Great. We had a tek warship on our asses and no way of getting off Earth and back to Faerie without it. “One thing at a time. We grab the nut and go to ground.”
“That will be difficult.”
Why did the way he’d said difficult make me think he meant impossible? “Why?”
“There are approximately sixty-five guards surrounding me, and they are armed with what appears to be high-energy tek rifles.”
I stopped outside the stairwell. “You could have opened with that information, you know.” I glanced at Sota. The drone’s unnerving single lens stared back. Between his arsenal and my claws, we had enough firepower to overwhelm sixty guards. Talen alone could bespell that many in a few seconds. What wasn’t he telling me?
“Don’t come.”
“What?”
“Don’t come for me. Let them take me into custody. If you come, they will capture all four of us, along with the acorn.”
If I didn’t go now, I wouldn’t be able to get him out of whatever secure facility they’d lock him up in. I shoved through the stairwell door and stared up the steps.
“Marshal, stop.”
Hulia and Sota were close behind. If we hit the sixty-strong contingent now, we could break him free, grab the acorn, and escape before the Earthens had a chance to figure out who and what we were.
“They know.”
“Stop talking. You’re my prisoner and nobody else’s.”
“They know who I am. Let that be all they know…”
“I never pegged you for a martyr, fae.”
“And I never pegged you for a fool. If they capture us all, who will return to Ke—” Talen’s growl burbled through the comms link, cut short when vicious static hissed in my ear.
I wrenched the comms off. “Hulia, you told me once that your music never hurt anyone. Can it?”
The namu’s double eyelids flicked over her eyes, holding in place, so both her eyes were a solid black. “Yes.”
“Good. It’s time we gave these humans a history lesson.”
I counted seventy guards from my position on the gallery landing above the exhibit hall. Up here, the shadows were thick and deep enough to conceal my outline, although guards below wouldn’t have seen me had I been standing under a spotlight. All eyes and guns were on the fae on his knees. The scent of Talen’s blood sweetened the recycled air. He’d taken a few hits, probably from the muscular wall of a man standing over him. The Earthen tek rifle pressed against Talen’s head was a twitch away from separating the fae’s head from his neck. If that happened, Kesh would blame me and have Sota separate vital parts from my body.
Then there was the fact Talen had a knack for keeping humans under control—apart from these ones, apparently—and he could cook up a mean chili. Three hundred years was a long time to know someone, even between bars. By cyn, who was I kidding? There wasn’t a wisp-in-tek’s chance I was leaving without him.
Behind where he knelt, inside a glass box on a pedestal, sat a single acorn. To my keen eyes, it looked exactly like an acorn, but the humans had figured out it was important, else they wouldn’t have put it in a museum, surrounded by guards, locked up tight in a glass box. Either Talen hadn’t been paying attention when he strolled up to the box for a closer look, or he had but his magic was almost out of juice. The latter, I’d bet.
I had until Excalibur’s crew showed up to get him, that acorn, and us out of here.
The singing started lightly, so distant it was barely real. But the melody grew louder and with it its spell. The guards, both male and female, shifted their gazes toward the singing figure casually walking into the room. Hulia had found a hooded long coat somewhere. The cowl covered much of her face and all of her stolen uniform, so nothing distracted from the beauty of her voice. Her a cappella singing rose and fell in a language I’d never heard before. The words, whatever they meant, had magic. I felt it tug at my bones, and I ached to go to her. I’d heard what rare namu could do, but I’d never witnessed it. Until now.
She had the small crowd enthralled in seconds, no less slack-jawed and bespelled than when Talen had made the Excalibur crew love him.
I vaulted over the banister and landed silently and unseen outside the group.
On and on she sang, her voice a haunting story nobody here understood, but they didn’t need to. It spoke to an ancient part of them, the part the fae had hardwired inside them to obey.
Talen spotted me stalking closer among the crowd. He lifted his gaze to the guard and gently pushed the gun away so as not to startle the man out of his reverie.
