“Glad you all lived, now get the hell out of there,” Darius urged.
“Yes, shall we?” Shiro said, taking his survival in stride.
“Where is the gratitude, Shiro?” Odeon asked with a faint smile, taking care of his parachute.
“Trust that it will be on full display once we’re out of the path of those ludicrous morons, the Shadow’s Shadow.” Shiro began marching toward the Olavia Apollo, swinging his cane. “You two coming?” He glanced back at them.
Holly checked on her other friend once more. “Good to go, Odeon?”
“Yes, lead the way.”
He followed her, his face a mask of calm. There was a singsong quality to his words, which meant that he’d already begun the work of healing. Yasoans had the ability to heal themselves faster with a song, but it drained them of energy and strength, depending on the extent of injuries.
They’d escaped by the skin of their teeth. They’d done it so many times, Holly had lost count. She hoped they’d never run out their luck.
* * *
“There is good news, Holly Drake,” Trip said from her command position on the small bridge of the Olavia Apollo.
“What is that?” Holly asked, watching the viewscreen. She felt grim despite Trip’s attempt to mitigate their situation. Her gaze flicked to Odeon, then back to the viewscreen.
“The Shadow’s Shadow,” Trip laughed. “I am sorry, that name is still very funny to me.”
“They don’t think so. I mentioned how funny it was, and that only made them madder.” She allowed herself a little grin.
“Some people don’t understand humor. Well, the good news is that their craft can’t leave the planet. And it’s very slow.”
“Wonderful, so we’ve ditched them?”
“Yes, their little ship is long gone. I only had to get up to half speed before we left their butts in yesterday.”
Odeon had settled into a seat on the bridge. His head rested against the support of his seat and his eyes were closed.
Holly narrowed her eyes, squinting to focus on him. The skin on his neck vibrated almost imperceptibly as he hummed to himself. Soon he would be sapped of strength. He’d not told them his injuries, but she didn’t think they were life-threatening.
Landing on top of him had been a last resort, but she still wasn’t proud of it. She’d talk about it with him later. His sacrifice meant something, but she wasn’t quite sure what just yet, and going into a discussion right now would only make her say something she didn’t mean, and it could have ramifications that she wasn’t happy about.
“What do you think the Shadow’s Shadow meant about the Heart? About George?” she asked the room at large.
Trip continued to operate the ship. “Don’t know, wasn’t there. What did they say?”
“They indicated that I know something about where he’s gone.”
“Do you?” Trip asked.
“Hardly. If I knew, I’d track the bastard down and get some answers.”
“You are still not settled about George, then, Holly Drake?” Trip asked.
Holly chewed on her lip. There was just Trip and Shiro to talk to at the moment. Charly and Darius had signed off when they'd reached the ship. It was night in the City of Jade Spires, back on Kota. Even with the aetherways increasing their speed, it would take them two days to get there, since the moons were currently at their furthest orbit around Ixion from each other. She would go to the crew quarters soon—the hike up the floating blocks had sapped her strength.
“I don’t think so, Trip.”
Shiro cleared his throat. Holly looked up. He’d just come through the hatch. Wrinkles creased his suit. His hair was still mussed, but his face was bright from the excitement of narrowly avoiding death. He looked out of his element, transformed almost. It was a good look for him.
He moved around the bridge to sit opposite Holly. His back was to the viewscreen. “Call me mad, Ms. Drake, but I sense that you've never gotten over that little tidbit about your father. It doesn’t take a sleuth to see that. Finding out your father was the genius behind the Shadow Coalition isn't some casual fact one merely accepts and moves on. But may I say, you can’t hide from who you’re meant to be.”
Holly frowned. “What do you mean? I’m meant to be like George? It's hardly a tidbit. It's a massive betrayal.”
He laughed. “True, true. But no, you're not like George. Hardly. Only that if I understand George correctly, he had two sides to himself, and the side he chose to indulge was the side that won. Everyone has two sides. You do. I do. The sleeping Yasoan does.”
“I’m not asleep,” Odeon said, his eyes still closed.
“So you're just being lazy?”
“You landed on him!” Holly said.
“He volunteered!” Shiro said. “And besides, you landed on him as well.”
“He—” she blinked. “Volunteered.”
“Precisely,” Shiro said, laughing. “I’m indebted to him.”
“We all are,” Holly said.
“Not me,” Trip announced.
“You will be someday,” Odeon muttered, in that singsong voice.
The subject had ventured away from Shiro’s unexpected assessment of Holly's mood and the trajectory of her life. He rose and took the navigation console, offering to help Trip with the journey.
The lighthearted banter continued. Holly settled back into her seat and watched the viewscreen. She needed to process all that had happened, but for now, she just wanted the company and distraction of her crew, and to feel a sense of normalcy return.
She sipped the imperial red ale she’d brought from the mess, feeling the sickness of space flight sail into the room and settle on her like a mist. The ale took the edge away, and the panic subsided.
The crystal was safely stowed in Odeon’s satchel. Her thoughts moved to pondering what it was. Had the coordinates for that location been hidden on the military base they’d journeyed to recently for Dave, when they’d escaped the behemoth monster? She would find out soon, she hoped.
