Children of Enochia

by Luke R. Mitchell

  I wanted to point out that Parker was about as domesticated as a brain-touched haga beast, but it wasn’t as if Franco didn’t already know that. Plus, Parker had begrudgingly accepted my orders to steer clear of Oasis and wait for further instruction, hadn’t he? Just like he’d begrudgingly complied with pretty much every demand I’d made since busting him out of the brig. He’d even adhered to my no killing rule during our mad dash out of Haven, which by itself seemed like a small miracle.

  And all of these things, I firmly reminded myself, he’d almost certainly done for the explicit goal of convincing me that he would listen—that he could be trusted to play by my rules when it mattered.

  As if.

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said, already not looking forward to it.

  “And it’s not their next move, by the way,” Johnny said. “It’s his. Singular.”

  Surprise rippled across Elise’s and Franco’s expressions, both their gazes turning to me.

  “You killed one?” Elise asked.

  Johnny cleared his throat, his hand rising as if by its own accord to jab a finger at his own humble visage.

  “Oh,” Elise said.

  “Oh?” Johnny shot me an indignant look. “Oh, she says! Because since when can Johnny hang with Haldin Raish and the Mighty Gropping…”

  I only half-heard the rest of what he said. I was too caught up on wondering if Franco was right about the disparate motives of the raknoth and the Sanctum. It seemed like a safe enough bet. Much as the High Cleric despised me and every other Shaper on Enochia, I couldn’t believe he would’ve cut a deal with the raknoth.

  And yet he had survived Five’s initial attack, hadn’t he? Perhaps I could chock that up to the reflexes of his Onyx Guard, or to Five’s indifference for who and what he’d been slaughtering back there. But it still felt a little hard to believe that we’d actually managed to keep Four’s and Eight’s heads attached to their bodies when the alternative had only been a button press away. Had the High Cleric hesitated on purpose, sensing an opportunity to put a damning spin on the unfortunate interruption of a perfectly good execution?

  It probably didn’t matter now.

  People were dead. And the footage was out there, no doubt making it look like it was the fault of Shapers alone. Of course, anyone who knew the first thing about Shapers and raknoth would be able to understand that the ease with which Five and Seven had torn through the crowds was simply beyond what any human could’ve done. But pretty much anyone who knew that was probably already in Oasis with us. Which meant we’d probably just slid another few miles into demons’ depths.

  The sound of Elise’s voice drew me back to the conversation.

  “None of this explains why you thought it was a good idea to duke it out with two superpowered raknoth.”

  “I didn’t think it was a good idea,” I said. “But I didn’t really have a choice. They were out of control, and everyone else was tied up trying to make sure Four and Eight didn’t lose their heads to the clerics’ bomb collars.”

  “Which was kind of why the plan fell apart in the first place,” Johnny pointed out.

  “You mean after you decided to go rogue and crash a public execution with half of Divinity in attendance?” Elise asked.

  “I think you both did an admirable job, for what it’s worth,” Franco said, earning himself a frown from his daughter. He shrugged. “I didn’t say a smart job.”

  “Nice,” Johnny said. “Thanks a lot. Good to be appreciated.”

  Franco tipped his head obligingly.

  “All right,” I said. “That’s enough judgment for us. Your turn. What are you doing calling us from the kidnap lair? What, did they invite you in for cookies and caffa?”

  By way of reply, she shrugged and held a glazed clay mug up in cheers.

  I just gaped.

  “Mmm, caffa,” Johnny murmured, looking envious. Then his brow furrowed. “Wait, don’t drink the kidnap caffa! That’s like…”

  “Good manners?” Elise asked. Franco, for some reason, chose that moment to wander off the edge of the display.

  “Not what I was thinking,” I said, trying to rein in the burst of nervous energy fluttering through my chest.

  “Yeah, well, give a girl some credit, will you?” Elise said, glancing up to where I assumed Kovaks and his pasty friend must be lurking. “There might not be any cookies, but I think it’s safe to say our induction went a teensy bit smoother than yours.”

  “I wonder why,” I muttered before I’d even managed to figure out what the scud I meant by that.

  “I dunno,” Elise said, arching an eyebrow. “I think it might’ve had something to do with me using my words instead of attacking on sight.”

  I scowled. “Whatever. I don’t know what Kovaks told you, but he was the one who whipped out his wand first when we met.”

  “And there you have it,” Elise said, smiling in spite of herself. “Boys and their wands.”

  “Ha!” Johnny barked. Then, noticing my dark frown, he quickly covered his amusement and narrowed his eyes at Elise. “I mean, that’s totally not fair. Emasculating. That’s what it is. Degrading, even.”

  I let out a deep breath and turned back to Elise. “What’s the situation over there. Are they ready to help out and share those records?”

  For some reason, those questions seemed to rattle Elise more than anything we’d discussed so far. She dropped her gaze from us, taking the time for a long but shallow pull of caffa before answering at all.

  “We’re all on the same side, here,” she finally said.

  “And you’re suddenly being weird becaaause…?” Johnny asked.

  Elise bit her lip. “Because the question of sharing those records is a little more complicated.”

