by S T Branton
Fight The Peace
The Heinous Crimes of Sara Slick™ Book 3
ST Branton
CM Raymond
LE Barbant
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2020 CM Raymond, LE Barbant, and LMBPN Publishing
Cover by Fantasy Book Design
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, June, 2020
ebook ISBN: 978-1-64971-018-5
Print ISBN: 978-1-64971-019-2
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Author Notes
The Fight The Peace Team
Thanks to our Beta Readers
Larry Omans, Kelly O’Donnell, Rachel Beckford, Allen Collins
Thanks to our JIT Readers
Kerry Mortimer
Jeff Goode
Deb Mader
Paul Westman
Editor
SkyHunter Editing Team
Prologue
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
It was all she could do. When she stopped focusing on the breaths filling her lungs and sliding out again, the panic crept up along her spine and stung in the hairs on the back of her neck. But with every breath, the cell felt smaller. It closed in around her, the slimy, cold walls creeping in. It had been the same way for the last several days since she got tossed in there.
She didn’t know why she was there. She didn’t know what was going on. The only thing she could concentrate on was keeping it together. So far, she’d been able to do it. She wasn’t screaming or gnashing her teeth. She hadn’t started crawling up the walls or trying to wedge herself between the narrow bars. But it was getting close.
The door to the cell opened, and her kidnapper walked in. Having its presence in the same space made her stomach turn, but she refused to show fear. She wouldn’t give it that satisfaction. She couldn’t see its face in the dark, but could feel the evil that radiated off it.
“Whatever you want from me, you won’t get it,” she said, her voice tough.
It laughed and stepped closer. “I already have it,” the stranger sneered.
It ducked and put its face close to hers. Even in the faint light, she could see it more clearly. She gasped and scrambled back across the cold floor, recoiling from what she saw.
Her face stared back at her.
Chapter One
Sara Slick, master of espionage.
That would be on my freaking tombstone if I wasn’t careful. I pushed aside the door of the closet that had been my hiding place for the last thirty minutes, then poked my head out and checked for any traces of the voices I heard only a few moments before. Thankfully, the room appeared empty, and the door locked shut, so I slipped out and into the darkness.
The boat rocked and my stomach felt like it might involuntarily remove my lunch for me, but I forced it back down. Getting used to it shouldn’t have been so bad since it was a giant freighter ship and was docked at that. But perhaps shrimp tacos, ice cream, French fries, and at least two liters of soda weren’t the best choice for a light lunch pre-game.
A hot burp bubbled up, and I tried to keep my belch from being too loud and alerting the people I was hiding from. I shoved my face inside my jacket, let it loose, and immediately felt a furious Splinter wriggling in my pocket. How he had the gall to be upset at anyone else’s smell defied logic, but I patted the side of my jacket to soothe him anyway.
“Sorry, buddy,” I muttered, and took in my surroundings.
The room was on a lower deck of the ship and wasn’t where I had planned on being. I had thrown myself in there in an attempt to avoid being caught by one of the most foul-smelling Farsiders I had come across since leaving The Deep. My grappling hook was still attached at the top of the anchor, and now I faced the possibility of someone noticing that to the rest of the risk of the mission. The revelers stumbling around in the lights and glamor of Atlantic City might take selfies and post about it on whatever stupid app I was still three lessons behind on. Apparently, this was where they stored food carts when they weren’t in use, and the sailor who nearly caught me was either too hungover or too stupid to notice me diving behind one when he came in to grab a silver tray.
Either way, they stayed for a while, chit-chatting in a language that sounded like something out of an old James Bond movie. My legs felt like they were steel rods before I got out. Then one of them came back, and I hid in the closet. Now I stood in the empty room, surrounded by empty carts and looking for a trace of evidence that would show we were right in suspecting this particular freighter.
“What was that?” came the voice on the headset I wore. It was Archie, and his slightly confused tone told me he thought I’d meant my apology to Splinter for him.
“Nothing. I was talking to my rat.” I inched closer to the door. I couldn’t hear anything going on outside it, but that meant nothing. I needed to crack it open to make sure the room wasn’t soundproof.
“It’s fine, Slick,” came Ally’s voice. She was undoubtedly still standing above the table with the blueprints of the ship laid out before her. She was so damned excited to roll them out. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I had memorized most of it over the last few days. Having her in my ear with her eyes on the prints meant I had a backup. “Did you see anyone? Could you tell what they were?”
