Wonderland (Deadly Lush Book 2) Read online

  She came up slashing with her blade, and striking with the shaft of a bone. Her wrist snapped with the silken collision of the first; someone else's bone cracked with the impact of the second.

  They fought back deftly, disarming her of her second blade without pause. She couldn't go on thwacking them with a blunt shaft – that would prove fruitless in no time. And there was no time to hesitate, to brainstorm, to get her bearings.

  Without thinking she was taking the bone in both hands and cracking it over one of the Tribal's heads like she might break a stick over her leg. The bone snapped, producing two wickedly sharp ends.

  Use what you can. Always resourceful. Don't let yourself be helpless for an instant. It was as if she could hear Jayx's mentoring voice repeating itself in the back of her head.

  Or was that her own voice?

  She thrust the end of one barb at the dazed savage, stabbing hard and fast while she had the advantage. It was hard to tell if the resulting crunch was the bone itself splintering, or the Tribal's flesh being punctured. But the savage hunched, clearly affected, and Shiloh didn't care if all she had done was knocked the wind out of him. She took it as a win and turned to the next figure.

  Somehow, in the fray, her mind had arranged one or two more oncoming foes between her and Mother Eve, but it was the Beetle Woman herself Shiloh came face-to-face with as she whirled from her first kill.

  Mother Eve wielded her blades, arms swirling like a wild dancer. It was all Shiloh could do to fling up her crude weapons in defense, which snapped cleanly in two as the superior blades cleaved down on them. Arms ringing from the impact, Shiloh feinted back. Mover Eve whirled, launching toward Shiloh with blades raised high for the kill. Her dreadlocks unfurled and billowed about her head like an underwater mane, half from the motion and half from the swarm of beetles taking flight. It painted her like some depraved demon, all the more terrifying as a battle cry tore from her lips and that rabid milky lens overtook her eyes.

  Shiloh stumbled in her renewed haste to get out of range, her feet coming out from under her and her head thudding against the ground as she fell. She felt the blow ricochet all the way to the front of her skull, a sharp pain lancing through her forehead. The smoke billowing about the camp made everything swim, a dizzy landscape.

  It didn't matter. She had to move, one direction or another. With the promise of two piercing blades about to descend from the sky, she flung out a hand, dragging herself onto her side.

  Razor-sharp ivory bit into dirt.

  Struggling to bring the world back into focus, Shiloh flipped hastily onto her stomach and scrambled forward across the ground. Mother Eve would be on top of her in an instant. She scuffled to get her feet underneath of her, but it was as if she fumbled across slippery ice, gifted with the clumsiest feet in the world.

  Wasn’t this an exact reproduction of how things had played out against her last adversary?

  That battle had ended with her as the victor, but he had stumbled after her already considerably maimed, and somehow, Shiloh didn’t think Mother Eve’s prowess would be as easy to match.

  Her breath rasped quicker down her throat, adrenaline spiking through her.

  Dead. She was dead. She could feel the looming presence of Mother Eve closing in on her pitiful retreat, every second a taunt of the impending blade that was about to insert itself through her ribs.

  Or cut her in two.

  She imagined the Beetle Woman planting a foot alongside Shiloh's struggling form. Imagined her raising her blades once again above her swarming head, plunging downward–

  A searing pain stabbed into Shiloh's back. She opened her mouth to scream, but had the wind snatched out of her lungs as, unexpectedly, she was yanked free of the ground.

  It was jarring, too disorienting to peg as something other than a savage jerking her aloft until she was already too high off the ground for that to be the case.

  The dizziness was only just starting to clear from her vision, the tricks of billowing smoke still a point of confusion, but she knew she was too high off the ground, and gaining altitude by the second.

  That was when she saw the feathers. Wingtips dipping down with a great pumping motion on either side of her.

  So it hadn't been a blade that had penetrated her back. It had been claws. And instead of a savage delivering the killing blow she had expected, she had been picked up by some giant, murderous vulture, and carried aloft to tour the wild, smoky skies of Paradise.

