by Martha Carr
Once she had it all laid out, she climbed onto the right side of the bathroom counter and let her bare feet fall into the sink. She poured a little hydrogen peroxide into the two deep holes and let it do its thing while she pulled on a pair of gloves. She dipped her shoulder to let everything drip back out again and stuck the tweezers into the rubbing alcohol.
“Here goes nothing. It can’t be as bad as getting shot in the hip.” She brought the tweezers up to her shoulder with her left hand—not her dominant hand—and leaned away from the mirror enough to see what she was doing. Mostly.
It felt like Sha’gron’s fingers were digging around in there all over again, only this time, the person digging around in Cheyenne’s arm had no idea what she was looking for. She went through two dozen cotton swabs trying to get all the blood out of the way before she finally gave up on the tweezers and tried the surgical scissors instead. Those clattered into the sink fifteen seconds later, and Cheyenne growled at her reflection in the mirror.
“Not as bad as getting shot in the hip.” She gritted her teeth and waited for the flare of pain to diminish. It didn’t. “I can’t do this by myself.”
Hissing out a long breath, she climbed down off the counter and got to work, patching herself up instead, pouring in a little more hydrogen peroxide and taping gauze over the two freshly bleeding holes in her shoulder. She stepped back and surveyed what could have been a murder scene in and around her bathroom sink.
“Maybe I should’ve let mom call that doctor who does house calls. Not that the guy would know what he was looking for, either. And not that I know anyone who—” The image of Mattie Bergmann throwing a fit when her most advanced student came to her with drugstore surgical supplies and a request to dig a tracking device out of her shoulder made Cheyenne burst into laughter. “No more office hours after that, I think. She might be willing to give me an A on every assignment and pass me through her class if I agreed not to see her ever again.”
Another round of laughter took her, and she doubled over the counter, gripping the edge of it with both hands.
When she finally stopped, she took two deep breaths and looked into the mirror. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glistening, her cheeks flushed, but for the most part, she looked fine. “Okay. I’ll figure it out.”
She left everything where it was on the bathroom counter and stepped out into the tiny living room of her tiny apartment.
“Okay, then.” The half-drow rubbed her hands together and headed for her desk. “Let’s see what the rest of the dark web’s been up to while I was out taking down Skaxens and goblins and totally blowing my cover.”
It took her under five minutes to turn on her computer, run the VPN, and log back into the dark web. Then she was back on the Borderlands forum under Third Quarter Projections—the name made her laugh again—to check the new topic she’d posted yesterday. It was a little harder to find, seeing as there were at least a dozen more topics posted after hers, but she didn’t bother reading them. She found hers and clicked on it.
There were only two comments in the thread, one she’d left herself about offering odd jobs in exchange for information and a second below it. Cheyenne sat back in her computer chair and dropped her hands into her lap. “Seriously?”
The other comment was from gu@rdi@n104.
gu@rdi@n104: Bold move, @ShyHand71. Maybe I can help. I’ll be waiting.
The timestamp was three minutes after she’d opened the topic. “Yeah, you’ve been waiting all damn day, haven’t—”
A private message popped up in the corner of her screen, and she snorted.
gu@rdi@n104: Took you long enough. With a new topic like that, I thought you’d be hovering over your laptop, waiting for someone to send you something.
“He thinks I do any of this on a laptop. Cute.”
Cheyenne rolled her chair closer to the desk and typed a response.
ShyHand71: I thought I told you I had a life and stuff.
gu@rdi@n104: Oh, that’s right. Asking about an orc named Durg doesn’t have anything to do with your life.
ShyHand71: Very funny. I appreciate the interest and you trying to hold my hand, but I’m not new to forums. Don’t need any special treatment, either. If you have information for me, let’s talk. Otherwise, maybe don’t scare other users away by commenting as an admin on my thread.
gu@rdi@n104: Ooh. She gets serious. Okay. I have information.
ShyHand71: Let’s hear it.
gu@rdi@n104: Sure. After we talk about what you can give me in trade.
