Interspersed among the gibberish, she caught the words
kill
and
female drakor
. Murderous revenge had replaced lustful intentions. The ooze seeping from his pores appeared more copious, causing his body to glisten with slime. Clammy perspiration coated her own skin.
This isn’t working. He isn’t dying!
Her lungs burned as if filled with hot smoke, and her swollen eyes stung. Plenty of detritus lay about to lob at him—but she couldn’t touch any of it. Handling her own knitting needle would burn her.
She set her jaw grimly. She would die, but the alien would not know the satisfaction of using her body. Not her live one, anyway. She flung darts of hatred at his slimy yellowish-gray back.
Yellowish
? Anika squinted. Was his skin changing color? She’d seen Terrans turn kind of blue when they couldn’t breathe. She listened to his wheezing. Had the tenor changed, become more desperate?
Please, oh please
.
Die, you sack of excrement!
“
Thcych qppum bcyh
!” His garbled voice rang out in the universal language of triumph.
Xoph had found the spare inhaler.
Chapter Twenty
A repetitive, heavy thud sounded against the door, and Urazi dove to open it. Anika! Thank Protocol, thank Nature, thank whatever had brought her back. But, on the heels of intense relief, anger sparked anew. He’d given his regard to a female who could not be trusted.
After his temper had cooled following their argument, he’d sought her out, but discovered her chamber and her bathing facility vacant. He’d stalked back to his quarters, furious all over again. But worried. He almost hoped she
had
disobeyed because he could not bear to contemplate the alternative explanation.
Twice, he’d ventured out in search of her, investigating the places Perce had shown him that Anika might have seen on her stealth tour. Several times, he’d thought he’d heard her call his name, and he’d whipped around only to find a servant or guard eying him with suspicion. Each time he returned to his quarters empty-handed, but with a tighter knot in his stomach.
When he did lay hands on her, he would be very harsh. He
would
acquire a sudon—and use it daily. If that didn’t impart some sense into her stubborn head, at least maybe a healthy fear would convince her to submit to his authority.
He hated he might have to make her fear him.
Why do you put me in this position, Anika?
Urazi flung open his door and did a double take.
Perce. His eyes were wild, and his chest heaved like he’d run a footrace.
Urazi fisted his hands with frustration and disappointment, but took a deep breath. He could not be rude to the alpha. Perce could be as contradictory as Protocol itself, but he was Qalin’s son, and his sympathies and loyalty would lie with his sire. Caution advised staying on the alpha’s good side. “Yes, Perce. What is—”
“Come! No time,” the alpha gasped.
“Go where?”
“Sire’s orders—Veronian—must stop!”
“Speak slowly. I do not understand your meaning.” Affected by Perce’s panic, Urazi strove for composure. He’d seen Qalin’s son angry and frightened, but never this alarmed.
Perce gulped air. “You—must—come.”
“Where? Why?” he asked, but dread had assumed shape and form
.
Something had happened to Anika.
Perce dug into his bag he had slung across his chest and whipped out an LPD.
Urazi threw up his forearms. “Stop—what are you doing?”
“Take it!” Perce shoved the weapon into Urazi’s hand, and then produced another LPD. “The Veronians have Anjot…Anika. They will use her, and she will not survive.”
Horror froze his blood.
“We might already be too late.” Perce took off down the corridor.
* * * *
“
Thcych qppum bcyh
!” repeated Xoph, but an underlying desperation underscored his triumph. He held up an object shaped like an inhaler, but it was protected by a thick silvery elasticene material.
With his three-fingered hands, he tore at the wrapping. Wheezing turned to high-pitched squeals like an animal caught in a snare, and he continued to spew gibberish in his language. Xoph screeched and clawed at the inhaler, but the elasticene coating held firm. His entire body was completely yellow now, except for the orbs of his eyes, which had turned orange under the ocher taint.
He’s not just suffocating, he’s being poisoned by our atmosphere!
But he was poisoning hers. As his desperation increased, so did his acrid perspiration. The air in the enclosed chambered stung Anika’s eyes, nose, and throat, worsened the agony searing her damaged skin.
With a howl of desperate rage, the Veronian shook the inhaler and threw it, then turned, and, with murder in its inflamed, runny eyes, he advanced on Anika.
