“We followed the party,” Siren said.
“Wasn’t hard to figure out who they were after,” Garrett added.
“We even found some fun new toys,” Siren said, patting her rifle again.
My stomach sank. “You didn’t kill anyone, did you?”
Siren touched a delicate hand to her chest as if to say, Who, little old me?
“We’re not monsters, Raish,” Garrett said.
“Said the ex-Shaper-hunter with the shiny red eyes,” I muttered.
Garrett bristled at that, his coy smirk dropping for the first time to be replaced in full by hard fury. He took a step toward me, priming a finger to jab in my chest and no doubt make some point. Siren laid a hand on his shoulder before he could, and Garrett calmed, visibly and almost immediately, like her touch was akin to a low grade sedative for him—which, knowing what I did about her talents, it actually might well have been.
“We just borrowed a ride and kept our distance,” Siren said quietly. “Judging by the way things were looking when we showed up, I’m thinking maybe you should be glad we did.”
It wasn’t so much that I didn’t agree with what she said. It was just that it killed me, seeing the smug look on Garrett’s face as she said it.
Somehow, I managed a calming breath. “Fine. You’re right, I… Thank you. Both of you. I guess. We were in trouble before you showed up.”
“I’ll say,” Garrett muttered, smirk firmly intact.
I clenched my jaw. “I guess I’m just wondering what it is you two are doing here.”
“That’s funny,” Garrett said, “because I was just wondering what the scud he’s doing over there.”
I followed his pointing finger and was rewarded with a jolt of alarm at the sight of Parker placing his clawed fingertips to his abdomen as if preparing to rip out his own stomach. His brig jumpsuit, he’d already ripped aside to clear the way.
“Alton! What are you doing?”
The raknoth looked up with a single arched brow. “It’s ‘Alton’ now, is it? Well, if I’d known it’d be as simple as surviving one little fight together…”
He did it without warning.
One second, he was sitting there, looking like he was trying to remember where he’d left his coin purse. The next, he was buried to the wrist in his own innards. It was shocking on a number of levels.
And by “shocking,” I guess I really mean “gropped up beyond words.”
For starters, it was about as far from a pretty sight as I could imagine anything being. True, as far as plunging a hand into one’s own abdomen went, I guess Parker had done a fairly neat job of it, but dark raknoth blood still flowed freely from the wound, running down his forearm and trickling from his elbow to the stone below.
And the sounds…
I’m not even sure where to start with the sounds, other than that they reminded me in the worst possible way of someone emphatically stirring a bowl of thick, saucy noodles. But the visceral disgustingness of the act was only the first in a long line of details that were making my skin crawl.
For another, after all the abuse I’d seen dealt—and sometimes dealt myself—upon raknoth hide, there was something highly disconcerting about seeing Parker’s flesh give way so easily to anything, even his own claws. It looked fundamentally wrong, like a hardsteel blade inexplicably drooping. Like he was actually vulnerable. And making that thought worse was the look on Parker’s face.
Once my brain got over the fact that the raknoth wasn’t simply dropping dead, I processed the look on his face. It was an odd combination between discomfort and the focused look of someone rummaging through a bag for the item they couldn’t see but knew exactly where to find.
Given the circumstances, it was pretty damn creepy.
“You forget where you left your shriveled heart?” Garrett asked, clearly trying to hide the fact that he was as rattled as I was.
Siren just watched with a soft grimace, her hand resting lightly over her own abdomen in sympathy or disgust.
After everything that’d happened in the past hours—the coup at Haven and the slug-storm of our escape, Parker’s revelation about Sarentus, and Alpha, about the people of Enochia…
Even before I’d gone on the run with a gropping raknoth and been spontaneously attacked by two more, only to be rescued by two Seekers, I’m pretty sure I would’ve been justified in worrying I might’ve already lost it. When Parker’s hand slid free from his own abdomen with a wet, sucking sound, bearing a fist-sized something, though, I decided it was more than justified.
