The Last Twilight

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Hands grabbed his body, hauling him off before he could rip out Broker’s throat. He heard Rikki screaming his name, but he lost her as fists and boots and weapons pounded his body. Rictor was silent—except for that hoarse, choking gag—and still on the floor, Broker began to laugh. Amiri could not hear Rikki. She was gone. Gone.

  “Where is she?” Amiri rasped. “What are you going to do to her?”

  “Anything I want,” Broker whispered, sitting up, looking at Amiri with cold amusement. “I own her. I own you both. Remember that, Amiri. Rikki Kinn is mine until she dies. Mine, in every way. And you will never see her again.”

  He stood, looking past Amiri at Rictor. “And you. The same will be true of Elena. I promise you that. But I think I’ll let you watch when I play my games.”

  Rictor said something in a language Amiri did not understand, but it made Rictor cry out again, as though every bone in his body was being crushed. Broker laughed, and kicked Amiri in the shoulder, right in his wound. The pain made him scream, made him want to vomit up his guts.

  Broker kicked him a second time, then dug his fingers into his shoulder wound, tearing it wider. Amiri had never passed out from any kind of pain, but he could feel himself riding close to the edge of darkness, and he made himself stay focused. He tried to bite Broker’s hand, and got cuffed in the head for his trouble.

  Broker crouched. His fingers were wet with fresh blood.

  “For my sister,” he said. “You might not have pulled the trigger, but you were there in Russia for the beginning of the end. And you will suffer.”

  “No,” Amiri whispered, staring into his eyes. “For every hurt you give, that will only make me more joyful that she is dead. Dead like a coward. Beating out her own brains because she went insane.”

  Broker snarled, slamming his fist into Amiri’s bleeding shoulder. He pounded the wound, grunting with the effort. Somewhere, Rictor shouted.

  Darkness curled. Amiri drifted into his own twilight. He closed his eyes, searching for Rikki.

  The pain went away.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Rikki fought the mercenaries every step of the way as they dragged her from the lab, squirming, biting, kicking. Not one of them fought back, but they pinched and squeezed and finally just hauled her off the ground and carried her like a sack of flour.

  Halfway to her room, she heard a familiar voice say, “You pussies can’t even handle one little girl? Jesus Christ. You shouldn’t be allowed to carry guns.”

  “Moochie,” said the man holding Rikki. “Get the fuck out of my face.”

  “We’ll take her from here,” said Francis, his voice far calmer. “Unless you like having her ass in your face.”

  “It’s not a bad one.” The mercenary slapped Rikki’s backside.

  That, when he put her down, required a very precise kick in his balls. Rikki had a good leg. The man doubled over, groaning. His friends tried not to laugh.

  “Right,” Francis muttered, and grabbed her shoulder. He steered her away, fast, Moochie taking a position on her left.

  “Thought you were leaving,” Rikki said, when the other men were out of sight. She tried not to feel a thrill of hope.

  “Thought so, too,” Moochie muttered, but shrugged when Francis gave him a dirty look. “So I like to complain. Shoot me.”

  Rikki peered into their faces. “What’s the reason you changed your minds?”

  “Had an interesting conversation this afternoon. Put some things in perspective.”

  Moochie grinned. “What he’s saying is that we got a better offer.”

  “And here I thought you both had hearts of gold.”

  “And Swiss bank accounts.”

  “Cha-ching,” Rikki said, just as they reached her room.

  Francis hesitated before opening the door. “Things are going to move fast now, Doctor Kinn.”

  “Amiri, Rictor, the kids—everyone in this building. I won’t go unless they do,” she said.

  “Understood,” he replied. “But that’s not what I meant.”

  He opened the door. Inside stood Aitan.

  Rikki stared. The shape-shifter tossed a set of keys past her head. “Francis, Moochie. Go free my son and his friend. Take them to where I’ve put the children. No detours. Doctor Kinn and I will handle the rest, and we will meet you as soon as we are able.”

  “Broker?” Francis asked.

  Aitan hesitated. “We must move fast. Now go.”

