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

by SM Reine

  And anyway, I looked different from the photos plastered all over the feeds. My hair had changed color and length. My face had thinned. My eyes were a different color. Then there was the other thing: weird as it was, I could swear I had grown taller. Not much, maybe only a quarter or half-inch, but to call it strange was hardly an understatement. I didn’t know many humans who had a massive growth spurt as they approached their thirties.

  The truth was, I didn’t completely look like the same person I had when I left San Francisco, except for maybe my eyes, thus the contacts and the shades. The rest of me, I figured wouldn’t stand out as specifically mine to anyone but my mother, and maybe Jon.

  From wall maps I got the basic layout of the boat.

  I located the main casino, two dining areas and five bars on the lobby floor alone, along with access to a theater and a swimming pool. Thinking about the last of these, I seriously contemplated going for a swim, although it meant going in wearing underwear, which might call a little too much attention to me, even here.

  I didn’t have any credits to buy a suit, or even a room key. I wondered if I could push a clerk well enough to get one anyway. Thinking about this, though, I figured I should probably save the pushes for if I really needed them.

  Photography stands flashed virtual backdrops of Alaskan coastlines next to people dressed in VR-paneled costumes that used computer-generated images to make the wearers look like everything from bald eagles to caribou to penguins to moose. I even saw a few polar bears standing on that virtual landscape, which as far as I knew had been extinct for years outside of zoos.

  Next to the long lines of people waiting to be seated in the dining area for a five course, sit-down dinner, stood a piano bar flanked by two gilded waterfall balconies. Lining the guard rail above the sunken bar stood kiosks that sold everything from jewelry to shore excursions, pedicures and massages, dance classes and raffle tickets, tax-free wires, hiri and tobacco cigarettes, perfume, alcohol and handbags.

  I saw a woman holding a brochure on seer services that could be purchased in Anchorage, too, including a trip to what Revik referred to as an “unwilling” bar, and what every human I knew called a whorehouse.

  Another surge of sickness hit, that time bad enough to make me stop.

  I took a breath, leaning a palm against the corridor wall in a shadowed observation area outside the piano bar. Only a few tables stood there, populated by couples sipping drinks and looking through large windows to the ocean.

  Jesus. Whatever was wrong with me, I had to get it under control. I was sweating too much, and I could see in the reflective glass that I was deathly pale. That, combined with the hollow cheeks, made me look like a drug addict.

  I couldn’t risk that someone here might care. Security maybe, or one of the cameras. I had to get out of here, away from these people, away from—

  Allie?

  I stopped in mid-exhale. Scanning faces to my left, I paused on the bay windows overlooking the ocean.

  Allie? Will you answer me?

  I swallowed, keeping my eyes on the rolling waves. The sky was dark, but a rim of reddish-purple remained by the water. My eyes returned to the dim lounge with its few tables. I didn’t recognize anyone, didn’t feel him nearby.

  He wasn’t there, I realized.

  I’d been thinking about him, and he’d heard me.

  Allie. Please...I need to see you.

  I stood motionless by a men’s bathroom. I didn’t move, even when a man smiled at me as he left the swinging doors.

  Allie, I’m sorry. I’m really—

  I don’t want to talk about this, my mind blurted.

  At his silence, I forced my thoughts back to neutral. I breathed in and out, once, forcing myself to be logical about this.

  Revik, I thought at him. I took another breath, and my mind leveled more. Revik...you really don’t need to explain anything.

  Allie, I do...

  No, I sent. You don’t. I’m sorry I pushed before. You can have a divorce or whatever you want—

  Not like this, he broke in. I don’t want to talk to you like this. I want to actually sit down and talk to you. Please.

  I felt him trying to think how to persuade me.

  Please, Allie...

  He reached for me with his light and I jerked back, pulling away from him without thought. When he came close to me again, I threw up a wall.

  He ran into it...then withdrew all at once.

  It happened so fast, I barely understood what I’d done.