  12 – Wonderland

  The sounds of battle fell away to the rhythmic gust of beating wings. Shiloh clenched her gut against a rise of vertigo as the ground grew distant. Half of her, rent by panic, wanted to struggle until she secured her freedom. The other half, cooled just enough by logic, reminded her she would secure her freedom only to fall to her death.

  Still, it was impossible not to squirm, frantic to a degree. She craned her head back, trying to get a look at the creature that had snatched her. What kind of bird was it? A Haggardwing? Some other giant beast? Birds weren't the only creatures who sported wings, here, she reminded herself. There were the wolves. And any number of other anomalies that found themselves likewise mutated. It could be anything.

  Strain as she might, she could not catch a glimpse of its other features. Only snatches of large feathers that smacked her in the face, beating tears into her eyes.

  She ducked her head in an attempt to shield her eyes from the snapping winds. It was a mistake; her gaze fell on the rapidly shrinking ground of Paradise. The treetops were beneath her, and though they looked like a soft enough cushion to the fooled eye, Shiloh knew they were really a thousand-thousand spears waiting to impale her if she fell, their branches keen to put her through the shredder as much as break her fall.

  Her teary eyes grew wide, taking in the whole world. It was too much. No one should be able to see this much of the world. Only God. Panic nipped at her sanity, her lungs pumping as if by convulsions, rather than automatic ease. Where would this terrifying diversion end? Her body sprawled broken on the ground? Fed alive to some cliff-top nest of ravenous, giant baby birds?

  The island flashed by like a green ocean below, her bird's-eye view hiding all of the terrors and wonders alike. Then a wind swept in from the west, a resisting current that hindered their flight, and the creature carrying her dipped lower to dodge the impediment. The current persisted, forcing them lower still, and as they closed the distance back toward the treetops, Shiloh's desperate instincts decreed a safety net in which to panic outright.

  Abruptly, she began to flail, fighting to work herself loose from the creature's talons. Surprisingly, the pain of claws embedded in her flesh had abated, but that was likely thanks to a lion's dose of adrenaline. No doubt she would have a wicked back ache after this was all over, and a gnarly set of gashes to show for it – if she wasn't missing two substantial chunks of her back entirely.

  The creature's steady strength faltered under the weight of her struggle, their flight becoming turbulent. Smooth sailing turned erratic, each wing-beat losing purchase on the air. I will drag you down, bird.

  A bird was no match for a dragon.

  They wrestled through the upper atmosphere of Paradise, feathers sloughing down into the trees. Not once did the creature let out a screech, or a growl, or any sound that hinted at its nature. Soon Shiloh's fit had dragged them down so the treetops nipped at her feet, and then brushed up past her legs. Swishing and cracking rustled into a stormy cacophony, and she cringed as her legs were razed.

  But then the leaves were turning dull in color, fading to gray and brightening from gray into silver, and suddenly a clearing opened up, a breathless expanse of white like nothing Shiloh had ever seen before. It was a startling contrast to the rich green and otherwise vibrant array of colors seen throughout Paradise, but she scarcely had time to register the anomaly before she was securing her release, the creature forfeiting its claim on her at last.

  She plummeted from its grasp, momentum casting
her at an angle down into the snowy fields of what turned out to be a lush dandelion-seed glade. As crash-landings went, it was as soft as any could have been, all cushioned with whimsical fluff and feather-soft luster. She hit the ground and tumbled at lightning-speed through the downy stalks, stirring up a cloud of seeds as she went. When she finally came to rest she stared up at the sky from her back, the wind knocked clean out of her, struggling to regain her breath as dandelion fleece swirled like snow all around her.

  Finally, breath issued back into her lungs, and she gasped it in – choking on a mouthful of tufts. She rolled onto her side, coughing out the spores. A bruised rib screamed as she put weight on it, the pain intensifying with her coughs.

  Still, in the midst of finding herself knocked senseless, she thought to look up, to seek a visual of the creature that had snatched her. Her gaze darted about; erratic frames of empty sky, and then – through the dancing spores she saw it.