The mystery object was dark—though that might’ve just been the raknoth blood I was seeing. Either way, the nauseous feeling in my gut took on a tingly chill when I realized the thing was shaped somewhat like an egg.
“What the scud…” I whispered.
Beside me, Garrett produced a more creative string of curses.
“You might want to keep your heads down,” Parker said, closing his eyes and holding the odd egg aloft.
“Hey, wait!” I snapped, right as Garrett added his own, “Grop that!”
Something passed over me. I couldn’t say exactly what. The faintest whisper of telepathic presence, like a barely perceptible stirring of wind. All three of us had taken a step forward, and I was reaching to remove the device from Parker’s hand telekinetically when the raknoth opened his eyes and sat back, looking satisfied. Then expectant. Then confused.
The dark egg shot from his hand and came to hover a few feet in front of Garrett, who’d clearly grabbed it with telekinesis and was just as clearly hesitant to touch the thing. “What the scud did you just—”
I cried out and dropped to the ground before my mind could even process why. It was reflexive, an unthinking submission to the enormous mass quite suddenly floating over our heads out of nowhere. It was impossible, my senses cried as my tail bone hit hard rock and I gaped up at the dark apparition. But there it was. As real in my senses as it was to my shocked eyes.
It was Alton Parker’s ship. The same slender, flowing vessel he’d flown into Haven on the day of his surrender. It floated twenty feet overhead, looming, its dark hull catching the sunlight with an iridescence that made it difficult to determine its actual color, beyond something vaguely purplish. It floated like it had been there all along, waiting, nearly silent but for a faint low hum.
“There we are,” Parker said. “Splendid.”
This time, Siren joined Garrett in his steady stream of cursing. They both had their weapons at the ready—Garrett with a long dagger in hand, and Siren with her pulse rifle aimed straight at Parker. I felt her glance my way as if to ask if there were any reason she shouldn’t put a few sharp bolts through the raknoth’s skull then and there. I was too busy sifting through the stream of indignant realizations rushing through my head.
“You had that thing the whole time,” I said.
“Something told me the Legion might be reticent to hand the ship back over when it was time,” Parker said, setting the… whatever it was down and reaching back for the open wound in his abdomen.
“Stop,” I said, but without any real authority.
Parker stuck his hand back through the wound with a grimace, then summarily pitched forward from his rocky perch and flew through the air, corkscrewing around until he slammed to the stone at Garrett’s feet. Garrett stared down at him with murderous eyes, keeping the raknoth pinned with telekinesis. After a moment’s hesitation, I added my own strength to pinning Parker down, and moved over to stand above the raknoth as well.
“Any good reason I shouldn’t kill this bastard right now, Raish?” Garrett asked as I joined them.
I was kind of surprised he even asked, much as he clearly wanted to do it.
Parker just gave him a bored look before turning a knowing expression my way. “Tell him, Haldin.”
“I don’t care how many answers you have buried in there, Parker,” I said, kneeling down beside the pinned raknoth. “There are three of us now. We’ll take
your memories by force if we have to. Now tell me what the scud you’re up to.”
“Because he definitely won’t lie,” Siren said.
I ignored her. “What were you reaching for? What is that… thing?” I added, glancing at the dark egg-shaped device that’d fallen to the ground when Garrett decided to take a more active role in shutting down Parker’s antics.
“That thing,” Parker said, “is a kind of communications device. One that preferably shouldn’t be dropped on hard stone,” he added with a dark look at Garrett. “And as for what I was reaching for, it’s merely—”
But Garrett dropped down and punched a hand into Parker’s open gut before the raknoth could finish. The raknoth’s eyes clamped shut, his jaw tight with pain, a low growl building in his throat.
“That’s okay, scudhead,” Garrett said. “We’ll just see for ourselves.”
“Those are my intestines,” Parker grunted. “Agh… And that’s the liver.”
“Never knew anatomy lessons could be so much fun,” Garrett said, rummaging on unperturbed.
