Blood Ties

Chapter twenty-eight

Pam, along with a chaotic jumble of perceptions, yanked John back to consciousness. He had a disorienting sense of being tossed around inside an enclosed space for what seemed like ages. When everything finally stilled, he closed his eyes against nauseating dizziness and struggled to recall what had happened.

The cave entrance. The jumper. Rebecca freaking out. Memory returned in snatches. They'd just gotten a weather update a few minutes ago, warning of a massive incoming storm. The snowfall was only the edge of a frontal system that would develop into howling northerly winds by dawn, feeding the flames. The change in wind direction had added a new wrinkle to the plan by placing the cave entrances right in the path of the advancing fires. John had ordered the Marines to retreat to their jumpers in case a rapid withdrawal from the area became necessary. The Australian troops had justifiably shifted their priorities to helping local residents evacuate or defend their homes.

Following a pointed comment from Rodney about the obvious effects of global warming, John had glanced at Rebecca and gotten one hell of a scare. She'd been trembling uncontrollably, arms hugged tightly around herself, and the look in her eyes had been almost feral. As soon as he'd touched her shoulder, she'd bolted, and it had taken him a second to shake off his shock and chase her. Jackson had been shouting over the radio at him, telling him that Landry had just checked in with a bizarre report on Rebecca's DNA test, and Teyla's voice had mingled in as well, warning him that she sensed something powerful and unrecognizable but decidedly Wraithlike.

Both calls had only confirmed what John had already started to suspect; there was no other explanation. Something had just flipped Lilith's modified retrovirus switch in Rebecca, and in a big way.

After that, he remembered nothing until that horrific fall.

He dragged his eyes open, attempting vainly to focus in spite of the pounding in his head. It was dim, and blood obscured his vision, but he was able to make out the shape of a person next to him, shuddering, moaning wordlessly behind tightly closed lips.

"Rebecca?" he tried to say, but the motion radiated agony down his jaw and into his neck. She jerked back and scrambled away from him, climbing out through what looked like a broken car windshield. That explained where they were-sort of. How the hell he'd gotten into the vehicle in the first place was still a major question mark, though it came in a distant second behind figuring out what had triggered the virus.

It took him a while to understand that she must be fighting the urge to feed on him. When that sank in, he recalled the intensity of his own experience in that dark realm and spared a moment's gratitude for her willpower. Then he tried to reach his radio-and, through a haze of pain that threatened to gray his vision completely, it slowly dawned on him that her restraint had only bought him time. His right arm was pinned under the upended seat; his left lay broken and useless next to what was left of the radio. The dashboard pressed insistently against his ribcage, reminding him with every breath that something was very wrong inside. In this temperature, he knew he wouldn't last long without help.

Once the flare of additional pain caused by moving subsided to something marginally more tolerable, a noise outside filtered into his awareness. An animal, sounding about as happy with the world as John was. He managed to turn his head just enough to rest it against the warped doorframe of the vehicle and found the source of the noise: an injured cow.

Under an eerie russet glow that had to be a result of the approaching fires, John watched Rebecca stagger toward the wretched animal and sink to her knees in front of it. She reached for her holster and then appeared to change her mind, stretching out her hand to touch the cow's flank. Instantly, its cries stopped, its thrashing head falling limp, and its body began to wither in a bizarre, possibly merciful version of a Wraith feeding.

Finally, Rebecca slumped forward over the carcass. Caught between fascination and disgust, John couldn't tell if she was breathing or not. Blood now ran freely into his eyes, and he couldn't clear it. Even if she'd needed to feed on him, there was little left of his life to take.

Time passed; he didn't know how much. It was no longer snowing, and while he still felt the cold-blood loss, no doubt-there was a warm, gritty wind on his face. His team would be looking for him and Rebecca, but if a choice had to be made they'd do their jobs and focus on ending the Lilith threat. He only hoped they wouldn't waste too much of what had to be a limited window of opportunity on a search for him.

A thought struck him, one that he would much rather have avoided. Whatever had triggered the retrovirus in Rebecca might also have triggered it in the population at large. In which case… He didn't want to consider that notion, but his mind insisted on playing all kinds of apocalyptic scenarios, fed by every B-grade sci-fi movie he'd ever seen. The situation was made all the worse by the fact that he was utterly powerless to do anything to stop it.

Motion nearby forced him to open his eyes again. Hands reached toward him and disentangled him from the wreckage, hauling him out. Every part of his body screamed at the torture, and he cried out as he was laid on the muddy ground, damp with melting snow. He wanted to beg for it to end, but the nightmare only deepened. The one horror he'd come to dread more than anything: long, bony fingers shoved against his chest, a brief searing sensation through his ribcage-

— and the pain quickly ebbed. Once he had calmed down enough to realize he could breathe without effort, John instinctively scuttled back and threw a hand up to scrub the blood from his eyes. Aside from the fading echoes of crippling agony, he was whole and healthy again.

Through the light of the fires that seemed to draw closer by the minute, he could see a woman gazing down at him, the reddish glow lending an artificial warmth to her skin. Long-haired and delicate, she could have been the woman in Woolsey's video-except Jackson had met that woman in Iraq. Hanan, he'd called her. How could she have gotten to Tasmania ahead of them?

