“There,” Amanda said, pointing to a place where the light lensed. “See that?”
“What is that?” Layna asked.
“A kind of puncture between the realms. There’s a stone called the Confluence,” Amanda said. “It does weird things with gravity on our side. I guess it bends the light here.”
“That doesn’t sound safe. What if you’re flying your spaceship and it punctures into empty space?” Layna asked.
Amanda opened her mouth to dismiss the fear but realized that she couldn’t. Hawk was right to want to be rid of them. “Do you know what your uncle planned to do with Sky?”
“No. Sometimes, he and Mom talk about disappearing for a while and coming back as someone new. Uncle Haren doesn’t fight; he hides. He’s never been mean,” Layna said.
“Isn’t he the one who tied you up?” Amanda asked. She could feel the blood oozing down her legs again, and she clenched her thighs. “He tied your wings so tightly, he cut off your circulation.”
“For my own safety,” Layna shrugged. Either she’d bought into his abuse, or he had some psychic power over her. If it was the latter, then he was better at tapping into his spirit’s ability than Sky.
“What if someone else had found you? How would you defend yourself? You weren’t safe with him, Layna. He wasn’t kind to you,” Amanda insisted.
“I’d be alone if it weren’t for him. Or dead,” she said. “Mom doesn’t want me anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Amanda whispered. She felt the same confusion about Galen, and she knew there was no point in pushing the issue. She took Layna’s hand and touched the spot where she thought the Confluence was. The Confluence helped her echo Layna’s ability with greater precision, and they landed in Oriana’s cargo bay. Amanda tapped her Virp. “Morri, I made it back to the ship.”
Morrigan didn’t answer. Amanda rubbed her legs, using the fabric of the inside of her skirt to mop at the blood. She felt a wave of nausea as she tried to stay upright.
Layna ran her fingers over the cargo crate with the Confluence. “It doesn’t glow?” she asked.
“No. It’s a pretty boring rock here,” Amanda said, flipping open the clasps and showing her the stones. “The black rock is moon-slate. The crystal threads are what become the Confluence. It’s kind of the cornerstone for artificial gravity technology.”
Layna picked one up and closed her eyes.
“I need to get cleaned up,” Amanda said. “Do you need anything? Blanket? Bed? Shower?”
“Do you have anything to eat? I don’t know how much longer I get to enjoy food before my face changes. My tongue feels so strange,” Layna said.
“Sure,” Amanda said. The galley was on her way to the shower. “You can try some Terranan vegetables. But don’t eat the carrots. They taste like poison.”
“Then why do you have them?” Layna asked.
“They’re Tray’s favorite,” Amanda replied. She tapped into the ship’s Vring. “Is anyone here? Nolwazi, is anyone else on the ship? Any other crew?”
“There are no crew members on board,” the ship’s computer replied.
“I’m a crew member,” Amanda griped.
“We’re on our way back, Amanda,” Morrigan’s voice finally came through.
“Morri. Is there something here I can take to stop the bleeding?” Amanda asked.
“I set something on your nightstand. Take it before you shower, and the bleeding should stop by the time you dry off,” she replied.
Amanda’s teeth clenched, grateful this would be over soon. “I got drugged by a cookie. I was sedated for an hour or so.”
“You’re welcome to wait. Your condition isn’t fatal. I have two critical patients right now and no idea how we’re going to sneak past the guards at the gate. We may need you to stun some guards,” Morrigan said. Her tone was clipped, as always, but she’d taken the time to respond.
Amanda glanced at Layna and smiled. “I may have another way in.”
31
Jeremiah blinked the stars from his vision and rubbed his sore arm, feeling a bruise from a needle injection. He reached out and a warm cup of tea met his hands, the strong brew rousing him slightly more. Seeing the Prince of Health on the other end of the cup woke him faster than any spicy brew could have.
“What could possibly bring the Prince of Health to my bedroom?” he groaned, plucking the cup from Cyril’s hands and lifting his head just enough to take a sip. “Collette?” he checked, but her pillow was empty. “Is she okay?”