Cheyenne rolled her eyes. “It’s never about helping a magical out, is it? Somebody always needs something out of the deal.” Puffing out a sigh through loose lips, she typed another response.
ShyHand71: Ground rules: 1-no sexual favors. 2-no crime. 3-I’m not paying you.
gu@rdi@n104: Funny. Was that supposed to be insulting?
The halfling smirked. “At least he’s got a sense of humor about it still.”
ShyHand71: Then what did you have in mind?
gu@rdi@n104: I need you to find some information for me.
ShyHand71: You’re on the dark web, dude. You already know about finding things most people can’t. Why do you need me for that?
gu@rdi@n104: Because I want to know if I’m right about you. And I like making friends with people who know how to think. Most people don’t.
ShyHand71: You might be flattering yourself, but I’m not buying it. What do you want me to find?
gu@rdi@n104: Are we making an official agreement now?
“Jeez, this guy likes to run around in circles.” Cheyenne shook her head and typed.
ShyHand71: Not yet. I can’t decide if I want to do this until you give me something to go on. Specifically, what you want me to find.
gu@rdi@n104: Hey, take a breath, huh? Incoming data file headed your way. It’s encrypted, fyi. Take your time and get back to me if this is something you think you can handle.
ShyHand71: Sure. Is there a deadline for this offer?
gu@rdi@n104: No. Reply to my comment on your thread when you figure out what you want. Happy hunting.
“Oh, yeah. Great. Thanks.” Cheyenne waited for the file to come through on the private message, and when it finally did, she snorted. “Favor for a Friend. Nice filename. Looking for people who know how to think, but the guy can’t come up with something creative.”
Before opening anything from someone she didn’t know—and probably didn’t want to—the halfling powered up the multiple layers of a program she’d built years ago and used once. As it turned out that one time, she hadn’t needed what she’d named “the Bunker.” “Better safe than taken over by some giant Trojan that would rip my VPN and all my firewalls to shreds. Always use protection, right?”
The Bunker took another two minutes to fully load, and then Cheyenne was ready to take that little Favor for a Friend file and slip it right into her program. It took another minute to open the stupid thing, and when the file finally finished uploading to her program and shed its outer layer, the halfling’s jaw dropped open.
“No kidding, it’s encrypted. I can’t read any of this.”
The layers of coded text didn’t make any sense, and they scrolled across the minimized view screen the Bunker provided faster than she could pick out anything she recognized.
Cheyenne sat back in her computer chair. It rolled away from the desk a little, but she didn’t bother to bring herself back again. “The guy said to take my time. Guess I better start mapping out a plan of attack now. This is gonna take a lot longer than one night.”
And that was the beginning. Once she figured out how to decrypt the entire file from gu@rdi@n104, she still had to figure out whether finding what he wanted was actually worth the potential information he’d claimed he had about Durg. But that was a chance she was willing to take.
“Ember’s awake. She knows what’s going on, and she knows that I’m gonna do whatever I have to do to make sure Durg gets what’s coming to
him. Then I can let this one go. Until then, Guardian104, I guess I’m gonna have to play your little game. Trust me, I’ll win.”
With a sigh, she got up from her chair and headed toward the kitchen.
“Okay, there’s one pro to being unconscious and chained to a FRoE bed for five days. I still have beer in the—”
A light flashed in her backpack, which she’d deposited in its usual place on the floor against the kitchen counter. Frowning, Cheyenne squatted in front of the bag and zipped open the front pocket, thinking the light came from one of her phones. The FRoE burner phone didn’t have any missed calls, and she double-checked that the ringer was on and the volume was all the way up. A quick glance at her personal phone showed no new texts, calls, or notifications. “Okay.”
The light flashed again in her backpack, and not from the front pocket. The drow halfling set both phones aside and unzipped the main pocket. “There better not be something wrong with my laptop.”
She took that out of her bag too and pulled the laptop out of its sleeve. It was definitely turned off and not in sleep mode.
