Nigel (Sons of Ymre #3)

Chapter 1

Pull the Cord

Now she knows what it’s like to be disemboweled.

Filthy claws buried in her middle, smoking waves of agony pouring through every nerve.

Rows of triangular teeth snap less than an inch from her nose, the thing’s exhalation heavy with diseased rot.

Still, there was some hope. The leering noseless monster, cold blue eyes wide and mad with unholy glee, could only hurt her body.

If she bled out quickly enough, at least she would still have her soul.

Savaged corpses lay strewn throughout the basement, simmering in blood and sewer-stink.

Unholy noises as the creatures feasted—a dog festooned with tentacles hissing at a giant, fungal-scarred almost-spider, the two tugging Steve’s limp body between them.

Something too foul to describe crouched on Grik’s broken-open chest, ribs wrenched free like flower petals. And Trille, poor Trille—

The pointed razors buried among her intestines flexed, and Cass Tierney screamed.

“Pull the cord, Cass.” Bern’s voice, loud and urgent, but that was wrong, Frank Bernadotte was dead, so were Grik and Steve, Apoc and Trille, and no matter how many times she tried nothing changed.

Hopelessness closed over her head, a drowning-dark wave.

Twitchtwisting white-hot claws scraping in the cup of her belly, the slender, terribly strong blue-eyed bogey grinned and chattered, its babylike singsong bathing her in a fresh flood of foul caustic breath.

Tiny white worms wriggled between those rows of awful serrated teeth.

“Pull the fuckin’ cord!” Bern sounded nearly frantic, in fact, and that was a bad sign. But wasn’t he dead? She glimpsed his headless body, crumpled near the entryway—he’d gone first, in every sense. “Goddammit, what did you give her?”

It was usually Cass’s job to smooth the waters, but she couldn’t make her voice work. Hot blood dribbled down her chin. It wasn’t Trille’s fault, she wanted to say. The dose was standard.

Wait, what? She grabbed at the thought—sane, rational, and best of all, coming from outside.

That was it. She was dosed. Which meant this was a scenario and if so, she had an out.

Pull the cord. But it hurt so much, the knives buried in her stomach mangling one inch at a time.

The blue-eyed thing’s head shot forward with a vile, boneless movement.

Its lips nearly brushed her sweating, blood-slick neck; Cass wrenched away, a tearing, desperate unphysical movement, spinning, whirling, splatters of intestine whipping in every direction before…

WHAM!

…slammed back into her body so hard the entire RV rocked, her spine bowing and lungs full of concrete, throat scraped dry, the seizure tossing a man who considerably outweighed her onto the kitchenette counter.

“—the goddamn way,” big blond Trille yelled, wavy hair sticking up in every direction and his sandy-dark stubble ferocious.

Barefoot in cargo shorts, the strap of the red-and-yellow portable defib bag across his bare chest, the medic sank one scarred, hairy knee onto the bed; he already had the kit’s battery prepped and the paddles halfway free.

“Bringing the zap, get clear, get fucking clear.”

Cass’s right hand shot out, unable to fully close around Trille’s wrist—he’d been lifting iron with Apoc lately. Still, her fingers bit with surprising strength and the medic froze, peering down at his patient, training piercing the fog of adrenaline and interrupted slumber.

“Don’t!” Bern howled, floundering in the kitchenette, green-and-orange Hawaiian shirt flapping. She had thrown him onto the counter. Under other circumstances it might have been almost funny. “She’s out, she’s out, don’t hit, abort, you motherfucker, abort!”

“I am,” Trille yelled back, hunching almost defensively. The paddles whined—a soft high unsound, maybe imaginary. “Calm the fuck down, Sarge.”

He’s not gonna. Not yet. “Up,” Cass croaked, a thin, reedy syllable. Relief hot and sharp as good bourbon filled her chest. “Trille? Up.”

He was alive. So was Bern, and it meant the others were safe as well. The RV was familiar, its cramped interior half-lit but every inch regular, normal, conforming to the geometry and geography of the waking world.

Best of all, everything was blessedly sane.

Cass had pulled the cord; she was out of the scenario.

This run had failed just as badly as the others, but figuring out why could wait for a few minutes.

She was parched—a side effect of both high sedative dose plus pure terror—and the shakes had her, an overactive terrier with a favorite chew toy.

Her belly ached relentlessly, more pointed pain than grinding menstrual cramps.

Not that her cycle was anything approaching regular, between the meds and the stress. “Up,” she repeated, since both men were watching her almost nervously.

