Warrior

by Angela Knight

  Once he glimpsed the hostages, huddled in a terrified knot by the rear counter. A Xeran with a sword had one fist wrapped in the hair of the older, plumper of the three women. He was trying to force Riane and Frieka to keep their distance, but the two kept trying to snake past his guard. One feinted at him as the other attempted to snatch his hostage to safety. The warrior raised his sword threateningly over the woman’s head, and the two Enforcers reluctantly retreated.

  But the sight that made Galar’s blood run cold was Jessica, edging along the wall toward the Xeran’s back, an expression of mingled terror and determination on her face.

  What the fuck was she doing? He’d told her to Jump for home the moment she’d guided them in!

  Seven blazing Hells, she was going to get herself killed trying to rescue those damned fuzzy aliens of hers. . . .

  18

  Jess licked her lips as she edged along the wall toward the Xeran who held Vanja’s hair fisted in his hand. The woman—that was what she appeared to be, anyway— knelt on the floor, one hand wrapped around the warrior’s thick wrist as she tried to relieve the pressure on her hair. Charlotte and Ethini hovered nearby, unable to flee with their leader in danger.

  Dammit, don’t just stand there, Jess thought furiously, do something!

  Charlotte’s gaze flicked to hers. She could sense the angry, helpless frustration boiling off the other woman. There’s nothing I can do.

  Why the fuck not?

  Charlotte lifted one shoulder in a tiny, helpless shrug. Jess growled. All right, dammit, then I’ll do something. I have no idea what, but I’m not just going to stand around and wait for someone to kill you.

  She wasn’t sure, but she thought Charlotte winced.

  Jess stared at the three hostages, eyes narrow and grim. If she could just get her hands on them, she could Jump all three to safety. (And why the hell hadn’t Charlotte or the Sela already done that? They were just as capable of Jumping as she was. What was going on with them, anyway? Had the Xerans blocked their powers somehow?)

  Without the hostages to worry about, Galar and his Enforcers could mop up the Xerans.

  She badly wanted to simply blast both Xeran bastards the way she had that battleborg, but the T’lir wouldn’t allow its power to be used to take a life. Which was damned stupid of it.

  On the other hand, she might be able to use the power indirectly.

  Jess looked around for something to use as a weapon. Her eyes fell on a shelf just above her head. Kitschy snow globes stood there in a line, each with dangling price tags attached. Apparently the shop sold tourist junk along with caffeine fixes.

  Jess scooped one of the globes off the shelf, reached into the core of energy buzzing in her mind, and shot it into the globe. Then she wound up like a fastball pitcher and sent the little orb sailing toward the Xeran’s helmeted head.

  The power blast detonated as it hit him, shattering his helmet and knocking him sideways. He lost his grip on Vanja, and Riane and Frieka leaped on him. The Warfem’s axe rose and fell.

  Jess shot across the room and grabbed Charlotte’s wrist. Vanja scrambled to take her free hand. Jess turned toward Ethini, but instead of joining them, the wiry Sela ran right past her.

  Confused, Jessica whirled. The woman sprinted for the shelf of snow globes.

  “Ethini!” Vanja cried. Her friend ignored her, reaching for one of the globes.

  From the corner of one eye, Jess saw a Xeran warrior charging toward them, Galar at his heels. With a surge of effort, Galar shoved him aside and ducked between him and the women. But even as the Warlord threw up his shield to protect them, the Xeran spun like a bullfighter, danced forward, and swung his sword.

  And cut Ethini in two.

  She came apart in mid-stride, blood flying like a dark rain, wetting the walls, her killer, and Galar himself. Half her torso slammed into the shelf, which tumbled off its brackets, spilling the globes to smash on the floor.

  The alien’s chest landed on the limp tangle of her lower half with its too many legs, a small, profoundly alien creature, the illusion of humanity shattered. More blood welled from the sundered halves, not red, but a kind of dark blue vaguely reminiscent of blueberry syrup.

  Vanja screeched. It was a piercingly high, profoundly alien sound, heard not so much with the ears as with the soul. A shattering psychic cry that flayed the spirit, made the breath catch, the eyes tear.

