The Colossus Collection : A Space Opera Adventure (Books 1-7 + Bonus Material)

by Nicole Grotepas

  Holly hated to think about it. How the children never knew. One day their teacher was there, adoring them, disciplining them, helping them learn the way the world worked, and then, bam! She was gone. “She’s sick. Let’s write her some cards and send a photo. Maybe she’ll get better and return.”

  And she never did.

  She sighed. Returned the stacks of memories to the box. Put the lid on.

  17

  If Holly was going to make this theft happen before she ran out of time, she needed a place to plan it. Her team now consisted of Darius the daredevil, who hopefully had some tech tricks up his sleeve that wouldn’t get her killed; Odeon, the soothing-nerve-singer/hummer and possibly something more (Thief? Pickpocket? What could those long, violet fingers do?); and herself.

  But they couldn’t meet in Meg’s apartment for many obvious reasons.

  And she wasn’t going to ask Darius for help like that. Wherever he lived was probably watched by the people he owed or had cheated and tricked. Although that likely meant he had a few places, if he was smart. Which he seemed to be, despite other indications that he wasn’t.

  She sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Odeon either. She’d just barely met both of these people.

  So she either needed to land some quick cash to rent a place or . . .

  She pushed the doors open of the Surge club and went in. Music throbbed inside, shaking her bones down into the marrow. It was strangely beautiful inside, with blue lights hanging down like icicles from the ceiling. Honeycomb shaped walls behind the bar held bottles of wine and liquor. In the middle of the room people danced and held their drinks at tall tables. Their faces were lit up from lights that were inside the tables.

  Holly was getting the hang of this. She went straight to the bartender, a Druiviin—she was never going to get used to calling them Yasao, it was time to accept it—and ordered their Russian imperial ale. The Druiviin kept his hair long and his clothing traditional—large sleeves on an open jacket, a black plain shirt underneath the jacket and wide-legged pants. He grabbed a Constie three-fluted glass, put it under the tap, and pulled the tap in a long draw. Then he handed Holly a zig-zag coaster and placed the glass down on it.

  “Thanks. I’m looking for someone—her name is Charly. Know her?” She had to shout to be heard over the music.

  The bartender smiled faintly and then pointed, wordlessly, at a hallway on the far end of the room.

  Holly nodded and headed for it, beer in hand.

  There were locked doors in the corridor, and Holly tried knocking on them, but none of them opened.

  With a sigh she eyed the stairway going down. Her last experience in a basement hadn’t been great. But she had to check it before going back to the bar to get more information.

  She headed down into the basement. It was well lit with sconce-wall lighting, which boosted her confidence.

  In the basement, she followed the corridor back under the main room above her.

  There was a crowd where the basement hallway opened up into a vast room with massive support pillars around her.

  There was a ring. And there were two people in the center, fighting.

  One of them was Charly.

  Holly laughed. Of course Charly was fighting.

  A trickle of blood ran down her cheek from a cut on the side of her eye. She wore a tight black tank with an athletic bra underneath it and shorts. Bare-knuckles and feet. Her opponent was a guy, just slightly bigger than Charly. His shaved head glistened with sweat beneath the lights. His arms and chest were muscled and lean.

  Is she crazy? Holly wondered. Fighting men seemed like a bad idea.

  “Come on Charly, kick his ass!” Holly shouted.

  Charly’s gaze flicked to Holly, but her guard didn’t come down. She kept her fists up in front of her face, dancing around her opponent. He swung at her, taking advantage of the distraction when he saw Charly’s gaze focus elsewhere. Charly’s forearm blocked it and then she took a jab at him. He blocked her jab and then swept his leg out to catch hers, tripping Charly, who fell onto her back. The crowd roared.

  Really? Holy thought. They’re rooting for the bastard? God. She shook her head.

  “Get up, Charly! You got this, babe! Bitches don’t back down!” Holly shouted.

