by Martha Carr
“What the fuck?” Bhandi’s amused smile disappeared, replaced by a deepening frown.
“Like, at her house?” Tate asked.
“Yeah. Right outside in the backyard.”
“Damn.” Yurik let go of his tankard and sat back, stroking his chin. “So, it’s really happening.”
“Seems like it. Whatever it is.”
“Man, I was seriously hoping Sir was full of shit.” Bhandi tried to laugh, but it didn’t have any of her usual gruff lightheartedness.
Cheyenne shrugged. “I mean, he is.”
The agents chuckled, shaking their heads.
“I’ll drink to that.” Bhandi lifted her tankard to do just that.
“You’ll drink to anything.”
“Damn straight.” The troll woman knocked back another gulp, set her tankard down, and raised an eyebrow at Tate. “And you’re about to get your face bashed in if you keep acting like you’re not as bothered by all this portal shit as the rest of us.”
“Yeah, I’m bothered by it.” Tate folded his arms again, the dark-blue and black tattoos rippling on his biceps. “Mostly ‘cause I don’t know what the hell it is.”
“Neither do I,” Cheyenne added. Mostly. “But what I do know is that the new Border portals popping up don’t act like they’re supposed to.”
“Well, that’s obvious.” Bhandi leaned forward. “Those things aren’t supposed to exist.”
“Right. They’re doing a lot more than existing, though.” The halfling took another sip of her grog and watched the agents’ reactions. I don’t know how much I can tell them, but they might know something I don’t.
“Wait.” Yurik frowned. “There’s more than one?”
“Probably.” Cheyenne gestured toward herself and Ember. “The only one we’ve seen up close and personal is the one that sent an earthquake through my mom’s house and opened in her backyard.”
Ember blinked quickly and shot her friend a confused look.
Please just roll with it, Em. The FRoE can’t know I’m hiding a second portal with L’zar Verdys and his crew.
“And the earthquake almost killed you, or what?” Bhandi squinted and glanced between Cheyenne and Ember.
“Not the earthquake. The portal’s leaking.”
Yurik snorted. “Okay. Now it sounds like you’re playing Sir’s bullshit game.”
“She’s not.” Ember shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like what came out of that weird black rock last night.”
“So it’s leaking.” Tate cocked his head. “Leaking what?”
“You guys have heard O’gúleesh talk about the crossing, right?”
“Once or twice, sure.” Yurik scratched his head. “Honestly, it sounds more like they all drank the Kool-Aid before coming Earthside.”
“Crazy-ass stories,” Bhandi added, waving the whole thing aside. “Shit about monsters made of smoke and octopuses coming up out of the ground or whatever.”
Tate frowned at her. “It’s octopi.”
“What? Are you shitfaced already?”
Ember shrugged. “They’re both right.”
The troll looked at the fae with surprise and confusion.
Yurik shook his head. “Who gives a shit? Cheyenne’s trying to make a point, and I wanna hear it.”
Cheyenne glanced around the crowded tavern, pleased to find that most of the other patrons were deliberately not looking at her. Then she leaned over the table toward her friends and lowered her voice. “My point is that whatever those things are, that’s what’s leaking out of the portals.”
“Bullshit,” Bhandi muttered.
Ember pulled the chalice closer but didn’t pick it up. “No bullshit. I saw it too. That’s what Cheyenne had to fight off by herself last night.”
The halfling shrugged. “That’s what almost killed me last night.”
Yurik swallowed. “Damn.”
Tate vigorously rubbed his bald head, his scarlet eyes darting around the table before settling on the tavern’s ceiling. “How the hell are our people supposed to keep things under wraps if new portals start popping up everywhere?”
“New portals that fight back,” Bhandi added with a grimace.
Cheyenne cocked her head. “I’m pretty sure that’s the question that launched Sir into his…whatever he’s going through right now.”
“Midlife crisis?”
“Mental break?”
“Tossing out his last goddamn marble?”
The operatives looked at each other and chuckled, but it was strained this time.
