He was about to be outnumbered.
He needed to get away, to lose the Tecran dogging his heels, so he could find Lucy Harris.
He rose silently to his feet and shot at the Tecran again in a single, fluid motion, and then he ran.
Chapter 17
She was back up at street level.
No matter how useful the tunnel had been, now she was back up in the open air and cold wind, Lucy finally felt she could breathe properly.
There was something about narrow, enclosed spaces that set her heart thumping, her hands shaking.
She'd never been claustrophobic before, so she laid her new issues at the feet of the Tecran. They had done this to her.
The building behind her was designed like a series of waves coming to shore and she was huddled down in the curve of one of them, deep in the pocket of darkness it created.
The sound of someone shuffling past had her going suddenly still, and for a long, terrifying moment, she thought she'd been run to ground.
“Who are you?”
She looked up, eyes wide, to see a Tecran peering around the curve of the next wave at her.
There was something very different about her, and Lucy realized she was young. A teenager, perhaps.
The first young Tecran she'd ever seen.
She'd only dealt with adults before now.
“I'm not sure you should be talking to me,” she answered.
With a chuckle, the girl moved around the corner and leaned back against the wall, arms tucked under her cloak. “You sound funny.”
“I'm not what you'd call a native speaker.” She didn't lower the scarf from around her mouth.
“Your eyes are funny, too.” The girl leaned closer.
“What are you doing out here?” Lucy asked her.
“Got separated from my parents in the square,” the girl said with a shrug, but Lucy thought she detected a little quiver in her voice. “And I'm locked out. We don't live in Fa'allen. We're only staying here for the UC arrival and I don't have the codes to get into the building.” She paused. “Why are your eyes funny?”
With a sigh, Lucy pushed back her hood and pulled down the scarf. “I'm not Tecran.”
“I knew it!” The girl crouched down into the deep shadow to get a better look. “Are you with the UC?”
She shook her head.
“Then why are you here?”
“Someone brought me here against my will.” She didn't know if it was fair of her to say this to a young Tecran, who'd had no part in her abduction, but it was the truth.
“Someone . . . us?” The girl tilted her head, eyes even bigger than they'd been before.
“Someone in your military, apparently.”
“You're an Earth person. You're why we're in so much trouble!”
“So it seems. I only found out about the trouble you're in today.”
“How can that be? It's been the non-stop news for months.” The girl looked at her with surprise.
“I was locked up until yesterday.”
“I . . . don't want to believe it.” The stark truth in her voice had Lucy leaning back, closing her eyes, and resting her head against the wall.
“I've gotten that a lot since I escaped.” She opened her eyes and held the girl's gaze. “My understanding is that most Tecran didn't know what was going on. They don't like having to pay the consequences, because those consequences are harsh, and they weren't personally guilty. Which leaves me, the person who was wronged, with no one to turn to.” Well, not no one. She sent a silent apology to Bane, who'd kept quiet since she'd started talking.
It would not be a good idea to advertise that she had his help.
“Pulina?” The call came from the back steps of the building.
“I'm here.” The girl rose up and stepped back into the lane, her eyes still on Lucy, her expression conflicted.
Then she turned and ran toward her parents.
She didn't say goodbye, or alert her parents to Lucy's presence, and that was just as well.
She'd thought a few times about approaching someone else, asking for help. Not everyone could be out to get her.
But she was nothing if not a fast learner.
No one she'd met so far had had a simple reaction to her. The complexity around what was happening on Tecra and how they felt about it kept getting in the way. Even the teenagers couldn't square it in their minds.
She heard the murmur of voices, and then a door close.
She shivered, suddenly cold to the core.
“Where is this friend of yours?” she asked Bane. He'd been quiet so long, all through her conversation with Pulina, and when he didn't respond, a hot touch of panic had her rising to her feet. “Bane?”
“I'm here. I don't know where he is.” Bane sounded . . . worried. “He isn't answering me, which means he can't without putting himself in danger. I think he's run into one of the military teams out looking for you.”
“You can't track him?” She didn't know why she thought he could. In her head he was all-seeing. He could tell where she was because she'd given him a link to the handheld she's taken from Gugi, but even then, he couldn't actually see her unless she turned on the visual comms setting, he just knew her location.
“You're close to where I was leading him to when he had to take evasive action. I don't think he can be too far away.”
She saw a flicker of purple light up ahead, coming from one of the back lanes behind a building.
Shockgun fire.
“I can see something,” she whispered. “Someone's firing a shockgun up ahead.”
She hesitated as the shockgun fire flickered again.
“Should I go see?”
“No.” Bane's hiss made her jerk. “Wait. I'll tell Dray where you are.”
She felt like she was climbing out of her skin by the time he spoke again.
“Get ready,” he said.
“For what?” She couldn't keep the fear and impatience out of her voice.
“For--”
Someone was suddenly on the street, running.
He was big--bigger than any of the Tecran--and he turned slightly as he ran, shooting at the Tecran following him.