Another light flashed at the bottom of her backpack, accompanied by a light buzz this time. Cheyenne swallowed, set her laptop down, and reached into her backpack one more time. The only other things in there were folders for her classes, and all the way at the bottom, the copper puzzle box she’d taken off her mom’s desk before calling it a night and heading home.
“That’s not possible.”
The box felt a little warmer than the last time she’d held it, before trying to explain to her mom what Mattie had told her about the drow artifact and what it meant to Cheyenne. Before Bianca Summerlin had shot her daughter down in the blink of an eye. Before Sir had interrupted the whole thing by calling the goddamn private landline.
Cheyenne sat on the floor and leaned back against the half-wall that served as part of her kitchen counter. The drow runes etched all over the copper box looked different somehow.
In twenty-one years, I haven’t gotten a single piece of this stupid thing to budge.
She frowned, turning the box over and trying to pin down what had changed. A bright flash of gold light flared from the etched runes on all six sides, and the puzzle box vibrated in her hands with sudden, intense heat.
Cheyenne reacted the way any normal person would—she tossed the puzzle box out of her hand with a yelp of surprise and pain. The box spun through the air and bounced once on the old, stained carpet of her apartment before the pieces sectioned off like a Rubik’s Cube and started to spin in every direction on their own. The golden light from the etched runes glowed brighter until Cheyenne had to squint against the glare.
Two seconds later, the box stopped spinning, and the light disappeared.
The drow halfling released a heavy breath and stared, unblinking, at the drow artifact she now knew her father had left behind for her.
“What the hell was that?”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Corian flipped on the desk lamp, which gave off enough light to cast a dim glow over the desk and the bare metal folding chair. Pressing the cell phone to his ear, he counted to four rings until the line picked up.
“Yeah, it’s me. Can you hear me okay? Good. Yeah, I reached out, and I think I got a bite. No, she’s skeptical enough as it is. I’ll give her however long she needs to get back to me, then we’ll move forward. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she’ll crack it. And she’ll have no problem finding the trail of breadcrumbs I left behind. I’m sure. I’ve been watching her for twenty-one years, Zeldar. She’s good. Trust me. We’re close. Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll wait.”
With a sigh, Corian leaned back in the metal chair and glanced one more time at the new topic posting on the Borderlands forum. I’m Looking for Durg. She went all out with that one. He chuckled and drummed his fingers on the tiny wooden tabletop mounted on metal legs.
“Yeah, I’m still here. Hey, can you get a message to the Cu’ón for me? Dammit, Zeldar. It’s not like you have to do this more than once a year. Right. Yeah, I know there’s a process. Will you…hey! Hey, shut up and listen to the message, will ya? I swear you’re starting to sound like one of them. I know it’s your cover, I know. Everyone has a life. Will you hear me out? Okay. Tell him I made the first move, huh? Tell him she’s starting to dig, and she’ll find him soon. Yeah, that’s it. Hey, I don’t care how you get it to him, just make sure he hears the words. Thank you. Sure, I’ll call you when I have more.”
The man sitting in the dark room somewhere outside downtown Richmond ended the call and set down the cell phone. “And maybe you’ll learn how to relax.”
Corian picked up the glass of water on the table beside his laptop and took a long drink. “Okay, ShyHand71. Your move. Better make it a good one.”
Chuckling, he sat back in the chair again and whipped the stupid baseball cap off his head. It thumped onto the table next to the laptop and he ran a hand through his hair, staring at the VCU Ram embroidered on the front.
“Soon, you and I are gonna meet in person, kid. We have so much to talk about. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. We both have.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Cheyenne Summerlin had no idea how much it would hurt just to turn off her alarm. The not-so-gentle blare coming from her cell phone on the bedside table was the only sound that got her to wake up with any kind of regularity. Except for today. Today, when the drow halfling flung her hand onto the bedside table to fumble with the alarm—or at least hit snooze—the agony piercing through her shoulder was a better wakeup call than an ice-cold bucket of water splashing all over her face.
