by Lili Zander
“Yes, Sir.”
“Tomas will provide remote security,” Ragnar continues. “He’ll give you heads up if anyone's approaching. Zeke’s on point to hack into the warehouses once you reach them.” I can hear the tension in his voice. “Good luck, everyone.”
Tomas takes over. “As always, I’ll use your designation to call out targets,” he says. “Bourtros, your team is Alpha 1-12. Watanabe, Beta 1-12. Dalsgaard, Gamma 1-12. Got it? Let’s go.”
The teams get moving. We watch as they pile into large skimmers with blacked-out windows. They travel through the back streets of Section 13 and pull up a few blocks from their destinations. “They’ll do the rest on foot,” Nero says to Raven.
He gets up and starts pacing behind me. “Watching is excruciating,” he mutters. “I hate it. I’d so much rather be out there. When you're in the middle of things, you don't have time to think about the fact that you're putting your soldiers’ lives on the line.”
Ragnar gives him a thoughtful look. “I agree.”
My screen beeps. Unexpected troop movement, heading toward Team Alpha. “Tomas.”
“I see it. Team Alpha, incoming patrol. Six vampires, approaching from the north-west.”
Sara Bourtros signals. Four members of her team peel off to deal with them. I watch over the other teams while Tomas runs the attack and calls out targets. “Alpha Five, one o’clock,” he calls out.
The soldier is perfectly trained. She raises her gun and fires the second Tomas calls out the shot. No hesitation, no second-guessing.
In the shadows, one of the patrol members drops silently. Nice.
Tomas doesn’t miss a beat. “Alpha Seven, three o’clock. Alpha Six, seven o’clock. Alpha Eight, five o’clock. Alpha Five, two o’clock. Alpha Seven, four o’clock.”
Five shots ring out. Five bodies drop. Tomas waits for a second, and then another. “All clear.”
The soldiers rejoin the others. I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding, and look for the next set of patrols.
Team Alpha runs into two more patrols. Each time, they take them out easily.
Saber starts to smile. “This is the downside of storing your boarium on Banrilia,” he says. “You can't bring a large group of soldiers to guard it because that will make the local authorities suspicious. And in this case, the local authorities report to Family Clay, one of your rivals in the Council. So Levitan has to be discreet. All he can do is station a dozen soldiers to guard his fuel.” He shakes his head. “A reasonable strategy, assuming nobody could find the boarium.” His smile widens. “Unfortunately for him, Zeke and Tomas found the boarium.”
“We’re not in the clear yet,” Ragnar warns.
On the screen, Team Gamma arrives at the warehouse. “We’re here,” Dalsgaard says. “Not much of a lock. Hang on…” The door swings open, revealing a warehouse filled with haunches of frozen meat, hanging from ceiling hooks. “False alarm.”
Disappointment rushes through me. Damn it. People are putting their lives at risk based on my intel. What if I’ve screwed up, and we don’t have the locations right after all?
Raven sees my expression and gives my hand an encouraging squeeze. “Pull out,” Ragnar orders calmly. “Back to base.”
Gunshots ring out. This time, Team Beta is under attack. I call out targets, and Watanabe and her team swiftly dispose of the patrols.
“We’re here,” she calls out a few minutes later. “Shit. It’s a timer lock.”
Timer lock. Seven layers of security. Thirty seconds to get through each layer, otherwise they reset, and you have to start over.
“Fuck.” Frustration is etched on Ragnar’s face. “That’s impossible to beat.”
“Not impossible. Nothing’s impossible. It’s just very difficult to break through.” Everyone turns to me. “I got past my first one when I was fourteen.”
Ragnar shrugs. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe me. “Do your best.”
I enter my cone of focus. The room fades to the background, and nothing remains but the problem. My fingers fly over my keyboard. Numbers dance in the air in front of me. Peace settles in my gut. I’ve hacked all my life. In my childhood, I broke into systems without realizing what I was doing. People died because of what I did.
When I learned the truth, I rebelled. It wasn’t until I helped find Nero’s mother that I fully realized that my skills could be used for good. Still, there’s always been a small part of me that’s never forgotten that because I emptied Tohen Family accounts, the Oensi killed Bruno Tohen.