  Charly rolled over just as her opponent’s heel came down and smashed the springy mats where she’d been. On her hands and knees, Charly swept her leg out behind her to try to catch him off-balance. But he’d already recovered and leapt over her leg. Charly jumped to her feet and squared off to face him.

  He charged at her and jabbed at her face, which she blocked, then swung hard at her gut. Charly collapsed inward, unable to block it. Then he hit her in the chin with an uppercut. Charly’s head snapped back and she fell backwards. He was on top of her like a predator about to rip into the guts of a jicktonn, the grass-beasts that ran free on the plains west of the Sliver.

  Oh no, Holly thought. “Get up, Charly! Mess this bastard up!”

  He was pummeling her face. Charly bucked and bucked and bucked, tossing him around, but she remained pinned. She brought her knee up into his back, which pushed him forward onto her chest and then, quickly, she brought her other leg up and in a surprisingly flexible move, got her ankle around his face. Before he could pull her off or dodge, she jerked her leg back down, and with her leg, came her opponent. Charly bucked again and kicked him off. She scrambled to her feet. Holly caught a glimpse of Charly’s face and cringed—blood dripped from her nose and lips. Her cheeks were already swelling.

  Charly turned to face him. He’d recovered as well—but he clearly felt confident that he had the upper hand. And he was certain that he knew Charly’s weakness. So he took the same tack as before: he charged at her, swinging hard, trying to intimidate her with this aggressive approach once more.

  But Charly danced lithely back, dodging and blocking, quick and unafraid, just confidently handling him as though he were a simple nuisance. She knew his trick. And she wouldn’t fall for it again, despite the beating she’d already taken. Charly had always been able to recover quickly.

  He pressed and pressed, pushing her to the edge of the ring. The springy ropes caught her back and pushed her forward. She used the momentum to twist and drop to her stomach, sliding under her opponent’s reach. She spun up onto her rear end and then leapt up and was behind him before he’d had a chance to turn.

  Charly launched into the air, bringing her elbow down onto his back, slamming into him, hard. Holly cringed.

  “God, that was brutal,” she muttered, taking a sip of her beer absently, in rapt attention.

  The move dropped him. He collapsed under Charly’s weight and she fell upon him. Straddling his back, she grabbed a fistful of his hair, then smashed his face into the ground. Once, twice, and again.

  “Do you yield?” Charly shouted. “Do you yield?”

  There was no panic in Charly’s voice. Just a matter-of-fact tone that said, “I’ve beat you.”

  He lifted his hand.

  Apparently that was the signal, because Charly leapt up and danced around the ring with her arms up in a victorious V-shape. The referee jumped into the ring and lifted Charly’s arm.

  “Winner!” He shouted.

  The crowd booed.

  “Screw you!” Charly shouted back at them. “Bet on the goddamn winner next time! Not my fault you bastards bet on a guy! This is my club! And I won, fair and square.”

  She marched over to the ropes, slipped through, and jumped down.

  “Holly!” Charly shouted.

  Holly pushed through the crowd to her friend.

  “Charly!”

  “Come here, you bitch!”

  They hugged. Charly’s body was slick with sweat and blood, and some of Holly’s ale spilled onto her. “Gross. Thanks for the beer bath.”

  “I thought it would neutralize the sweat stink,” Holly laughed.

  “Come with me back here. I need to clean up,” Charly said and led
Holly into a corridor on the opposite end of the room from the entryway. Charly opened the door of a room with a sign on it that read, “Owner. Private,” and they went inside.

  18

  “What the hell, Charly?” Holly blurted when they got inside the room and Charly had shut the door.

  Charly laughed. “What? I won. It was awesome. I was amazing.”

  “Yeah, but you took a damn beating.”

  Blood still dripped slowly from Charly’s nose. The trickle by her eye had stopped, but glistened with perspiration beneath the track lighting in the room. Her lip was swollen and there was still blood on her teeth.

  Charly pulled a box of water from a fridge and drank it. “Can’t help it. I need the money.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Well if I don’t get it, the other owners will push me out of the club.”

