by CM Raymond
“I can only hope it does.”
Gregory stopped, grabbed her arm, and spun the captain of the BBB toward him. “No, Hannah. Don’t hope—know. This is one situation where hope is going to get us into a shit-ton of trouble. You need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt it will come. Doubt and second-guessing your skills is going to impede the magic.”
She looked up into his serious face. There were lines at the edges of his eyes that she would swear hadn’t been there when they had met in the Academy. It had only been a matter of months, but all those days facing danger had changed Gregory. She could feel the conviction in his words, and even if he didn’t trust in himself enough yet, he obviously had not even a flicker of doubt that Hannah—in her greatest power—would show up when she was needed.
“OK, G, I got it. Now apply that to yourself, and we’ll be the two most powerful people in Irth.”
He laughed. “Well, we’re halfway there. Now we just have to work on me.” He glanced back at New Romanov, which he could hardly see through the thick wall of fresh spring leaves. “I better get back to work. You coming?”
“Nah,” Hannah replied. “I think I’ll just walk for a bit. You know, think about how much I love you all. Especially you!”
Gregory blushed, which made her smile. The old Gregory certainly wasn’t gone, just growing up a bit. As she watched him walk up the gentle rise and out of the stand of trees, she realized that she could do it. For Gregory and Parker and Ezekiel and Laurel, she could save Irth. Her love for them was too great to fail, so she would do whatever was necessary.
He turned back to her, “You know, I’m going to be in the lab all night. Which means Parker will be all alone.”
She cocked her head to the side. “And what the hell are you implying, Sir Gregory?”
He smiled. “I don’t know—might be a good way for you to practice that whole ‘focus on love’ thing. Just a thought… Night!”
She smiled as she watched him go, then immediately followed his path back to the city.
Spending the night with Parker wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hadley stumbled back toward the residence. He felt woozy, as if he had just spent the whole night playing drinking games with Karl, but what he had actually done had been far less enjoyable.
Ezekiel had put him through the ringer.
Hadley’s whole body ached, as if he had spent the last several hours with every muscle tensed. Which was probably the case, although he couldn’t recall what his body had been doing.
All he remembered was what had happened in his mind.
Fire, death, abominations…
Every twisted experience from the Founder’s not-so-boring life was a weapon, and he had hammered Hadley with them relentlessly. It was a form of torture he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
And yet Hadley was still standing.
Ezekiel, the Founder, the man who introduced magic into the world, had thrown all of his mystical weight at Hadley, and the mystic hadn’t cracked.
It was a greater accomplishment than anything he had ever achieved.
Granted, Hadley had spent most of his life specializing with some of the greatest mental magic users in the world, while Ezekiel was fluent in almost every form of magic. Still, a win was a win.
He entered the residence and climbed the steps toward his bedroom.
Vitali and Karl were doing their best to out-snore each other, and it seemed like they were both succeeding. In addition to that, muffled giggling came from Parker and Gregory’s room. Hadley laughed, trying to guess which of the men had an overnight guest and which had needed to find alternate quarters for the night.
He climbed into bed and tried to pass out, but sleep evaded him. The images in his mind were too dark, and the excitement of his new level pounded through his chest. He felt like a kid on his first day in the temple again. The fear and wonder and newness of it all had kept him awake all night, and he had almost fallen asleep during this first day of lessons.
But the mystic had learned much since then, and one of those lessons was that if you couldn’t sleep you might as well put your energy to good use.
Now that he felt more confident about being able to stand up to the Laughing Queen, he had another problem.
How could he access her thoughts?
Mental magic had a greater range than its counterparts, but it was still limited. There was no way he could reach across the galaxy and pry Laughter’s secrets from her.
But she had done it, he thought to himself. She grabbed my mind without even being present on this planet. How did she do that?
The answer hit him like a ton of bricks.
The Skrima.
Despite what seemed to be an innately violent nature, it was clear that the Skrima were being directed by Laughter. They had assumed that it was some form of training or brainwashing that happened on the other side, which might still be the case, but Lilith had undeniable psychic powers and she had leveraged that power to control the Skrima.
It made sense, but it might also lead to her demise.
“Like the old man said,” Hadley whispered out loud, “perhaps that door opens both ways.”
Hadley climbed out of bed, redressed himself, and tiptoed out of the room.
If Laughter could use the Skrima as a conduit to control him, there was a chance that he could daisy-chain off a Skrim to reach her.
And Hadley knew exactly where to find one.
He left the city and snuck past the added guards, then followed a clearly-marked path through the woods toward the Unlawful.
There, chained to the deck of the ship, was the flying Skrim Karl had managed to subdue.
No one had figured out what to do with it, so they had left it where it was, assuming it would keep for another day or two. Aysa had wanted to turn it into a mascot or a pet, but when the thing had almost eaten Devin Hannah had instituted a strict no-contact rule.
A rule Hadley was about to break.
He climbed aboard and stared at the ugly thing. A thick chain hung around its neck, and two more kept its wings pinned down.
