by Casey Lea
Friends. Yeah. That was a joke. “I’ll tell the planetary puppy squad, but I doubt they’ll be able to keep up.”
“Good point. You’d best be hurrying. Shit, what’s that?”
“Mac?”
The only sound was breathing. Zak lifted the com to his ear and there was a strange noise, like branches scraping a window. Then Mac screamed. The cry speared straight through Zak’s ear to meet the sudden pain in his chest.
“Don’t you die,” he yelled, but there was no answer and the connection snapped to leave only static. “Mac.”
Zak sprinted from the bar with no respect for the toes and shoulders of other patrons. He jetted into the chill light of dawn, followed by the white stream of his breath and the air from his wings.
32
Dragon DNA
Darsey was chained to the bed again, the pitted iron digging into her ankle this time, but she wasn’t scared anymore. She knelt on the floor with her hands clasped between her thighs and struggled to keep them there. She could feel her pulse, running up her legs, while sweat slicked her skin. The damned drug was working.
“God,” she said past chattering teeth, unable to stay quiet despite trying to lock her jaw. “I can’t believe that cute little boy has come to this. I met Malik years ago,” she explained to no one in particular.
The guard who’d re-shackled Darsey stood on this side of the door now, but he seemed to be staring at her rather than listening. She could sense his lust and the wisps of silk she’d been dressed in earlier had only made it worse. He sent flashes of crude desire that grated on her mind like fingernails scratching her skin, while somehow still calling to the drug that was making her body pulse.
It was too hot in here. That was the problem. Darsey flicked back her hair and lifted its weight off her neck, arching her back as she did so. The guard stirred, shifting from one foot to the other and edging closer. Her stomach turned at the thought, but she needed a com to escape, so she smiled at the human.
He licked his lips in response and Darsey realized she was still talking. “…so hot in here. I need some help. Please. If I could just get this top off.”
She plucked at the strips of silk plastered over her breasts and the guard was abruptly moving. He surged across the room and it was disturbingly easy to keep the inane grin on her face. He barreled forward like a tank prepared to run her over, so taking him out was simple.
Darsey rolled into the man’s legs. His momentum pitched him on his face and she spun, then leapt to straddle his back. A fist to his neck and something went crack, but she hardly noticed, because her mind was busy attacking his com. It was an easy hack and the guard’s wristband fell as quickly as he had. She snatched it up, slapped it into place and sat there for a second, breathing hard.
A swish sounded from the door as it opened and something inside Darsey screamed. Not again. This time she was going to go straight through anyone who tried to stop her.
She turned to see a familiar bulk and the Candyman pursed his lips in surprise. “You’re certainly resourceful. I’m amazed you can think straight at all.”
Darsey snarled and launched herself at the monster. She managed a stride and then the shackle cut into her ankle and pulled her back hard to dump her on her butt. God damn. She sat there winded while the world spun past. Her leg was chained? Why was she chained? The thought made her shiver with delight, until the thunder of approaching footfalls turned into a sweaty giant racing toward her. He straddled her and she saw the blur of his fist coming just before he punched her in the mouth.
Everything went black.
Darsey struggled back from somewhere dark and smothering. She heard herself groan and when she blinked a blurred version of the world returned. The Candyman was standing over her, with her stolen com dangling from his hand. She drew air past stinging lips and for some reason arched her back. She slumped back to the floor at once, because squirming around didn’t feel right, but her captor looked smug.
“It appears I was correct,” he said. “I told that fool Malik to wait at least a day for my potion to reach full potency. Impatience is a poor path to great sex, don’t you agree?”
Darsey answered around her split lip. “You don’t know a thing about great sex.”
She spat blood and it splattered over the rising curve of the Candyman’s thigh. Good. At least something was going right.
Not for long though.
The Candyman squatted beside her with a grin. He pushed his face close, until she smelt his sickly-sweet breath and all she could see was his teeth.