  “Complicated how?” I asked.

  “They umm…” She looked up again, as if checking with someone. Kovaks? “Well, the Watchers—umm, Kovaks and Omelius, I mean—were originally tasked with—”

  “Watchers?” Johnny asked.

  “Omelius?” I added. Did she mean Pasty?

  “Did you join a cult?” Johnny asked.

  Elise looked back and forth between us in a rare moment of tongue-tied indecision.

  “Sweet Alpha,” Johnny said, “she joined a cult. And she says she can’t leave us alone for six hours.”

  “I didn’t join anything,” Elise said in a huff. “Look, it’s just… these two are part of a long line that’s been tasked to basically wait for the right time and place to get this information back into the hands of the Shapers in a way that might actually let us avoid repeating all the mistakes that led to the first thousand-year downfall of our kind.”

  “And they’re serving you caffa where they served me arcane stun prods because…?”

  “Because the gravity of that duty has apparently left them a bit picky about who they’re willing to talk to.” She dropped her gaze. “And because you didn’t pass the test.”

  “The test?” Johnny asked, looking between us. “Like, that psychic helmet thingy you told me about?”

  I was too busy staring at Elise, trying to wrap my head around what she was telling me. “And you did pass?

  “So they tell me,” she said. She didn’t sound particularly happy about it.

  I wasn’t sure what to think—still wasn’t even really sure what the scud that test had even been about, or what they possibly thought they could’ve gleaned from a few flashing runes on a thousand-year-old helmet.

  “Well that’s… That’s good then, right?” I asked. “I mean, if you’re in the club now, you can find out what we’re looking for and we can just go from there, right?”

  It probably made more sense than the alternative anyway. Because while I might be a stronger Shaper at the moment, Elise was exceptionally better than me at this kind of detective work. It definitely made sense, I decided. And yet I couldn’t help but notice the subtle tightness in my gut. I couldn’t have said what it was or why it was there—only that it felt
like the seed of something that past experience told me might well grow ugly and problematic with time.

  And the look on Elise’s face didn’t really improve matters.

  “I’m going to see what there is to see,” she said slowly, as if half-expecting I’d object. “And I’ll keep you guys posted as best I can.”

  “As best you can?” I asked, not loving the sound of that.

  “I don’t really know anything yet. I just know Omelius is very… apprehensive about what’s in these records. Apparently there’s some pretty dangerous stuff buried away. The kind of stuff the Emmútari didn’t want to see falling into the wrong hands.”

  And there it was. A little spritz of water for that ugly seed in my gut.

  “And you’re saying my hands are the wrong hands,” I said. “Because of a thousand-year-old helmet.”

  “No. That’s not what I’m saying, Hal.”

  “But it’s what they’re saying, isn’t it?” I felt my fists tightening. Felt the tide of anger rising. Knew I should just take a deep breath. “Who gives a scud what a gropping little helmet has to say about it? They don’t know the first thing about me. The Sanctum is trying to wipe us off the face of the planet, and you’re telling me those two are scared I might learn a few old Shapers’ secrets?”

  I was practically shouting by the end. Enough so that I would’ve been embarrassed even if Johnny hadn’t been sitting there, watching me with a look that said I was taking it a bit far, even if my frustrations were understandable.

  Elise was just silently bobbing her head in mechanical agreement, not meeting my eyes. “That’s pretty much exactly what I told them, Hal.” She looked up, and the compassion in her eyes only made me feel that much worse at having lost my scud like that. “I’m still on your side, here,” she said. “You know that, right?”

  I blew out a breath, dropping my eyes to the permacrete floor in shame. “I’m sorry, Lise. That was… I’m just glad you’re okay, and that that stupid helmet was wise enough to recognize you’re the right choice for this thing anyway.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “Now will you two go get some medical attention? I’m going to get back to… whatever we wanna call it over here.”

  “Orientation?” Johnny asked.

  “Why not,” she said.

  “Ahhh…” Johnny clapped a hand to my shoulder, shaking his head. “They just grow up so fast, don’t they?”

  That, at least, got Elise to smile a little, which in turn made it easier for me to find my own.

  “I love you,” I said.

  “And I, you.” She looked to Johnny. “I’d ask you to make sure he doesn’t do anything reckless…”

  “But I’m just far too important these days to be bothered with babysitting the B team?” he asked.

  “Something like that. You two be careful.”

  “Only if you are,” I said.

  She gave her eyebrows a little waggle and ended the call, leaving me and Johnny alone in our quiet little meeting room, contemplating what we’d just learned.

  “Well scud,” I finally said.

  “Yeah, I’ll say…” He looked over at me. “Wanna go get some food and talk about it?”

  I was starving. But I also had two wrists in need of a heavy dose of nanites, and the last thing I felt like was talking about… whatever this was. I just needed to think. And maybe to sleep a few winks. But first…

  “I think I should call Parker,” I said. “See if we can get any insight as to what those reekers were thinking, and what Five might do now that his partner’s gone.”

  “Yeah…” Johnny stood, clearly not wanting any part of talking to the raknoth. “I’ll call Therese while you’re at it. Feel free to tell Parker I’m praying extra hard he chokes, though.”