“What the— Oh, man.” Groaning, she clutched her shoulder and felt the thick, folded wads of surgical gauze taped over her flesh. That and staring at the blank wall across her bedroom reminded her of what kind of dumb halfling decision she’d made the night before. “So stupid.”
She pushed herself up off the mattress and crossed her legs beneath the comforter, squinting a little but not resisting the need to look at what she’d done to her shoulder. When she peeled away the medical tape and the gauze she’d stuck there before going to bed, the two gaping holes in her flesh looked even bigger than when that Skaxen asshole had put them there.
“Damn CVS tweezers!” She hissed when her fingers brushed an especially sensitive bit of raw red completely unhealed flesh, which was pretty much all of it.
She ripped the rest of the gauze and tape off before she promised herself she’d put a new bandage over it as soon as she got to the bathroom. Fully awake now, she turned back toward her bedside table to reach for her cell phone and nearly threw herself to the other side of the bed.
There, right behind her phone, was the copper puzzle box etched with drow runes on all six sides—runes she had no idea how to read or where to start trying to decipher.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Cheyenne eyed the box sideways and reached out again to poke it and make sure it was actually there. She’d made a big deal out of leaving it on the carpet just inside the front door of her apartment last night. “Great. I have my own dark elf Chuckie doll.”
Blinking the rest of the sleep out of her eyes, she snatched the puzzle box off the bedside table and held it in her lap. She tapped it, then gave it a little shake. It didn’t budge when she tried to twist apart the pieces the way she’d seen it do all by itself yesterday, like some kind of possessed Rubik’s cube. Nothing.
Her shoulders sagged in disappointment.
The copper box vibrated in her hand, a faint golden light just barely shining from all those hair-thin lines etched into the metal surfaces. In three seconds flat, the cube went from cold to warm to burn-holes-in-your-hands-hot, and the half-drow dropped it onto the rumpled sheets beside her.
Whatever made this thing start moving around after twenty-one years of just sitting on her shelf or dresser and looking halfway pretty, she’d figure it out. Professor Bergmann at least knew what the puzzle box was, if not what the drow called it, so
maybe Professor Bergmann knew why it was doing whatever it was doing.
Puffing out a sigh, Cheyenne dragged her body out of bed and shuffled into the tiny bathroom in her tiny apartment. When she flipped on the light, her gaze fell first to the blood-splattered sink and countertop, the red-soaked cotton balls and wads of stained gauze, and those stupid tweezers only a moron would consider useful to dig a tiny FRoE tracking device out of her battle wound.
Then she looked at her reflection in the mirror, also smudged with dried smears of her blood, and almost rolled her eyes. No wonder I feel like shit.
Her shoulder looked a lot worse from three feet away than it did up close, the two holes standing out against her unusually pale skin like a giant, festering spider bite. Dark circles ringed her eyes, which wasn’t that much different than how she wore her makeup. Her High Voltage Raven Black hair was a tangled mess, flying in every direction and barely covering the crisscrossing patterns of thin slashes on both shoulders and down her arms, across her collarbone, and probably even along the top of her back if she bothered to turn around and look. She didn’t.
“All this just from one rough day.”
Cheyenne’s sharp laugh cut off in a grimace when it made both her shoulder and her head hurt even worse.
With a final once-over of her reflection, the halfling lifted the hem of her black tank top and peered at the puckered, twisted flesh of the bullet hole in her right hip. Hard to think she’d been shot a week ago today in that FRoE raid, and the scar already looked like this. Magical-healing formula, Sir had called it. Just a small step up from Rhynehart’s nasty energy bars.
She shook her head with a snort and dropped her tank top.
Whatever the FRoE really wanted from her, they’d screwed up their chances when they’d had their troll doctor insert the stupid tracking device Cheyenne still had to get out of her shoulder. The halfling was done being used and lied to. She could find out everything she needed to know about her dad on her own, without catering to Sir’s egomania. Just might take a little longer.