by Tom Dublin
Two turns later a vast gray factory loomed into view. Adina and Callis pulled over and watched as the truck backed up to a loading bay and the driver killed the engine.
The vehicle's doors swung open and the two men who had collected the casket from the temple jumped out.
Although pretending to be a warden on the phone had gone smoothly, Adina wasn't certain that imitating one in person would be quite as easy. She had taken the white robe from the guard at the main door and slipped it over her clothes, keeping her gun within easy reach in case her cover was blown.
Shortly after she'd let the two guys from The Plant inside the older of the pair had asked after Sedrin, the warden they had expected to be met by. Adina had given the excuse that he was out sick and not, in reality, tied up in a storage closet less than thirty feet away with Callis standing over him wielding a long silver candlestick to ensure he stayed quiet.
They had, however, ensured he wouldn't be trapped inside the closet for much longer; Adina had left a note on the altar informing the next wardens to turn up for duty exactly where to find their constrained colleague.
Thankfully the ruse had worked. The two men had glanced at Draven, muttered a prayer to the goddess, then stepped back to allow Adina to pull the Dagger of Persha from his chest and return it to its ceremonial box.
As the collectors were fixing the casket's lid in place she caught sight of fresh blood flowing from Draven's wound and staining his shirt—a clear indication that he was still alive and his body was starting to heal itself.
She quickly engaged the two men in an inane conversation about the weather to keep their attention as they worked. By the time they were ready to leave, they both seemed glad to get away from this crazed, chatty stand-in for their friend.
After the men went inside, Adina and Callis climbed out of Dabriel's car and made their way on foot toward the imposing building.
It was at least half the size of the temple, although nowhere near as ornate or decorative. In fact, if they hadn't followed the truck they would have no way of knowing it was a factory to turn fresh corpses into food.
Only a handful of windows were lit, mainly on the second and third floors. Practically everything at ground level was dark, indicating as Dabriel had suggested that the majority of The Plant's workers had gone home for the day.
Suddenly the side door swung open again, sending a shaft of light out over the loading bay and just catching Adina's foot as she and Callis hid behind a stack of damaged caskets.
There was a low clattering whirrr as the mechanical shutters sealing the interior loading area rolled up. Thankfully the collectors didn't turn on any lights inside, leaving plenty of darkness to help conceal the two women as they watched the men work.
Peering through gaps in the pile of coffins, the pair looked on as the men unlocked the rear of their truck and made three trips to carry the same number of caskets inside.
One of the collectors went around the back of the truck to close and lock the doors while the other hit the button to close the loading bay shutters, which slowly began to rumble back down.
This was it: the only real opportunity Callis and Adina would have to get inside, at least without drawing attention to themselves.
As soon as the collectors turned to head back in through the side door, Adina gestured silently to her colleague and the two women raced across the parking lot toward the loading bay.
Ahead of them, the rolled metal shutters continued to clatter downwards, quickly sealing off their only hope of saving Draven and finding Merfel's body without resorting to violence.
They reached the dock just as the shutters approached the ground. Adina dived for the gap, rolling underneath the metal screen as it sank lower and lower.
A second later Callis made the same move but hit her elbow on the bottom of the shutter with a resounding thud as it dropped. Adina quickly reached out to grab Callis by the arm and drag her in across the dusty concrete floor.
There was a metallic clunk as the shutter made contact with the concrete and the two women froze, listening hard in case Callis' collision had alerted any of the staff.
For almost a minute neither of them dared to move, and it was almost thirty more seconds before Adina realized she was holding her breath. She let out a silent gasp and worked to restore her breathing to its normal rate.
It soon became clear that no one had heard the noise, or if they had they weren't coming to investigate. Adina helped Callis to her feet, then whispered into her wrist communicator.
"Solo, can you throw a little light on the situation, please?"
Without replying, the EI lit up the circular screen of the device, essentially providing Adina with a wrist-mounted flashlight. She swept the beam from one side of the room to the other, showing them where they were and what they were dealing with.
Callis gasped. They were inside some kind of warehouse filled with row after row of tall shelving units.
Each shelf was filled with identical plain wooden caskets.
"Where do we start?" she hissed.
"I would suggest we split up," whispered Adina in reply, "but we only have one flashlight. I guess we just begin at one end and work our way to the other.
Callis followed Adina to the first row of floor-to-ceiling shelves and watched as she tapped each casket in turn on the lowest shelf.
There was only silence.
As she worked her way higher and higher, knocking on each of the coffins as she went, she felt Callis gently tug at her sleeve.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Your ears!" replied the teenager quietly, pointing to the top of Adina's head. "Can't you do your wolf-ears trick again and listen for his heartbeat or something?"
Adina was torn. She knew that Callis' idea would most likely help them locate Draven far more quickly, but she risked him spotting her partial transformation before she could return her ears to their human form.
She still didn’t want to give away the fact that she was a werewolf just like him.
That said, time was running out. Thanks to the heavy traffic, the trip to The Plant had taken much longer than expected. Adina now had less than thirty minutes to give Draven the antidote to the pill he had taken to appear deceased, or any damage to his internal organs could become permanent.