  The silence went longer. I could tell it shocked him, my forcing him away. I felt pain on him, cloying, hard to keep out of my light. He was still hiding something from me, but I was trying to hide how I felt, too. It never seemed to end with us.

  Revik, I sent. Really, I’m not just saying it...you don’t need to do this. I’m cool with us being friends...

  Allie...

  Eliah told me. So I get it now. I get what happened in Seattle. And I mean what I said about pushing you. I shouldn’t have...

  Eliah? His thoughts grew still. What did he tell you, Allie?

  Revik. I’m trying to say I’m sorry. Can’t we just—

  No, he sent. Pain wafted off his light. Please...gods. Don’t make me talk to you like this...please, Allie...

  I felt the vulnerability on his light again, and couldn’t answer.

  His thoughts grew quiet, almost a murmur. Please, Allie. Please let me see you...please.

  I stared out at the night sky, watching the horizon dip gently up and down.

  Okay, I sent, reluctant. But God, Revik. We don’t have to do this—

  You’re in the room? Is Eliah with you?

  No. I hesitated long enough to find it odd he’d mentioned Eliah again. ...to both, actually. I’m on the other side of the ship. Near that big piano, with all the shops. We could meet out here, or—

  What? His light changed. How did you get there?

  I walked. The pain worsened again and I clutched my belly, trying my damnedest not to feel anything more from his light. Revik...I’m being careful. Eliah was all pissed off. I didn’t see anyone in the corridor, so—

  Allie! Gods, baby, what are you doing...wait right where you are. I’ll be there. I’ll find you...

  “Sister?”

  I jumped, turning at the new voice.

  I was distracted, half-sick from being so close to his light, distracted by what he’d just called me, unsure at first if I’d even heard him correctly, much less if someone really just spoke to me outside of the Barrier.

  In any case, I expected it to be one of the guards, Eliah or Chandre or someone they’d sent to find me.

  Revik’s presence faded, but I didn’t feel him pull away. Instead it felt like I walked into a dense wall and the wall entangled me, pushing him out. Beacon-like eyes met mine, glowing in the VR projections by the nearest kiosk. The flickering images there distracted me; I saw a woman gyrating in a tall monitor, wearing a sequined evening gown. The real person whose image it projected watched the transformed version of herself as if mesmerized.

  “Are you lost, Sister?”

  I blinked. A different woman held my arm. I watched her long fingers tighten on my skin. They looked blue in the light of the VR images. I struggled to focus on her face, couldn’t.

  I will help you, she sent softly. You look very fatigued, sister.

  Relief washed over me. I was tired, more tired than I could express. The woman with the opaque eyes purred a lulling sound...

  ...and I fell into a complicated strand of light.

  The world phased.

  It reemerged altered before I could catch it, as if my lenses reflected light from a different angle than they had before. Objects and people grew complex, multidimensional...expanding around me and sharpening from blurry outlines into a series of mathematical equations.

  Snatches of music and light harmonized the perfect structure underlying their interweaving strands. A blueprint emerged from the harsh outlin
es...walls, floors, fixtures, furniture, potted trees, even people. The overhead chandelier exploded in a glitter of lit strands. Physical light broke down into particles, matter and energy, an achievement of base mechanical beauty that literally stopped my mind dead in its tracks.

  I and the other seer walked back through the crowded causeway, and all I could do was stare around me, lost in the complexity and beauty of every single thing I could see. Even those banal VR projections grew fascinating...I could see now, how they were made, the technology infused with nonphysical light, framing each message like the projection screen behind a movie’s shifting frames. The minds behind each concept, the way in which those concepts formed building blocks into more and more detailed messages...all of it grew visible to me.

  A group of humans pass us, jerking my mind off the cleaner lines of the virtual program.

  I hear their harsh laughter as if from far away. They feel like children, puppets caught in lit strands, surrounded by a complexity that dictates their every move, while remaining wholly invisible to them.