There’s always been a part of me that’s been ashamed of what I can do.
Until now.
The warehouse door swings open. An expression of shock washes over Jun Watanabe’s face. “How…?” Then her training snaps into place. She enters the warehouse, and we see what she sees.
Crate after crate of softly glowing boarium fuel cells.
Ragnar has a very peculiar expression on his face. “When this is done,” he says. “Remind me to make you another offer. You’re wasted in the Imperial Army.”
I refrain from pointing out I’m not part of the Imperial Army anymore. “Cargo trucks to Team Beta,” Tomas calls out. “Excellent work, everyone. Team Alpha, report?”
I hear sirens. They seem to grow louder, and then they recede, and I realize they’re coming from Team Alpha’s feed. “Command, get a load of this.” Sara Bourtros pushes open her warehouse door, and I see cage after cage of endangered animals from all around the galaxy.
The trucks have pulled up at Team Beta’s warehouse. The soldiers swiftly and efficiently load the boarium into the back.
I do a quick search. “The animals are headed to a trophy hunter reserve in Section 25.” My lips curl with disgust. “Fucking Banrilia.”
Ragnar clenches his jaw. The sirens sound again. “I’ll take care of it,” Tomas says. “I’ll clean it up. Team Alpha, pull out. You’re about to be swarmed.”
The noise is getting louder. It’s not coming from the screen. It’s coming from outside. Multiple alarms go off on my console. I glance at the screen and stiffen. “We’ve got good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?”
“The bad news, please,” Ragnar replies.
“We’ve got trouble. Security forces are on their way here. We’ve got to evacuate now.”
“What’s the good news?”
“Gerra Clay has landed. She’s made her way to Club Tranche. We can head there now, or we can head back to the Valiant and take off.”
What’s it going to be? Kill Gerra or evacuate?
Saber grimaces. “We need to stick together. Taking Raven to Club Tranche…”
“Do I get a vote?” Raven asks. “Because I vote to kill that bitch.”
Saber and Nero and I exchange glances. “Don’t treat me like a doll, guys,” Raven warns, her voice dangerous.
“We can protect Raven in Club Tranche,” I say reluctantly. “The club isn’t dangerous. Just vile. I vote to kill her too.”
Ragnar straightens his shoulders. “Voting. What an interesting decision making process.” He nods decisively. “Let's do it.”
30
Raven
Club Tranche is massive. Twenty stories tall, each floor the size on an entire sector on Boarus 4. The club holds thousands of vampires. I’ve never seen so many of them in one place.
There’s a line to get into the club. We join it. A group of five male vampires stands in front of us, and they leer at me, their gazes hungry. One of them drops his fangs, and I instinctively shrink back, recoiling from him.
It’s going to take me a very long time to break the habits that helped me survive on my home world.
Zeke puts a protective hand around me and gives the offending vampire a death glare. “If I were you,” he says, layering threat into each syllable, “I’d back down. Quickly.”
They hear the threat, loud and clear. Unfortunately, they’re too drunk to recognize that Zeke can break all five of them with his ba
re hands. “Or what?” the man asks belligerently. “What are you going to do, fight me? For a human?” His eyes roam over my body. “She’s pretty enough, but nothing special.”
Zeke’s smile promises violence. I stiffen, but before I can intervene, one of the other vampires cuts in. “Boris, if you get into a fight and get us kicked out before I can get to the thirteenth floor, I will kick your ass myself.”
Our altercation has drawn attention. Two uniformed security guards stride menacingly toward us, their hands on their weapons. “Do we have a problem here?” one of them asks, staring at the vampire who has his fangs extended.
Boris finally decides that discretion is the better part of valor. He retracts his fangs. “No problem.”
I half-expect Saber or Ragnar to tell Zeke off for almost getting into a fight at the lobby, but to my surprise, they just look worried. “Don’t let her out of your sight,” Saber murmurs. I realize why when we reach the club employee who’s working the entrance. She’s a female vampire. Tall and imposing, her dark hair is slicked back into a tight ponytail. Her nails are painted blood red, and when her gaze snaps on me, she looks hungry.