And tapping on each of the hundreds of caskets in this huge facility was going to take a lot longer than that.
She sighed and nodded. Taking a couple of steps back from Callis, Adina gritted her teeth and for the second time that day concentrated on overriding the DNA-dampening medication she took daily to prevent her from changing into a werewolf.
A few moments later a pair of tall, furry wolf ears were twitching on top of her skull.
A smile spread across her still-firmly-human face.
"Got him!"
Turning her wrist to aim the beam of light from her comm at the floor, she hurried across the warehouse to the third stack from the end. Then, stepping slowly and quietly, she zeroed in on the only coffin with a still-beating heart inside.
With Callis' help she lifted the casket off the shelf and laid it on the ground, then Adina quietly commanded Solo to switch off the light and disappeared into the darkness.
Using a multitool Jack had given her, Callis worked quickly to remove the screws holding the box's lid in place. It wasn't easy working in the near darkness, but she found she could locate the screws by running her fingertips along the outer edges of the lid.
After a short while, Callis removed the final fastener and, tucking the multitool away, she grabbed both sides of the lid and lifted it off.
Inside, barely breathing was Draven, his shirt now almost completely soaked with blood from the knife wound in his chest. Callis swallowed hard. Had they underestimated how much he would lose while being transported here?
Fishing the bottle of antidote capsules from her pocket, she held Draven's mouth open and crushed one of the pills into it with her fingers.
Callis snapped the cap back on and returned the bottle to her pocket, crossing the fingers on her other hand. Then she waited.
Nothing happened.
Callis pressed her hand to Draven's bloody chest, searching for his heartbeat. It was there, but very slow and dangerously weak.
She pulled the bottle of pills back out of her pocket, her own heart beginning to pound. Had she given him the right medication at the right time? Callis was certain he'd told her he only needed one of them to counteract the effects of the stuff he'd taken to slow down his system, but it didn't seem to be working. Could she risk giving him another dose without endangering his life?
"Come on, Draven," she hissed. "Come back to us! You can do it!"
Callis tightened her grip on the pill bottle, her thumb pressing hard against the edge of the lid. If nothing happened within the next minute she would break open another capsule and—
Suddenly Draven's eyes shot wide open and he gasped in a huge lungful of air.
The antidote had worked!
As Callis helped him to sit up and regulate his breathing, Adina stepped out of the shadows to kneel beside the casket.
To her obvious relief, she looked completely human once more.
"How are you?" she asked, brushing Draven's tousled hair from his eyes.
"Did I do it right?" questioned Callis, concern etched on her features.
"I'm not sure," croaked Draven, his eyes flickering from one of his rescuers to the other. "Something feels strange..."
The two women' eyes met in dismay.
"Why?" demanded Adina. "What's wrong?"
Draven's face split into a wide grin. "Because I've woken up to find myself faced with a pair of angels! I think I may have died for real!"
The hard slap Adina landed across his left cheek echoed painfully around the warehouse.
18
Moon of Hann, Outside The Blue Diamond Casino
Miles of yellow Do Not Cross tape fluttered in the warm evening breeze, lit by the flashing blue lights of what might have been every single police car in the entire Hann department.
Jack and Tc'aarlat eased their way through the crowds of rubbernecking aliens, ducked under the tape, and made for the group of uniformed officers camped out on the opposite side of the street from the casino.
"Him!" said Tc'aarlat, pointing to a stout figure clutching a megaphone. His dark-blue shirt bulged at the stomach to the point of giving the appearance of late-term pregnancy. "He's in charge!"
As the pair approached, several of the officers on the outer edge of the group turned to block their progress.
Jack pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to reveal an all-too-brief glimpse of a photo ID card as the pair approached. "Jack Marber, official Etheric Federation envoy," he announced. "This is my colleague Tc'aarlat. We'd like to talk to your boss."
The assembled cops glanced at one another, uncertain how to best respond to the new arrivals.
"I said now, officers!" barked Jack, causing one of the cops to scuttle in the direction of the chief.
Tc'aarlat turned to Jack as they waited. "When did you get an Etheric Federation ID?" he asked quietly.
"I didn't," replied Jack conspiratorially as he tucked his wallet away. "That was my library card."
The messenger barked an order and the wall of cops parted, allowing the pair access to the inner circle of command.
Tc'aarlat gave each of the lower-ranked officers a stern glare as he passed just to keep their nerves on edge.
Bis Pargo raised the megaphone to his mouth as the two men approached. From just behind him a slimmer figure with bleached-blond facial hair hissed, "Other hand, sir!"
With a grunt, the police chief dropped the megaphone and replaced it with the radio in his other hand.
"This is Chief Pargo," he spat into the handset. "Operation Deep Pan is go. I repeat, Operation Deep Pan is go!"
"Excuse me," began Jack. "We are representatives of the—”
"I don't care who the fuck you represent, son," Pargo interrupted. "You will remain silent while you watch me put an end to this entire fiasco."
Tc'aarlat's mandibles quivered. "What did you—”
Jack raised a hand to cut him off.
"Let's see how this plays out."