“Nah,” I responded. “Too busy not getting caught. I’ll let you know if I figure them out.”
I had been invisible so far. I planned on remaining invisible for as long as possible. Hopefully, the shimmying up the side of a ship only a few miles from the Boardwalk in Atlantic City in broad daylight wasn’t enough of a spectacle for anyone to notice. I figured most people were too busy getting hammered, looking at their phone, or desperately trying to figure out how to explain little Bobby’s college money suddenly being the property of a casino to look too closely to a dank-looking cargo ship. So far, no one had sounded an alarm, so I’d take that as a win for me, loss for society kind
of situation.
The Farsiders on today’s menu were a motley crew, picked from all over The Far. While staking out the ship since it docked, I saw a couple of trolls, a creature who looked like a hedgehog on a tremendous amount of steroids and with a dentist bent on making sure it could eat even the toughest meat, and a few fairies. The fairies I was prepared for.
They weren’t the cute little winged creatures I plastered posters of on my wall when I was nine. These were long, lithe, and absolutely evil things with sharp teeth and a penchant for tricking humans into terrible situations. Run-ins with fairies usually weren’t fun, and they could be fast and strong. Having one shadowed by a troll would be the worst kind of logistical nightmare.
Which was exactly what was happening right then.
I looked out the tiny window on the door and saw a short, squat, grey mass standing by another door a little way down and on the other side of the hallway. A fairy stood by it, speaking to it, then went inside the room. I could only guess that was where they kept some of the lizard people since it was guarded. If it wasn’t, there were likely some secrets in there, and that was enticing on its own. I looked on the other side and saw two more trolls blocking the hallway, standing side by side. They were looking in another direction, which made things much easier.
“Ok, guys. Looks like I have three trolls and a room with at least one fairy in it. Two are south, blocking the hall, and one is north in the room across from me. See it, Ally?” I asked.
“I do. That’s the place.”
“Slick, it's Archie,” Archie informed me. He never failed to do that, no matter how many times Ally patiently explained there were only two people it could be, and she didn’t sound like a middle-aged man doing a bad George Bush Jr. impression. Not that she hadn’t tried.
“Yeah, Archie. I hear you,” I muttered.
“Slick, a friendly reminder that the lizards may not be very receptive to your help at first. You need to be careful with them. They are hearty creatures, but they can get rather jumpy,” he cautioned.
“Funny.” I swept my eyes over the hallway and noticed the trolls not only didn’t move, they didn’t seem to breathe. They looked like they reverted to being giant rocks when standing still. It hurt my eyes to look at them and continue to make out their features when they weren’t moving around. “I was always told lizard people secretly ran the world. At least, it’s what the tinfoil-hat guy said on public access at three AM.”
“Oh, God, no. No one would let them run anything. Not even humans. They’re gross,” he stated matter-of-factly.
I laughed heavily at Archie using gross to describe anything, then realized that whatever it was he thought was gross, I would be in direct contact with it in a matter of minutes. Assuming I could get through the wall of walking gravel that was the three trolls.
“One other thing,” Archie interjected. “Remember, the Lights Out rune is a last resort. I know I told you before…”
“Multiple times,” I muttered under my breath.
“But it bears repeating. I’m not entirely sure it will work. I’m also not entirely sure it won’t cause a mild nuclear explosion. So be aware,” he warned.
“Good pep talk, Archie. I’ll try not to cause a mass extinction event if possible.” I patted the small, twirly, possibly nuclear catastrophe in my jacket.
It looked like a normal revolver but contained a dragon’s tooth and happened to be a rune Archie hyped for days as the most powerful he’d ever created. We hadn’t had a chance to test it, so neither one of us was precisely sure what it would do in action. He assured me that the risk of it exploding into a million pieces and killing me and everything else within a mile radius was around twenty percent. Tops.
I pulled out a new rune from my back pocket and cracked the door ever so slightly. It felt light in my hand, but that was deceptive. The boomerang-shaped weapon was small enough to fit into my back pocket, but a flick of the wrist could open up blades on either end. Archie called it the “Blood Seeker,” which was such a suitably badass name that it instantly made me want to figure out what it could do.