“All of the above, probably,” Cheyenne added. “I called him last night after I didn’t die and told him what happened and what I knew. That apparently wasn’t enough to keep him from losing his shit.”
“It never is.” Bhandi cocked her head in another small solo toast and tipped back her tankard.
“Is that why he called you in this morning?” Yurik asked. “To get the drow’s advice on how to handle a mess like that?”
“No.” Cheyenne let out a humorless chuckle. “He sent Rhynehart out to my mom’s with a whole team to keep an eye on the thing, no questions asked. Almost. They’ve been there since last night, and as far as I know, nothing else has tried to push through the portal. I seriously hope they’re still there.”
“So, he ordered you on base to talk about L’zar.”
Cheyenne raised an eyebrow at Tate. “You know about that too, huh?”
“It’s impossible not to hear the guy raving like a lunatic. He hasn’t come to any of us about it, and he won’t. But yeah. The whole base knows.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“You know where he is?”
The halfling turned her attention to Yurik and gave him the deadpan stare she’d perfected over a lifetime of using it. “I’ve gone on more than enough missions or whatever with you guys to figure we’re cool. You showed me this place, and you’ve had my back more than once. So I’ll tell you that I have no clue where L’zar Verdys is right now, and I’m dead serious when I tell you not to ask me again.”
Yurik spread his arms and dipped his head. “Hear you loud and clear, Cheyenne. Didn’t mean to push a button.”
“Everything’s pushing everyone’s buttons right now.” The halfling took a long drink of her grog to hide her face inside the metal tankard. And I’m sick of people asking me about that damn drow.
“Nobody pushes Goth drow and gets away with it, huh?” Bhandi’s eyelids drooped over her scarlet eyes, and she swayed in her chair when she raised her tankard again. “That ogre figured that one out pretty damn quick.”
“More than one ogre.” Tate snorted into his tankard.
“That’s right. Took the legs right off that one at the mansion, didn’t ya?” Bhandi shook her head and belched again. “Those sick kidnapping fucks.”
Ember looked at Cheyenne with a questioning frown, and the halfling shrugged. “Rough day for everyone.”
“You can say that again.” Yurik stared into his tankard. “And you were right about those bastards taking the kids for whatever black-magic shit they were tryin’ to pull. At this point, I’ll believe what you’re telling us over anything spraying out of Sir’s mouth.”
“About the portals?”
The goblin nodded.
“What’s he saying?”
“Nope! Pause. Time out,” Bhandi shouted and slammed her tankard onto the table. “I can’t listen to this shit on an empty stomach.”
“You never have an empty stomach.”
“You know what, Tate?” The troll woman lurched out of her chair, swaying again, and raised her hands in front of her, wiggling all ten purple fingers. “I used to think that whole thing about fellwine giving somebody berserker-rage strength was a load of bull too. But right now, I’m really feelin’ like I could rip your head right off your shoulders.”
Tate smirked. “You could try.”
“Raincheck.” Bhandi gestured drunkenly toward the bar. “I’m
gonna get us some grub. Ogsa cooks like she’s never done it before, but damn, it sure soaks up the booze.”
Before anyone could stop her, the troll woman stumbled out from behind the table and staggered toward the bar. She knocked into a short, timid-looking troll woman also on her way to the bar. The other troll hissed at Bhandi and snarled something incomprehensible over the din of the many magical patrons filling the Empty Barrel. Bhandi hissed back and shoved the other woman away before slamming both fists on the bar and squinting at the long row of shelved liquor bottles.
“Is she always like that?” Ember asked, then hiccupped and blinked in surprise.
“Yep.” Tate stared at the troll woman’s back as she hunched over the bar. “Every single time. Nobody down here knows what she could do to them if they ever caught her out in the field. Crazy-ass troll is a helluva soldier.”
Yurik chuckled. “But they know not to mess with Bareass Bhandi down here.”
Ember burst out laughing. “People call her that?”
“Oh, yeah. I think it stuck.”
