“Oh yes, we have something similar. Soulsucks. They prey on the innocent and suck their life-force to live longer.”
Holly nodded. “Similar. I guess to humans, blood is our life force.”
The train jerked suddenly, pitching to and fro, as though they’d run over something on the tracks. Holly cursed as her drink tipped and splashed all over her clothes.
She rose and tried to clean it off, half standing and dabbing at it with a cloth napkin.
She felt like a rain cloud was following her around, and the trajectory of her life was a downward spiral, spinning out of control. Voss was winning. More kids were disappearing. Then she’d had a pointless fight with Iain. And now spilled a drink on the train.
What was next?
“I’ll be back after I change my top.”
“I’ll come with you,” Odeon said, rising.
“No, it’s ok. I’ll be quick. Just a quick change. This will be faster. Stay here, save our place. Please?” Getting a table in the dining car was always a battle.
“If you’re not back soon, I’ll come looking for you.”
She tapped her ear. “We’re connected here, Odeon.” She smiled at him. Her wet clothing made her shiver, even with the heated air in the train car.
She left her empty glass on the bar where humans and Yasoan milled about, laughing and drinking, then scrambled through the passageway between the train cars, hurrying through several cars on her way to her cabin.
She was still focused on the sick feeling in her stomach over the minor argument with Iain—was it their first? Whatever it was, it didn’t sit right with her. Were they over now? Because she didn’t bend to his will? Was this just the temper tantrum of insecurity and more important, did he know if that’s what it was? Would he decide that because she didn’t bend to his desire and his request of her to not leave, that he couldn’t live with a lover like that, and end what they had started?
Beneath that bubbling stew of thoughts, Holly couldn’t shake the sense that something wasn’t right. What was it? Was it a feeling that she was being followed? Or possibly watched?
She paused in the middle of the corridor. Large luxury cabins lined the train on one side of her, their doors shut. It was a sleeper car and most of the curtains were drawn. Holly feigned looking into the dark glass of the cabin next to her where the curtain was drawn, and pretended to check her hair. She glanced behind herself while doing it, her trigger finger itching, her hand eager to grab hold of the aether whip and turn it on.
She was being paranoid.
But still, she left her fingers on the handle of the aether whip. The gun was too much. That would be a last resort.
She shivered as she continued to the car that held her cabin, the cold touch of the mixed drink through her clothing chilling her skin.
She remained wary but tried to act casual. If she appeared too alarmed, that would set off anyone who was following her. If anyone was following her. It was probably Odeon. Sneaking along behind her, watching out for her. She almost activated her comm to ask him.
“Drake,” Darius’ voice said in her.
She leapt out of her skin.
“What the hell, Darius? Ixion’s whore,” Holly said, a curse she particularly disliked. But it seemed appropriate at the moment.
“Sorry. Boy, you’re jumpy today, aren’t you, Drake?”
“I thought I was alone.”
“You are. I’m just in your ear.”
“Don’t be so literal. You know what I mean.”
“I got something back on one of those names you gave me. One of them has an irregularity. It’d normally be a normal irregularity, but it’s almost like a flag. Like someone who doesn’t know how to fake a record didn’t know they should fix this. So it’s a very obvious one.”
“What is it?”
“Well, the Constie, Yohab. You know Constellations age slower than humans. So they’re not fully adults until they’re about forty in human years, kind of like Centaus. Most humans don’t really think about that. I do—because of my mothers. But if another human was faking a record, they might not be so careful with the date of birth and age information. The records on Yohab put him to be about twenty-five human years old. But that’s not old enough for him in Constie years to be out on his own, living and having a job.”
“So, what? He’s a plant?”
“That seems likely. Someone wasn’t careful. And the humans who checked through his records, probably the company who did the check, and the person who falsified this record, didn’t spot the error because they’re most likely all humans who just didn’t think too hard. It doesn’t say his age. Just his date of birth.”