“What is your pleasure?” she asks Nero, who’s in the lead. “If you’re looking for a replacement for your human, the auction is on the thirteenth floor. The club’s commission is ten percent. You can register for another hour.” She gives the vampires a considering look. “You look like you could use the money. The human is young and fresh. She’ll do well in the auction.”
Nero laughs loudly. “She would do well,” he agrees, his words slurred. “But we’ve not yet had our fill of her.” He leans forward, swaying slightly on his feet. The woman draws back as the reek of stale booze hits her. “Ramona,” he says, reading her name tag. “What an unusual name.” He gives her an irresistible smile. “It’s my first time here,” he confides. “I’ve heard so much about your feeding rooms. They’re on the top floor, aren’t they, Ramona?”
She thinks he’s drunk, but you’d have to be a drone to be immune to the charm Nero’s turning on. I’ve been the recipient of that smile before. I don’t blame her for grinning back at him like a stupid fool. Don’t get me wrong; I’m jealous, and I want to claw her eyes out with my nails, but I don’t blame her for it. “No, the feeding rooms are on the nineteenth floor,” she replies. “The top floor is for staff.”
Nero leans even closer to her, his lips inches from her ear. “I’ve heard stories,” he murmurs. “I’m in the mood for a human tonight. Not Raven, she’s a bit too old. You wouldn’t happen to have something younger, would you?”
Ramona’s eyes go wide for a split-second, and then she stiffens and draws back. A professionally bland mask slams over her face. “It is illegal to feed from a human under the age of sixteen,” she says. “We follow the law at Club Tranche.”
Nero steps back, holding his hands up. “Sorry, darling. Didn’t mean to cause offense.” He gives her another disarming smile. “I’ve heard so much about your club. I can’t wait to try it out.”
The smile does its magic. Relaxing, she affixes a stamp on each of the vampires’ wrists. “Don’t leave the human unattended. We’re not responsible for her safety.”
“What time do you get off?” Nero rubs his thumb over her palm, and I clench my fingers into fists and try not to care. It’s a role; I know it’s a role. But he’s mine. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Ignoring the lengthening line behind her, she responds with a breathy laugh. “In three hours, and yes. I’d love a drink. I’ll find you.”
As expected, we pass next through a weapons check. Saber, Zeke, Nero, and Ragnar surrender their knives without a murmur of protest. I hold my breath as Zeke’s pack passes through the scanner. It’s stuffed to the brim with hacking equipment, and I’m bracing for alarms to go off and guards to come running.
It passes through without a problem. Zeke eyes the expression on my face, and his lips tilt up. “A little more confidence, yäirta. This isn’t the first time we’d done this.”
My cheeks heat. “I know. I’m still nervous.” Club Tranche isn’t directly owned by Family Clay—it gives them plausible deniability about what goes on here—but this is still the Chipwa Sector, and Gerra has a lot of influence in Banrilia. We’re in hostile territory, and there are thousands of vampires here. If this goes wrong… we can’t fight our way out. We will die here.
He squeezes my hand reassuringly. We get into an empty elevator, and he pulls a square box out of the pack, about the size of my palm. He pushes one of its buttons and then nods. “It’s safe to talk.”
Ragnar eyes the elevator’s control panel. “She’ll be on the twentieth floor,” he says, punching the button experimentally. It doesn’t light up. ‘Reserved for Staff Members,’ an automated voice intones.
Ragnar hits the nineteenth-floor button, and the elevator starts to rise. “Can you hack into it, Zeke?” He steps out of the way, and Zeke rummages through his pack for another piece of equipment. “Oh, never mind. Of course, you can. You got past a timer lock today.”
Zeke gets to work. “How do you know Gerra Clay’s on the twentieth floor?” I ask Ragnar.
“Magnificent views of Banrilia are reserved for the very rich,” he says dryly. “There are three underground floors in this building. That’s where the staff really works. No, the twentieth floor is invitation-only. And tonight, it’s been emptied for Gerra and her inner guard.”