“Malik’s promised I can have you once he’s finished his fun. I have magnificent plans for you, my honey. I’m perfecting a series of surgeries to return adults to their childhood form. Haven’t you always wanted to look younger? Go from woman to little girl? See your sweetness refreshed?” He licked his lips. “The hair removal is easy, face reshaping and eye enhancement more challenging, while the genital and mammary reductions are the true test. I think you’ll stand up to it rather well.”
“Blasphemy,” a voice hissed from the shadow of the Candyman’s bulk and a sword slashed into the light.
The pedophile only had time to blink before the blade sliced through his forearm, to remove his hand. His com released just before the blow landed and fell to the floor first. He made a high-pitched whinnying noise and fell backward, away from Darsey. She was left staring up at a lithe woman dressed in a skin-tight camo-suit and wielding a two-handed sword. Darsey gaped. She couldn’t help it.
The young woman dropped to her knees beside Darsey, little more than a blur as her dappled clothing copied the shades of the floor, and ducked her head. “Apologies, Great Mother, for our tardiness. I am First-Daughter Shayvia, Leader of Dragons. We’re here to save you.”
Darsey fastened on the last sentence. “Good. Need saving.”
“So I see, Great Mother. They will suffer for this, I swear. The Dragons will avenge you.”
The young woman reached out with a dark fist. It looked like she was wearing a black gauntlet, but the armor was as skin tight as the camo-suit on her arms. It formed a perfect glove, with a flame pattern traced across it. The hand clasped a com around Darsey’s wrist which tightened to fit her, but the drug still pulsed through her body. It was going to take more than some basic meds to cure her.
Shayvia leaned forward again and her fingers gripped the shackle around Darsey’s ankle. Darsey couldn’t quite suppress a sigh at the useless gesture. Perhaps the girl hadn’t seen real leg-cuffs before. Even with com power they couldn’t be broken. Not by someone using her bare-
The shackle bent, digging into Darsey’s leg and Shayvia grabbed it with her other hand as well, to tear it apart. It ripped like foil, but with the crack of thunder.
Darsey fell back against the bed and studied her bare leg in disbelief. “How did you do that?”
“With my hands, Great Mother. What drugs have they given you?”
“Never mind me. How are your hands strong enough to focus the com power without being crushed?”
“Ah.” Shayvia smiled and sat back on her heels. “I’m Dragon.”
Darsey’s head started spinning and she clasped her hands between her thighs again, struggling to think. Dragons weren’t real, were they?
“We need to go,” Shayvia said and reached for Darsey, but hesitated before actually touching her. “May I? I mean no sacrilege, but you need help to rise.”
“I’m fine,” Darsey said and placed her hands on the ground to either side. She wasn’t going to be carried around like a prize by a group of what seemed to be teenagers. Especially when they called themselves Dragons. They clearly had an overly romantic sense of adventure and were probably thinking with their hormones.
A pang of desire shook Darsey and she shivered. Perhaps she was the teen here. Damn Malik. She’d make sure he regretted drugging her. She tried to take her weight with her arms, but instead of pushing her upright they started to shake. She needed more time to r
ecover.
“Tell me,” Darsey gasped. “Why Dragons?”
“We’re Dragons because our skin is our armor - as indestructible as dragon scales.”
Darsey’s arms steadied. Another minute and she’d be able to crawl. Awesome. “That sounds uncomfortable. How does your mother hug you?”
“I’ve insufficient information to answer your query. We weren’t raised by our mother.”
That made Darsey pause for real. “No mother?”
“Of course we have a mother. You’re our mother. Why else would we be here?”
One of Darsey’s arms gave out and she rolled onto her back. She lay winded for a second and tried to analyze Shayvia’s claim. It was crazy of course. The girl must have spent too much time in space. “I hate to disappoint, but I’m sure I’d remember giving birth to dragons.”
“Of course, Great Mother. You gave your genes to the Guardians. They’re our creators, but you’re our mother. And we need to get you safe. Now.”
