by Martha Carr
“Cheyenne.”
“What?” She shifted her weight onto one hip and widened her eyes at him.
“Let’s talk about this somewhere else. Where it’s safe.”
“Fine.” Cheyenne gestured toward the couch in the living room. “The leg thing’s over there.”
Corian moved in a light-brown blur. The next second, Cheyenne’s hair scattered away from her face. The folded paper in the trashcan fluttered in the breeze of the nightstalker’s return. He lifted the black metal bar and nodded at the oval of black light hovering midair behind him. “Let’s go.”
“Yep.” She brushed past him, stepped through his portal, and found herself for the second time today standing in front of Persh’al’s open-ended square of computer tables. Glancing down at her feet, she frowned. “Did you run out of candles?”
“No, I ran out of warding stones.” The portal closed behind Corian as he stopped beside her. “Candles are the next best thing, and that’s all I had on me at the time. Apparently, Byrd’s been growing quite the collection.”
Leaning against the left end of the closest six-foot table, Byrd cocked his head with a little shrug. “They make me feel safe. Maybe we should’ve lined your pockets with them, huh?”
“I was safe,” Cheyenne muttered. “Still am.”
“You’re safe here because we have the right tools at our disposal.” Corian nodded at the ring of glistening stones of every color and rough, unsanded cut encircling them. “You were relatively safe before you gave that machine everything it needed to track you down and make the Crown’s objective a hell of a lot easier to reach.”
“Okay, first, how the hell was I supposed to know that trackers work with magic, too? Those canisters or whatever that you took from the smuggled crates worked with blood. Everything else works with blood. I haven’t been doing this for centuries, which you know. If you want me to make sure I don’t go handing out my personal calling card to everything that attacks me, you should’ve told me that was possible.”
Sitting in his executive office chair in front of his monitors, Persh’al scratched his head beside the neon-orange mohawk. Then he spun in his chair and met Cheyenne’s gaze. “We screwed up on that one, kid.”
“Yeah, you did.”
Corian frowned at her, clenching his jaw. “You’re not the only one who’s allowed to make mistakes.”
The halfling folded her arms and met his gaze. “I’m fine with that as long as you guys stop acting like you don’t ever make any.”
“Until you came into the picture, we didn’t.”
“See, that’s the opposite of what I just said.”
Persh’al lifted a finger and waited for the half-drow and the nightstalker to turn their scathing glares on him. “I just wanna remind everybody that what’s happening right now is new territory. L’zar’s kid passed the trials. Portals are popping up like daisies in the fall, which isn’t a thing anyway. And we’ve got O’gúl tech up and running and pursuing an objective before we can figure out how the hell that’s possible or how to stop it. There’s more than enough room for mistakes when we have no idea what we’re doing, but a really big one would be to keep standing there blaming each other for what’s already done. Right?”
Neither of them said a word.
“Oh, come on. Right?”
Cheyenne shot Corian a sidelong glance and slipped out of her drow form, feeling the heat of her magic drain slowly into the base of her spine. Then she pulled her gaze away to study the opposite side of the warehouse and shrugged. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“Corian.”
The nightstalker stared at the open iron beams of the ceiling and raised his eyebrows. “Everybody makes mistakes.”
“I’m gonna take that as consent, and I don’t give a shit if you like it or not. So let’s move on and quit treating this like it’s the end of the world.”
Byrd snorted. “It might be.”
“You’re not helping, goblin.” Persh’al pointed at him and raised a warning eyebrow. “Bright side is now we know at least one of those machines was already up and running and looking for something, presumably Cheyenne. If that’s the case, we need to figure out how the hell its programmer knew to send a piece of obsolete tech after her without using any kind of magical tracker first.”
“Not obsolete anymore.” Cheyenne stepped out of the ring of stones and gestured toward the war machine’s broken leg dangling from Corian’s hand. “I figured bringing something back that’s been activated might help.”
Persh’al’s eyes widened. “From Peridosh?”
