The Rogue Prince

by Lindsay Buroker

  “No, but neither do you.”

  “Maybe we can find a directory,” Erick said. “Castles come with directories, right?”

  “Ostberg could lead,” Thor said, “but then we’d be looking at his shy butt.”

  Jelena almost tripped. For some reason, it startled her when Thor made jokes. Maybe because they were infrequent and his delivery was so deadpan she sometimes misunderstood them.

  “My shy butt is safely enrobed at the moment,” Erick said, “but I haven’t found the directory yet.”

  “We’re trying to find a spot where we can hide for a while near the Vogels’ bedrooms,” Jelena said. “I think they’ll be more susceptible to ghost stories if they’re woken from their sleep.”

  Thor looked toward the night sky. Clouds had swept in, stealing the stars and a great deal of the visibility. If not for her senses, Jelena wouldn’t know those three ships were out there on patrol.

  “I’ll try to locate their rooms,” Thor said, leading them along the wall and toward the castle. “But I doubt they’re sleeping.”

  “My plan involves hunkering in some closet or fireplace until after they fall asleep.”

  “A fireplace?” Erick murmured. “Sounds even tighter than the shuttle cab.”

  “Old castles always have big fireplaces in the pictures I’ve seen.”

  Thor paused, lifting a hand and waving for them to press themselves to the wall. Jelena flattened her back to it reluctantly. They hadn’t yet slipped into the side passage between the castle and the wall, so they would be visible to anyone striding through the courtyard.

  Noise came from above, soft footfalls and the banging of a holster against someone’s thigh. Jelena sensed two men approaching along the wall, guards with weapons. If they leaned over the side and looked down, there weren’t nearly enough shadows to hide her team.

  They won’t see us, Thor spoke silently, but don’t move.

  A clang came from the front of the castle, followed by the sound of a winch pulling up chain. The portcullis being raised.

  A man in a suit strode out the front entrance with two armed guards in combat armor to either side. Jelena’s stomach sank. Combat armor? These people were definitely anticipating trouble. Her hopes of scaring the Vogels into compliance through haunting were dwindling, unless they could hide in a fireplace for a couple of days until the castle had been searched and the idea of intruders had been dismissed. But they didn’t have days. Leonidas’s surgery was in the morning, and Alfie was back in the ship waiting for Jelena to return to care for her.

  The sommelier, Thor informed them as the man in the suit headed for the shuttle. Whoever had come out last had thought to shut and lock the hatch. Good. But a locked door wouldn’t fool the man if he’d been warned about stowaways.

  The sommelier opened the hatch with a hand to a print reader, but the armored men quickly pulled him back and sprang forward, pointing blazer rifles into the shuttle’s interior. Lights came on inside, and they scanned the cargo, first with their eyes and then with a handheld device for reading life signs. Jelena was glad they hadn’t waited to get out.

  Two more armed and armored men strode under the open portcullis. While the others hopped into the shuttle and searched it, these two looked all around the courtyard. One man’s helmet turned toward Jelena’s team, and she held still. It seemed impossible that he could miss seeing them, but he did not raise an alarm—or the rifle in his arms.

  You’re handy to have along, Jelena told Thor.

  Yes.

  And modest.

  Someone called down from the wall, and the two guards turned their attention elsewhere.

  Come. Thor continued along the wall, this time at a run.

  If Jelena and the others made noise, nobody heard it. They slipped down the passage between the castle and the wall, a passage lit better than Jelena would have preferred.

  Thor stopped at a side door in the stone castle wall. It appeared to be made from simple wood, but she sensed a forcefield behind the wood. There was a handprint sensor panel on the wall next to it.

  This leads to the kitchen and garbage collection area. Thor lifted his gaze toward the outer wall as footfalls sounded above them again. Another guard. His focus was skyward. For now.

  Thor? Jelena touched his arm.