It hissed like a rattlesnake as Hadley approached, which made him wish they had muzzled it.
Hadley reached a hand forward and the Skrim almost bit it off. He closed his eyes, remembering what Ezekiel had taught him.
His eyes flashed white, and he reached into the creature’s mind.
The thing wasn’t human, but it wasn’t quite an animal either. Its mind, while very different in some ways, was similar enough to a human’s that Hadley could get a slight hold on it.
The Skrim was furious, its mind bent on killing and nothing else.
Hadley had spent time in enough minds to know that this one had been altered. Not completely—the Skrim basically was a killing machine—but those urges had been amplified, while any urge toward self-preservation had been stripped away.
It was a brutal place to be.
Hadley knew that, if he spent enough time here, he could dig past the illusions and mental control and get a sense of the true character of this Skrim. He didn’t give a shit about discerning this thing’s hopes and dreams, though. He was here for one reason, and one reason only—to find the Laughing Queen.
The theory was that she somehow actively puppeted the attacking Skrima, but puppetry required strings. All Hadley needed to do was find the string controlling this Skrim and pull.
It could have been hours, it could have been seconds, but Hadley eventually found what he was looking for.
He took a breath and plunged in full-throttle.
****
As Gregory re-entered the city he considered whether he should follow his own advice. It had been too long since he and Laurel had spent any quality time together. When he wasn’t flying the Unlawful, he had been working on the old-world tech. And even in those few moments when he wasn’t working, it wasn’t as if the airship provided a lot of space for them.
He sighed.
Not tonight. There was too much work to do.
Trudging back toward the tunnels, he vaguely imagined what his life would be like after all this ended. More of the same, he supposed, but if that meant the same amount of time with Laurel as he had now, it would be more of a nightmare than a dream.
He promised himself then and there that, once this project was finished, he would slow down. Life was too important to ignore the good parts, and Laurel was the best thing he’d ever had.
But first he needed to fix this damn thing. The team was counting on him.
Even though the satellite was a piece of technology greater than any he had ever seen, he was confident that he could crack the puzzle. Whether there was enough time to finish before Laughter sent her attack was another story. He trusted his team to hold off whatever forces were out there, and they trusted him to make sure this battle was the war.
But that wasn’t good enough. He had learned tonight that Lilith believed she was failing. Would fail if Gregory took too long, which placed the burden of saving her on Hannah. For Irth’s sake failure was not an option, and Gregory would be damned if he didn’t pull his weight.
He shook his head. Hannah was the most powerful person he had ever met, but creating a body seemed like an impossible task even for her.
Which meant that there were high odds he would be the one to fix Lilith. He was confident he could do that too, but it would require more time.
Hence his commitment to relentlessly work at night. Sleep was a convenience he could not afford.
He entered his lab, hoping that some alone-time would allow him to focus, but his lab was full.
Aysa and his two assistants were passed out on the floor or at their desks.
He smiled. Not everyone could burn the midnight oil like he could.
He sat down next to the machine and tried to work on it quietly, but that was a skill he had not mastered. Aysa stirred. She had been using her long, Baseeki arm as a pillow and drooling on the table.
When Gregory dropped a screwdriver, she woke up. Gregory watched her as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes.
“What...what’s going on?”
Gregory shushed her gently. “It’s OK,” he said. “Just go back to sleep.”
She nodded once, then landed back on her arm.
Neither of the boys stirred, which gave Gregory the freedom he needed. He powered through, the thrill of the challenge energizing him beyond fatigue.
****
The plan had been for him to work until dawn, but a visitor came to his lab in the dead of night.
Gregory heard the footsteps approaching, but he was too focused on the machine to pay them much attention until the voice confronted him.
“Gregory?”
“Hadley, what’s up?” Gregory stared at the mystic, confused as to why he would be here. The young man’s eyes were white, as if he were using his magic, but Gregory didn’t see any made-up giants or slugs crawling around.
Hadley smiled. It was wide and looked odd, out of place.
“I’ve figured out the answer,” he said. “The answer to all my problems.”
“Oh yeah?” Gregory asked cautiously. “And what’s that? What’s the answer?”
Hadley grinned even wider and pulled a long slender knife from his waistband.
“The answer, Gregory, is you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“They keep looking at me like I’m a freak,” Vitali said to Parker, though his eyes were on the crowds huddled in the encampment outside New Romanov.
Parker yawned as he tried to wake himself up—a special night-time visit had kept him up far longer than he had planned. He shook his arms out as he looked around the town and then back at his Lynqi friend. The refugees nearest them did keep stealing glances at them. Well, at Vitali, confirming his suspicions.
“Yeah, I recognize the look they're giving you,” he said, stepping up on a rock so he could see farther into the group.
“Really?”
“Yeah. It was the same look I gave you that first day back in Kaskara.” He laughed. “You gotta remember that most of us have never seen a person with fur before, but it shouldn’t make you feel too bad. Before you showed up everyone marveled at Karl’s height and Aysa’s long arms, but now they just seem normal. Well, not normal, but their appearance doesn’t put anyone off.”