  Between one blink and the next, Vanja’s human form vanished, replaced by something dark and quick that skittered over the floor to crouch over her friend’s pitiful little corpse. The sound she made raked at Jessica’s mind with claws of pure, wrenching pain.

  And Jess found herself standing over her mother’s body as it lay wasted and small in the hospital bed, mouth gaped open, eyes staring, flesh pulled thin over stark bones. Grief exploded through her, just as fresh as it had been the day cancer had taken Tina Kelly a year ago. A grief not just for her mother, but for the closeness they’d never had. A grief at the bitter knowledge that her mother had never truly loved her.

  Jess keened as she crashed to her knees, the sound echoing Vanja’s screech.

  And the pain got worse. And worse. And worse. Growing with every instant, increasing into a crushing spiritual pressure, unendurable and black.

  Distantly, she heard other voices crying out, some deep and masculine, some female, all ringing with that terrible pain. Even the wolf howled.

  “Noooo!” Galar bellowed, the anguish in his voice chilling Jess to the marrow.

  Over the cries, over the anguish, she heard the Xeran laugh. “Weaklings,” he sneered.

  What’s happening? Jess wondered in desperation. With an effort, she turned her head to look at Charlotte. Charlotte knew the Sela better than anyone. She would know.

  Psychic . . . feedback, Charlotte told her, mind to mind. The Sela are mentally linked. The death of one . . . devastates the others. And anyone else in range. The pain of one feeds the pain of the others, so it grows. She stopped to pant, her eyes glassy.

  Oh, sweet Christ, Jess thought in horror. It was going to get worse, the grief and anguish increasing with every passing second like a microphone feedback screech. So intense, so severe, that not even hardened warriors like the Enforcers could resist.

  The Xerans were moving between their fallen opponents, swaggering as they gazed down at them in contempt.

  Why are those bastards immune? Jess wondered suddenly.

  Their helmets block Vanja’s cry, Charlotte explained. Took us . . . months to develop the technology. The first time one of the priests killed a Sela, the effect almost killed him.

  The Xeran leader knew, Jess realized. He knew what killing Ethini would do to Vanja. He intended to render us helpless.

  The killer moved to stand over Jess and Charlotte, who still clutched her hand. He raised his sword over their heads. “Tell me where the T’lir is, and I will kill you now, cleanly,” he told Charlotte, “and the pain will end.”

  But it wouldn’t end. Jess knew that. It would just keep getting bigger and darker and more all-consuming, feeding off Vanja’s horrible grief and that of those around her.

  “Vanja,” Jess croaked aloud in desperation, “stop!”

  But the Sela didn’t seem to hear the plea over her own keening. Each rising uluation drove through Jess’s head like a spike.

  Helpless. They were helpless, delivered into the hands of the Xerans, who would kill them all and take the T’lir, and with it, the secret of the Sela’s power.

  Unless . . .

  Emotion. The key was emotion.

  With a vast effort, Jess turned her head. Galar lay beside her, cut down where he’d tried to shield them from the Xeran. His eyes were lost, wide as he relived whatever horror Vanja’s powers had brought crashing over him.

  Jess licked dry lips and crept her fingers toward his face. Her hand felt like a chunk of solid lead, but somehow she forced it across the inches separating them. Touched his cheek. He jolted, blinked,
seemed to swim up out of the nightmare. His helpless gaze met hers.

  “Emotion,” she rasped. “Use your comp. Stop the . . . emotion.”

  Galar’s eyes widened as he immediately grasped what she meant. They were all drowning in defeat and despair and choking grief. But they didn’t have to. Computer, blank all emotional reactions.

  Instantly, a blessed numb coolness spread over him as the dreadful pain eased. It’s the emotions! He broadcast on the Enforcers’ communication frequency. Shut them off!

  Galar’s hand closed tight around the axe he still held. His eyes narrowed on the Xeran who crouched over Charlotte Holt, trying to force her to give up the location of the T’lir.

  Silently, Galar rolled to his feet, took a deep, hard breath, and spun, swinging the axe with both hands. The jolt of impact rolled up the length of his arms.