  Yes, the blue-skinned woman sends. You feel it, don’t you? Even you. You feel how wrong they are. How...incomplete.

  I watch atoms dance among the beams of the causeway ceiling, light shower down in golden rainbows as the lit strands cross and change overhead. I gaze into the eyes of the woman holding me...and she is beautiful.

  More than that, her words feel right to me. True.

  The humans really aren’t much above animals. As insentient as the fake jewels on the women’s necks, the dogs they drag around on leather leashes. I wonder how it is that I never saw it before, the gaping holes in the pictures that surrounded me, day after day, week after week...

  It’s not only the humans, I realize as I look around.

  It’s all of it. The world feels half-formed. Incomplete.

  It is broken. Somehow, we let it be so. It struck me then...

  Like any equation, it could be changed.

  We will show you, the blue-skinned woman purrs. We will show you such wondrous things, Sister. You will understand so much of what has been hidden from you. The world will never be so small to you again as it is at this moment.

  I close my eyes.

  I can see what she offers me. It is clear. It is without pain, without ambiguity or aloneness. I would have a purpose. My life would mean something...something other than pain and death to those I loved.

  It is such a relief to give in, to just let it all go. The sickness and pain I felt just minutes before is already gone.

  The woman is right.

  Nothing could ever be the same again. Nothing.

  ALLIE! Revik screamed her name into the Barrier. ALLIE!

  He shoved at the space where she’d been, trying to force his way through. He tried again, fighting a rising panic. He knew what had her, recognized the flavor of the metallic strands that forced him away from her light, taking her away from him. He didn’t understand how yet, or who, but that didn’t matter, either, not now.

  He slammed against that wall, using all of his light.

  The wall started to give.

  Then something rose up. A sharp pain hit him over his right eye. He fought back, tightening his shields, when something bigger lashed at his light. The dark shape threw him sideways, knocking him out of the smaller construct, knocking him out of his body, too, enough that he lost himself...

  When his vision cleared, he’d come to a stop in the corridor, fingers splayed on one of the wallpapered walls.

  He wiped his nose, stared at the blood on his fingers.

  He didn’t let himself think. He began to run.

  Dread pooled in his stomach as he pushed his legs to move him faster down the hall, fighting to build momentum, to cross the distance between himself and her, even as he threw part of his mind ahead of himself, and back into the construct.

  It would take him at least ten minutes to get to the atrium, even at top speed.

  Too long.

  He scanned options.

  He tried their cabin. It was empty; he got the equivalent of Barrier static. No Chan. No Eliah. No guard. How the hell had she gotten out of the room, much less out the secured corridors on the seventh deck? Someone must have noticed she was gone by now. And who had her? A unit of the Rooks? Ship’s security? A lone infiltrator looking for the bounty on her...or worse, to sell her?

  Had facial recognition software picked her up, or something else?

  He tried a general channel, Guard security.

  Nothing. He slid more of himself back into his body, where he ran towards the bow of the ship, fighting to think.

  His head hurt. Something dark clung to it, and to his right arm. The hole over his eye was the most serious. He attended to that first, reweaving his light, but the something there fought to hold on, hiding in parts of him he didn’t access as often. He’d lost where she was. He continued to search, but his shields were up now, in hunting mode, which slowed him down. Still, if they broke too much of his structure, he’d be useless to her.

  How in the gods’ names had she gotten to this side of the ship?

  His adrenaline spiked as his mind put the pieces together.

  They were under attack. This was coordinated. He was being hunted, and it had to be by the same people who had her. He felt them searching for weaknesses in his shields almost openly, trying to penetrate his mind even as they distracted him from making his way towards her.

  They must have been in place.

  They saw their chance, with him and Allie separated...maybe they even coordinated her escape from the seventh deck, knowing she’d be more willing to leave, if...

  He cut off the thought. Blaming himself wasn’t going to help her, either.

