Authors: Selene Edwards
She grunted in understanding. “Like, say, the throes of passion?”
“It’s what I know,” he murmured. “Not many other things generate that kind of intensity.”
Coming from any other man, it would have sounded like some perverse setup to try and get sex. But then, it wasn’t really sex; it was just a scam he forced someone’s mind to conjure up, and then their body just reacted as if it were real. She could understand how it would prove a powerful distraction to some people. Still, the thought made her shiver.
Kronn arrived less than twenty minutes later with the instruments he could carry, and Damien tried to explain what had happened.
“So you think the Angel was protecting her?” Kronn asked as he ran some basic scans.
“That might be it,” Damien shrugged. “I definitely felt something. At first I thought it was just her instinctively trying to block me out, but it didn’t take long to realize it was another consciousness. I could almost see it…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Then it hit me with something, almost like a mental screech. I pulled out and tried to talk to her again normally, but she was already gone. She was glowing.”
Kronn stayed silent for several minutes as he ran his tests, then eventually leaned back and sighed. “There’s nothing physically wrong as far as I can tell. I think she’ll wake up in time and be fine.”
“But you’re not sure,” Shyrah said.
He looked up at her. “Not completely. This equipment is limited, but even with a full infirmary there’s only so much I can do. Remember I can’t actually see the spirit. I just have to go by the trail it leaves.”
“So what do we do?” Damien asked.
“We wait,” Kronn told him. “And we hope it hasn’t completely taken her over.”
Corin shuffled in place. “And if it has?”
Kronn turned back down to Sariel and gently ran a hand through her white hair. “I have no idea.”
Chapter Nine
Avrick Torgain winced at the ear-splitting shriek that seemed like it was only inches from his face. His eyes popped open, and for a long, muscle-clenching moment, he had absolutely no idea where he was. He was sprawled on top of a pile of discarded paper and boxes in a dark, rank alleyway, and an over-sized trash bin by his feet blocked his view of the street. The sights and smells finally caught up to him as the shrieking started again, this time even closer, and he forced himself to take a deep breath and relax.
The sound was one of the city’s massive cleaning drones making its morning rounds, and the abrasive noise was intentional. It had the dual purpose of scaring away small animals and rodents and at the same time waking up any vagrants who happened to be sleeping in the streets. In a minute or so, he imagined, it would probably start its path down here.
Avrick leaned up, the horrors of the previous night belatedly flashing in his mind. He and Vaelen had returned to Marivean, and the Angel had been furious at their failure—furious enough to murder Esche and then to turn upon his own Chosen. Avrick had run away, blindly firing shots behind him, and dove out a window…
And apparently he had ended up here. His memory was blurry, probably a result of the angel dust. That, or the fact his entire life had been upended in the matter of a few hours.
Avrick balled his gloved hand into a fist and smacked the brick wall. He couldn’t believe what had happened. An entire lifetime spent fawning over Angels at the temple, and in the last few months it had blown up in his face. Marivean seemed like a petty thug, content to abuse his power to get whatever he wanted. And of course, months before that Sariel had turned against them…
Sariel
. The name burned in his mind, and he suddenly remembered the pep-talk he had given himself last night before he passed out. He needed to find her. Now it wasn’t even about understanding the reasons she had left in the first place; it was a simple matter of survival. Marivean and the others wouldn’t just let him walk free, and she was the only person who even had the smallest chance of helping him. He doubted the rest of the Asurans would be so welcoming, but maybe she had enough clout to get their support anyway.
Not that he had many options. He could either try to survive out here on the streets, hoping to avoid the Covenant and then doing God-knew what with his life, or he could try to find her.
The question was where to start looking. It had taken the bait of a disreputable slaver like Esche to get the Asurans out of their hole the first time, and he had nothing like that to offer now. Neither Vaelen nor Marivean had shared with him any of the specifics, but the entire Covenant had been looking for the Asuran base for a long time without success. What possible chance was one soldier going to have?