“She drugged you,” Cyril said flatly.
Jeremiah sucked down more of the tea and rubbed the bruise on his arm. She’d dosed him with an elixir that heightened their love making and left him dazed and exhausted. His naked body was covered with love bites, and he pulled the sheet up to cover himself. “No, we were just trying to take our mind off things. She had something called Kan.”
“What about this one? Etna?” Cyril asked, picking up a vial from the table.
“I don’t remember,” Jeremiah grunted, scanning for his underwear. Chief Torrance held his Magistrate robe draped over his arm. “Gene, what happened to your face?”
“Your wife,” he said, touching the fresh stitches on his cheek. “I’m told she smashed a vial of that stuff on me, but I can’t remember.”
“And you wouldn’t. Etna is not approved for your age demographic,” Cyril said. “Magistrate, I think she incapacitated you on purpose because you countered her orders last night.”
“Cyril, please. She wasn’t serious,” Jeremiah grumbled, dropping back to the pillow.
“Then how come she’s mobilizing the city’s army and you’re so dead asleep I had to give you a double dose of antidote and dry,” Cyril challenged, taking Jeremiah’s arm and injecting him with something new. The second drug gave him a surge of jitters, but not alertness, and he wanted more tea.
“Army? Do we still have an army?” Jeremiah asked
“We have three travelers in a cage downstairs. A fourth one is dead. And the remainder have taken a hostage,” Torrance reported. He’d shed every trace of the festivities aside from the green stains on his fingertips.
“Dead? Did that spirit creature attack again?” Jeremiah asked, rolling out of bed.
“It attacked one of the travelers, but her injuries are not life threatening,” Torrance said, covering him with the robe. “That still leaves four more and a hostage.”
“And three in a cage,” Jeremiah said, pulling out fresh clothes to put under the robe. “Why are they in a cage? They’re guests. They should be in a guest room.”
“Because they shot their way out of the guest suite. And it still hurts,” Cyril said, rubbing his shoulder. “The Captain is in need of the antidote. The other two seem… okay.”
“Then give him the antidote and put them in proper quarters,” Jeremiah said. He pulled back the curtains and squinted at the brightness. It was later in the morning than he’d thought.
“It’s a violation of Protocol for you to countermand the Magistrate,” Torrance pointed out. “If I came to you every time I disagreed with one of her decisions, the government would fall apart. The reverse is also true.”
Jeremiah sat on the edge of the bed and Cyril refilled his teacup. He tried to sip slowly this time and savor it, but he was so thirsty. “If Collette attacked you, then her authority is suspended. That is the Protocol.”
Torrance shuddered and ducked his head. “You want me to summon a council of princes and have her removed from power? Magistrate, that cannot be undone.”
Jeremiah felt ill at the realization.
“Ever since her heart attack yesterday, she has been acting erratically. I could put her on medical leave,” Cyril offered.
“She’d have to be present for the examination,” Torrance said.
“Where is she? How is she rallying an army if she’s not present?” Jeremiah asked. When they didn’t answer, he sprang from the bed. “Find her. I want that council of princes on standby, and
I want a council of doctors. She had that traveler throwing premonitions at her head yesterday. She could be under their influence! Which three are in the cage?”
“The two Captains and their pilot,” Torrance answered.
“And they’re… they said they were half siblings—Sir Captain and the cursed one. Maybe her brother knows something about her premonitions. Did you talk to him?”
“I would assume so, but I don’t recall much of the morning,” Torrance said, pointing to his swollen face.
“Has the Prince of Textiles returned to the Palace yet?” Jeremiah asked. “He spoke with them extensively yesterday. He must know we’re looking for them. If he were able, he would have… Is he the hostage you mentioned?” Jeremiah asked. It broke his heart that the one thing that pulled Corin from depression would turn so ugly.
Torrance leaned against the window and rubbed his face again.
“Do you need to lie down, Chief?” Jeremiah offered.
“It would be better if he stayed upright,” Cyril said, pressing a cold compress to Torrance’s face. “From what I understand, the hostage is a young girl. It’s possible they were trying to protect her from the corporeal spirit. We don’t know. The witness seems unreliable.”