  Ida Vogel’s bedroom suite is three levels above and there. Thor pointed toward the back corner of the castle. She’s in there and talking on a comm console. The brother’s suite is down the hall a ways, and he’s there with his wife. His grown son and their children are also in bedrooms there. The sister may be the easiest target. All the adults are awake, but you may need to do your ploy now.

  Uhm. Jelena felt naked and vulnerable in the well-lit passage, especially with all the people passing along the wall. It’ll probably take some time. I was imagining doing it from a dark, quiet hiding spot inside.

  I’ll keep anyone from seeing you, but I suggest you take as little time as possible.

  “What are we doing?” Masika whispered, not privy to the telepathic conversation.

  “Standing guard while Jelena haunts people,” Thor said.

  “Ah.” Masika patted the rifle in her arms, apparently having no trouble with the notion.

  “And Erick,” Jelena said.

  “Pardon?” Erick asked.

  “I need you to come along for the haunting, in case the Vogels are harder to fool than dogs.”

  “Oh, lucky me.”

  Jelena put her back to the wall and sent her senses in the direction Thor had indicated. She breezed past the auras of numerous people on the way and eventually found Ida Vogel’s suite. She was the lone occupant. That should be useful for her scheme, but Jelena took a deep breath, nervous now that it was time to enact her plan.

  Can you tip a few things over in her room, Erick? And make a few ominous noises.

  Yes.

  Jelena focused on Vogel herself, trying to get a sense for the woman and also to put herself in her shoes, to see the world as she saw it. The castle and the wall at her back grew dim in her awareness, and she found herself looking down at a desk, a holodisplay up and papers under her hands. Old hands, the skin creased and less elastic-looking than her own.

  When Vogel heard a noise and turned in her chair, frowning, it was as if Jelena heard it through her ears. Vogel’s first thought was irritation at being interrupted rather than alarm, and Jelena sensed that the woman wouldn’t be easy to scare or intimidate.

  Erick caused a wind to stir and moan through the room. Vogel got up to close a window overlooking a garden in the rear courtyard, but paused in confusion when it wasn’t open. Unlike the exterior doorways, her windows weren’t guarded by forcefields. They were almost as old-fashioned as the castle itself, with glass panes and wood shutters. She checked the other windows in her suite and stopped at a planter that had tipped over, spilling dirt.

  A shutter banged open behind her, and she jumped and spun toward it, alarm flaring in her mind for the first time. The shutter bumped erratically against the wall. Mentally bracing herself, Vogel walked toward it. She tried to close the window, even though it wasn’t open. The moan sounded again in the room.

  Her heart was beating quickly now. She strode toward her desk and comm, intending to call someone. This was the time to act. If more people came into the room, it would grow harder to scare them.

  Jelena tapped into Vogel’s mind and created an illusion for her. A black-robed figure with its hood up appeared in the air in front of her desk, or so Vogel believed. She gasped and stumbled back, glancing toward the door.

  Make sure that’s locked, Jelena told Erick.

  Already done. I’m a professional at haunting.

  That doesn’t have anything to do with your little brother’s certainty that there are ghosts, does it?

  I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  “Ida Vogel,” Jelena made the illusion say, the voice deep and ominous. She hoped she was doing a good jo
b. Since manipulating people wasn’t one of her strengths, maybe she should have given this task to Thor. No, it was her plan and up to her to make it work. “You have slain Starseers.” The voice rang with accusation. “You have slain many.”

  Vogel stared at the apparition. She was surprised at its appearance, but not at the accusations. At that moment, Jelena knew that she wasn’t unaware of what the underlings in her corporation were doing. Jelena almost faltered in her plan. Was she letting the woman off too easily? Should she ask Thor to . . .

  No. She wasn’t a judge, and she certainly didn’t have the right to use a friend as an executioner. What a cowardly act that would be, even if it were somehow justified.

  “We are aware of the wrongs you have done to our people and the universe as a whole,” she said through the apparition’s shadowed mouth and straight into Vogel’s mind. “Some considered sending assassins to avenge the deaths of the slain. But your company does some good for people, so we have decided to give you another chance.”

