The Gray Market: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 5)

by Valerie J Mikles

  “Thank you,” Thea said, grabbing Sikorsky’s arm and guiding him away from the desk.

  “Is Dr. Kernighan available?” Sikorsky tried. “I’d like to talk to him about my cousin’s condition.”

  The receptionist squared his shoulder and flattened his hands on the desk, a hint of anger rising, then fading under a blanket of fear. “He won’t be able to release her personal, medical information to you without the consent of her advocate.”

  “Come on, sir,” Thea said again, tugging more forcefully. “Ezekiel’s office is on this floor. The advocate can meet us there.”

  Sikorsky huffed, but strode down the hall after her. Thea’s instinct had been correct. The goal of the conversation was to move past the reception area and make just enough of a scene to be noticed but not remembered.

  “You realize they’ll take a blood sample when you claim familial relation,” Thea murmured. “Unless you’re planning to pay off the advocate.”

  Sikorsky gave her a side-eye. The way she talked back reminded him of his daughter. “We will not wait for an advocate.”

  “Then we shouldn’t have spoken to the nurse,” Thea frowned. “If we fall off the map the same time as your ‘cousin,’ then we’ll be branded kidnappers.”

  “You misunderstand your purpose here. Go to Ezekiel’s office,” Sikorsky ordered. She was his mask going into the hospital, but he didn’t trust her with Amanda Gray. He needed to speak to the girl alone. An old man greeted them on the third floor—a hired double to act as his alibi and keep Thea contained.

  Sikorsky doubled back, adjusting his gloves to show his status. According to Ezekiel, Amanda’s room was near the stairwell and Ezekiel would release the lock when Thea arrived in his office. Ezekiel was supposed to keep Thea there and do the DNA test in view of the advocate, but Sikorsky didn’t expect Ezekiel to follow through on that part of the plan. Ezekiel was a difficult man to threaten, and doled out information for his own amusement, not any sense of loyalty.

  When Sikorsky arrived at Amanda’s room, the door clicked open for him. He glanced down the hall to see if anyone was watching, then pretended to submit a thumb print scan before opening the door. The room itself was a surreal swirl of blues and purples, with a false sunset visible through a false window. The air was stagnant and reeked of sweat.

  Amanda lay on the bed, her head moving side-to-side, her dry, cracked lips murmuring fervent stories in Terranan.

  “I thought you came here for treatment,” Sikorsky said, approaching the bed. “What has Ezekiel done to you?”

  Her green eyes focused and she screamed at the top of her lungs. Sikorsky clamped a hand over her mouth, but she grabbed hold of his arm and bit his hand. She wasn’t restrained!

  “Gah!” he grunted, wrestling free. She launched off the bed, her arms constricting around his neck.

  “Gray, stop! I’m only here to talk!” he rasped.

  “I’m tired of talk and threats!” she retorted, kicking his legs out from under him. His neck wrenched and he saw stars. He fell hard on his bleeding hand, then rolled onto his side gasping for breath. He felt a tingle in his gut and thought he would vomit.

  “I can get you out of here if that is your wish. You’ll have a solid identity. You can be with Danny Matthews. But only if you talk,” he said, pulling his glove down to staunch the blood. The bite wasn’t bad, but he’d need to be inoculated against infection. “Amanda?”

  She was gone. The door was tipped open, but the twinge in his gut told him she hadn’t left on foot.

  “I’ll follow. I can follow. I can,” he murmured, closing his eyes, moving through the room until the vibrations in his gut made him sick. His power had always been weak, and his teleports random. He’d never been around someone who teleported on purpose, and it felt different and strong.

  But after a few moments, the vibrations faded. He sat on the bed, dizzy from effort, but then the bed seemed to disappear out from under him. The tingling and vertigo mixed, and the air left his lungs. His face hit the ground and a salty breeze hit his face. This was his boat.

  “Dammit,” he groused. He must have homed in on the familiar spot. “Tarelli!” he called, tapping his Virp.

  Tarelli trotted out onto the deck a moment later, her heavy footfalls thudding in counterpoint to his headache. “Boss. How did you get here?”

