Chapter Twenty-One
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RAMIEL ENDED UP SPENDING a few hours with Terry and his friends. The humans were in dire need of survival tips. He taught them how to stalk their prey quietly and complimented them on the traps they’d laid. He’d proven how effective they were when he’d stepped on one.
“We didn’t realize how far away our fires could be spotted from,” Terry said when their guest finished his tutorial session. “We’ll make sure we burn things that don’t make as much smoke from now on,” he said.
“Predators will be drawn to the remains of the animals you slaughter,” Ramiel said. “Make sure you wash all the blood off yourselves before you return to your camp, or you could wake up with a wolf chewing your faces off.”
The humans laughed uneasily. They’d heard howls coming from far away and weren’t sure if they were wolves or coyotes. At least they’d been smart enough to butcher their food at a distance from their camp.
“I need to get moving,” the warrior said. It was mid-afternoon and he wanted to make up for lost time.
“Thanks again, Ramiel,” Terry said, offering the alien his hand. They shook and the knight turned to leave. “Good luck finding your mate,” the human said.
Ramiel gave him a rueful smile, still unconvinced that the mysterious female was intended to be his. “Take care of each other,” he said. They murmured that they would, then he returned to the freeway.
He picked up his pace and raced along the freeway that carried him southward. The shadows grew long as the sun slowly descended from the sky. Darkness finally took over and he kept going for a couple more hours. The strange presence he could feel was much closer now.
“We’ll finally meet tomorrow,” he predicted as he searched for somewhere to spend the night.
A house sitting at the top of a small hill caught his eye. No lights were shining from inside when he approached it. He couldn’t sense anyone in the structure and the doors were locked. Just as he’d figured, the occupants had vanished when he broke in and scouted the building.
Ramiel turned the dusty couch cushions over and sank down on the comfy seat. Removing his sneakers, he stretched his long legs out with a sigh. He wasn’t quite tired enough to lie down yet, so he finished the book he’d been reading.
Closing the novel two hours later, the knight stared at a peaceful painting that hung over the mantlepiece. The scene was of a cabin near a lake. A couple were sitting on deckchairs, holding hands and gazing at the water. Their faces were indistinct, yet they looked serene.
“These books are a bad influence on me,” Ramiel said. “The alien males are meeting their perfect mates and bend over backwards to make their females happy. Once they win their mates over, their lives become perfect.”
The Knights of Order had never been given the chance to have real relationships before.
None of them had ever been in love, let alone settled down with a female.
What was the point when their wars didn’t usually last very long?
It was far too dangerous to procreate with the women they’d interacted with.
They hated having to eliminate the cambions their foes created.
It would have been devastating to be forced to murder their own children if they’d been born evil.
“It seemed like Fate was speaking directly to me through the Mad Prophet,” Ramiel murmured. The human had told him he needed to find his female and protect her until his boss found him.
This was a switch he hadn’t seen coming. His priority in their past wars had been to protect their commander and defeat their enemies. Why was Fate giving them a new objective? What was so special about the mysterious females that they needed to be protected?
“Why can I feel my female’s pain?” he mused.
“Did she suffer my agony when the human dug the bullet out of my back?” If so, he hoped she wouldn’t hold it against him.
The slug had needed to come out one way or another.
He’d been wounded countless times in the past eras and was used to being patched back up.
He doubted his female was used to that sort of physical pain.
Putting the book away, Ramiel lay down and eventually fell asleep. Rising at dawn, he resumed his trek southward.
Smoke warned him that there were people ahead when he’d been running for a few hours. Ramiel slowed down when he saw a town. He was too distant for them to spot him, or so he hoped. He had an uneasy feeling and decided to give the settlement a wide berth.
Leaving the freeway, the knight leaped over a fence and made his way through a field.
The long grass brushed against his thighs as he loped to the next fence.
Most of the trees that had surrounded the town had been cut down, leaving him feeling exposed.
His sense of danger increased, then he caught a glimpse of sunlight reflecting off something.
Instinct made him lurch forward, but he didn’t quite move quickly enough.
A bullet gouged the back of his head and he hissed in reaction.
“That would have blown my brains out if I’d been any slower!
” he snarled, crouching down low. He ran in a hunch, hearing the howls of dogs and shouts of their human masters as they began to converge on his position.
Tripping over a rock, the warrior cursed beneath his breath.
He couldn’t see where he was going, so he made the terrible decision to stand up in preparation of sprinting away.
Another bullet slammed into him, hitting him in the shoulder.
He spun around at the impact and grunted in pain when the next shot hit him in the back.
His vision blurred as blood began pouring out of his wounds. A smaller caliber bullet was fired from a human who was racing towards him. It hit him in the temple and he went down.
When Ramiel came to, he was hanging upside down again.
This time, he hadn’t been caught in a rope trap.
Metal shackles were clamped around his ankles and were biting into his skin.
Slowly swinging backwards and forwards, the warrior opened his eyes a crack.
The sun was beginning to set and he was surrounded by a crowd of black-souled men and women.
Their dogs were leashed and lay at their masters’ feet.
“How can he still be alive?” one of the females asked incredulously.
“Look at the size of him,” a man replied. “He’s jacked up on something. He’s probably been taking steroids for years. They must have slowed his blood down so he can’t bleed out like a normal person.”
“Don’t be stupid,” another male said in derision. “He’s obviously not a human. No normal person could have survived being shot in the head, let alone the other wounds we gave him. The bullet holes are already healing,” he pointed out.
Right on cue, the small slug that was embedded in Ramiel’s temple was ejected from his head. It landed on the huge pool of dried blood lying on the ground beneath the pole. The humans gasped and one of the dogs bayed in reaction. That set the other hounds off and a ruckus began.
Ramiel pretended to be unconscious, watching his captors through his lashes while they debated about his origins. They also had a ham radio and had heard everything the Mad Prophet had been saying.
As the chains he was swinging from spun him slowly around, he saw he was hanging in a barren field from a tall pole that was several yards away.
He counted nearly sixty humans who all looked gaunt and ravenous.
It was obvious they’d hunted him for his meat and he had to suppress a shudder.
He knew he was in a predicament that he might not be able to get out of.
His sword was sharp, but it might not be able to cut through metal shackles.
“I don’t care if he is an alien from outer space,” someone shouted over the noise. “I vote we cut him up and cook him for dinner!”
Roars of approval came from the others, setting the dogs off barking again.
“What if his flesh is poisonous to our kind?” an older male pointed out.
“Someone will have to try it and see if he’s edible,” another person responded. “I vote for you to test it first,” he said with an audible smirk.
Despair began to sink into Ramiel. How the hell was he going to get out of this?
Sending out his senses, some of his agonized grogginess faded when he realized the strange presence was a lot closer now.
From what Terry and his friends had told him, it was most likely his mysterious mate who was heading towards him.
The Mad Prophet had told Ramiel to locate and protect her, but instead he was potentially leading her directly to her death.