Kaiju Queen Read online

  “I’m already going numb. Just do it.”

  She knelt beside me, back curved and her petite chest just barely visible beneath the gown. Her hands in prayer, she kept her eyes from mine. “You can do this. You can do this,” she whispered to herself.

  A thin, glowing orange tendril crawled across the tips of her fingers. She placed one hand on my shoulder and the other she cocked back in the air.

  I should’ve braced. Her hand knifed through my ribs, the numbness vanished and my heart stopped. For a long moment I moved like I was yelling, then went still.

  What the fuck was she doing?

  Either I had stumbled in on the wrong job or the wrong job had found me, and I was being disposed of. I had seen something I shouldn’t have, and the only choice was ritual murder at the hands of some virgin wisp of a goddess.

  At least I would die in grass that was nice and soft. The sound and lights of the Levani home world went out one by one.

  Then black turned to white, turned to technicolor, and the veil lifted. I watched orange light explode from my wound and orange fire play around the edges of my injuries. The new flesh was illuminated where once there was nothing but damp crimson gore.

  I took my first breath. Her hand was still inside of me. “Thank you,” I gasped.

  “You did very well,” She smiled, sweat dotting her brow, then pulled her hand from my chest. “You didn’t even--”

  “AHHHHHHHH!!!”

  “—scream that much.” She smirked then quickly covered it. I tried to sit up but she pushed me back down, sliding her hand over my throat to check my pulse. Her hand was trembling. “Sorry, my bedside manners still need practice.”

  I had never seen a woman the way I saw her at that moment. I had also never almost been killed by a black shrieking monster, then saved by magic.

  She didn’t move from my side for the next few minutes. When she noticed me staring at her, she turned away again but pushed the hair back out of her eyes and over her pointed ears.

  I noticed the albino-white ring around her wrist and remembered the mocking banter among the other mechanics when I had first arrived. There was some nonsense of the bracelets suppressing lingering mythical abilities in the Levani genetic code. Abilities to summon giant beasts and wield terrible power. To me, the bracelet had been a simple lie to force them to wear tracking gear. I didn’t put much stock in ideas of faith or magic. Until that night. Every single person I knew would blame me for whatever happened after.

  I caught my breath. “How did you do that?”

  They would ask about her Life-Tech.

  “I didn’t do anything,” she said, still struggling to catch her breath. “The gods must have answered my prayers.”

  They would ask who took it off.

  I grunted as I sat up. “Gods don’t answer prayers.”

  She rubbed the pale white ring around her wrist. “Kaiju do.”

  They would ask why, and I would have to lie.

  2

  I stood and looked down at my glowing belly. “How could you possibly know that word, Kaiju? It’s an old Earth word, mainly used by hard workers or nerds.”

  “I only know what I’m supposed to know. Kaiju is Levani for Leviathan. Would you prefer me using the Earth word?”

  “Never mind, we’ll use your word for it. So, what exactly is a Kaiju and how are dead ones supposed to cure me?” I touched her handiwork carefully then started pushing on it. “It’s like a night light. How long does it last?”

  I thought of the soft glow of fireflies around the tiny stream back home on Earth.

  She hastily tied her hair up into a high tail like she had just gotten started. “Good questions.” She put her hands together into prayer. “I’m not sure about your wound, to be quite honest. I was never trained to care for humans. As for Kaiju, they are worshipped as gods here, but they are real creatures, or once were. Giants that filled the sky with their presence and helped keep a delicate balance between us and nature. When the last of them was killed, the mists that run through our world like lifeblood turned to poison when once they were a source of healing.”

  She brushed the tattered cloth hanging from my shoulders and put the blood-soaked remnants in my hand. “Here.” She squinted then closed her eyes. “Your wound should be survivable for a day or two, maybe. Please be quiet for a moment. I have to finish this.”

