Halfblood Journey
Page 34
Temper said, “Summer, get paper and something to draw with.” Summer ran to the front of the truck.
“Listen!” It was telling her to hurry, hurry, hurry. “Behind the shield was the man with the bow. A blue bow, no, the arrows were blue. He shot the woman and the son and tried to get the dragon, but missed, or it wasn’t enough to kill the dragon. Then the dragon killed them both with his fire.” She stopped and looked at them expectantly. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Jin asked.
“The dragon’s family is going to be killed!”
“We don’t know any dragons, Mercy,” Jin said and looked around, but Temper and Ian were merely thinking hard. “Do we?”
Ian said, “The dragon is a person...but who?”
Summer came up with a green receipt and a pencil. “Here,” she said, handing them to Temper.
“Draw the shield, the triangle and the corn,” Temper said, handing them over to Mercy.
“Here,” she drew as well as she could with the urge to run in her legs. A triangle, equal on all sides with a tall cornstalk with one ear of corn in the center. “And here’s the dragon,” She tried to draw one, but it didn’t look right and she scribbled it out. Then in another corner, she drew a different one, but it wasn’t right either. She was getting so frustrated. She flipped the paper over and tried to find a spot to draw on, and there it was in the corner: the dragon. “That’s it!”
“What?”
“It’s him, the dragon, the red dragon.”
Ian read the name next to the business’s logo, “Jordan Industries.”
Temper said, “This is but one of several companies that use the dragon as their logo. It is a common symbol; in the distant past, it was the symbol for all Kin. If I may?” She flipped the paper over and examined her first drawing. “This one, however, is not as common. This is the logo used by the Nathan Corporation, a very large and successful farming industry leader.”
“Great!” Mercy said. The urge to move was like a nest of bees buzzing inside of her. “We can use that, right? To find out who the dragon is...someone with a wife and a son.”
“Mercy,” Summer explained, exasperated, “we are the Kin. Nearly all have a wife and children.”
“No! The dragon only has one child, one son. That’s why he suffers!” She couldn’t believe that they were so slow to see the immediate need to act.
“I can make inquiries,” Temper said, “but I will need to leave this location to do it, or our position will become known. Regardless, they will know I am in The Capital, unless I go to the Scere's records and information division to access it. Even there, it will be difficult to enter and move unseen.”
Ian nodded, asking, “Mercy, honey, are you sure? We are going to compromise ourselves if we do anything...”
Her mouth clamped shut and her eyes bulged and she practically screamed at him, If we don’t do anything, they will be murdered and the dragon told me to go NOW! To make her point, she sent him the image she had seen when she floated above them: the mourning dragon and two still forms.
“Right,” he said, breaking away from her and standing, keeping his arm around her as if he were afraid she was going to run off. He said to Temper, “If you think you can find out who the victims will be, we want you to go. Mercy thinks it will happen very soon, so you must hurry, if you can.”
Temper said, walking with them back to the building, “I will. I think, with the aid of some excellent research analysts I am acquainted with, I can perhaps find our mother and son. These visions...they can be...peculiar.”
“Yes, they are often unreliable and confusing. Usually, if she is not involved, just a witness, she feels compelled to do something.”
Temper asked as she gathered her things, “What will you do?”
“We are waiting here,” and he emphasized the word 'here' by giving his daughter a forceful stare, “until Scythe returns.”
“Good. However, since the truck is not something that I can take without drawing attention, I still lack transportation. Perhaps I could take the car in the garage?”
They had discovered a small car in Scythe’s storage garage when they were unpacking the truck and, after finding the keys in one of the toolbox drawers, Ian saw her off. Then he went back inside to stand by Mercy who was looking out a large window.
“It is difficult…” she said. “I know...I know we have to stay. We can’t mess up everything by running off. I know that, but it is difficult to do nothing.” The chant had matched itself up with her heart now, insisting with every beat: hur-ry...hur-ry...hur-ry.
“I know, but we have a few other things going on right now, and there are people and a couple of visions that we are trying to avoid.”
She knew he was right, but...she just didn’t care about that at the moment.
Hur-ry...hur-ry…
Lives in their hands, lives that would be lost...And, not just two lives. She had felt it when his cry was at its pinnacle. He had wanted to take one of the blue arrows and shove it into his own body. Every tiny piece of her soul yearned to find them and wrap her shield around them and keep them safe, because if she didn’t, there would be three bodies lying still in a field of sparkling glass.
[encoder enabled]
[verifying]
[falcon program initiated]
[verifying]
[red eye enabled]
[verifying]
[host id: scy241]
[negotiating connection]
[guest id: aor179]
[host]: someone will meet you today_have the data ready<
[guest]: where q<
[disconnected]
“I need to ask a favor,” Scythe said when they were on the road.