The sound of a revving engine caught their attention. Across the street, a pizza delivery guy on a moped drew up outside the closed casino doors and dropped the kickstand.
Darting to the crate fixed to the rear of the bike, he removed a stack of pizza boxes and, readjusting his cap, approached the entrance to the building.
When he was outside the doors, they swung open to reveal the bikini-clad greeter, Deedee Joh, and the croupier, Nat Farrow. There was movement in the shadows somewhere behind the women, but neither Jack nor Tc'aarlat could work out who—or what—was there.
"He's too confident," hissed Jack to his colleague.
"Meaning what?" Tc'aarlat whispered back.
"He's not from the pizza place," replied Jack. "If he was, he'd look more nervous."
"You think he's a—”
Before Tc'aarlat could finish his question the delivery boy sprang into action. As the two females reached out to accept the stack of boxes, the deliverer dumped them all to the ground, except for the one at the bottom of the pile.
This box he tore open, reaching inside to grab the handle of a gun hidden under the surface of the pie. The delivery guy tried to drag it free from the layer of cheese covering it, but the weapon became stuck as he pulled, lifting the entire pizza out of the box with it.
Before he could rid the barrel of pepperoni a shot rang out, making both Nat and Deedee jump and run for cover inside.
The pizza delivery boy spun on the spot, awarding the entire task force a brief glimpse of the flowering red hole in his throat before he fell to the pavement, dead.
"Fucking idiots!" growled Tc'aarlat as Bis Pargo's advisors crowded around him.
Across the street, the casino doors slammed shut as Pargo's radio hissed into life.
"You really think I'm that stupid, fuckball?!" roared Malfic. "Just for that, I'm going to send you a special delivery! One of the hostages is about to get a bullet in the brain and it's all down to you, shit-for-brains!"
Jack pushed his way through the officers to get to Pargo, Tc'aarlat at his heels. "Let us sort this out," he urged. "We have a vested interest in getting both Malfic and one of his hostages out of there. We need them both alive!"
Chief Pargo glared at the pair for a moment, then turned to his second-in-command. "Get these two clowns out of here!" he bellowed. "Now!"
As a stern-faced cop shoved Jack and Tc'aarlat back under the nearest strip of police tape, the Yollin clenched his fists.
"So, what now? We have to do something before that asswipe gets everyone in there killed."
"Well," suggested Jack as they marched away from the crime scene. "We just have to find another way inside."
Moon of Hann, Inside The Blue Diamond Casino
"Get up there, all of you!"
Vimor Malfic's face flushed a deep purple as he pushed each of the hostages onto the staircase leading up to Thavo Domp's office with the barrel of his weapon.
How dare those bastards try to trick him like that?! Fuckers! It was time to send them a message to show exactly how serious he was.
Zalah Gilt reached the door at the top of the narrow staircase and stopped. "It's locked!" he called back down.
"Who has the keys?" demanded Malfic.
"I do!" replied Domp, second from the end. He fished a ring of keys attached to a shimmering blue gemstone from his trouser pocket and jingled them in Malfic's direction."
"Then get up there!"
"Yes," grumbled Domp, clearly not used to being ordered around his own casino. "Of course."
The others pressed themselves against the wall to leave room for Domp to squeeze past them, but due to the narrowness of the stair case and the width of the casino owner this wasn't an easy p
rocess.
Eventually Domp had to press his expansive stomach hard against the wooden handrail, sliding the blubbery mass along it as he climbed past his fellow captives.
Reaching the top, he nudged Gilt aside and unlocked his office with trembling fingers.
Finally the door swung open.
"Inside!" roared Malfic.
The group filed into the office, unsure what they were supposed to do next. Once Malfic was inside, he slammed the door and held out his hand toward Domp for the keys.
The casino owner began to work at getting his blue diamond keyring off the loop, but Malfic obviously didn't have the patience to watch him fiddle with the clasp.
"Now!"
Sighing, Domp reluctantly handed over the entire ring, gemstone and all. Malfic passed his gun to his left hand, and kept it aimed at the group while he worked with the other to determine which was the office key.
Once everyone was locked inside, he switched the weapon back to his right hand.
"Sit!" he commanded, twitching the barrel of his gun toward the leather sofa running along one wall of the room. Sergeant Barber gestured for Nat and Deedee to sit first, scowling as Jolio Phisk and Thavo Domp helped themselves to the remaining seats without a word.
Not wanting to cause any further problems, he simply nodded to Zalah Gilt and both men lowered themselves to the carpet in front of a glass display case containing a collection of golden poker chips.
"Wh-what are you going to do?" asked Deedee Joh as Malfic paced up and down the small room.
"Quiet!" Malfic snarled, spinning on the hostages. He wiped his hand across his face. "Those bastards! Those sphincter-ripping shit-sucking bastards! I'm gonna send them a message they'll never forget!"
"Calm down," urged Jolio Phisk. "Remember what the Goddess Persha taught us about tranquility. She—”
Click!
Malfic cocked his gun, raised the weapon in the air, and slowly lowered it to point directly at Phisk's pallid face.
"A message they'll never fucking forget."