“The toughened glass is hermetically sealed. Nothing can get in or—”
“I have a key.” I bared my claws. “Five, to be exact.”
Hulia’s song continued, sweeping through and around us.
“Hurry,” Talen urged. “She can’t keep them enthralled for long.”
I locked my claws into the base of the glass box and pushed, sinking them through the seal.
An alarm shrieked overhead, shattering Hulia’s song.
The magic swirling around us collapsed, and the guards jolted from their dreams.
“Sota!” Hulia barked.
Talen was gone, the spot beside me occupied by an incoming fist. I tore a hand free and slashed backward, catching the big guy across the arm. He looked me over like I’d stolen his date. He charged. I tugged on my hand still trapped in the glass seal. It didn’t give, meaning the impact was happening no matter what I did. I braced against the pedestal. The punch struck me in my lower back while the guy’s other arm hooked around my neck and yanked. We went down, pedestal and all.
So much for getting in and out unseen…
The arm around my neck tightened, choking off my air. With the damn acorn display now pinning me against the big guy, one hand still stuck, my options were limited.
A blur of silver swam in my watery vision. “You don’t want to kill him,” Talen was saying, his voice a soothing melody.
The arm tightened around my neck, and the big guy roared, “The hell I don’t, fae!” Talen was reaching in when another blur tackled him from behind, tearing him away. I was on my own. I tugged on my trapped claws, even tried retracting them, but the glass box held them tight. The big guy had my other hand hooked under his leg, pinning. This was not how the last vakaru died, crushed by an overgrown Earthen.
Sota appeared, laser lenses extended. “I’ll shoot him in the face if you find me a tek-body.”
Seriously? I opened my mouth to agree, but I couldn’t breathe past the arm around my neck to get the words out.
“Is that a yes?”
My chest was on fire, either about to burst open or collapse inward, and the drone was negotiating?
Hulia’s scream assaulted my acute hearing. She flew in like a banshee, something heavy lifted high above her head. Whatever it was, some priceless artifact probably, she brought it down on the big guy’s head. The grip ’round my neck loosened, and finally, I filled my lungs.
“Sota! You ball of junk!” I swung my free hand at him, but trapped under the acorn plinth, I wasn’t getting far.
He bobbed away, swiveled, shot someone, then peered down at me again. “We have a deal.”
“That was not a deal.” Wriggling out from under the heavy stone, I propped both boots on the display and heaved.
“It was. You were saying yes.”
“No, I was trying to breathe. I thought we were friends.”
“We are.”
“A friend doesn’t try to make deals while their friend is being strangled by an Earthen guard.” My claws sprang free of the glass, and the whole cabinet clunked to the ground. I shook my hand out and winced at the painful throb.
“You weren’t dying,” Sota said.
“It sure felt that way, Sparky.”
Half the guards lay scattered and moaning on the floor. The other half was engaged in a fight Talen shouldn’t have been winning, but he was. They didn’t stand a chance against a fae, even one
weakened by tek.
“Shoot the glass, Sota.”
“You’re mad at me.”
“No, I’m not mad.” The fangs didn’t help my case. “Just break the glass so we can get out of here before the entire Sol Alliance shows up.”
Sota shot another inbound guard in the leg, and then he swiveled downward and fired into the glass. The case shattered and out bounced an acorn. I scooped it up, dumped it in my pocket, and whistled. Time to move out.
The walls started to tremble, the floor too, and suddenly our exit was blocked by a whole lot of people wearing the same uniforms as us.
Sol Alliance.
“Marshal Kellee…” Captain Pierce strode in. Her sleek personal drone shot toward me, but it veered at the last second and blasted something bright blue at Sota, dropping him like a stone. He hit the floor and didn’t bounce. Didn’t move at all. His lens light flickered and died.
The silver drone swiveled on me.
A growl rumbled. “Son of a sluagh—”
“The last vakaru and the fabled Nightshade.” Pierce’s flinty eyes hardened. “If you resist arrest, we will shoot to kill.”
