Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  Again, I saw a flicker of surprise reach her eyes, right before her smile warmed even more.

  She turned to lead us out of the room, swiveling easily on one booted heel.

  I followed silently, watching the lace dress swish around her long legs. Seconds later, she disappeared through the beaded doorway and I did the same, Jon and Cass closely at my heels.

  * * *

  We entered an even darker room at the end of a narrow corridor. It stretched much larger than I expected, lit primarily by candlelight and flickering chandeliers at dim settings.

  I stopped briefly at the entrance, gazing out over scattered tables, faux-leather chairs and dark burgundy vinyl booths. Like the sitting area, everything was done in a Victorian style. I saw a few more of those round couches, velvet burgundy to match the booths, and with statues on top of their round center cushions. The nearest to us had a fat cherub sitting on top, holding a bow fitted with an arrow. Further down, I saw a stone woman holding a vase, wearing robes reminiscent of Ancient Rome.

  Beyond the tables, on the stage, was a padded black table, where a naked male was strapped down and blindfolded, a gag in his mouth.

  Over him, a female wearing lace pants and a lacy, see-through top, stroked his back as if he were an animal, bending down to whisper in his ear. He groaned softly through the gag from whatever she said.

  Feeling strange for staring, I blinked a little, then looked away.

  I did have a fleeting wonder if it was a seer or a human strapped to that table.

  Low, percussion-heavy music came through speakers in the ceiling, and the room smelled vaguely of musky incense mixed with that honey-sweet smell of seer cigarettes. At scattered tables, couples and larger groups spoke in low voices, sipping drinks and periodically looking up at the stage. Most of the women wore even more revealing costumes than the seer who brought us inside.

  I noted a few tables occupied primarily by men in business suits who were probably human. A number of them looked over when we walked into the room, then looked me and Cass over with more interest.

  I saw seers lounging on couches, as well. One wore a type of headset I’d never seen before. From the blank look on her face, I almost wondered if it was some kind of drug. She stared up at the ceiling, her pupils pinpricks, her expression distant and serene.

  I could feel the overall silence, though, a near sleepiness, even in the seers I saw sashaying around the room, scanning faces among the men wearing suits. It was early still; the room was only half-full.

  I wondered what it would look like in about twelve hours.

  Swallowing when I saw eyes focused on us once more, I glanced at the seer who brought us inside. Once I had, I realized she’d been waiting, letting me look around. Now she smiled at me reassuringly, touching my arm in that strangely protective gesture she’d used before.

  Gesturing for me to follow her, she walked us to one of the booths along the wall. I exhaled when I realized where she was leading us, following her gesturing fingers with a second sigh of relief. It was dark here, and relatively private. We weren’t likely to be noticed by people scouting the room for sex-dates, and we’d be able to talk.

  Once the three of us slid into the burgundy vinyl booth, the seer smiled at me again.

  “Order whatever you like,” she said. “Everything is on the house. We have a full menu, a well-stocked bar, juices, sodas. We also have access to nearby establishments. Order it, and we will find it for you.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. “Really. You are too kind.”

  I heard the relief in my voice, and the genuine gratitude.

  “…Is it proper to call you cousin?” I asked her then.

  Her smile widened. “Call me Jewel,” she said. “In answer to your question, however, yes, among my people it is considered polite to refer to one another as cousins across our two species.” Smiling wider, she added, “And you are most welcome, cousin. I feel quite happy to have met you.”

  “Allie,” I said, smiling back at her. “I’m Allie.” I held out a hand towards Jon, then Cass as I spoke. “This is my brother, Jon. And my childhood friend, Cass.”

  The seer’s lips curved higher. “I am honored. Do make yourselves at home.”

  Giving me another wink and a faintly conspiratorial smile, she removed herself from us, her high heels clicking on the floor as she walked away. I watched her swish away in the dress a second time, letting out another breath I hadn’t known I held.

  At least we’d managed not to offend her.