“It would be my honor…”
“Listen, first, before you agree.” Scythe explained what he needed Heron to do.
When he was done, he waited for an answer.
Five heartbeats later, “It would be my honor.”
“I thank you. Do you think your family will approve of it?”
“Not in this manifestation of Horah’s Will, but I will find a way.”
Scythe nodded.
Ten minutes later, they turned onto a smaller street, slowing the bike to a crawl.
There was an old cart pushed up and apparently abandoned along the wall. Scythe looked down the street at the signs that hung outside of a few low end shops and turned the bike around. They inched back the way they had come until they reached an alley, which Scythe took them into. He looked around, gauging distances…
“What are you looking for?” Heron asked.
“An answer to a really big problem.” He took them to where the alley ran into the opposite street and parked the motorcycle. “Can you wait here?”
“Sure,” Heron said, looking around at what was a very old, run down area of the city, although it was not as bad as some sections they had ridden through to get there. He had never noticed before that there were parts of the Capital that resembled a bordertown. Of course, he’d never had a point of reference before, either.
Scythe nodded, pulled out a small handheld display, checked it quickly, and returned it to his pocket before he entered the door to the building on their right.
Heron slid forward, turned on the bike, and studied the different displays, pedals and switches.
He looked up when Scythe poked his head out a few windows at the upper levels, looking down at the alley below with a frown. A few minutes later, he came out and crossed over to the second building that formed the alley. Then, he disappeared altogether for several minutes.
“Hey!” The voice startled him from behind and he nearly slid off the seat spinning around to see who it was. Two rough looking men were walking toward him from the corner. His first reaction was relief that it wasn’t Scythe, angry at him for fiddling with the bike.
Heron reached over, powered down the bike and got off of it. “Yes?”
“That your bike?”
“No.”
>
They stopped right in front of him. The bulky Kin who had been speaking smiled, “Good answer.”
“He’s way smarter than the last guy,” his friend said to him.
“You know what your reward is for a good answer? You get to keep your face in one piece. You need to run along, now,” Bulky said, disregarding Heron and stepping up to and running his hands over the seat while he checked out the panel. “This is the mother lode! It’s...this is the newest model...”
“Hell, yeah!”
“Excuse me...” Heron started.
“Damn! Look at this!” Bulky had turned on the ignition and was now tapping the displays.
“You still here?” the other man said, turning to Heron. “Too bad.” He tried a quick punch, but completely missed. “Huh?”
Heron snagged his leg with a low kick that hooked him and sent him sprawling. Then he followed him down, with a knee to the chest that punched the air out of his lungs. Heron had a bad habit that included a nasty punch to the face with that move; shaking off his fist, he thought that it might not be such a terrible habit after all.
“Ugh!” Brokenribs’s eyes bulged and he tried to suck back in even the tiniest bit of air. Making things harder for him was the amount of blood that had begun pouring down over his face.
Hearing the crunch behind him, Heron sprung forward and pivoted to see Bulky narrowing his eyes at him. He kicked his friend, saying disgustedly, “Get up, shithead. You look like an ass.” Then he pulled out a knife, watching Heron’s reaction closely. He didn’t like it much. “So, not afraid of a knife?”
“Not if you’ve got just the one, no. Also, there is the matter of my friend behind you.”
“Don’t give me that bull…”
“Get your friend and go,” Scythe said, walking down the alley toward them at a steady, rapid pace. Gone was his casual manner and in its place was...Heron’s eyes widened at the change in his demeanor and his heart sped up, even though he knew that he wasn’t the object of the halfblood’s attention. He decided right then that he never wanted to be on the other side of that look. Even though Scythe had told Bulky to go, there was something lethal in his eyes that said he would rather the man stayed. Eager...that’s what it was.
Bulky turned his head, and then quickly turned all the way around to face Scythe, who was closing in faster than he was comfortable with.
“Holy…” Taking in the way he carried himself, his face, the look on his face, and the gear visible to him, which included several blades as well as a few less civilized weapons, Bulky said, “Okay, all right. We’re going. Just a minute.” He turned and hunched over his friend who had caught his breath but was cradling his broken nose and having trouble rolling onto his side.
Scythe didn’t slow down and soon he was coming up right behind Bulky, who, with a fast glance over his shoulder, ditched Brokenribs and ran back the way he had come.
“That was a clean piece of self defense, doctor,” Scythe said appreciatively. “Ribs?”
“Yeah, I think I fractured two, at least.”
“That is gonna hurt. Let’s go.”
“Are we just going to leave him?”
