Blood and Metal

by Nina Croft

  “Is he okay?”

  “Physically, yes. Or he was after he’d shifted a couple of times. Mentally, he’s a mess.”

  “He’ll be okay when Alex gets here. Where are Candy and Angel?”

  “Angel is around, that calmed Jon a bit. But fucking Candace is missing. Again. Apparently, she left pretty much after us. I guess she was pissed off that we wouldn’t take her along. Thorne’s gone into Pleasure City to find her.”

  “Who are Candy and Angel?” Fergal asked.

  “Jon’s kids,” Daisy said. “Well, not kids. They’re twenty-one now. She’ll be okay, won’t she?”

  Candy and Angel, Jon and Alex’s twins, were the reason they’d stayed behind and not dived headfirst into a black hole with the rest of them. Angel was a darling. He was the responsible, sensible twin. Candy was a nightmare. Daisy loved her dearly, but she was wild. She’d been looking after herself and Angel since they were twelve and their parents had been taken by the Church. She was convinced they didn’t need anyone else.

  “Yeah, she’ll be fine. I’m not so sure about anything she comes up against, though—bloodthirsty little bitch.”

  At that moment, the ceiling above their heads started to move. The two sections slid apart, exposing a star-strewn sky and a medium-size space cruiser, which lowered itself lightly to the black sand. The engines hadn’t even died before Jon was racing across the sand and leaping for the emerging ramp. The double doors opened, revealing Alex’s diminutive figure. For a second Jon halted his run and stood and stared. Then he threw back his head and howled.

  Alex was dressed in long black robes, but her head was bare, showing raggedly cut dark red hair. She flew down the ramp and leaped into Jon’s arms.

  Daisy blinked away a tear. What would it be like to be loved like that? She cast a sideways glance at Fergal. His attention was fixed on the open doors of the space cruiser, where two figures had appeared. They swaggered down the ramp, edging around the embracing couple, but both were smiling.

  Tannis was dressed in black pants and boots, a scarlet shirt on top, a laser pistol at her hip. Beside her Callum wore the same, but his shirt was purple to match his eyes. Both their eyes. His wings were furled tightly at his back.

  “Callum fucking Meridian,” Fergal murmured.

  “You’ve met him?” she asked.

  “Interviewed him once. And he saved my life. The Collective would have killed me after I did that piece on the maximum-security prison. He stepped in and stopped them.”

  “He’s an okay guy once you get past the whole leader-of-the-universe crap.”

  “Is the plan to put him back up there?”

  Daisy frowned. “I don’t know. We’ve never spoken of it.” She turned to Rico. “Does he want to go back?”

  “I doubt it. He was bored out of his mind, and somehow I can’t see Tannis as first lady.”

  Daisy tried to picture the captain in a crown or something. She giggled, and Rico cast her a sharp look. “What?” she asked.

  “Just haven’t heard you laugh in a long time. Lover boy must be good for you.”

  Fergal ignored the comment. “So who will be in charge? You know, after the revolution and all that?”

  “Frankly, I don’t give a fuck,” Rico said. “As long as it isn’t me and it isn’t Temperance Hatcher.”

  Daisy had never thought that far ahead. She didn’t think any of them had. This wasn’t so much about putting the good guys in power as getting rid of the bad guys. But she supposed someone would have to rule. Otherwise it would be chaos.

  Tannis came to a halt in front of their little group, and her smile faded.

  “You took your time,” Rico said.

  “Freaking bastards stuck to us like glue. We eventually realized they must have bugged their little priestess. Once we sorted that out, we shook them off pretty quickly. But I’m not sure they won’t have guessed where we were heading. They tailed us for a while before we picked them up.”

  “Is Alex okay?” Daisy asked. She wanted to go and welcome her friend back, but she didn’t want to interrupt the reunion.

  “Once we told her we had Jon, she was fine. Had to stop her going in and trying to kill Hatcher herself, though.”

  They all turned to look as Jon scooped Alex up in his arms and headed for The Blood Hunter.