  A waitress appeared at our table seconds later to take our order.

  None of us really talked until she’d returned.

  She came back with a lot more than what we’d discussed when she stood over our table. Instead of just the three cappuccinos and waters we’d asked for, she also brought heaping plates of bacon, eggs, toast, butter, fried potatoes, mixed fruit bowls and grilled mushrooms.

  When she walked away, I looked down at my plate, and my stomach growled.

  “Do you think they read us, for this?” Cass asked me in a whisper, nudging my arm.

  I shrugged, spearing a piece of potato with my fork. “Probably. Maybe we just felt hungry and she took pity on us,” I said.

  When I glanced at Jon, I caught him staring at me.

  “What?” I said, chewing the potato. “It’s rude not to eat it, don’t you think? And we never did get breakfast––”

  “It’s not that, Allie.” His voice sounded frustrated, and a little baffled. “How the hell did you know those things?”

  I froze, mid-chew. “What things?”

  “How to talk to them? You were talking almost like her. You didn’t even sound like you. How did you know how to do that?”

  I blinked, surprised. “I really sounded different?” I thought about his question. “I guess I just copied her. It seemed like they value manners. We’re her guest. She didn’t have to take us in.”

  Cass grinned, shaking her head. “You’ve always had that chameleon thing. It’s freaky, Allie. You’re like a shapeshifter.”

  Jon frowned. He didn’t press me on it, but I could tell my answer didn’t fully satisfy him. Cass’s comment didn’t relax that tension in his brow, either. Picking up his knife and fork, he cut into his eggs, taking a few bites before he glanced up at me again.

  “Did you catch what she said about your SCARB agent?” he said, his voice still low. He lifted an eyebrow, glancing around us to make sure no one was in earshot. “I don’t think ‘Simon’ is his real name.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I did catch that.” Glancing between the two of them, I hesitated, stalling by chewing on a piece of bacon, then taking a drink of my cappuccino. Swallowing the mouthful, I said, “There’s some things I need to tell you both. About that guy… and the plane. And those men out there.”

  The three of us ate while I talked and they listened.

  I told them everything I could thing of––about how those were the same three guys I’d seen outside of SFO, about the first note on the plane, everything I could remember about my conversation with “Simon” in first class.

  When I finished speaking, there was a short silence.

  Jon was frowning though, and Cass looked worried.

  It ended up being Cass who spoke first.

  “I don’t know, Allie,” she said, hesitant. “None of this sounds good. Do you think all four of those guys are SCARB? Or do you think the first three were Myther terrorists or something?” Still thinking, she added, “If they are Mythers, they might’ve had something to do with that bomb… and you’ve run into them twice now. Maybe three times, if they left you that note this morning. Four if they left you the note on the plane.” Hesitating, she glanced at Jon, before looking back at me. “And what about this ‘Simon’ guy? What’s his connection to those other guys? What’s his deal with you?”

  I shook my head, taking a bite of toast.

  “I don’t know,” I said, chewing.

  Jon sat back in h
is seat, combing a hand through his streaked blond and brown hair. His plate had been picked clean.

  “I agree with Cass,” he said. “This isn’t good, Al. You’re either being targeted by Mythers, or SCARB is investigating you… or both. SCARB might be using you in some way to track those Mythers. Or they might be setting you up.”

  “Why, though?” Cass said, looking at him. “Why would they go after her?”

  Jon shrugged, taking a sip of his cappuccino. “No idea. They might have profiled her, thought she’d make a good recruitment candidate. Adopted, so they’d know you were harassed by authorities growing up, unreg’d birth parents, weird blood. For all we know, they could be putting you forward as some kind of sleeper agent.”

  Swallowing my bite of toast, I took another sip of cappuccino. That sick feeling I’d gotten reading the second note that morning returned. It still didn’t make sense, though. I’d never been remotely religious. I’d never been involved in any activities that would put me on a Myther’s radar. I’d attended a few seers’ rights protests in college, but that was pretty much it.