“I seriously hope I wasn’t supposed to fight off another one of those things somewhere else.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the strange, almost S-shaped metal cog. “And this.”
The blue troll caught it easily when she tossed it at him. Squinting at the metal piece, he sucked in a long, hissing breath. “I’m gonna need some time to pick these apart. If there’s any stored memory, I should be able to find it. I can run it through a human system, but the O’gúl analysis will take some time.”
“Complicated language, huh?”
Persh’al looked at Cheyenne, and his squint deepened when he grimaced. “Not really. I just have to do all the comparisons by hand.”
“Ew.”
“Tell me about it.”
Corian stalked across the warehouse, dropping the black metal bar on the table with a clang as he passed it. “In the meantime, we’ll dig around for our own information. Who knows? That might be faster.”
“Sweet. Time for round three.” Byrd straightened and rubbed his hands together.
“Of what?” Cheyenne watched the goblin move around to the other side of Persh’al’s square before she followed him.
Persh’al cleared his throat and rolled his chair toward his monitor and keyboard. When the halfling shot him a curious glance, he shook his head and dove into his system.
Byrd stopped at the warehouse’s thick steel door leading to the back of the property and shoved it open. “We’re tryin’ again!”
“Already?” Lumil shouted from outside. “Didn’t think he had it in him.”
“He might not.” Byrd chuckled and opened the door wider as Lumil stepped inside. “But Cheyenne’s here.”
“Oh, hey.” The goblin woman jerked her chin at the halfling, wiping slightly damp hands on her pant legs. “What’s up, kid?”
“I’m waiting for someone to tell me.”
Lumil ignored her and eyed Corian instead, who was busy opening another portal in the center of the warehouse. “How does L’zar’s kid showing up make the lizard head more willing to talk?”
Byrd sniggered. “I mean, look at her!”
The goblin woman looked Cheyenne up and down and smirked. “Yeah, she’s pretty terrifying. You’ve done this before, right? I thought I heard you mention something about that.”
Glancing at the portal quickly opening in front of Corian, Cheyenne shrugged. “I need somebody to tell me what you’re talking about before I can answer that.”
“Persuasion, kid.” Byrd smashed his fist into the other palm. “A direct and intentional line of questioning.”
Lumil leaned away from her counterpart and shot him a mocking frown. “Interrogation. The physical kind.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there once or twice.” Didn’t take much to make Durg squeal. Good thing he did. “You guys still have that scaly guy locked up somewhere?”
“Damn straight, we do.” Byrd marched toward the center of the warehouse, where Corian’s portal had now opened fully into whatever room lay beyond. “We spent twelve hours straight huntin’ this asshole down. No way is he gettin’ turned loose anytime soon.”
“Has he said anything else?”
“Eh.” Lumil wrinkled her nose and wiggled her hand back and forth. “He started mumbling two hours in last time. If he said anything, it was pretty fuckin’ indecipherable.”
Cheyenne slowly joined them behind Corian, peering aro
und the edge of the open portal for a better look. “He didn’t look so great this morning, either.”
“Oh, he wasn’t.” Lumil chuckled. “Hey, let me know if he looks worse or the same, huh? It’s hard for me to tell. You spend all day bashing a guy’s face in, and everything tends to kinda run together.”
Corian looked slowly over his shoulder and fixed the goblin woman with his glowing silver eyes. “I understand your particular brand of humor, Lumil, but I don’t enjoy it. This isn’t a game.”
Lumil’s lips curled in a tight, humorless smile. “Don’t talk down to me, nightstalker. I know exactly what this is.”
“I know you do. Just try not to look like you enjoy it so much.”
Corian glanced at Cheyenne and gestured at the open portal. “This is where we try to figure out how tonight happened. You gonna have a problem with this?”
Pressing her lips together, the halfling shook her head. “Nope.”
“Then let’s wake him up.” Corian stepped through the portal, followed quickly by Byrd, who rubbed his hands together vigorously and chuckled through his nose.