The stone table separating them provided her sole defense.
He’s going to die, but he’s going to kill me first
. Chamber walls closed in as he approached. Frozen by fear, she couldn’t move, could only cast her gaze around the room, searching futilely for a weapon, for an escape route.
With a burst of energy, the alien leaped into air and landed atop the table.
* * * *
Urazi slammed his door and ran. As they sprinted through the maze of hallways, Perce’s bag bounced as if it held something else. Another weapon, perhaps? They probably could use another, but what Urazi needed first was answers. “Wh-wh happened?” He panted.
“My sire…my sire…discovered Anjot is the female known as Anika. Of Alpha Marlix’s line.”
Urazi almost tripped. “How?”
“Zala,” he gasped. “Saw Anika. Outside your quarters. Reported her to the guards.”
Urazi swore. He had caused this by expelling Anika from his room. He would never forgive himself if harm befell her.
Perce led him through a snarl of streetlike corridors and narrower halls. The domicile covered an area the size of a small municipality, but no grid or organization had seemed to order its construction. They barreled around another corner and from grand opulence plunged into a dingy, dark, dank passage. Uneasiness skittered up Urazi’s spine.
Had he been foolish to trust Perce? How did he know if he was friend or foe? If the truth about Anika had come to light, perhaps Qalin also had learned of Urazi’s identity. Was Perce trying to help, or was he leading him into a trap? Was his panic real or feigned? Why would he risk his life for someone of such recent acquaintance? A female. What if Perce had been sent to arrest him, too? Urazi squeezed the grip of his LPD.
He gave you a weapon. He would not arm a person he intended to capture.
Unless he’d given him a dud. Unless he intended for Urazi to betray himself.
Urazi aimed the LPD at a statue of Qalin and fired. The head fell off and smashed on the floor.
Perce stumbled. “What the—”
“Accidental discharge. Sorry.” Reassured, Urazi asked, “What of your sire? He will not be pleased you are helping me.”
“No. He will kill me. I was-was ordered to remain in my quarters.” Perce’s chest heaved, and he gasped as if in death throes. Urazi wanted to race ahead, but he had no idea where they were going or even where they were. He’d lost his sense of direction. Urging Perce to hurry would do little good either. The alpha was moving as fast as he could—he’d already had a long sprint to get to Urazi’s quarters.
Urazi shouldn’t blame him for slowing.
But he did.
No doubt the air didn’t help Perce’s stamina. It had grown fetid, almost caustic. They angled to the left, and Urazi saw why.
Veronians. Three of them with holstered LPDs congregated in conversation. Urazi started to raise his weapon.
Perce grabbed his arm, “No!” Under his breath, he said, “Walk now. We are alphas…alphas of Qalin and outrank them. They will not question us if we act like we have reason to be here.
Urazi tightened his grip on his weapon and held his head high as they approached. The Veronians saluted then pushed through a door into a cantina of sorts, packed with stone blocks and more slimy aliens than Urazi ever wished to encounter. A cacophony of gibberish and an acrid stench rolled out like dense fog. Then the door shut and mercifully cut off the view and the din. But the odor remained.
Monto! Worse things existed than drakor
or
cachinna. Urazi swiped at his smarting eyes with the back of his hand.
Perce veered right to another corridor, this one vacant, but still reeking. He gestured. “At the end. Quarters on the right.” The brief walk had given Perce a second wind, and he picked up the pace.
A muffled cry, half-scream half-howl echoed from the terminus of the hall. Abandoning Perce, Urazi tore down the passageway toward the source. From inside the chamber he heard thudding, weeping. His heart constricted in a painful spasm of hope. “Anika!” he shouted and beat on the door with his fist.
“Urazi?” came her strangled question.
“Yes! It is I.”
“Urazi!” She sobbed his name. “I cannot get out! The Veronian locked the door with the genscan.”
“Is he with you?”
“He is dead.”
Perce jogged up beside him. “Is—is she all right?”
“I think so. Watch the hall. If anyone approaches, shoot him,” he answered. “Stand away from the door, Anika,” he yelled. Urazi aimed his booted foot at the center of the portal near the jamb and kicked hard. He felt a slight give, but the wood held fast. Thinking of Qalin, the Veronians, and Anika’s terror imparted greater force to his second kick. Wood cracked. Another strike, and the door broke open.
