“Then add a prayer for Her to give you some peace of mind in this so you won’t be
worrying about whether you did right in accepting his offer. To my way of thinking,
you did good, girl.”
“My biggest worry is for him,” Lucy said. “I’m so afraid he won’t come back, and
the very thought makes my heart hurt something fierce!” She twisted around in her seat
to face the other woman. “It’s more than me losing everything that’s been promised,
Nell. Home, respectability, permanence. The very thought of never seeing Phelan again
hurts so bad I can barely breathe.”
“Maybe you’re falling in love with him,” Nellie told her.
Lucy’s chin quivered. “I think I am already in love, Nell. I think I fell for that tall
drink of water the first time I saw him.”
“Happens,” Nellie declared with an understanding smile.
“This is going to be the longest day of my life,” Lucy said, fresh tears starting down
her cheeks. She turned back to the window. “Please,
please,
Mo Regina
, keep him safe!”
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BlackMoon Reaper
* * * * *
“You didn’t get permission to mate with that woman, Lord Kiel
!” Lord Kheelan’s voice
was hard as steel as it interrupted Phelan’s thoughts.
Phelan released a long sigh. He’d been expecting the accusing words from the
Citadel since he’d taken Lucy the evening before. When they hadn’t come, he realized
the Shadowlords must have been too busy with other matters to pay attention to his
breach of policy. When he’d taken her earlier that morning, he’d felt the censure and
had braced for it, but it hadn’t come until now.
“And I’m sure you’ll make me pay for not having done so, won’t you, Your Grace?”
he queried, but there were no other words from the Citadel.
“Make you pay how?” Fontabeau said, his chin up. He was riding beside Phelan
but had heard the condemning words as clearly as though they’d been addressed to
him.
“Time in a con cell at the very least,” Phelan said then shrugged. “It won’t be the
first time I’ve paid a visit to that hellhole.” He held up his hand when Fontabeau would
have argued. “Let it go. I owe my allegiance to the Shadowlords. I am under their
authority. They can do with me what they will.”
“We’ll just fucking see about that!” Fontabeau swore. He clucked his tongue and set
his horse into motion, taking to the trail that wound up into the thick canopy of the
mountain forest.
Phelan sighed again. He had a feeling life with Fontabeau Sorn as a friend was
never going to be easy.
As he followed Sorn, he thought about Lucy and knew he was happy to have her in
his life. He sighed, shaking his head. Might as well make it official.
“May I take the woman as my legal mate, Lord Kheelan? May I Join with her at the
Citadel?”
For a long moment there was no reply then Lord Dunham spoke, making it clear
the High Lord was too angry to answer.
“Do as you will, Reaper. You will anyway, no matter what we say or do.”
Phelan winced at the implied warning in those words.
“There is a slight problem—”
“
Lord Owen has been apprised of the situation and is handling it,”
Lord Dunham
interrupted.
“We will discuss the matter when you return.”
“What situation?” Fontabeau asked as Phelan drew abreast of him.
“She killed a man.”
“Did he deserve it?”
“He did.”
“Then there’s no problem,” the gunman decreed. “And I’ll go to bat for you and her
if you need me to, Phe. I’m your friend and I got your back. Guess I won’t ever be your
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
lover, but I’ll be the best gods-be-damned friend you’ll ever have. Just let that ass-wipe
Ben-Alkazar try giving you a ration of shit!”
Nope, Phelan thought, life was not going to be easy from here on out.
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BlackMoon Reaper
“As quiet as the tomb,” Fontabeau observed as he, Phelan and Brell rode toward the
mine captain’s shack. “Not a single, solitary soul in sight.”
“My guess is their souls are gone,” Brell said. Though he had not tumbled from his
mount, he was clinging to the pommel with every last ounce of his waning strength.
“I keep thinking about my friend Owen Tohre,” Phelan said, “and what a Ceannus
female did to him out in Calizonia.”
