The pain in Sky’s chest came and went in waves. It had started just after sunrise as the pleasant buzz from the wine wore off. She’d felt fine when Danny was pressed against her, with her hands running over his warm, smooth skin. The more she resisted, the worse the pain got, and she wished she’d just indulged him when he asked.
“Are you all right, Sky?” Amanda asked.
Sky made the mistake of looking at her. At them. The half-breed made Spirit roar inside her, but then the sound was muffled and all was quiet again. Amanda had lifted Layna’s shirt to get better access to the bound wings.
“I can’t reach Chase or Morrigan,” Sky said, raiding the refrigerator in the house, stuffing pieces of fruit into her satchel and dipping her finger into the covered dishes to taste the food. Her stomach growled, and she bit into one of the fruits. The soft, purple flesh came apart easily and Sky gagged. It tasted like turnip.
“Can you help me?” Amanda asked.
“I can’t even look at you two. What happens if I touch her?” Sky said.
“I don’t know. What do you feel like now?” Amanda asked. She sounded so calm compared to yesterday.
“My skin is on fire and I can’t breathe. It’s worse since Danny left,” Sky muttered, taking another bite of the turnip-fruit. Now that she knew what to expect, it wasn’t so bad. And she was hungry. This was the first bite she’d had since landing that wasn’t tainted by Festival drugs.
Amanda’s fingers combed through Sky’s hair, delicately massaging her scalp. Sky sighed and leaned into her, absorbing the comfort.
“You know, I sent Danny to you so you could help him. So he could help you,” Amanda said.
“I thought it was so you could run out without him noticing,” Sky said, forcing herself to move. She wondered if Amanda needed to be touched as well.
Daring to close her eyes, Sky strode toward the half-breed. Layna hissed at her, and Sky felt Spirit yield to her. It didn’t fight or lash out, and it didn’t strangle the breath out of her. The situation wasn’t as dangerous as she feared. She saw a glowing aura, and then the bound wings. Sky recognized the loop technique. She touched the wire, and it burned her hands. Spirit screamed for a moment, and then the loop came loose.
“Don’t spread your wings yet,” Sky warned as Layna stretched in response. All she had to do was untangle the bindings.
“Sky, wait,” Amanda said. But suddenly the house around them disappeared. All the houses did. They were in the middle of a forest.
“Teleport! Where are we?” Sky asked.
“We weren’t teleported. We got shifted out of our realm,” Amanda said. “This is Nola in a realm with no humans.”
“Then why are we here?” Sky asked. “Layna, be a good girl and send us home.”
Layna stayed on the ground, panting for breath as her wings slowly opened. They were translucent gray, like skin that had been cut off from oxygen. Dark, bluish marks showed where the bindings had cut into them. Amanda knelt beside her, carefully massaging where the wings met her back, encouraging blood flow. Not that blood flowed to spirit parts.
“Why? The humans want to kill me. My parents never should have blended with them,” Layna said.
Sky’s ears rang, but the voice she heard wasn’t hitting her physical ears.
“Your spirit parents?” Sky asked.
“You said they’d be here,” Layna said.
“Who said? When?” Sky asked. Had Spirit spoken to her? What had it promised?
The sounds Layna made next didn’t become words in Sky’s mind, but Sky knew she was calling out for her spirit parents. Layna’s wings unfurled, but she didn’t have the strength to lift her head and shoulders off the ground. Her body was long, and her wings went from her shoulders to her toes. Amanda jumped away from her, searching the sky as if she expected other half-breeds to swarm around to help.
“Can you tap into her power and get us back?” Sky asked.
“I feel her pain but can’t understand her. She’s not like the half-breeds on Terrana,” Amanda said, lifting her skirt and drawing a knife from her boot. She laid the blade across her palm and hesitated.
“What are you doing?” Sky asked.
“Checking to see if Galen can hear me. I’ve never done this when I wasn’t hallucinating.” She glanced up at Sky, trying to smile bravely, but breaking down in tears. “I’m not hallucinating, am I? I’m not.”
“No, this is all very real,” Sky said, taking the knife from her and pulling her into a hug. “Don’t do this. We don’t have a knitter.”