The flare of shockgun fire hit the Tecran full in the chest, and he went down, but Lucy could see he wasn't dead, or even unconscious. He rolled to the side.
He must be wearing some kind of protection.
The figure running toward her turned to face forward and she caught a quick glimpse of him in the reflected light from the windows of the building soaring above them.
He was like the aliens she'd seen this morning on the screen in the square; tall, broad shouldered, and with elf ears.
“Is that your friend?” she whispered.
“Dray Helvan,” Bane confirmed. “UC military team leader.”
She straightened, stepping out of the dark pool of shadows and into the lane.
She saw the flare of surprise in Dray's eyes, and then his gaze flew past her, up and beyond her shoulder.
She glanced back, shocked at the sight of a hover flying toward her at top speed.
It wasn't silent, but the sound of the wind had risen in the last half hour, and she could barely hear it over the high-pitched whistle. It flew over her head and then Dray's, lowering to the ground between them and the Tecran Dray had shot.
Was it there to shield the Tecran or them? The pilot looked like any other Tecran on the street, not a soldier or a security guard.
The pilot on the hover stared at them both in shock. “What's going on? Who's controlling this?”
“Get off the hover.” Dray lifted his shockgun and shot at the Tecran soldier standing behind it again.
The pilot flinched back and then stood, struggling with something at his side as the soldier returned fire. Dray ducked behind the hover, and Lucy realized the pilot was trying to get to a weapon.
She crouched beside Dray, close to the pilot, and just as he pulled the weapon from a holster, she scooted cl
oser and shoved his legs with both hands.
He lost his balance with a cry and fell to the side, his weapon flying off into the darkness.
Dray shot her a quick look of surprise, then shoved the Tecran the rest of the way off, so he landed in the road.
He swung up onto the seat and looked down at the pilot. “Report this to Captain Subre, and tell him the rumors of the Earth woman are true, and he has rogue military units running amok in his city.”
He lifted his shockgun one handed and shot at the soldier again, while he put his other hand out to her.
She grasped it, and he swung her up behind him.
As soon as she was on, he rose up, spun around and hit the accelerator.
Lucy hung on, her cheek turned against his broad back.
Purple light flickered behind them, and she winced, waiting for a hit, but Dray wove from side to side, and nothing touched them.
She clutched his waist a little tighter.
“I have to give it to you, Bane,” she whispered in English. “When you promise something, you deliver.”
Chapter 18
Dray didn't know that he'd mistrusted Bane, exactly. But meeting Lucy Harris in the flesh was more than shocking to him.
They had kept her here, all the while the UC considered the weighty matters before them, the misdeeds and breeches of trust and law by the Tecran military and some of the Tecran government.
The time to step forward and admit they had taken a fourth woman from Earth was four weeks ago at the latest.
They had said nothing.
Now her arms encircled his waist, and she pressed herself into his back as he pushed the hover as fast as it could go, traveling on instinct to the north, out of the city, to the flat, scrubby escarpment that stretched from the top of the cliffs to the low mountains in the distance.
The city lay behind them, a long, thin line of towering structures running east to west, the glow of lights reflecting off the fog creeping in from the sea.
“Where are we going?” Lucy asked him in Tecran, and the sound of the language on her tongue was so strange to him, so wrong, he tensed.
“Do you speak Grihan?” he asked her, and winced at the snap in his voice.
“No,” she answered. “Is that what you are? Grihan?”
He hadn't understood how little she knew, and he forced himself to swallow back the fury that had risen up in him at how isolated they must have kept her.
“Yes. I'm part of the Grihan contingent the UC sent out to Tecra.”
She waited a moment before he felt her nod against his back, and wondered if his accented Tecran was hard for her to follow.
“Where are we going?” she asked again, and it was so tentatively said he was ashamed of himself for snapping at her and making her worry about how he would respond to her questions.
“I don't know,” he answered honestly, forcing the Tecran words out of his mouth. “Bane? Do you have a suggestion?”
“Head west,” Bane told him, his tone clipped. “There's a small cluster of houses just outside the city and all of them are currently empty. A lot of Tecran traveled to Fa'allen to be there when the UC arrived.”
Dray turned the hover to the left, looping in a wide arc toward where the coastline was dark.
Lucy said nothing more, and he worried that he had stifled the conversation, but the wind had picked up and howled around them, and he decided talking was probably going to be difficult anyway.
It took an hour before they found something that resembled a road, and another half hour before a small huddle of what looked like narrow towers loomed out of the mist.
“Turn here,” Bane said in his ear, and Dray turned into a paved lane that led to a garage that was open on both ends, looking out at the escarpment on one side, the sea on the other, although almost nothing was visible now in the thick fog that swirled in blinding patterns in the wind.
He powered the hover down and waited for Lucy to climb off. When she simply sat there, arms still tight around him, he turned to look at her.
She blinked up at him. “Sorry, I can't seem to unclench my hands.”