“But reliable enough. Cages don’t magically appear in my Palace. The Magistrate has people on her side who agree with what she is doing,” Jeremiah said. “Alert the Prince of Law. Finding the Magistrate is his top priority. And Corin. Find my family.”
Collette shed her Magistrate robes and ran through the city, going full speed despite the ache in her chest telling her to slow down. The Lilac River seemed to beckon her closer, but she was on a mission to find her son and the man responsible for his death. She would use the head of Douglas Hwan as a threat against the other travelers.
She slowed when she saw a clump of emergency responders. If she’d been on her regular morning run with her husband, they would not have hesitated to stop and help. Blood stained the grass, and Officer Belgard lay on a stretcher, the bleeding stump of his hand wrapped in a bandage. The Prince of Wildlife stood over a six-foot long, tranquilized gator, and ran a scanner over the belly. It was the standard procedure when there might be human remains.
Then she saw an obnoxiously striped bloody shirt on the ground. Corin’s shirt. Collette went cold as the realization hit her. She’d sent an anti-Fotri vigilante after her son. He’d fed her son to a gator!
“Where is Corin?” Collette demanded, stalking to the stretcher. “What did you do to him!”
Belgard half-smirked, his head lolling to one side. He wasn’t in uniform anymore. “I’m sorry I failed to separate him from his Fotri lover as you ordered.”
“You killed them?” Collette rasped, horror seeping into her premonition. “I will feed the rest of you to that gator, you foul troll.”
Collette shoved him off the stretcher and cocked her fist, but the medics intervened, and the Prince of Law pulled her back.
“Magistrate, you should be at the Palace,” the Prince said.
“Prince, this man killed my son,” Collette said, fighting back tears.
“He did no such thing,” the Prince replied, motioning the medics to take Belgard away. “I would be able to tell if he had.”
“Would you? Everyone else you’ve questioned today has been clouded to you.” Collette’s breath quickened. She usually trusted the memories that he read, but she saw the lie in his eyes. He’d suppressed the last investigation that killed Corin’s Fotri friends. They’d killed him together!
The Prince motioned to the river. “There is very little blood in the river, and no bodies. The gator has only Officer Belgard’s hand in its teeth. We believe the missing travelers attacked Belgard to gain access to the body of their fallen shipmate. To gain access to the spirit he carried. They left the officer unconscious and bleeding, and the gator saw a convenient meal.”
“If that’s true, then where is Corin?” Collette asked. “They wouldn’t have dragged him from the fire only to throw him in the river.”
“Isn’t it obvious. They’ve turned him into a Questre,” the Prince said.
Collette put a hand out and started to sit so she could process the information, but the Prince guided her away from the bank. It wasn’t safe with the gators lurking. They crossed the paved path and he sat her on one of the river-facing benches instead. She was struck by the horrifying fear that the beautiful granddaughter she’d seen in Corin’s future would be cursed. Or worse.
“Did you get that from reading their minds?” Collette asked. “I don’t believe you.”
“One of their energy weapons was used to attack Officer Belgard,” the Prince said, his voice such a monotone, she knew he had to be hiding something.
“There is another matter you should be aware of,” he said, sitting beside her. “The Prince of Health has requested I bring you in. He plans to put you on medical leave so that Sir Magistrate can release the prisoners.”
Collette wasn’t surprised, but she felt oddly contrite and defeated. “Does he know about Corin?”
“There is nothing to know. There’s no body,” the Prince said. Collette ached from the fear that her son was at the bottom of the river, forever nameless, just like the others she’d let die in the fire last Festival.
“But he said—Belgard said…” she murmured.
“He just lost his hand. He is delirious,” the Prince said.
Collette’s vision blurred and a premonition hit her with blinding force. The ground shook as the Palace crumbled, and she felt powerful fingers constricting around her neck.
“It finds you,” the Prince murmured, his eyes widening. He’d read her mind and saw the premonition. “I saw the Palace. Let’s catch this creature once and for all.”