My stomach felt about as comfortable as Parker’s must’ve with the entire ordeal, but I said nothing, in no mood to defend either of them. Mostly, I just wished I could be anywhere but that ichor-stained rock, crouched over a lying raknoth and half-expecting our friends from earlier, or even the Legion trackers, to show up any moment. I looked up at the silent alien ship hovering over us and wondered how Elise and Johnny were getting along.
At least I could safely bet their day hadn’t been stranger than mine, I decided as Garrett gave a satisfied grunt and messily yanked another bloody something from Parker’s abdomen. It was larger than the egg device, and upon closer inspection, I thought it looked a bit like a high tech version of one of the automated food and drink hoppers people sometimes set out for their hounds when they were leaving their loyal pets alone for a prolonged amount of time.
The translucent container Garrett had yanked from Parker’s abdomen was nearly empty, but I was pretty sure I knew what the small amount of dark liquid at the bottom was.
I felt my hands clench into fists. “You had this all planned the whole damn time. You had a way to escape.”
“I couldn’t call the ship until I was outside,” Parker said calmly.
“You had the blood to survive for days.”
“Do you blame me for hesitating to trust your people would be comfortable feeding me their own blood? I merely planned for the worst. I couldn’t have hoped events would work out quite so perfectly as they ha—Agh!”
For a second, I almost thought it’d been Garrett who’d telekinetically lifted and slammed Parker’s head to the rock. But it hadn’t been.
“Oops,” I muttered. “I didn’t plan it. I swear.”
“Yes, yes,” Parker said. “Again with the righteous indignation. Have you forgotten what’s happening out there to your precious world?”
“Happening because you let it,” I snapped. “Because you started this entire gropping mess and led us all straight into it.”
Parker scowled. “Grow up, Haldin.”
At a motion from Garrett’s direction, I looked over and found the Seeker offering me his dagger.
“If you don’t,” he said, “I will.”
Parker shifted against our hold, probably preparing to fight. “This is hardly the time for—”
“Shut up,” I said, taking the dagger. I didn’t particularly want to use it. Or didn’t plan to, at least. Wanting was a different thing completely. But either way, I figured it was better in my hand than in Garrett’s.
And besides, Parker didn’t need to know that I wasn’t planning on killing him. Yet.
“If you didn’t engineer all this, how did your kin find us?” I glanced at Garrett and Siren, realizing I still didn’t really understand how or why they’d found us either, but that could sit another minute. I stared at Parker, waiting for his answer.
“I thought I was supposed to shut up,” he finally said.
Garrett punched him.
I held up a hand to stop him from doing it again. “Now who’s being the child?”
Parker shrugged. “Search my mind, then, if you would have the truth. I won’t resist.”
That caught me by surprise—not so much because it sounded to my logical brain like a trap, but rather because I actually found myself believing him. Garrett and Siren looked similarly uncertain, though probably for entirely different reasons.
Parker showed us a predatory smile, clearly enjoying our hesitation. “Whatever you decide, perhaps we should talk aboard the ship, where we won’t be sitting targets.”
“Yeah, because nothing blends in like a giant purple beardsplitter floating through the sky,” Garrett said. “I’m not going in there.”
“Comforting as it is to know that even alien men clearly feel the need to compensate,” Siren added, “I agree. We’re quite fine on the ground, thanks.”
“Suit yourselves,” Parker said. “Haldin, we should move.”
Like scud, we should, I wanted to say, just like Garrett and Siren were obviously expecting me to.
“If you want to get answers out of his head,” Garrett said, “then have at it. We’ll help. But I’m not letting this bastard walk away alive.”
“We stashed our skimmer nearby,” Siren added. “We don’t need this…” She looked up at the motionless ship. “… compensation.”
On the ground, Parker gave a soft chuckle. Garrett cocked a fist, ready to shut him up again.
“What?” I asked before he could. “What’s so funny?”