He covered her hands with his own, warming them, and then carefully eased them apart, then he turned and put his hand at her waist and lifted her up and put her gently on the ground.
She stood, shivering, as he swung off the hover himself.
“What is wrong with her?” he asked Bane, using the Grihan dialect from Xal he'd grown up with so she wouldn't understand him.
“I don't know. I can't see her.” Bane sounded panicked. “What have you done to her?”
“Nothing.” He looked around, feeling a little panicked himself. “Where is the door into the tower?”
“I can't see that, either,” Bane told him, voice going icy. “That's why you're there.”
With a curse, Dray walked toward the cliff side, and saw a narrow path leading to the right. He followed it, amazed at how close to the edge the path was, and found a door set into the stone face of the building.
He tried the door, but it was locked. “Do you have a way to open this up?”
“I'm looking.” Bane's answer was short. “I have found a way into the system, but it's hard to pinpoint the exact house--”
“Open them all then.” Dray turned and strode back to the garage.
Lucy was still standing where he'd left her, hunched over in her Tecran cloak.
He scooped her up, and then nearly dropped her as he realized she weighed far more than he'd been expecting.
He had to heave her a little higher in his arms, and pull her tight against his chest. The walk beside the cliff had him in a light sweat by the time he got to the door. He pushed against it, and it opened, and suddenly they were in a warm, sheltered space.
It smelled slightly strange; the meaty, gamey scent he'd noticed on some of the Tecran he'd come into contact with.
“Where are we?” She was shaking even worse now they were in the warmth of the house and she barely got the words out between chattering teeth.
Bane must have answered her, because she nodded and hunched over, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What do you need?” He didn't bother to hide the panic in his voice.
“Cold.” She rubbed her arms with shaking hands. “Is there a hot shower?”
And then he got it, and he felt a hard, sharp sense of disgust for himself.
He wasn't with a colleague. She didn't have a uniform like his, with temperature regulation. She'd traveled in freezing temperatures with nothing but his own body to protect her from the wind.
And she hadn't said a word.
“Let's find one.” He scooped her up again, bracing himself against her weight this time, and headed up the staircase that curved to his left.
The first level contained a cozy lounge and a kitchen, the second level a bathroom and a bedroom.
He set her down and ran the shower. When steam started billowing, she edged past him, dropping her cloak, and stepped into the hot water with her clothes on.
“Can you find me something else to wear?”
He nodded, backing out and closing the door behind him.
And then turned and leaned back against it, fists clenched, and called himself every insult he could think of.
Getting her out of danger in Fa'allen had been his first priority, and he'd managed that with Bane's help, but after that, his failure to find out what equipment she had, and whether she could cope with the cold--
With a grunt of disgust, he pushed away from the door and began going through the closet set into the curved wall. He chose items that looked like they'd fit and put them on the bed.
He opened the bathroom door a little way and heard the sound of the water still running.
“I've put some things out for you. There's more in the cupboard if you don't like them. I'll be looking around the rest of the house.” As soon as the words were out, he realized he'd spoken in Grihan.
There was a moment of silence, a
nd he was about to repeat it in Tecran when Bane spoke in his ear.
“I've translated that for her.” The censure in Bane's tone was clear, and Dray bowed his head, just as annoyed with himself as Bane.
“Thank you.” Lucy's words were choked. The beauty of her voice was clogged, and he knew there was something wrong, but when he waited a beat for her to say more, nothing was forthcoming.
He closed the door and left, climbing up the next flight of stairs to find an identical bedroom and bathroom above, and then, on the top floor, a comfortable, plush room with an even more massive window than the rooms below, although the fog pressed up against it, leaving smudges of frost in its wake.
“How is she?” Bane asked, his voice overloud in air muffled by fog.
“I think she'll be better once she's warm. I'll make some grinabo for her, and something for her to eat.”
“That's all it was?” Bane sounded dubious.
“I think so. If the Grih get too cold, they can die. I think Earth people are similar.”
“Don't let her die,” Bane said, and there was a warning in his tone that chilled Dray.
“I won't.”
“No one will like the results if she does.” There was a promise in Bane's voice that made Dray wonder what he was talking about.
He decided he didn't want to find out.
“Can you connect me to Ambassador Dimitara?”
“She has been asking about you,” Bane conceded. “Quite vociferously. Just give me a moment.”
There was silence, and Dray left the top floor and ran lightly down the stairs. He stopped for a moment on Lucy's floor but he heard her moving around and that settled him a little, allowing him to continue down to the kitchen.
“Dray?” Dimitara's voice was sharp.
“I'm here.” He started pulling out mugs and bowls, taking some ready-made dishes out of the cooling unit and opening cupboards to find the grinabo maker.
“Where is here?”
“It might be better not to say, just in case someone is listening.” He guessed Bane would have good shielding, but Dimitara was sitting in a Tecran office, with hostile Tecran all around her. He'd take nothing for granted.
She was silent, then drew in a breath. “True. You're safe?”
Dark Matters (Class 5 Series Book 4) Page 10