by Amos Cassidy
“I love your gee—” Simon stopped himself. “Er, yes, it, um, makes sense.”
Simon’s face went the same colour as the tomatoes should be.
Clay just laughed. He didn’t understand Simon’s little quirks, but he sure did find them charming.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “What if it fails inside or blows the system?”
“It won’t. It just wouldn’t work. I’ve put something in that will prevent any mishaps.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Sarah gnawed her bottom lip. “I guess we have to try. It’s not like it would make a difference if it blew the system anyway.”
“Trust me, it won’t blow it,” Clay said.
“I trust you.”
“Thanks. You want to try it now?”
“This is as good a time as any,” Sarah said.
“Cool. Give me half an hour and I’ll be back.”
“Thanks, Clay.”
“You’re welcome.”
“See you in a bit,” Simon squeaked.
ASH
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I stepped into Apocalypse, but the inside exceeded any expectations I could possibly have had. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It was mellow and heady and thick. I’d never smelled anything like it. The second thing was the people . . . or beings. Most were human-looking except for odd-coloured eyes, tails, claws, or scales. But some were downright . . . inhuman. A huge insect sat sipping from a tall glass to my right. He raised a furry arm as we passed, and the woman with Bernie’s eyes waved back.
“Hey, Tick!”
The third thing that hit me was the decor—red and purple and black. Everything was deep and rich. Drapes hung from the walls; the material looked velvety and thick. My fingers itched to touch them.
The final things that I noticed were the stark white staircase that ran up the side of the wall and the balcony that circled the room. A few of what I’m pretty sure were actual real humans ran up and down those stairs wearing black shirts with the word Apocalypse on the backs in white letters.
Did they work here?
“What is this place?”
My new friend turned to me and smiled. “It’s a bar, restaurant, and hotel for those who can pay the price, and for some of us, it’s home. It’s a haven. The safest spot in the Shadowlands because it’s warded against any trouble.”
“What do you mean warded?”
She squinched her eyes and cocked her head. “Hard to explain. I guess you could say it’s magic that stops people from hurting one another. There are no fights in Apocalypse. Shadowlanders from all over the Tri-realms stop off here for rest and respite. There are no politics here.”
Tri-realms? “And the humans?”
She smiled wryly. “We implore them to let us stay. It’s the only way we can survive this place.”
The humans who’d entered the Shadowlands out of desperation, some of them must have made it here.
“How long have you been here?”
“Long enough.” She lifted her chin at someone behind me and then stepped back. “I better get back outside. Cal will take care of you. My name’s Freya. You can find me at the door if you want to chat later . . . if they take you in.” She sighed. “I hope they take you in.” She stepped back and melted into the crowd.
A hand fell on my shoulder, and I whirled round to find a behemoth staring down at me. His face was still and stern with a grey pallor, as if carved from stone. I blinked. Oh, Mother, it was stone, a stone man wearing dark trousers and a white shirt stretched so tight I could see the grooves of his stone pecs underneath.
He reached for me and I flinched. His expression didn’t alter, but I saw the flash of annoyance in his obsidian eyes.
“Do you want healing, human?” His voice was a low rumble that made my teeth vibrate.
My back flared with pain as if reminding me that, yes, I certainly did. I swallowed and nodded.
“Come with me.” He turned and began to stomp off. I hesitated as long as it took for a one-eyed, tentacled patron to slide my way before quickly following Cal—the stone man.
Cal wound through tables, and before I knew it, we approached a long counter thing that stretched along the back wall. I recalled seeing something like this in a magazine once. It was called a bar. They served alcoholic beverages. A man stood behind the bar wiping a glass. He watched me with a curious expression. He was wearing one of the black shirts, and he looked human. I realised that I hadn’t seen any Shadowlanders wearing those shirts. Did they only employ humans?
Cal stopped before a set of thick red drapes that hung beside the bar. Her pulled them aside to reveal a blue door and ushered me through into a corridor with two doors on either side.
Cal led me to the second door on the left. He opened it and stepped back, waiting for me to go in. If it hadn’t been for Freya being so nice and passing me on to him, I would have been more wary. His face gave nothing away; that scared me. Was that impatience in his eyes? I offered him a small smile and slipped into the room.
The clean sterile counters, the cabinets of vials and the antiseptic smell pegged this as a medical room.
“Sit,” Cal said.
I did as he asked, shrugged my remaining pack off my shoulder and perched on the hard examination table.
He moved around the room, opening drawers and dropping things into a silver tray. I waited patiently, my mouth dry with nerves.
“Take off your shirt,” he said.
“What?”
“Take. Off. Your. Shirt.”
“I . . . I know what you said, but . . . can’t I just lift it up a little?”
Once again, impatience in those darker than dark eyes.
“You could, but the wound is higher up. You can either take off the shirt, I can cut it off, or you can go back out there and get an infection.”
Shit, I’d never been a prude, but this was the weirdest situation. I was in a room in the Shadowlands with a man made of stone asking me to take off my shirt while holding a silver tray laden with medical instruments.
I reached for the hem of my shirt and began to tug. My back lit up in pain, and I couldn’t bite back the whimper that slid from my lips.
“Stay still.” He moved toward me and I tensed. His grey stone fingers pinched the hem of my shirt, and I held my breath as he lifted the material, helping me out of the shirt so gently that I barely felt the sting of the wound on my back.
“I’ll patch you up and then you can leave. We’re not able to take in any more humans. I’m sorry your journey was in vain.”
I was about to tell him that my journey had not been in vain, that I’d found what I had been looking for, when my hair, which had come loose of its braid, touched the torn skin on my back. I winced. I felt his cold, hard fingers on the nape of my neck as he lifted my hair.
