Highland Son (Highland Sorcery: A New Dawn) Read online

  Highland Son

  By Clover Autrey

  Copyright 2014 Clover Autrey

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Published by Red Rover Books

  Cover art by Pat Autrey

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  A Highland Sorcery novel: A New Dawn

  Highland Son

  2084 Lower Montana United States

  Everything had gone to hell. Exactly as planned.

  Alexander whipped his Beretta PX4 to the left and let loose on the Sift that’d dropped in behind Ethan. The pulsars were streamlined weapons, but sometimes a man just wanted the feel of a kick-ass semi-automatic pistol in his hands.

  The putrid gray flesh rippled where the bullets hit.

  Ethan glanced behind him at the shrieking hulk of teeth and blubber, hammered a blast of his prized streamlined Jericho 941 into the beast, grinned wildly at Alexander and waggled his brows before firing at another two of the creatures dropping in on the party.

  “We’ve got ‘em close enough.” Dez shot point-blank into a dark muzzle, twisting to fire at a second Sift as he kicked the first away, dancing out of the path of flailing claws. “Drop the canister before we kill them all and the experiment’s a bust.”

  “Awww, already?” Ethan frowned. The guy loved shooting monsters.

  Dez had a point. They wouldn’t be able to quantify how far the serum in aerosol form could spread and how many Sifts it could alter if they kept killing them. He’d hoped the three of them being out in the open of the salvage yard like this would have been a tempting draw, but so far just a little over a handful of the blubbery hairless ape-ish creatures had come after them.

  They weren’t in any real danger, not with his ability to call on sorcerer’s fire, or open a rift in space and get them out of there in an instant. Except using his magic would defeat the purpose of drawing in as many beasts as they could.

  Pushing his pistol out past Dez’s side, he fired low at an advancing trio—good, more were coming out of the rusty shells of cars—and took their legs out from under them, but not killing outright. Now they were talking.

  “Enough for you now?” Dez deadpanned, the back of his shoulder against the back of Ethan’s, also firing low into an advancing fray. They had about a dozen live ones to work with now.

  “Let’s do this.” Grinning, Alexander pulled one of his aerosol canisters from his belt and popped the ring, tossing the spraying bottle toward the flopping gaggle of beasts he’d just fired into.

  The Sifts shrieked, clawing at each other in their flight to get away from the streaming mist clouding the air.

  Everything Alexander had worked years for, lost years for, manipulating his family through time for, was in these canisters. They knew the formula worked, had already tested it, and found it capable of taking away a Sift’s natural ability to create rifts in time or space. No more fleeing through time, the humans had a chance to stop the monsters here and now. They just had to figure out a way to deliver it to the beasts on a massive scale.

  The aerosol was a start.

  One of the beasts was trying to flee. Ethan shot it in its muscled thigh, and shrugged at Alexander’s lifted brows.

  Dez fired into another that rushed at them. These two men were the most capable fighters Alexander knew. They’d grown up fighting the monsters since they were kids, two lost orphans surviving what little the Sifts left after devouring most of humanity. They had also become his dearest friends.

  He squinted through the mist at the shadowy bulking forms, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck lifting with his anticipation.

  He felt low currents of magic tingle across his skin. One or more of the Sifts were attempting to open a rift in the world, trying to escape. Dull light broke through the cloudy haze.

  Alexander tensed, uncertain. Were the beasts still able to create the rifts? Had putting the formula into aerosol form ruined the properties?

  As quickly as that though came, the glow sputtered out and a furious squeal broke out.

  Alexander laughed. It was working. The aerosol was working.

  The beasts caught in the spray could not open a rift. Never would be able to again as his uncle’s unique DNA worked to alter the DNA coding of the monsters. It was working.

  They would win this war.

  Humans would take back the world.

  “It’s working! Whoo!” Ethan pumped his arms in the air, his beloved Jericho held high. His exuberance was infectious. Shaking his head, Dez sported a partial grin.

  Until—

  The air shimmered. A rift pulsed open. Alexander felt it in the tightening of his gut. He scanned the dissipating mist.

  There.

  At the edge of the cloudy aerosol spray, a Sift chuffed its seeping nostrils and dove into the breach in space.

  “Damn.” He’d been afraid of this. The aerosol only worked within a certain range. Looked like about a ten foot radius at best. He’d have to work on the concentration to make it go farther—

  “Look out!”

  He felt it even as Dez shouted the warning, the low vibration of a rift opening up directly behind him. The crafty Sift thought it would double back through space on him, did it?

  Alexander dropped, knowing Dez and Ethan had his back even as he twisted, firing his semi point-blank.

  Three sets of weapons whittled the Sift to mincemeat pudding in the beat of a clap. It tumbled backwards into the rift it’d created before the hole in the air spluttered out. Wonder where that went to…

  “Time to go,” Ethan called out, firing into the horde of monsters emerging from the spray. They’d lost their ability to rift away, but their teeth and claws were fully intact and they were frenzied, running at them full bore.