“Captain…” I smiled and let that smile slide sideways, plastering on the charm. “This is all a misunderstanding.”
One of her guards fired. Before I could see who, the full power of the Nightshade filled the room with us, choking off all the light and turning the air into a maelstrom. The sight of his wings alone was enough to drive the humans mad. Those wings, made of night, turned reality inside out and twisted thoughts, turning them dark. He was everywhere—in the air, on the ground, and on the walls—all at once.
Talen—eyes blazing silver—turned to me and thundered, “Go!”
Hulia grabbed Sota, tucked him under her arm, and ventured through Talen’s storm beside me. We made it outside and skirted the gathering crowd watching the dark come alive in their beloved museum. If anything emerged from inside, it wouldn’t know its own name.
“There! There they are!” someone shouted.
More shouts rang out. They were just civilians, but we had too many witnesses.
“Take Sota and find somewhere to hole up,” I told Hulia. Alone, she looked human enough to escape notice. “I’ll find you.”
“How?”
I tapped my nose and grinned. “Vakaru know everything too.”
I faced the human crowd gearing themselves up for a good old-fashioned vakaru hunt.
I flicked my claws out and bared my teeth, and the restraints that held down the wildest part of me slipped away. My focus sharpened until I saw each human as little more than a walking bag of blood. I was walking a dangerous line, but I needed to be everything they feared, to be their nightmare made real.
“You people have no idea what’s coming for you.” I jogged closer, giving them a good look at the monster.
Some screamed. Some cried. Good, let them see the nightmare breathing down their necks.
A shot rang out and slammed into my shoulder, barely breaking my stride.
“Run!” I growled, “Run, run, run… let me chase.”
Darkness poured out of the museum doors and spiraled into the shape of a winged god made of silver and wrapped in night. Screams rose up again, and this time the sound of their fear plucked on ancient needs. All reason and control slipped through my fingers, leaving cold, hard, killing focus. I could cut through a crowd like this in seconds. I wanted it, ached for it. It had been so long…
“Marshal Kellee.” Talen’s clear sidhe-voice rang like a bell through me. “It’s time to retreat.”
They ran like tiny ants, and soon they would fall beneath Faerie’s touch like they had before. I’d hunt them and kill them and do it all for Faerie.
“Kellee…” The fae beside me was no longer the Nightshade. I didn’t have to listen to him. “Stand down. We must flee before they can rally their forces.”
I could kill him too. And keep on killing. Every. Single. Living. Thing.
My unseelie monster… I heard Kesh in my mind and saw her smile and lash her whip.
Feeling flowed back into my thoughts, bringing emotion and reason with it. The Earthen street draped in towering trees and glittering strings of tek-lights was empty of everyone but Talen and me.
“Marshal?” Talen asked.
“I’m here.” The claws slowly, painfully, retracted.
“For how much longer?”
He eyed me like he used to, as though there was more than glass and tek-bars between us. As though we might one day come to blows, and one of us would not walk away from that fight. That day was not today.
I blinked at my friend, softening my focus, only for him to smile and slump forward. I caught him by the arms and hauled him upright. “Oh-kay, I’ve got you…”
“No more… Nightshade,” he slurred. The theatrics had cost him. We had to get off the street. Fast.
Chapter 15
Marshal Kellee
Hulia checked the street behind me as I hustled Talen inside the single-story dwelling, clean with minimal tek. The house likely belonged to a museum worker, someone low on the social ladder. The sparse tek would help Talen recover from his outburst.
“Where are the occupants?”
“I sang them a lullaby,” Hulia replied, eerily cold, and my heart sank. She smiled and added, “They’re sleeping out back.”
I eased the fae down onto a couch. He melted into its cushions and dropped his head back. Silver eyes stared at the ceiling. I’d only seen those silver eyes for seconds when he was channeling whatever power he had access to. He had better shake the look fast, else we would have a hard time getting him off Earth.