  She hadn’t given me any medicine, but I felt a little…funny. I always had a thing for nurses, but I had never thought of being with a Levani. Nobody did. Everyone who had ever laid with one wound up dead on the doormat at CONTROL’s head office.

  But I had almost died and wound up surviving, so I was feeling overly enthusiastic.

  “How careful should I be with this?” I started to pat myself on the stomach. “The orange coloring isn’t bad, either. Say, have you ever heard of fireflies? I guess you wouldn’t have, would you? They’re little bugs with—”

  “Please be quiet.” Her frown deepened but she didn’t open her eyes.

  “Sorry.”

  I let my eyes glide over her, keeping them half-closed in case she caught me looking. She looked like a rugged little fairy that had come back from hunting in some pristine royal clearing. She sent my mind reeling.

  How long had it been since I had a girlfriend? There were always the sanctioned brothels, which had a brood of Levani prostitutes gifted to humans as spoils of war. I always thought of it as oil to keep the occupation machine running smoothly.

  They were never my bag, though. Pointy, high-bridged bird noses, gaunt angular features, and ridiculously laughable long white-gold hair. Pretty flavorless. But, Yari looked different. There was a softness to her.

  “Should I avoid taking a shower for a while?”

  “I’m not an elder so it’s hard to tell, but you’re supposed to be better than new if it’s done properly.” She drew a deep breath and exhaled, “or you will explode into a stringy black and orange bile-like substance. Or worse…”

  “Wait, what?”

  “If you don’t shut up, that is.”

  She went back to focusing. Her brow softened and she began to whisper the language of her people into the night air.

  I could see my organs and bones through the glowing reddish-orange skin. Jeezus. “Are you sure?”

  She threw her arms up then slapped them down at her sides. “Here, let me see,” she said and socked me right in the gut. I took a step backward, wincing a little. “See, no worries.”

  She hurt a couple of things, including my pride, but unlike every Levani I had met before, she wasn’t all salutations and formal bows. I liked that.

  She brushed her hands off. “You need to leave. There is no human concept of innocence before guilt here. You are here and a priest isn’t. My people will blame you instantly and are unlikely to give you any quarter.”

  I did vaguely remember a mention of something like that when arriving here. Also, a mention of escaping to occupation territory post-haste.

  She left me and headed back to the temple.

  “Aren’t you gonna finish my prayer?” I yelled after her.

  “You don’t seem interested, even if the gods are,” she said as she disappeared inside.

  “Maybe I can help you with your bedside manner?” I was never good at hitting on women. Being saved by one didn’t apparently help my chances.

  “Well, thanks anyway, yeah?” I offered the words up to the darkened temple entryway.

  No response. I had seen a lot of girls walk away from me and it didn’t look like she was coming back.

  “Ok,” I said to myself, “Guess that’s a job well done.”

  I knew I’d be thinking about her for a long time after that. Since my very first crush, I knew the ones I might fall hardest for would linger in my mind long after meeting them. It was always the same. I couldn’t help it even if I tried.

  I shrugged and started for the street.

  “Don’t go that way,” Yari came out wearing a tanne
d leather outfit with a slight orange hue, her hips and upper thighs completely exposed, and brown mid-thigh-high boots with white leggings sticking out from the top. She carried my Clear-Tech and her Life-Tech bracelet both in one hand, and a simple brown satchel in the other. She was staring at the Clear-Tech, running her finger over the screen. Probably locking me out of the damn thing.

  The Life-Tech was the main problem. I still hadn’t put together what the hell happened. None of what happened was in any of my training programs.

  “We can’t leave these here,” she said placing the Clear-Tech in my hand and the Life-Tech in her satchel.

  “We?”

  I slid my fingers across the Clear-Tech’s cracked surface. It was supposedly unbreakable. Supposedly. Most of the communication functions were shot, but I could still start my rail-bike. The image of the creature madly clawing at the awesomeness of the D was fresh in my mind.

  She looked uncomfortable as I eyed the satchel. “You’re not going to put it back on me?” she asked.

