by CM Raymond
A tall beanpole of a man with a clump of weed in his cheek approached from the camp. His pants were two sizes too short, and his shirt hung off his thin frame. “What are ya hunting?” he asked.
Parker extended his hand in greeting. The man took it, though his eyes were on the strange cat-creature standing at Parker’s side. “Three kids went missing this morning. We’re just trying to help the mothers out, although I’m sure it’s nothing.”
The man turned his eyes toward Parker. “You don’t mean Holly and them two Nyehold kids, do ya?”
Parker nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s them.”
“Ah, hell, I saw ‘em this morning a few hundred yards that way.” He spat a dark wad of weed to the dirt and pointed north. “They was just beyond my tent. Come on, I’ll show you.”
The man marched in front of them, his stick-legs taking impossibly long strides—so long that even Parker had a hard time keeping up with him. Without warning, he stopped at a low spot in the brush and pointed.
“I saw them go out right here,” he reported with a gleeful grin, obviously glad to contribute to the life of the community.
Parker shook his hand again and thanked him, and the man nodded and disappeared back into the camp.
When Parker turned back toward his friends Vitali had crouched near the bushes and was turning his head about. He looked up at them and nodded. “He’s right,” he said. “The kids definitely came through here, and not too long ago. Their scent is strong.”
Laurel laughed and covered her mouth. “I so wish Aysa were here for this!”
The fur on the sides of his face stood up. “What? There are some advantages to being a Lynqi, even if I don’t lick my own privates likes some feral cat in Arcadia.” He rose and walked through the bushes.
Laurel nodded to Parker. “After you. Don’t tell Vitali, but I’m allergic to dander.”
****
Hannah blew across her piping hot mug of kaffe and watched the steam curl toward the ceiling. Sal opened one eye, but didn’t bother to even sit up at the smell of the magical elixir that Laurel had taught them to brew.
“Sorry, buddy, but rules are rules. I promise I’ll give you some once we’re not in the middle of a crisis or trapped aboard the ship.”
He closed his eye and let out a long sigh, but he couldn’t have been too mad because he was asleep again in seconds.
She took a sip and her nose wrinkled a bit. She still wasn’t used to its sharp taste, but she couldn’t argue with the way the liquid drew her out of the morning funk like nothing else in Irth. And, no matter how strong her magic got, she was still pretty much not worth shit in the morning.
She let the kaffe take off the late morning chill as she sat at the lone table in her residence and stared at an invisible dot on the wall. If it were up to Lilith or Ezekiel she’d be meditating right now, working on building her strength for the moment she would expend it all to save the woman who would save the world. Instead, her mind was on Gregory and the conversation they’d had in the woods the night before.
Hannah knew that besides being smart as hell, Gregory was also wise. Sure, he could build just about anything, which always impressed her, but his ability to see the world and understand his friends was a gift much more precious.
She smiled, thinking about how far he had come since that day in the classroom in the Academy—she had been hiding her identity, and Gregory, in his own way, had been hiding his too.
The smile didn’t last, though. The look on Aysa’s face as she entered without knocking made it disappear in a heartbeat. Her eyes darted around the room and finally landed on Hannah. “Have you seen him?”
“Seen who?” Hannah asked, annoyed that someone dared speak to her before most had even finished their breakfasts. But concern wasn’t a normal emotional response for the girl from Baseek, so a chill of fear rushed down Hannah’s spine. “What’s wrong?”
Aysa shook her head. “I’m sure it’s probably nothing. I mean, I’m sure it’s fine.”
Hannah crossed the room and looked Aysa in the eyes. “Tell me.”
“It’s Gregory. I went to the lab this morning to ask him a question about the Unlawful, but he wasn’t there. It’s strange, since the little bastard nearly lives in that workshop of his.”
“Did you check his room? The ship?” But Hannah knew the answer—Aysa wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t.
