Chapter 48

The Afterdeath

I woke up in my bed. I wasn’t even in the city. I was in the temple. My big bed, underground, back of the hangar.

I was holding a yellow pear beneath the covers.

I tried to sit up but my bruised chest refused to allow me to.

Instead I looked to my left. Bandera was sitting there, smiling to see that I was awake.

She held up her hands. She held the chrome trident in on and the severed head of the Nightmare in the other.

Sudden relief spread through me and I laughed despite the paining. “How did you do it?” I asked.

She sighed thinking about how to put it. “Maybe I’ll tell you when you’re doing a bit better. You need your rest.”

“You’re going to kill me with all the waiting.”

She laughed. “It takes more than that to kill you, apparently.” She said, nudging my shoulder. “But it was easy. The hard part was getting out through all of those confused people. They didn’t just die when the Nightmare died. They woke up finding them selves in the sewers when they had all been at work or at home. John and Nancy did pretty well handling that. But the looks on their faces when they saw real Dryads and Talpas, not to mention dozens of dead people everywhere. Boy were they a riot!”

“So you dragged me out and brought me all the way to the temple?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know what to do with you. There wasn’t much of a medical set up there nor in the ship. So Clyde hightailed it here just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

She looked down, “In case you died.”

“I never said that! I told you I wasn’t going to die soon.”

“But you said you needed me just in case.”

“I said I needed you for back up.”

“Fine, so you’re alive now. Alright? I didn’t know what was in the tip of this spear, I didn’t check to see if it had actually punctured you. You had the percussion suit on. I found out you were actually bleeding when we were halfway here.”

“I had the suit on.” I said, trying to piece together my memories. “I nearly forgot. It’s something you don’t think about all the time. I guess it’s a surprise when I find out I’m not actually dead because of it.”

“Yeah, there was some good damage. I’m not a forensics officer but it looks like you got a really good cut going up your chest. Fortunately it wasn’t poisoned, but I took precautions to disinfect it as Clyde had instructed.”

I reached over to touch my chest. It was bandaged very well and I resisted the urge to take it off and look at it.

“He got me to inject you with all sorts of stuff just to make sure. You know how he has a check on all your vitals and all that. So he said it seemed fine, no sign of poison, just a near death knockout.”

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“So you think you can tell me all this medical data but not tell me how you saved me? I get sick at the slightest mention of needles.”

“You have giant steel claws coming from your foot, Dawn.”

“So tell me.” I begged.

“Fine. I’ll just tell Clyde that I thought you had healed already. You’ve been laughing a bit.”

I didn’t care what she had promised Clyde. “So?” I nudged on.

“So. Once you had gone into the Nightmare’s lair I was shooting down the possessed, then I heard some fighting going on. And I thought if I was here to be your back up, what was worse, the possessed or you actually…”

She didn’t say it, but I asked her to go on.

“Right. I was there to keep you safe. Just in case. So I went in, hiding behind the Bovine you had shot down. You seemed to have it under control for a second until the Ursines had grabbed you. That’s when I came in and hid behind the Nightmare. I know he has two eyes on the side, but I was fast and hid underneath him. But this is when I got scared, he summoned his trident, I jumped fast, not fast enough, and got him in the back of the head with the steel cutter you used. You had already been hit, but I had enough time to get into his head and knock him out. He twitched and twitched, so I jumped off and dispatched the two Ursines with my big gun. There were no others so I waited until he stopped twitching, landing a few shots on his joints. I opened up his torso, the spider part, and planted a bomb inside of him, set for two minutes, enough time to get you out.”

“You took me out then. But how did you get the souvenirs?”

“I was getting there.” She said. “Farrow had taken you, I ran back inside and figured I still have enough time. So I finished cutting his head off and took his trident. That’s when I heard the final beep of the bomb, I lunged out of the grating right as he exploded into a thousand pieces.”

“Wow.” I said. “Sounds like I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“Thanks,” she said, blushing a bit. It must have really meant something for her. “At that time there were nearly a hundred people around, humans and Xenos. They saw the explosion right as they came out of their trances. They were confused! Xenos and humans fighting against Dryads and Xenos, dead people all around. It was chaos again and all over.”

“So how did you get me out?”

“Well, I found you after a second of taking in all the pandemonium. You were out, bleeding from the chest. The old Feline ripped off his shirt and wrapped it around you, trying to staunch the bleeding. I don’t know if it helped or not, but I got you out the fastest way I could. The mapper had given me another route back to the surface, barely five minutes. We came up in the middle of some street, Clyde was there waiting for you. We pulled you inside and he took off. I didn’t see who else was in there, and I didn’t care. I really was panicking by then. Clyde calmed me down and got me to help with the medical stuff. Needles and all that, cutting away the clothes and cleaning the wound. Luckily no poison but a little dirt. Not to mention we were running around in the sewage of Xenobia.”

“And now I’m here.”

“Yes. Now you’re here.” She said, coming back and realizing I really was.

We shared a moment. I was proud. I really had trained her well. Maybe something you can’t just tell someone. You can’t tell your student to use what you have around you, use it all, use it well, never give up and never believe the end is nigh. Because they’ll never learn until the time is right.

“So, have you been listening in on Jack and Gerome?”

“Really?” She said. “That’s the second thing you want to know when you wake up?”

“Yes, that’s why I’m back. Caine still has his price to pay.”

“You’ve got to be joking right? You nearly died and you’re trying to get back up again, back in action, risking your life. Again?”

“That is my life,” I said. “If you haven’t noticed.”

“Well I have now,” she said. “You’ve nearly been out for twelve hours by the way. Clyde expected a two week coma.”

“Tell him I’m back,” I said. “Tell him I’m back and… ready for action.”

She looked at me strangely. “That’s all? Not something a little more heroic and less cliché?”

“I was trying to figure that out, that’s what came to mind. If you find something better tell him that.”

We both heard the distinct sound of Clyde’s voice from the speakers of the ship. “I’m listening.”

We both laughed.

I cringed mid laugh, trying to get up and failing. “I guess I’ll have to wait another day. Get yourself cleaned up, Bandera. Relax, do some exploring in the forest, my favorite past time. Just give me a day to recover and we’ll be back to claim Caine as our next kill.”

She gave me a light hug, saluted and walked off with the trident.

“You’re leaving me the Nightmare’s head?”

“Yeah? You wanted the trident? I actually killed him you know. I get first picks.”

“But it’s gross and all bloody with spider goo.”