Hell to Pay: Book Two of the Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  Six

  Rachel wasn’t exactly expecting to see an alien ship looming just outside of John’s window, but it didn’t keep her head from whipping that way to check after the bomb he’d just dropped. “What?”

  “Yeah, come again?” Jarek added.

  Myers crossed his arms. “We’ve kept our eyes peeled all morning.”

  Rachel consciously refrained from rolling her eyes. Myers was a good guy, but he was quick to get territorial.

  “It’s been business as usual around campus,” he continued. “Aside from you guys flying in unannounced, that is. No new entries other than that.”

  “Yeah,” Jarek said. “You’re probably right. There’s no way anyone could have snuck over the big scary chain-link fence.”

  Myers positively bristled. “Look, pal, I—”

  “Guys,” Rachel said. “Not helping.”

  Jarek was absolutely right, but Myers already disliked him enough. So instead of saying anything else, Rachel switched off her substitute cloaking pendant and reached out to their surroundings, looking for anything amiss. Anything like, say, a raknoth-class telepath lurking nearby. Nothing immediately jumped out, but that hardly meant all of Unity was clear.

  “Is there any reason to think this mystery ship would want to stop around here?” Lea asked. “We are dealing with hearsay, right? And even if we weren’t, the thing always could have changed course or flown right past Unity.”

  John nodded. “I expect that’s exactly what happened. Don’t know what interest they’d have in a place like this.”

  “Might be hard to say without knowin’ who ‘they’ is,” Alaric said.

  “Right on, cowboy,” Jarek said. “And if this phallic monstrosity did just pass on by, that leaves us with a big pile of nothing in the way of leads.”

  “I wish I had something more useful to offer,” John said. “And heck, maybe there’s not even anything interesting about the ship, but when three separate contacts I only hear from once every month or two decide to call with the same story … Well, it seemed like it was worth passing on.”

  As much more obvious as his initial reaction had been to the news about Michael, it seemed like the weight was only now starting to fully settle on him. It might not have been obvious to everyone, but Rachel could see it in the weary distance of his eyes and the defeated set of his shoulders.

  They’d talked enough for now. John needed time to process everything she’d just dropped on him. And regardless of what Myers might think, she needed to sweep Unity for anything otherworldly.

  She was just about to propose they give John some time and go take a little tour of the community when Lea spoke up. “We truly appreciate the information, John. But we don’t want to be in your hair too long.” She looked pointedly at the rest of the group.

  John, always the martyr, looked like he’d protest.

  “I’ll take them out to the market if you want a few minutes,” Rachel said. “Show them the sights. Get some food.” She hesitated. “Unless you’d rather me stay here.”

  “I could show them around,” Myers said, finally uncrossing his arms.

  John waved Myers back. “That’s not necessary.” He squeezed Rachel’s shoulder. “You go show them around and we can meet back up for an early dinner?” He looked at the others. “Assuming you can all stay that long.”

  “I’ve never been known to turn down dinner,” Jarek said.

  “That sounds perfect,” Lea said with a warm smile.

  “Good then.” John gave her one last lead blanket hug and bid farewell to the others.

  Myers followed them back downstairs and out to the front lawn.

  “You’re good?” he asked, shooting once last frown in Jarek’s direction.

  “We’re good,” she said with what little smile she could manage. “Thanks, Myers.”

  He gave her an informal salute. “We’ll see you in a bit then.”

  “So,” Jarek said as Myers drove off in the Gator, “what’s the plan?”

  “I figured we could start at the market and find ourselves something tasty for lunch,” she said.

  “While you give the place the old Jedi mind sweep?”

  She smiled and gave her best innocent shrug. “Maybe while I give the place the old Jedi mind sweep.”

  Jarek grinned. “That’s my Goldilocks. Let’s go then.”

  That could have been that, but then Jarek offered his arm to her as if he were some manner of fine gentleman.