  Vogel glanced toward the door again and edged that way.

  A powerful gust came out of nowhere and sent her stumbling back to her place. Erick’s work. The shutters banged an ominous rhythm against the walls.

  “You will no longer house animals in your laboratories and experiment on them, nor will you have people killed so you can harvest their organs.”

  Vogel winced at the first accusation, but she scowled at the second. “That’s only temporary so we can fulfill our orders. The jealous Regen Sciences bastards blew up our production lab and all the organs we had growing.”

  “Temporary murders. How acceptable.”

  Vogel continued to balk, silently protesting that they didn’t order any murders, only paid for the acquisition of bodies of a certain age and type.

  “Do you not believe that offering a reward for the dead would encourage desperate people to commit murder?” Jelena had her apparition say, the voice thundering in Vogel’s mind, and she sensed the woman’s unease at having her thoughts read. Good. “You will cease your criminal and morally reprehensible practices,” she added, trying not to feel weird for lecturing someone older than her grandfather. “Morally reprehensible” was the kind of thing he would say. “You will personally fly out to your laboratories and give these orders and ensure they are followed. If you do not, my people will come for you. I assure you, we have the power to bypass your security systems and your troops.”

  Erick knocked another planter over with a timely crash that made Vogel jump and stare at the shattered ceramic and dirt on the floor. Real terror welled within her now. Jelena knew it was petty, but she couldn’t help but feel satisfaction.

  She was debating whether she should mention Masika and experiments on young, desperate people—and was also thinking of the ghosts she’d thought to bring into this—when the suite door crashed open.

  Jelena’s concentration faltered, and her illusion wavered. A man strode in with two guards at his back. Ida Vogel spun in relief toward him, recognizing her brother.

  Thor blurted, Watch out! into Jelena’s mind an instant before another presence stormed into Ida’s head. Not Erick. Who—

  A hand seemed to snap around that bit of consciousness that Jelena had sent into the sister’s head, crushing it, then lashing straight through the wall and into her head.

  Pain ricocheted through her skull, and she stumbled back, awareness returning to her body as she crashed against the wall. Her head struck it, and the words, He’s a Starseer! rang in her mind before she blacked out.

  Chapter 21

  Jelena woke to an alarm blaring and lights flashing. She lay on her back on the cobblestones, still near the castle’s side door. Erick knelt beside her, one arm under her shoulders. He patted her cheek for what she sensed wasn’t the first time.

  “Jelena, are you with us? We have to get out of here.”

  “The brother’s a Starseer,” she rasped, trying to sit up. Something warm trickled from her nose. Blood?

  Erick helped her up. Masika stood a couple of steps away, her rifle ready as she alternately looked one way and then the other and finally toward the wall above them.

  “I know. I didn’t realize it until too late.” Erick helped her to her feet.

  She gripped his arm and leaned against him, not sure her weak knees would support her. Her head throbbed, her brain feeling swollen and too large for her skull.

  “Where’s Thor?” Her gaze snagged on the door—it was open now, the wood ripped from the hinges, the forcefield down.

  “He went after the brother.”

  “He’s storming the castle by himself?” Her concern for him—and disbelief—gave her some strength, and she growled, forcing her knees to firm up. “We have to help him.”

  She didn’t make it more than a half a step to the door.

  “No, we don’t.” Erick pointed up. “Hear that noise? That’s for us. He said to get to one of the shuttles, prep it, and get the hells out of here.”

  “And that he’d catch up?” Jelena scowled, wanting to go help him. She sensed men running through the corridors of the castle, men in combat armor. Yes, she’d seen Thor battle such men before, but how many could he face at a time? And who was this Starseer-trained brother? How much power did he have? She rubbed her temple. That attack hadn’t come from a novice.

  “Probably.” Erick kept an arm around her and steered her toward the back of their alley, the direction of the rear courtyard garden and those other shuttles. “Mostly he said he was going to kill that bastard.”