The reasons for the clandestine work that Dave had been giving her continued to elude her. He gave her only enough information for her to do the assignment. He owed her explanations. She would get them, soon. Or she would simply quit taking his jobs.
5
Ben smiled at Holly and slid the bottle of ale across the bar to her. “Good choice. There’s nothing like an imperial red ale to start the afternoon off right.”
Holly shrugged. “Sometimes it’s the only way through these meetings, and anyway, winter makes me want to drink dark ales.”
Ben leaned across the bar, resting his crossed forearms on the surface before settling his chin upon them. “You still haven’t told me what you do.”
“I’m a schoolteacher,” she said, gripping the cold bottle in her hand.
“You? No way. You radiate something else. You have a mystique about you, and it does not say schoolteacher. Like, at all.”
The regular lunchtime crew that seemed to endlessly grace the spinning, spire-top club took up one end of the bar. Holly shifted her gaze to them, then brought her eyes back to Ben. “It’s true. I was a schoolteacher. Once upon a time. These days, it’s anything that pays.”
Ben stood up straight. A glint flashed through his eyes. “Oh, I see.”
“Not that. No,” Holly answered quickly, her cheeks turning hot. “Other things. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. How’s business?”
She glanced toward the sealed listening booth she often used with Dave. He wasn’t here yet. No escape from the awkwardness of the conversation.
Curses.
“Good. Business is great.” His dark brown eyes studied her. “Ah, antsy, I see. You ready for your booth?”
“Yeah, I better get over there, wait for my colleague.” She cleared her throat, grateful she hadn’t called Dave a ‘client’. “He should be here soon.”
Ben tossed her a key. “I’ll prep a drink for him, then. Bourbon. Rocks. Right? World’
s best bartender, right here.”
“Yes, you seem overqualified for the position. Bourbon is perfect. Any whiskey, really, he likes it hard.” She coughed. “The liquor, that is,” she muttered, and turned away quickly and made a beeline to the room.
Good lord, Holly, one pretty face . . .
She shook her head and glanced back at the bar. Ben smiled at her, then turned to take a bottle off a shelf. She thought of Iain and suddenly ached for the comfort of his company.
He’d done that to her as well—unsettled her, caused her to say all the wrong things at all the right times. But at least . . . at least, she knew now that there was something right about all of it—how much she admired and respected him, and how much he admired and respected her.
Holly let herself into the booth and shut the door. She paced between the low cocktail table in the center of the room and the sofas and armchairs that lined the walls. She located some appropriate music at the console and put it on, then stood at the window and looked out at the City of Jade Spires. The bar itself spun slowly, and so the view before her changed. For once, the sky was clear, but the appearance was deceptive—it was colder than a witch’s nose out there.
Is it ‘witch’s nose,’ or something else?
Holly shook her head. Didn’t matter. The fact was, it was cold. She was ready for summer, for the glow of the sun to mean warmth rather than lying about the temperature as it glinted off the buildings of the Black Jade District.
Ixion came into view, hanging above her in the sky, outlined in those faint details of daytime. She sighed. It was good to be home.
“You always get here before me,” a voice said behind her, startling her.
She jumped slightly and turned. “Or, a better way to say it—you’re always late.”
Dave pulled the door shut behind him and grinned. “You have the item?”
“That depends.”
“Then, yes.”
“Well, we will see, won’t we,” she said noncommittally.
He dropped his chin and placed his drink on the knee-high table. “What is it now, Holly Drake?” His voice was a growl.
Today, Idris Caron—Dave, a name Holly had given him to keep herself from blowing his cover, since he was one of the rare humans in a high Syndicate position—wore a black, woolen coat, which he took off and draped over the arm of the sofa. His hair was slicked back, his cheeks were ruddy from the cold, and he gave her that look. That look which she could only describe as gruff, though that term was usually meant for a voice. It was gruff. Like she was in trouble.
“What is it? You’re right. That is what I want to know. What does it contain? Did the trip to the military base that eventually killed Jamie lead you to that storage facility on Po?”
Dave raised his chin, then left the doorway where he’d been standing and plopped down on the sofa. He picked up his drink, swirled it, and stared at the ice in it. “I don’t suppose it concerns you at all that if I tell you any of what you ask, your life could be further in danger?”
“Danger—”
“Is your middle name, yes, I know. That’s not cliché." He rolled his eyes. "But sincerely, Holly. What will knowing do for you?”
She moved from the window to sit across from him. “Mysteries slowly kill me if I can’t solve them. It is in my nature to know. I must know.”
“That’s hardly enough to compel me to increase the danger you’d be in by telling you.”
“In a roundabout way, you’re telling me that you could tell me, but then you’d—”
He began nodding before she even finished “—have to kill you, no. But yes, someone else might. Say that, out there, in all the running around and gallivanting that you do—”
“Which you pay me to do—”
“Beside the point,” he said, waving a hand. “Someone captures you. They want to know what you know. They, what, torture you?”
“Oh yes, torture. Something I’ve always been afraid of.”
“Something that could happen, which you haven’t been trained to resist. At all.”