  “Found one of those portals you think don’t exist,” Sikorsky replied, rolling onto his back. His neck hurt, and those few seconds in the other realm, not being able to breath, seemed to exacerbate the sense that he was still being choked.

  “Thea?” Tarelli asked.

  “Still at the hospital. She’ll be sad she missed this. She’s been wanting more flesh wounds,” he said, holding up his hand. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound was raw. There was no rush to sit up and keep moving. Amanda had proven her ability, but she was beyond his reach. He couldn’t chase her without exposing the endemic underworld, and that would put more than just Amanda in danger. It would put Mikayla and Hero in the crosshairs as well.

  Amanda had disappeared before. She’d teleported. She’d been in the other realm. There was no air and no warmth for humans on that side, and she knew to hold her breath—which was a mental exercise considering she didn’t have a body per se. The time seemed to drag on, and it felt like her motion was stalled. She feared that she hadn’t moved at all; but that she’d been pushed to the other realm and left there to die, just as Liza had left the people of Boone to die.

  Galen, her mind cried, though she knew he was a world away and he couldn’t reach her anymore. Physical distance mattered in the spirit realm. Teleporting wasn’t magic; it was an alternative path through an invisible plane.

  The cold of nothingness dissipated, replaced by a salty breeze on her prickling skin. The Aquian gravity weighed on her shoulders, and the soothing sound of lapping water lulled her. Galen had trapped her with fantasies before, but the rocking of the floor told her this wasn’t her fantasy. She lay on the outer deck of a three-story yacht, only a small lip and sparse railing between her and the five foot drop into the ocean.

  Scrambling on uncooperative legs, Amanda scampered for cover, but the deck she was on circled an enclosed cabin with tinted windows. Whoever was inside could see her, but she couldn’t see them. A door open and Amanda climbed up, finding just enough lip for her fingers to scale the first floor. What would have been an easy escape in Terrana’s gravity turned out to be a bad plan here. Kicking at the windows to propel herself, her boots found traction against the glass. She grasped for a second purchase to keep going up, but her hand passed right through the wall of the second story, and she fell through a projection.

  “Tarelli?” Sikorsky asked, turning to see, leaping from his chair when he saw Amanda. He raised a knitter and pressed his wounded hand to his side.

  “Dammit! How did you get here?” Sikorsky exclaimed, backing away, but smiling with glee. “Why attack me in the hospital, then follow me here?”

  Amanda scanned the walls for escape, but now that she was inside the projection, all she could see was the fancy walls and a portrait of the Aquian pantheon. She needed her Occ. The center of the artificial room was lined with high tables over cabinet storage, and Sikorsky’s stool was next to one marked first-aid. Her eyes returned to the Pantheon. The portrait must have been there to signify something.

  “What are you looking at?” Sikorsky asked, positioning himself between her and the portrait.

  Amanda felt her wrists. Detective Serevi had thought to set her free, but he hadn’t left her a weapon. At the hospital, she could at least run into the streets and hide. She was trapped by the water now.

  “Darling, if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I told you I only want to talk,” Sikorsky chuckled, squatting down to get at eye level with her. He held out his hand and Amanda studied his wrinkle-free skin. He definitely had a spirit vibe, but the certainty of his hybrid nature that she’d felt back at the hospital was gone. “Now tell me: of all
the places for you to teleport, why come here?”

  “You didn’t bring me here?” Amanda asked, rising slowly.

  “I can’t move myself on purpose. How would I bring you along?” he said, rising with her. He had a youthful voice, but eyes that held ancient wisdom. Like Sky. But she didn’t think him a spirit-carrier.

  “So you don’t mind dropping me off some place?” Amanda asked.

  “You’re not even curious as to who sent you here, how, and why?” Sikorsky asked.

  “I’m guessing you brought me here by accident, you were reaching and I got in the way,” Amanda said. “Mystery solved. Are we close to Kemah?”

  “There’s more to the mystery, Amanda Gray,” he grinned. “You can talk to me. I realize I must have been intimidating in the hospital, but I don’t mean to hurt you. You don’t have to Disappear again.”

  “It’s not my choice,” Amanda said.

