The wave rose and covered him. Forms swam in the blue, half woman, half fish. Mermaids. They grabbed him, dragged him lower, to dark depths where only their eyes were visible, like stars, and the shiny scales on their arms and tails. Then they opened mouths full of razor-sharp teeth and snapped at him, tearing shreds out of him, tearing him to pieces, and he couldn’t move, only writhe under the onslaught as he died again and again.
A hand shook him. A woman’s voice said, “Elei.”
The distorted faces of the mermaids broke and the pieces drifted apart. Elei blinked at Hera’s face.
“What?” he asked, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. Sweat had soaked his pillow.
“Your fever has broken, at last.” She was bent over him, so close he could see the green in her dark eyes. “You were out all night and most of the day.”
Crap. “You should’ve woken me up.”
“You needed to rest.” She placed a bottle of water and a plate with two slices of bread topped with ham next to his pillow. “Now drink and eat something.” She straightened, one hand on the longgun holstered at her hip. “We should go.”
It took him a moment to understand what she was saying. “Go?”
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes. “How do you feel?”
Feeble as a kitten and light-headed, but he’d be damned before he told her that. “Fine. Listen, Hera.” He sat up, bent his head until the world stopped spinning. “Just listen. I’ll go. Stay. It’s a mad chase. Maybe there’s nothing there. Just tell me how to enter Dakru City and the Palace, and I’ll do it.”
He looked up and recoiled at the fire in her eyes.
“No,” she said with finality. “We’re going together.”
”Why?” He snapped his mouth shut before he said anything else, and stared at her instead, daring her to explain.
“Because.” She clucked her tongue. “If Pelia left information behind, it must be important. Hecate was high elite. If Pelia knew her, she must have possessed important insider information to the Gultur system. We need to obtain it. And we’re in this together.”
He threw the covers off, shivering. “Regina wants to kill me, Rex wants to kill you. You don’t want to be around me.”
“I’ll take the risk if you take it. Listen to me.” She leaned over him, her sweet smell of flowers making his mouth water. “We do not know what will happen, but I’m not letting you go alone. Not again.”
He frowned at her. “You didn’t—”
“I failed you twice.” Her eyes shimmered with colors, and he sat paralyzed by the emotion he saw in them — not anger, not impatience or doubt, but sadness. “Regina pushes me to kill, but I protect my own. And, mark my words, you are my own. You’re my friend and I do care for you. I’ve watched you come near death too many times in the little time I have known you.” She looked away, drew a shaky breath. “I will not stay away. I will be there when you need me.”
Before he could absorb this speech, feel the weight of her words, she turned around and walked out of the room.
Elei stared at the opposite wall, stunned. Had Hera said they were friends? His mouth pulled in a silly grin. His chest felt a size too big as he found his feet and limped to the bathroom. He held onto the feeling even as he remembered Regina didn’t care about friendships with mortals.
Besides, that still left Kalaes. Kalaes had to stay behind. Elei’s smile fell and he threw cold water on his face, trying to jump-start his brain.
Clean clothes had been laid out on the other bed — underwear, socks, dark pants and a navy, long-sleeved t-shirt, even boots his size, which he pulled on quickly and with relief. He ate the bread and ham, glad he now could, and drank all the water, feeling marginally better.
When he walked into the kitchen, he found it empty. Voices drifted over from the garage, and he entered, gripping his gun. Alendra was standing at the passenger cabin door, a cloth bag in one hand. Hera reached out to take it, and then they both disappeared inside.
Were they really going to do it? He rubbed his eyes, wondering if this was just another dream, and stepped down into the dimness. Steps echoing in the cavernous space, he approached the aircar. He felt fine, which meant Rex had tamed telmion again, but hopefully the parasite’s hold had weakened.
“Elei!” Hera waved from the deck. “Come on up.”
He hurried over and, stuffing the gun in his belt, climbed up the ladder, reveling in the near absence of pain, at long last.
