She kicked her foot out, clipping the man under his chin. His head snapped back. Before he could recover, she whirled in a spinning kick. Her foot connected loudly with the side of his head, sending him reeling to the ground. He struggled to pull himself to his knees, shaking his head as if to clear it.
Drake hooked his foot around the man’s wrist and pulled. He belly-flopped back in the dirt. His blade skittered across the hard-packed dirt, stopping at Drake’s feet.
Drake grabbed the knife, kicked the man over and straddled his chest, pinning his shoulders to the ground with his knees. He glanced at Jelena, anxiously hovering over him, her panting breaths probably more from the adrenaline than the exertion. “Very impressive, but it wasn’t necessary.”
He turned his gaze on the man imprisoned beneath him. “Jerrek, now why am I not surprised to see you?”
“You know this man?”
“Oh, yeah, I know him.” He kept his gaze on the man’s scarred face—a scar he was responsible for. “He’s one of the few stupid enough to try to take what’s mine.”
“Mine!” Jerrek hissed, his face so twisted in anger that the jagged scar on his left cheek nearly glowed in the darkness. “Right of Succession—”
“Right of Succession was satisfied when the fight was over and I was the one still breathing. Trakis doesn’t have many laws, but that one is indisputable.”
“You killed my brother.”
“Yes, I did.” Drake heard Jelena gasp at his plain statement, but ignored it. He lifted Jerrek’s blade and held it in front of the man’s eyes. “What were you planning to do with this pig-sticker? Skewer me?”
“More like filet, from top to bottom.” Jerrek grinned, blood smeared his teeth.
“You won’t get one credit for a stunt like that.” Trakis’ Rules of Succession clearly stated that combat must be in front of witnesses. Ambush gained him nothing.
“Some things are more important than money.”
“Like what?”
“Go to hell!”
“I’ve already been there.” He lowered the blade to the man’s throat. The razor-sharp edge bit into his skin, staining the blade black in the dim light. “Tell me what I want to know, or you’ve just spoken your last.”
Drake didn’t make threats he wasn’t prepared to carry out. Jerrek knew it. Calmness spread over the man’s features. He’d accepted his fate.
“So be it,” Drake whispered.
“No! No killing.”
“Back off, Jelena.”
“You will not murder this man.” Even as she said the words, his hand froze then an unseen force slowly eased the deadly blade away from Jerrek’s throat.
“Damn it, Jelena! I told you to back off.” He glared at her and that was all the distraction Jerrek needed to heave Drake off of him and disappear into the night.
Shoving himself to his feet, Drake swore, knowing he’d never find the man now. He brushed the dirt from his clothes, refusing to look at her and see the smug look he knew she wore. “That mistake is going to come back to haunt you,” he whispered then turned in the opposite direction Jerrek fled and strode down the dark alley toward gods-knew-what-else awaited him.
JELENA STRODE beside Drake, refusing to follow behind him as he led her through back alleys into what must be the roughest part of the spaceport. She was here to protect him, and she couldn’t do that if she let him walk right into danger.
Drat the man! He hadn’t said one word to her since declaring her interference a mistake. She supposed she should be grateful that she didn’t have to participate in idle conversation, allowing her to concentrate on their path, but she wasn’t. His silence bothered her more than she cared to admit. Everything she believed in told her that she’d done the right thing saving that man’s life, yet she remembered how prophetic Drake’s statement sounded.
That mistake is going to come back to haunt you.
Why? She needed to know more. “Tell me about the fight.” Wondering if he’d answer, she looked at him and noticed how beautiful his shadowed profile appeared when the night concealed that ugly tattoo.
“What’s to tell?”
“You honestly want me to think badly of you?”
“I honestly don’t care what you think of me.”
She moved in front of him, blocking his path. “Then it shouldn’t matter to you if I know what happened.”
Drake stopped and sighed, shaking his head. “Anyone ever tell you that you can be damned annoying?”
