Might be nice to have Kalaes’ positive outlook on life. Elei could see a thousand paths, a thousand possibilities, and none of them pleasant.
Kalaes rummaged in a trunk and threw Elei a striped blue and green blanket. “Get some sleep, fe.” Kalaes fell on the bed and pulled the covers up to his waist. He yawned so hard his jaw cracked. “G’dnight.”
Kalaes was right. The woman who’d asked about him wasn’t there. Then why was cronion on the fore, tightening his insides?
Or maybe he’d felt safe, protected, for so long with Pelia, he’d forgotten what it was like to fend for himself. Maybe cronion was just reminding him that there was no rest, no relaxation in the real world.
When Elei looked up, Kalaes was already fast asleep. He watched the black-clad chest rise and fall for a while and tried to relax. He wrapped himself in the blanket and sank against the wall, letting himself slide down.
He kept the Rasmus out, in the general direction of the door, though he left the safety on. Accidentally shooting himself in the foot was the last thing he needed. He shifted, seeking a more comfortable position, his gut tight, his head throbbing, the world flashing in colors, every detail painfully sharp. He pulled his hood forward, half-hiding his face, and closed his eyes, but images kept playing behind his lids — Pelia, the girl in the alley, the Gultur shooting the men. The boatman, Timmy, Fia, his endless wandering in the streets, all that had happened ran in an endless loop, providing no new clues, just more headache.
Who was that woman who asked for him? Was it someone he knew? Hells, Falx had tried to kill him and Elei had always thought him his friend. What if the ama vendor from Ost turned out to be after his head too?
He was being paranoid. But who could blame him, under the circumstances? The world made no sense.
Dawn was seeping through the windows, red as blood, when he finally slept and dreamed that a little girl stood before him, her small naked feet in the clear water of a huge fountain. The fountain was in the shape of a seashell carved of white marble. Soft waves of blond hair fell around her cat-like face, framing her large, dark eyes. She wore a long yellow dress with dark stains like blood down the front.
“Elei.” She bent over and placed a small hand on his cheek. “I am Poena.”
The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He reached out to touch her and her arm was solid, warm, and her scent powdery, milky. “Do I know you?”
She slipped from his fingers like an eel. “I bring a message from the king in you.”
He drew his hand back. “The king?” Something was off. No child talked like that. “What king, what are you on about?”
She smiled, showing black gaps in her teeth. “Find the silvery lake at the temple, spill blood into the water, turn the water red.” Tears formed in her gray eyes, rolled down her cheeks, framing her smile with shiny tracks. “Do you hear me? Spill blood. Spill it all. You must.”
* * *
Coordinates found, Hera hurried out of Iliathan’s tiny basement, letting the door slam behind her, and climbed the iron ladder onto his small aircar. With one step she reached the cabin and wrenched the door open. The cockpit was cramped and smelled of engine oil. Bent, she scooted over to the driver’s seat. One more person could fit next to her, and two more people behind. A good, practical size. She hummed her approval.
The longgun secured under one foot, she took stock of the driving panel. Standard. Using Iliathan’s code, she started the engine and flipped on the equilibrators and emergency lights.
She had the name of a town, even a street and a number. Someone was very serious about their work. They’d interrogated anyone who might have seen Eles on his flight. Grudgingly, Hera had to admit they’d done a much better job than her.
Then again, she had not tortured anyone to get the information. She shuddered as the details and photos from the reports flashed before her eyes.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Iliathan raced out onto the street yelling, waving his arms in the air. His hair stuck out like the spines of a sea urchin. “You can’t take that aircar! It belongs to the company. They’ll fire me!”
“I’ll bring it back,” she shouted and smirked. One day. “It’s an emergency.”
“Yeah.” His hands curled into fists. She could barely hear his voice now. “I like you Hera, I really do, but that boy’s probably already roast meat or charcoal by now and I need that aircar. Are you even listening to me?” He pulled out his gun and trained it on her. “Hera, damn you!”