Vitali stayed quiet and Parker could hear the gentle purring in the Lynqi’s chest.
“We are all afraid of that which we don’t understand,” Vitali finally said. “It was the same when you, Hannah, and Laurel arrived in Kaskara. My people had seen humans before, but nothing like you—like Hannah. Her powers were certainly strange magic, and almost evil. To tell you the truth…”
Parker looked at him, his brow furrowed. “What?”
“Well, the glavne wanted to send them away, even with you poisoned. Even though she had saved our children from the Muur.”
“But you convinced them?” Parker asked.
Vitali nodded, the soft hair on the sides of his face standing up. “That’s right. I had a feeling that you were good. That for some reason, the gods knew what, I needed to help you.”
Parker laughed. “And here we are.”
“Yes.”
He patted Vitali on the back. “Don’t worry about these folks. They’ve been through a lot, but they’ll come to trust you soon enough, just as I did.”
“And I you,” Vitali said, a thin smile forming on his face. “Come on, show me the rest of the city.”
They hopped off the rock that had given them a better view of the encampment and turned back toward the gate. Just as they stepped through the wall, a child of no more than nine with a dirty face and bare feet ran up to them breathing heavily. He nearly fell over.
“What is it?” Parker asked.
The kid gathered himself and finally got out, “The girl with the pointy ears—she needs you. Something’s wrong.”
Pulling the spear from his back, Parker barked, “Show us the way.” The panting kid spun and headed into the makeshift camp.
From a distance, Parker caught sight of Laurel kneeling beside a person who was slumped on the ground. He picked up the pace.
“Laurel?” he called from a few yards out. She looked up at him, her face grave and her arm draped around the shuddering body of the woman in the dirt. Standing next to them was Mrs. Shutov. “What is it?” he asked the old woman.
Mrs. Shutov took Parker by the arm and pulled him close to her plump body. He could feel the warmth radiating from her. “The poor dear.” She nodded toward the weeping woman. “She’s looked all over, but her little girl is gone.”
When Parker crouched by Laurel’s side, the woman, sensing his presence, looked up. Lines of tears made dark streaks of mud down her dusty face, and her lip trembled. “I’ve looked all over. She was here just...just... I don’t know. I saw her this morning.”
“Slow down,” Parker urged her, “and tell us exactly what happened.”
She took three long breaths and tried to gather herself. The sobbing slowed, but her eyes still pleaded with him. “Holly, my daughter…I can’t find her anywhere. She went off this morning to find some other kids to play with, but she never came back. We’ve looked everywhere, but she’s... She’s just gone.”
“Which way did she go?” Laurel asked the woman, still holding her.
The woman pointed toward the western edge of the camp. “Beyond the tents.”
Parker’s eyes turned in the direction she was pointing, looking through an impossible crowd of people doing the best they could to set up a semblance of life outside of the walls of New Romanov. He sighed. The girl couldn’t have gotten far, and given the mass of humanity milling in every direction he convinced himself that she was probably just playing with some other kids.
A voice interrupted them. “My gods, Lucia! We’ve been looking all over for you. Where is Holly?”
Parker glanced up into the teary blue eyes of a woman with a crooked
mouth and cropped hair.
“Tyler and Nat have been gone since breakfast, and they said they were going to find her,” the woman said as she clenched her shaking hands in front of her chest.
Lucia, the woman on the ground, gave the concerned mother one glance and broke into uncontrollable sobs. Life had certainly been hard on them, and the missing children pushed her over the edge.
Parker placed a hand on Lucia’s shoulder and looked up at the other woman. “Don’t worry, we’ll locate them.” He turned toward Mrs. Shutov. “Find one of our people and let them know we’ll be out searching for some lost kids. We’ll be back before too long.” The old woman nodded and turned toward New Romanov without a word.
The two mothers, were thankful for the kindness of this stranger. Both took the opportunity to cast a suspicious glance at Vitali, but Laurel insisted they need not worry. Their kids would be found. The woman thanked them, though they looked no less nervous as Laurel, Parker, and Vitali headed toward the western side of the camp.
As they wove through the masses, Laurel looked over her shoulder and sighed. “Damned kids.”
“I’ve always been impressed by your sensitivity,” Parker scoffed.
“Oh, come on. We’ve all been there. I mean, they’re kids! They’re probably off someplace sipping stolen ale or just screwing around. I’m only going to take a look because I couldn’t spend another minute trying to comfort her.” Laurel looked over her shoulder to judge Parker’s response.
“Well let’s hope you’re right, but you and Gregory tangled with some lycanthropes out in those woods, so who knows?”
They reached the edge of the camp and started to walk the perimeter. It was impossible for Laurel to pick up a trail, since the place where the camp met the woods was riddled with little trails heading out to private spots for the refugees to relieve themselves. She extended her hands and touched a clump of ferns. Eyes covering over in green, she reached out to the flora and tried to gather any information, but there was none. Too many people in too small a place.
She looked up at her friends and shook her head. “Nothing.”