  A giant pair of silvery gray wings, flapping away across the field to crest the treetops on the far side of the glade – one thorough impression before it swooped away and out of sight.

  But one impression was all it took to leave her staring in its wake, panting in dumbfounded wonderment.

  Silvery gray wings. And nothing more. Nothing else.

  A previous encounter with the same creature – or the same half of a creature – came back to her. When Zack had disturbed the dormant laboratory, and this thing, this half-creature that had been infused with some deviant manner of life force, had grown restless and broken free of its prison. When it shattered the laboratory skylight and swooped out into the open skies, it had dive-bombed the gathering of refugees before winging away to find a home in the wilderness.

  The Seraphspan. Disembodied wings with a mind of their own.

  Curiosities bloomed in Shiloh's mind. If it was just a pair of wings, how, she wondered, had it picked her up off the ground? Not with the claws she had thought she'd felt. It could not have formally seized her, then, but somehow fastened itself to her back. Which evoked the question: if it was just a pair of wings, embedded in her back, might that just as well count as her flying? But she had not been controlling the things, had not been sending signals to the appendages except the very physical signals that demanded they release her immediately...

  Still, in a manner of speaking they had flown as one. It could only have fastened itself to her by way of implanting its wing-stems into her own anatomical structure. Fusing itself with her.

  The concept was startling, the implications too alien to fathom in one quick study. And there were other questions that plagued her, like what had happened back at the Tribal camp that had seen them all ignore the pangs of her Pulser and gang up on her. Clearly the Seraphspan hadn't been affected by any offensive tones, either, though it could probably be debated whether it was creature enough in its half-existent state to possess the necessary senses. After all, where would the tones register? In the spines of its pinfeathers?

  Still, it had been multiple Tribal who came at her unhindered by the tones, and as far as she could tell while hyper-focused on her own troubles, the others in the Pulser Squad hadn't met with the same resistance. Probably an issue with her Pulser, then, and not some unforeseen immunity on the Tribals' part. Thanks a lot, Alex. So much for the Pulsers running strong for six hours.

  She had made it out by the skin of her teeth. Thanks to a highly unexpected deliverance. The last thing she had counted on was a pair of disembodied wings swooping out of the sky at her moment of need to fly her from the scene. And now...where had she landed? Not a meadow she was familiar with, unless it was simply transformed from the onset of Winter.

  Gingerly, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Ouch. Everything hurt. Her wrists from pitting weapon against weapon. Her head from her fall while facing off against Mother Eve. Her knees and palms from her desperate clamber across the ground. Her back from being impaled by wing bones. Everything else from her decidedly ungraceful crash-landing.

  She bowed chin-to-chest as she sat up, lightheaded. Tapped her quiet Pulser as if that would determine its working order. Useless.

  What now? She supposed the only thing to do was to get her bearings, and make her way back to the eastern shore. She could only hope she wasn't too far from there, that she didn't have to brave too many miles of uncharted dangers alone. Never had she been cast this deeply into Paradise completely alone. No, but you made it alone with Zack, for a time, and alone with a child to protect could be considered worse than alone. There was a definite handicap, having to look out for his well-being on top of her own.

  Of course, that little walkabout had ended not unswiftly in capture by the Tribal, so there really wasn't much to feel confident about.

  Alright, then. On her feet, weapons, bearings. Those were her priorities, and in that order. It just sounded so nice to lay back down in the pillow-soft stalks and rest for a while. Who would come for her here? Nestled in the heart of winter? It felt so isolated. So tranquil. So undisturbed.

  But she didn't want to be out here when night fell. All innocent, fluffy wonderlands looked different in the dark, and besides – she was bleeding rather profusely from the wounds between her shoulder blades. If she didn't find shelter by nightfall, it would be a different kind of winged creature converging on her from the sky. Haggardwings, attracted to the smell of her blood. She may feel isolated out in that tranquil field, but vultures haunted all corners of the sky.

  She rose from the trampled grasses, taking in the red-stained fluff where she had lain. What an ugly stain in the otherwise pristine landscape.