“His friend may come back for him,” Scythe said, unconcerned. He checked over the motorcycle and got on. Heron accepted the offered helmet and took his place behind him.
“Two more stops,” Scythe said. “Try not to beat up any more people.”
Heron didn’t make any promises. He never knew what was going to happen anymore.
[encoder enabled]
[verifying]
[falcon program initiated]
[verifying]
[red eye enabled]
[verifying]
[host id: scy241]
[negotiating connection]
[guest id: ano775]
[host]: have dropped a list_please handle asap<
[disconnected]
Chapter 21
“Yes, very powerful, and with gifts I believe you could use,” she said.
“I see. I’m surprised you came in, as your report isn’t due yet,” he commented.
“Please excuse my abrupt manner, but it is scheduled for immediate submission. I have just been contacted for reassignment.
He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. Finally, he said, looking down at the information she had given him, “In Quo Ire?”
“Yes. Acquisition should not be difficult for someone with your resources, but getting the Human to cooperate may be troublesome, and you will definitely have problems with Agent Scythe if you try to recruit.”
“He has not interfered with us since he joined the Hedeler. The most he has ever done is refused to take an assignment, but that is a result of your leniency.”
“He is involved here and will oppose it.”
“Involved?”
“It is a matter involving his okin.”
He sat back, eyes wide. “Okin? He is a sotrimir.” The dirty word lingered in the air for a moment. He could have chosen a more polite word for orphan, but in Scythe’s case, he felt that the one he had spoken was the most appropriate: unattached, unwanted, unclean.
She swept the word away with her clear voice, “No longer.”
He considered the revelation for a moment. Scythe’s lack of ties was what made him such a good agent, the only positive aspect to his otherwise perverse life. He would go anywhere, stay in the field for months at a time, risk himself without reservation, all of which was possible because he had no responsibility to others. To the Kin, it was disturbing: he had no one to return to and no one to care if he never returned. For the Scere, however, it was ideal. Being the member of an okin...would complicate things.
Finally, he sat up and announced firmly, “It doesn’t matter. There is no opposing the Scere.”
“No,” she agreed.
“Then, we will act on your counsel, Watcher.”
Chapter 22
A1: got it tnx hw lng til t nxt
L1: jst strtd mayb 1.5 hrs
A1: try 2 xpedit
L1: on it
Aorin dragged the file into her virtual work area. She opened it up and read the summary and then scanned the raw data, just in case anything struck her. Another dead end. She pulled up her ongoing case file, located the entry for that particular search, and updated the information. Looking down the list, she frowned at the number of [unable to locate] comments there were. She returned the file to its slot and went back to her earlier task, glancing at the corner of her screen first.
Four searches had been ongoing in the background for the last handful of days while she worked. The small boxes in the corner displayed the progress of each one with tiny moving icons. She had been in a quirky mood the afternoon she started them, probably from lack of sleep and an overabundance of jelly bears, and had chosen animal characters for the icons: a dancing bear (a tribute to her fruity snacks), a flipping fish, a panda doing a little dance, and a frog catching a fly with its tongue. Each time the search found a match, the icon would signal her and she would stop what she was doing to see what her little animal friend had found.
They hadn’t been signaling her today, so she was in a different kind of mood, one that should have had her colleagues tiptoeing around her. Unfortunately, they were very bad at it. Along the bottom of her display, the running text which was designed to streamline their communications was being misused.
J4: se gt hr jely meth q
H2: x t stor wz clsd lst nyt
L1: Jely meth g 1
J4: x wa wel tht xplains t
L1: sh jst cnt bear 2b w o thm
J4: k thts jst sad
H2: kfune
Aorin rolled her eyes and entered:
A1: prgrss upd8
J4: shz mad nw im @ 64 pct
H2: 82 pct
L1: 12
J4: losr
L1: wevr im 2 srchz ahd v u
A1: gt on yr 2ndaries
H2: wl do
L1: alrdy on t
J4:
lmst dun wl snd witn 20 mins
L1: showff
She smiled despite herself. She had a very good team. They were among the best, most intuitive researchers that worked for the Scere. If the information was there to be found, they would track it down for her, so she didn’t let a little messing around bother her. For one, as long as she got the results she wanted, she wasn’t concerned with the process; for another, she knew that their job was difficult and people sitting in front of a screen full of data for up to twelve hours a day required moments of release.
However.
Aorin pulled down her search queue, grabbed three and sent one to each of her techs. She knew they were functioning near their limits, and she didn’t want them to blow up from what was a significant work load, but it was good to keep them aware of the amount of work still ahead of them.
H2: job 55 recvd n n q
L1: job 54 recvd