“Yes, my brother Danon says that all the time.” She smiled, thrilled that she’d won this little battle. “Will you tell me?”
“All right,” Drake sighed and rubbed his hand over his face, “but let’s keep moving. This isn’t the best place to stand and talk.” His gaze scanned the alley, and Jelena’s skin prickled. Eyes watched them from darkened doors and windows.
After they’d begun walking again, he stayed silent for so long, she thought he’d changed his mind.
“I guess for you to really understand, I’ll have to tell you how I ended up on Trakis in the first place.” He turned his head slightly to look down at her. “Do you know what the tattoo on my face means?”
“Yes,” Jelena nodded, “It’s a warning to others that you were banished from Bellariss for murder.” She expected him to flinch or get angry, but he merely nodded.
“Mandek knew what it meant too. He saw that mark on my face and thought I’d been hired by a crime lord to assassinate him.”
“Why did he think you were there to kill him? Did you do something threatening?”
Drake snorted. “When you find a strange man in your harem, he’s either there to kill you or steal your women. That’s what Mandek and Jerrek thought … “
“I DON’T want you or your women.” Drake stared at the mountain of a man in front of him, recognizing him from their surveillance tapes—Mandek, Lord of the assassins, Overlord of all Trakis’ criminal factions. If he didn’t think fast, he was dead.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m between jobs at the moment.” Drake rubbed his finger over the tattoo Mandek couldn’t look away from.
“And you thought I might find you useful?”
“Maybe.”
Mandek laughed, meeting Drake’s stare. “You’ve got balls. I’ll give you that.”
“That doesn’t explain what he’s doing in here,” Jerrek growled, holding his blaster tightly in his hands.
“I took a wrong turn.” Drake shrugged, scanning the faces that watched him curiously. Now. A moment ago, they’d been screaming their heads off. No one outside of Bellariss knew about their transporters. To them, he’d appeared out of nowhere. Their screams brought Mandek and his goons running.
Drake let his gaze linger on an exotic Theledonian woman with pale green skin, dark green hair and even darker eyes. The way those eyes stared at him, as if he were her savior, made him uneasy. He couldn’t control his own life; he sure as hell couldn’t help her out of hers.
“It was magic,” a woman whispered. The other women nodded, whispering similar words, growing louder until Mandek waived his arm, silencing them. He raised an eyebrow, waiting for Drake to deny their claims and explain.
Drake shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell him how he really got in there, so if they wanted to believe it was magic, he’d let them.
“It’s been fifty years since anyone’s seen a mark like that come out of Bellariss.” Mandek stared at the tattoo.
Drake nodded.
“I didn’t get your name.”
“As far as my people are concerned, I’m dead. You can call me whatever the hell you want.”
Jerrek raised his blaster level with Drake’s face. “I say we call you dead, too.”
Mandek slapped the blaster away. Women screamed, throwing themselves to the floor as a blaster bolt seared the air over their heads and burned a hole into the wall.
Drake hadn’t flinched. That pleased Mandek.
“Rico. It means brave a
nd powerful. A man with balls as big as yours has to be called Rico.” He chuckled. “Come on, let’s go talk somewhere else. All this screaming is making my head ache.”
“Mandek, you can’t mean to take him on!”
“I mean to see how good he is. If he survives, I’ll take him on. If he doesn’t, he’ll be dead and it won’t matter.”
“But—”
“You ready to challenge me?” Mandek seemed to grow larger as his voice grew louder.
Jerrek immediately backed down. “No! No, I’d never—”
Mandek released a disgusted snort. “No balls. No balls at all.” He turned to Drake. “Come on, Rico. Let’s see what other magician’s tricks you have up your sleeve… “
“I’D WONDERED why some people call you Rico.”
“Rico or Magician. Only my friends call me Drake, what few there are.” He glanced at her. “You probably think I should have let them kill me. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t want to die.”
“If you had died, the Jotnar might still be in power now.”
Drake missed a step, clearly surprised by her statement.