The Baseeki girl waved her big hand. “I just came from the ship. There was no one there except that Skrim we chained up, except it was dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yeah. It was freaky as hell—like it died straining against its chains or something. But no Gregory. I’m sure I’m overreacting. He’s probably just out getting in an early morning tongue-wrestling match with Laurel someplace.” She laughed, but it sounded fake.
Hannah shook her head. “Can’t be. Laurel is out in the woods with Vitali and Parker looking for some missing kids. I got word that they planned on staying out until they found them.”
Her eyes flashed red as she reached out to Gregory. G, where you at?
Nothing. She tried again, and a third time.
“I can’t reach him.”
“That’s bad,” Aysa said, “right?”
Hannah shrugged. “Could be, but maybe not. Sometimes he has a hard time hearing me from the cockpit when I’m on the deck. He’s really not great with mental magic—or any magic, for that matter—when he’s concentrating.”
She racked her brain to think of what might have pulled Gregory away. He could just be out for a morning walk in the woods to clear his mind, but it made no sense. Hannah could use Gregory’s schedule like an old-world time piece if she needed—he was that predictable.
“Have you seen Had?”
Aysa shook her head. “But I haven’t looked for him.”
“All right, maybe they’re together. They’ve been awfully chummy of late.”
Hannah reached out to Hadley’s mind. The mystic was dependable—far better at the mystical arts than she—but again silence was the response.
“What the hell? Now I’m getting nervous,” she said, the red in her eyes fading. “I’ve got nothing on Had. Can’t even sense him.”
A sick thought crossed her mind.
Squeezing Aysa’s arm she urged her, “Go find the Triple-Bs and meet me in Lilith’s residence.”
“OK,” Aysa said, turning to leave.
As she crossed the threshold, Hannah called after her, “Find Olaf too. I’m afraid we might need his bear-nose on this one.”
Hannah strapped the rearick blade to her belt and whistled to Sal, who was already stretching the sleep out of his long scaly body.
“Let’s move, sleepy bones. Something doesn’t smell right in New Romanov this morning. Frankly, it smells like shit.”
****
Hannah paced the room as the others entered. She had no problem fighting monsters and men, but the thought of her friend Gregory being in trouble was almost more than she could bear.
She forced herself to stop circling the room and held her hands behind her back so they couldn’t see them tremble.
“Lass,” Karl said, leaning against the rock wall, “ye really think somethin’s wrong wi’ that little brainiac o’ yers?”
Hannah shook her head and checked the door for Olaf, but there was nothing. She glanced at Ezekiel, who gave her a nod. The Triple-Bs were her team, not his, and although she wanted nothing more in that moment than for Ezekiel to tell everyone it would all be OK, she knew it wouldn’t go down that way.
Her team. Her call. Period.
She nodded. “Something’s off. I have no idea what it is, but it isn’t right. You all know Gregory, and it isn’t like him to simply wander away when there’s such important work to do. We have to take this seriously. And to add to the issues, I can’t contact him or Hadley.” She glanced back at her mentor. “Ezekiel?”
Ezekiel’s steely grey eyes stared through her. “No, nothing.”
/> Hannah felt her throat constrict at this. If Ezekiel couldn’t reach the mystic, something had to be wrong.
“We have eyes on them,” a gruff voice said from the doorway. Hannah turned and saw Olaf standing there with Mika at his side.
Hannah exhaled. “Thank the Matriarch. Those two bastards just wandering off like that— What the hell, guys?”
Olaf wiped his hand across his face. “Well, it might not be that simple. The morning guard at the gate saw them just after dawn. They tried to ask the guys what was up, if they needed anything, but apparently they passed without a word crossing their lips.”
“Really?” Hannah asked, shocked to hear a report of Hadley ever being silent.
She shook her head and started to pace, not caring who saw her emotions on display. Power welled within her, but she did all she could to keep a cool head. “I don’t like it. First those kids going missing, and now Had and Gregory. And I can’t reach them. There might not be a connection, but Laughter has messed with us before” She stopped and looked at her crew. All of them had their eyes fixed on her and Karl’s hand was on the shaft of his hammer, just waiting to do his leader’s bidding.