  “Now would be a good time for that sorcerer’s fire up your sleeve,” Dez suggested.

  Yes indeed. “Hold them off.” His back to Dez, Alexander pointed his PX4 to the side and let out a stream of pretty ammo while he opened the flow of essence from deep inside his core, let it build, and pour through his muscles, into his arms. His fingers tingled with hot humming energy.

  He took a deep breath…

  Bambambambam. Staccato shots rang around them. Sifts dropped like stones. Thick thudding screeching stones.

  Men piled out of the buildings and garages around them, tightening their circle as they moved in, firing into the beasts. A dozen men in all.

  The surviving Sifts shrieked, ridiculous wide leg muscles propelling them into giant leaps that took them over the heads of their attackers in their haste to get away. They could no longer open holes out of nothing, but, dia, could they leap.

  Alexander let his magic go, felt it pull back within him. He was yanked down. Dez and Ethan crouched over him as they fired in the melee.

  Eejits. They still treated him like the savior of their world.

  “Who are these guys?” Undeterred, he reloaded and slipped his pistol between Dez’s and Ethan’s hips and took careful aim. He didn’t want to hit any of their would-be rescuers.

  Soon enough there weren’t any more targets, just a motley group of humans edging toward them.

  “Leave your weapons on the ground,�
� a stocky guy who looked to be in his late forties ordered.

  “I’m a little partial to mine.” Ethan patted his Jericho. He’d danced a jig when he’d found it in some para-military survivalist’s storage bunker they’d salvaged. Before jumping into the future, knowing nothing material could travel through a rift, Alexander had memorized the locations of where several para-military types and end-of-the-world theorists lived and possibly had stashed their rations.

  Thank the heavens and a wee bit of hell for the paranoid.

  He’d also buried several rations himself, though two of his own stashes had already been found and dug up by someone else between the years he’d buried his caches and jumped ahead through the decades. He, Ethan and Dez had been getting around to his caches across what used to be the western half of the United States on several forays.

  He also had several untouched, hopefully untouched, caches in Scotland he’d started burying from the time he first learned about the Sifts when one had come back through time to kill him as a boy. His entire life and how he viewed it had changed that Christmas.

  The stocky man took a step forward, the fading light playing across the gray of his hair. “Sons, I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but until we get acquainted, I’d like you to hand over your guns.” His features took on a sincere grandfatherly expression. “Just so there’s no misunderstandings.”

  “Oh there’ll be no misunderstandings.” Dez rolled his shoulders back.

  “We only shoot when provoked,” Ethan finished.

  Dez smiled pleasantly. “We’re not going to be provoked…are we?”

  Several of the group gazed expectantly at the older man. The obvious leader.

  Hearty laughter didn’t seem to be what they expected. “I like you boys.” He spread his arms wide, his pulsar loose in his palm. “But as you can see, we’re a large group and haven’t survived this long by not taking precautions, so if you don’t mind…”

  “We do mind.” Dez wasn’t going to give up his weapons.

  “Wait.” Alexander rested his palm on Dez’s forearm and placed his other hand subtly on Ethan’s shoulder, his meaning clear only to them. He could open a rift and get them away at any time. Of course they’d have to leave their weapons behind in jumping in. Clothes too. Not the best option out in a land running over with monsters. Not to mention he wanted to know who these people were, how large their group was.

  Part of saving humanity entailed gathering them to safe locations, and building an army to defeat the Sifts once they took away the beasts’ ability to flee through time and simply start the devouring of mankind elsewhere in history. They had to be stopped here and now. With nowhere in time available for them to start over.

  Dez’s nod was slight, a bare movement. “Tell you what we’re willing to do. Seeing as you saved our…” Pausing, he glanced at the couple of women in the group. “…skins and all, we’ll turn over the ammunition but keep our guns.”

  The leader’s bushy gray brows bunched together. “Son, you realize we can simply take them off you.”

  “You can try.” Ethan lifted his own brows impressively.

  “I gave you the benefit of asking.”

  “Which is appreciated and why we are willing to compromise instead of simply walking away.”

  The man’s grin lifted in amusement. A warning stirred in Alexander’s gut. There would be no walking away.

  Steam rose from the body of a Sift between them.

  The man rubbed his stubbled chin. “We’re not stupid so don’t treat us as such. Guns without ammunition in certain hands are still potent. You boys look to be able to handle yourselves.”

  Dez nodded, still not backing down. “Three against all of you?”

  The leader’s eyes narrowed, recognizing the ‘out’ Dez was offering him in front of his people. “True. All right. I’ll allow you to keep your guns, but we’ll take the ammunition, blades, and anything else you have on you—then I’d appreciate if you’ll be our guests for an evening to get to know you. You won’t get a second invitation.”

  Dez made a show of thinking it over. He gave a curt nod. “Accepted.”

