Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 43

THE VUCARI TORE THROUGH the soldiers like flies. Petar knew he had to move quickly, while the soldiers were still distracted and before the vucari's Koschei handlers came in behind it.

Jem's hands were still covering his eyes.

"Let me see," Petar whispered, pulling the boy's hands away. Jem's eyes were closed. "Look at me. Can you see me?"

Jem blinked quickly as if clearing dust from his eyes, then opened them fully. His irises and pupils were milky and clouded, but Petar saw the outlines of brown and black circles beneath the film.

"I can't see anything," Jem whispered back.

"It'll be like that for awhile, but your sight should come back. You were beside me, and it's rarely permanent unless you look straight at the flash. But right now, we need to move. I need you to hold my hand and move when I do. You'll have to trust me."

"I don't think I can," Jem said. He looked terrified.

"There's no other way."

Petar looked out across the room. The dust from the wall made it hard to see farther than a few feet away. Anything beyond that slowly faded into gray silhouettes and vague shapes. Beyond those, just an impenetrable cloud. Above them, unseen on the table, some machine whirred to life. Interference.

"Okay, come on. Hands and knees."

Gripping Jem's hand, Petar scuttled along the floor under the table. From end to end, it covered about a quarter of the length of the lab.

"Climb over this." Petar laid Jem's hand on a crossbar a few inches off the floor that was welded to a pair of steel legs. He climbed over and turned to help Jem. Jem smacked his knee into the bar and cried out. Petar clapped a hand over his mouth and leaned to his ear.

"We have to be as quiet as possible. The vucari hunts mostly by sound."

Jem nodded, and they scurried farther along the wall. Petar pulled up short and froze, his hand over Jem's mouth again. Less than three feet in front of them, at the end of the table, two soldiers slid against the wall and crouched. Their heads were just over the rim of the table. Petar prayed they didn't hunker lower. There was nowhere they could hide. Seconds stretched into eons. Then one of the soldiers fired his rifle and Petar felt more than saw the vucari lunge across the room toward the man.

Low to the ground, though, up close, the air was clear enough to see the whole horrifying thing. Petar had spent some time around vucaris on Volos, so he knew what was coming. They were native to the planet and usually fed on pooshees, small, monkey-like animals that lived along the southern Belt. They had three "tails" that grew off their backs at equally spaced intervals. The first tail grew from the base of the back of their short, stubby necks. It was thin and fluid and culminated in a sharp, barbed hook. The second tail grew halfway down their back and split into two pieces near the end. These were tipped in sensors that felt sound vibrations – the vucari's "ears."

The lowest tail was thick and splayed into a feathery mass of miniature tentacles at its tip. This bunch of sensitive flesh swept the ground behind it like a broom, searching for scraps that might have dropped while eating. An arm, a leg, a pooshee's yellow tail. The tentacles then clung to the scrap of flesh and absorbed it. Vucari were efficient eaters. They had to be, to support their size.

When the vucari pounced on the soldier in front of Petar, the evisceration was almost clockwork. It came in head first, mouth wide with a triple row of black teeth. The soldier's entire arm, gun and all, disappeared into the vucari's maw, then the barbed tail shot over its head and plunged into the soldier's chest in a spray of blood. Petar was close enough to hear the soldier's ribs crunch out of the way.

It must have been reflex, but a muffled crack came from the vucari's throat. The rifle. Howling, the vucari whipped its tail into the air. The soldier's body went with it, and Petar heard the man screaming all the way to the other side of the lab.

The second soldier at the end of the table panicked and took off running. His feet hit the spreading blood-slick on the floor and flew out from under him. Petar was pretty sure his head slammed the concrete hard enough to kill him outright. He hoped so.

While the vucari turned its attention to the falling soldier, Petar pulled Jem through the gap between the tables, dragging him over two more crossbars just like the one they'd already passed. It wouldn't be long now before the air was clear again. Stealth was quickly becoming an obsolete tactic.

"What's going on out there?" The voice rang from the far side of the room.

The vucari tensed and cocked its head, then sprang over three tables in a single soaring leap and converged on the source of the shout.

Screw it. Yanking Jem's arm, Petar took off in a sprint toward the far end of the lab. A soldier stumbled out of hiding in front of him, raising his rifle toward the charging vucari, and Petar slammed into him like a linebacker, knocking him to the side.

Ahead, the storage area of the lab sprawled like a maze. Jagged bits of machinery reached out into the meandering passageways. Covered shapes interspersed between them, hulking and ghost-like.

Petar slid through an opening and out of the open lab floor, where a small group of soldiers had found each other and were sending rapid-fire tracers into the leathery hide of the thrashing vucari. Petar didn't turn around. There wasn't any time.

Behind him, Jem stumbled, barely keeping up. Petar realized he was half dragging the boy and slowed slightly. He wished he'd had time to come up with something different than the blinding spatial coherence amplifier. Time to warn Jem, at least. But he hadn't. No time to dwell on past mistakes. Not now.

Suddenly, Jem cried out and pulled away from him. Petar turned and saw General Samil holding a knife to Jem's throat. A savage grin spread across Samil's face. His left eye was a sickening red mass of dead tissue.

"Let's do this right, Petar," he said. "No need for anyone to get hurt."

"I'll come with you," Petar said quickly. "That's what you want, right? Just let him go."

"Oh, if only it were that easy." Samil seemed to be enjoying himself. Petar searched for an opening, some way to get to Samil, but he couldn't do anything without hurting Jem. "You're both coming," Samil continued. "And if you try anything..." he tapped the blade of the thin knife against Jem's throat, "...well, let's just say you probably shouldn't. For the boy's sake."

"Petar..." Jem whispered. His face was a mask of fright.

"It's okay, Jem," Petar said. "Just stay calm. We're just going to talk with the nice general for awhile."

"That's the spirit," Samil sneered. "You, go first." He gestured to Petar, then jerked his head behind him.

Petar shuffled past him in the narrow alleyway, keeping his body oriented toward the general and the boy. Samil turned to follow him, not letting Petar out of his sight.

As Petar stepped out past a hulking metal propane tank, he saw the flash of the vucari out of the corner of his eye. He tried to leap back, but it was too late. The vucari crashed into him like a freight train, snagging Petar's leg in its mouth and sweeping away without slowing. He just caught a glimpse of Jem and Samil still standing behind the propane tank before the vucari whipped around a corner.

Thanks for reading my story! Please VOTE and let me know what you think of it so far, then check out Chapter 44!