The Guardians? The memory of Darsey’s first meeting with the Gentik’s protectors was distant and hard to bring into focus, but she could recall the main details. She’d given them some of her skin in exchange for a sliver to escape from Gratuity long ago. And they’d used those cells to make children? A new heat filled Darsey, but it wasn’t lust.
How dare they play with people’s lives? She was sick of it. Sick of all the careless parasites who took what they wanted, with no thought for the trail of death and twisted flesh they left behind.
Sweat was almost blinding her, but her lust had morphed into sudden rage and she pushed herself over and onto all fours with fresh strength. She crawled back to the Candyman. He lay in a fetal position, wrapped around the stump of his arm, but she rolled him onto his back with com-enhanced strength.
He groaned and Darsey’s lips curled back in something approximating a smile, while her fingers gripped a knife as it emerged from her new com.
“Think of this as a genital reduction,” she gasped and stabbed him in the groin. Once… twice… three, four, five times. It was only a hand on her wrist that stopped her.
“Pardon me, Great Mother, but we need to go. We compressed each target we took down, but the perimeter breach will soon be noticed. We have to retreat.”
Darsey nodded and tried to rise, but her legs were trembling too much. Her rage ebbed and her strength drained away with it. Lust sent tendrils back through her body and mind, but a last thought occurred to her. “How did you find me anyway?”
“We followed a spider.”
“A spider? Did you climb up the spout?” Darsey chuckled, but Shayvia didn’t laugh.
“We would have been seen if we’d accessed the spouting. We were led by a spider and its silk. A single discrete strand. It was an excellent distress cry, Great Mother. We followed your cobweb message and found you easily.”
“Huh? I didn’t send a message and I don’t know any arachnids. Not on a first-name go-for-help basis.”
That seemed funny and Darsey would have laughed, but for the ache in her groin. “Can we get out of here? I need to go home. Or wherever Wing is, which won’t be at home. Never at home. Let’s go. Hurry, hurry. Chop chop.”
The strange youngster bobbed her head. “Of course and we will chop as required. Jute, our Mother needs help.”
A sharp whistle from the Dragon lady drew the smaller of her companions from the door at a run. He scooped Darsey up and tossed her over his shoulder, then left at a trot. She hung down his back, watching his legs work and the floor bob past surprisingly fast. He didn’t seem to find her a burden at all. What a wonderfully strong young man. Her mind wandered off to more exotic locations and she let it go.
The group slipped through the exit and this time there was no one left to stop them.
However, they were still in the corridor beyond when a klaxon shrieked and red lights strobed across the ceiling.
Darsey shivered. How exciting. The young man carrying her swiveled to face Shayvia, and Darsey pressed her hands to the muscles of his back. They felt hard and warm, making her thoughts scatter.
Her rescuers conferred in whispers, before turning back toward Darsey’s cell. It seemed she might be caught by Malik again after all. She had a feeling that should worry her, but it really didn’t.
“We can’t get out the way we entered,” Shayvia said and Darsey smiled. What a precise little thing she was and so serious. A great figure though – toned and lithe.
Darsey craned her neck to lift her head higher and saw the female Dragon raise a fist, which again looked as black as if it had been dipped in pitch. She swung it at the wall and the crash of contact made Darsey wince. But Shayvia seemed undamaged and it was the wall that cracked.
The hulking youth on the other side of Darsey lunged and his fist speared forward to skewer the wall. Darsey blinked, but the image remained the same. His arm was imbedded in a circle of flaking fullerene and when he pulled back the passage crumbled.
The wall tumbled down with the sound of rolling boulders, followed by slabs of ceiling which crashed to the floor around them.
A shout came from the far end of the corridor and Darsey strained her neck further to see a group of pirates rounding the corner, then sprinting to catch her. She grinned and gave a little wave, but they didn’t smile back. Her ride stepped over the rubble and into a serviceway. Muscles bunched under her hands and the chase was on. Darsey relaxed to flop against her rescuer’s back and let the world sway past, while idly wondering how they could possibly escape. They were deep in the heart of Malik’s empire with the enemy in pursuit. The next few minutes were likely to be fun.
