by Martha Carr
Cheyenne killed her sparking black orbs and folded her arms. Okay, I’ll let him get away with that little embellishment.
“So we know you have at least one digger up and running. Or had, I should say. Now you’re going to tell us how many others you’ve activated and what you used to track her down.”
Lex let out a strangled choke and lurched against the restraints. Corian didn’t react, having stopped less than an inch from the farthest their prisoner could lean away from the wall. The choking continued, and the scaled magical’s eyes widened even as they rolled in lazy, unfocused circles. “You’re fucked!”
“What did you use?”
The prisoner slumped back against the wall, his mouth hanging wide open as the strangled chokes became raw, grating laughter. “I didn’t.” His eyes rolled back in his head as he screeched, leaning sideways against the chains. He took sharp, gasping breaths before shrieking again.
Cheyenne leaned toward Lumil but couldn’t look away from the taratas bucking on the floor. “I think you broke him.”
“Nah. That’s just a taratas laughing. You wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world, this is it.”
The halfling frowned. “Looks like he’s having a seizure.”
“Yep.”
Corian’s ears twitched, but the rest of him remained perfectly still in his squat. “I can do this all night, Lex. So can Lumil. I promise you won’t think this is very funny for long once she takes a few more scales off your face.”
With a final raw, wheezing inhale, Lex dropped his head back against the wall and aimed his constantly shifting eyes in the nightstalker’s general direction. “I didn’t have shit to track your precious mór úcare.” He fell into another round of choking, wheezing giggles. “That digger set out on a hunch. And even my hunches get more done than that goblin’s fucking fists! I don’t need to track the drow, you furball piece of shit. No one else will have to either after this. She’s too close!” Lex shrieked again and leaned forward to slam back against the wall in his lunatic mirth. “She’s too close!”
Corian stood smoothly from his crouch and stalked past the gathered magicals into the center of the room. Cheyenne turned to watch him and noticed the opposite wall didn’t have a door. The nightstalker’s fingers moved quickly, and another portal opened in front of him.
“What are you doing?” Lumil asked, scowling at Corian’s back.
“We’re done here.”
“Are you kidding me? He’s spouting a load of bullshit just to get to you. Give me five more minutes. I’ll knock the crazy right out of him.”
“Not now!” The growling shout echoed through the tiny cement room, and Corian stepped through the portal as soon as it fully opened.
Lex’s shrieking cackle had died down into guttural bursts of amusement, and he leaned his head back against the wall again, his eyes closed. “You go on and try to figure that one out, nilsch úcat. They’re all coming for her now that they know. You think you can stop the O’gúl Crown? I’ll be slamming my tankard down on your dried skulls before year’s end!”
“You crazy shit.” Lumil kicked the taratas’ splayed legs. He jerked away and cackled again, leaning sideways until his chained wrist grew taut and stopped him from hitting the floor. “Come on.”
Both goblins headed toward the portal, and Cheyenne spared a final glance at the prisoner. He was too far gone to notice.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Corian’s portal shrank and disappeared with a soft pop as soon as Cheyenne stepped back into the warehouse. “What the hell was that?”
“Yes.” Lumil pointed at the nightstalker. “That’s what I was gonna ask. We went in there to get information.”
“And we got it.” Corian paced across the center of the warehouse, his silver eyes glowing fiercely. One tufted ear twitched, and he shook his head.
“That wasn’t information, man.” Byrd gestured toward the nonexistent portal. “That was him pissing all over us.”
“Shut up.” The nightstalker didn’t look at any of them as he kept pacing, pivoting neatly on his heel each time he reached a wall.
“Don’t tell me to shut up,” Lumil muttered, scowling at him.
Cheyenne stared at the floor. “He’s right, though.”
“Oh, you too? We just met a few days ago, kid. You’ve got real balls, thinkin’ you can tell me to shut up.”
“We did get information.” The halfling glanced briefly at Lumil. “That machine wasn’t tracking me.”
