I’d been alone in the room, but now there were three lions standing before me. This somehow seemed perfectly normal to me, although they seemed small for lions. I thought it vaguely unusual that three of them could fit in such a small space.
They were very curious, these lions. They wanted to know my name, where I’d come from, and why I was in Spain. I wasn’t alarmed, but something about them prickled some small portion of my brain. They seemed friendly, but when they talked I couldn’t help but notice how big their teeth were. I wondered if they were flashing them on purpose as a warning.
And again, something about them seemed not right.
“I can’t move,” I told them with a touch of irritation. They spoke quietly amongst themselves and then one of them waved a little wand and I could move again. They asked again why was I here.
“I’m here to collect orchids,” I said. I realized that lions might not be familiar with flowers and I wondered if they’d be curious or annoyed. The Lion Sleeps Tonight popped into my thoughts and started playing in my head. I asked if they knew the song. I thought they’d be amused and want to sing along. They were not amused.
“Come on,” I urged. “The lion sleeps tonight…. You know the song. They sang it in the Lion King. The Lion King! Don’t you guys love the Lion King?”
“Why do you have this?” one of them asked, taking the ancient caduceus from my bag and cutting me off.”
I thought I’d hidden it better than that. Strangely, he was holding it in his paw, not in his mouth. I reached under my pillow and withdrew the bottle with my chumahai.
“It goes with this,” I said and I unstoppered the bottle.
“Ink?” one of the lions asked as I poured it onto the back of my hand.
My chumahai covered me in less than a second and broke their Neuroconceal immediately. I could see them clearly now. Three Tkosi stood before me. Enki, I assumed. They weren’t wearing chumahai, but they’d shown the ability to paralyze me and to use Neuroconceal on me, which meant I needed to be careful with them.
Despite my being the one glamoured, I recovered from the shock half a second faster than they did, which gave me all the time I needed to jump to my feet and strike the closest one with a bioelectric punch to the throat. His throat made the same sound as crushed plastic bottle, and he fell to the ground, gurgling and clutching his ruined windpipe. Where was Tati?
The other two Enki were to my left. The one with the paralysis wand tried waving it again, but it didn’t work with my chumahai on and a shield up. He tried stabbing at me with the wand, but he was on his back foot, and I easily pushed his awkward thrust away. I swung across my body trying to hit him, but he managed to avoid my punch. I would’ve energy pushed them away to give myself more space, but the room was small and I didn’t want them crashing into the walls and knocking over furniture, possibly bringing more agents.
He stabbed at me again, with a knife this time, and caught me along the forearm as I sidestepped to avoid the main thrust. I grabbed his arm and zapped him. He grunted as the current passed through, and then he was dead.
The last Enki had backed against the wall. He raised some device that made a sizzling sound when he fired it at me. I turned and the shot slid across my shield and into the bedside lamp, which it vaporized. I was safe, but I could feel that my shield had weakened.
The Enki was shocked that I was still standing there, but he recovered quickly and yanked the door open and ran out. Checking my shield, I ran out after him. He was running at full speed and several steps ahead, but he spun and squeezed off three rapid shots that slammed into my shield in succession, knocking me onto my ass. My shield took the brunt and dissipated all the energy except for a bit of crackling electricity that came off the sides and singed the carpet.
The Enki kept running and disappeared into the stairwell at the end of the hall. I wasn’t sure how many more shots like that my shield could take, but I needed to find Tati and I had a feeling that guy was the answer. I ran back into the room, fished under the pillow and found Tati’s chumahai in the glass bottle where she kept it, then I took off after him.
Cautiously, I opened the stairwell door and stuck my head in. My shield seemed to be back to full strength, so I held it around me and started down the stairs. I Electrosensed, but other than a few mice, I didn’t feel anything living. He’d gotten away, and as far as I knew, he had Tati. And then I heard a faint click coming from above me. The roof. He’d gone to the roof.
Before all this started, I hated climbing stairs. I was too uncoordinated to even take two at a time, but with my chumahai and bioenhancement, I shot up the stairs, taking whole flights in a bound.
I burst through the door onto the roof and there was the Enki from my room and one other. The new one was tapping away at the same device the other one had—calling for an extraction, no doubt—and Tati was between them, naked as she’d been the last time I’d seen her.
“Tati!” I dodged to the side as two shots zipped past me. My reflexes were on fire and I ran towards them, faster now than a cheetah. I jumped over the next shots, but the following one hit me in mid air. My shield flickered, but it was still intact. It was taking all of my effort to avoid both of their shots.
The air started to shimmer where they’d dropped the device and I knew that was their way out. Tati was following the fight with interest, but doing nothing to intervene. Clearly, she was still under the glamour. I closed on the new guy and dodged his shots to crack him in the skull, as the guy I’d chased outside was hustling Tati toward the shimmering exit.
I called to her, and fortunately she turned at hearing her name. I threw her chumahai at her feet like a fastball in the dirt and the glass broke. The Enki shielded himself as if he thought I was throwing a grenade, but when there was no explosion, he straightened up.