  “That wasn’t the plan,” Jelena mumbled, but after making sure someone had grabbed her staff—Erick had it—she let herself be guided toward the shuttles. As much as she wanted to run in and help Thor, he was probably making the distraction they needed if they were going to get out of there. And she was the only pilot in their group. Logical, but her frustration battled with that logic. To leave now would be to flee without accomplishing anything. The sister would realize it had all been a ploy, that some Starseer had been in her home, threatening her, and that it hadn’t been a ghostly apparition that she needed to fear for the rest of her life. Unless Thor killed the sister and brother, what would truly change in the corporation? And even then, wouldn’t the company go on, directed by the son or some chief executive officer?

  “When he saw you hit the wall, Thor was too pissed to pay attention to the plan,” Erick said.

  “Guess it’s good to know he cares.”

  It was less good to know he might be going on a killing rampage.

  “A little faster, if you can. Or I’m going to have Masika throw you over her shoulder and carry you.”

  “Masika will do it?” Jelena forced her weak legs to greater speed. “Not you?”

  “She’s stronger than I am. And—” He broke off with a curse.

  They had reached the corner and could see out into the garden. Jelena sensed the shuttles on a pad beyond the hedges, benches, and flower beds, but it did not matter. Six men in combat armor were stomping across the grass toward them. Other armored men pounded out a back door in the castle, splitting up, and running in several directions.

  Erick released Jelena, shoved her staff at her, and stepped out with his arms raised. Masika jumped past them both, firing straight at the men’s chest plates.

  As the troops started to return fire, a wall of energy slammed into them. The men stumbled sideways, but several of them got off shots. Sensing Erick was busy attacking, Jelena forced her aching mind to work and created a barrier to protect them. She could only extend it partially, though, since Masika was firing, and she didn’t want to deflect her blazer bolts back at her. Jelena almost ordered her to stop, especially since her shots seemed reckless, hitting foliage as often as their enemies. But when one of the benches flew up and slammed into a man’s back, Jelena decided Masika’s attack might be more premeditated than it first appeared.

  With the alarms wailing, Jelena couldn’t hear much so it was only her Starse
er senses that warned her of a threat from behind. She spun and found two men looking down from the wall and pointing their rifles.

  Reacting on instinct, Jelena spun her barrier to the rear and thrust it upward. It struck the men as they fired. They and their weapons flew backward, falling off the wall on the other side.

  With a sickening jolt, she sensed them bouncing off the ground and off the island completely. They would fall all the way to the ocean below, and she had no idea if their armor could save them from such a great drop.

  Four men charged around the front corner of the castle and sprinted down the alley toward them. Jelena scarcely had time to shift her barrier to block the passage before they opened up fire.

  A boom sounded behind her, and Erick stumbled back into her. The jostle almost caused her to drop the barrier, but seeing those crimson blazer blasts streaking toward her face gave her the focus of the sun gods. She kept it up, and the bolts bounced off.

  Behind her, Masika shouted a battle cry and raced out from the protection of the castle. Erick had been hit, and pain radiated from him, but he snarled and stomped out after her.

  The troops in the alley reached Jelena’s barrier and had to slow down. She thought she had them blocked, like a cork in a wine bottle. Then one sprang onto the wall. He tried to run around and over her barrier. She shifted it to cover the space up there but was too late. He dropped down as the others kept firing, meaning she couldn’t simply drop her barrier and reconstruct it right in front of him.

  The man leaped for her, and she was forced to drop her barrier anyway. She jumped to the side so his body would block her from his colleagues’ fire, and whipped her staff up to block him. Instead of shooting, he sprang toward her again, as if to bury her under his weight.

  He was fast, his movement enhanced by that armor, but she was used to sparring with and avoiding attacks from Leonidas. She dodged to the side, just enough to avoid his outstretched arms, fully aware that his comrades were biding their time to get a shot off at her. She jumped back in close before he could whirl and snatch at her. She struck him in the side, feeding her energy into her staff. His armor didn’t give—no surprise there—but lightning crackled, the air lighting up as branches arced around the man.