“Probably.”
“Likely.”
He was being very forceful. For a Druiviin. “I mean, I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. The thought had occurred to me.”
“I’m very right.”
“Maybe. Maybe you are. The chick did try to steal the folder. Which was weird. So she was obviously after it. Which pisses me off. Because I might not have taken the job. But now I’m involved.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but the city is split between two interests. The Centau Syndicate, who have always run things and been relatively moral, based on ages old concepts of fairness and respect for individual life.”
“That’s debatable. But I get what you’re saying,” she said.
Odeon paused politely to let her speak. “You know about the Shadow Coalition? Their desires are to embrace the darkness that, forgive me, humans and Constellations believe define them.”
“I only know a little about the Shadow Coalition. But darkness? Even as a human, that’s not what I think. I don’t like evil. Who likes evil?”
“There are many, many exceptions,” Odeon assured her. “However, there are also those who believe that it is within their rights and calling to use others to gain their own ends even if it means violating the personhood of others.”
“I mean, does anyone even exist like that? It sounds brutal and cruel.”
“I’m not here to convince you about it. It’s there. Besides, I suspect you’ve experienced some things that tell you I am right—about humans and Constellations.”
“But not Druiviins.”
“Yasao.”
She cringed at her mistake. “Sorry. Neither Yasao nor Centau.”
He nodded.
“It’s funny that you’re sitting here with me, a human, and telling me how evil humans are.”
“I said there are exceptions.”
“Why heal me? Why trust me, if humans are so terrible?”
“Because you’re an exception.”
“So you think.” She wondered if she should tell him how she’d killed someone. Would he think she was an exception if he knew about that?
“Holly, are you going to take the job?”
She shrugged. It wasn’t his business really. He was a nice person, so far. And he’d helped her twice. But maybe he was trying to ferret out the details of the job and he was working for the Coalition.
He would have stolen the folder too if that were the case. Most likely.
“Sorry, Odeon, I haven’t really decided. You’ll be the first to know when I do,” she said. Her strength was coming back. Maybe it was time to change her shirt.
The door opened and Meg came in, pausing in the doorway when she saw Odeon on the armchair. He didn’t budge, looked as calm as a cat in a sunbeam, and smiled at her.
“Hello,” he said.
“Uh.” Meg closed the front door, her brow furrowing at the stranger in her living room.
“It’s OK. Odeon, this is Meg, a detective inspector. Meg, this is Odeon Starlight. He’s with me.”
“Hello Meg,” Odeon said.
Meg nodded. “Hi.” Then she saw Holly’s shirt and rushed to her side. “What happened? God Holly, I leave you alone for two days and you’ve already gotten into a fight. Your face is barely recovered from the prison fight.”
“Prison fight?” Odeon repeated. “I just thought that was your coloring. Ah, I see it now. The greenish tint. A bit of purple.”
“Could I pass for a Yasao?” Holly asked with a teasing grin.
“Never.” Odeon’s face was deadpan. Then his lips curled into a smile.
“Ah, good joke, Odeon.” Holly struggled to sit up.
“Just keep resting for now, Holly. So, what happened?” Meg asked, sitting back onto the coffee table and studying Holly’s face, then the gash in her side. “You need to change your shirt. You’re going to get blood on my couch.”
“I was just about to go do that when you walked in.”
“Meg, it wasn’t Holly’s fault,” Odeon said. “You should know, I was with her. Two strangers attacked her as she walked home. We fought them off and they ran, but Holly was cut by one of them.”
“Hmm. Thanks,” she said, looking at the Druiviin. Then she transferred her gaze to Holly. Her eyes narrowed. “And what about the gun? Why didn’t you use that?”
Holly scoffed. “I’m sorry, so you want me to just start shooting people? On the street? With bystanders around?”
Meg hesitated. “Well, no. But for fuck’s sake, Holly. You need to take care of yourself. You’re not invincible, no matter what Gabe says.”