  “I’m betting that’s the last we’ll see of them for a while,” Tannis said. “Let’s go get this meeting over with. We need a plan.” She glanced around; her gaze settled on Fergal and recognition sparked in her eyes. “Well, if it isn’t our old friend the crazy reporter.”

  “Crazy?” Callum asked from beside her.

  “Yeah. Chopped off his own arm to get a story.”

  Callum studied him for a second. “Fergal Cain.” He held out his hand, and Fergal stepped forward and shook it.

  “You two know each other?” Tannis asked.

  “We met. Cain interviewed me a while back—made me sound quite nice.”

  “He’s a clever man,” Rico said. He turned to Fergal. “So are you staying or going?”

  Daisy held her breath.

  “Staying for now.”

  And she released it.

  Fergal followed them across the cavern floor and up the docking bay into The Blood Hunter, his eyes fixed on the sway of Daisy’s ass as she walked up ahead with Rico.

  Maybe he should have left. But he really did need to know what they were planning.

  The meeting was being held in the main conference room on board The Blood Hunter. The room was big enough to hold fifty people easy, even if some of them had wings—and there were a few who did, as well as Callum.

  “Okay,” Tannis yelled across the room, cutting through the medley of voices. “Can we get this moving? I have people to shoot.” Nothing happened, and Tannis drew her weapon and fired a blast toward the ceiling. “I said, shut the fuck up.”

  An immediate hush settled over the room.

  “Thank you.” Tannis holstered her weapon.

  Fergal crossed to where Daisy had taken a seat at the edge of the room and sat beside her. “I like your captain,” he murmured.

  “Yeah, she gets things done.”

  Everyone was shuffling now, finding a seat or leaning against the wall facing the center of the room where Tannis stood tapping her booted foot.

  “Right,” Tannis said. “The plan. Basically we’re going to go blow the fuckers up.”

  “Nice and simple,” Rico said. “I like that.”

  Fergal didn’t. As far as he was concerned, it was the worst possible scenario. What the hell chance would Stefan have of surviving an outright attack on the Church’s headquarters? Though the prison was a few miles away from the main building. If Stefan was being held there, he might have a chance. But there were also cells beneath the main headquarters. A direct hit would take them out as well.

  He was very nearly all out of the antidote and had no source of any more. He’d tried. He’d had the pills analyzed at a lab, but they hadn’t been able to reproduce them. Some unidentifiable ingredient. Fergal had known it was pointless—Stefan wouldn’t have given him something easy to cure.

  No, his only hope was finding Stefan and seeing this through. Before his friend was blown into tiny little pieces.

  “When?” someone asked.

  “As soon as we can get everyone in place. We’re going to do simultaneous attacks on the stronghold on Trakis Twelve and Four. So there’s no fear of backup.”

  “Do we give them warning?”

  “Hell, no. We—”

  There was a commotion at the door. A girl entered, followed by a tall man with wings close behind her. The girl wasn’t short, but he towered over her, radiating a palpable tension the girl seemed oblivious to. She was beautiful, and Fergal guessed who she was immediately. She had her father’s midnight-dark hair hanging halfway down her back, and her mother’s silver-gray eyes. Pale skin and full lips.

  “Wow,” he muttered.

  “Close your
mouth,” Daisy snapped from beside him.

  He did as he was told.

  “Are they here?” the girl asked. “Did you get them?” Her gaze searched the room before coming back to Tannis. “Thorne told me you had them. Was it a fucking lie to get me back here?” She whirled around to face the winged guy who flanked her. “You fucking bastard. You lied to me.”

  She swung back her fist, but before it could connect, he gripped it in his huge hand and held her still.

  “I did not lie,” he ground out.

  “That’s Candy,” Daisy whispered from beside him. “Sweet, isn’t she?”

  “Candace!” Tannis snapped. “Your parents are both safe.”

  Some of the tension drained from her, and she sagged. She tugged her hand free, and it dropped to her side. “So where are they?”

