Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, & Magic

by SM Reine

  “That’s right,” I said. “The succession order.”

  “Why on earth would you be interested in that?” he said.

  His voice remained sharp under the disbelief, and I saw what might have been wariness under that. For the first time in our conversation, I remembered he was an infiltrator, like Revik.

  “We’ve never been able to see into that, love,” he said, shaking his head. “Why would you even look there? What do you expect to find, exactly?”

  I smiled, but had to fight to keep the anger out of my voice.

  “I know,” I said, smiling again. “It’s practically Revik’s mantra. It’s way over my head. I’m just a beginner...I get it. You don’t need to go there, Eli.”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant, love.”

  “So you don’t understand why I might be interested in the people who killed my mother?” I said, my own voice sharper. At his silence, I bit my lip. When he still didn’t say anything, I asked again, “So what do you think, Eli? Really. About the Bridge stuff, I mean.”

  The hard look faded from his eyes, leaving the lighter one a clear blue.

  “Love, I know you’re worried about reincarnation and all that,” he said, sighing. “But I don’t think that’s the point, really.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  “It’s about roles, see. Some are too important...some affect too many people to leave to chance. The Bridge is like that. There needs to be someone overseeing things, when something as heavy as a Displacement goes down.”

  For a moment, I could only look at him, replaying what he’d said.

  “You really believe all that stuff?” I said.

  He grinned, resting his head on the chair’s back. “You sound surprised.”

  “For a seer, you’re almost...normal. I had my hopes.”

  Leaning forward, he placed his free hand, the one not gripping his beer, lightly on my thigh. “Does that mean you’re warming to me, then, love?”

  Smiling, I shook my head, moving my legs out of reach of his fingers. “There’s a serious shortage of female seers on this ship, am I right?”

  “Brutally small,” he agreed cheerfully. “And Chandre’s as likely to try for you as I am. But you’d be a peach anywhere, love. And that pain coming off you is simply...maddening. I don’t know how he can stand it...”

  I felt my jaw harden again. I considered making a joke, trying to laugh it off, but decided there was no way it would come off.

  I shrugged instead, folding my arms.

  “Revik said that seer relationships were ‘complicated’...and largely biological. He said I shouldn’t take it personally. Is that true, too?”

  Eliah snorted. “Bloody romantic.”

  “Is it true, Eliah?”

  He shrugged. “It’d be true in a way, I suppose. We’re a bit more biologically wired for monogamy than humans. But that’s not exactly the same thing, if you don’t mind my saying...and doesn’t have anything to do with who we choose as a mate. In fact, you could say the reverse is true.”

  At my puzzled look, he shrugged with one hand, seer-fashion.

  “The biological symptoms could be unsettling, I suppose. Especially if you didn’t know what was happening. Someone like you, who thought they were human, it’s got to be that much harder...” He frowned, studying my face. Leaning forward, he looked at my eyes.

  “Gods. You’re not in love with him, are you, Allie-girl?”

  I shook my head, but felt my chest clench a little anyway.

  “I barely know him,” I said.

  “That’s not what I asked.” Still studying my eyes, he added more cautiously, “The rest of us, we assumed you chose him for protection. Or, frankly, because he was the first male seer you met, and bad luck on you for that.”

  He hesitated, laying a hand on my arm.

  “But if you are in love with him. Well...that changes things. Won’t be so easy to pull out of this thing with him then, pet. And I’m sorry for that.” He caressed my arm. “I truly am.”

  I focused on his eyes. They seemed to brighten strangely in the dim light of the cabin.

  As they did, his words faded, as if someone twisted the dial on a radio.

  Every other sound in the room seemed to amplify. Ambient noises grew deafening: the sound of the ocean through the propped-open door, the wind lightly banging the hanging blinds, the ticking of the old-fashioned clock on the wall. I heard an odd hitch in Eliah’s breath as he watched my face, his heart beating through his rib cage, slowing as he listened for my answer.

  I had time to note I’d been kidding myself, telling myself I hadn’t known where he’d gone, or what he’d intended to do.

  I got the chance to think the timing was ironic...

  Then everything in the room dimmed.

  I should have known I’d feel it when it happened. From what Eliah told me, along with what happened with Jaden...even from what little Revik had said, in his own vague way...I really should have known.

  I should have known a lot of things, but they still always managed to surprise me.

  19

  BREAKDOWN

  ...I stand on a rock bluff, above a valley riddled with spider-web cracks. Wind tunnels between chasms. Everything is gone. All trees, animals, plants are dust, blown away.

  I’m alone. But not really. Not really alone.

  ...He raises himself up on his arms, sweating, reading her, watching her eyes as he brings her to the edge. I see the tattooed writing on his arm, sweat sticking his black hair to his neck and forehead as he moves over her, his arms tensed as he adjusts the angle of his body. He holds her still, fingers clenched in blond hair as he arches deeper...deep enough to pause when she cries out, holding some part of himself back, going in with his mind so he can feel it when...

  She climaxes, gripping his arms. Pain ripples off him as he watches.

  Then it worsens.

  Red sunlight shines behind my lids, but that pale, bird-less sky fades.