33
The Best-Laid Plans
Free squirmed on the cracked coating of what passed for a Leader’s seat aboard the smugglers’ ship he and his crew had commandeered. The shiny fabric wasn’t just torn, it also sagged in the middle and he was having trouble taking himself seriously in such a setting.
I always have trouble taking you seriously, a familiar voice said in his head.
Dax, Free admonished, don’t make me look like a crazy, distracted kres before my crew.
I don’t make you look like anything, the dead boy replied. You are a crazy, distracted kres. How else do you explain the voice in your head?
Free wriggled again and Dax chuckled silently. Scuttles in your crotch?
Free stopped trying to get comfortable with a sigh and Senior Spenser Chen was instantly at his side. The man floated by his elbow with a faint smile, but spoke too quietly for the rest of the nest crew to hear. “We’ll find her, sar.”
“We’re not heading home till we do, Spense.”
“I’m with you there. Still, I suppose it’s possible Lord Nightwing might save her first.”
Nil chance, Dax said silently. He’s charging round the Rim in his big shiny ship making all the tweets hide.
“As agreed,” Free said.
“Sar?” Spense asked. “You think that likely?”
Free shook his finger. “No. Wing’s chances of finding anything with a show of brute force are nil. But he affords a good distraction for us while we worm our way deeper. Why do you think he’s being so obvious? He knows he’ll be watched, while I won’t.”
Spense leaned closer. “He trusts you to save his wife. That’s quite a character reference, sar, and a good plan. Lord Nightwing must be aware he’s not at his best right now.”
Free felt a match-strike flash of annoyance. “Wing’s determined. He can do whatever’s needed.”
“Absolutely, sar. However… he did look haggard after his healing. Whatever the clone did to him, he’s not himself.”
“He will be soon. When Dee’s back,” Free vowed and there was an awkward pause.
“So,” Spense finally continued, “how do you intend to get past the checks Malik’s bound to have in place? We’ve added to the power and armaments of this POS, but we’re still a sparrow trying to outfly hawks. Any ideas how we stay under the radar?”
<
br /> Free squared his shoulders confidently. “Sure. I’ve got some intel from a chicklet who was raised on the Rim.”
Oh, thanks, thought Dax. Do I even get a name?
“Daxeon farNikareon. He knew the local haunts and pass codes out this way.”
“Daxeon?” Spense wondered, while his brow furrowed. “The boy who died in custody?”
“The child I killed,” Free amended and for once Dax was silent.
However, Spense’s brow smoothed and he shook his head. “A terrible accident, sar. Which no one regrets more than you. Do you think the boy was honest about what he told you?”
“Yes. Certain-sure.”
Thanks, Dax said and his thought was tinged with regret. Wish I could show you round in person.
So do I, Dax.
Spense frowned again. “Did you say something, sar?” However, he continued without waiting for an answer. “A child’s knowledge won’t take us past Malik’s inner security.”
“I know. I’ll be leaving the ship by dart. A small vessel will get much further than one this large.” Free risked a glance at his Senior and winced when he saw the man’s lips tighten. He’d struck a nerve alright.
Spense snapped to attention, a difficult feat when weightless. “Sar, I volunteer to accompany-”
“No, Senior. Darts only hold two people and I intend to return with Lady Darsey. I also need you here, securing this ship for our retreat.”
“I protest, sar. Officially. This course is reckless and such a mission should go to a more junior officer.” Please.
Free felt one of his eyebrows quirk. “You want me to send Sub Flutter?”
However, Spense didn’t smile back. “I volunteer.”
Walked into that one, Dax observed happily and Free had to bite back some very rude thoughts.
“Sorry, Senior, but I’ve got this. That’s an order. Take us in as far as Hinterland’s outermost satellites and I’ll slip out the back. Settle into a wide orbit and stay out of trouble. You have command.”