  “I know the feeling,” he said. “You must have some spirit power or Parker would not have put so much energy into finding you.”

  “I’m sure it has nothing to do with vengeance, seeing as I nearly killed Diana on more than one occasion,” Amanda said. “Although it was self defense, and she did kill my parents. Or she put them in the 5, which on Terrana is pretty much the same.”

  “How did Parker make you Disappear? How did he keep you hidden so long? How did you overcome his power? How did you come back?” Sikorsky asked, the questions bursting forth.

  “How, how, how? I don’t know how it works. Why don’t you ask Parker yourself?” Amanda retorted, running for the door.

  Sikorsky grabbed her by the elbow and slammed her wrist against the cabinet. “Did he drug you to suppress your hybrid ability?”

  “It’s not my power. It’s not my choice,” Amanda said, wincing as she felt his grip tighten.

  “Then how did you come here?” Sikorsky demanded.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I used yours,” Amanda said. “Sometimes I do things, but it’s not my power. I sense something moving and invite someone else to use their power on me.”

  “And you invited Parker to bring you back?” Sikorsky asked. He slammed his fist into the cabinet, the impact sending vibrations through Amanda’s hand. The flash of adrenaline from the near miss coupled with the loud smack of skin against metal, and Amanda dropped to her knees. Sikorsky kicked her knife out of reach, using his knee to lock her against the cabinets.

  “He never made me Disappear,” she said. “And he didn’t bring me back.”

  Amanda pointed toward the door, where the projection had shown a portrait of the pantheon.

  “You’re not leaving,” Sikorsky growled. “If you’re telling the truth, you can’t leave.”

  “The picture,” Amanda said. She tapped her Virp, calling up an image of the painting in the Sanshin temple. “This is the kind of creature that made me Disappear.”

  Sikorsky gaped, his manner changing from anger to disbelief. “They’re real? The half-breeds are real?”

  Amanda nodded, grateful to hear someone in the world acknowledge that truth.

  “That’s how he does it. That’s how he imitates hybrid power,” Sikorsky realized, taking Amanda’s hand, helping her to her feet. “How did he convince a half-breed to help him?”

  “I never met the man, but if I ever get the chance, I will ask,” Amanda said, her glibness returning now that he didn’t seem so eager to crush her.

  “Does he know you can tap into the power of other spirit-kind?” Sikorsky asked. “He must if he’s so eager to find you again.”

  “Could you write down your list of questions? This is getting long,” Amanda frowned.

  “How did you convince a half-breed to help you? How did you convince one to let you escape?” Sikorsky asked.

  “How, how, how?” Amanda shrugged. If Galen had ever told her the reason, it was lost in layers of paranoid delusion. “If I ever see him again, I’ll ask.”

  Sikorsky tapped the Feather on his ear and strode to the door. “Tarelli, take us inland. I need to speak to Coro. Janiya, not Damien.”

  Amanda didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t escape the boat until it got to port, and so she started opening the cabinets to see if there were any supplies worth stealing.

  Saskia sat on the floor of the hospital’s reflection room, her eyes closed, her mind concentrating on her breath. She lifted a flower to her face, inhaled the scent, and wove it into her braid. She hated dressing like an aristocrat, and creating a ritual art to the act of dressing was the only way she could stomach the end result.

  Hearing footsteps behind her, Saskia dropped her hands to her knees and used her pinky fingers to bunch her skirt. So far, the people who came through were harmless, but she had a knife strapped to her calf just in case.

  “Is that you, Saskia?” a man asked, his normally deep, resonant voice high-pitched with surprise.

  Saskia drew the knife and sprang into a crouch, facing off with the old Enn. She knew the sound of his voice, but his face had become wrinkled. She hadn’t seen him since she was thirteen. “Dad.”

  “She said you would be here,” he smiled, circling to one side of the room, giving her space to flee through the main door.

  “Who?” she asked, sliding the knife back into its sheathe. There was no shortage of exits in the room, so obviously his message in moving was that he was not a threat.

  “The asset you abandoned. Amanda Gray,” he accused.

  Saskia blinked, wishing she were more startled by his tone. He’d hated her ever since she announced her intention to join the Guard, and seemed to hate her more for being discharged.