“No.” Corian spun again and headed toward her without looking up from the floor. “He said he didn’t have to.”
“Because the digger was tracking on a hunch.” Cheyenne tapped her fist against her mouth and closed her eyes.
“You both are crazy as that taratas.” Lumil snorted and walked toward the couch at the other end of the warehouse.
“What hunch?” Corian muttered.
Byrd pointed at the empty space in the air where the portal had been. “You know we can just go back and ask him, right? Maybe not give him as much time to laugh about it and just beat him ‘til it comes out. That worked last time.”
Both nightstalker and halfling ignored him.
Byrd shot them both a suspicious glance, then hurried after Lumil. “You’re right. It’s all systems down with those two.”
“Who was with you?”
Cheyenne opened her eyes and found Corian spinning away from the opposite wall again. “What?”
“Who was with you in Peridosh? If that thing was tracking a hunch, Cheyenne, it was tracking someone its programmer suspected would be with you. To get to you through them.”
“That’s impossible.” The halfling shook her head and closed her eyes again.
“Just go through it again. All of it.”
“I was with three FRoE agents, and I know for a fact that none of them has had contact with an O’gúl war machine. They don’t even know those exist.”
“I’m happy to agree with you on that one, but we can’t overlook anything. Go deeper. Did the digger attack any of them?”
“No. It just dropped out of the wall and headed straight for—shit!”
“Straight for whom?”
Cheyenne’s eyes flew open. “Ember.”
“You brought your fae friend with you?”
“Yeah. We share an apartment, and I’m helping her adjust to a new lifestyle that’s totally my fault. I’ve been bringing her with me a lot lately.”
“And that might’ve been the hunch. But it still doesn’t add up.” Corian spun and paced toward her again. “Fae magic is impossible to trace.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. That’s why you never see one. Or at least, most of us don’t.”
“Well, she hasn’t been fighting anyone recently. I’m positive of that.”
“Fine. It wouldn’t have been her magic anyway.” The nightstalker stopped in front of her and met her gaze. “You haven’t been drawing your friend’s blood and using it for some kind of secret Peridosh trade, right?”
She blinked. “What the hell do you think I do in my spare time?”
“Not that, obviously. I still had to ask.”
Cheyenne turned away from him and ruffled her fingers through her bone-white hair, her chains jingling. “If that thing couldn’t track her magic, are you saying it could still track her blood?”
“Blood doesn’t lie, kid.” Corian swallowed thickly. When she shot him a curious glance, he avoided her gaze and kept walking. “And you’re sure she’s not selling her own blood down in the market? No judgment. I’ve known plenty of fae who’ve built their empires selling blood right from their veins.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. She doesn’t need to do that for money, and that was her first time down there anyway. It was supposed to be fun.”
“Hmm.” He scratched his jaw. “Bit of a shortage of that these days.”
“Of fun? Yeah, remind me to tell you when I find some.” Rolling her eyes, Cheyenne took some de
termined steps toward the back wall of the warehouse, then paused. “You know what there isn’t a shortage of?”
“Cheyenne, I couldn’t begin to guess.”
She whirled around to face him, and the grim realization in her golden drow eyes made him step back. “Ember’s blood.”
“I thought we just went over that.”
“Yeah, with your stupid ideas. Open a portal.”
His nose wrinkled in irritation. “I’m the one who barks orders at you, kid.”
“Open the goddamn portal, Corian!”
The door to one of the small, square offices behind him shot open and hit the wall with a bang. “Is it really too much to ask for a little peace and quiet? Ever?”
“Cheyenne.” L’zar propped his hands on either side of the doorway and grinned. “For some reason, no one thought it was a good idea to tell me you were here.”
Corian cocked his head when L’zar turned his discerning gaze on his nightstalker second in command. “It was on my to-do list.”