“I only have a few days of meds on me. And you didn’t take that much food. I don’t want to die again,” Amanda said, her fear palpable. “Galen and the half-breeds on Terrana live in a realm that has a golden light. They feed off of it. They heal with it. Maybe there’s something like that in this realm. Maybe that’s why Layna came here.”
“Let’s see if we can find it and get Layna recharged,” Sky said. “Maybe if we help her, she’ll send us home.”
Hawk felt a surge of energy blast through his body. The smoke cleared his lungs, and his swollen eyes opened. He’d felt bursts like that on Terrana, whenever he tapped into the spirit realm, but this time instead of draining him, it infused him with energy. The building was on fire and Corin lay next to him, beaten to a pulp. There were times Hawk wished he were a healer.
Hiking his jacket over his head, Hawk scooted on his elbows to get to Corin. His lungs wouldn’t stay clear of smoke forever. He hadn’t meant to start a fire. Maybe the Captain was right to keep him out of Oriana’s engine room. The Prince of Law had stripped him of his Virp, but with a thought, Hawk sent a surge of power to it. If the others were watching when it went on and off, they’d know something was wrong.
Corin was a dead weight in his arms, but his heart was beating. Hawk pushed the door, but it didn’t open. Rising to his knees, he threw his shoulder at it, and it only gave a little. He felt for a latch, but the door was unlocked. The door had been physically blocked from the outside. There were windows on either side of the building. Bolts of fabric carried the fire up the wall, but the structure hadn’t caught fire yet. Irrigation lines ran along the ceiling, but they weren’t spraying water. Hawk pushed energy toward them, making sure their valves were open. After a few haphazard spurts, black, murky water rained down on them, dampening the flames, but the water tapered off before the fire died.
It was a start, though. Hawk slid through the puddles to the nearest window and pried it open, using a combination of hybrid power and brute strength. He would have smashed it, but he didn’t want to drag Corin through the broken glass. Some of the flames reignited with the influx of oxygen, and black smoke billowed past him. Quickly, he dragged Corin outside, trying to get away from the smoke. They were surrounded by trees! Everything could burn!
Hawk didn’t think it was safe to go to the Palace, and he couldn’t drag Corin to the ship. His panic was cut short by a harrumph, and the stout law officer who had beaten him unconscious glared.
“I should have tied you up, Questre,” Belgard said, pointing a gun at Hawk’s head. Hawk raised his hands, subtly reaching for the weapon with his spirit fingers.
“I’m not Questre,” Hawk said. “I’m hybrid. Like your Magistrate. That’s how I made the sprinklers work.”
“If you’re not Questre, then I don’t need fire to kill you,” he crooned.
“Why do you want to kill me at all?” Hawk asked.
“Because Questre or not, all Fotri deserve to die,” he growled. He fired his gun, but Hawk tweaked his fingers and the mechanical part jammed.
Belgard cleared the weapon and tried again, but Hawk kept jamming it. It only made the man angrier. He rushed Hawk, and Hawk ran. Rather than chase him, Belgard returned to Corin and kicked him in the head. Hawk knew he shouldn’t rush back into the fight. He knew it was too late to help. And Belgard had given up on the gun. The last thing Hawk saw was the officer’s baton swinging toward his face.
Ch
ase’s hand had been vibrating for several minutes, but he’d tuned it out because his battered hand was prone to tremors. His Virp was trying to tell him something and it was getting harder to ignore. He’d switched the glove mount to his bad hand so that he could work the buttons with his good fingers, but the vibrations made his bones ache. He’d overworked his fingers last night and needed to do his morning exercises to work out the stiffness. Morrigan said it would take months to retrain his fingers and every time he overstressed them like this, he added a week to that recovery time.
Chase tried to pull his hand close so that he could stop the vibrating and start his morning exercises, but there was a woman lying on his arm. There was another one snuggled on his other side and a third sleeping across his legs. He lifted his head and groaned at the throbbing headache. He’d only had two glasses of wine. Or three. Maybe four. They kept topping him off and he’d lost track at the second party. His tongue felt like sandpaper, and he vaguely recalled getting something spicy by dropper.