Zeke’s device beeps. “Got it.” The elevator glides to a stop, and the doors open. “We’re here.”
The lobby was covered with mirrors and flooded with golden light. This floor, on the other hand, is dimly lit. The walls are lined with red silk. The furnishings are red and gold. Music plays through invisible speakers, a low, throbbing drumbeat that manages to sound both arousing and menacing.
Ragnar rolls his eyes. “This is the famous twentieth floor of Club Tranche? It looks like a low-end whorehouse. Gerra always had execrable taste.”
We round a corner, and run into our first guard, wearing the insignia of Family Clay. “For fuck’s sake, are the elevators malfunctioning again?” he asks, looking annoyed. “This floor is reserved. You shouldn’t be here.”
Ragnar rams into the guard. His right leg snaps up, and he punches a kick into the man’s solar plexus. The man staggers backward, slams into the wall, and crumples to the floor. Saber is there in seconds, pressing a needle into the man’s neck. “Anthurium,” he explains for my benefit. “It causes temporary paralysis.”
The entire thing has taken less than ten seconds. No wonder the vampires hadn’t been concerned about the weapons check. They don’t need them.
We head down the corridor. It twists and turns. We turn left, and then right, and then left again. There are doors on either side, but Zeke shakes his head, and we ignore them. “We’re in a maze,” he murmurs, looking at his screen. “Each door opens into a den of perversion.” His voice sharpens. “Incoming.”
It’s a pair of guards. Unlike the first guy, who assumed we were here by mistake, these two guards instinctively reach for their guns as soon as they see us. Then they realize they don’t have any. Thank you, weapons check.
That split second hesitation is all we need. Saber and Nero explode into action, charging into them. Saber locks his hands around his target’s neck and brings his knee up into the guy’s groin. Nero jabs his fist into his victim’s chest.
Both men drop to the floor. Saber administers the anthurium. “One of these days,” he says conversationally to Ragnar, “You must tell me how you got your hands on this. It’s supposed to be experimental.”
Ragnar barks a laugh and steps over the paralyzed guards. “Who do you think funds the research?”
We fight our way through a dozen guards. Well, not me. I watch the masterclass unfold in front of me in awe. These are Gerra Clay’s elite guards, and the vampires are going through them with brutal efficiency. Soldiers appear; Ragnar, Saber, and Nero dispatch them. Zeke shields me and keeps an
eye on his equipment at the same time. “Is it supposed to be this easy?” I whisper to him.
He watches Ragnar aim a swift kick at a soldier’s neck. “I’ve never seen him fight,” he says, a tone of admiration in his voice. “It’s pretty impressive.”
A soldier spots me, and his eyes light up. I’m the weak link, and he knows it. He charges me, moving with vampire speed. Before I can react, Zeke sweeps his foot out. The man crashes to the ground. Zeke locks his hands around the vampire’s neck and twists. I turn my head away; I can’t watch.
I hear the distinctive crunch of bones breaking, and then Zeke joins me again. “Targeting you is a very bad idea.” He holds up his hand. “We’re here. Through that door.”
In our briefing on Gao 69P, Ragnar had warned us what to expect. “There will be twenty guards,” he’d said. “No weapons. Even Gerra has to respect the no-weapon rule at Club Tranche. The guards aren’t chosen for skill but for loyalty.” His expression had been disgusted. “Even among Family Clay, Gerra’s addiction to human children is a dirty little secret, one they would prefer to keep hidden. There will be no cameras.”
So far, things have gone exactly to plan. I’m still nervous, but I’m starting to relax.
Then we push open the door to Gerra’s private lounge, and my calm evaporates.
There are three children in the room with her. One of them, a little girl who cannot be older than three, is slumped on the floor at her feet, obviously dead.
Another, a boy who looks about four, is on her lap, his eyes glazed. Gerra’s head is bent over his neck, and she’s drinking.
Draining him.
Killing him.
In one corner of the room, chained to the wall, is another little girl. Her hair is reddish brown. Her dress is torn. Tear marks have left tracts on her dirt-smudged face.
She’s waiting her turn.
Ragnar takes in the room, and his expression darkens. “Hello, cousin.”