When he didn’t elaborate, his companions slipped into his mind and as they saw
what his memory had in store for them, pulled back. Both warriors had a pained look
on their faces.
“Luckily it grew back,” Fontabeau said, shifting in the saddle. He shot Brell a
sidelong glance.
“Mine wouldn’t have,” Brell answered the unspoken question. “I don’t heal like
you Reapers.”
“What do the Ceannus look like anyway?” Fontabeau asked, wanting to change the
conversation.
“Evil personified,” Phelan said. “Even in your worst nightmares you couldn’t
conceive of just how ugly the things are.”
“I saw one once,” Brell said then shivered. “Tall with a huge oval-shaped head and
large black eyes that had no pupil, triple row of jagged teeth in a lipless mouth. Long
legs and arms, and their flesh was the color of a drowned man’s after a week in the
water.”
“Lovely,” Fontabeau said as they reined before the shack.
“He was an ugly prick,” Brell finished.
“How could you tell it was a he?” Phelan asked. “Neither the male or females have
genitals.”
“I just knew,” Brell said. He was wobbling in the saddle and Phelan dismounted
and came over to help him down.
“Let’s get you in the shack.”
Fontabeau threw a leg over his horse’s head and slid to the ground, keeping a close
eye on their surroundings, though it was unearthly quiet without so much as a bird
twittering in the trees. He preceded them into the cabin, checking to make sure no one
was hiding within. He pulled a chair up to the window. “You can watch from here,” he
told Brell.
“What are you going to be doing?” Brell asked as he took a seat.
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“I’m going to help set the charges on the skip hoist and cage. I’ll run one down
while Phelan sees to the other.”
“I need to set a few charges along the passageway that leads down to the lab as
well,” Phelan said. “Doesn’t look like I’m going to have to worry about anyone seeing
me go into the mine with the explosives.”
Fontabeau’s eyes widened. “You know they are down there, Phelan,” he said.
“I need to find out why they’re down there,” Phelan said. “Something is up, Beau.
Something we need to know about. There was a reason the Ceannus brought the
changed inhabitants back up to the mine. We need to know what that reason was,”
Phelan said in a voice that stated there would be no further discussion of the matter.
“I’m just concerned, Phelan,” Fontabeau said.
“I’ll be careful,” Phelan told him.
The two men locked gazes for a moment then both turned away.
“I’ve got two laser pistols for you to use,” Fontabeau told Brell. “I also have a laser
rifle on my horse. Use them like you would a regular weapon but remember to squeeze
the trigger very gently.”
“Else they have one helluva kick,” Phelan put in. He checked both his six-shooter
and the gun Fontabeau had given him. This time around he was also wearing his
Speal
—the laser whip he trusted more than any gun.
“Raise the window for me,” Brell said. “As long as I can prop against the sill, I’ll be
fine.” He smiled. “I’m a better shot than I let on.”
“Somehow I figured as much,” Phelan said with a grin.
Brell stuck out a hand. “Good luck, Reaper,” he said.
Phelan took the proffered hand. “Word is I may need it.”
Fontabeau flinched at his friend’s comment but said nothing, pressing his lips
together tight to keep from begging Phelan not to go into the mine. For the first time in
his life, he was ashamed of the crippling phobia that kept him from going below
ground.
“You never told me what happened to make you so fearful,” Phelan said as the two
of them removed the saddlebags full of explosives strapped to their horses. He had
intercepted his friend’s wayward thought.
“That’s a story I’ll gladly tell when all this is done,” Fontabeau said. “Let’s not be
talking about cave-ins right now.” He handed his saddlebag to Phelan then pulled the
laser rifle from its boot. “I’ll take this in to Brell.”
Phelan waited for Fontabeau to join him before they struck out for the headframe to
set the charges on the cage. Their boot heels crunched the loose gravel underfoot,
making the only sound in the stillness.
“What kind of charges are we carrying here?” Fontabeau asked.