“Well,” Parker said slowly, “for one thing, I’d like to point out that, aboard my ship, we could hide in orbit, as opposed to whatever rodent’s den these two have crawled out of. No one on the planet will have any hope of finding us until we want them to.”
Something about the way his satisfied smile kept stretching told me there was more.
“And?”
“Annnd…” He cocked his head as if listening carefully for some distant sound, and it was only then that I noticed it. The faintest hum of approaching skimmers. From the same direction, a hound’s bark echoed to us from beyond the tree line.
“And it’s possible my ship’s appearance may have given our location away,” Parker concluded, grinning at Siren. “Forgive me for compensating.”
That did it for Garrett.
The dagger had flown from my hand into his and plunged halfway to Parker’s right eye before I caught the weapon in my own telekinetic grasp. Garrett glared at me, incredulous. I opened my mouth to tell him I needed answers first.
Parker was ready.
No sooner had my focus shifted to the dagger than he exploded into motion, kipping up to his feet with inhuman speed and leaping skyward. Before either of us could blink, he’d landed in the open port that had mysteriously appeared in the side of the alien vessel, right above the boarding ramp that was unfurling from the ship like a living thing, inviting us to follow.
Siren opened fire. Parker ducked inside the ship.
I half-expected he’d fly off then and there, leaving us to deal with our closing Legion pursuit. Maybe just leaving the planet for good. But the ship remained exactly where it was, and Parker himself must not have retreated any further than behind the cover of the hull.
“Don’t be foolish,” he called down from the open port. “Get aboard and let us be done with this petty bickering.”
“It that scudhead serious?” Garrett muttered.
Siren glanced at him for direction, her rifle still shouldered at the ready.
“I think we should go with him,” I said, the words tasting like opa ash on my tongue.
They both stared at me.
“Is this scudhead serious?” Siren asked.
“We don’t exactly have many great choices,” I said, pointedly nodding toward the sounds of our pursuit.
By way of reply, Siren pulled her arcane vanishing act and disappeared from sight completely.
&
nbsp; “Cute,” I said. “But there’s more at stake here than us getting caught and killed. Parker has information that could bring down the Sanctum, and maybe even exonerate our kind in the public eye.”
“I doubt that,” Garrett said.
“Well then sit here and pout,” I snapped. I couldn’t even say why I was suddenly so angry. “Or kill Alton Parker. Or run back to your hidey hole. See what good any of it does.” I looked between them, prepared to evade the sucker punch I was fifty percent sure Garrett would throw my way.
“I’m guessing you two didn’t come here out of concern for my personal wellbeing today,” I said when it seemed my face was safe for the moment. “You wanna help me put a stop to the madness out there? I say our best bet is on that ship. That’s all I’ve got, take it or leave it.”
And with that, I turned and leapt for the floating ship, enhancing the effort with a heavy pull of telekinesis to land me on the boarding ramp twenty feet above. I was fuming, my hands shaking—though I couldn’t have said why. Maybe it was that I was once again playing straight into Alton Parker’s waiting claws. Maybe it was that I didn’t seem to have a choice, or that Garrett and Siren were right, and I was making the wrong one. I couldn’t tell anymore.
All I knew was that I was both irritated and relieved when I heard a thud behind me and felt the ship gently rock with the impact. I didn’t have to look back to know that Garrett and Siren had made their decision and that, like it or not, my party of unsavory allies had just grown to three.
And as I stepped into the oddly angle-less, decidedly alien corridor of the ship, there was Alton Parker, casually leaning against the bulkhead with arms crossed, reminding me just what manner of treachery I might well be getting myself into.
“Welcome aboard,” he said with a smirk.
“Just shut up and get us out of here,” I said as Garrett and Siren stepped cautiously into the corridor behind me. “Then we’re all gonna have a long talk.”
17
Orbit
After having witnessed the speed and agility with which Parker’s ship had blown into Haven on the day he’d surrendered, I took it as a given that losing our Legion tracker pursuit wouldn’t be much of a problem. I wasn’t wrong.
Children of Enochia Page 14
