water' and 'Earth.' There were a couple of other alignments around - trace elements of 'Wood,' 'Sky' and 'Smoke' - however, all of those were locally derived and quickly subsumed by their peers. Meanwhile, everything coming from the skein was pretty stark in terms of its range.
For a second, Sarah wondered what the seed would look like if she actually shoved her head through the portal. Would she see a flooded volcanic basin whose chamber had gone fully dormant? An endless expanse of alpine streams trapped within a closed pocket-dimension? The possibilities were nearly limitless.
The motivations of its would-be denizens were substantially less multifaceted. Sarah could hear shouting the closer they crept towards the camp. It seemed combative. Angry. No one was screaming like they'd had six inches of steel stuck in them, but someone was certainly putting on a show in order to imply that it could happen.
Their audience appeared to be a speedboat racing up from the southern shore. About four meters long, and three feet wide, it was covered in faded yellow paint and had a crudely stitched flag dangling from the cabin's overhang. The background of the banner was a white field; the central image was of a large red cross. Neither stopped the campers from throwing rocks into the water whenever the vessel drew near.
Sarah watched the captain make another go of it before suddenly peeling off. When he crossed back over the median, a cheer went up, and a couple of stereos began to play a mixture of hard rock and electro phonk.
Sarah nodded her head. She was too stubborn to quit over 'Baby's First Threat Display.' Their attitude was rather telling, though, so her internal calculus shifted a bit as they reached the edge of the cacophony.
A heavy-weight teen was in the middle of cracking open a beer can when the pair finally strolled up. He shot them both a quick double take while foam dripped from his hand. "Where the hell did you come from?" he snapped at the two waspishly.
Sarah gave him the same cop-out Raul had given her. "Around," she replied before flicking her fingers over her shoulder. "Why? Are you going to give us the same welcome as the boat?"
A snort was her only reply until the youth was done sucking alcohol off his palm. "I suppose it depends: can you take no for an answer? Those idiots couldn't. They didn't get that this is a 'private party' and their asses weren't invited."
Raul glanced around at the layers of disheveled squalor. In between the limp tents and a couple of empty coolers, the infiltrator could spot at least five thirty-gallon trash bags that were tied off with dark green string. A few more were piled up near the edge of the treeline behind a withered blackberry bush. "Maybe they were just jealous," he suggested wryly. "It looks like you guys have been hitting the keg kind of hard. There's enough crap here for... what? Two - three days of binge drinking?"
His comment got a raised eyebrow and a much more pointed stare. "The hell do you care how long it's been?"
"Well, it's just that this is some prime magical real estate. I also can't help but notice how many of your friends are busy gazing at their navel." Raul made a show of peering at the few scattered partygoers who were sprawled out near the water. Most of them were resting atop a spare blanket or a dirty yoga mat; however, they all had a constipated frown on their face from hours of persistent focus. A couple were even using rubber plugs to make it easier to concentrate through the noise. Needless to say, none of them looked like they were here to have a good time.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the teen lied with a belch. "Those jackoffs are just prone to passing out. Nothing wrong with that, is there?"
The lush didn't seem interested in their answer. To be fair, he probably wouldn't have been curious even if he wasn't jerking them around. Sarah wasn't inclined to be considerate, though. She just wanted him and his associates to not take a swing at her while she was distracted.
"Why don't we cut the crap?" she proposed, her veneer of civility falling away. "We both know why you're here. It's the same reason we showed up. Now, what's it going to take to keep this all copacetic?"
"What? Like the Local H song? Not going to happen. I'd rather gargle glass."
The words were punctuated by a dismissive snort that drew the attention of a lanky gangbanger who was guarding the middle of the beach. One of half a dozen bouncers spread throughout the strip, he quickly flagged down a replacement for his post and then wandered over with less of a drunken stride.
"Parker, my guy, you are way too fucking nice. That or too sloshed to do what Jackson told you. Just flash your strap already and tell these clowns to piss off." He reached for the hem of his hoodie and pulled it up to reveal a pistol that had been stuffed down the waistband of his pants. The gun looked like a Glock - a second-generation model if Sarah didn't miss her guess. The slide had been switched out, and the trigger wasn't vintage, but a lot of the original components fit the designs she'd been provided during training.
Sarah finished processing the weapon at the same time the dude dropped his shirt. She refused to let the distraction show as she shook off the cerebral rush. "So, what? It's like that, then? The area's ours: fuck off? No exceptions; no compromise? Just a hard look and violence?"
"Yeah, see, you get it," he agreed. "Now, do us both a favor and get gone."
A mottled haze of cordite and hemlock punctuated the thug's short speech. Twisting together until they clarified into the far more coherent 'Strife,' the mana prickled along the edge of Sarah's tendrils, mirroring the antipathy of the belligerent teen.
Sarah wondered if it was a conscious decision or a side-effect of his poor control. She supposed it didn't matter much either way. It wasn't like his intentions would alter the end result. Not beyond a faint flare of surprise when she beat him to the fucking draw. "Alright. Okay. Never let it be said that I failed to read the room. Raul? Let's go. Clearly, they're not interested in talking this out."
The parasite held her hands up as she slowly backed away. Despite the gesture and her conciliatory words, the expression on her face was closer to murderous than concerned or properly intimidated. Her tormentors would have been wise to consider why that was. Instead, the lanky one merely offered his comrade a high-five and then turned towards the dripping cooler.
Raul was more perspicacious. It was why he waited until they were out of earshot before he risked opening his mouth. "I take it that things aren't actually going to be okay?"
"Not for them they're not."