  She considered the arm, unsure how to react. Taking it was technically a possibility, but she couldn’t seem to do anything aside from stare at it as if it were something from another galaxy. She met Jarek’s gaze, aware of Lea stifling a fit of giggles behind them.

  Jarek retracted the arm. “Yeesh. You look like you just saw a giant flying dildo or something.”

  She snorted. “At least it wasn’t ribbed.”

  Jarek grinned. “Always the optimist.”

  Alaric coughed behind them, then cleared his throat.

  “He raises a fair point,” Jarek said. “Let’s have the tour, princess.”

  She sighed and led them around Parrish Hall and past the slightly-less-majestic Kohlberg Hall to the crowded lines of tents and tables in the grassy quad beyond. The lingering tightness in Rachel’s chest began to ease at the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of the market. Then people started to notice them, and a new tightness settled in.

  The market served as both a food distribution system for those citizens of Unity like Myers who didn’t already work in food production as well as a trading post for those within the community and those who visited from nearby. It had never been her favorite place on account of the crowd, and the prospect of sweeping her senses through that many minds sounded about as appealing as dancing naked through the busy quad.

  But she needed to be sure, so she extended her senses and started for the far corner of the market, where her favorite vendor, sweet old Annie, would be posted with whatever stew or casseroles she’d concocted to see to it that the day’s hungry traders had somewhere to barter their bellies full.

  Most of the crowd continued bustling about its business as she moved into it with Jarek at her side, but a fair amount of people parted to let them pass, at least half of them just looking for a better opportunity to stare.

  The four of them did make a strange sight, she supposed. Most of these people were probably used enough to seeing her with her extensively glyphed staff, but now here she was walking around with an old cowboy-looking Resistance fighter, a walking tank with a giant sword strapped to his back, and … well, Lea wasn’t really odd in any way, but she drew plenty of stares—especially male ones—all the same.

  Jarek and Lea looked almost as baffled by the spectators as the spectators were by them. It took Rachel a few seconds to realize that neither one of them was used to seeing this level of prosperity and peace between humans anymore.

  Lea looked pleasantly surprised. Jarek looked at the place like it was already burning and all these good people just didn’t know it yet.

  Rachel swore she could see the wheels turning in his head. Maybe the marauders would finally attack with enough force to overwhelm them. Maybe some other disaster would leave them with the kind of famine that could make a community tear itself apart. Something terrible had to happen at some point, right?

  Maybe she was simply projecting her own fears onto Jarek’s convenient pessimism.

  She followed Lea over to look at a few trinkets at one trader’s table and half-heartedly exchanged what she hoped was pleasant small talk with the trader, whose name escaped her. Jarek and Alaric waited for them, silently watching the crowd.

  Alaric looked far less flabbergasted by all of this, but that made sense. He’d been in Deadwood for the past five years, up in the mountains with his own little isolated community. His people had probably bartered and gotten along in much the same way. She didn’t blame him for wanting to get back to it.

  Lea indi
cated her curiosity was sufficiently scratched, and they moved back into the throng.

  They were about two-thirds of the way through the market when she felt it: the flare of another telepathic mind, like a roaring bonfire in a field of tiny candles. And it was close.

  She froze in mid-step, yanking her mental defenses into place.

  There were no other telepaths in Unity—not since the two arcanists who’d helped train her for a short time had moved on. So who the hell was that?

  With one hand ready on her cloaking pendant, she extended herself more cautiously this time, keeping her defenses tight, and scoped in on that bonfire to find out.

  “What is it?” Jarek asked quietly beside her.

  She was too busy scanning through the crowd of faces to answer. She allowed her senses to guide her eyes, dialing in on the telepathic presence.

  Not him. When had the crowd gotten so thick? Not her. Maybe—

  The blazing-bright presence disappeared completely and without warning.

  A cloak? That was the only logical explanation, which meant she’d have to spot them the old-fashioned way, with—

  There.