She’d surprised herself. How could she justify any aspect of this killer’s life? Why did she have to remind herself that this man embodied everything she stood against? Questioning him had been a mistake. “You survived his test. Jerrek must have been angry.”
“Mandek liked me better than Jerrek because I’d always had the guts to stand up to him no matter what the consequences. Jerrek always resented me for that.”
“But if Mandek liked you—”
“I said he liked me. I didn’t say he trusted me. Mandek was very smart.” Drake scanned the shadows, his intent gaze seeming to miss nothing. It made her feel secure. “In the beginning, he never allowed me to go anywhere alone. Someone always went with me, making sure I carried out my mission or died. I don’t know if it was because he didn’t want his pet killing machine to slip away, or because he was afraid I’d switch sides and join another crime lord.”
She’d heard there were crime lords who’d offered double or triple his pay to buy him over to their side, but he’d refused. She was sure now that he’d never even considered it. “Why didn’t you?” The more she listened, the more she realized she didn’t understand this multi-faceted man, and probably never would.
Drake shrugged. “It’s not my way.”
Loyalty—a strange quality in an assassin. “Why did you challenge Mandek?”
“I did it because of Mayori.”
“Mayori?” Her stomach twisted with something she refused to name.
Drake nodded. “She was one of his slaves. It was nearly a year before Mandek let me go out alone, but he still didn’t trust me. When I’d come back from a mission, he’d make her hold my weapon and tell him in gory detail how my mark had died.”
Jelena shuddered. That poor woman.
“That day, Mayori refused to do it. Somehow, she knew that I hadn’t carried out my orders. I couldn’t let him punish her for protecting me, so I challenged him. I barely walked away alive.”
“But you did.” And earned Mayori’s undying loyalty.
Drake nodded. “I wouldn’t have if Jerrek had been there. He would have attacked while I was still weak and finished me off. By the time he returned it was too late. The laws of succession had been fulfilled and I’d become Overlord.”
She wanted to know what happened next, but there were so many things she still didn’t know about how it all began. How a man with such a promising future ended up a paid killer. “You never said how you came to be in Mandek’s harem in the first place.”
“After the banishment decree, they transported me to Trakis.”
A criminal sent to a world full of criminals. She wondered at the logic in that. Instead of dying, as they probably hoped, his life had gone from bad to worse—and extremely violent.
“I re-materialized in the center of Mandek’s harem. It could have been coincidence or bad luck, but I don’t think so. Her family wanted me dead.”
That emotionless statement emboldened her to ask a question she’d wondered about for years. “Did you kill your intended?”
He jerked his gaze to her. “Knowing what you think of me, I’m surprised you even asked.”
Her opinion of him seemed the only thing keeping her from breaking the Nar’gadesh rules of no physical involvement. It didn’t seem enough. “Did you?” Her breathless whisper embarrassed her.
“She was my heart. I couldn’t have hurt her, even if I’d known she’d betrayed me.” What he said warred with his apathetic tone.
Ali’ra, why did his words hurt? “What did she do?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He stopped abruptly in front of a dark building with no visible windows and no light over its single door. “Story time’s over.”
“Why did we walk so far? We could have `ported here in seconds.”
“To give Hovex time to find out I’m coming. Unexpected visits make him very nervous.”
“And you think he knows we’re here?”
“I know he does.”
The rusty, blaster-scorched door creaked open in front of them. A scaly three-clawed arm extended through the black opening and motioned them forward.
Drake grabbed Jelena’s arm, stopping her before she moved a step. “He doesn’t know you. Stay by the door, stay silent, and don’t make any sudden moves. He’s extremely jittery and has very quick reflexes. He can take your head off with that tail of his before you even have time to blink.”
Tail? “Your friend sounds charming.”
“He’s not my friend.” Drake released her arm and strode through the open doorway, leaving Jelena to hurry after him.
The door closed behind them, sealing them in complete darkness. Drake’s mind barely had time to register Hovex’s musty odor before the inner door slid open bathing them in green light.