“OK then. So I didn’t use the goddamn gun. I exercised judgment and fended them off.”
“Fine. Whatever. I should just stop caring. God, if only I could. So, any idea who they were?” Meg asked.
“Something to do with the Shadow Coalition, I don’t really know.”
Odeon stood up. “Holly Drake, I need to go. Goodbye Meg.”
“Oh, OK. Cool. Thanks for the help, Odeon. I think I owe you. Big time.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you.” He left out the door with a parting wave.
“You don’t need to do that, check on me!” Holly said, but the door was already shut.
ELEVEN
“ODD,” Meg observed, after the door was closed. She got up and walked into the kitchen, removing her gun and badge and leaving them on the bamboo countertop.
“He helped me though. I might have been stabbed in the back if he hadn’t been there.”
“Then I’m grateful for him.” Meg said. She took off her jacket and put it in the coat closet. “I meant coming home to a total stranger in my living room. So the fight, being jumped by strangers, this had to do with the lead, then?”
Holly nodded. “But I’m not supposed to talk to you about it. That’s one of the stipulations.”
“But you’re going to talk to me about it anyway?”
“Uh, no, unless I’m not planning to take it or I am and I want to make significantly less money than if I don’t talk about it with you,” Holly said.
“Confusing,” Meg paused and blinked. “So you had to agree to not talk to anyone about the lead or the job in order to take it?”
“Well, yeah, sort of,” Holly admitted. Her shirt was starting to dry and cling to her where the ruffled up part was still touching her stomach. She stood up. “I’ve got to change my shirt. This is starting to feel gross. The blood and stuff. Also, I need something to take the pain away. You’ve got any pills? Or is a beer my best bet?”
“Your call. You’re welcome to whatever is in the medicine cabinet.” Meg went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. “So, can you tell me anything about the lead?”
Holly went into the guest room and pulled off her shirt and blazer and carefully put the gun on the nightstand. From there, she called out to Meg. “No, except that it’s not perfectly kosher. It involves stuff that I have no idea how to do, and they’re leaving how I do it up to me. The good news is that it would be money and it would be mine and I could use it to start a business that is kosher and I could move out and you could have your space. You and Lucy. Where is she, by the way?”
Meg appeared in the bedroom door, her beer dangling from her fingers at the neck. “Look, I’m not annoyed you’re here. So stop using me as the reason you want to leave. Stop saying that I could have my space, as though you’re crowding me and suffocating me. Own your feelings. It’s you. You want to be as far away from me as possible.” Meg sighed as if contemplating their relationship issues. “And Lucy is with her dad right now. He hasn’t seen her in a few days. So I’m off tonight. Thank god. I need the break. I mean, I miss my kid. Obviously. But I need a break. Sometimes.”
“It’s fine. I don’t think it’s so wrong of you to need a night off. Geez, Meg.” Holly pulled on a clean black T-shirt and brushed past her sister as she went back into the kitchen. She found another bottle of dark ale in the fridge and
popped the lid off. “Alright. Fine. I want to have my own space. It’s not you. It’s me. I’m tired of relying on others. I’m tired of not having my own life. If it wasn’t mom and dad, it was Graf. And now it’s you.”
“Fine. Good. So take it if the money is so good and it will make all your dreams come true.”
“You’re mad.” Holly took a long drink, then sat down on a stool at the counter. It faced the living room. Through the large window, Holly could see out into the Kotan evening. The air had gotten hazy and orange from the slant of the sun and the glare off of Ixion.
Meg sat beside her and sipped her beer. “No. I’m just concerned about the dangers. Especially since you won’t tell me what they are.”
“I don’t know what they are exactly.”
“Then I can’t help you and I hate not being able to help you.”
“Because you still think of me as your kid sister who you need to protect and help.”