Ahead, the tank-sized street cleaner pivoted on its anti-grav pads and started its run down the alley. Avrick side-stepped it and moved out into the street. It was early, probably only just a sliver past dawn. He looked like a mess and knew it, which would only serve to make his job harder. He was still wearing his body-length coat and light armor, and concealed inside was his pulse pistol. Unfortunately, he had no currency, no food or water, and no obvious means of attaining either short of liberating them from someone else.
No, he told himself, he had a lot more than that: he was a Chosen, and that meant he had some of the best training in the world. He was a soldier of God, taught to do what it took to survive. Just because he had barely ever put those latter skills into practice didn’t matter. He knew how to think on his feet, and that’s exactly what was needed now.
That, and a lifetime’s worth of luck.
He started walking down the street, taking in his surroundings and trying to figure out where he had ended up. The nearest sign flashed LOBON, and he had just turned the corner and nearly bowled over some early morning pedestrians when a memory suddenly clicked.
Marivean’s district map holo—the one Zanek had shown them earlier—contained all kinds of information, from the routes of Covenant proselytizers to suggested riot locations. But most importantly, it had markers for all the likely Asuran contacts and sympathizers. Avrick recalled one of the markers was on Lobon street, but where, exactly? It was probably an active and busy street with a hundred businesses and apartment buildings, so without a better clue than that…
He smiled as he shifted his gaze down the street. Luck, it seemed, was with him after all. A block away on the left hand side was a sign for
Chandra’s Candles
, a small, out-of-the-way antiquities store for people who apparently still liked to burn things. It was probably irrelevant to all but one in ten thousand passers-by on an average day, but he remembered the store’s name clearly. The owner was a suspected Asuran sympathizer, and that meant he just might have a chance after all.
He quickly made his way across the street, furtively glancing at his reflection in shop windows as he walked by and tidying himself up as best he could. He had a day’s worth of stubble, but that wasn’t a big deal, and his short hair could take a beating without looking too bad. Things could have been a lot worse, all things considered. He just had to figure out what he needed to say.
Taking a deep breath, Avrick walked into the store. It seemed odd to him that people would shop in a place like this in the morning, but perhaps it wasn’t a workday. In any event, a trio of customers perused the long isles, and he did his best to idly mull over the pointless knickknacks while hoping some of them would leave. The owner was a slightly overweight middle-aged woman with a pleasant smile, and he found himself hoping she had children. He had always been good with mothers…but then, he wasn’t typically trying to use them to get in touch with a clandestine group of rebels, either.
Ten minutes later he had exhausted his window shopping options without appearing too conspicuous, and two customers were still inside. He decided it probably wasn’t going to get much better and walked up to the counter.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” he asked softly.
Chandra set down some clay design she was working on and her eyes brightened. “Can I help you with something, young man?”
“I really hope so,” he told her, taking in a deep breath. Chosen survival training included lots of things, from building your own shelter to making food out of whatever you could find in the wild. It did not, however, include any type of diplomatic subtlety, and he had never once lamented that until this very moment. “Look, I’ll be blunt. I know you have a way to get in contact with certain people, and I need you to send a message for me.”
The brightness in her eyes faded, and she frowned. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t know me and have no reason to trust me, but I’m not asking for anything harmful. I just need you to get them a message.”
“Young man, I have no idea what you are talking about,” she said flatly, her voice raising just enough to easily be overheard by the other customers.
Avrick grimaced. Maybe this wasn’t quite the gift-horse he hoped it was…
“Sariel—you know the name, don’t you?”
The entire left side of her face twitched. If it was that obvious to him, he imagined someone who could actually read body language would have been blinded by it.
“I need to speak to her,” he continued. “Desperately. If you can just get her a message for me, I’ll get out of your shop.”
“You must have me confused for someone else,” she insisted, again just a little too loudly. “If there’s nothing else I could help you with, I would ask you to please leave.”
A bell rattled behind them; apparently one of the customers had been oblivious or indifferent and just left. The other, Avrick noted, was creeping towards the counter. He was probably near forty and in respectable shape, and he seemed to have an overprotective glint in his eye.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Avrick told her firmly. “Not until you help me get in contact with her.”