The fae laughed and shook her head. “What does somebody have to do around here to pick up a name like that?”
Tate snickered. Yurik fought back his own laugh and picked up his tankard again. “It’s pretty damn obvious, isn’t it?”
Chapter Seventeen
“That’s more like it.” Bhandi shoved a huge platter of O’gúleesh tavern grub that looked like dog food into the center of the table and belched. “Anyone want some?”
Tate jammed a handful of fried grasshoppers into his mouth and crunched loudly. “Not after you’ve been shoveling that into your face with both hands.”
“That’s how you’re supposed to eat it.” The troll woman gestured at the platter. “Didn’t come with utensils, did it?”
Ember leaned forward to grab a piece of what she hoped was pita bread off the smaller plate beside the platter. “I think that’s what these are for.”
“Huh?” Bhandi glanced at the plate. “When did those get here?”
Tate and Yurik snickered and kept eating their bar snacks.
Cheyenne watched her friend take a huge bite of the bread. “How is it?”
“Better than I expected.”
“Hey, she’s catching on.” Yurik wagged a finger at the fae. “Lower your expectations as far as possible in this place, and you’ll have a great time.”
Bhandi winced, thumped her chest, and shook her head. “Something’s stuck.”
“You can keep that kinda problem to yourself.” Tate eyed the troll woman sideways and shook his head.
Cheyenne smirked. “Okay. So now that the starving troll’s got her fix, let’s get back to what you guys have heard about those portals.”
“You know, watching a new one pop up right before fighting whatever crazy things came out of it would make most people run away screaming.”
The halfling eyed Yurik with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not most people.”
“Yeah, we’ve figured that out by now. Why are you so interested?”
Cheyenne leaned over the table again. “Listen. My mom lives out in the middle of nowhere, pretty much. It’s just her and her housekeeper.”
“She’s got a housekeeper?” Bhandi scrunched her face again, finally belched, and sat back with a sigh.
“Yeah. You done?”
The troll woman gestured for the halfling to continue.
“They won’t leave the house. As in, my mom refuses to leave, despite having seen everything that happened in her backyard last night. That was why I called Sir and asked for a team to go up and protect her from whatever else tries to sneak Earthside. I let him think I was turning the whole thing over to you guys, ‘cause portals are half of what you people do, right?”
“You let him think.” Yurik snorted. “Well-played.”
“Well, I needed to keep my mom safe. That’s why I’m interested. Sir’s put me on portal duty, and if I see anything else, yeah, I’m gonna let him know. But if you guys have heard something I haven’t, I wanna hear it too. Leaving my mom up there with Rhynehart and a bunch of your guys in gear was hard.”
“Did you hear that? The Goth drow does have a heart.” Bhandi dragged the second pitcher toward her and dumped it over her tankard. A mere splash fell into her cup, and she shook the pitcher before scowling at it. “I need more.”
“Hold off on that for a minute, huh?” Yurik took the pitcher from her and set it on the opposite edge of the table. “Let the fellwine kick in.”
“Since when did you become my mom, asshole?”
He smacked her on the shoulder with the back of a hand and gestured toward Cheyenne. “Since we’re trying to have a serious conversation here. That’s the whole reason we met up.”
Bhandi folded her arms and slumped back in her chair. She almost slid sideways out of it but managed to correct herself. “Twenty minutes. Then I’m fillin’ up.”
“Whatever.”
Tate settled his forearms on the table and glanced at the full tavern around them. “We don’t know much, honestly. I mean, yeah, everyone knows about L’zar, and we’ve heard a few things from the other side of closed doors about new portals. So far, it sounds like Sir’s trying to pull active personnel off the reservations to form a scouting team. Kinda stupid, but that’s what Karzen told me, anyway.”
Yurik nodded. “It’s not any of us. We go out in the field to pull off the kind of operations where you’ve tagged along with us. No point tying up a tactical team for a new portal that just showed up. They’re gonna send the guys who handle rez regulation.”