  For the past few years, I’d engaged in no political activity at all.

  I would have thought they’d approach Jon before me.

  Jon added, “They followed you here, Allie. You realize that, right? There’s a good chance they followed you to New York. Either that, or it’s just a really bad coincidence, them being here the same time as you.” He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “That one guy, Simon, bought a ticket right in front of us. You know that’s probably what he was doing, right? When we saw him at that first class counter? That means he likely wasn’t going to New York before the bombing at the airport.”

  “He might have been following the other three,” I pointed out.

  Jon nodded. “True. But all four of them made a point about you before you got on the plane,” he reminded me. “That guy, Simon, went out of his way to pull you to safety. Twice. That means he knew who you were before we got to the airport.”

  I nodded, swallowing a bite of toast that suddenly wanted to stick in my throat.

  We sat in silence for a moment longer.

  I exhaled then, staring down at my mostly-full plate as it hit me I was finished eating. The queasiness in my stomach worsened as I stared down at the untouched pile of eggs. I’d basically picked through toast and fruit without eating much.

  “Do you think he’s really a SCARB agent?” I said finally. “Maybe he’s investigating the other three?”

  Jon frowned, shaking his head. “Alone? Why didn’t he have back-up, if those others weren’t SCARB? Don’t they always work in small groups? Pairs, at least?”

  “Maybe those other guys are SCARB,” Cass suggested. “Only they’re dirty. Collecting seers to resell, you know? There was a whole special on that on the news feeds a few months ago––about SCARB officials being on the take with traffickers.” She looked at me. “Maybe he’s pretending to go along with it for now. So he can bust them later, you know?”

  Jon shook his head. “He wasn’t very subtle about pulling Allie out of there. And why are any of them focused on her? It’s not like they can sell her.”

  “Wrong place, wrong time?” Cass suggested.

  “You mean, those three guys targeted me at the airport just because I was there, and they knew the bomb would be going off––” I began.

  “Yeah,” Jon said, nodding. “Yeah, that could be it.” He gave me a serious look. “I don’t really see you being profiled as a recruitment possibility, Al.”

  I nodded, silently agreeing with him.

  Cass and Jon just looked at me for a moment.

  Then Cass burst out in an involuntary-sounding laugh, as much nerves as humor.

  “Jesus, Al. Only you could ‘randomly’ get on the radar of Myther terrorists. How is it that you’re like the Bermuda Triangle for anything weird going on, anywhere near you?” Smiling at me, her eyes still betraying her worry, she added, “And now we know you’re a seer whisperer, too. I think that Jewel chick seriously wants to jump your bones.”

  I rolled my eyes at that last part, snorting.

  Glancing at Jon, I was surprised to see him nodding to Cass’s words.

  “I’m pretty sure she does, too,” he said, quirking an eyebrow at me as he lowered his cappuccino cup to the table. “She was staring at your ass pretty intently while you were looking around the room. And she watched your reactions while you were checking out that sex show on stage with more than a small bit of interest. I wouldn’t be surprised if she propositioned you again before we leave here.”

  I rolled my eyes, not bothering to comment.

  Then, thinking about everything we’d been talking about, I frowned.

  “Look, what do we do about the rest of it? Do we go to the cops? I at least want to find some way to report what those assholes did to that seer. Preferably before they ship her out of the country somewhere. Can we… I don’t know… find a way to send an anonymous tip?” I looked at Jon, pressing my lips together. “You have hacker friends at your company, don’t you? Could we get one of them to––”

  But another voice cut me off.

  * * *

  “No,” it said.

  The single word was harsh, unequivocal.

  My eyes jerked up and off of Jon, staring at the shape now looming over our table.

  “––Absolutely not,” the voice finished, as cold as before.