Holly almost tripped, thinking about all the problems Yohab could be causing at the school, and knowing she’d just about not caught him.
“Anything on the woman?”
“Not so far. But don’t get comfortable. Both of them could be a plant. Probably just the one, but if Voss is as much a mastermind as everyone thinks, especially Shiro, then she’d be careful covering her bases.”
“Shit,” Holly swore.
“I know, but hey, look, we at least caught Yohab before he had a chance to find out what the school’s next move is.”
“No, someone’s following me, Darius. And it’s not Odeon.”
12
“I’m on my way, Holly Drake,” Odeon’s voice entered the channel.
“Get here fast. I only see one so far.”
But as she spoke, another man entered through the car ahead of her. It was a terrible location for a fight. They must have assumed that it’d be an easy battle—they’d just take her and bind her and stuff her in a cabin and lock the cabin. Problem solved.
Holly clenched her jaw. She was never that easy to solve. Their mistake.
She unclipped her aether whip and turned it on. The glowing, aetheric strand fell to the carpet in a tumble of violet color.
She’d had a lot of practice at this point using her whip in small corridors. And she’d found occasion to practice since the fight on the zeppelin when she’d gone after the galactic orrery.
“There’s two, Odeon. One car away from the car with our cabin in it. Could be more on their way. Shadow Coalition,” she said.
He grunted in acknowledgment. She imagined him running for her, discreetly, trying not to draw attention.
Ahead of her, a cabin opened and someone came out. Holly’s hopes fell, thinking it was another SC henchman. An older, weathered face peered out from beneath a mop of gray hair. Someone on the SC team? A vicious older woman? Did they really—but the woman glanced down the corridor, saw Holly and the thug, then looked the other way, and retreated back into her cabin.
“Good move,” Holly said loudly. “Stay out of the way. I’ll take care of these dorks.”
Ridiculing the enemy was a move she’d recently adopted. These fools were total assholes, and Voss as their new leader seemed to have prompted them to strive for new heights in their brutal actions.
She hoped innocent bystanders didn’t get hurt today.
“What a pretty toy. Dumb, but you know, I like the color,” the henchman ahead of her said—a short human with a shaved head and tattoos on his cheeks.
One of the tattoos suggested he was almost going for the standard Constellation look, the red tattoo of a chosen profession. Maybe a gun? Too hard see. But it was a ridiculous tattoo and Holly could use that. Really play on his move to look like a Constie.
“Human or Constie? I can’t tell, Baldy. If you’re going for Constie, you’re the ugliest Constellation I’ve ever seen. But then again, an ugly human would also be ugly as any other race.” She flicked her whip and grinned.
Both men had closed the distance.
Holly flipped her whip toward Baldy, trying to get it around his ankles to trip him.
He jumped and the whip came swirling back, the violet glow turning the red carpet a magenta hue.
Holly spun and sent the whip at the other SC goon.
The sudden move caught this one off guard. The violet coil twisted around his calf and Holly yanked hard, timing it so that he landed on his ass with a loud bang.
He was taller, but not by much. Human as well, with a crooked nose that had clearly been broken too many times. As he fell, Holly noticed that his ears were also misshapen, full of lumps and bumps. Cauliflower ear. He must have been a fighter or a wrestler.
That probably meant that his speciality was hand-to-hand, so Holly needed to be careful to not let him get too close. That was usually true for her anyway, when she was fighting, and especially when she was fighting males.
But the fact that he was clearly a hand-to-hand fighter meant she’d be taken out quicker than normal if he got too close.
She relaxed the whip and shook it, till the coil came free, and then turned back to face Baldy. She flicked her wrist, aiming for his torso. There was no time to worry about mortal injuries to these brutes—they’d of course not be careful with her if they got their hands on her.
She sprang the release as she did it and the knife sailed out of her sleeve, the dull metal flashing in the sconce-lighting illuminating the corridor. The cabin had darkened significantly as a new storm front bore down outside.