  He was twenty feet away, standing completely still in the middle of the heavy foot traffic yet not seeming to be in anyone’s way. He looked a few years younger than her, with mussed brown hair and the hint of a beard clinging to his sharp jawline.

  More importantly, he was staring straight at her.

  He turned away almost as soon as their eyes met and moved into the crowd, headed in the direction they’d come from.

  “That guy?” Jarek asked. “Pretty boy?”

  He really didn’t miss much, did he?

  She could give him credit another time. Right now, they needed to catch that kid.

  “Get your running legs on,” she said. “He’s a telepath, and I don’t know where the hell he came from.”

  “So much for that lunch,” Jarek said, moving into the crowd beside her.

  The market-goers, apparently sensing some urgency to their movements, gave them an even wider berth than they had on the way in. It should have been all they needed to make up ground on Pretty Boy, but he was working through the throng ahead as quickly as if it had been open field, moving with a dancer’s grace as he weaved and wound through bodies and rogue limbs.

  “He’s gonna run,” Jarek said. “As soon as he gets around the corner of that building ahead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Please. I know the look of someone who’s about to run just as well as I know the look of someone who wants to be followed.”

  Ahead, Pretty Boy broke through the edge of the crowd and headed to the right of Kohlberg Hall.

  “And you don’t seem worried about either of these things because?”

  “Mostly because I can top sixty in this bad girl and I’m not half bad at fighting my way out of hairy situations.”

  “You forgot your god-like powers of modesty,” she mumbled as they broke the edge of the crowd and followed after the stranger. A quick glance back told her they’d lost Lea and Alaric, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now.

  The instant Pretty Boy disappeared around the corner of Kohlberg, Jarek surged forward to make up lost ground. Rachel cut right to get their target back in sight and broke into a run herself as Jarek tore across the open lawn.

  Jarek, as he so often frustratingly was, had been right. Pretty Boy was running, and fast. So fast he almost didn’t look human.

  He glanced back as Jarek rounded the building after him, then he hung an early right, gathered himself, and leapt thirty feet straight up to the rooftop of the Lang building.

  “Okay,” she muttered.

  That decisively closed the door on whether they were dealing with a normal human.

  Jarek, aided by Fela and apparently not one to be shown up in a foot chase, launched himself up after Pretty Boy.

  And there she was, she realized, just watching it all happen. She cursed herself and set off around the Lang building at a sprint. At the far corner, she hesitated, wondering whether they’d passed over the building or if they were duking it out on the rooftop.

  A loud crack from the woods ahead answered that question.

  The sound could have passed for a gunshot, but the subsequent stream of smaller crashes and rustling sounds identified it as a falling tree. Rachel readied herself to channel and scrambled down the small hill and into the trees.

  Just past a fallen tree, Jarek was bearing down on Pretty Boy, who backpedaled through the foliage with eerily sure-footed grace, ducking and twisting clear of each grab Jarek made for him.

  She loped after them, gathering her will.

  “We just wanna talk, you little weasel!” Jarek said. “How the hell are you—Agh!”

  Pretty Boy swept a hand through the air, and Jarek’s feet swept out from under him as if a giant invisible broom had taken them.

  So it was an arcanist they were dealing with?

  “Tricksy little weasel.” Jarek kipped back to his feet and lunged forward with a heavy punch.

  Pretty Boy caught the punch with a bare hand.

  Rachel had seen Jarek cave men’s chests in with blows like that. She’d watched him wrestle with an uber-strong raknoth and throw grown men around like pillows. With Fela, Jarek was stupid strong. And this kid had just blocked his punch with little more than a grimace.

  Jarek’s faceplate was closed, but his shock was clear enough as he looked from Pretty Boy to their joined hands and back again. “Who the fuck are you?”

  By way of reply, Pretty Boy drove an open palm into Jarek’s armored chest. This time, Rachel’s senses were extended far enough to feel the enormous pulse of energy Pretty Boy channeled.