  “They’re having a little…alone time.”

  “Ugh!” She turned and stomped from the room. Thorne watched her go and then came forward. He heaved a huge sigh and threw himself back into a seat. He was big. Tall and broad with short, dark red hair and the violet eyes of the Collective.

  “That’s Thorne,” Daisy said. “He’s ten thousand years old and in charge of a planetload of people. He isn’t used to people not doing what he says. I think Candy came as a shock.”

  He did look a little frazzled. He sat slumped in his seat, long legs stretched out in front of him.

  “So,” Tannis said. “Can we move on? As I was saying—we go in there and we blow the fuckers up.”

  “Isn’t that a little simplistic?” Thorne asked.

  “Why complicate matters?”

  “Matters have a way of complicating themselves. Do you even know Hatcher is there?”

  Fergal cast him a sharp glance. Was this all about Hatcher?

  “We’ve been trying to get into their internal systems,” Tannis replied. “But so far we’ve failed.” She ran a hand through her hair. “God, I miss Janey.”

  “Fergal could do it,” Daisy said from beside him.

  For a second, he wanted to hiss at her to shut up. But maybe this was a good thing. He needed to try to discover Stefan’s exact whereabouts, and if he could hack into the Church’s internal files, then maybe he could find out. He could have done it before, but hadn’t wanted to risk alerting anyone, and he’d believed he would have more time. Now time was running out.

  All eyes turned to Daisy and then most—well, the ones who actually knew who he was—shifted to him. He decided to stay silent and wait until he heard the response.

  “He could?” Tannis sounded skeptical.

  “He’s brilliant,” Daisy said.

  “Really?”

  “Just who is Fergal?” Thorne asked.

  “That would be me,” Fergal muttered.

  “And you are?”

  He wasn’t sure how to answer that. There were a whole lot of things he could say. He was a reporter? He wasn’t even sure that was true anymore. A cyborg? He quite liked that one. Daisy’s lover? Sounded good.

  “He’s thinking too hard,” Thorne said. “Anyone who has to think that hard about who they are is unlikely to actually be who they say they are when they eventually get around to saying it.”

  “He’s a reporter,” Tannis said. “He’s helped us out a couple of times.”

  “How does a reporter help you out?”

  “Well, there’s maybe a little more to him than that, but that’s what he was when we first met.”

  “Can he be trusted?”

  Tannis studied him, eyes narrowing, and Fergal held himself still. “I don’t know,” she said after a minute’s scrutiny. “But Daisy seems to like him.”

  “And he did help us get Jon and the colonel out,” Skylar added.

  “I’d give him a maybe,” Rico said. “I’d still like to know what he was doing in that prison in the first place.”

  “Looking for a story?” Fergal suggested.

  “Nah, I’m not buying that. Then there’s the whole not-quite-human thing.”

  “In what way?” Thorne asked.

  “We’re not actually sure,” Rico replied. He turned to Fergal. “Just how human are you, Fergal?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Fergal shrugged. “Fifty-fifty at a guess.”

  “And what’s the rest?” Tannis asked.

  “Little bits of metal and a few big bits of metal.” He flexed his right arm. He’d punched Rico with that arm once.

  “The question is—can he do it?” Tannis said. “Can you hack into the Church’s systems?”

  “Probably.”

  “I like a man with confidence.” Tannis grinned. “Let’s see you do it.”

  Fergal glanced around the room. Did he want to reveal what he could do in front of all these people? Everyone who had anything to do with Cybercom had been rounded up in the last six months and executed. He felt uneasy exposing his secrets to so many people.

  “Not here. Not now.”

  Tannis stared at him, her smile fading, her boot tapping on the floor, then she shrugged—he was guessing she knew all about people who liked to keep secrets. “Okay, after the meeting. Let’s presume Hatcher is there. Do we just blast the place or do we want to make sure he’s dead?”

  “Make sure he’s dead,” Devlin said. “I don’t want the slimy bastard slipping away.”