Collette screeched when he touched her and smacked him across the face. The Prince wanted to use her as bait! She ran for the textile building and he let her go. The walls of the mill were blackened and the floor soaked. All of Corin’s beautiful work was destroyed. She’d seen his future here; she was sure of it. He’d been robbed of something precious.
“This building isn’t safe,” a woman said, coming in through the back entrance, moving quickly out from under the second-floor loft. Collette jumped, then slipped and fell into a puddle.
“Anna Gossard. The Chief of Safety sent me,” the woman greeted, gently taking Collette’s elbow to help her up. “This building isn’t safe.”
“Gossard,” Collette said, her legs quivering. “You’re related to Dr. Gossard?”
“We thought we were cousins, but it turns out we’re not,” she said, leading Collette outside.
“Did you come here looking for his niece? Is she your daughter? We’ll get the girl back, I promise,” Collette said, looking over her shoulder, hoping she’d see her son looking back.
“She’s not my daughter,” Anna said. “She’s an infant we found by the river twelve years ago.”
“They took a twelve-year-old child?” Collette asked.
“She’s not human,” Anna said firmly. “She looked human until recently. Then all these changes started. Talons. Wings. A true twice-cursed child.”
“His niece is the corporeal spirit.” Collette felt numb. The doctor’s testimony was unreliable because it wasn’t true. “Why is she attacking people? And why is the doctor lying about it?”
“He knows she’s beyond hiding. He went to the Palace to seek help from the Questre travelers, but they had nothing to offer. He intends to let her live,” Anna said. “You cannot allow that. She’s incredibly dangerous.”
“The travelers are Questre?” Collette repeated. And now Corin is, too. But Oriana hadn’t brought this cursed child twelve years ago. The girl’s Questre parents still lived in Nola. And they were allowing spirits to use their bodies to bring their power to corporeal form! Collette stared at Anna, but then she felt the Palace collapsing around them.
“No, don’t drop on me now. You can’t let them escape with that beast,”
Anna said, catching Collette’s head and sitting with her. “Magistrate, you have to kill it. Kill it! Then we can go back to our lives.”
“I want to,” Collette said, standing up, then putting a hand against the building to steady herself. The fire-weakened wall gave way under her weight, and Anna pulled her clear.
“Don’t be reckless. This building is condemned,” Anna said, sitting her on the ground. “Why are you here?”
“I came when I heard about Corin,” Collette said, yearning to go back into the burnt-out building and salvage a piece of her son. “The Prince of Law says they made him a Questre.”
“Then your son is dead, and you should mourn him,” Anna said flatly. “We have to show these spirits we do not want them here. We show them by killing any vessel they jump into. And when they take corporeal form, we destroy that vessel, too.”
She spoke like a true hunter, repeating the rhetoric that had compelled Collette to turn on her own mother.
“What if it can’t be killed?” Collette asked.
“Physical things can be destroyed,” Anna said.
Collette squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn’t so sure these visitors were evil. They’d found the twice-cursed child, and they weren’t scared of it. What did they know?
“You’re her mother, aren’t you?” Collette said, her mouth going dry. “You’re Questre. And the doctor, too. He’s her father.”
“I didn’t know what she would become, or I would have killed her long ago,” Anna said.
“You are responsible for this,” Collette said. “You created that creature.”
Anna shoved Collette into the wall of the building, and Collette crashed through, her body smacking against one of the soot-covered textile machines. She grasped a handful of charred, filthy fabric and smashed it against Anna’s face. Anna spat back, her hand’s closing around Collette’s neck.
“So, kill me. Kill the vessel. I’m already dead. I’m telling you what needs to be done. If we kill everything they touch, maybe they’ll leave us alone. I did not ask for this. You take it. You!” Anna cried, her hands getting tighter around Collette’s throat. Collette kicked and clawed, trying to get air. She didn’t want the spirit to take her. She didn’t want to be Questre! Anna was strong and Collette couldn’t breathe.
Premonition: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 7) Page 22