“After you, kid.” Lumil nodded at the portal and flexed her hands. “I’m still warming up.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The portal took them into some kind of basement with a cement floor, ceiling, and all four walls. The room was empty except for the blood-splattered office chair with an equally stained coil of rope hanging limply over the armrests, a bright and unfiltered lightbulb dangling overhead, and two sets of iron manacles attached to brackets in the cement walls by sturdy iron chains. Those manacles were closed around the silver-scaled magical’s wrists and ankles. He sat relatively upright against the wall, though his arms dangled six inches above either side of his head, which slumped all the way forward so his chin touched his chest.
“Go ahead,” Corian muttered, staring at their unconscious prisoner.
“Oh, yeah.” Byrd stepped forward and squatted in front of the scaly magical, then reached into the inside pocket of his dark-brown vest and pulled out a handful of dried leaves. They crunched loudly when he squeezed the bundle in both fists. He slowly opened his hands again and waved them under the lizard-man’s nose.
The prisoner gasped and reared back, thumping his head against the cement wall as his eyes flew open.
Byrd blew on his cupped hands, sending the leaves and dust into the other magical’s face.
The lizard-man screamed and jerked against the manacles around his wrists. He was too weak to do more than lash out with his feet when the chains wouldn’t let him go any farther. “You sadistic fuck!”
Spit flew from the lizard-man’s mouth, his blood-red tongue flicking out between rows of tiny sharpened teeth.
Or maybe it’s just a mouthful of blood. Cheyenne shoved her hands into her pockets and studied the O’gúleesh prisoner who was working Earthside for the Crown.
Byrd smirked and stood, dusting the rest of the crushed leaves off his hands as he stepped slowly backward. The lizard-man eyed the puff of dust with wary yellow-green eyes. “You think you’re onto something with that shit? Go ahead, bring in a whole fucking pile and bury me. I’m not telling you shit.”
“The thought did occur to me.” Corian’s voice was low, calm, and controlled, his hands clasped behind his back. The prisoner’s eyes flickered up to settle on the nightstalker’s face. “If I left it up to these two, that’s exactly what they’d be doing right now. Or something equally painful for you, no doubt.”
The magical sniggered. The glistening silver scales around his hooded eyes, thin lips, and flattened nose had taken on a sickly green hue. “Next you’re gonna tell me I’m lucky you stopped them ‘cause you’re the one calling the shots around here. But you ain’t.”
Corian’s nose wrinkled in response.
Cheyenne pressed her lips together. He’s more upset about the poor grammar.
His prisoner couldn’t tell the difference. “Yeah. I see right through you. Marchin’ in here like you’re the big feline in charge of how this is all gonna play out. Everybody in this dark little room knows it’s bullshit. I saw him with my own eyes. L’zar’s sittin’ at the head of this table, and next to him, you’re a fucking housecat.”
Corian turned slowly to look at Lumil and Byrd. “Well, at least he’s talking again.”
“I guess.” Lumil raised her clenched fists at her sides, and the bright-red spinning symbols of her magic flared to life around them. “Let’s skip to the part where he tells us something we don’t already know.”
The lizard-man’s bloody sneer faded as his reptilian eyes flickered between the goblin woman and the nightstalker. “Nothin’ you can do to make me talk, bitch.”
“Not when you’re lucid.” Lumil stepped toward him. “But hey, no one expects you to remember squealin’ your head off like a little piggy when you’re in that much pain.”
His gaze dropped to the spinning, sparking symbols swirling like circular saws around her fists. “You’re lying.”
“There’s only one way to find out, right?”
“And there’s only one way to make this easier on yourself,” Corian added.
Cheyenne glanced at him. I wonder how long it’s been since they had to play this good-magical, bad-magical crap. Seems a little rusty.