“I’d feel this way if you were my older sister. Or if you were a boy. It’s got nothing to do with family dynamics like that and everything to do with my feelings of ownership. I gave the lead to you, against my wishes, and now I have no idea what’s going to happen to you and it scares the hell out of me.”
“Whoa,” Holly said. “That’s heavy.”
Meg shook her head. “I know.”
They were both silent for a few minutes, sipping their drinks, sitting at the kitchen bar, the sounds of their breathing the most prominent noise next to the softly humming appliances. The bamboo countertop was smooth and warm beneath Holly’s arms.
“This is what I can tell you, I think,” Holly began.
“You don’t have to,” Meg said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry I dumped all that on—”
“No, be quiet. I’m going to tell you this,” Holly said. “I can put a team together. But it can’t be you or Gabe.”
“A team. Hmm.” Meg thought about it for a second, “Do you know who you’ll get? I have some people.”
“I’m going to Cosma, that’s what I realized I should do. That’s my plan.” Her answer was firm. Meg liked to give advice—it was part of her older sister persona. It was part of why she was a good detective and maybe why she could manage to be Gabe’s partner. But Holly didn’t want Meg to try to run this show. It was her goddamn show.
“Cosma? She’s a thief and I heard she’s retired anyway. Why would you go to her?” Meg asked then noticed the look on Holly’s face. “Oh. Oh I see. I see. I get it now.”
“Right. So Cosma owes me—a tip I gave her once when Graf thought he was hot on her trail. She’ll give me some advice. And it won’t violate their rules.”
“Well, I’ll do everything I can to protect you, just be careful.”
“Like how you protected me with Graf?” Holly teased.
Meg gasped. “That was bitchy. And low. So low.”
“I know, but—”
“I did my best with Graf.” Meg shook her head and took a long drink from her ale. “Look, I don’t deserve that. I would have killed him for you. He deserved to die and I’m not sad he’s gone. I’m just sad that it turned out the way it did.”
Holly was silent, berating herself for letting her dormant irritation about the past get the better of her.
Meg breathed and then said quietly. “Plus, it’s not my goddamn fault that there’s corruption in the system.”
Holly reached over and gave her sister a one armed hug. “Sorry I said that. Not fair. You’re right. And thanks for letting me stay here.”
Meg's communicator buzzed. She dug the small oval device out of her pocket. “Fuck. I have to take this. This case is killing me—the murder of a Syndicate realm leader. It’s fucking shit.”
“A Syndicate leader? Whoa.” Holly slipped off the stool and went into her bedroom where she finished drinking her beer while she reclined on the bed. Through the cracked door, she could hear the heated one-sided discussion Meg was having with the caller. Probably Gabe.
Outside the half-darkness of Kota had fallen but the lights of the city flooded the apartment wherever there was a window. It only got completely dark every two weeks.
Holly set her beer down on the nightstand and curled up around her pillow. Meg popped her head into the bedroom. “I’ve got to go, Holly. Sorry to ditch you like this. Work shit. This case is ugly and we’re still trying to get a handle on the leads.”
“It’s fine. Thanks for the beer.”
“Stay safe, OK?”
“You too.”
Meg left and the sounds of the apartment filled Holly’s ears just before she drifted off.
TWELVE
“EGGS and toast,” the human server said, dropping the plate carelessly in front of Holly and then walking off without so much as a spare glance at her to see if she needed anything else.
“Really? Lovely service,” Holly muttered to herself. Before prison, she had been a regular at the Qoolki cafe. Maybe it was going downhill. Maybe it was time to find a new breakfast joint. Problem was that no one made human breakfast food. This place was run by Constellations who’d ingeniously tapped into that market, but the human who’d just delivered Holly’s food was frankly terrible at the job. The Constellation owners didn’t seem to notice. They’d picked up the methodology of human cooking, not the culture surrounding it or the interpersonal skills that humans appreciated in their dining experience. Sometimes the servers were excellent. Other times, not at all.
Holly took a bite and sighed. The food tasted amazing. At least there was still that.