Gingerly pulling his arms free, he retracted his hands to his chest and massaged his aching fingers. The thought of his machine shop back home made him sad. He could barely hold a wrench, let alone turn it. Once he got his finger joints moving again, Chase pulled the glove off, setting it down on his chest. There was a message on the Virp telling him to get back to the ship.
Where was Morrigan?
“Danny? Danny?” Chase called, putting his finger to his ear. “Where’s my Feather?”
“Nowhere I want to know about,” Danny said, his voice projecting from the tiny speakers on the Virp. “I have been trying to reach you for three hours. Where are you?”
“In bed,” Chase groaned, not sure if he wanted to bring the speaker closer to his ear or throw it across the room. “I need ginger tea and a bucket of eggs.”
“Where is this bed? Are you back at the Palace?” Danny asked.
“No,” Chase said, lifting his head to verify that his surroundings were unfamiliar.
“There’s Detox and coffee on the ship,” Danny said. “I can tell what street you’re on, I just can’t find the building and there are green uniforms everywhere.”
Chase tucked the Virp by his cheek, wanting to fall asleep to the sound of Danny complaining, but wanting eggs a little more. He wasn’t even sure how to get back to the ship, and he figured if he found the Palace he could navigate from there. He tried to sit up but fell back again. His muscles were sore from sex.
Despite Tray’s insinuations about him and Sky, Chase hadn’t had sex since the night he left his fiancée in Quin, and it was frustrating that his first encounter since had been with a woman whose name he didn’t even know. Three women. Now that he looked at them, these three women weren’t the same ones he’d left the Palace with last night, but he’d had sex with those, too. Everything from his belly to his knees was sore and now that the haze of sleep was clearing, the pain started radiating.
“It hurts to move,” Chase said, probing his neck and shoulders to see if he’d pinched something. “Danny?”
“Is there anything you can tell me about where you are,” Danny said soothingly. “Are you near a window?”
“I can’t find my Feather,” Chase moaned.
“Can you find your pants?” Danny asked.
Chase looked down. He was still wearing his pants. He vaguely recalled wanting to take them off but having too much trouble with the buttons. The women didn’t care. They didn’t need him to be naked to get what they wanted. He was glad he was still on contraceptives.
“I’m wearing my pants.” Chase checked to make sure his pants were fastened. The woman between his legs stirred and stretched. Chase tried to get out of her way, but he’d pulled his groin, and possibly a few other muscles in his left leg.
“Sorry. Sorry,” Chase whimpered, his knee hitting her cheek. The woman sat up and massaged her head. She said something in Nolan that sounded pleasant, and she seemed amused. Since he’d left the Palace, no one spoke Trade. The woman woke up her two friends. They were all brunettes and looked like sisters. None of them seemed concerned to find themselves in this state, and they chatted with each other while they sorted through their clothes. Underwear and capes—they’d stayed mostly dressed as well.
One of the women asked Chase a question, but he didn’t understand.
“Do you speak Trade?” he asked.
She made a motion for eating and he nodded. He was famished. When she motioned him to get up, he tried pushing to his elbows again and slid back down. They weren’t even on a bed. They were on a table, wrapped in a silky tablecloth, padded only by a pillow Chase had stolen from the Palace. The women threw barbs at him, irritated that he wasn’t moving and bickering about what to do. One woman touched his thigh and Chase cried out in pain. Her face softened in sympathy and she trotted into the hall. They were in a small room with a single door and a single window. Aside from the table, the room had a few sturdy benches.
“Danny, I’m not sure I can walk,” Chase croaked, bracing his good hand around the pulled muscle. The lady returned from the hall, and raised Chase’s chin, forcing his mouth to open. Using a dropper, she deposited something bitter on his tongue and Chase cringed. Then she wrapped his leg with a compression bandage. The combination of the two eased his pain a little. She said something else, but then she and the other ladies left the room.
“Danny, it’s possible my companions called me an ambulance,” Chase said. “How bad is this?”
“How many companions? What do they look like?” Danny asked.