Trille blinked. “Yeah. Sure thing.” Still holding the paddles—albeit far away in his free hand—their squad medic yanked her upright to sit on the tangled bed, bracing her with impersonal efficiency. “Gimme the list, hot stuff. What day is it?”

How the hell should I know? Cass shook her head, though she understood he needed to verify she was not merely conscious but also oriented.

“We’re still in Oregon.” Soft, invisible chemical fingers lingered, dragging at her brain, weighing down her limbs.

“We had Thai for dinner, it doesn’t matter who’s President because the country’s always a mess anyway, and I’m stoned on meds so give me something to clear me up or…

” She only slurred the consonants a little; her throat was cotton-dry.

The medic promptly busied himself with stethoscope and blood-pressure cuff. Cass submitted meekly to the ritual of checking basic vital signs.

“Or what?” There was a click and a bright scouring glare—Bern, shouldering Trille aside, using a penlight to check her pupils.

The sudden glaring featureless white was a reminder of lucid nightmare.

She shuddered; Bern’s other hand hand shot out to catch her shoulder, warm through her lucky Journey T-shirt. “Whoa, there. Talk to me, Cass.”

“Thirsty,” she managed. “Christ.”

“She’s all the way out, just a bit hazy from meds,” Trille announced. “You need a bump, sugar?”

Bern kept shining the light in her eyes. “Give her a minute, for fucksake.”

“Water.” What Cass really wanted was a hit of good solid booze, but that wouldn’t soothe her throat.

There was a particular type of irony in being too ragingly thirsty for alcohol—plus, any additional depressant would interact badly with the sedative still in her bloodstream.

“And a bump.” I’m not sleeping anymore tonight.

Not if she could help it, anyway.

“Get her some damn hydration, Bern,” Trille snapped, loosening the cuff around her upper arm. “So, the lady wants a bump. Poke or pill?”

Normally Cass would’ve been touched by his gruff worry. But her midriff cramped unmercifully, her eyes stung from the penlight, and though she was beyond happy to see them both alive, unwounded, and moving around, men were always so goddamn annoying. “What do you think, asshole? Get it over with.”

She hated needles, but nothing pill-based would get her out from under this sedative dose.

Bernadotte clicked the light off, straightening with a gusty sigh.

Bushy eyebrows were doing their best to meld over the bridge of his much-broken nose, a sure sign of yet more trouble to come.

But he turned away, shouldering Trille hard enough to make the entire RV rock on its tires again, and that was the deciding factor.

Cass bent over the side of the biggest bed their group possessed, unwashed hair slithering over her shoulders—and retched, aiming for the blue barf-bucket waiting its turn on the floor next to her carefully arranged sneakers.

* * *

Her body attempting to turn itself inside out was an incontrovertible sign the dream was truly over.

Bern opened a bottle of room-temp distilled water and also thoughtfully brought a small enamel camping bowl for Cass to spit in after she rinsed her aching mouth.

Finally, Bernadotte glared an thorough examination of her from top to toe, turned with military precision, and stamped away down the RV’s narrow aisle.

Added bonus—he took away the bucket as well.

Everything tidy and shipshape, except for the mess she represented. Cass poured down the tepid water, her throat moving with long hard swallows until Trille nearly snatched the bottle away. “Go easy, or you’ll have to puke in the sink next.”

“Big fun,” she muttered, gasped for breath, and froze, waiting for him to jab the hypo in. The slight sting was much less than having bogey claws buried in her guts, but still almost produced a flinch. “Whew.”

“Any luck?” He capped the sharp and slipped it into the biohazard bin before turning his attention to tidying up, setting the defib kit on the counter next to his eternal olive-green surplus bag.

Apoc called it a man-purse, cheerfully ignoring the fact that ragging your squad’s medic could be hazardous to continued health. “Not asking for debrief, just curious.”

Well, I got out alive. “No sign of the big kahuna this time.” The terrifying being with its inhuman laughter, mad crimson glare in its half-sensed eyes, its blaring mental screech—between that and whatever Trille had jabbed her with, a shiver ran from Cass’s scalp all the way down her back, and spilled along her trembling legs for good measure. “That’s good, right?”

“Man, I don’t know.” Trille’s hair flopped as he shook his head, a quick hard motion like a cat meeting a terrible smell. “You’re the expert on that shit.”

“I’m calling it good, I hate that thing.” Intuition didn’t make for expertise, though practice might. But the cost for a single misstep, even in lucid dreams, was hellishly high. “Why am I not feeling whatever you poked me with?” The sedation still dragged at her, smothering-soft.