  As she limped away from the spot where she had come to rest, she imagined a flock of Haggardwings rising at dusk and rallying over that locale; circling, circling, circling with beady-eyed bloodlust in the dark skies over the abandoned, wounded heart of winter.

  *

  Before she reached the edge of the glade, she sidestepped a different sort of carnage, pausing to try to classify the sight. A black, gloppy substance was tracked in stark contrast through the bleached landscape, splotches of something like oil or tar leaving streaky residue on the cottony flora.

  Probably Haggardwing dung, she decided, for lack of a better conclusion, and resisted the ill-advised urge to probe one of the glops to learn more.

  As unidentified specimens that you shouldn’t touch went, this fit the bill like a hazmat-suit glove.

  Retaining a healthy sense of wariness, Shiloh skirted the stuff and moved on, using the Haggardwing dung theory as an excuse to pick up the pace and be on her way.

  At the edge of the glade she harvested a large silver stick and set to work sharpening the end into a decent spear-head. It was rhythmic work, each stroke pulling on the wounds that throbbed between her shoulder blades. Misery is only temporary, she told herself, trying to ignore the pain.

  She paused every now and then to tap the point of the stick, testing its sharpness. She wondered as she worked how the rest of the squad had fared with the raid. Had anyone else's Pulser performed less than impeccably? She certainly hoped not, because she doubted there had been another pair of disembodied wings hovering about waiting to swoop in and save the day.

  You’re a lucky rascal, Shiloh. She had to wonder if that was the last she would see of the wings, or if they'd make any other unexpected appearances. Were they an erratic creature, acting randomly, or did they have some agenda?

  As she was musing over these things and honing her spear, a breeze picked up across the meadow and blew in her direction, a smear of dandelion seeds swirling through her peripheral vision. By the time it reached her it had died down, only a handful of tufts remaining adrift. Shiloh’s motions trailed off in distraction as they wafted past. They were really so enchanting, weren't they? Like little floral snowflakes. Dreamy flakes of ash. You just wanted to reach out and touch one.

  Her honing forgotten, she followed the path of one floating spore. Like little seeds that would sprout fairies, she fanci
ed. Her arm rose from her side unbidden, her finger reaching up to meet the spore before it could drift out of reach. Light as air itself, the little seed pricked her fingertip.

  Shiloh was not prepared for the sharp pain that lanced down her finger. She recoiled with a hiss, shaking her hand. The seed tumbled away, its dreamy flight disturbed. Inspecting her finger, she found a drop of blood welling at the tip. Just like the butterfly, she recalled, prompting a flashback to her discovery that the quaint little creatures had fangs. Except this thing hadn't bitten her, precisely. Stung her was more like it.

  You shouldn’t be surprised. Aside from learning as much first-hand, hadn't Jayx warned them? – everything could be infused with its own slant of viciousness. Don't pet the butterflies, and don't go playing in the dandelion fluff. For goodness' sake, Shiloh. Hadn't she learned her lesson?

  She sucked the blood from her finger and turned to regard the treacherous wonder of the field she had landed in.

  And came face-to-face with the tail end of the breeze, and a gentle onslaught of angelic plumage. She tensed as the seeds blew past, most of them skirting her form but a few delivering pricks to her neck and arms. She winced at the needle-like sensation that came with each sting. How had she avoided the nettles when she landed in the thick of the stuff, trampling a good path through the hostile cotton? Or had she acquired a thousand stings already, and simply not felt them through the other turbulence? It had been a flurry, her tumble an assault on all of her senses.

  The glade was quiet and still again, the swarm of seeds either settled or whispering onward through the surrounding woods.

  But same as the tranquility in the field she and Farah had surveyed before making a break for the purple blossoms, she didn’t trust it.

  Overcome by the pressing urge to move along, she turned from the field, half-sharpened spear in hand, and had to catch herself on the trunk of a tree as she came full-circle. Was the forest wavering, or was that her? Then it faded, as quickly as it had affected her.