The lizard-man snorted. A layer of pink foam had gathered at the corners of his mouth and around his nostrils. More of it sprayed out in front of him as his breath quickened. Despite his valid fear of Lumil’s fists, his scaly upper lip lifted in a twitching snarl. “If you’d already made me talk, you wouldn’t be back in here to try again.”
“Under the previous circumstances, sure.” Corian dipped his head. “You would have called our bluff. But circumstances have changed in the last few hours, Lex, and we’re not bluffing.”
Lex lifted his chin and thumped his head against the wall, glaring up at the nightstalker. “What circumstances?”
“We know about your personal cache of machine parts, and I imagine the team we sent out to collect your things will be returning from that little errand shortly. In the meantime, we’ve discovered another little problem we’re really hoping you can clear up for us.” Corian gestured at Cheyenne without taking his eyes off the scaly prisoner.
With a sputtering hiss, Lex looked her up and down and cocked his head. “A human. That’s your problem?” He let out a weak laugh and smacked his lips. “Listen, I don’t know what you heard about my expertise, but you’re outta luck with this one. I can’t fix ugly.”
“Oh, man.” Byrd shook his head with a low chuckle. For once, Lumil didn’t try to smack him out of it.
Cheyenne blinked, wiping her face clean of any expression. I can play this game, no problem. “Wish I could say the same.”
“Oh, yeah? You think your tiny white human hands are gonna do more damage than the goblin’s whirly fists?”
“Nope.” It only took a second’s thought about the Nimlothar seed still connecting her to the root of drow power to pull all her magic up from the base of her spine to race through her body. Byrd and Lumil stepped nimbly away from her. When the purple light flashing behind Cheyenne’s golden eyes reflected in the shimmering silver scales covering Lex’s face, she knew it had the desired effect. She lifted both hands and summoned twin orbs of churning black magic hissing with purple sparks. “But these will.”
The prisoner’s yellow-green gaze darted from the drow halfling’s purple-gray face to the devastating attack spells roiling in her palms. Then he glanced quickly at Byrd, Lumil, and Corian in turn. A thin, stuttering wheeze burst from between his thin lips.
He’s laughing.
“You found the mór úcare. Sneaky fell-damn bastard.”
“I barely had to lift a finger.” Corian took a step forward, eliciting a subtle flinch from Lex. “She wants this as badly as the rest of us do, if not more. I’m sure you understand why.”
“She’s an idiot. So are you.”
Corian’s eyes narro
wed.
Cheyenne started to step forward, but Lumil beat her to it. The goblin woman moved so quickly, Lex didn’t see it coming. She dropped to one knee in a slide and landed a bone-crunching left hook to the underside of the prisoner’s jaw. The perfect aim rocked him sideways instead of back against the wall, red sparks and dark blood flying in all directions. Lumil rode her momentum and gracefully swung her knee off the cement floor before marching toward the opposite side of the cramped room. She bounced once on her toes and circled back around to resume her place on the other side of Cheyenne.
The halfling met the goblin’s gaze and raised her eyebrows. Lumil winked.
“Oh, shit. Look at that.” Byrd pointed across the floor in front of them. Two shimmering silver flakes glinted on the cement. “I didn’t know you could pluck a taratas like a bird.”
Lumil barked a laugh. “Must be losing his integrity. Not like he had any to begin with.”
Cheyenne stared at the thick rivulets of green-black blood running down the right side of Lex’s chin. Where they started were two dark, glistening patches of flesh beneath his missing scales.
The prisoner’s sides heaved as he fought to catch his breath after the blow. Then he pulled enough strength from somewhere to swing his head up and glare at his captors. Even then, his slitted eyes shivered in their sockets while his head wobbled.
“That was just to get your attention, Lex. Time for you to listen.” Corian stepped across the room, casting his lengthening shadow over the bleeding, swaying prisoner. He dropped into a squat in one fluid movement and cocked his head, leaning close. “That drow behind me met one of your little toys tonight. Took her less than a minute to crush it to pieces, some of which she brought with her.”