Jelena stared wide-eyed at Hovex, her expression horrified. Standing face to face with this scaly glowing-eyed lizard did that to women. His split tongue flicked out and touched her cheek. She inhaled sharply.
Drake gripped her elbow firmly with his fingers. “Don’t scream,” he warned in a low voice, keeping his gaze on the deadly tail standing ram-rod straight behind Hovex’s back. It twitched.
Jelena slowly released her breath and gave him a shaky nod, not taking her eyes off Hovex.
The lizard’s scales relaxed, laying down, and his tail lowered to the floor. His scaly skin twitched as he gave her a quick head to toe look then stepped into the green-lit room.
“Stay here,” Drake whispered, then followed him inside.
“Who is the woman?” Hovex’s gravelly croak grated on Drake’s dwindling patience.
“Our business has nothing to do with her.”
The lizard jerked his attention off of Jelena. “How may we be of service?” His claws clacked together as he folded his hands subserviently at his waist.
Drake wasn’t fooled for a second. This lizard would sell his own eggs if he thought he’d make a profit, and the only thing that influenced him more than credits was fear for his scaly hide. Drake played on that fear whenever possible. He flipped his cape over his shoulder, drawing the lizard’s glowing gaze to the blaster tucked into his belt, and said one word: “Threaden.”
Hovex hissed. “No, no, no!” He turned abruptly, his tail thrashing wildly. His clawed toes scraped away the moss covering the cement floor as he scrambled to reach the safety of his nest, a heated rock in corner of the room. “Threaden has powerful friends.”
Friends that scared the lizard more than Drake did, that intrigued him. “I’ll pay you double.”
“No.” Hovex scratched at the shed skin and scales littering his nest, turning round and round, refusing to look at him.
“Triple.”
He stilled, turning a longing, yet terrified look toward Drake, then shook his head and returned to his agitated scratching. “Threaden and friends leave behind trail of dead bodies. We
don’t want to be next.”
“Scalari’s been asking about you.” Drake watched as Hovex stilled, his scales rising. Scalari’s and Hovex’s species were natural enemies. “Since you’ve decided you’re no longer useful to me, I see no reason why I should keep protecting you from him.”
Releasing a terrified hiss, Hovex leapt to his feet. “Magician—”
A blaster pointed at his head halted the lizard’s speech and his mad rush for Drake, keeping that slashing tail from coming any closer. His whole body trembled as he raised his claws slowly.
“Tell me about the dead bodies.”
“Two men found dead after he visit stud house in Godak Spaceport.”
Not a whorehouse? “How did they die?”
“Unknown. No marks inside or out. Others same. No marks.”
“Who was with him?”
Shaking his head, Hovex raised his arms protectively, backing up a few steps. “We can’t say. We tell you and we’ll be next. Killed worse than Magician, worse than Scalari.”
Drake shrugged and raised his blaster. “Suit yourself.”
“Wait!” He fell to his knees, covering his head with his arms. “Woman! Tall. Pale hair.”
“Zanera,” Jelena whispered from the door.
“No,” Drake shook his head, “that’s not possible. She was on Zoran yesterday.” No way she beat him here—not by ship, and not by transporter. The Bellarissian transporter relays weren’t accessible to the general public.
“Yes! See them together. Saw order for six crates of fresh kifi delivered tomorrow to Bay Ninety-six at thirteen hours.”
Kifi, that sounded like Zanera. She had a passionate appetite for the little creatures. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. Bay Ninety-six.” Hovex nodded enthusiastically, daring for the first time to raise his head.
Drake tossed the lizard a small bag of tiles then strode toward Jelena. “Let’s go.” She nodded and disappeared outside. Drake paused, glancing over his shoulder. “Hovex, if this is a set-up, I’ll use your hide for a new pair of boots.”
The lizard flinched, his tail twitching wildly. “Have we ever betrayed you?”
“Remember what I said.” With that final warning, Drake strode out the door.
Real Magic Page 7