  And the Xeran’s head sailed across the room.

  The bastard’s body collapsed in a boneless sprawl of arms and legs, blood pooling from its severed neck. Just like the poor little Sela he’d killed.

  A Xeran shouted in shock and rage. Galar turned to see the man racing toward him, sword lifted. Dona rose behind the Xeran like a ghost, took one step forward, and cleaved both his helmet and head in two. There was no expression at all on her face as she watched him fall.

  The other Enforcers were up, too, springing at their foes with implacable ferocity. Feeling nothing whatsoever, Galar strode across the room to join in.

  Dazed, Jess watched as the Enforcers fell on the Xerans with a cold ferocity. Two of the enemy went down in that first hard rush, but the others recovered quickly.

  Galar fought in a blur of male power and overwhelming strength, his axe flashing around him, his shield blocking the Xerans’ swords.

  Behind him, a Xeran wheeled toward him, saw his back was turned, and charged, lips pulled back in a soundless snarl. Embroiled in another fight, Galar didn’t seem to see the man coming.

  Jess rolled over and scrabbled through the shattered glass from the fallen shelf, found the one intact snow globe, and started to send her power pouring into it.

  And froze, staring at it in shock. Santa’s red-nosed face grinned back at her through the glass.

  It was the T’lir!

  This was what Ethini was trying to get to!

  She could feel the globe’s power surging within it like a miniature sun. And she knew exactly what to do with it. She touched the cool, glowing point within her own chest. . . .

  And power blazed into her from the globe’s glass depths, fierce, exhilarating, wiping away her grief, her insecurity, her lingering guilt over her mother’s death. With a savage smile, Jess sent that energy lancing around the room.

  Everywhere it touched, the Xerans’ helmets burst, popping like lightbulbs, yet leaving the men inside them uninjured.

  And unprotected from Vanja’s psychic screech.

  They went down howling like animals to writhe on the floor, drowning in the Sela’s grief.

  Galar and his Enforcers did not give them the opportunity to recover. Axes swung with brutal efficiency—and a total lack of emotion.

  Jessica carefully did not watch the carnage.

  Instead she turned and walked across the room to lay one hand on Vanja’s furred, oddly shaped head. Closing her eyes, she sent the T’lir’s soothing energy rolling over the Sela. The keening stopped.

  “You could have saved her,” Jess said softly, knowing it was true. “You had the power. Why didn’t you?”

  The Sela looked up at her, infinite sadness in her huge, liquid eyes. Her face was almost catlike, almost human, but was not quite either. “It was your test, my dear. She gave her life to administer it. What could I do except honor her sacrifice?”

  “Did you know she was going to die? Did she know she was going to die?”

  Vanja angled her furred head in a gesture reminiscent of a shrug. “There would have been no test otherwise.”

  Jess threw Charlotte a look. The woman was sitting up, wiping away tears. Her shoulders slumped with weary grief. “That’s why Charlotte didn’t do anything either. You told her not to.”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of test?” Galar demanded, flicking blood from his axe as he walked over to them. His expression was stony. “Are you saying you could have prevented all this?”

  Vanja looked up at him, her eyes liquid and wise. “Can history be changed, Master Enforcer?”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking chagrined. After a moment he tried again. “What’s the purpose of this test? What are you trying to learn? And why test us and not the Xerans?”

  “We did test the Xerans,” Vanja told him, rising to all six legs. “They failed. As for your other questions—well, learning those answers is a test for another day.”

  Dyami loomed at his shoulder, glowering down at the little alien. “What gives you the right to test us at all?”

  Vanja tilted her head. “You’ll figure it out—or perhaps you won’t.” She turned and took the T’lir from Jessica’s unresisting fingers.

  Holding the globe over Ethini’s body, the alien closed her enormous eyes. Snow swirled up in the globe, bursting from it in a rain of golden sparks that drifted down over the small corpse. Her fur began to glow with a sunny light, each soft hair shining brighter and brighter, until the body flared like a star and disappeared. Nothing was left but a few bright, drifting motes and the smell of cinnamon.