  “I’m not with the Enforcers, that’s their job. My job to make sure it’s working properly, but that bracelet is clearly screwed. Sure, it’s meant for a lot of things, and one of them is tracking you. If you don’t want that, or to change into a black psycho demon, maybe you should throw it into the mists the next chance you get. Of course, I can put it back on if you want me—”

  “No. I know I don’t want that.” She latched the satchel tight and threw it across her shoulders. “Look, I need to stay with you until you are healed. The only one who could’ve helped with that was the priest…” she hesitated. “it’s just, my poor father who…I mean I’ve only called him that since I came to the temple but…” she wiped her eyes and continued, “he told me that taking the device off would help me see things his way. But he’s gone now, and we need help.”

  “What kind of help?” I asked.

  “Help from people who know Kaiju mists and magic. If we can find them, you can be cured, and I will get the answers I’m looking for. But I need time to go through the writings and decipher their location.” She checked the satchel and clutched it close.

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  “The Jian-Di. They are the only ones who can help, but they—”

  “There isn’t another priest here who can help? Don’t you all believe in the same stuff anyway?”

  “I wouldn’t expect a human to notice such things, but I am only half Levani. Most of my people don’t believe I should be allowed to exist. My father kept me protected from the Levani who didn’t agree to keeping me alive at birth. I’ve never left these temple grounds. Now that he is dead, that protection is gone. I need time and we need to leave.”

  “You won’t be any safer coming with me. CONTROL will definitely want to question you, and me, for that matter.” I wanted her to come back with me, of course, but I had my own problems. My Enforcer roommate was one of them. There was no way she would keep her mouth shut with a Levani in the house, half-human or otherwise.

  She looked a bit angry at my suggestion. “It’s either go with you or get put in jail for questioning, then sent off to the Coven of the Veil. And I’m not keen on that plan since they seal your eyes shut forever.”

  “You’re right, coming with me is a better option.”

  I had left my rail-bike just outside the temple fence. A non-gloss black finish covered its rounded rectangular body. I touched the side and it came to life. The handles and controls were at the head of a smooth cylindrical shaft.

  “After you.” I motioned to her. I figured we should have just enough time to get back before the suns cycled up.

  Yari’s eyebrows raised and she stayed planted firmly in place. “Levani and tech don’t mix well. I’m not getting on that.”

  “You’re gonna have to get used to technology if you wanna come with me.”

  She crossed her arms and looked away. “I would very much like not to. I’m fine with walking, though.” She pointed down. “Long legs.”

  Those golden-brown soft stretches of perfection were right for more than just a midnight stroll. “We either go back on that thing, or we get caught here by the Levani guard. It’s just a rail-bike and you’re taking way too long.”

  “Humans. Always in a rush.”

  “Aren’t you half?”

  She didn’t respond. If the stupidity of her racist-ass comment wasn’t as clear as could be to her, it sure as shit was to me. It was clear like a babbling mountain creek on a sunny winter morning. And in that clear water was Yari, shivering in nothing but—

  I had to focus.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said.

  The collar on my jacket popped as I looked off into the distance. “Where I come from, there are people of mixed race and species all over the place. People are good citizens wherever they’re born. You grew up here, so you’re a good Levani who loves trees and nature to a militant extent. But you could’ve grown up on Earth. You could be like me, a mechanic on the edge of the solar system bringing in cash to pay off debts and enjoy a good craft brew. You could’ve been born on the Planet of the Dirt Masters. Point is—”

  “Dirt Masters? You’re just making that up.”

  “No, it’s a real planet.

  “But I am not any of those things. I am Levani.”

  “For now,” I said. “Just get on, please, and you can pray about it while we ride.”

  “Don’t mock the prayer. It’s the reason you’re standing here in the first place.”

  She rubbed her hands together and cocked her head to the side, like she was planning on solving the mysteries of the universe, “Fine. How do you use this thing? Do I stand on it? There aren’t any chairs.”