Apparently, the magic imbued in it allowed it to home in on major arteries if thrown correctly, and if the blades were open, it would find and sever them, then return to me safely. It also contained a chamber that I could fill with various liquids for a more biological attack, which seemed like it might suit my current need. I pulled my arm back to throw it in an instant as I peered through the crack of the door.
Thankfully, it opened in the guard troll’s direction, and I could push it open enough to aim the blade. My usual switchblade stayed safely in my other pocket, ready for me to use it when I inevitably broke or lost the boomerang. Or, more likely, figured out its catastrophic and unforeseen flaw and needed the backup of a familiar tool.
With a flick of my wrist, I sent it soaring, my thumb rubbing over the compartment switch inside at the last second. Doing so activated the poison gas compartment Archie had modified it with. The gas would release in a potent puff of air upon impact and as it hit the troll dead-on in the face, I saw the air around his head turn purple, then green, then normal again.
The boomerang effect seemed to fail almost instantly. It clattered on the floor and the troll looked over at it. He seemed to stare at it for a long time, as if the thoughts running through his mind had glacial speed and the confusion of getting hit with a U-shaped blade with a glowing rock in the middle was too difficult to work out. Then, like a balloon deflating, he sank into the wall behind him and stopped breathing.
“Poison worked, Archie,” I whispered into the headset.
“Oh, thank goodness. I was almost positive it would release a hallucinogenic instead,” he murmured back.
I nodded. Of course. Exactly what I would have needed, a troll on LSD. Maybe I would stick with the good old switchblade for now.
“Might need to work on the boomerang effect though,” I added. “Anyway, I’m going in.” I slipped out of the door at my announcement, my eyes on the two trolls guarding the hall.
Chapter Two
While sneaking up to the dead troll, I noticed how awful he smelled. Not that it was a surprise a troll smelled bad—my run-ins with them were always nausea-inducing—but this time was a little different. This troll seemed to use his odor as a defense mechanism of its own. I was already having trouble keeping down my now-critical mistake of a lunch and coming into contact with a smell that warranted hazmat suits and air purifiers wasn’t helping one damned bit.
I snuck a peek back at the trolls guarding the hall and noticed they weren’t moving yet. Either they hadn’t heard the clanging of the Blood Seeker or they didn’t care. I wasn’t going to ask them why. The door of the room I saw the Fae enter was heavy and cold steel, and the knob on the front looked crafted from gold. It took a minute to realize why: no one could enchant gold. If they locked the door with a traditional key, only another key or picking the lock would work. Magic had no effect. The only option at my disposal was if they left the door unlocked.
They couldn’t be that stupid.
I looked back at the dead troll and the two others who stood guard facing the opposite direction.
Well, maybe.
After grabbing the Blood Seeker and putting it back in my pocket, I placed my hand on the doorknob and closed my eyes. I squeezed and tried to turn the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. I gave it a little more force, but still nothing. That left only one other option, a localized explosive device Archie had put together.
It worked like a miniature C4, and he had shown it working on a door before. A small puff of smoke, an almost imperceptible sound, and it would blow up the lock on the inside, the explosion itself contained in the box attached.
I pulled the small magnetic box out of one of the many homemade pockets I had sewn into my jacket and positioned it directly over the lock mechanism. I activated the timer, looked back at the other trolls standing guard, and drew a deep breath. Just like before, a puff of smoke and
a small thud accompanied the box moving ever so slightly.
Considering that unhooking the box from the lock might cause it to fall apart, I decided to press my luck and see if I could grab it on the way out. I pushed a little and the door opened, revealing a blinding white light in the room. I grinned and opened it wide. Huge mistake.
Arrows immediately shot at me, and I ducked and rolled along one wall of the room. The door shut behind me as I kept rolling while feeling the zip of the arrows flying around me and barely missing me. I finally found myself behind a table and reached up to push it over, so it acted as a barrier between the archers and me. As soon as it hit the ground, I heard the ‘thwap’ sound of a dozen arrows bury into it.
“Found ‘em,” I told Archie through my headset and grabbed the Blood Seeker. I flung it around the table, hoping its perfect balance and precision would at least take out some of the projectiles coming my way. I reached my hand on the other side of the table to wait for its return, hopefully with little streaks of blood on it.