“That’s a seriously stupid call.”
“Care to elaborate on that one?”
Cheyenne ran a hand through her hair, the chains jingling on her wrist. “These new portals need a tactical team. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure rez regulation and registering new O’gúleesh once they make the crossing doesn’t have shit to do with fighting shape-shifting things that aren’t supposed to be able to come through the portals at all.”
“Right.” Bhandi snorted. “And someone who’s spent their entire career stationed at a rez right next to those giant portal towers won’t have any insight into how to handle the new ones.”
The halfling cocked her head. “Sir didn’t have a clue about the new portal until I called him. If the top guy is that blind to what’s happening, you really think the Border patrol is gonna be prepared enough to handle something none of them have ever seen?” Cheyenne leaned closer and lowered her voice. “You guys said it yourselves. Everyone you work with was born Earthside. None of you made the crossing, so you have no idea what I’m talking about with those things spilling out onto this side. But a tactical team knows how to fight them off. Right?”
Yurik frowned at Tate, who stroked his hairless tattooed chin. “Sir’s grasping at straws.”
Cheyenne offered a small shrug. “I hate to break it to you guys, but Sir doesn’t know nearly as much as he thinks he does.”
“Ha!” Bhandi slapped a hand on the table. “Try saying that to his face.”
“Oh, I already have.”
The table fell silent as the three FRoE agents stared at Cheyenne in shock. Then they burst out laughing again. Bhandi thumped her fists on the table, sloshing around the dogfood-looking grub on the platter, and Tate nearly fell out of his chair when he doubled over and leaned too far sideways.
“Jesus.” Yurik wiped his eyes and glanced at the tavern’s ceiling. “You have a death wish, don’t you?”
“Hey, I don’t work for him.” Cheyenne shrugged, grinning. “I don’t work for anyone. Even if I did, that wouldn’t stop me from tellin’ it like it is.”
“No wonder Sir’s so pissed off all the time.” Tate chuckled. “He can’t control you, but he can’t afford to cut you loose, either.”
“He’ll figure out how it works eventually.” The halfling’s statement sent them into another round of uncontrollable laughter.
Bhandi sto
mped her feet over and over until her knees thumped the underside of the table and almost sent it flying. Ember rolled backward in her chair just in case, but Tate and Cheyenne caught the table and settled it upright before any of the dishes could slide onto the floor.
“Hey!” Ogsa leaned over the bar and pointed at the group in the corner. “Don’t make me throw you out!”
Bhandi spread her arms. “For laughing?”
“For acting like a bunch of lunatics and scaring off my customers.” The orc woman nodded at the front door, where two tall magicals in long crimson robes headed quickly out of the tavern.
“Nah.” Bhandi scoffed. “If they’re scared of a good time, they don’t belong here in the first place.”
“Whatever you call it, cut it out.” Ogsa chucked her dirty rag onto the bar and went to pour more drinks for her other patrons.
Smirking, Bhandi shot Ember a conspiratorial wink. “She really does love us.”
Ember chuckled. “Why? You scare off her customers and don’t even pay for your drinks.”
Tate barked a laugh, his eyes bulging in his head. Bhandi glared at him.
“At this point, Cheyenne might be the only reason that orc lets us in here anymore.” Yurik lifted his tankard and what was left of his grog toward the halfling. “And I’m okay with that.”
Cheyenne returned the toast and drained the rest of her tankard. She studied the dark, empty metal bottom and turned toward Ember. “Moment of truth, Em. No more booze at the table.”
“So fill ‘er up!” Bhandi roared, garnering a fresh round of disgruntled looks from the magicals at the closest tables.
“Maybe another night.” Ember blinked and widened her eyes when she realized she’d drained whatever fae drink had filled the chalice. “Drinking with your mom was one thing. This is like drinking for the first time all over again.”
“Damn.” Bhandi peered at the chalice. “I should’ve ordered one of those instead.”
“Yeah, right.” Tate snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “You couldn’t handle anything made for a fae.”