Hulia hung back, quietly concerned about our ticking Nightshade bomb. She had never seen him cast off all that reserved fae exterior before, though she’d always been wary of him.
“I… didn’t know he was…”
“That powerful?” I tugged a chair out from under a dainty dining table and slumped into it. “What you saw back there is just the surface. He once rallied an entire dark army to his call.”
Somehow, I had to get us out of here without the Earthens noticing us. It wouldn’t take long for the Sol Alliance to organize a search team, and then we’d have hours at the most. Captain Pierce wasn’t the sort to let a vakaru and the Nightshade slip through her fingers, especially after we’d infiltrated Earth’s security and stolen their precious acorn. She’d be looking us up and had probably figured out I wasn’t just any vakaru but the vakaru. My past and Talen’s wasn’t doing either of us any favors.
“Did you get it?” Talen asked, his usually smooth voice grating.
I pulled the acorn from my pocket and set it down on the table. A simple acorn, but under my gaze, a shivering resonance tickled my senses—a clue as to its true state. Hard to believe such a tiny thing could help free the worlds.
Talen lowered his gaze, flicked it to the acorn, and then settled it onto me, his eyes unreadable and hard. The plan had been for me to retrieve the acorn. He was too fae and too weak to be of any use. And then he sent me to the seed bank while he went and found the acorn in an exhibit hall, almost like he had planned it that way.
“Convince me you didn’t try to fuck us over and steal this for yourself.” Leaning back, I folded my arms and waited.
“I didn’t.”
“Not convinced.”
“I cannot lie.”
“That karushit doesn’t wash with me, fae. You sent me, Hulia, and Sota away from the exhibit hall and only contacted us when you got caught.” I gestured at the drone, cold and unresponsive at Hulia’s feet. “You wanna explain him to Kesh?”
He didn’t look at Sota, determined to stare me into believing him.
I stared right back. “If you weren’t Kesh’s, we would not be having this civilized conversation. You know that, right?”
“Believe what you like, I do not have the energy to argue. I decided to scour another part of the museum. I happened to find it. We have the a
corn. We escaped. I’d call that a victory.”
“Sota is not responding, and we have all of Sol out looking for us. That’s not a victory. It’s a delayed death sentence.”
He dropped his head back again and closed his eyes. “I cannot discuss this now.” The pulse point in his neck quivered. “I was wrong. I made a mistake. I’m paying for it.”
“We’re all paying for your mistake.”
“Perhaps if you hadn’t caged me for centuries I’d be able to wield more power than this!” He sneered, revealing tiny fae canine teeth and then clamped both hands over his face. “Damn your doubt, Marshal!”
“I only doubt you because you keep giving me reasons to.”
“I might be able to help with Sota,” Hulia cut in, distracting me by crouching beside the drone. “I watched Kesh repair him after visiting some of Calicto’s more dangerous neighborhoods. They would come back all beat up now and then.” She ran her hands over Sota’s casing. “There’s a hatch… somewhere.” A click sounded, and a small flap opened. A nest of wires and tek sat inside. “She told me his main processors are protected from damage in there.”
“Pierce’s drone fried him pretty good.” My last words to Sota had been in anger. He might only be a drone, but I couldn’t leave it like that. We had to get him back.
Hulia’s lips turned down at the drone’s fragments. “Hopefully the blast dissipated before it reached his vital systems.”
“Do what you can.”
“I mean… I can’t do much. I don’t have any equipment, but I can save his key parts.”
“It’ll make him easier to carry, at least. We can always replace his casing.” I shoved the heavy sense of regret away. This mission was a long way from over.
Hulia went to work stripping Sota down while I checked the windows overlooking the leafy street outside. Most houses looked like the one we were holed up in, all glass and brick boxes wrapped in trees of various shapes and sizes. Earth hadn’t always been this leafy. Humans had barely clawed their way back from an environmental catastrophe of their own making. Earth was now protected and home to the elite families. We were going to struggle to blend in here.
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