  “You left her. And now she’s dead,” he sneered, seeming delighted to deliver the news. “I did what I could to clean up your mess.”

  “Clean. What?” she stammered, breaking a sweat. Her thoughts raced to Danny and Amanda. She’d barely leaned a thought to the pair, she’d been so focused on Tray. “Dad—”

  “Don’t call me that, traitor,” he snapped.

  Saskia’s chin quivered and she shrank back. Her father saw right through the swank disguise. He knew he didn’t need to belittle her for being unprepared to fight in her current state.

  “Why are you here?” she asked, smoothing her skirt, feeling the knife beneath.

  “To tell you I know,” he huffed, jabbing a finger at her. “I’ve figured it out. You never meant to protect them. You try to shame me for being a fringe-hunter, and you’ve been on the same hunt for Vimbai.”

  “I haven’t,” Saskia protested. “I’m a protector. Like you. I’m a protector!”

  She could say the words all she wanted, but when he looked at her with those dark, hate-filled eyes, she felt like nothing. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t be baited by him, but this was the first time she’d seen him since she made that promise, and she felt desperate to redeem herself.

  “You deserve to see your assets die,” he said, turning on his heels and disappearing through the nearest door.

  Saskia’s knees wobbled, and she put out her hands for balance. The whole conversation was confusing, and she wanted to run to Tray and make sure he wasn’t in danger.

  Her feet wouldn’t move.

  21

  There were no private rooms in the hospital, and Dr. Zenzele assured Tray that this was a good thing. No one would come after him with all these other patients around—with all these witnesses. Most of the time, she was laid-back, at least half-focused on treating him, but every now and then, she had those whispered moments of paranoia. Having spent the last two months in the wilderness, Tray didn’t understand what could be so dangerous about civilization.

  “I want to see Hero today,” Tray declared. The curtain was drawn around his bed, and the tiny area cramped with Saskia, Morrigan, and Ayize.

  “Yes, but there’s a better way,” Ayize argued, keeping his voice low. The buzz of conversations floating from beyond the curtain stood as constant reminder that their conversation was not private.
“We go quietly in the early evening, when the flow of foot traffic is away from the city center. We avoid the main streets, and get to the waterways as fast as possible.”

  “I’m not sneaking into my own home. Besides, Dan—people need to see that I’m okay,” Tray said. He’d barely caught himself from saying Danny’s name. Morrigan and Ayize weren’t privy to Danny’s survival. He thought about Danny hiding out in the city, and wondered if it would be another fifteen years before their paths crossed again. “The news will get to Hawk and Sky. They need to see.”

  “Talk sense into him,” Ayize groused, flicking his hand at Morrigan.

  Morrigan was overdressed today, in a silver pantsuit and long silver-chain jewelry. She wore an embroidered, white lab coat, with the sleeves rolled up past the screens of her medical-grade wrist-top Virp. Her wavy braids were swept in an up-do. A few of the braids were streaked with a caramel color, and woven artistically through the rest. There was a hint of paranoia in her eyes, but her movements were dulled and lethargic. She looked like she’d stayed up all night saving someone’s life. “If I could talk sense into him, he’d be staying here another week,” she yawned.

  “If the doctor says you stay; you stay,” Ayize said, crossing his bulky arms across his bulky chest.

  “Although, I can’t deny the mental stimulation would benefit both him and the boy,” Morrigan said, her gaze drifting aimlessly.

  “Hero. His name is Hero,” Tray groused. “Can you at least talk about him like he’s a person?”

  Morrigan clenched her jaw, moisture welling in her eyes. She clamped her hands over the railing at the foot of the bed, and dropped her chin. Saskia sat at the foot of the bed, her legs crossed, and she leaned slightly toward Morrigan, subtly offering the woman a shoulder to lay her head on. In the mornings, Tray often woke to find Saskia meditating, and as the days wore on, she’d said less and less, and dressed more like an aristocrat. The public news feeds had billed her as an exotic bride that Tray had acquired in his travels. Flowing, floral shirts and knee-length skirts had become part of her persona, and today, her long hair had purple flowers braided in.