Smell of old nepheline, dakron fumes, food from the cloth bag Hera now carried, human and Gultur skin. He crossed the cabin where Hera was stowing the bag under a seat and entered the cockpit. Kalaes sat in the driver’s seat, doing a systems check. Alendra sat stiffly in the co-driver seat, and she snapped around when Elei stopped right behind them.
“You...” she started, a muscle quivering in her small jaw. Elei stared at it, fascinated. “We’re going after something that’s only in your head.”
He flinched. “Then why in the hells are you coming along?”
“Because I can’t dissuade them and I won’t let them die. I’m fed up with watching everyone around me die. And this is your fault!”
But he wasn’t angry with her anymore.
“I know now why you hate me so much,” he said, his heart thumping. “It’s okay.”
She gasped, a small fluttering sound, and paled. She turned her face away. “You don’t...”
Elei waited, but she said nothing more. Then she got up, shoved past him and walked out of the cockpit, leaving a trail of sea breeze.
“What’s going on?” Kalaes turned to him, eyebrows raised, green lights from the panel playing on his face. The bruise on his jaw was now a sickly yellow with dark smudges.
“Nothing.” Elei took a deep breath. “Kal, listen. About this,” he gestured at the inside of the cockpit, “this mission, you don’t have to go. Zag—”
“Leave Zag alone,” Kalaes snapped. “He’s in Akert now.”
Elei flinched. “In Akert.” As if that meant anything to Elei. Maybe it was a suburb of Artemisia. “You call out for him in your sleep.”
Kalaes blanched, then lifted his chin, a jerky movement. “I just haven’t had a drink with him in a while. Just... forget it,” he said thickly and turned his back to Elei. “Get ready, we’re leaving.”
Elei told himself to do as Kalaes said, to forget, not to think. With a shrug, an indifference he didn’t feel, he returned to the passenger cabin and took a seat. Cat jumped on him and settled on his shoulder, a small, warm presence. Hera sat in the other seat, longgun lying across her knees, mouth a straight line.
“When we get through the sewers and come out in Dakru City,” he licked his lips, trying to imagine it, “you know, reeking and covered in filth. How in all the hells are we going to get into the Palace? Is there a tunnel leading right underneath it or something?”
“No, I’m afraid not. But there’s a room to wash and change. Do not worry.”
As if he could avoid worrying. After all, he’d decided to go in alone. He needed to know as much as possible about it. “A room, huh? Where’s that?”
“I’ll show you when we get there.” She rubbed the furrow between her brows and Elei wondered if she was fighting a headache. “The tunnels exit inside the Management House.”
“And where’s the Palace?”
“Both buildings are in the old town center. They were built right after the Great War, about five hundred years ago, and renovated with new materials about a hundred years later.” She fell silent for a moment. “The Palace is made of a rock I have not seen anywhere else. Moonstone, it’s called. White and smooth, it reflects the light. Beautiful.”
Elei breathed out, struggling to control his impatience. “But is that building far from the Palace?”
“No. It is not next to it either. We must enter the Palace from the back. We shall take the avenue that leads south, then bypass the Great Square and go around the Palace through the smaller streets.”
&nb
sp; “But you have a plan.” When she didn’t answer, he gritted his teeth. “Hera?”
“I thought to pretend I was taking you to work in the Palace kitchens as your Saew. Your...” She waved a hand, closing her eyes. “Your custodian.”
“But your face must be plastered on every screen and newsfeed.”
“Yes, there’s that. I need to steal a visor.”
“Right. And then throw grenades, huh? And shoot whoever gets in the way.” He swallowed hard, stroking Cat’s back to distract himself from the gory images that rose and fell on the surface of his mind.
She shrugged.
“Where’s this entrance to the tunnels? It has to be,” he brought up the map of Dakru in his memory, “the town closest to Dakru City.”
She nodded, dark eyes flicking to him, a stray beam of light picking out yellow and green flecks in their cores. “Gortyn.”
He’d seen it on the map, marked with the symbol for the beacon. “That’s the closest entrance?” It’d seemed quite a distance.