Anika stood there—naked from the waist up, her bruised face, chest, hands, and arms reddened and blistered by chemical burns, patches of her skin eaten away to reveal underlying tissue. “Oh, Anika,” Urazi choked, his peripheral vision taking in the Veronian’s body atop a stone table. How she had managed to survive, he could not fathom. He moved to embrace her.
“Stop!” She warded him off with upraised palms, the right one badly burned. “Do not touch me! I’m covered with Veronian secretions. You will burn, too.”
“This will help.” Perce reached into his bag and pulled out a canister.
“What is it?” Urazi eyed the vial.
“Neutralizer to halt the burning and prevent it from going deeper.” He compressed his lips. “It cannot reverse the damage that has already occurred.”
Anika would be scarred. Urazi glowered at the dead Veronian, half wishing he’d lived so he could have the pleasure of killing him. He squeezed the grip of his LPD. He’d
neutralize
the malodorous slimy alien drakor!
“Hold your arms out and close your eyes,” Perce instructed Anika.
She flinched when the first blast hit, but Urazi could see the atomized unguent soothed her by the release of tension in her face. Perce worked downward, sweeping in a steady spray from head to toe, including pants and boots, anywhere she might have come into contact with the alien.
Urazi remembered how a Parseon medical technician had healed Tara’s old scars—and another had successfully treated
his
wounds after the attack in the woods. Surely a domicile the size of a municipality would have a medical technician—especially when its Alpha was at war. Taking Anika to him could be risky if the technician reported the visit to Qalin. But Urazi would deal with the repercussions later—first he had to get Anika fully healed. “Is there not a physician who could be called?” he asked.
Perce shook his head. “No. My sire does not allow them on the premises. Weakness, you know.”
Urazi himself had objected to being treated—but Marlix had overridden his protests. Of course, Qalin would adhere to the teachings that only those of strength earned the right to live. Anyone feeble enough to require intervention
should
perish for the good of the race.
“That should do it.” Perce dropped the canister into his bag.
Anika opened her eyes, a grateful smile trembling on her lips. “That is better. Thank you, Perce.”
The alpha nodded at Urazi. “It is safe to touch her now.”
Blisters still spotted her red, swollen skin, marked by white patches indicating the burns had gone deep. Urazi stepped forward and enfolded Anika into an embrace. She rested her head against his shoulder. His throat thickened, and tears seeped out from under his lids. “I am so sorry,” he choked. “This is all my fault.”
“You are not responsible! The Veronian is. And”—she glanced at Perce—“Alpha Qalin.”
“I cannot deny that.” Perce said grimly. He strode to the alien’s body. “How did he die?”
“I stomped on his inhaler, and he couldn’t breathe. He collapsed just as he lunged at me.” Anika shuddered.
Perce modified a setting on his LPD, aimed the weapon at the Veronian, and fired. He held the beam, and the Veronian’s corpse glowed before melting into a pool of goo. Perce released the trigger, selected another setting, and vaporized the puddle, leaving only the omnipresent stench as evidence of the alien’s existence. Urazi wrinkled his nose; probably nothing would ever remove the smell.
Perce looked at them, a purposeful, hard glint in his eyes. He had matured ages in minutes. “We must stop my sire before he can proceed any further.”
My sire.
Not Alpha. Since Perce had appeared at his door, he’d ceased using Qalin’s title. The Commander would always be his progenitor, but Perce’s allegiance had shifted. “Why are you helping us?” Urazi asked.
“I have crept in the shadow of fear for too long and turned a blind eye to the atrocities.”
How far would Perce go? Urazi regarded him over Anika’s head. “What are your intentions?”
“I will kill him.”
“No.” Urazi shook his head. “I will eliminate him.”
Perce’s eyebrows rose. “You doubt me? You do not think I am capable?”
A few weeks ago—nay, a few hours ago, Urazi would not have thought so, but he longer questioned Perce’s alphaness or his trustworthiness. “I mean you no slight. But no son should have to slay his own sire.” Even if he was a monster.