As she ate, she considered her to-do list for the day. She’d walked with Meg to see Lucy before she disappeared into school and had intentionally left the folder back at the apartment, before heading to the cafe for breakfast. The folder was clearly wanted by sinister forces and she didn’t want to risk it falling into the wrong hands. She’d studied it enough however, and there didn’t seem to be much in it. Xadrian had said he’d give her more info to add to the folder when she formally accepted the job.
She put another forkful of food in her mouth. Anyway, the folder didn’t even have much in it that she needed. She could probably remember the contents well enough and then burn it.
Going to Cosma would hopefully provide her with a better concept of what she’d need to do.
Because she was going to really take the job, right? Maybe that decision would be easier to make once she’d met with Cosma. Because right now, well, it was obvious that Holy didn’t have the first idea of how to plan what she needed to plan.
“Hello,” a voice at her side said, startling her.
She flinched and dropped her fork. “What the hell is it with you and sneaking up on people? Are you following me?”
She turned to look at Odeon Starlight, standing beneath the cafe lights, a subtle grin on his face, like he knew that he’d startled her and had meant to.
“Sorry. I thought you would have heard me.”
“You always think that. Maybe try getting my attention from a distance, then approach me once we’ve established eye contact.”
“Can I join you?” he asked, sitting on the seat across from her. “And yes, I did follow you here. I was on my way to your apartment when I saw you come in here.”
“Brilliant. You’re a stalker.” She motioned him away. “No, don’t sit. In fact, I’m considering moving just to get away from you.”
He laughed. “Holly Drake, don’t do that. I have someone I want you to meet today. I think he can help you.”
“Oh it’s a he. I’m sick of men. I don’t want to meet any men.” She looked up at him. “Present company mostly excluded.”
“That’s OK, I don’t think Yasao count as men anyway.”
“But you are men. So you count.”
“Well we’re not human men. We’re male. And there are females. But we’re hardly like human males.”
“Except in all the important ways, right?” She hinted. She knew more about Druiviin anatomy than she wanted to ope
nly admit.
“What do you mean by that?” Odeon asked, his face turning a darker shade of violet.
“Like, reproductively.”
“I thought that’s what you meant.”
“That is what I meant.”
He leaned forward, placing his hands flat on the table. “Have you ever been with a Yasao?”
“This is starting to sound, I don’t know, a bit porny.”
“So that’s a no.”
“No, it’s not a no. But I don’t want to go into it. It was a long time ago anyway. And it’s not like very many Yasao are attracted to humans.”
“That’s not true. I find you quite . . . beautiful in a very, colorless way.” He tilted his head. “What about this Yasao that you were with?”
“Well, he was into me. But he was the only one. Ever.”
He sat back and studied her face, his vibrant eyes flickering like tiny fires. “Was it not good for you?”
Her face burned. She finished her eggs and sat back. No it was great. Exhilarating, she thought, recalling her time with Elan, a Druiviin colleague. She cast her mind back to that dark period in her marriage to Graf. She’d cheated on him. She wasn’t proud of that. But if she hadn’t found Elan . . . Holly hated to remember how close she was to simply ending it then. Three years after marrying Graf, waking up to what life had become. No self-esteem, broken down into a dependent on a brutal husband. No hope. Elan had given her hope.
Holly cleared her throat, avoiding Odeon’s gaze. “It was great. We really don’t need to talk about this. But, since you’re pressing the matter. It was a very lovely, very mature experience. Because I’m a very mature woman. So mature that I don’t feel I need to keep discussing it with you.”
His expression seemed to falter. “I was hoping for more conversation. For the education. I consider myself an anthropologist of the different races.”
“You mentioned that. But I don’t like feeling like a subject. Finding out more about humans, I mean, maybe it means becoming a part of their lives.”
Odeon leaned forward. “That’s a good insight, Holly Drake. So, I hoped to introduce you to someone. He can help you.”
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