“It’s the best for us. It has not been used it for years.” She wet her lips. “It will not be guarded, at least I hope not. With the fighting going on, control should be minimal.”
Should be. “I didn’t want you all to risk your lives again.”
“But risking yours is fine?” She scowled. “Just shut up, Elei.”
Strangely, that made him smile. He stroked Cat’s head, the purr resonating in his bones. Then Alendra entered from the deck and slammed the door shut behind her. Her cheeks were red, and her gold glass eyes seemed to shed sparks. She stopped a few steps in front of Elei, a small hand pressed to her chest.
Elei cocked his head, expecting some snide remark about Cat or himself, but the silence stretched, a treacherous path. He had to tread it. “What?”
“Nothing.” If anything, the color on her cheeks deepened to crimson and he wondered if she’d break the vessels there.
As if it mattered.
Still she stood there, looking at him, the amber shades in her eyes shifting from dark to bright, condensing into emotions he couldn’t place. But when he took a breath to ask what she wanted, she turned on her heel and headed to the cockpit. The door closed behind her.
Elei released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “What was that about?”
Hera snorted but said nothing, and Elei didn’t get a chance to ask again. The aircar powered up, the window panes rattling, and the garage doors swung open behind them. They backed out into a quiet street of early evening, the yellow and red of the western sky reflected on low houses and agaric groves.
They were in a hamlet. Having slept on their way in, he bent toward the window, curious, and took in the low houses. Dogs barked, and Cat hissed, arching its back. Elei patted Cat’s head absently as they drove through a small agaric grove and rolled between algae ponds that shimmered in the last rays of light.
Cat tried to bite his hand. He pushed back the small snout, stroked the flattened ears. “Sh. Relax, Cat.”
At least one of us should.
***
The aircar sped along the narrow byway, much narrower than the intercity highway, past small hamlets, the house windows dimly lit. Algae ponds sometimes phosphoresced and vapor rose from their calm surfaces as the night deepened and grew colder.
Cat slept on Elei’s shoulder, twitching from time to time. Hera dozed, head propped against the window frame. With the fine features of her face relaxed, her small mouth pursed as if to blow a kiss, she was beautiful.
Beautiful. Alendra’s face surfaced in his thoughts, delicate brows drawn in a frown, eyes burning bright like the embers of a fire, her mouth soft. Her shoulders were slim but her arms strong, her waist small, her legs long.
He drew a sharp breath, desire inflaming his body, the heat rolling up his neck in a scorching wave. Great. Way to go. Desiring the one person who hated his guts.
And since when did he desire Alendra? Hells. He glanced sideways at Hera, to see if she was watching him, wondering if he’d given himself away somehow — not that he knew how — yet Hera slept on, oblivious.
He sighed in relief.
It was just physical attraction. He’d get over it.
His body took some time to get over it, though, and it didn’t get any better when Alendra strode back into the cabin some time later to wake Hera. The way her hips rolled slightly with each step, the way the material of her soft blouse molded on her breasts — gods...
It had to be a curse, to be aroused so easily. Stupid teenage hormones. As if he didn’t have enough problems as it was.
“Everything okay?” Hera stood with a yawn, stretching her legs. “I swear I feel like I just fell asleep.”
“I’ll drive with you.” Elei stood as well, Cat shifting on his shoulder and cracking a blue, uninterested eye. “Kalaes has to be dead tired.”
He followed them into the cockpit. Kalaes looked up as they entered, his eyes bloodshot. “Hey, where’s the party?” he drawled. “Did you bring any drinks, fe?”
“I’m going to grab a wink,” Alendra said, her voice oddly quiet.
“You too, Kalaes,” Elei said. “Go on, I’ll take your place.”
Kalaes hesitated, glancing at Alendra, and his eyes darkened. “I don’t know, fe. What if I wake up...?”
...screaming? Elei tapped a hand on his chest. “I’ll be checking on you. Don’t worry.”