  “So this is yours?” Holly asked, astounded.

  “Didn’t I ever tell you?”

  “Uh, no. Pretty sure you did not.”

  “Weird.”

  She splashed some of the water onto a gray towel she pulled from a cabinet and gingerly patted it over her face. “I’m going to need a shower. But this will do for now.” She found a shirt and pulled it on over her tank, then pulled on a red jacket full of zippers and buttons.

  “You were, admittedly, amazing,” Holly said, shrugging. “But I really wasn’t expecting you to immediately begin fighting once you were out.”

  “Why not? I’m good at it. It brings in some extra cash when I need it.” Charly pulled off her shorts and then yanked on a pair of bright orange pants over her underwear, then slipped on a pair of sandals. “Let’s go upstairs. We can talk there. And I’ll get you another drink, since you gave me a bath with yours.”

  When they got to the bar, Charly told the bartender to turn the music down. It was the goddamn middle of the day and the lunch crowd wasn’t there for a rave.

  Holly laughed as the Druiviin complied, flashing a scowl at Charly.

  Charly turned to Holly. “I’ve been so grumpy since getting out. I thought everything would be better—but it’s not. My partners are being absolute dicks. They don’t even live here. They’re on Itzcap all the time, having drinks on the beaches. I’d buy them out if I could. They were so annoyed when I went to jail and they threatened to cut me out. So, the fighting thing. I need to make more money than the club makes, so I can catch up on what I owe them.” Charly glanced at the glass in Holly’s hand. “Is that a plain or an imperial ale? You want another?”

  “Sure. The imperial ale. A refill would be great.”

  “Torden,” Charly called to the bartender. “Another imperial ale. And then get me a Jasmine Monsoon, with vodka, on the rocks.”

  “So you’ve got partners all up in your face, you owe them more money, and you’d like to buy them out?”

  “Yep.”

  Torden handed Holly a new drink and took her glass away.

  “Well, what would you say if I told you I had a way to provide?”

  “Kind of cryptic. I’d say no more obscure references to possible opportunities. Lay them out. Let me decide.”

  Holly grinned at Charly, who took a sip of her surprisingly froofy drink.

  So Holly told her a few details about Xadrian’s job, and then paused and took a deep breath. “Are you in? If you’re in, I’ll tell you more. But I don’t want to tell you too much. I respect that you probably don’t want to get caught again and end up back in prison.”

  “What are the odds of getting caught?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t looked into it hard yet. I’ve only got two other people on my team so far. You’d be the third. That’d make four of us. I might need one more person. And I need a place to meet, somewhere to coordinate and right now I’m living at my sister’s. She’s a detective and though she gave me the lead in the first place, I can’t involve her. Plus she’s got a daughter.”

  “Oh, yeah. Your niece. How is she? I remember you talking about her.” Charly tilted her head. “So you’d want to use my club to meet?”

  “I wasn’t going to just blurt it out, but OK, since you brought it up, that could work. Honestly the thought just occurred to me—I didn’t know you were an owner. I just thought it was your job. But it’s your call. I definitely don’t want to put you at risk. Unless you know the risk and want to do it.”

  Charly held her drink and stared at the faint purple liquid, swirling it in the glass. She glanced at Torden who was watching them.

  “What would you do if I didn’t do it?”

  “Come on, Charly. I know like three people at the moment. You, my sister, and her ex husband. You’re my first choice. I need a fighter, because I’m not great at it. And I don’t want anyone to get irrevocably hurt. That’s where you’d come in.” Holly glanced at the bartender, who continued to watch them. She leaned closer to Charly. “You can deliver damage without killing someone. And you know Druiviins have amazing hearing, right? He can probably hear us. Are you OK with that?”

  “I’d trust Torden with my life.” She smiled at him. Her face was still in the process of swelling, so her lips looked bigger than usual. “It’s why he turns the music up loud—so he doesn’t have to listen to all the banal conversations. He calls them banal. I’d never use such a snooty word.”

