Shoot the Messenger

by Pippa Dacosta

  “Me?”

  “A human body can generate anywhere between one hundred and two thousand watts. You aren’t human, but your physique suggests you have a high-energy output.”

  The humor in his eyes told me he liked that I’d noticed his physique. “Will it burrow into my brain and hide behind my eyes?” he asked, not entirely joking.

  “What?” There was military tek capable of exactly that, but I certainly wouldn’t force such a thing on someone—he was smiling again like he knew he’d had me—even someone as annoying as Kellee. The spark of annoyance quickly faded, replaced by an even more infuriating urge to laugh with him. “Just put it on.”

  Sitting up, he pressed the comms behind his ear.

  I did the same with mine and rolled my jaw to activate it. “Now you can hear me—”

  He winced and plucked it off. “Can you do something about the volume?”

  The marshal had acute hearing. Interesting. I took it off him, made some adjustments and handed it back. “That should be more bearable. It’s low-tek, so Arcon’s scanners shouldn’t pick it up. They don’t scan for basic systems like this. If they did, they’d pick up all manner of electronic devices people carry with them. Arcon is looking for weapons, not hearing aids.”

  “What’s the distance?” he asked. His voice doubled up as a whisper behind my ear.

  “A few miles, but that will depend on Arcon’s systems. There are likely sections of the building where the comms won’t work at all, but you’ll see signs marking those restricted areas as communications dead zones.”

  I showed him how to roll his jaw to turn the comms on and off. The devices were only temporary, unlike my link to Sota, but it would allow Kellee and me to communicate inside Arcon.

  Kellee helped tidy away the spare parts, collecting them into a pile on his kitchen countertop.

  “You just have to get me inside,” I said. “Tell them you’re there to investigate the recent disturbance. Just doing your job. Once in, make your way to any of the rear windows or doors and I’ll find you. You can open them from the inside. I’ll scramble the surveillance and locks.”

  He nodded and picked up a cylinder around the size of his little finger and teased it between his fingers. “What else can you make?”

  “Anything, given enough time and the right equipment.”

  I offered him my hand, palm up. Kellee dropped the cylinder into it and watched as I collected a few more items, worked them together and finally lifted the electronic stickman to my lips and blew a little fae magic into it. I set the little electronic “toy” down on the counter and watched him climb onto wobbly metallic legs.

  Kellee tilted his head and watched the toy man wobble about, then poked him. The toy staggered but stayed upright, and then he turned toward Kellee and lifted his wiry arm. Kellee pushed the toy again. Sparks jumped to Kellee, eliciting a hiss from the marshal’s lips. He shook his hand out. “What was that?”

  “I guess he doesn’t much like you.”

  “It… he’s… alive?” he asked carefully, aware of how absurd it sounded.

  “He is.”

  “But you just… you just made it, right there. How is that possible?” He paused, realizing I’d used magic to bring the tek to life. The same as my whip. The same as the fae assassin’s gun. The same as Sota, though the marshal didn’t know that. All my tek was alive with fae magic, some more than others.

  As the marshal understood, the toy electronic man slumped forward and stopped moving. His magic, what little I’d given him, had burned out.

  “It’s fleeting, especially so far from Faerie.” I pressed my lips together, wishing I hadn’t said the name, wishing I hadn’t made the little man and seen the delight in the marshal’s eyes. It was too late. I had said too much.

  I lifted my head and caught Kellee’s odd expression. The marshal knew. He knew exactly why I didn’t behave like a human. He knew where I came from, knew why the imprisoned fae had talked to me the way he had, knew how I could animate soulless objects.

  “You lived among them,” he said.

  I swallowed. “If you mean people in the sinks, sure I did.” My attempt to cover up the truth sounded pathetic and desperate.

  “You’re not part of the sinks”—his voice quickened, his thoughts solidifying—“you just hide out there… hiding from the protofae. You were born on Faerie.”

  I turned away and crossed the room, collecting my coat. All my lies had begun to unravel. “No.” More lies. He was too close to the truth. Why couldn’t he stop asking questions? In five years, nobody had cared enough to ask me anything, and here he was, relentlessly digging.

