Chapter Twenty-Seven
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HAIL BEGAN TO FALL just after dawn, snapping Arkas and his cambion awake. “I need to put the truck under cover,” the knight said, instantly alert.
“I’ll unlock the doors,” Oaklie said in a slightly fuzzy tone.
With her shield down, he distantly felt her power sweep out, then the door became separated from the frame again.
Arkas snatched the keys from the nightstand, then hurried outside.
He jumped into the truck and rammed the seat back, then reversed the vehicle under cover.
The roof and hood were dented, but at least the windows weren’t cracked.
Arkas climbed out, glad the office was separate from the motel and had a roof over the gap to block the weather. He figured the manager used to park their car beneath it. Grabbing more supplies from the boxes, he loped over to the side door of the motel.
Oaklie opened it before he could try the handle. “I was just coming to grab some more food and water,” she said. Her hair was still down. It fell around her in a lush black cloak.
“I think we might be stuck here for a while,” Arkas said ruefully when the hail grew even bigger.
“At least it’s coming straight down, so it hopefully won’t smash the windows,” the female said philosophically. He stepped inside and she fused the door shut again.
Arkas followed Oaklie to their room and placed the box on the floor. She’d changed into fresh clothes. He grabbed a change of clothes for himself and changed in the bathroom. She was eating canned fruit when he emerged.
“Does it usually storm this bad?” he asked, taking a seat on the chair next to the window. He pulled the curtain aside so they could watch the display mother nature was putting on for them.
“I’ve never seen hail this big before,” Oaklie said. “Winters have been pretty brutal for the past few years. Storms are more frequent all year round and there’s been a lot of flooding during spring and summer.”
“Let’s hope we won’t be delayed for long,” the knight said. “Amaros is probably waiting for me in Manhattan, wondering where I am.”
“Do you get along with all of your brothers?” she asked curiously.
“We’re united in our purpose,” he replied, crossing his ankles and trying to get comfortable.
The chair wasn’t big enough for someone with his bulk.
“Unlike our enemies, we don’t squabble amongst ourselves.
We do have some rivalries at times.” He grinned at the antics the knights got up to on occasion.
“Like what?” Oaklie asked.
“Jacquin and Camriel decided to hunt a mammoth together during a war back in an ice age,” he said.
“Why?” the artist asked in shock. “You guys don’t even need to eat. Why would they want to kill a majestic animal like a mammoth?”
“They had no intention of killing it, female,” he said with a smirk. “They wanted to see who could ride one the farthest.”
She shook her head, then spooned more fruit into her mouth. “Did they catch one?” she asked when she swallowed it down.
“Yep,” he confirmed, grinning nostalgically at the memory and lacing his hands over his stomach.
“Camriel snuck up to a mammoth first. He climbed onto its back before it even knew he was there. It took off, trumpeting in alarm and making the rest of the herd flee. He managed to cling to its fur for a few hundred yards before falling off.”
Oaklie laughed and his gut constricted. Everything about her appealed to him on a fundamental level. He’d never met a female as perfect as she was before. “What about Jacquin?” she asked. “How far did he manage to ride a mammoth?”
“He had to wait a couple of days until the herd calmed down before trying. We had no idea our enemies were watching us from a distance.” Arkas’ expression darkened and he lost all traces of amusement.
“Jacquin managed to climb onto a mammoth. He rode it for a couple of hundred yards, starting another stampede. Then one of the soldiers leaped onto the mammoth behind my brother and cut his head off.”
Oaklie winced at that mental image. “Did you guys win that war?”
“I can’t remember,” Arkas said. “Fate wipes most of our memories. We’d probably go insane if we remembered every detail of our eternal existences.”
“It’s hard to believe you’ve been alive for billions of years,” his female marveled. “Do all of the knights look as young as you do?”
“How old do you think I look?” he asked.
“Maybe in your mid to late twenties,” she said.
“We all appear to be about the same age,” Arkas confirmed. “We don’t change at all. Our hair doesn’t grow, our muscle mass remains the same and those of us who don’t have a beard can’t grow one.”
