Chapter 569: Making it

Announcement

Just an FYI that book nine in the series if officially released on Amazon

(that's Lexi in the Neutral Zone on the cover). Go check it out here:

Also audio is in production again (the same narrators are free), so book 5 should be ready in a month or so. Will update.

Mason spent an uneventful night watching over Demi and Chinua’s people. Streak ran off once or twice just to look around in boredom, but Mason didn’t mind the quiet. After so many weeks and months of constant action, a few hours just to sit and think and process was welcome.

Not that he

could

process it. Having Demi sleeping half naked beside him was difficult enough. Knowing that she’d committed to him ‘officially’ through system choices, despite knowing his insane life and the number of other women she shared him with…

‘Why’ wasn’t quite the question. It was more like ‘how’?

How had he gone from a life of constrained disappointment on earth to…this? Especially as nearly everyone else died or lived in fear like Chinua’s people—running from demon’s and just trying to survive another day.

But in the end, it didn’t matter. Here he was. It was true. He reached a hand down Demi’s smooth back under her sleeping bag, and she moaned and turned over as if looking for him. He was absolutely considering climbing back in and waking her up when he heard Chinua coming from the cave.

“Good morning, Mason. Thank you again for taking the watch.”

The old warrior looked like he’d slept a week. Like he’d bounded up from his thin bed after a few hours and became a new man. Mason smiled and nodded, poking the small fire he’d kept burning.

“We brought some coffee. You’re welcome to boil some, if you like.”

Chinua laughed. Then he stared as he seemed to realize Mason wasn’t joking. When he saw the tin, he went for it like a starving dog with a scrap of meat. He opened it and sniffed with closed eyes.

“I am not a religious man,” he said. “But there is nothing more sacred to a soldier in the field than coffee and cigarettes. We haven’t had any in weeks.”

Mason chuckled. “You’ll get along with my ‘Minister of War’. He’s full of old man soldierly wisdom, too.”

Chinua boiled his coffee in comfortable silence, sitting there watching like it might try to escape. Demi groaned and stretched, giving Mason a sleepy smile before she noticed Chinua and pulled the sleeping bag around her like armor. She gave him a ‘I am not wearing bottoms’ kind of ‘what the hell?’ stare.

He leaned over and kissed her forehead, then dangled her panties with two fingers. She snatched them and vanished inside the sleeping bag. He was tempted to give her a harder time, but she really was shy and he didn’t want to push her too far.

He walked over to Chinua to keep him distracted and give her a minute. But the man had his cup in his hand and his eyes closed, and it seemed clear a parade of naked super models wasn’t likely to get his attention.

“You weren’t kidding about the coffee. You look like a man in prayer.”

Chinua nodded as if that was true. Mason glanced out the cave entrance and tried not to be his usual impatient self.

“How long until the rest of your people are up? There’s a little light now, and the demons are gone. We can get moving whenever.”

“Soon,” Chinua said, taking another sip. He took a breath and seemed to realize Mason wasn’t going away. “It is the first morning in a long time they’ve slept soundly. I have you to thank for that. A little more rest now will be worth double the time we’d gain rushing.”

Mason poured himself some coffee and tried to control his brain. Demi glanced at Chinua’s back, then made her move and rolled up to grab for more clothes. She stood and shimmied down the bag, putting on pants a hurried leg at a time.

Mason’s eyes crawled over her bare skin, the white panties covering her pert ass, the long dark hair bouncing around her back…

“She is your wife?” Chinua said, still not looking. “Why do both your eyes glow green?”

“Blessed by a nature god,” Mason said, not really wanting to explain immortality, or the nature of their relationship. Demi picked her way over sniffing, sitting beside him and grabbing at his cup. He let her take it. She stuck out her tongue, then drank too much and too fast, spilling as she half-burnt her mouth.

“You could have warned me!”

“That coffee is hot?”

“You were holding it like it was luke warm at best!”

“I’ve swum in lava.”

Demi rolled her eyes, then hit him in the arm before shaking her hand and sticking her tongue out again, this time just for cool air.

“Yeah,” Mason said, turning back to the fire. “I guess she’s my wife.”

Chinua smiled and rose with a sigh.

“I’ll wake my people soon. We pack up fast. How long do you intend to travel in a day?”

“Until you can’t. Or it’s dark.”

Chinua winced, but went back to the caves with a hurried step. Mason slid his hand up Demi’s back.

“Might take him a few minutes. We could always slip back into that sleeping bag and…”

“Not a chance,

husband

. My tongue hurts.”