  “Ah, great,” Ethan muttered, playing his part well and began unloading his magazine while Alexander continued in his role of quiet observer. It was their default plan when meeting groups of humans. Dez took lead, keeping the focus on him, while Ethan played instigator—not much of a stretch—and Alexander observed under the radar as unassuming grunt, albeit what ran through his blood was their most lethal weapon.

  “What are these for?” One of the two females had come close and pointed at the second unused anti-rift canister clipped to Alexander’s belt.

  “Something that doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to.” He tried to keep his accent in check. Being raised in Scotland by a mum from Seattle and a thirteenth century Highlander gave him a peculiar accent and turn of phrases that even Ethan and Dez gave him strange looks over.

  “Hmmmm.” Green eyes flashed up at him. “That happens. Sure ticked the monsters off when you sprayed them with it.”

  “Yeah.” He looked down at the top of her worn and fraying knitted cap while she held her hand out for his ammunition. He handed over his bullets and the gel pack for his pulsar, which she shoved into the deep pockets that ran down the side of her camo-pants.

  “Any knives on you?”

  Smirking, Alexander pulled the blade from the back of his waistband and bent to retrieve his second in his boot all the while taking in the girl’s appearance. He didn’t want to lose track of who had his supplies. There wasn’t anything significant about her, average height, average features, slim build. A bit of dirt smudged her cheek, worn clothes, browns and greens, good for camouflaging within ruins of a city. Not much to distinguish her from the others around her, except being female, but there could be more women back at their camp.

  “I need to pat you down,” she said without a hint of embarrassment.

  “Don’t trust me?” He grinned, baiting her a bit.

  She didn’t rise to it. “Don’t know you.”

  Alexander spread his arms out wide, allowing her to move in close. She was quick and efficient, running her hands down his length and then back up and into his hair. He was about to make a quip, but…she smelled like cherries.

  He hadn’t seen a cherry or a cherry tree in years. How was that possible? He leaned into her.

  She jerked back, eyes flashing.

  “Jewel?” The leader asked.

  The girl wrenched her gaze away and straightened. “He’s clean.”

  Jewel. Alexander watched her walk away, even when she turned back to glance at him and immediately looked away again beneath his stare.

  “At least you got a pretty girl.” Ethan muttered. Arms spread, he was still being patted down by a wiry old geezer who was taking his time. Since he’d already taken five blades off Ethan, he couldn’t blame the guy for going over him a second time. Alexander knew for a fact there were three more hidden on him.

  “Oh dang, fella,” Ethan snarled. “Let me.” He pulled the half-inch blade from the seam of his pocket and another from the lining inside his waistband.

  “What do you do with these? File your nails?” The old guy laid the small blades in the palm of his weathered hand.

  Ethan shrugged. “File off something.”

  The geezer squinted up at him while others around him gathered up their packs from the ground.

  They left the dead Sifts where they fell. Let them develop a taste for each other’s flesh instead of that of humans as far as he cared. They walked single file out of the salvage yard and through what was left of the deserted town.

  When the monsters first came out of hiding, it was the smaller communities that suffered the most. Entire towns were gone—devoured—leaving authorities perplexed until the monsters’ hunting grounds expanded.

  Then without access to crops, hunger and disease wiped out half as many as the monsters did, even with the mi
litary acting in full force. Sifts simply reproduced faster than they could be killed.

  A discarded doll squished beneath Alexander’s boot. He froze.

  “I don’t get it,” Ethan said behind him. “How has a group of humans held out near this large a concentration of the flubbies? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s what we need to find out,” Alexander whispered. Dez was up ahead, spine stiff, eyes straight ahead, though he knew the man was taking in everything, heard everything, every sense active. He’d already be weighing the situation and have several exit points mapped out.

  They brought them into an abandoned motel, one of those two level square buildings with a courtyard and pool in its center. The outside walls and windows were boarded with steel and the entire parking lot rimmed with mismatched fencing material, boards, shells of cars, whatever made a half-decent barrier.

  Alexander noted two trucks and three cars that appeared to be in working shape. One of the trucks had a small machine gun mounted in its bed.

  They were taken through the lobby and out into the courtyard. The pool had been drained and now contained a bed of dirt for a garden. Short green leaves pushed up from the dirt already.

  Chickens were penned in a corner of the courtyard near the old pool filters, and one of the rooms without a door but wire across the opening appeared to house scruffy goats. Several people came out of the other rooms surrounding the pool. Many were children.

  Above, the open sky was crisscrossed with concertina wire running from roof to roof, a thumb-in-the-dyke measure at best. It may keep out one to two Sifts, but a horde of the hungry monsters would shred their own skin to get to food.

  That’s without considering the beasts’ ability to create holes in the air and rift their way past any wire or walls.

  Either these people had a helluva lot of firepower or they’d been plain lucky up until now.

  Alexander wasn’t a big believer in luck.

  But he was a believer in people and just one look at the children staring wide-eyed up at him and there was no going back.

  He’d get these people to a safe location no matter what it took.