  “How did you escape? How did you get here? Defense drones beyond the debris zone would have shot down any ship.” He came around the kitchen counter, strides driving his questions home. “What are you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now let’s get back to Calicto…” Tugging my coat on, I stopped by the airlock doors, ignoring my pounding heart. He wouldn’t drop this. Someone like Kellee never did. He would poke and push until the truth pushed back. I would have to deal with him. Dammit, I didn’t want that.

  I watched him bear down on me. I didn’t want to hurt him.

  “Nobody leaves Faerie. Certainly no human—” He stopped, too close. His words burned like accusations. I lifted my chin and faced him. The marshal’s keen mind worked. His questions rallied, and his answers jostled. And there, that moment on his face when he knew it all—or suspected. His eyes widened, and his lips parted. “You’re her.”

  My knuckles met his face with a sickening crunch. Pain bloomed up my arm, and Marshal Kellee collapsed into a heap, adding a nasty-sounding crack to the skull. I stepped over his motionless body and pressed my fingers to his neck—assuming he had a pulse where most humans did. His blood beat hot and fast beneath my touch.

  His eyelashes fluttered, but his eyes stayed closed.

  Stay down, Marshal.

  I sighed and rested my palm against his warm cheek. “In all this time nobody cared enough to ask the right questions. And yet, you figured it out in two days.” I brushed my thumb against his lips, finding them temptingly soft. To keep my secret, I should kill him, close my hand around his neck and squeeze. I lowered my hand, brushing across his jaw and down under his chin. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t killed before. But this lonely man with all his questions… This man who had saved me twice already... I didn’t want to kill him.

  Nobody will believe him anyway.

  Bunching up his coat, I ran my fingers through his hair, checking for any serious damage, and tucked the coat under his head. His marshal’s star winked accusingly. I unclipped it and shoved it into one of my coat’s many pockets. “Sorry, Kellee. This way you get to live.”

  The first airlock door whooshed open under my touch, and within minutes, I was seated behind the shuttle’s controls with only the most basic of notions for how to pilot it. I’d watched the marshal closely. All I had to do was uncouple and pull away from the dock. The shuttle’s autopilot would do much of it. How hard could it be?

  Chapter 11

  As it turned out, piloting a shuttle was as difficult as you’d imagine, but they were built like colossus tek, so a few knocks here and there at slow speed did little damage. Thankfully. Anyway, I was out of options. Taking the shuttle would keep Kellee off my back. By the time he came to, got himself another ride and tried to catch up, I’d be back on Calicto, walking into Arcon, with his marshal’s badge giving me an all-access pass. Hopefully, he’d drop any heroic notions of stopping me and shrug the entire encounter off as a lucky escape. Right.

  Calicto’s port authority guided the shuttle into its dock, and after a few scrapes and bumps, I got the vessel coupled to the airlock. With my male illusion spun and the marshal’s badge opening doors as though it were a magical key, immigration was a breeze, and within an hour of landing on Calicto, I was approaching Arcon’s main entrance. This time I knew exactly what I was w
alking into. My whip was coiled warm and snug against my leg, well within the aura of invisibility I naturally threw off. With the marshal’s badge, I should be able to get into the depths of Arcon without raising suspicion.

  “I should be grateful you didn’t kill me when you had the chance,” Kellee whispered into my ear.

  I stopped and turned on the spot, and then I remembered the comms device behind my ear. Dammit. Reaching the top of Arcon’s steps, I veered to the side of the entrance and leaned against the wall, keeping my head bowed. My ocular map showed the web of streets wrapped around Arcon’s HQ. Kellee could be minutes away. The lawman was proving to be an enormous pain in my ass.

  “How’s your head?” I asked, keeping my voice low. People came and went from Arcon’s steps. None of them wore the marshal’s long coat. If he was watching the entrance, he would probably scan right over my male appearance, not realizing who was inside.

  “How many did you kill?” his voice whispered through the comm-link, losing none of its menace.

  I smiled to myself. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, and I wasn’t even sure why I wore it, but it seemed fitting. He thought he knew me. All he knew, if he had guessed right, was my reputation. It might even help me.