  The men left. Rikki shut the door. Stared some more, into those golden eyes.

  “You’re his father,” she said.

  “I am.” His voice was dispassionate, cool. “From the look on your face, I suppose my son has been telling stories.”

  “No,” she said. “But I’m not blind. You’re here, working for Broker. You betrayed him.”

  “And I saved a daughter,” said the old man, his gaze piercing, without remorse. “I will save Amiri, too, if I can.”

  Rikki hesitated. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Nor I you. But my son … loves you.” Aitan raised his chin. “And I will not take that from him again.”

  Again. Such an ominous word. Rikki thought of what Broker had said, down in the lab, and resisted the urge to rub her arms. “Fine. Where do we start?”

  Aitan gave her a sharp look. “Just like that? You are willing to fight for my son, no matter the cost?”

  “We’re wasting time.”

  “You are not even the same color,” he mused, in a surprisingly contemplative voice. “Let alone the same kind. How do you expect to make this last?”

  “True grit,” Rikki ground out. “Or maybe I’ll just hit him over the head if he tries to leave me.”

  Aitan grunted. “I want many grandchildren.”

  “What an optimist,” she muttered, and held out her hand. He looked at it for a moment, and then clasped it tight. His grip was dry and warm, and his eyes flared bright.

  “You will do,” he said; and then, quietly: “Yes, I think I will like you.”

  Rikki had no words for that. Based on what Amiri had said, his father didn’t like shit about anybody, least of all humans. But she nodded, and he let go, and reached behind him on the table for two handguns. He did not take a weapon for himself, but gave both to Rikki. They felt heavy in her hands. A good solid weight.

  She and Aitan left the room. He followed a path not unlike the one Francis had taken her down earlier, and for a moment she thought they were going to Jean-Claude. But Aitan made her take a left at a different corridor crossing, and they ran lightly to a set of wide double doors that were locked with a security pad. Aitan’s fingers flew over the keys. He pressed his thumb to a blue touchscreen.

  The doors clicked open. Inside, Rikki found a dark room full of switchboards and monitors, blinking red lights … and a rather grumpy-looking man sitting at a keyboard. He made a low sound when he saw Rikki, but then Aitan was there, and he hit the man hard over the head. A good blow. The man tumbled out of his chair like a dumpy-armed teddy bear.

  Aitan opened a panel in the wall. He held out his hand for a gun. Rikki handed one to him. He hammered the butt against the wires and chips until sparks flew and smoke curled. The dim lights flickered, just once.

  “Security grid is down,” he said. “Jaaved will be here in moments.”

  “Broker’s men will fight.”

  “The men who were supposed to guard the periphery are dead.” Aitan handed back the gun. “I did it myself. All of this … it was waiting for the right moment. I made the arrangements, manipulated Jaaved and Broker in an appropriate fashion, and now, the culmination. Both are too arrogant to consider failure. Or betrayal.”

  Maybe you are, too, she thought. “There’s still going to be a fight.”

  “Are you frightened, woman?”

  “My name is Rikki,” she said in a hard voice. “And yes, I’m frightened.”

  “Good that you are not a liar,” he replied simply. “And yes, there will be blood and
bullets and pain. But it is still less than what my son would do for you. Much less, even.”

  “I didn’t know we were competing.”

  “Competition is the same as survival. Nothing else matters.”

  “No surprise you said that,” she said, and followed as he led them back into the maze of halls. Rikki lost track of everything but those lean shoulders, that swift gait. The sound of his breathing. He reminded her so much of Amiri. Father and son. She could not wrap her mind around it.

  “There are too many people imprisoned here,” Rikki said, as they passed numerous locked doors. “How are we going to save them?”

  “We are not,” Aitan replied. “Not yet. Those kept here are safer where they are, until the fighting dies. My own daughter and her friend are in such a room. Jaaved’s men will not be able to enter, and the doors and walls are bulletproof.” He glanced at her. “There are, however, several more hands we need.”