  I feel him fighting. With himself, with me. He loses control and then he’s asking me, winding some part of himself deeper into my light.

  He pulls me inside of him, even with her lying between us.

  ...and he’s inside both of us now, and I feel his relief mixed with frustration, a kind of horror at what he’s doing even as he asks me again. He wants me now, more than he can tell me, more than I can let myself feel. It hurts, that want, but I’m lost inside the conflict on him too. Fear hovers behind desire, masked in anger at me for forcing him to revisit that place, to remember.

  I would turn him back...make him into that thing he hates.

  He is sure of it. He feels it with every part of his being.

  I would turn him back, if he let me.

  Above, the Pyramid rotates. There is more to see.

  For now, alone...further back, below.

  He would remember.

  “Hey.” The woman fought to slow her breathing. She realized she’d never gotten his name. “Hey...are you okay?”

  His pale skin wore the same sheen that matted her blond hair to her neck and shoulders, stuck the cotton sheet to her legs. She clutched at him, unable to help it. Her whole body still vibrated from what he’d done to her...seemingly again and again and again. He’d been unnervingly focused as he brought her to orgasm, but by the end, he’d surprised her by being verbal, too.

  A lot more verbal than she would have guessed from their brief conversation in the bar.

  He’d warned her it would be fast, and yet, there’d been something vulnerable about him once he let himself go. That vulnerability edged into a near-violence at times, but he hadn’t hurt her. He’d removed her clothes before they were all the way in the room, and she could tell he’d been holding back even then, using his mouth to buy them time, pushing her to talk to him.

  Once he’d really started, she doubted he’d been aware of her at all.

  When he finally came, he’d been nearly begging her.

 
Or begging someone, perhaps, to do...something.

  Now he just lay there, like a dead person.

  She wondered how she’d let him talk her into coming here. Her husband got them separate cabins—his idea, of course, to give them “more space” and because he claimed he couldn’t sleep with her snoring—but he had no compunction about stopping by when the mood struck him, or if he and the dance instructor had one of their spats. She cringed at the thought that she might have to explain a naked, male seer in her bed.

  Although, really, it would serve him right.

  “Hey.” She laid a hand on his chest. His skin felt cold. She kept her voice light, trying to smile. “Who’s Allie?”

  She saw his expression change, just before he closed his eyes. She couldn’t help wondering though. A girlfriend? Did they even date?

  Looking away, he shifted his weight on the mattress.

  She caressed his hair. “Are you sick?”

  He raised a hand, pushing hers off. She watched in disbelief as he wiped his face, doubting what she’d seen. Then his breathing changed, and she couldn’t deny what she heard. He was crying. He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.

  “Hey,” she said, a little alarmed. “What’s going on?”

  When he spoke, his voice made her jump. She’d forgotten the accent.

  “I’m married,” he said.

  A surprised laugh caught in her throat. She tried to keep it out of her voice.

  “So am I,” she said. “I thought that was the point.”

  He looked at her. His pale eyes reflected light shining from under the door, almost like a cat’s eyes. Again, she remembered he wasn’t human. He stared back as if she were just as alien to him. Then he sat up. She watched him feel around on the floor for his pants, pulling them up over his legs and looping then hooking his belt. Standing, he found his shirt and drew it over his head, and now she felt emotion waver off him, clear as a scent. It was self-loathing.

  She pulled the damp sheet tighter around herself. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He shook his head. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Do you want money?” She recoiled in spite of herself, afraid of him once she saw the look in his eyes.

  “No,” he said flatly. He didn’t look at her again.

  Before she could think what to say next, he had bent down, picking up the shoulder harness that had shocked her when she had first seen it.

  He donned it like a vest, velcroing it tight, checking the gun in obvious rote before shouldering on his jacket over it. She was still staring when he turned his back to her, aiming his feet for the door.

  The light blinded her as he opened it onto the corridor...but it wasn’t open long.

  Following the click of the latch, she lay back on the bed with a sigh. All she could feel was relief that he was gone, that she’d likely never see him again.

  When Eliah finished speaking, Chandre remained silent.

  Eliah shared the construct with her, so he knew she was thinking to herself how ridiculous this was. Further, that it went beyond her job description as infiltrator to babysit two full-grown seers who, in her mind, should be alone in a cabin somewhere, getting acquainted in the carnal sense for at least a month before they were allowed to talk about their relationship in anything but monosyllables. That was the traditional way it was done, and the old forms existed for a reason.

  Eliah kept the smile out of his light with an effort.

  These two-hundred-year-old seers always groused about the past.

  Is she all right? Chandre sent finally.

  Well enough, yeah. He let her feel his frown. Threw up when she came to, and she won’t talk about it. Physically she’s fine. She’s out on the balcony—

  Get her back inside. Now.

  Pardon my saying, sir, but no. She wants to look at the water, let her bloody well look at the water. It’s dark...no one’ll see her. He paused.

  Has he checked in?

  No. She exhaled a Barrier sigh. Vash said it’s up to us to determine what’s needed to keep the situation under control. You said she won’t press charges. Do we discipline him for breaking vow? She could be waiting for him to come back. To stab him, try to hurt him, whatever...