She pressed her lips together, annoyed that what he was saying was true. “Does surviving an abusive husband count? That’s training, right? Anyway, who trains to be tortured?”
“Agents.”
“Are you telling me there are spies and agents in the 6 Moons?”
Dave stopped speaking, his mouth open, staring at her silently. “Holly Drake. Are you telling me that you’ve never known about the true network of military might in the 6 Moons?”
“It’s not like it’s common knowledge. How the hell would I know something like that?”
“Well, to start, for just one,” Dave sputtered, “that man you’ve been hanging around, what’s his name. The former military commander.”
A chill passed through Holly. “I never told you about him.” Her voice was a thin whisper.
Dave froze, his gaze intently studying her face. “What, you think there are secrets, Holly? I just told you that there are spies and agents gathering intel all over the 6 Moons.”
“So they’re your agents, then?”
The revelation floored her. She needed a stiff drink. She sipped her beer.
He leaned forward. The music Holly had put on suddenly seemed louder. Electronic instruments warbled through the speakers. Blood roared in her ears. Something fluttered in her neck, and she touched it with her free hand. It was her pulse. The warm air smelled stale and uncirculated. Her senses were on high alert as she watched Dave, searching him for signs that would confirm her suspicions.
“Some of them might be,” Dave said, letting out a long sigh. “I didn’t want to tell you.”
“You just did.”
“Because I can see it in your face, Holly Drake. You’ve got that look—the shattered expression of someone who has been betrayed.”
“I feel betrayed,” she admitted, never taking her eyes away from Dave’s face.
“You shouldn’t. I never told you a lie.”
“Who are you?”
“Oh for the—” He stood up and began pacing. He took his suspenders off his shoulders, letting them knock against his thighs, and glanced down at her and shook his head again. “This may be news to you Holly Drake, but you know me better than anyone else. You know my real name. You know my actual job, but you also know this side mess I’ve got my hands stuck in. Can I help it if some intel passes my desk?”
“Stop saying my full name, Idris Caron.”
“Shhh,” Dave said, glancing through the windows back out to the main area of the bar. “Stop it.”
“Are you worried someone can hear us in here?”
“Not precisely. That’s why I like this joint. The music. Makes it harder to be recorded. But I’m still careful.”
“Well, I’m glad one of us is worth protecting.”
“The point is, Holly, the theatrics are overkill. Am I not trying to protect you? That’s why I can’t tell you what you wish to know. And anyway, you know as much as anyone.”
“But not Xadrian. And why is someone gathering intel on me in the first place?”
He laughed. “Don’t pretend you’re surprised that you might be on someone’s radar—we both know how bad that innocence would look on you. Have you forgotten the corruption that put you in the women’s prison in the first place? The trial? That whole nonsense?”
Damn. She hated that he was right. She swallowed her pride and dropped it, but held to her sense of betrayal. What the hell was Dave doing?
“Fine. You have a point. But I still feel betrayed.”
“I know you do, Holly. I know you do.”
She glanced at him in surprise. He’d moved to the window, his hands shoved into his pockets, the suspenders dangling against his legs. He’d actually sounded sympathetic.
She sat forward and placed her beer on the table. After quietly removing the crystal from her jacket pocket, she leaned across the low cocktail table and slipped it into the pocket of Dave’s coat. When she
sat back down, he was staring at her.
“Thank you.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway.”
“There is information on it. Truth.”
She knew her brow furrowed involuntarily as she stared at him. “I assumed as much. Some kind of information about life on the 6 Moons.”
“Something like that. I’m not entirely sure. But I am digging into it.”
“And Xadrian is privy to the information you’re gathering. But—”
“Not you. Yes, Holly, yes. You are an asset I’m protecting. You are the legs and hands to my operation. You can fly across the 6 Moons with your crew and infiltrate places I never could. You are more valuable to me than simply that, however.”
“In what way?”
She bristled to hear him use terminology that so resembled what the Shadow Coalition had called its organization. The Hands. The Heart. The many, many tentacles of the beast that had snaked its way throughout the 6 Moons.
“I’m still working that out. When I process the information on that crystal, I will know more, and I’ll be able to tell you more.”
She took a long drink of her beer. As she did, she glanced through the windows of the booth back toward the bar. Though it had gotten busier out there, she’d chosen just that moment to look in the bartender’s direction. She caught Ben’s gaze just before he turned away and busied himself making a drink.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Dave,” she said as she stood.
“Oh, what is that?”
“There’s a new group organizing. An offshoot of the Shadow Coalition. They’re calling themselves the Shadow’s Shadow.”
Dave laughed and picked up his tumbler of bourbon.
Holly smiled. “Terrible name. We told them as much. Nearly got ourselves killed.”
“But you pulled through, as you always do, Holly Drake.” He raised his glass to her, and she returned the toast. “Xadrian will bring the money past your little club. I didn’t have the opportunity to drag the cash out of my accounts.”
“There will be a soiree there tonight. Are you attending?”
“You may see me there. You may,” he said, giving her a sidelong glance. “Is today the day you will out me?”
The Colossus Collection : A Space Opera Adventure (Books 1-7 + Bonus Material) Page 105