  Whoever they were, there were a lot of them. They’d likely been in place for some time, which meant they’d been on the ship, waiting for an opening.

  He’d given them one.

  He recalled one of his reference memories, a detailed map of the ship, found an aberration in the Barrier that matched what he’d last felt from her. Hitting another shield around where he expected her to be, he searched for openings, making his light resonate with hers.

  He remembered how she’d felt when she finally agreed to meet him...how his light had responded. His throat clutched and he shoved it off angrily. He had to concentrate. He was fucking losing it...

  “Dehgoies Revik.”

  He landed the rest of the way into his body, coming to a dead stop.

  Four men stood a dozen yards before him, dressed in long coats.

  Revik scanned in reflex. Seers. Well-shielded. He didn’t recognize any of them, so they probably operated mainly out of Asia. Hand guns, infrared, tissue extractors, some kind of propulsion device, grenades, flares, a shotgun...

  Something stung his throat. He reached up, jerked a sharp point from the side of his neck. He stared at the thumbnail vial for a beat of his heart, scanning the clear liquid. His chest clenched. The dart trembled from his fingers even as he felt one of the seers lock on him with an extractor. He leapt for the opposite wall.

  It all happened within seconds of his first scan...but he was still too slow.

  The glass tube slammed him midair.

  Knocked sideways, he missed his mark and crashed into the wall short of the alcove he’d been aiming for. He landed in a heap and pulled in his limbs, fought to drag himself back to his feet when the cord pulled, making him lose his balance.

  They still had him. The cord left a hole in his jacket on the right side. He grabbed the braided metal with his bare hands, scanning the glass vial embedded at least a thumb-length into his flesh, right through his jacket. The cord went taut. The teeth closed. Before he could let go, the vial slid out of him in one quick pull, the braided metal ripping skin off his hands as it went.

  Revik screamed, clutching his abdomen. Blood poured out between his fingers, soaking his pants and jacket. He mashed his hand over the hole. Fighting shock, he picked himself up, st
umbled backwards.

  That time, he practically dove into the Barrier.

  Everything grew crystal clear. Ripping the Glock out of its holster, he fired, blindly, running in the opposite direction. The first shot cut a dark hole in the wall, but did what he intended, forcing them behind cover. He switched to his mind, knowing it would be overheard, no longer caring. He sent up a high, sharp blast of alarm.

  His warning cry slammed against something before it reached the main construct walls. He watched it dissipate, useless. Looking around in the physical, his eyes lit on a pull mechanism for a fire alarm. He caught it in the hand holding the gun and yanked it down. Immediately, a shrieking bell went off.

  Doors opened on several sides.

  Dehgoies? Eliah’s thoughts rose, as if coming through smoky glass. Where are you? Can you hear me?

  Eli...have you got her? Revik blinked back pain, clutching his side. His mind shifted sideways. It threw off his balance, forced him into the forward part of his consciousness.

  Gods, the drug. He’d forgotten about the dart.

  Eliah...someone’s trying to leave with her. The truth hit him again, bringing a near panic. Look for boats, anything big enough to land a helicopter. They’ll want her off the ship as soon as possible...

  Brother, calm yourself...where are you?

  Find her, goddamn it! Start with the atrium. Last I saw, they had her there.

  Where are you? I’ll send someone...

  No. I’ll come to you. He stared at the blood soaking his jacket, realizing the truth. ...Eli. Please...I can’t get to her. You have to do this. Please. Please...

  Deghoies—

  He kicked the other seer out of his mind. The hunters were regrouping.

  Limping backwards in a half-jog, he held up the Glock, mashing his other hand into his side. He scanned behind him, looking for doors. He had to stop the bleeding, or he’d be even more useless. If it meant draining humans from the Barrier like a fucking ridvak, he would get the light he needed to do it. He thought about Allie again and it got him moving, propelling his legs faster.

  He’d asked her for a divorce.

  He’d asked her for a divorce and let her see him with someone else.