Eles had better not be dead. Hera accelerated, passed by Iliathan, knowing he would not shoot her, and set the course for Aerica and the apartment of Kalaes Ster. He had damn well better not be.
Chapter 11
Elei paced the room, his stomach cramped like a stone lodged under his ribs. A bleep had woken him at the crack of dawn and Kalaes had staggered past him with his beeper in hand. He’d gone to work and Elei had dozed off for a while longer. Dawn had turned to late morning by the time he stood up, golden light spilling through the window, and a check of the apartment had shown him he was indeed alone.
He reached the wall and turned back. And again. It was too quiet. No sound from outside. No aircars passing. No voices. He stopped, his heart beating too fast, then backtracked until his back was pressed to the wall. He curled his fingers around the handle of his gun. Inside the building, he heard a woman’s cry. A whiff of dakron teased his nostrils.
His right eye twitched and throbbed. Everything inside the room began to glow, their outlines impossibly bright, as if burning with white fire. His legs tensed, quivering with the need to run.
Danger.
Yet no colors flashed in his eyes. He hesitated, caught between relief and fear. Cronion hadn’t activated his heat sensitive vision, which could mean that he was wrong. That he was safe.
Though his insides wouldn’t knot like that if he was, would they? Sweat rolled down his temples, down his back and his heart pumped furiously.
A crash sounded from above.
Before he realized what he was doing, he wrenched the door open and ran out. He glanced right and left. The corridor was empty. Voices rang from above. Then the hum of aircars came from outside, so deep it sent an ache into his teeth.
See? he told himself. There’re sounds. Nothing’s out of the ordinary. Stand down.
But the corridor swam in an eerie glow and his heart hammered against his ribs. He started down the stairs — just to check, just to set his heart and damned cronion at ease.
Whispers.
He paused, his back plastered to the wall, and listened. Male voices conversed below. A faint scent of smoke tickled his nose. Elei stepped back toward the apartment and the corridor flashed with pale, washed out colors, blue, green, faint yellow, watery pink. He jerked around in a circle.
Nobody and nothing was there. No assailants, no fire, no danger. Was cronion running mad? He strode back to Kalaes’ apartment and gripped the door handle. A thundering sound filled his ears, like the whiz of helicopters and planes, gathering in a great swarm, descending on him. The stench of burnt dakron filled his nostrils.
A sharp ache rushed from his right eye to encompass the right side of his head. He clutched it, reeling against the wall. What in the hells was wrong?
Danger. Flee. Leave the building.
There had to be an emergency exit. He forced himself not to run and instead walked to the other end of the corridor. When he reached the emergency door, he took a deep breath and tried the handle.
Locked. A howl was building in his chest. Swallowing it, he kicked the door, pummeled it with his fists. His head buzzed unpleasantly. He rattled the handle, desperation heavy in his stomach, then he forced himself to look at the lock more closely. The design was unfamiliar, a plain metal sheet with strange symbols engraved on its surface.
The thundering sound intensified, drilling inside his skull. The colors around him flared, blinding neon green and yellow, and he groaned, dizzy. Frantically,
he ran his fingers over the lock, searching for any clue to its function.
Something clicked under his forefinger and the door opened. He stumbled out on a creaking fire escape, but the blinking colors threw off his balance. He grabbed the rusty ladder and inched down. Below him, the narrow alley stretched into emptiness. As he crawled down, snatches of sounds bored into his ears like insects. The metal ladder glowed a faint silver.
Elei dropped into the alley, landing on his feet, but his knees gave way and he fell to all fours. He laid his head on his folded arms for a moment, willing the nausea to subside, then crawled away until he could find his feet.
A glance up showed him a clear, empty sky. No planes, no helicopter. Heartbeat in his mouth, he stood and ran. The world pulsed, unbearably bright, as he raced among crumbling buildings, in claustrophobic, winding streets. Getting away. Only that mattered.