“Tell him to open a portal to my apartment.” Cheyenne jabbed a finger at Corian. “Otherwise, I’m running all the way back to Richmond, and I don’t think I have the time for that.”
L’zar’s grin faded. “What’s she talking about?”
“She hasn’t gotten around to telling me yet, either.”
“Jesus.” Cheyenne smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “We were talking about blood, Corian. Ember spent two weeks in the hospital after she was shot. They took enough samples there to start a whole new blood bank and name it after her.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Your fae friend?” L’zar stepped out of the doorway slowly as if sudden movements would make his daughter explode.
“Ember.” Cheyenne stared at him, fighting to keep herself under control. “That’s her name.” She took off after Corian, who was halfway across the warehouse and headed for the circle of ward stones.
L’zar grimaced and followed them. “I know her name, Cheyenne. I met her this morning. What did she do?”
“Apparently, all she had to do was be my friend. How long is this gonna take?”
Corian grunted, his fingers moving quickly as he muttered the portal spell. “It’s a little more complicated than the regular ‘toss up a hole through space’ kind. We need to make sure no one can follow us back here.”
L’zar cleared his throat. “I know you two have had the luxury of spending a lot of time together over the last few weeks, but I haven’t, so I’d love to know what the fuck is happening right now.”
Cheyenne growled in frustration, but Persh’al saved her from having to reply.
The troll rolled back in his chair and caught L’zar’s attention. “One of the old machines was activated and found Cheyenne in Peridosh. She crushed it, but it caught her signature, and a fun little chat with Lex made them realize the thing was tracking Ember instead of Cheyenne. Programmers assumed they’d be together, they were, and now everyone who’s behind this first wave of war machines knows how to find Cheyenne and how to hit her where it hurts.”
L’zar raised an eyebrow at his friend and dipped his head. “Thank you.”
“Because apparently someone stole a bunch of fae blood from a hospital, and that’s how they’ve been tracking Ember.”
“I heard them work that one out, Persh’al.”
“Right.” The troll nodded curtly, spun back around to face his desk, and got down to some serious typing again.
L’zar turned his gaze to Cheyenne, and a tiny frown flickered across his eyebrows. “Does she mean that much to you?”
I was gonna say that looked like empathy until he opened his stupid mouth. “She’s my best friend. My only friend, for a while, so yeah, she means that much to me. I’ll fight you with everything I have if you tell me I should just let her deal with it herself.”
He eyed her, then looked at Corian.
The nightstalker nodded, and the rest of his portal bloomed into place within the circle of stones. “No one’s leaving Ember to handle this on her own. That isn’t an option.”
“Good. I hope she doesn’t need us.” Without another word, Cheyenne stepped over the ring of stones and headed through the portal leading into her living room.
Corian and L’zar shared glances, which were cut off by the nightstalker disappearing through the portal behind the halfling.
The portal closed almost immediately. L’zar hissed, stalked the two yards toward the couch, and roared in frustration. He sent his foot crashing into the side of the sunken brown couch, and it flew across the warehouse with a screech and the sharp crack of snapping wood. The couch hit the back wall in a puff of dust. L’zar stayed where he was, his shoulders hunched and fists clenched so tightly, the veins stood out on his forearms. The only sound in the warehouse was the whirring of the fans in Persh’al’s computer towers and the escaped drow’s angry, heaving breaths.
“That couch has been here for a long time,” Persh’al muttered.
Whirling to face him, L’zar ran a hand through his disheveled shoulder-length hair and inhaled deeply through his nose. “It was falling apart anyway.”
The blue troll shrugged and spun back to his keyboard. “I guess it’s better than you putting a fist through any of my tables.”
Standing against the wall on either side of the door to the supply closet, Byrd and Lumil stared at L’zar with wide eyes. Lumil cleared her throat. “You good?”
Tilting his head from side to side to stretch his neck, L’zar clasped his hands behind his back and walked at a slow, deliberate pace across the warehouse. “This is the real prison.”