The familiar tinny voice called from across the room. “Hannah, this truly cannot be good. In my estimations, at Gregory’s pace of production he was going to finish the tech with approximately thirty-two hours to spare. You understand the consequences, don’t you?”
“Shit!” she groaned.
The Oracle’s monotone voice replied, “Indeed.”
“All right,” Hannah said. “Ezekiel, you stay here with Lilith. She might need you to work a miracle if the world ends while I’m gone.”
The old man’s face finally broke into a smile. “I will, but even the Founder might be useless in this situation.”
She shook her head. “No room for anyone to be useless on this one, old man.” A sly smile spread on her lips. “An old crazy wizard taught me that.” She turned to the others. “Parker, Laurel, and Vitali are looking for those kids. Olaf, I need you with me. We have to find Hadley and Gregory fast.”
“I’m with ye too, lass” Karl’s face was etched with determination.
Hannah shook her head. “No, I need you to take care of something else.”
His eyes dropped for a second, and then he looked back up at her. “Anythin’ ye need, Hannah—ye know that.”
“That’s right, you tough little shit.” Her grin returned. “Before all hell breaks loose here in the city we have to protect the weakest among us. I need you and Mika to take the old and the children—any who can’t stand up in a fight—and get them up to Urai.”
Karl shot a glance at Mika, who gave him a wink. “It will be our pleasure,” she said to Hannah. “My people are strong, and we’ve been doing everything we can to get ready. They will see this as their chance to repay a portion of the debt they owe.”
Hannah nodded. “Good. And take Sal with you too—that way you can send word back to Zeke if something goes wrong.”
“What the hell am I going to do?” Aysa asked.
“Gregory taught you everything he knows about the, um…”
“Satellite?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Apparently he taught me more than he taught you, but it’s nowhere near everything he knows about it,” she answered.
“Doesn’t matter, right now you’re the expert. Get Roman and Yuri and do what you can to advance the project. I don’t care if you’re only able to shave an hour off Gregory’s work by the time he returns—it could mean life or death. Whatever you do, just don’t make anything worse! You understand?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I understand, and I appreciate your vote of confidence.”
Hannah shot her a look that could freeze a fireball.
“Relax,” Aysa said. “What could go wrong?”
Hannah shook her head. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
“I will advise her,” Lilith said. “Focus on finding your comrades.”
Hannah looked at the machine. She knew what this development meant for her.
“I’ll bring him back,” Hannah said. “You can count on that.”
CHAPTER NINE
Devin scampered down an animal trail that could hardly be called a path. Her white-tipped tail twitched back and forth, and every ten to twenty yards she stopped, sat up on her hind legs, and chattered at the others.
Vitali smiled at her, and she hissed.
“I swear she hates me,” Vitali said.
“Nah. Well, maybe, but she kind of hates just about everybody but me, Gregory, and Sal,” Laurel told him. “Just don’t piss her off. You don’t know what she’s capable of.”
Vitali looked down at the tiny woodland creature and then at Laurel with his thin smile. Her face was stone-serious.
“You’re not kidding?”
Parker laughed. “Really, Vitali! Whatever you do, don’t screw with the squirrel. You’d stand a better chance against Sal hopped up on kaffe than trying to wrestle that little ball of fury. I’ve seen her in action.”
Devin chattered in agreement before dropping to all fours and taking off down the path again.
“I just hope Devin’s still on the trail,” Parker said.
Vitali crouched and put his nose in the brush. Parker was taken by the fact that he looked much more cat-like in that position, although with his muscles bulging from his clothes he was much closer to a mighty jungle beast than a common house pet.
He stood and nodded, his whiskers still twitching. “She is. I can smell the same scents that were on their mothers. It’s leading us right up there.” Vitali nodded toward a giant outcropping of rock visible through a break in the canopy overhead.