  He stopped at a door. Blood stained the floor nearby. Aitan keyed in the code and pushed inside. A man stood in front of them. The man she had seen earlier. Dressed in black, with loose brown hair that covered his eyes. His familiar face was cut, swollen, but he looked at the both of them with perfect lucidity, those eyes still cutting through her, and nodded once.

  “I’m Max,” he said, and Rikki handed him one of the guns without saying a word.

  The second door that Aitan opened, minutes later, made her gasp.

  There was another man inside, but he was not human. He was tall, almost seven-foot, and the backs of his muscular arms were covered in long sheaths of golden feathers. Feathers, everywhere. Dotting his chest, his hard stomach, jutting from a mane of long brown hair that framed a face so angular and sharp, it alone might have made her question whether he was human. His eyes were golden, piercing; his skin was almost the same color. Rikki could only guess that he was a shape-shifter, but the sight still boggled. Beside her, Max went still. Staring.

  “Kamau Shah,” breathed Aitan, and for the first time Rikki saw hard emotion—a stricken shock that seemed to rattle the old man to the core. “My friend. What has Broker done to you?”

  “Bad-shift,” rasped the other. “He induced it. I cannot find my way home to one skin or the other.”

  Aitan briefly closed his eyes. “We will find a way. We are free now, brother, if we can fight for it.”

  “Broker?”

  “Soon.”

  Kamau—if that was his name and not some language Rikki was misinterpreting—cracked some very impressive knuckles. She danced back out into the hall to give him room, and just around the corner one of the mercenaries appeared: the man she had kicked in the balls.

  He was not expecting Rikki and was slow on the draw. She raised her weapon fast—but a blast broke the air and a bullet slammed into the man’s chest. Not from her. She turned, found Max with his gun raised.

  “Doctors shouldn’t have blood on their hands,” he said.

  “And you?” she asked hoarsely, but all Max did was shrug, and hide his eyes behind his hair. Somewhere nearby, a shout went up. She heard the sharp rat-tat-tat of machine guns. Aitan slipped into the corridor, Kamau close behind.

  The old cheetah flashed his claws. “Jaaved is here. He is making good on my promise.”

  Max’s eyes went distant. “We need to keep Doctor Kinn from him. We need to go.”

  “No,” Rikki snapped. “Not without knowing Amiri is safe.”

  “Agreed,” said Aitan, and they began to move again. Toward the fight.

  There was a red haze inside Amiri’s brain, a shadow of pain he fled from, sinking deeper into his dreams. Dreams of Rikki, and then his father. His father’s voice was whispering inside his head, telling him to wake, that it was time, that soon he would have to run. Amri did not want to listen. His father was a bad man.

  But he opened his eyes. Found himself in a cage.

  It was a large cage, made for a man and not a cheetah. There were bars and a bucket for a toilet, but nothing else. No bed, just hard concrete. The air smelled like the lab, recently cleaned with bleach. No light. It was pitch dark, but his eyes adjusted, and he found another cage nearby. Inside, Rictor. Sitting up, staring blind into the dark.

  “What happened?” Amiri asked, his voice slightly echoing. He glanced around the cavernous room for cameras or guards. Found nothing. They were alone.

  “What does it look like?” Rictor shot back, voice dull. “Cages, for animals.”

  Amiri made no reply. His throat was raw with thirst, and his shoulder throbbed. The rest of his body was still sluggish. But he thought of Rikki alone with Broker, and he could not help the sound of rage and frustration and fear that broke from his throat.

  “You’re thinking of her,” Rictor said.

  “No doubt you’re thinking of Elena,” Amiri retorted.

  “No doubt,” Rictor agreed.

  “Why do you bother? She loves her husband.”

  “I know.”

  “And yet, you think she could love you just as much?”

  In the darkness, Amiri saw Rictor turn to look in his direction. “You owe me the price of a life. The least you can do is not be an asshole.”

  Amiri lay on his back, staring at the bars of his cage. “You never answered my question, about you and her. How you knew to help us.”

  “Fuck you,” muttered Rictor.

  “And the rest? Are you certain you would not like to talk about that, either?”

  “Not with you.”