  “I now understand why you won’t fight this fae. He doesn’t know who you are. What would happen if he did?”

  The smile fell from my lips. “You won’t tell him,” I replied, sounding more confident than I felt. “You hate the fae as much as I do.”

  “Do you hate them?” Quiet crackled. “Or do you love them?”

  Damn him. Damn him to the debris zone and back again. “Your questions will get you killed, Marshal.”

  “Questions are my job, Wraithmaker.”

  I tore the comms device off and dropped it into my coat pocket. I was done with the marshal and his stupid questions. The man was a distraction and a dangerous one.

  Arcon’s foyer hadn’t changed in the time I’d been away. Staff bustled about. This was just another day working for the Halow system’s largest surveillance firm and the charming Istvan Larsen. And as far as anyone was concerned, today was just another day for the marshal I was pretending to be.

  Kellee carved through the people to my right, his gaze locked on me, leaving no doubt he knew exactly who I was despite the illusion. I sucked in a breath, careful to keep my composure. There was no point in running. It would just draw more attention to us, and I wasn’t leaving without Sota. How had he found me?

  Kellee held out his hand. “You have something of mine.”

  Dammit. Why did he have to be so damn good at his job? How did he even track me? Unless he didn’t use visual clues. One of his other senses? Smell, perhaps?

  I pulled his badge from my pocket and dumped it into his hand. He appeared fully healed. I should have hit him harder.

  “What now?” I asked.

  He blinked, probably because my voice was still female while the rest of me looked male. “Now we carry on with the plan. I get you inside, but I’m coming with you to find your so-called friend.”

  Because he didn’t trust I even had a friend worth saving. Fine, if he wanted to get himself killed, it would save me the trouble.

  We walked to one of the reception desks, and Marshal Kellee did his lawman thing, flashing his badge and saying all the right things to get us inside, just like we’d planned. That got us through the front line, but where we wanted to go, a row of security scanners waited—the ones my original plan had me avoiding. I had no idea how Arcon’s scanners would react to my presence—or if they would react at all. If they were anything like Crater’s, they’d let me pass right on through.

  Down a long, narrow corridor, the veil of scanners appeared to be automated. Others ahead of us walked through as though merely passing through a doorway.

  I didn’t slow, didn’t hesitate, and stepped into the invisible net of scanners, passing through unnoticed. I am a ghost… Arcon was still so confident that someone like me was a myth. I puffed out a sigh. This would be simple, just so long as—

  An alarm barked. “Please wait. Personnel will arrive shortly,” a synthesized voice announced.

  I turned, already several strides ahead.

  The scanners had flagged Kellee as a possible threat.

  He waved me on and hung back, looking bored as though this was all routine. A door to my left opened as I strode by. An armed guard emerged. I heard him tell Kellee to present his identification. Once I was out of earshot, I reapplied the comms device and listened in to Kellee being questioned about his reasons for visiting.

  Still hidden inside my illusion, I continued with all the confidence of someone who had every right to be wandering Arcon’s corridors. I passed by staff unnoticed and kept going. It seemed unlikely that Arcon’s scanners would miss me. Sure, I usually passed through these types of security systems unnoticed, but Larsen knew my tricks. If he had any sense, he would have recalibrated those scanners to look for anything unusual—like the vacant space I occupied.

  Wraithmaker.

  I winced, shook off the name Kellee had dredged up from my past, and walked with renewed vigor.

  I didn’t know much about where Arcon’s labs were, but I knew the warfae had wanted Sota alive. He’d stolen Sota’s docking station. My drone had to be here… somewhere.

  The next set of scanners let me pass through unchecked. I entered an elevator, hit the button for Research and Development and felt the scanners run their electronic lasers through me.

  “Sota…” I opened the mental link between us and called down it. If he was close and powered up, he should hear me.

  “Kesh, where are you?” Kellee’s thin whisper sounded through my comms, distracting me.

  “On my way to Research and Development.”

  A few seconds passed, and this time, when Kellee spoke, interference crackled. “Larsen is… the move. Told me to wait… There’s a delay. He might know—” The link cut off.