Demi glared at him, and he couldn’t help but laugh and grope at her, fighting for a kiss until she gave up and hugged him. She sighed as he scooped her up and carried out of the cave, setting her down and looking out at the dawn.

“Go easy on them,” she said. “They can’t just run all day. And they looked tired and underfed. They’re not all players who can just…”

“I know.

“No one knows we’re coming, anyway. We can probably sneak to the mountain without much trouble. And our people are safe and gathering.”

It was Mason’s turn to glare, and Demi gave him some kind of mocking Eskimo kiss.

“My impatient man. You could go for a run or something.”

“I’d have to run all day. You could have helped, but you rejected me.”

“I didn’t reject you last night,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. Then Mason was groping and pushing her backwards, and she realized her peril. “There are people. Right.

There

!”

She swatted uselessly at his arms as he pinned her down and kissed her. She gave up and closed her eyes, kissing him back with more intensity as her legs spread around his waist.

“I guess you’re right, there’s no time,” he said, pulling back. “But at least now you know how I feel. Pack up your stuff, and as much of that boar as you can carry in your storage, please.”

Demi kicked at him, but he rose with a stretch and a wink as he ignored her, pacing just for something to do.

Chinua’s people soon came up in twos and threes, nodding and smiling at him so much they were half bowing and cracking dry lips. He did his best to smile back and act, you know, normal.

“You look like angels,” whispered an older East Indian woman, her hand on Demi’s arm. “Or demi-gods, maybe. I still believe in such things.” She winked. “Such a beautiful couple.”

Demi looked uncomfortable, but she managed to smile and thank her, telling her and some other nearby women she was just a simple girl from America. Pretty soon they were even chatting with her in a circle, a few laughs here and there. Like normal people. Before…everything.

Mason found he couldn’t look away. She caught his eye and they exchanged a smile, and he wasn’t sure what to call the feeling. He was just…proud of her, maybe.

When he’d first met her she was suffering from some kind of crippling social anxiety. He could relate. And because of that he knew it wasn’t gone, and maybe wouldn’t ever be, but she was doing so much better. Day by day she was getting stronger, more relaxed.

“We’re ready,” Chinua said after maybe half an hour, looking a different kind of exhausted. His people were all carrying backpacks and jangled like soldiers on the march. There were couples fighting and people strapping things to other people’s backs. Laughter and excitement and hope and complaining.

Mason nodded, and clicked for Streak. The wolf sprinted out of the cave with barely restrained joy. Mason forced himself not to follow suit.

“Seems like you’ve been protecting them just fine,” he said to the older man. “So I won’t tell you how to do it. I’ve got a few landmarks on my map, but if you’ve been through something or know better, just let me know. Otherwise, I’ll go west around that valley, and keep us between hills and out of sight as best we can. We’ll keep Streak moving ahead, but I could use your scouts on the flanks.”

“A good plan,” Chinua said. “We’ll do as you say.”

Mason nodded and chased after the wolf, reaching out with One with Nature for any threat. He found nothing worth his attention, and gestured the group to follow, thinking about the older woman who’d spoken to Demi.

She’d called them gods or angels, and of course Demi said otherwise. But the truth was, she was kind of right. They were immortals, and even if that wasn’t so, they still weren’t like the other people in that cave. Not anymore.

Mason had killed real life monsters from a comic book. He’d been blown up by a bomb and pulled his body back together. And he could sense life for a mile in every direction just standing on that field of grass.

He had no idea what to make of it. But it reminded him that somewhere above them all was the being who’d ‘created’ him—a being so impossibly different and beyond them it had done all this for…whatever reason it did it.

In the end, though, whatever Mason was, and whatever these people were, he was on their side. They were a mix of humanity from dozens of countries and half a dozen religions. They were here fighting and laughing and loving, free and human and still full of hope. As long as that was true, he’d protect them.

He smiled as Demi eventually caught up, hair blowing in the wind. She flicked some out of her face and gave him a look.

“What?” She noticed the inspection and raised an eyebrow, smoothing a hand down her leafy shirt as if to make sure she wasn’t showing a nipple or something.

“I think we’re gonna make it,” he said.

Demi blinked and slowly smiled as she met his eyes.

“Of course we are. The unstoppable Duka Mason is watching over us. And it’s only two days.”

He nodded, not at all talking about reaching the mountain. He took a breath and Demi’s hand, looking out over the horizon.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s only two days.”