"Rest your mind, John," she said, helping him to sit up. "The retrovirus remains dormant in the population at large. My name is Anata. We've come to help you both."

Not Hanan after all, then. He didn't like the idea that she'd had an opportunity to rummage around in his brain while he'd been unable to put up a fight. Still, she'd saved his life while she was at it, so he owed her some consideration.

"Okay," he said carefully. "So, can I ask if you're a cambion or a full blood succubus, or is that considered rude?"

Anata smiled and nodded to one of the three people who stood around her, a guy with Ronon's build who scooped up Rebecca easily.

"You don't need to worry about offending me. I've already seen your fears, and I understand them." Anata rose and offered John a hand to pull him to his feet. "I am a succubus. These cambion with me are my children. I'm sorry to rush, but we must hurry now. Don't be fooled by the snow that remains. The fires surround us-fires lit, as you suspect, by those who would hunt us all down-and the wind is only getting worse."

The heat was palpable, and cinders blew across John's field of vision. "How did you get here'?"

"The same way we'll leave." Anata was already hurrying along the gully, her wet hair slapping against her back. All four of them were dripping wet, John noticed. The remains of the snow'? That didn't make much sense.

None of them made any attempt to force him into going with them, but without a radio he didn't have much in the way of options. He could actually hear the blaze, a distant roaring sound that could nearly have been mistaken for a waterfall. Following Anata, he glanced up and saw the rapid movement of the clouds. When he returned his attention to the path, he had to pull up short as a small black shape darted out from the bushes. About the size of a large housecat, it stopped and sniffed at the group before loping off with an awkward-looking gait.

"Tasmanian devil," one of the men explained, picking up the pace.

John frowned. While he hadn't expected the actual animal to resemble the Warner Brothers cartoon, he hadn't had this image in mind, either. "I thought they'd be bigger. And nastier."

The man laughed. "Try grabbing hold of one. You'll learn all about nasty. It'll bite through your arm in one go and tear it off at the shoulder."

It was hard to tell if that was meant to be a joke or not. Probably not, John decided. In any case, there were more animals running past now. Dozens of dog-sized kangaroos that someone identified as pademelons, as well as other things he couldn't identify, joined them on the trail, heading down the gulley to… something.

John caught sight of a dark patch like a distorted well at the bottom of the path. As soon as they reached it, two of the cambion jumped in. He couldn't see them land but heard the splashes. Before he could think to object, the man carrying Rebecca dropped her body in and leaped in after her.

"How long can you hold your breath?" Anata asked briskly.

Still getting his bearings, John tuned out the panicked screams of more animals in the distance. "How long do I need toy"

"Sixty meters underwater."

Sixty yards, farther than the length of an Olympic pool, on one breath. On any other day he would have said that was beyond his capacity. Today, however, the alternative was being charbroiled.

"Through caves," the succubus continued, raising her voice above the alarming crackle of trees being consumed by the flames. "It will be pitch black and there will be some tight turns. If you begin to drown, we should be able to save you, but I need to know if you can do it alone."

With a splintering sound and a shower of sparks, an enormous tree overhanging the gulley went up like a torch. Anata glanced up. "There is insufficient snow to halt the blaze and this spot will be an inferno in less than a minute."

That was all John needed to hear. He jumped in and instantly was assaulted by the icy water, slamming the breath from his chest. Breathing; he had to breathe hard. Hyperventilating would rid his system of as much carbon dioxide as possible before going under. After five or six deep lungfuls, he could feel himself getting lightheaded with excessive oxygen. Good; he'd need it.

Anata surfaced beside him as several animals took the leap as well. "I'll be right behind you," she told him, batting one of the creatures aside as it tried to find purchase on her shoulder. "Swim straight down until you touch the bottom, where you'll see a faint light. Head toward it."

"Got it."

John had never been much of a claustrophobic, and he considered himself to be a pretty good swimmer-he'd even done some SCUBA diving way back when. This experience was very, very different. He ducked under the surface, using his arms and legs at the outset. Almost immediately his ears started to pound. He brought his fingers up, pinched his nose and blew slowly to equalize the air pressure in his Eustachian tubes while continuing to kick. His ears popped right away, but only a few kicks later he had to clear them again. And again.

All around him was darkness, blacker than anything he could have imagined. The water was freezing and Freud must have been out of his mind to equate this in any way, shape, or form with returning to the womb. He felt the first tickle of a need to breathe and paused for half a second before something slapped his leg. Anata. It was reassuring to have proof that she was still with him.

Abruptly he hit the bottom, slimy with weeds and silt. The light-where was it'? Twisting around, he found a muddy red glow. He turned to head toward it when something caught his leg.

For a brief, terrifying moment, he thought he'd gotten tangled in the weeds. Then he felt Anata's hand on his face, forcing his head around, and a duller greenish light came into view. The magnitude of his near-mistake struck him; he'd been about to head back to the surface.

John's lungs and muscles burned. He battled the instinct to suck in a breath of water, of anything. They must have gone down about sixty, maybe seventy feet, which meant the remaining air in his lungs had compressed to…to… He couldn't remember. All he could see, all he could think about, was the light, growing larger and brighter but not quickly enough.

Just focus on the light. Focus…

His vision blurred, and then there was nothing.