Alendra frowned and made as if to say something, but Kalaes nodded, a flash of relief going through his gaze. He got up without further protest, which told Elei just how tired the older boy was. Between the nightmares and driving half the night, he had to be beat.
Shaking his head, Elei settled in the driver’s seat, Hera next to him, methodically checking the instruments and consulting her map. He peered at her profile as she bent over the crinkly map, waiting for a break in her concentration.
He pounced the moment she looked up, a furrow between her brows.
“So, how exactly are we going to do this?” He had to look away, focus his attention on the road as he maneuvered the aircar around a hillock, but even so he felt her gaze, a hot beam on his face.
“This? You mean enter Dakru City?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.” He’d thought it obvious, but maybe Hera was just being sarcastic.
She took so long to answer he turned to meet her gaze, calculating, analyzing, doubtful.
“If we manage to enter the sewer pipes at Gortyn,” she turned back to the instruments, “the tunnels will lead us beneath the center of Dakru City. I know the codes for opening the security doors leading outside, if they have not been changed. From there, it’s a short stroll to the Palace, if the guards do not intercept us. I have...” She inhaled, drawing out the moment. “A schematic of the Palace.”
“Where?” Elei frowned.
“Seared in my brain.” She smirked. “I lived there for a year, like all Echoes.”
He kept forgetting she was a princess, a Gultur, the enemy — though not anymore.
Then something caught his eye in the rearview mirror and he leaned forward for a better look. Oh shit, they had a tail again? “Hera...”
“I have an idea,” she went on, bending again over the map. “About how to enter the Cupola, where the safety boxes are. I am not sure it will work, but the one thing I know is I cannot let important information lie around undiscovered, intel that could help us bring down the regime for good. We must find out what Pelia intended us to know.”
Elei leaned back in his seat, worry churning his stomach. He didn’t want to say anything about the vehicle following behind them, not until he was sure. Chances were, more people were out and about, going about their business in the early morning hours. Besides, it was quite a ways back, a speck on the mirror.
“How do we enter this Cupola, then?” A sudden suspicion sneaked up on him. “Does it involve grenades and lots of killing?”
“We’ll do what we must.” Her mouth tightened. “You killed
many at the hospital.”
He held a hand up, his heart hammering, his thoughts filling with blood. What if there was a less violent, a less dangerous way in? He only had to find it.
She dropped her gaze. “All our faces are on the wanted list. Nobody will expect us to go to the Palace, that’s in our favor, but our luck can hold out only so long.”
Cat mewed, and he reached up to stroke it. Cat bit his finger and he yelped, pushing the creature off. It bounded off and curled in a corner, licking itself.
“Dammit!” Cat’s teeth had drawn blood. He saw in his memory the cats swarming the Gultur and their guard dogs, saw blood flow. He remembered, if vaguely, how Rex had protected him, helped him enter the hospital.
He flexed his fingers. As much as he hated to admit it, Rex had saved his life.
“Hey.” He glanced in the mirror. The damn aircar was still there, but something else had been on his mind and he wanted to know. “You said we’re friends, right?”
“Yes?” She threw him a suspicious, narrowed-eyed look. “If you do not kill me, we shall remain so.”
Heat seeped into his cheeks. “Yeah, okay. I’ll try not to. Listen.” He pushed hair out of his eyes. “That woman, the Gultur at the hospital, the one who let us pass, who had information about Rex. Sacmis.”
She scowled. “What about her?”
“Who is she? She’s more than a friend, isn’t she?”
Hera shook her head. “Why do you ask me this? Perhaps there’s someone else you want to talk about?” Her shrewd look made him want to hide under the chair. Instead, he squared his shoulders.
“No. Just Sacmis.”
Hera grinned, all teeth. Then her expression softened. “Sacmis is a friend from childhood. We fell out long ago.” Hera sighed. “I was in love with her, if this is what you’re asking. She’s beautiful and strong-spirited. I often wondered what it’d be like — to hold her, to kiss her. To be with her.”
Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) Page 43