Hiding in shadows, he ran and threaded through back alleys. And the worst was that he didn’t know what exactly he was running away from, only that he was getting as far from it as possible. Golden outlines of people showed behind fences and hedges, and he hid from everyone, even from children playing on the sidewalk. Finally he fell behind a dumpster and huddled there, too winded to move.
What in the deepest hell are you doing? He curled into a ball. You’ve slept too little, you’re tired and you let a parasite control you like a puppet. You had it under control until the shooting. You can’t run from everything. You can’t run away from quiet. Since when is quiet suspect?
He unfolded his legs, leaned back and breathed deeply, starting to wonder where he was. The light was high, the shadows short. He just sat there, feeling like he’d felt all those years ago, when Albi had died and he’d wandered the streets of Alecto for the first time.
Lost.
He remembered the monks of the factory convent who had taken him in. Faceless, nameless, a mass of masks and hooded heads. Isolation. Quiet. But no complaints, even though after Albi’s warmth and affection it had felt at first like living encased in a block of ice. He’d had food and work and learning, and although talking and laughing had been discouraged, the monks had been the reason he’d survived. No orphanages on Ost. No charity for the ones marked with telmion and other diseases. He’d been lucky.
And then Pelia had come along, looking for a driver, and he’d looked up and right into her smiling face. She’d taken him with her. A stray. He hadn’t known she’d done it before. That it had been her habit. Her hobby.
He sighed, not sure why he was angry. She’d taken him in and it had been an act of kindness. Nothing wrong with kindness. But now he thought he might have preferred to find out it had been something different. He struggled to pinpoint the concept he was looking for. Affection, perhaps. Connection. What kept families together. What gave birth to smiles.
His eyes burned. Affection or kindness, she’d been his family. Now she was dead, like Albi before, and he was again alone.
The light changed and the shadows lengthened. What time was it? Elei’s leg muscles protested when he pushed himself to his feet. Kalaes would think him mad for bolting like that, without a reason. And he’s probably right.
Maera would be worried, too. A sudden flash of fear went through him. What if something had happened to them?
Yeah, add paranoia on top of ordinary madness. Yet, he couldn’t shake off the sting of fear the thought carried. He started to run. When he received curious stares, he pulled on his hood and slowed down. He jogged in the general direction he remembered coming from. He passed decaying buildings crowded with squatters, kids huddling under low walls to roll ama cigarettes, and cats prowling street corners. After a while, he realized he was lost, unable to even remember Kalaes’ street name, until he finally came into the main avenue.
While waiting to catch his breath, he checked the avenue for anything suspicious but nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. He finally spotted Kalaes’ building and strolled toward it as casually as he could, hands in his pockets, his hood drawn down over his face. There was no sign of anything unusual, no crowds gawking, no police helicopters. How was he going to explain why he’d run away like that? Kalaes might not even let him inside again. It wasn’t as if he owed Elei nothing.
Closer up, he stiffened. Thin smoke drifted from an open second floor window. Had the façade been streaked with black the previous day? He frowned but figured that it was, after all, an old building, full of stains and mold. When he reached the entrance, he saw no movement inside and nobody stood at the door or the stairs.
The street was busy, though; people moved around him, vehicles passed, a dog barked on a corner. His flight already felt like a bad dream. He pushed the door open and entered.
Burnt dakron, burnt flesh. His nostrils twitched and his stomach tried to climb up his throat. He ran up the stairs. At the first landing, he stopped in his tracks, breath knocked out of his lungs, not understanding what he was seeing.
Blackened walls and floor, chipped ceiling. All windows were broken, pools of glass shards before each one. A body sprawled in the corridor, near an open apartment door. His gut clenched and he doubled over. Kalaes? Maera?
Oh, gods no, please don’t do this.
He wiped at his eyes and forced himself to straighten, to walk on, to check the corpse. The smell of cooked flesh turned his stomach. The corridor tilted and he steadied himself with a hand on the wall. The body was charred. The face was unrecognizable. His eyes finally registered pieces of a pink robe.
The neighbor. What was her name? Zela. Zea. Whatever. Something had exploded close to her, probably an incendiary grenade falling through the window.