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BlackMoon Reaper
“The explosive is a malleable plastic substance. I don’t know what they call it. All I
know is it makes a gods-be-damned big bang when it goes off,” Phelan said. “A block
of the explosive is attached to a slapper detonator that can be activated by one of the
laser flash lamps the Shadowlords sent along. Each detonator requires a different laser
pulse aimed its way in order for it to ignite. Block one gets two pulses. Block two
required four. That’s a safety feature so all the blocks won’t go off at the same time.
Once the explosives are in place, we’ll fire up the flash lamp and in sequence set off the
whole shebang.”
“How many charges do we have?”
“Redfield said they sent six. There are three in each saddlebag. So if we set up six
blocks, that last block would require twelve rapid laser pulses before it would blow.
We’ll set one each in the cage and the skip hoist and a third over at the slope mine. I’ll
set one just beyond the main entrance of the mine and take two in with me. One I’ll put
close enough to the lab to crush it to cinder and the other mid-point the tunnel system.
That should be enough to bring the mountain down on the Ceannus.”
“A big bang,” Fontabeau agreed.
They had arrived at the headframe and were relieved to see the cage right at the top
of the pulley system. Opening the iron frame door, Phelan went in, knelt down and
opened his saddlebag to place the first charge. Carefully and with precision he pressed
the off-white material into one corner of the cage and very pierced the malleable
material with a small tube-like aluminum cylinder that he told Fontabeau was filled
with a combustible chemical.
“When I fire the laser pulse, a spark inside the slapper will fire to ignite the
chemical which in turn will explode the cylinder and the resulting friction and motion
will set off the block of explosive.”
They moved on to the skip hoist and repeated the operation. That charge set,
Phelan straightened his shoulders, looked Fontabeau in the eye then turned away
without saying a word since there was nothing to say. Fontabeau watched Phelan
disappear into the maw of the mine and took a long, slow, ragged breath.
“Watch over him,
Mo Regina
,” he whispered.
A soft breeze wafted over the gunman. He put up a hand to wipe at the moisture
that had gathered in his eye, cursing himself for a maudlin fool. He’d never had a friend
before and he didn’t want to lose him.
* * * * *
Even with his acute Reaper hearing Phelan detected no sound inside the mine.
There was no distant squeak of bat or drip of water or pop of settling rock. Surrounding
him as he moved deeper into the semidarkness—lit only by the dwindling light of
lanterns running out of oil—was perfect silence with only the crunch of his boots
breaking it. The experience was unnerving.
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
Stopping at each intersection of tunnel—listening, probing the darkness beyond—
he became increasingly more concerned. If there were other living, breathing things in
the mine, he had yet to sense them. Sniffing the air, he discovered no blood smells and
that in itself was odd. His brows drew together in consternation and he tried using his
psychic abilities to contact the Shadowlords, but apparently he was too deep
underground and possibly surrounded by iron ore that would block the transmission.
Placing one charge where he thought it would do the most damage, he moved on,
suddenly developing the urge to get out of the hellish place as quickly as possible.
* * * * *
“Lord Sorn.”
Fontabeau jumped. His heart had nearly stopped at the sound of the Shadowlord’s
voice and he snarled, his lips drawn back over fangs that had erupted of their own
accord at his discomfort.
“Aye?”
“Where is Lord Kiel?”
“He’s in the mine setting the charges,” the gunman replied. He recognized the
haughty voice of the High Lord and automatically his hackles rose.
“We did not sense him,”
Lord Kheelan said.
“There must be iron.”
There was silence
from the Citadel then sharpness to the High Lord’s words.
“What concerns you?”
“It’s too quiet,” Fontabeau replied. “Not one sound. No birds, no insects, not even a
hawk flying overhead. Absolutely nothing. I don’t like it.”
Another silence then,
“Neither do we.”
“How close is your nearest Reaper?”
Silence again that lasted longer then a second Shadowlord spoke.