  Jess’s eyes stung. She drew in a breath and knuckled the tears away.

  Vanja sagged on her six legs, for a moment, then sighed out a soft, musical sound before turning back to Charlotte. She reached out a furry, long-fingered hand. “Come, my dear.”

  Charlotte nodded and rose on her own visibly unsteady legs to take the offered hand. “I want to go home,” she said, longing and grief choking her voice.

  “I know, dear. But you have more to do yet. There’s another test.”

  “Wait,” Jess began. “What are . . . ?”

  Light burst in a soundless explosion. When Jess blinked away the purple afterimages, both Charlotte and the Sela had vanished.

  19

  The Blue Ridge was at the height of its autumnal beauty, its rolling mountains clothed in shades of fire under the afternoon sun.

  A smile playing around her mouth, Jess watched a pair of eagles circle each other in an updraft like skaters in a couples’ competition. The sun shone warm on her bare breasts, and she tilted her head back, basking in the light. By all rights it should have been far too chilly to stand around naked in the mountains, but Galar had produced some twenty-third-century blanket that generated a warming field. She curled her bare toes into the bright purple fabric. “Damn, nobody’s trying to kill me,” she said as that happy realization hit. “I almost forgot what that was like.”

  She turned to find Galar, just as naked as she was, doing something with the covered container that was apparently a Vardonese version of a picnic basket. She’d thought he’d been busy with debriefings all morning while she’d been taking her desperately needed nap, but apparently he’d made time to arrange another lovely meal.

  Not the least of which was himself. She leered at him happily. He’d folded his uniform with his customary neatness and stacked it beside her own things, his armored boots lined up with her own soft, flexible shoes.

  He sat tailor-fashion on the blanket preparing his picnic, an expression of intense concentration on his face that seemed a little over-the-top, considering his task. His bronzed body seemed to glow golden in the afternoon sun, all brawny power and long, elegant muscle ridges.

  Thick biceps bunched as he swung four large trays out of the silver container, each shaped like a pie wedge and covered with tiny bite-sized goodies. Beside the container stood a kind of ice bucket that contained three different bottles of wine.

  “Why, Master Enforcer,” Jess said, sitting down next to him on the blanket, “are you planning to get me plowed?”

  He cock
ed his head as he poured one of the bottles into a fragile, curving goblet. “Is ‘plowed’ a twenty-first-century euphemism for ‘sex’?”

  “Nope. It means drunk.”

  “Then no.” His grin was downright wicked as he handed her the wine. “In fact, I want you fully aware and appreciative of every last thing I’m going to do to you.”

  “You’re a bad, bad man, Galar Arvid.” She took a sip of the wine. It seemed to burst on her tongue in a flurry of bubbles that reminded her more of apples than grapes. “Oh, that’s nice!”

  He cleared his throat, suddenly looking a bit awkward as he announced, “It is so sweet and intoxicating, it reminds me of you.”

  Jess gave him a bemused blink. “Uh, thank you.”

  Galar reached into one of the trays and lifted out a cube of meat on a tiny skewer. He presented it to her mouth, but pulled it away when she reached for the skewer herself. “I’m supposed to feed you.”

  Jess hastily dropped her hand and let him put the cube between her teeth so she could bite it off the skewer.

  “Like you,” he said, “this is tender and hot.”

  Jess chewed, considering him. The meat was just as delicately juicy as he said, with an exotic taste she found she liked. “It is delicious.”

  He sighed. “I sound like an idiot, don’t I?”

  “No, no.” Actually, his awkwardness was kind of sweet, particularly in such a relentlessly competent man. “I’m just wondering what we’re doing. I don’t seem to have a copy of the script.”

  “It’s a Vardonese . . . ah, lover’s repast. The male is supposed to purchase the most delicious, exotic tidbits he can find. Then he feeds them to his lover, while he tells her how each one compares to her beauty, wit, and intelligence.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have a talent for the required lyricism.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “Oh?”

  Jess smiled and took another sip of her wine. “You’re almost ridiculously talented at everything else.”