Laurel sighed. “I’m never having kids.”
Parker snickered. “Gregory said he wants like ten or twelve. Would make a pretty big litter, right, Vitali?”
“We don’t give birth to litters, although by the sound of things last night you were trying to.”
Parker blushed a little. “You heard that.”
Vitali wiggled his ears. “It’s a curse.”
“Did Gregory really say that?” Laurel asked.
“Nah,” he replied, “but think about it. With his smarts and your ferocity, you could breed an army.”
“Bite me.” She raised her arms and flexed. “I’ve got all the army I need right here.”
Parker chuckled, then turned back toward the trail. He scanned the surroundings, looking for something an enhanced nose wouldn’t catch.
“They’re going to be in there,” Parker said, nodding toward the rocky mountain slope.
“How can you be so sure?” Laurel asked. “Some of Hannah’s magic wear off on you overnight?”
“I don’t need magic or cat-like senses,” Parker replied, “not when I’ve got my wits. I was a normal kid once, and if I was new to a place like this that would be precisely where I’d go.”
They were silent as they pushed up the hill. Between Vitali’s and Devin’s noses and Laurel reaching out to the plant life they stayed on the trail of the missing children, and when they reached the piles of crumbled stone at the base of the cliffs they realized that Parker’s instincts had been true.
“What does normal human intuition tell you now?” Vitali asked.
“Simple.” He pointed up the rock face toward a dark hole about thirty feet above the ground. “There.”
“You’re pretty good at this for someone so normal,” Laurel quipped.
“Yeah, well, it’s easy, seeing as I want to explore that place even now. I have pretty much the mind of a twelve-year-old.”
“Good point,” Laurel said.
Parker stumbled through the heaps of broken boulders that had lost their places on the cliffs over the years from weather and climate change. He looked up from watching his feet to see Laurel and Vitali skipping through the chaos of massive stones as if they were walking on a well-maintained street in an established city.
H
e grumbled to himself and continued to pick his way.
Once through the boulders and scree things improved for him. Parker prided himself on his agility, and when they reached the solid rock face he picked up his pace and caught the others.
“Still think this is it?” Laurel asked with a smug expression, pointing at the mouth of the cavern. It was filled in with stone.
Parker shrugged. “Could be why they didn’t come back.”
“They’ve been here, at least,” Vitali added, holding a scrap of cloth in his furry hand. “Well, one of them.”
Parker looked at the stones and then glanced above the face, looking for where they may have fallen from. “I’ll tell you, I’m going to have a fit if we move all this rock and those kids aren’t in there.”
“No need to be hasty.” Laurel clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth, and Devin scampered over to her. “Do your thing, girlfriend.”
Devin took off for the rocks, bounding between them to poke around for a hole.
“Not a bad little scout,” Vitali said stepping closer to where Devin was working. She stopped, turning toward him and hissing. He threw his hands into the air. “Come on, you little vermin. I was being nice.”
“You have to understand that she doesn’t trust cats.”
“I’m not a cat!” Vitali yelled. “I’m a Lynqi.”
Before they could continue their debate of the details of his race, Devin stopped racing around and sniffed at a crack between two boulders. Parker could barely fit his hand through it, and if he had done so he was sure it would never come out, but Devin squeezed her nose into the dark gap and pushed with her strong hind legs. In a second her body disappeared into the space, leaving only her white-tipped tail waving like a flag in the wind, and then she was gone.
“Handy,” Parker said, watching the squirrel disappear into the hole. “Now let’s see if she’s able to get back out.”
Laurel shrugged. “Nothing to worry about. She’ll just come right back out—” she was interrupted by the sound of shifting rocks. They jumped back as pumpkin-sized boulders dropped and rolled at their feet. When they looked back up, the hole Devin had entered was closed. “Well, that complicates things, but Devin is pretty damned inventive. I’ve thought I lost her more than once, but that squirrel just keeps coming back. Kind of like a feral…”