  It occurred to Fergal that this was as much a personal attack on Temperance Hatcher as it was on the Church. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He should feel nothing. But that obviously wasn’t the case. And he wasn’t happy about it.

  “Are you okay?” Daisy asked from beside him.

  “Yeah. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t know. You looked a little weird for a minute.”

  “No, I’m fine.” He glanced sideways at her. “You guys really hate this Hatcher, don’t you?”

  Her expression hardened. “He killed our friends. That made it personal.”

  “Yeah, I guess it would.”

  “So,” Tannis continued, “We send a small team in—Me, Rico and Devlin. We kill the bastard, get out of there, and blast the place to pieces.”

  “Why not me?” Callum asked.

  “Because you’re a little conspicuous, sweetie.” Tannis patted his wings.

  “And what happens afterward?” Thorne asked.

  Tannis frowned. “Afterward? Who gives a toss?”

  “So you destroy the Church and afterward, you just leave everything in chaos?”

  “I like chaos.”

  “We can’t remove the old rulers and leave nothing in their place,” Thorne said. “We have responsibilities—”

  “You might have responsibilities,” Tannis said. “We don’t. If you’re so fucking concerned, you take over. You’re pretty good at telling people what to do yourself, if I remember.”

  Beside him, Daisy shifted restlessly, dragging him from the conversation. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Just hungry. All these people…”

  “All this blood,” he finished for her. “Can you control it?”

  “I think so.”

  They were still bickering among themselves. Finally, Rico stepped forward. “Madre de Dios,” he muttered. “Enough. Let’s kill the bastards first and worry about who’s in charge afterward. One thing at a time.”

  Thorne didn’t look happy, but he settled into his seat, a scowl on his face.

  “Okay,” Rico continued. “Everyone who doesn’t belong here—out.”

  Fergal wondered if that included him. He’d never really belonged anywhere before, and now wasn’t a good time to start. And certainly not here. He needed to work out his next move, and he was very aware that it might involve betraying these people. But he kept his seat.

  The room cleared quickly, leaving just the crew of The Blood Hunter and Thorne.

  Tannis crossed to them and hunkered down beside Daisy. “You okay? I’m next on the roster if you need to feed.”

  Daisy gave a jerky nod. “Sorry.�
��

  “Don’t be. It’s not a problem. Come on, let’s do it now, then we can get your boyfriend set up and see if he has anything to offer other than the obvious uses.”

  Daisy flashed him a quick smile as she disappeared out of the room with Tannis. Restless, Fergal stood and wandered over to where Rico talked quietly with Devlin and Skylar. He glanced up as Fergal approached and met him halfway.

  “How long will Daisy be like this?” Fergal asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Needing to feed so often.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe years, but she’s doing very well. I was still ripping people’s throats out at this point. I think the blood she’s getting is a bit more potent than normal. It’s changing her. But she’ll be okay. She’s stronger than she looks. Actually, incredibly resilient.”

  “Good.”

  “You care about her?”

  “She’s a friend.”

  Rico studied him for a moment longer and shrugged. “Let’s get you set up and see what you can do.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry. You’re worse than Daisy.” But he called over to Skylar. “Can you go get Fergal some food? He’s feeling faint.”

  “What am I the goddamn maid?” But she headed for the transporter bubble.

  “Come on,” Rico said and led him to where Saffira was sitting at a console, tapping away.

  “Any luck?” Rico asked.

  “No. I keep hitting a wall.”

  “Okay, let’s see if iron man here can do any better.”

  Saffira stood up, and Fergal took her seat. He sat for a minute, thinking how best to do this. Did he want to reveal what he was becoming? But he needed the information himself and was pretty sure they weren’t going to leave him alone while he tried to get it.

  Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. He’d only done this a few times. Mainly because he wasn’t sure what sort of alarms his intrusions would set off. Also the ability had been a side effect of that last phase he’d received a few weeks before Stefan helped him escape Cybercom. The final phase that had turned everyone else into drones or dead men. He’d had to work it out on his own as well.