Not Kalaes. Not Maera.
Elei stood there, breathing heavily, his relief so profound his knees threatened to give out. He left the corpse and climbed the second flight of stairs, his Rasmus gripped in both hands. The door to Kalaes’ apartment stood ajar. If Elei hadn’t seen the body downstairs, he might have thought he’d just left it that way on his way out. Heat emanated from inside. He raised the Rasmus and flipped the safety off.
Gods, please don’t let either of them be dead.
No sound, no movement. No flare of colors. Cronion remained still inside him. Odd. Elei looked in. Burnt. All burnt. Warmth pulsed off the walls and floor. The furniture had fallen in charred heaps, the walls were black and the floor was covered in soot. Hells. Rocket-propelled fire grenades, highly explosive. He’d seen them used before, in houses razed by the police on Ost.
Whoever they were, they’d made sure nobody inside would survive. If he hadn’t left, he’d have stood no chance of making it out alive.
He steeled himself and entered, his boots crunching on pieces of furniture. He had to make sure Kalaes and Maera hadn’t been there. Had to look. Silent as a ghost, he moved from room to room, scanning every surface.
No other body. It didn’t mean much, but it meant something. It meant there was a chance Kalaes and Maera hadn’t been there when this had happened. That they’d survived.
Unless they had known this would happen. What if they’d been the ones behind this? He hardly knew them. What if they’d sold him out?
Exhausted, he stumbled into the bedroom and slid down the wall, curled into a tight ball and tried not to think.
Yet the thought couldn’t be chased away, or the fact that someone was after him, and they weren’t the question-asking kind.
Chapter 12
After checking the apartment for the third time, satisfied that no charred bodies were to be found under the burnt metal frame of the bed, inside the kitchen or in the bathroom, Elei prepared to leave. Staying wasn’t a good idea, though he didn’t know where to go.
Find Kalaes and Maera, make sure they were okay. That was the new plan.
Gun held loosely in one hand, yet cocked and ready, he rolled his shoulders and stepped out of the apartment. He headed toward the stairs, when he heard a gasp. He turned and aimed at the shadows of the open doors of the other apartment. He though
t he saw a movement, but cronion didn’t flare. That confused him and he hesitated. His finger trembled on the trigger.
The barrel of a gun glinted in a shaft of daylight. He squinted, ready to shoot, and thought he saw soft brown curls. The light breeze from a broken window brought a scent of moist earth.
Elei fought with all he had not to pull the trigger. Heart pounding, he forced his trembling finger back. “Maera.”
She stepped out into the open and lowered her weapon. It looked like Kalaes’ sonic gun. Her lips quivered. “Elei! You’re alive! You’re okay!”
Trust her? Not trust her? He wavered, teeth clenched so tightly his jaw ached. Albi had told him once that cronion only acted according to his own feelings about someone. Gut feeling. Aptly named. Though telmion who lived in his intestines didn’t care about his feelings or even his survival. The only reason it hadn’t killed Elei yet was cronion’s powerful hold.
When cronion remained silent, he lowered his gun and holstered it. Well then. It looked like he did trust her after all. “I’m okay.”
With a soft squeal, she threw her arms around him, crushing him against her warm body. “Thank the gods.”
“And you’re fine too.” He was stiff in her arms, too tense to relax. “And Kalaes?”
“He’ll be okay. He’ll be fine.”
Something in her words made him pull back, feeling cold. “Will be? Something happened to him?” She sniffled and the cold in his stomach grew. “Maera?”
“I just have to get some things. Kalaes broke most of my dishes today.” She ducked inside and returned in a few minutes, holding three of the orange dishes and a pan. “Come!” She grabbed his hand and dragged him down the stairs.
“What happened to him? Tell me!”
“I told you, he’ll be fine.”
He’d placed both Maera and Kalaes in danger. Elei’s shoulders hunched, battered down with worry and guilt. He knew he should leave, protect them with his absence, and he had a mind to twist out of Maera’s hold and run away.
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