  Holly nodded, and leaned back, glancing at Torden again. She smiled at him. He laughed, turned away, and began polishing beer glasses with a white cloth.

  “Did I mention my timeline? I’ve only got eleven days left to do this. As much as I’d love to give you a few days to think about it, I just can’t.”

  Charly finished her drink in one big swallow. “I don’t need time to think about it. I’m in.”

  “Thank Ixion. I didn’t know what I was going to do if you said no. Put an ad out?” Holly laughed, and then finished telling Charly the details as she polished off her drink. “I still need someone to do the distraction and scouting kind of stuff. I’ve exhausted my network. Maybe Odeon knows someone. Or Darius. God, Darius, don’t even get me started.”

  “I think I know someone who can help,” Charly said. “When do you want to meet him?”

  “Right away. Because we need to start as soon as possible. Tomorrow if we can swing it. How do you feel about him? Like, are you confident he’ll work well with us?”

  “Well,” Charly said with a shrug, “He works perfectly with me. Kind of in sync.”

  The way she said it, Holly cocked her head at her friend. “What? Is it Torden?”

  “I mean, no, no, not Torden. And no, nothing ever happened. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have loved something to have happened.” Then, as if remembering who was listening, Charly peered back over her shoulder at Torden behind the bar. “Mmm. I mean, like years ago, right? I’ve known him a long time. He’s a cool guy. Good at what he does. But we’re just friends. Never anything more. Besides, he’s got commitment issues. No one wants to be with a guy with commitment issues, right?”

  “Of course not,” Holly said. So, that was the status with Torden, eh? Now Holly understood the trust.

  “We can use the upper room. Right Torden?” Charly glanced back at the bartender. “No reason the partners need to know about this?”

  “Undoubtedly,” Torden agreed. He shook his head and walked away. A group of customers came to the bar just as Torden walked away.

  “Torden, come back. Customers!” Charly shouted. She looked at Holly and rolled her eyes as she shook her head.

  “Did you say the wrong thing?” Holly asked.

  “Men,” Charly said, throwing her hands in the air.

  “Come back in the morning and I’ll get Shiro here, so you can meet him. I’m sure he’ll take the job. He’ll love it, and I bet you’ll like him. I need to field these customers since our boy Torden wandered off to sulk.”

  “Great. I’ll get word to everyone. And Charly,” Holly said, standing up and giving her friend a hug. “Thanks. It’s good to have a frie
nd on the outside who knows me.”

  19

  “Plain bagel and cream cheese,” Holly said to the food truck vendor the next morning before the sunlight crashed between the spires of the city and lit it on fire in shades of green, ice, and lavender from the various jade towers near Holly’s lowly position on the ground.

  “Coming right up, sweetheart,” the vendor said. “Toasted?”

  “Please,” Holly said, milling about. “And can you throw in a kasè, white, no sweetener?”

  “Sure thing, sweetie.”

  Holly moved to the side so the other customers could order. As she waited, the morning light began to slant through the spires and cast shadows of the Spireway against the jade tops high above her, filtering down to the street where she stood, ordering breakfast on her walk over to Charly’s club. The city had that clean morning smell—like the night had rinsed it of the foulness shed by twenty million people crammed into one sprawling area. At times she longed for the country, to get out of the compacted sardine can. Maybe she could live on a farm, raising animals, in love with the land. Or become a game-keeper out on the plains farther away from the sliver, where domesticated animals lived in pastures and the wild ones ran free.

  Others ordered street food as Holly waited for her toasted bagel, their voices urgent and desperate. Bodies rushed around the vendor’s customers, pushing through the sidewalks and the streams of lives heading to a thousand different locations.

  Odeon materialized in the midst of the sea of faces and spotted Holly. His pale violet face grinned at her as he came to her side. His silver hair was up in a bun on top of his head, the sides short and he wore a human style of clothes—black pants, boots with a heel, a blazer and a shirt underneath it.