  Eliah gave a humorless laugh.

  I don’t think so, he sent. She still thinks too much like a human to let herself go on that kind of thing.

  Feeling Chandre’s skepticism, he added,

  ...And if by disciplining him, you mean shooting him in the head, I’m all for it. His thoughts leaked anger. He didn’t shield it from her at all. If I had to guess, I’d say he pulled her into it deliberately.

  Recommendation, Eliah? Chandre sent dryly. Beyond the firing squad for Dehgoies for the crime of wanting his wife?

  Separate them, he returned promptly. Keep him away from her. When she’s up to it, I’ll ask her what she thinks.

  Fine. I leave them to you. She clicked to herself in irritation, folding her light arms. Watch her, Eliah...and no taking advantage of the situation to talk her into your bed! We still don’t know why he did it. You get Dehgoies coming up here in a jealous rage and we’re going to have ourselves a real problem. That is one piece of bullshit I don’t intend to deal with tonight.

  Understood, he sent.

  You’d better. Or so help me I’ll let him shoot you.

  Eliah was still laughing a little as he clicked out of the Barrier, feeling his legs against the hard padding of a stateroom chair.

  He waited for his eyes to clear, then faced the window out to the balcony where he’d last seen her and startled, jumping to his feet.

  The balcony, the entire cabin in fact...was empty.

  The elevator car came to rest on the higher of two main floors, dumping me and seven other passengers into a wide foyer filled with people on red and gold patterned carpet. From human minds milling around mine, I surmised I’d arrived during the later of the two dinner meals served for general passengers...a stroke of luck in that it provided visual cover at least.

  I hadn’t had much time while Eliah had been in the Barrier, talking to Chan or whoever else about me. As soon as I saw him shift out of his body, I ran for the wardrobe.

  In seconds, I’d yanked on jeans and a tight-fitting tee from a band I’d seen years ago in Oakland. I donned my boots and a sweatshirt to deal with the cold, throwing the hood up to cover my head and putting in the brown contacts I’d fished out of the trash and washed. I projected some of my consciousness out on the balcony while I dressed behind the wardrobe door, just in case Eliah looked for me at any point in his conversation with Chandre.

  That was another trick Revik taught me.

  Grabbing a pair of mirrored sunglasses I’d found in one of the drawers, I stuffed them in my pocket and headed out the door.

  I’d come up with a whole story for the guards at the end of the row of staterooms, but hadn’t needed to use it, because, well...the guards weren’t there.

  Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I walked to the elevators as fast as I could, donning the sunglasses clumsily as I hit the button.

  That had been at least fifteen minutes ago.

  I got off on a few random floors, ran into several different groups of humans before I decided to head for the lobby and look for a place where I might hide out in public. I figured my best chance of getting even an hour out from under the Guard would be to find a place where no one would be looking at me. Meaning, somewhere where I could disappear into the crowd.

  Of course, the Guard might be looking for me by now.

  It crossed my mind that I also might run into Revik. Particularly if he went out trolling again, maybe going for round two.

  When my light reacted at my own bleak attempt at humor, I shoved it aside, but not before the image of me collapsing on the atrium floor flickered through my thoughts, along with a taste of what it had felt like the first time. I really doubted I would be able to control it any better if it happened again.

 
; Keeping my mind carefully blank, I focused on my surroundings.

  The decor hovered somewhere between Vegas, which I’d visited once with Jaden, and a suburban shopping mall. Except here, only about half of the signs and VR projections were speaking English. Most switched languages as they scanned room keys, following customers with higher credit limits and adjusting products until the person waved them off or stopped to listen to their pitch. Corridors twisted off in all directions, making it hard to track which side of the ship I was on until I stood still long enough to feel the whole thing moving.

  Even then, it was easy to get turned around.

  After the near-silence of the past few weeks, both here and in Seattle, the voices echoing up and down the five stories of glass and metal were both comforting and a kind of psychic attack. A feeling of almost paralyzing aloneness tried to creep back around me, as well. The groups of laughing, shopping and even bickering humans somehow reminded me just how completely isolated from everyone around me I really was.

  That aloneness shed some light on something else, too.

  It was no wonder, really, that the thing with Revik screwed me up so badly. In the past month or so, I’d let him become my whole world.

  I needed to be around other people, even if I couldn’t talk to any of them. Even if it was reckless. Even if all I could do was watch them from a distance. I needed to know I wasn’t the only person on the planet, and that every human being in the world hadn’t been replaced by angry, one-hundred-year-old, mind-reading seers with sexual and emotional issues.

  Anyone could potentially recognize me, I knew, at least in theory.

  But it struck me as pretty damned unlikely that anyone actually would.

  I had my doubts that most of the humans on board would be on the lookout for a renegade seer terrorist in their midst, even if they weren’t on vacation. I suspected they’d be a lot less likely to be looking for me while taking a scenic cruise up the Canadian coastline on a city-sized boat that boasted a midnight buffet table. Half the people around me were drunk, or focused solely on free food and gambling in the ship’s casino, anyway.