  I was too deep to pull out.

  “I’m coming after you,” Kellee announced.

  “Don’t be a fool,” I whispered back. “Get out of here.” The elevator doors opened, revealing a hive of activity inside a maze of glass corridors. Every office was exposed, with everyone visible at their workstations. All anyone had to do was look up to spot me. I strode on, projecting a 100-percent-absolutely-definitely-supposed-to-be-here attitude.

  A sweetness, floral and tempting, circulated in the air. I knew it well, having grown up surrounded by the intoxicating lure of Faerie magic. My power tingled across my skin and hummed through the coiled whip. I couldn’t see any obvious source of the sensation, but a fae was here or nearby. Hardly surprising. Whatever Larsen was doing inside Arcon wasn’t my problem. Get the job done and get out. I’d be invisible again soon.

  “Sota…” I mentally called through our link. “Help me find you.” The link buzzed with life signs, and my breath hitched. My drone was close.

  My ocular map blinked into my vision, seemingly of its own accord. My stride tripped. I pushed forward, heartbeat thudding too loudly in my ears. A single red dot blinked in my vision, over the floor plan of the building. Sota. It had to be. He was down another level, deeper still inside Arcon, but so close.

  “K—sh.” Kellee’s voice crackled through the comms. “Wa—… Don’t…”

  “I’m sorry, Marshal. Sorry for a lot of things.” Perhaps the apology would mean more once all this was over.

  Kellee said something too softly for me to hear. The deeper into Arcon I went, the more the connection failed. Hopefully, he would heed my advice and leave. Our original plan had us meeting up later. Knowing who I was, he probably wouldn’t come, but at least he’d be safe from me, from this world I’d pulled him into.

  I rode another elevator down, stepped out on the basement level and blinked into the darkness. The red light on my ocular display throbbed slow and steady just ahead. Why was it so dark?

  The elevator door hissed closed behind me, and f
or a few seconds, I thought I’d be plunged into complete darkness. And then, down a long glass-lined corridor, a single light blinked on, highlighting the startling beauty of the dark-haired male warfae seated regally in his ornately carved oak chair. Long fingers held a wine glass aloft, its contents as blue as his hard, turquoise eyes. His slash of a smile said the words he didn’t need to.

  I spun, reaching for the elevator, but the doorway and elevator were gone. Only blackness extended ahead of me, like the blackness of space but without the stars.

  The red light on my ocular map blinked out, and then the map went out too, leaving me blind to any escape. There was nothing here, just a blackness that swallowed everything.

  The ease of walking through the scanners, Sota’s helpful guidance into the depths of Arcon… it had all been an illusion. The warfae had dangled the bait, and I’d taken it like the gullible creature I was.

  “The Wraithmaker,” the fae drawled. His voice sailed into the endless space and crawled across my skin, sinking inside, luring old fears and desires out of the cages I kept them in.

  The shift of leather on leather coupled with the soft swish of his hair told me he had stood, but I didn’t want to turn to see. There were no windows here. No doors. I had my whip, but attacking him would be pointless. He already had me. There’s a time to fight and a time to run. But there’s also a time to bow low and live. I had fought him, and I had run from him. I knew what came next.

  I swallowed excess saliva, tasting acid—swallowed the bitter anger, despair and shame. After so long, I hadn’t believed the shame would still burn.

  Cool fingers slid over the back of my neck, curved around, and clamped tight like the iron collar I’d once worn. My heart raced too hard, thumped too fast.

  “You’re a long way from home,” he purred, his voice achingly smooth.

  Crater’s death, the bounty on my head, Hulia, The Boot, Marshal Kellee. Even Sota. They were frivolous things. Kesh Lasota’s trinkets and toys. And beneath the warfae’s touch, Kesh’s life fell away like one of the many illusions I wore. The truth of me was so very different from that ghost of a girl. I was the slave-raised gladiator stolen away from my home with only a name to call my own. I was the Wraithmaker, killer of thousands in the starlit, blood-soaked arena. I had been Queen Mab’s most-trusted personal guard. And I had loved her—until I’d killed her.