“Dud,” he called out, with a malignant half smile on his lips, then he grabbed Tati’s wrist to pull her forward.
She stepped into the shattered glass.
“Oww!” she cried out as the shards dug into the bottoms of her feet. But that was all she needed—skin contact with the chumahai. As it covered her, she instinctively pulled on its power to eject the glass from her foot and heal it.
The Enki’s eyes registered shock as he was now seeing this happen a second time and had no idea what the hell was going on. Tati reversed his grip on her wrist and snapped his arm at the elbow. He screamed, but his momentum carried him straight into the shimmering exit, and he was gone in less than a second. I still had the pleasure of seeing the shock on his face before he disappeared.
I ran to Tati and took her in my arms. She practically leapt onto me.
“I don’t know how that happened,” she was saying. “They almost took me away. I didn’t even realize what was happening.”
“I know,” I comforted her. “They almost got me too. It was just luck that I managed to get my chumahai on. They don’t know about them.”
But now someone knew about us. Which meant we had to get moving, and quick. We went back to our room to gather our essentials, then headed out and down the stairs. I hoped we could exit without drawing attention, but one of the desk staff called out a greeting as we hurried out.
I didn’t like walking around at this time of night carrying bags. I’d learned to pack lightly, so we only had backpacks, but we still looked like lost tourists, which wasn’t a good thing. I didn’t know where we were headed yet, just away from that hotel, and for now that was sufficient.
A kid ran right smack into me and kept on going without even acknowledging it. He didn’t seem aggressive, but neither did he apologize, or, for that matter, even seem to notice. Habitually, I patted my pockets to make sure everything was still there. My left breast pocket was empty. The kid had my caduceus. He’d bumped me to create a distraction and it had worked. He wouldn’t know what to do with it, but I needed it back.
I turned to look for him, but he’d disappeared easily into the crowd. Reaching out with Electrosen
se, I could just barely feel him at the edge of my range. He’d gone down the first side street.
“Kid stole my caduceus,” I said to Tati. “I gotta go back for it.” She turned to come with me. “Just keep going,” I told her. “I’ll meet you at the fountain by the museum in a few minutes.”
“Yeah right,” she said. “If you think I’m leaving you, you’re crazy.”
There was no time to argue so I just started off. I wanted to Electropush a path through all the people, but I assumed there was still an Enki agent watching for us and I didn’t want to draw attention, so instead I just pushed my way through like a rude foreigner and used little bursts of shield pushes as needed.
The kid hadn’t gone far. He went around the corner and into one of the first shops lining the street—his fence, no doubt.
To say he was shocked to see me would be an understatement. He didn’t give up though. He took off through the back, down a narrow hallway, and into an alley filled with garbage. Following him was like trying to follow a rabbit through the woods. With my chumahai on, I could keep up with him, but what he lacked in speed he made up for in wiliness and knowing all the little places to hide. He pushed his way between a pair of wooden double-doors loosely held shut with a rusty old padlock and disappeared inside.
One of two things was happening here: either he’d slipped into this building and disappeared through some internal corridors, or he—or someone else—was waiting just on the other side of that door to cold-cock me. Which would it be? I paused at the door. It would take quite an effort to squeeze myself through the gap he’d gone through, but I could do it. Tati showed up right behind me.
“I can get in,” she said.
“Let me check it first,” I said and Electrosensed inside. I was in luck—the kid hadn’t disappeared. It was a small space, maybe ten feet deep, and I could sense three people inside. The kid and two adults. So it was option two—they were waiting to cold-cock me. Despite the little thief stealing my caduceus and leading me on a wild chase, I didn’t want to hurt him. But I was sure they wouldn’t have the same compunction about hurting me.
Tati looked at me expectantly and I gestured to let her know what I’d found. The kid was in the back and the adults were just inside, standing on either side of the door, waiting. If I had my caduceus, I’d just reach in and zap them, but this would require a little more effort. We tried using Tati’s caduceus to transport to mine, but it wasn’t activated.
“We can Neuroconceal to go in,” Tati offered helpfully.
“Doesn’t help in this situation,” I said. “They’re just gonna wack whatever comes through that door.”
“So let’s use that against them,” she said.
“How?”
She walked over to a set of garbage cans and took a couple of the lids. “We can roll these in. I’ll make ‘em look like us and they’ll go after them. We’ll slip in while they’re distracted.”
“We? Tati you can’t go in there…”
“I can…and I’m going to. Just because you haven’t seen me fight doesn’t mean I can’t. I have one of these too, you know?” she said, indicating her chumahai. She was right.
“Alright, just be careful,” I said. “And I go in first.”
She handed me a garbage can lid and we both crept close to the doors. I took the right side and Tati crouched on the left. She gave me a nod to let me know she was Neuroconcealing and I pushed on the door to open a gap. We rolled our lids in and sure enough, they chased them like a cat chasing a ball of yarn. As soon as they moved from the door I slipped through with Tati right behind me.
The space was only lit by shafts of streetlight coming in through the gaps in the door planks and a crack in the ceiling. In the dim light, I could make out the room much more clearly with Electrosense than with my eyes.