She locked gazes with him, and in that moment he knew she was about to panic. He might not have had the body language training of a con man or a card player, but knew exactly how to read fear in his enemies, and right now she was terrified.
“You have a problem, buddy?” the man asked from behind him.
Avrick flinched reflexively towards the new voice, and Chandra took that instant to move. She dove behind the counter, probably intending to hit some secret alarm or maybe even grab a concealed weapon.
She didn’t even get close.
Avrick’s left hand shot out and grabbed her mid-dive, clenching her shoulder and flattening her against the service desk between them. From behind, the man bit out a curse and started to lunge, but Avrick was ready for it. His right arm, locked firm, back-handed the newcomer squarely in the nose. It broke with a faint
crunch
drowned out by a muffled screech of pain. The noise was going to be a problem, and as the Chosen held the helpless woman immobile with a single arm, his other quickly fished out his pistol, dropped it to the second lowest setting, and fired a single shot of blue-white energy into her would-be protector. The man’s muscles spasmed for a moment before he lost consciousness.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Avrick told the woman as he set down the gun and clamped his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. “This isn’t what you think. I’m not here with the Covenant or anyone else—I just need to talk to Sariel.”
He let the words sink in, waiting for her futile thrashing to stop and then giving her thirty seconds before unclasping her mouth. Her eyes once again fastened on his.
“Hurt me and they’ll kill you,” she hissed.
“I don’t doubt that,” he said coolly, “but like I said, I have no intention of hurting you or anyone else if I don’t have to. I just need to send a message.”
He held her body still for a few more seconds before letting go. His pistol was on the counter between them, and he wondered if she might make a move on it. He wasn’t worried about her succeeding; he just didn’t want to have to seriously harm her.
Chandra seemed to compose herself, glancing to the gun, the unconscious and bleeding man on the floor, and then finally to Avrick. “All right. What’s your message?”
“Tell her Avrick needs to see her,” he said. “And tell her I’ll be near Adel Park the rest of the day. You can call the police or whatever you want and I can’t stop you. But trust me—this is something she’s going to want to hear. What she does with it is up to her.”
The woman slowly nodded. “Fine.”
He didn’t know if he believed her, but there was nothing more to it. Either she would send the message or she wouldn’t. If it didn’t work, he would just have to try something else…if there even was anything else.
“Sorry about the mess,” he muttered, looking at the unconscious man. “I’m sure bleeding customers aren’t good for business.”
“He fell,” she said. “That’s what he’ll remember, anyway.”
Avrick felt his eyebrow twitch curiously, but then he got it. If she was with the Asurans, there was a good chance she was a Demon. And changing memories, especially fresh, short-term ones, was something a lot of them could do. He was suddenly glad he had been wearing gloves—he hadn’t even considered her a threat, but with a single touch of her skin everything would have been different.
“Good enough,” he said. “Thank you.”
Avrick turned and left the store. In five minutes he might be facing down the local police, or perhaps just an angry squad of Asurans out for justice for his attack at the stadium. Or maybe Sariel would come herself and take him away, and together they could both leave the Covenant behind for good.
Whatever the future might hold, there was nothing to do but head to Adel Park and wait for fate to make its choice.
***
The Toran Street café was one of those simple places you could find probably a hundred copies of in this district alone: an L-shaped, one floor restaurant with aging furniture, a university-age serving staff, and a nearly infinite number of variations on what all boiled down to “flavored tea or coffee.” Kronn always liked to meet in places like this, because they had several advantages over the competition. For one, they were never empty but also rarely crowded, and so it struck a perfect balance between discretion and privacy. For two, a person from virtually any walk of life could step in here and not look out of place, from an overly dressed businessman to a greasy-faced high school student.
Today, however, the reason was a lot simpler. His contact, Mark Portis, never met anywhere else. At least, not with Kronn.
“Rumor has it you have a problem,” the heavyset man commented as he nursed a single drink and idly watched a local news broadcast.