A black rage throbbed beneath the surface as Sarah picked her way through the trees. It was strange how much the duo had gotten under her skin. Compared to Pennant's listening post, a bit of casual hostility should’ve been small potatoes. No one had even tried to shoot her in the back. Why the hell was she acting like Townsend had just broken into her apartment?
The realization hit her after she'd jumped over a fallen conifer. It was because she’d never seen a group of humans resemble the Sea quite so closely before. Take away their hands, their faces and their voice, and they would have fit right in squatting over a strand of moldy kelp. It was disgusting. Sarah was tempted to kill them simply to help clean up the gene pool.
...She had a better reason than that, though. Namely, the fact that there couldn't have been more than twenty seeds in the continental U.S. capable of piecing a human back together. Cross out the ones she didn't know about, or couldn't reach, and you were left with only a single real option. This one. This stupid littoral shithole. The fact that it was currently 'occupied' was merely a speed bump in its inevitable acquisition.
Because if the brute squad didn't want to share? Well, Sarah was fine with that. She'd just employ the [Rite of Ru'Gelish] and siphon the mana she needed from the dead. It was honestly better this way. Easier. If she went about things traditionally, she'd be lucky to refine forty motes per day. Meanwhile, the [Rite of Ru'Gelish] would let her harvest up to twenty times that from the wreckage of the thugs’ shattered cores. She'd be limited to what they had gathered - and there were risks to eating an energy field bigger than her head - but if she wanted this handled immediately, there were truly no better options.
Well, no practical ones, at any rate. Morally speaking, there were tons. They all required access to the seed, though, and the locals had made their stance clear. 'Trespassers Will Be Shot.' It was a message as stark as it was familiar. Hell, she could have heard its equal anywhere on the Emerald Coast. The only difference was the humans had a whitelist that was longer than a single entry. Other than that depressing caveat, they sounded so similar they could rhyme.
Which was a shame because Sarah could sing this song better than they ever could. They only knew the words - the lyrics. Sarah had been humming it since before she could speak.
"Up here," she announced before ascending a patch of heavy scree. "I think I saw a ledge with a good line of sight on the shore."
Raul glanced over at the grim remark and followed her up the rocky hill. From atop the precarious cliff, there was about two hundred yards between their perch and the ongoing party. Granted, that was only if you were willing to swim through a turbulent inlet. If you weren’t, it was easily twice that since the coast wiggled back and forth, creating a collection of tiny peninsulas. When taken as a whole, it put them just close enough for Raul to make out the flickering campfires and the backlit figures cavorting around them.
Sarah thought they looked like the misshapen shadows cast upon Socrates' wall. Whether that made the warspawn philosophers, or the prisoners from Plato's treatise, was significantly harder to say.
"...So," her companion drawled before suddenly clapping his hands together. "Are we doing this by the book? Should I get the binocs out?"
Sarah waved him off. "No. Give me the bag. I want to do this myself."
Raul grinned at her taciturn request. "He who passes the sentence swings the sword, eh?"
The parasite frowned in confusion. "Pardon?"
"You know," Raul continued leadingly. "Ned Stark's words in A Song of Ice and Fire? George R. R. Martin's sprawling fantasy epic?"
Sarah had always been more of an Agatha Christie girl and didn't recognize the title. "Can't say I've ever heard of it."
Raul stared at her, surprised and visibly stumped. "...You need to get out more. And coming from me that's saying something."
"Just give me the gun," Sarah grumbled.
Raul passed the bag over with a short, weary sigh. Burdened by both the rifle and three boxes of loose ammunition, the strap folded into a sharp vee until Sarah set it down on the ground. She pulled the zipper aside. It looked like Raul had needed to partially disassemble the receiver in order to ensure the weapon would fit.
Sarah mentally shrugged at the sight. Once she found the pivot pin at the bottom of the bag, it only took a minute to reassemble the rifle. To be honest, the hardest part was not dropping anything off the cliff by accident. If she had to climb down and fumble around in the dark, they'd be here for a good two hours.
"Want me to load the mags?" Raul offered while she conducted a quick functions test.
Sarah shook her head. Words were hard right now, and the act of silently slipping bullets past the feed lip would be meditative to her furious mind. At least, in theory; in practice, she found her thoughts turning towards Amanda and the soldier who'd shot her in the hip.
A moment elapsed. Sarah expected some bile-filled sentiment to come crawling up from the recesses of her subconscious, yet all she heard instead was the steady click - click - click of cartridges sliding home through the port. The spring ran out of space before her better nature reasserted itself. Sarah compensated by reaching for another empty magazine and packing that one too. The label on the box read, 'M855, 250 count;' however, she must have burned through half the carton by the time her preparations were complete.
"Can do," Raul replied, unconcerned.
Sarah crawled onto her stomach and braced the C7 atop the partially emptied sports bag. She pushed her cheek forward, so it'd rest against the polymer stock. The iron sights practically enveloped her target in a thick black censor bar. If she adjusted the elevation a bit, it'd be like they weren't even there.
'But that would be too high,' her training whispered as she quietly toyed with the post. 'Shift your aim down a hair. There. Nice and easy. Fire on the exhale.'
Her hand shook for a second until she remembered the lethargy in Amelia's voice. The woman had been far too confident in her own grim prognosis. Where did she get off making a prophecy like she was bound by the Loom? Didn't she know how this worked? No oath was so certain you couldn't break it with sufficient weight.
Weight of word; weight of deed; weight of blood.
The pyres flickered across the black water while men played at being beasts. In the center of their profane revelry, a thin sliver of moonlight cast a writhing shadow across the muddy shore. Sarah studied its twisting limbs for a moment to better fix them within her memory. Then, once she couldn't imagine the crowd as any earthly shape at all, she set the bitter thought aside and calmly pulled the trigger.