“Three brunettes. Two in blue, one in red. Long capes, no curves,” Chase said.
“I see them. On my way,” Danny said.
Chase dropped his head to the pillow, focusing on steading his breathing so he wouldn’t vomit when he tried to move. The door opened and he was relieved to see Danny.
“You got your pants on,” Danny teased.
“Couldn’t get them off,” Chase said, raising his injured hand. “Did you bring eggs?”
“Dammit. I left them in my other pants,” Danny said. “Chase, I know you’re hurting, but this is life and death.”
“Again?” Chase moaned. “It’s not safe on the ship. It’s not safe off the ship.”
“Hey, so far, you’re only hurt because you had a good time. Let’s make sure it stays that way,” Danny said, climbing on top of him, attacking him with an open-mouthed kiss.
“What? No! Stop!” Chase cried, bringing his arms up to block Danny, shocked by the aggressive move. “We’re really going to die, aren’t we?”
“I might,” Danny grunted, pulling Chase up from the table. His body jittered, as he fought between the urge to run and to tear Chase’s clothes off. “This place has a kitchen. I vote we leave through there.”
26
Sky kept her grav-gun at her side as she and Amanda explored the strange, new realm. The plant life was similar to the Aquia they knew, but dense and wild, untouched by humans. There was no dome blocking out the sky, and no Kessler cloud raining meteors on them. She thought she heard birds, though. Everything seemed to be singing.
“Do you see that?” Amanda said, smiling as she pushed aside the branches. The river glowed lilac, just as it did in Nola, but there was no glass canopy filtering the sunlight.
“I feel it. It feels…” Sky knelt down and let the glowing water run through her fingers. The warm water felt soothing, just like the bath. Spirit bubbled inside her, tipping her forward until her face hit the water. Spirit didn’t want to drown her; it wanted to feed. She opened her mouth, but before she could inhale, Amanda pulled her out.
“Unless you have gills I don’t know about, let’s keep your head above the water,” Amanda said.
“Do you think this is why Spirit attacks in the dark?” Sky asked. Her face felt warm, and the purple light overtook her vision. “It’s looking for this light, and there is none inside of me.”
“There’s a lot of light inside of you. Hawk sees it. Somet
imes I see it, too,” Amanda said, cupping her hand in the water and tasting it. “Tastes better than their tap water.”
“I could make lemonade,” Sky suggested, wondering if the lemon-like fruit in her bag was actually lemon or just some other type of turnip.
Amanda waded into the water, squatting down until the front of her dress was soaked, then she trotted back to Layna and wrung out the dress over Layna’s wings. Sky looked down at her beautiful, stained, and torn dress, wanting nothing more than to shed it and bathe in the water. She slipped off the blue slippers she’d been given. She should have changed before she and Danny left the Palace. Amanda returned, carrying Layna on her back. She dropped the girl on the bank next to Sky, then splashed water at the girl.
“What is this?” Layna croaked, her wings fluttering to shake off the water. Her face looked longer now, but still more like a human than a half-breed.
“The river is glowing,” Sky said, dipping her toe in. “Amanda thinks it’s what you need.”
Sky’s toes sank into the mud, and a swarm of tiny fish darted away from her. She wondered if the water would be healing if she submerged herself in it. Her abdomen still burned from the poisonous Festival wine.
Layna crawled down the bank and dove in, splashing Sky in the process. The girl swam up stream, but the strong current still carried her down. Sky took a few more steps in, and the shelf dropped suddenly, making her fall. Amanda grabbed her arm, not letting the current sweep her away, but didn’t force her off the bank. Until they saw a six-foot, toothy reptile swimming toward them.
“Layna!” Amanda called.
Layna’s wings unfurled, and she took flight over the river, doing a few loops in the air before landing on the bank, laughing. She kept flapping her wings, shaking the water off.
“Didn’t expect to see that here. I love watching the gators swim,” she said. She pinched at her human fingertips with her talons, and the skin seemed to slide off, revealing talons on that hand as well. She was transforming before their eyes. “At first, I thought I was turning into one, but I’m not scaly.”
Premonition: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 7) Page 18