  Jarek, she could only assume, felt it even better when Pretty Boy let the energy loose in a telekinetic blast that sent Jarek rocketing through the air. He crashed into a tree twenty feet later.

  Rachel leveled her staff and focused her will for her own telekinetic attack, banking on the fact that Pretty Boy would be too drained to do much about it.

  He damn near wasn’t.

  As tired as he must’ve been, Pretty Boy was still attuned enough to sense the blast coming and fast enough to start moving. Just not fast enough to avoid it completely. The wall of force clipped him and threw his sideways dive into an awkward corkscrew. He hit the soft ground with a rush of expunged air, and Rachel wasted no time in preparing another blast.

  “Ha!” Jarek cried from over by the tree he’d smashed into. “Ah, shit.”

  Rachel glanced Jarek’s way to see what was the matter just in time to catch a man-shaped blur flying through the trees to crash into him. Only Jarek was ready.

  He stepped with the rush, caught the arm of his attacker, and slammed the newcomer into the tree hard enough to crack through its trunk and plenty hard enough to kill any human. The glowing red eyes glaring at Jarek as the tree began to fall on them affirmed the attacker wasn’t.

  The raknoth pushed Jarek off and sidestepped out from under the toppling tree. Jarek mirrored him on the other side. A dozen smaller cracks rang out as the tree’s branches caught their neighbors and dragged them down as well. The raknoth watched it happen, his back turned to Rachel.

  She sprang forward before the fear could convince her not to and swung her staff at the back of the raknoth’s head, throwing a full dose of telekinetic oomph into the strike.

  Half a foot from the raknoth’s skull, the staff slammed into thin air.

  The raknoth rounded on her.

  “Wait!” a strong voice called from behind.

  The raknoth froze. And then Jarek slammed into him from behind, and the two crashed to the ground hard enough to leave a trail of torn earth.

  Rachel spun around, staff at the ready. Pretty Boy finished pulling himself to his feet and raised his hands in peace. She watched him for a long few seconds, then spared a quick glance to see that Jarek and the raknoth were watching him as well. She traded a look w
ith Jarek, and he scurried to his feet and back to her side. She kept her staff raised, and they backed up together until they could easily see both of them.

  “Great,” Pretty Boy said, hands still raised. “Thanks. I think.”

  The raknoth rose and went to stand beside Pretty Boy, the red glow bleeding out of his eyes until he looked like just another middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair—albeit a quite suave-looking one.

  “Right,” Pretty Boy said. “Uh, my name’s Haldin”—he glanced over at the raknoth—“and this is Alton.”

  Alton the raknoth gave them a mirthless smile and a creepy little finger wave, and Haldin continued, “I think maybe we should talk.”

  Seven

  In the tense silence that stretched between Jarek and Rachel and their mysterious company, the sounds of the Unity folk approaching the tree line were readily apparent to Jarek’s exo-enhanced hearing.

  “We’ve got company,” he said.

  Rachel pried her wary stare away from Alton the raknoth and Haldin the … whatever he was long enough to shoot him a What the hell do we do? look.

  It was a good question. Talking it out with a raknoth and his buddy wasn’t exactly at the top of Jarek’s wise moves play list, but they’d come here looking for answers. If these two weren’t connected to that strange ship everyone was talking about, there were either a hell of a lot more raknoth running around than Jarek had ever imagined, or some universal law of coincidence had been severely violated.

  Judging from the volume of the voices at the tree line, though, they had about ten seconds to make up their minds before people started asking questions.

  Talk now, he decided, kick asses later, as required.

  Who said he couldn’t be diplomatic?

  “Let’s hear them out,” he said to Rachel.

  “Okay.” She glanced back toward the tree line. “We’d better move then.”

  “Sure,” Haldin said. “Lead the way.”

  Rachel pointed over Alton’s shoulder with her staff. “That way. You first.”

  Haldin shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  Alton turned and trekked off in the indicated direction without comment.