  “Just kick your leg over and straddle it. The shell will form to fit your body.”

  “You want me to spread my legs while you’re looking? I may be half human, but I’m a Levani lady. Look away.”

  I knew she wasn’t going to move if I didn’t.

  “Just do this.” I threw my leg over the bike and slowly lowered onto the form-fit cushion. It bulged, molded, then snuggled against my inner thighs and stayed in place. Better than bucket seats. “See? Nothing sexual about that.”

  After an eyebrow raise and a moment for reflection, she grabbed my shoulders and slid her leg over the black hump that turned into her seat. She blushed. “I said, don’t look,” and quickly pushed my head back toward the road. “Ok, please do whatever it is you do with this thing.”

  The bike wavered a little in the air as the rail-hover system adjusted to the combined weight.

  I zipped up my jacket, the orange glow disappearing beneath the thick leather. “Hold on.”

  “To what?”

  I looked back at her for a second. “To me.”

  She flushed red and looked away. I was about to push the issue when one arm came around my stomach, and the other slid around to meet it. “Just go slow…until I get used to it.”

  “Leave it to me.” Her warm body pressed against my back and we took off.

  3

  With the triple suns barreling upwards toward the horizon in front of us, the outline of the Levani home world islands swayed gently in the sky just above the violence of the swirling noxious surface clouds beneath. The occasional black Flit, a Levani bird of prey I likened to a hummingbird on steroids, zipped through my periphery. Easy enough to see during the day, virtually impossible to detect at night.

  I slid my finger across the yellow and blue holo-screen in front of me. The passenger cam popped up and there she was, frozen in place against my back since we took off. She hadn’t opened her eyes for more than a second or two the whole time.

  We were silent as a clam wind thanks to a bit of stealthy sound tech I had installed a while back. Plus, we were traveling at such high speed over the open roll of the uninhabited Levani island hills, there was no chance the Guard could detect us. I spoke to her without fear.

  “Beautiful, right?” I asked.

  I
could see the green in her eye from the sliver of its opening. She hugged tighter and went back into her shell. She was still praying.

  “Not that way, the other way.” I said. She didn’t move.

  I took one hand off the handlebars a held it against her cold arms. “It’s not so bad here. I’ve seen a lot of planets. A lot of different alien races. You’d be surprised how similar they all are. Space-worthy and tech-savvy. Lots of good paying work, but it gets pretty redundant. Just look at the sunrise. I remember when I first saw these islands. The fire of two of Levani’s three suns casting shadows that scatter off the buildings and the tree lines like a fractal masterpiece. It’s a dream world, except for the Levani hatred of humans. Oh, and the fact that everything is floating over a poisonous gaseous planet core. Unique.”

  “And occupied,” she added.

  She wasn’t very big on small talk riding on the rail-bike, so I let her be. I tried to access some music, but it was a no-go. Sure, something I could repair, but if the memory was damaged, then I’d lose my whole library. I could listen on the galactic cloud, but the sound quality just wasn’t the same. Plus, I was old fashioned and just wanted to own my own shit.

  “Do you promise not to laugh at me if I tell you a secret?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I love…no, you’re gonna think I’m so stupid. I mean, I just met you and here I am about to tell you something I’ve never said to anybody.”

  Oh, shit. Just moments after saving each other’s lives, or maybe more her saving my life, whatever, she had fallen for me. We were bonding and falling in love like on some crazy battlefield. I was ready to stop the bike and take her in my arms and tell her everything was going to be alright.

  “Come on, just say it.” I leaned back into her a bit.

  Sunrise over the islands? Check.

  High speed on a sweet rail-bike? Check.

  Super-hot girl with her arms wrapped around me about to reveal a secret to me? Check. My heart was seconds from liftoff.

  She blushed and pushed her face into my back, and squeezed a little tighter. “I love technology.”