Baldy’s eyebrows rose as he realized what was happening, and he tried to dodge, but it was too late. The knife soared quickly and planted itself in his side, well away from any major organs. But at least it hit him.
“Bitch,” he groaned, hissing at the pain. His hand clenched around the knife. He wore a coat, so it was difficult to say how much it got him.
She hoped enough that he didn’t simply yank it out and throw it back at her. He raised his other hand, which suddenly had an aether gun in it.
Shit.
Holly cocked her arm and flicked her whip, hoping to snag the weapon before he could use it.
But she was too late. She hit the deck as a blossom of aether energy passed overhead, crackling and hissing with power.
“You idiot,” the other thug cried.
“He must not like you,” Holly said to Broken Nose, scrambling to her feet.
“Ya bastard! Don’t use the gun when I’m right here. Are you really that stupid?” Broken Nose shouted.
“It’s not news to you that I don’t give a shit about you, especially not when the whore buried a knife in me,” Baldy said, shooting again.
Holly crashed to the floor once more. Before he could pull the trigger again, Holly grabbed the Equalizer from her holster and aimed in one motion. The projectile she unleashed blasted him in the knee. He screeched and fell to the ground, uttering a string of curses, invoking every devil and demon he could apparently think of.
Which was only three.
Dumb brute.
“She’s got a gun too!” he whined between hissing intakes of breath. “Magna only told us of the idiotic whip.”
Holly felt hands grab her from behind. The breath left her body involuntarily. Broken Nose was crushing her. Her fingers relaxed against her will and the Equalizer fell from her hand. No.
They were Magna’s henchman, which meant they were Voss’s, but Magna was dangerous. Perhaps more terrible than Voss herself.
But Holly knew that Magna didn’t want to have Holly’s blood on her hands. She’d said as much on the zeppelin before it fell into Ixion’s gravity well.
Stars dotted her vision as Broken Nose crushed her body against his large chest, squeezing the life out of her.
She struggled against him, but that wasn’t working.
Holly screamed against her instincts and forced herself to relax, to go limp. That might be her last chance.
She managed, completely relaxing and turning into a rag doll in his arms.
He moved to lay her down, saying to Baldy, “You Ok? Not that I care. Since you tried to kill me.”
“I didn’t try to kill you, moron,” Baldy said, still hissing and whinging like a complete wimp.
Broken Nose went for the Equalizer, but Holly snagged it before he could get it and blasted him in the knee.
Knees were her specialty.
He almost fell on top of her, but she rolled away.
“Dirty bitch,” he shrieked.
“You guys need to expand your vocabularies. There are other insults for women. And some that work for men, work on us too. Get creative.” Holly rolled to her feet. Her body whined at her as she moved, but she pushed through it.
Odeon barreled through the door to the train car just then, his eyes full of alarm. He surveyed the scene and the panic disappeared. He held his Ousaba at the ready as he hurried close to her. Without even pausing, he conked Broken Nose in the head with one end of the club, knocking the thug out.
“Get the other one too, please,” Holly said to Odeon, walking toward Baldy, keeping the aether gun aimed at him.
“Come on, just tie me up. I don’t need to be knocked out.”
“We will be tying you up,” Holly said. “But I’m also throwing you off the train. And I think you’ll enjoy the trip better knocked out. Limp and all that.”
He began cursing. Holly took off her coat slowly, keeping the gun in one hand the whole time. Then she took off her long sleeve shirt.
“Do it and Magna will make you pay,” Baldy said, watching her warily.
She was, admittedly, doing something weird. Removing a shirt one handed wasn’t easy, but Holly had done it as often as she’d practiced removing a bra without taking off her shirt—so she managed. She stood there in her athletic bra and handed the shirt to Odeon. “Use the sleeves to tie his wrists up.”
Odeon took the shirt and bound Baldy’s wrists with the sleeves.