  The deep tones and German accent already made me stiffen, even before my brain caught up and told me who it was. I found I had to once more struggle to make sense of his features in the shadows, lost in the height of his outline. Once my eyes began to adjust, I focused on the angular face, taking in the faint scowl on his lips, those light, almost colorless eyes.

  “No,” he repeated, looking from me to Jon. “You will not go to the authorities with this.” His jaw tightened, pushing out his cheek. “No realistic, image capture-accurate drawings. No hacking. No anonymous ‘tips.’ Stay the fuck away from SCARB.”

  Jon flinched, looking at me with a faint frown and a cocked eyebrow.

  None of us spoke, and the silence deepened.

  Aiming a bare glance at me, the man standing over us shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his expression unmoving.

  “Don’t sleep with the seers here, either,” he added, gruff. “You’re right, Jewel intended to proposition you. I discouraged her from that. It’s not a good idea for you right now.”

  My mouth fell open in shock. I stared up at him, unsure how to even respond to that.

  He shifted his weight again, gazing around at the three of us.

  “You can go,” he said, blunt. “Outside. You can leave. They’re gone.”

  He looked at me again, longer that time.

  Something in the hesitation I saw there threw me even more than the cold bluntness of his words. He looked almost like he wanted to talk to me. I couldn’t tell if he wasn’t talking to me because he didn’t know how, or because he couldn’t decide if he should.

  I also wondered what the hell he was talking about with that seer, Jewel.

  I cleared my throat, and those light eyes sharpened.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For getting us out of there.”

  He blinked, but his expression didn’t move.

  Taking a breath, I tried again. “Did you find out anything?” I kept my voice polite. “About that note? What I gave you on the plane?”

  He flinched. That time, his frown deepened.

  He didn’t take his eyes off me, but I could almost see the conflict on him now.

  I was about to try a third time, when he shifted his gaze sharply away.

  Dropping his hands to his sides, he moved gracefully sideways, turning on one heel almost like a dancer––or a fighter, more likely. In fact, watching him, I realized something about the way he moved reminded me of some of Jon’s martial arts buddies, particularly those who’d studied fighting arts since they were kids.
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br />   The black-haired man left the area of our booth and table without a sound, taking those smooth, cat-like strides directly towards the exit.

  I almost called after him, in surprise as much as anything.

  Instead I shut my mouth, staring after him in bewilderment.

  He didn’t give any of us so much as a backward glance.

  Jon let out a disbelieving sound. “What the hell?”

  Cass snorted an involuntary laugh, exchanging looks with Jon.

  Then all three of us turned in our seats, necks craned, as we watched him walk through the darkened hallway, disappearing into the shadows towards the beaded doorway.

  I admit, I wasn’t sure how to feel, watching him walk away.

  12

  Drunk

  We got back to the club around six o’clock, a good three hours before Jaden’s band would be going onstage, and a good hour before they’d open the doors to the ticket-holders, some of whom were already queued up outside the club.

  We got a few dirty looks for being able to go inside, mixed with curiosity, of course, about who we might be.

  Jaden’s band wasn’t there yet, and we hadn’t seen him at the hotel when we went back to shower and change, so Jon and Cass and I ordered a few plates of bar food from one of the kitchen guys, and settled in to wait at a booth in the back, along with the sound guy, one of the bouncers and two of their female friends who got in early like us.

  We’d walked pretty much that whole day.

  Two museums, a good stretch of Central Park, and we even made it to the Village via the subway, even though I was a little nervous about going down there, especially after everything that happened that morning. After seeing a seer tasered and kicked on a public street, the protests in the Village struck me as almost quaint.

  Still, we gave them a pretty wide berth, sticking to the smaller streets in the East Village and wandering up to Gramercy Park and eventually the Empire State Building.

  By then, we were hot, tired and hungry.

  Even so, we opted to go back to the hotel first, so we wouldn’t have to go back after we got food. By the time I sat down at the booth in the club, I should have been starving, but for some reason, I wasn’t.