  Amiri thought for a moment, perversely driven to irritate the other man, and recited, softly, “‘Give sorrow words … the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.’”

  Rictor grunted. “I can’t believe you just quoted Shakespeare at me.”

  “It seemed appropriate.”

  “He was a mouth breather and his farts smelled like onions.”

  Amiri closed his eyes. “You just ruined me.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Behind them, Amiri heard a rattling sound. A lock being turned. The door opened and light flooded the room. He squinted, found two silhouettes just standing, staring. Only for a moment. Those bodies ran into the room, and he heard keys jangling. Saw blond hair, the glint of a diamond, the pattern of a tattoo. He smelled gunpowder and cigarettes, the faint whiff of orchids, and deeper yet, Rikki.

  He was on his feet in a moment. “Who are you?”

  “Dumb and Dumber,” said the man with the tattoo. “We are so fucking dead.”

  “Shut up,” said his companion absently, unlocking Amiri’s door. Rictor’s cage, too.

  Amiri said, “What is this? Who are you?”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” said the man with the earring, giving him a long steady look that was old and cold and deadly. “That woman upstairs won’t leave without you. Or everyone else in this goddamn building.”

  “Morality is the fucking plague,” said the tattooed man.

  “Damn straight,” Rictor muttered.

  Amiri rubbed his arms. “Take me to her.”

  The man with the earring hesitated. “I have a message first. Max is here. Held captive on the upper level. Broker brought him to use against you. And because he was causing trouble with our people in the city.”

  Amiri froze, then forced himself to take a slow breath, listening hard to those words. “That is not the message.”

  “No. Max asked me to patch a call to your boss in America. Help is coming. Couldn’t understand it all, but the gist is that you’ll see a familiar face in either ten minutes, or twenty-four hours. Whichever comes first.”

  “That’s a lousy offer of help,” Rictor said. “Fuck. I bet he’s going to get Dean to come here. What a little turd.”

  Amiri ignored him. “You work for Broker. Why are you helping?”

  The tattooed man passed a gun over to Rictor. “We already covered that. Morality. Plague.”

  “Money,” added the other man. “Survival. Do you really need anythin
g else?”

  “Names,” Amiri told them, and the mercenaries shared a quick look.

  “Moochie,” said the man with the tattoo. “And that’s Francis.”

  “How cute.” Rictor checked the gun clip. “Let’s go shoot people.”

  The men ran from the room, Amiri sinking down on all fours to run within the skin of the cheetah. His shoulder hurt, but the pain lost strength against his focus on Rikki, Max and the rest of his friends. Help was coming. Ten minutes or twenty-four hours. Either way, he had to make certain everyone stayed alive long enough to see that moment.

  Outside the lab, in the long hall, men and women in long lab coats were dashing into rooms, hauling paperwork, laptops. Hair wild, glasses askew, they were babbling and shouting to each other in various languages. A red light strobed against the walls. Amiri smelled fear. It reminded him too much of the escape from Russia, and he glanced at Rictor. Found a troubled frown on the man’s face. From memories or something else, he could not tell, but the whole thing made him cold, angry.

  How many such facilities exist? How many are suffering? And the people who involve themselves, all in the name of science …

  He stopped himself. Concentrated on running. Listened hard as they took the emergency stairs, rattled up the metal steps. Above them, shouts. Moochie and Francis shared a look, and then the smaller, tattooed man climbed ahead, leaving the rest of them behind. Amiri heard him whistle a greeting, then receive a few sharp words in reply—something about soldiers, rebels. Somewhere not so distant, gunfire blasted. Amiri flinched. Rictor grabbed Francis’s arm and hissed, “What the hell is going on?”

  “Diversion.” He indicated Amiri. “His father set it up. A terrorist is in the compound, shooting the living shit out of Broker’s people. Jaaved. All we have to do is reach the assigned meeting place and wait out the fight. Pick off the winners, if we need to.”

  “Rikki,” Amiri whispered, shifting shape. “Where is she?”

  Francis hesitated. “With Aitan.”

  Fury rolled through his chest. “He will betray her.”