“Magna’s not going to like this. She’ll make you regret throwing me off the train.” He genuinely seemed worried about being thrown from a speeding train. Maybe it was a bad idea. But chasing Holly and Odeon down was also a bad idea, and yet he’d done it. Seemed like a fair outcome.
“Will she? Where is Magna? Coming after me was a bad idea. But you did it anyway. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Or at least, I don’t know, get thrown from a speeding train after you try to kill someone.”
“As though I’d tell you where Magna is, bitch. Did I kill you? You look alive to me.” He leered at her chest.
“Clever. If Magna’s listening, let her know that if she screws with me any more, I won’t be merciful.”
The goon laughed. “That’s it? I’m sure she’ll be scared to hear that.”
Holly smiled, crouched down, and used the butt of the aether gun to knock him out.
“Ow,” he said. “Jesus Christ. You ever knock anyone out before?”
“Hmm. Guess not. Well, you’ll have a headache, I’m afraid, and two bumps. But at least you won’t be dead.”
“Two bumps?” he asked, confused.
Odeon moved her gently out of the way and hit him in the head with his Ousaba.
“You’re both idiots,” Baldy said, wincing.
“You must have an extra hard skull. Once more, Odeon, this time harder. Third time’s a charm.”
He did it, and finally the idiot went limp.
Odeon gave her a look. The glow of his multi-hued eyes heavy with accusation.
“Really, Holly? We’re going to throw them off the train?”
“They can’t know where we’re going.”
“They already know.”
“That’s true. But this train makes many stops. Maybe they only know it’s going north. And I’m willing to bank on that, Odeon. No more taking chances with this stuff.”
The Yasoan shook his head, the set of his mouth telling her everything she needed to know—he wouldn’t let her throw the goons from the train.
At least not yet.
13
Much to Holly’s chagrin—and perhaps she could admit, for the better—Odeon convinced her to only throw the SC goons off the train once the train had slowed, just before a stop outside a small town.
Odeon was probably right ab
out the method, about not being too cold-blooded. There were times when Holly was tired of being nice, of taking hits but never fighting back hard enough to ensure that she wasn’t a target again.
But. It wasn’t like her to want to kick someone when they were down, even if they’d tried to hurt her.
They’d returned to their cabin afterwards, having only been caught by one concerned passenger, who they bought into silence with Holly’s spending novas.
“I’m broke now, Odeon. You’ll have to pay for everything.”
“I would anyway, Holly.”
“But now it’s a requirement. Takes some of the fun out of it, doesn’t it?” She was still quivering with adrenaline from the fight and the anxiety of hauling the men to the pass-through between train cars. Guilt ate at her peace. She wasn’t impervious to it, which was probably a good thing. It reminded her that her actions were that of a hardened criminal. A person without a conscience.
She was doing it for the kids. That had to count for something.
“You’re getting too hard, Holly Drake. I’m worried about you.”
Hearing that awoke something in her. More regret. Remorse. And the fear that she was turning into her father.
She played it off. She avoided her friend’s gaze, but felt his eyes on her.
“I’m soft as ever, Odeon. Feel my arm. Well, my arm is actually a bit wiry and full of lean muscle. I can’t actually have you touching the soft parts, the parts that would prove it.”
“Get a room,” Darius said, over the comms.
Holly started. The comms were still on. “We did!”
He was constantly popping in at the worst moments. Holly tapped her ear to turn off her mic and then pulled her communicator out of her pocket. She switched it off.
Odeon smiled at her. “Darius wants to know where you went.”
“He’s always ruining all the moments. Tell him that.”
Odeon turned off his as well. They sat inside their cabin, waiting the rest of the train ride out sequestered in there. Holly had already engaged in enough fights for one day. If more of Magna’s goons were stalking them on the train, she wasn’t ready to find out in another narrow passageway.
The Colossus Collection : A Space Opera Adventure (Books 1-7 + Bonus Material) Page 133