Byrd snorted. “I didn’t think we were that bad.”
Persh’al turned to shoot him a warning glance. “You’d make a piss-poor guard anyway. He was talking about the fact that he can’t do anything for her.”
“I know what he was talking about.” Byrd waved toward the computers behind Persh’al and rolled his eyes. “Get back to your nerdy coding shit. Nobody asked for an interpreter.”
The goblin man stalked toward the couch and flung himself onto it. Another puff of dust erupted from beneath him before the couch creaked, shuddered, and collapsed in the center.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The only thing Cheyenne heard in her apartment was the soft pop of the portal closing behind Corian. “Em?”
“She’s here, right?”
“Yeah. She went to bed right before you broke my lightbulb.”
Corian ignored the comment as he spun in a slow circle, taking in the high ceilings and the wide wall of windows facing north. “So we keep an eye on the place.”
“Shh. Hold on.” Cheyenne cocked her head at the soft, rustling whir coming from the other side of the kitchen. It could’ve been the fridge or a fan in Ember’s room until she heard the quick series of clicks and something metal tapping against glass. “Something’s here.”
She stormed across the kitchen, the nightstalker on her heels. “A digger’s not going to show up quietly and try to sneak in while she’s sleeping.”
“What the fuck!”
Ember’s shout spurred Cheyenne into action. If she’d bothered to try the doorknob, she would have found it locked, but she sent her fist through the door instead. The wood splintered and flew in every direction, and the halfling had enough time to take in at least three dozen tiny, glistening shapes swarming across the bedroom walls before two of them leaped at her.
“Ah!” She batted the flying black things away from her face. They hit the floor with a thud and instantly flipped onto their spindly legs again to face her. “Tiny bugs this time? Are you serious?”
The closest machine-beetle let out a metallic creak and launched a spray of bright-green pellets. The first few caught Cheyenne in the ribs before she dodged sideways to avoid the rest. She snarled in pain and brought her foot down on the two-inch mechanical bug before it could do anything else.
“Cheyenne!” Ember stared a
t the long lines of machines scrambling up the walls and across the ceiling, forming a canopy over the fae and her bed.
Cheyenne summoned a crackling black orb in one hand and took aim.
Corian gripped her wrist and held her back. “Don’t give them anything else to use against you.”
“Seriously?”
The nightstalker took off in a blur of brilliant silver light. The beetles gathering on the ceiling above Ember screeched as they were scraped off the ceiling and tossed across the room like a handful of pebbles.
“Oh, my God.” Ember hunched over and jerked the comforter up to her chin.
The beetles hit the floor, dresser, and small desk with tinny thuds, then leaped back to their tiny clicking feet and scrambled toward the bed again.
Cheyenne stomped on as many of them as she could while Corian swiped handful after handful of the things off the walls in his enhanced speed. The mechanical creatures took about ten seconds to process what was happening. When they did, the change happened all at once.
The tiny crawling machines stopped skittering toward Ember and focused on their new targets. Cheyenne raised her foot to stomp on the next skittering beetle. The thing clicked at her, and one of its front legs whirled around on its hinge until it stuck straight up in the air.
Her foot came down before she could stop herself. “Fuck!”
She jerked backward and staggered against the wall. The machine-beetle dangled from the bottom of her shoe, its upturned appendage stuck through the soles of both the rubber tread and Cheyenne’s foot.
The halfling blasted it with a churning ball of black energy and incinerated the thing on contact.
Corian slipped out of his enhanced speed right in front of her. “I told you not to do that!”
“It stabbed me in the foot! I’m not touching those things with my hands.” Without giving him time to argue further, Cheyenne unleashed her black and purple sparking attacks on the metal beetles skittering across the wooden floor toward them.
Tiny gears and broken metal shards sprayed across Ember’s room. The fae stared at the whole thing from behind her lifted comforter, the black and purple lights of Cheyenne’s magic pulsing against her face and reflecting in her eyes.