“I prefer cleanshaven men,” Oaklie said, then looked down at her can of fruit, clearly wishing she hadn’t said anything.
“And I prefer women with gorgeous black hair that reaches to their delectable backsides,” he said silkily.
“Don’t try to seduce me, Arkas,” she said with a scowl. “I’m not going to sleep with a guy who’s only going to be here for a short time. The last thing I need is a broken heart.”
“That would imply you think you’d fall in love with me, female,” Arkas said, willing her to look at him. She stubbornly refused to lift her gaze.
“Love has no place in the apocalypse,” Oaklie denied. “There’s only pain, death and despair left now.”
Her tone was sorrowful and he wished he hadn’t upset her. He decided it would be wise to change the topic. “What else can you do with your power?” he queried. “Besides crafting statues and spearing humans to death.”
“They’re pretty much my main talents,” she admitted, wrinkling her nose.
The can was empty, so she got up to rinse the spoon with bottled water in the bathroom sink.
She put the can in a bag to throw away with her other trash.
“There is something I can do that’s pretty cool, though,” she said, crossing to the door.
Arkas had no idea what to expect when she put her hand on the frame.
He could vaguely feel her using her magic as she concentrated.
Then the wood began to move and he stared in wonder.
Instead of a smooth, flat surface, the wood shifted into an intricate pattern of vines.
Leaves and flowers appeared, with hummingbirds and insects scattered here and there.
The pattern spread upwards and across the top of the frame, then extended all the way to the floor on both sides.
Getting up, the warrior crossed the room to take a closer look at her work. “That’s amazing,” he said, touching a bird that hovered in midflight.
“It gets better,” Oaklie said with a grin. With another surge of magic, the birds and insects began to move. The hummingbirds flitted from flower to flower, drinking the nectar. The insects chewed on the leaves before shifting to a different location.
Speechless, he wished his brothers could see this spectacle. “Does it sap your energy to use so much magic?” he asked.
Oaklie hesitated as she thought about it. “It used to,” she replied, withdrawing her magic and letting the birds and insects become immobile again. “But I feel like my strength has increased recently.” She took a seat on the bed again, propping pillows behind her back.
“How recently?” Arkas asked, returning to the chair.
“Ever since you arrived in my town and started squatting in the blue house,” she said.
“I’m stronger and faster than usual as well,” he said with a frown. “This has to have something to do with why we can feel each other’s pain. I just wish I knew what was going on.”
“Maybe your commander will have the answers,” she figured. “What are we going to do all day while we wait for the storm to pass?”
He could have made several suggestions, but none of them were appropriate. “You could help me hone my whittling skills,” he suggested hopefully.
“I don’t use tools, but I might be able to give you some tips,” she agreed.
Arkas glanced out through the window. “I’ll have to duck outside and find some fallen branches to work on.”
“Don’t bother,” she replied, then crawled over to the nightstand on his side of the bed. “We can use this,” she said. She placed her hand on the nightstand and it broke into several pieces. “Can you grab them for me?” she asked.
Arkas was kneeling beside the bed almost before she’d finished asking. He scooped the bundle up and put them on the bed. “That doesn’t look like normal wood,” he said, examining them.
“They’re basically pulp that’s been squashed together, then coated in a layer of plastic,” she said. She used her power to peel off the coating, then transformed the pulp into solid wood. They were a lot smaller when she was finished, but still about eight inches long and six inches wide.
“I’ll just grab my tools,” he said, eager to get started.
“Use the wastebasket to catch the scraps,” she told him.
He nodded and picked up the wastebasket sitting in a corner of the room.
He retrieved his toolkit from the backpack he’d brought inside, then sat next to her on the bed.
Oaklie had moved back to her original position and had given him a pillow to rest his back against. “What should I make?” he asked, suddenly feeling nervous.
“What do you feel like making?” she replied.
His gaze went to the intricate pattern she’d created around the doorframe. “I’ll carve a branch with some flowers,” he decided. Oaklie tucked her legs beneath herself and got comfortable as he began whittling.