The guards were attacking the garbage lids and the kid had edged into the corner away from them. He had my caduceus in his hand still. Enhanced by my chumahai I moved like lightning, crossing the room and snatching my caduceus back before the two thugs had even registered my presence. The kid squawked as I reached him and tried to stab me with a knife he had up his sleeve. It was a late and clumsy attempt that I avoided easily, but I punched him in the mouth anyway. Payment for my trouble. It was the least he deserved.
The thugs had given up on the decoy and turned on Tati. They stood between her and the door, brandishing crowbars. All three of them looked perfectly confident.
“Caballeros…” I began in Spanish. “We’ve got our property back. Why don’t we all just call it a night?”
“Cabrón puta,” one of them sneered. “You don’t have nothing back until you leave here. And that’s not happening.” He leered at Tati. “And I see some other things I might like.”
Normally, I’d just zap him, but Tati was in the way. I moved to join her, but she was in motion before I’d taken my first step. The guy on the right was raising his crowbar for a swing, but she kicked him in the balls before he even got the chance. When he doubled over in pain, she grabbed his head and snapped his neck. The second guy swung at her head. She easily ducked, slid behind him and snapped his neck like she’d done the first. I just stared.
“Told you,” she said.
All I could do was nod. The kid was still in the corner where I’d left him and now that his friends were done, he looked more shocked than before. “Find better friends,” I said to him before we slipped out.
Back out in the streets, we put some distance between ourselves and that alley.
My mind went back to our visitors back at the hotel. “How did all of that happen?” I asked. “How’d they find us?”
Something had tipped them off. Perhaps that long ago Talaris had been right—he really was being tailed. He’d managed to hide the biosim for thousands of years, but within a few hours of me finding it, I’d attracted the attention of Enki agents.
But they seemed not to know what the caduceus was?
Was that because they were just the dumb grunts, or did the Enki really not know much about their own historical technology?
And if they were alerted to my presence, what was it they were looking for?
Could they be looking for the shims like I was?
There were too many unanswered questions. We had to get out of Barcelona, and we couldn’t use the airport as we’d planned. We had to get out some other way.
“It’s something to do with the artifacts,” Tati said. “They found us in Pakistan after we went to the site and interacted with their artifacts. Now you’ve got that old caduceus and they found us again. They’re marked somehow. We gotta get rid of them or find some way to shut them up so they don’t give us away.”
“Well, we can’t get rid of them. Not yet, anyway. Don’t you think it’s weird that they don’t seem to know what the artifacts are? They detected it and they have some gear, but they have no idea what these things are. One of them picked up my caduceus and asked me what it was.”
“They’ve been sending the JV team against us. These are grunts—these aren’t special agents. They think we’re just some random humans that happened to find useful shit and they’re gonna take it from us. They probably don’t realize that we’re the same people from Pakistan.”
“For JV, they glamoured both of us pretty easily. They almost got away with you.”
“Yeah. We have to be more careful,” she acknowledged. “They saw us fight this time, so they’re gonna be on their guard. And if they figure out we’re the same people from Pakistan, they’re gonna come at us harder.”
As she was talking, I remembered something from my previous travels through Europe: another way for us to get out of the country.
“You ever been on a cruise?” I asked.
16
Karachi, Pakistan
Rajat Chaudry woke just past 2 am. Everything had been quiet since the events of a few weeks back. He expected to hear more from the Enki after that incident, but they hadn’t visited him at all s
ince then. Still, he couldn’t sleep. He turned on the lamp on his nightstand and froze. Or more accurately: “was frozen.” A rushing sound filled his head and he waited helplessly for his visitors. They appeared a moment later—three of them, wearing the black quicksilver clothes that he’d come to associate with greater formality. He recognized two of them this time.
“Rajat Chaudry,” one of the Enki said laconically. “We have come to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself.” The speaker was the one that Chaudry did not recognize.
“To redeem myself?” he asked. The paralysis had been removed and he hastily sat up on the edge of the bed.
“For letting Enlil slip through your fingers a few weeks ago.”
Chaudry grimaced. The beginning of this meeting had all the hallmarks of one that would end badly.
“Don’t look so forlorn,” the Enki continued. “Some good came of your actions that day. You said the Shayatim Enlil killed using an unseen force, and there were reports of them shifting their appearance. It seems that something similar has been seen elsewhere. We think it is the same individuals. Now here’s where your chance at redemption comes in….” He paused. “You’re going to find out for sure if they’re the same.”
Chaudry was both nervous and excited at the same time. This was what he’d been trained for—what his ancestors had done—he was thrilled to get his chance. But remembrance of the fiasco from a few weeks ago left sourness in his memory. He felt anxiety creeping up.
“What do I do?” he asked.
“We’re going to put you in place. Then it’s your job to track the holy relics and the Enlil using them.”
Chaudry nodded. “Yes, of course. But after what happened the last time….” He trailed off, hesitating. “Are there any other tools I can use? Weapons?”
Children of the Sky (The Talari Subversion Book 1) Page 19