  I gave him a tired smile. “Will do.”

  He paused halfway to the door and turned back. “You okay, broto?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He studied me for a stretch, and I thought he was going to adhere to regulation broto code—if a broto says he’s fine, he’s fine, even if he’s clearly not—and leave it at that.

  “You’re wondering why you didn’t pass the magical helmet test,” he said, “aren’t you?”

  “No,” I said out of some tired combination of denial and sheer stubbornness.

  “Yeah, me neither. I mean, it’s not like you’re the most famous, maybe even the strongest, Shaper on the planet. Why would you have any reason to expect you would’ve been the one to pass the mysterious arbitrary helmet test anyway?”

  I finally turned to meet his eyes. “Did you have a point under all that ginger snark?”

  “Who, me?” He shrugged. “Eh, I dunno. Seems like it’d be wasted if I did, seeing as neither of us is burning with curiosity about the thing anyway.”

  I rolled my eyes and came back to find him watching me with a more serious look.

  “Don’t let this thing fester in that big pretty head of yours, broto. We have no idea what any of this means yet.”

  I looked back to the empty display, at a loss for anything useful to say, and not all that sure I’d want to say it even if I’d had it to say.

  Johnny crossed back over to me and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Besides, Lise is way better at the book stuff than us barbarians. That helmet probably just counted concussions and came to the conclusion your poor brain is hopeless at this point.”

  I scowled up at him. “I thought this was supposed to be a comforting pep talk.”

  He made a face. “Alpha knows what gave you that idea, man.”

  I watched my friend go, not quite sure whether to scowl or smile.

  29

  Heroes

  When Alton Parker appeared on the wall display, he looked bored. And not just in the I’ll stand here and roll my eyes while you pathetic mortals try to keep up with my massive intellect kind of way that I was coming to expect from him during difficult conversations. But genuinely, mind-numbingly bored. Or maybe it was subdued defeat hanging across his well-chiseled face. I couldn’t really tell. Suffice it to say, he wasn’t a ball of sunshine and flowers.

  “What can you tell me about those two raknoth?” I asked without preamble.

  “Aside from that Nan’Vala appears to be quite dead?”

  I watched him, wondering if that thought would stir something in him—anger or sadness or anything else. But his expression remained flat. Subdued.

  “Why were they there? Why attack a public execution? Why protect Four and Eight?”

  “There are several potential explanations,” Parker said. “Several of which you’ve no doubt already arrived at yourself, leaving me to wonder why you’d expect I would have any more accurate information than you.”

  “They are your kin.”

  “As Auckus and the High Cleric are yours,” Parker said. “Tell me, have they never once acted in a way you hadn’t expected?”

  I watched him, setting aside the validity of his point and allowing the paranoid skeptic in my head to have its day.

  “Did you send them there?”

  He studied me right back, a slow smile spreading his lips. “No. But I’ll admit I enjoyed watching you stop them.”

  “Enjoyed it so much that you left us to die down in that courtyard?”

  And there was the composed exasperation I’d come to expect from the raknoth—the flagrant eye roll that still somehow managed to come off as elegant and casual. “Spare me your indignation, Haldin. You were quite emphatic in your conviction that it would be devastating to your goals to be seen in collusion with this ship. I was watching you fight from several miles above. Did it not occur to you that I was also able to observe your shining High General flying in to the rescue?”

  It had occurred to me. But that didn’t exactly lessen the harrowing intensity of what we’d survived through. Even if Parker had technically been adhering to my orders…

  “You just wanted to see if I could win against two of those things, didn’t you?�
�

  He cocked his head noncommittally. “Once again, your resourcefulness in the face of hopeless odds has prevailed.”

  I pointedly held up my splinted wrists, demonstrating what my success looked like. He just shrugged, as if the matter of broken bones was a non-issue. I sighed and lowered my wrists, which were properly beginning to throb again on the waning edge of the pain meds Calvin had given me.

  I needed to wrap this up and get to the medica.

  “Why were they there, Alton? What do they want? Your best guess.”

  He frowned at me as if I’d said something mildly unexpected, but pushed on before I could register what or why. “Based on the past two encounters, I think the safest assumption is that they were hoping to see you neutralized. My best guess is that they correctly assumed you would make an appearance at the execution, and that that appearance would in turn offer them a chance to eliminate you while simultaneously dealing a public blow that would give all of Enochia every reason to embrace the Sanctum’s war on Shapers. Because once your kind are gone—”

  “There’d be no one left to stop them from taking the keys to the planet right back into their scaly little hands,” I said.

  “Not exactly how I was going to put it,” Parker said, nodding, “but yes, that is quite possibly the crux of it. With Zar’Faenor gone, I imagine they would’ve liked nothing more than to claim rulership of their very own private planet. As to the why, well…” he quirked an eyebrow. “I imagine it is primarily because those two have always been complete morons. They were power drunk even before they claimed their shiny new Seeker vessels.”

  “This coming from the guy who helped his clan take control of Enochia in the first place.”

  “This coming from the guy who had a coherent plan and reason for doing so,” Parker countered.