Cool air kissed my skin, and I felt him tense, freeze; if that’s even possible from a man made of stone.
“What? What is it? Is it bad?”
“Where did you get this?” Cal asked. I felt his fingers on my left shoulder, leaving a tingle in their wake.
“Get what?” I asked.
He laid my braid over my right shoulder and moved away, returning a moment later with a mirror which he handed to me. He held another at an angle behind me. I lifted my mirror and almost dropped it when I saw what he was talking about.
Black inked patterns swirled across my shoulder. I’d never seen anything like it.
“What the hell is that?”
Cal gently extricated the mirror from my fingers and laid both mirrors on the counter behind him. “We better get you stitched up.”
I can’t say it didn’t hurt because it did, but I spent the majority of that time alternating between worrying about the ink on my skin and Bernadette. If those things that had chased us were working for Traders, then it stood to reason that she may still be alive. They’d want to sell her. All I needed to do was to find out wher
e they could have taken her. If I could do that, then maybe there was a way to get her back. I looked at Bernie’s pack at my feet, filled with food. Hope would have to wait a little longer.
“All done,” Cal said.
I opened my mouth to thank him, to ask about the traders when the door burst open and a tiny man with a shock of orange hair and a beaky nose barrelled in.
“Treagor just walked in. He’s searching. Looking to score,” the small man said.
Cal carefully laid down his tweezers and scissors. He helped me back into my shirt and then looked down on me with flashing charcoal eyes. “Stay here.”
They moved off, shutting the door behind them.
You got to give me some credit. I waited, like, a minute before curiosity got the better of me. I figured, what could it hurt to take a peek? I wanted to see who this Treagor was. What was he searching for?
I slipped off the examination table and out the door, moving stealthily down the corridor until I was at the blue door we’d come through originally. It was open a crack, so I pushed it open a little more and peered through.
I couldn’t see much as a broad back blocked my view, but I could hear enough to want to see more. I slid through the crack in the door and pressed myself into the shadows of the drapes hanging on the wall.
“—came in here, he saw her. I just want what’s mine is all.”
“The human does not belong to you, Treagor,” Cal said. “You did not catch her and so she is free.”
What was he saying? Did not catch her? My blood turned icy. He was talking about me. Was this Treagor the Trader that had taken Bernadette? They were looking for me! I was certain of it
“You need to leave, Treagor,” Cal said. “There is nothing here for you.”
His words galvanised me into action. I couldn’t let Treagor leave without speaking to him. I pushed off the wall and passed the hulking figure blocking my view. I knew that it was a bold, possibly stupid move, but I also believed what Freya had said. That this place was a haven. I was in a haven, and he couldn’t hurt me, but maybe I could find out where Bernie was.
I slipped between two squishy-looking things and out into the open. And by open, I mean open, because everyone had moved back to create a no-man’s-land occupied only by the stony figure of Cal and another equally large, and slightly more threatening one, who I could only assume was Treagor. Short, stocky with hairy jowls and feral eyes, he reminded me of mutated rat.
“Wait!” I said.
Cal’s back tensed. “I thought I told you to stay put.”
“You did but I need to speak to him.” I stepped forward, keeping close to Cal. I wasn’t stupid. This place may be a haven, but I wasn’t taking the risk with Treagor grabbing me.
“Where’s my friend?”
Treagor’s lips split in a wide, smug smile. “That fine filly? Strong teeth and bones. A model built for pleasure. I think she’ll fetch a fine price in Inferna.”
What the hell was Inferna? And what the hell did he mean by built for pleasure? No!
“No! You give here back to me, now!”
Treagor cocked his head of dirty, ropey hair. “Why dontcha come get her?”
Hot rage erupted in my stomach, boiling up to sear my throat. I took a step forward and Cal moved in a blink to block me.
“Leave, Treagor.”
“You can’t kick me out. This place is for everyone and I ain’t causing no grief. In fact, I think I’ve been pretty fair allowing you to keep all these fillies and studs. I lost a lot of business doin’ that, and we had a deal, if yous recall. Five to one, I believe.”
Cal reached for me, gently taking my wrist and pulling me closer.
Treagor chuckled low and dirty. “Yeah forgot about that, dintcha? I do believe, if my sources are correct, that you took in your five two weeks ago.” He licked his lips, his muddy brown eyes fixed on me. “I do believe this is my one.”
My pulse kicked into gear as fear wrapped a fist around my gut. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I knew it was bad for me.
Treagor lifted his arms and wiggled his fingers in a come-hither gesture. “Hand her over.”
Ice flooded my belly and I pressed closer to Cal.
“No,” Cal said.
Treagor frowned, then he raised his head and howled.
The room, which had been quiet before, went dead silent. All heads tilted and all eyes went to the balcony above. The hairs on my arms stood up. I lifted my chin to see what all the fuss was about and lost my breath.
Standing on the balcony, haloed in golden light, was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. His golden hair was long enough to graze his chin, but was tucked behind his ears, and his eyes were two bright blue jewels in his face. Not a man, no, he was a Shadowlander, because the wings that rose up behind him told me quite simply that he wasn’t human.
“What do you want, Treagor?” he asked. I almost melted at the musical tones.
“Your guard dog is refusing to give me what’s mine, Avery. I suggest you set things straight.”
The beautiful man, Avery, turned his head to look in my direction. His eyes scanned over me and settled on Cal. “Cal?”
Treagor spoke again. “It’s five to one Avery, and this filly is my one. We had a deal. Are you refusing to honour that deal?”
“I always honour my deals,” Avery said, his voice filled with ice. “Cal?” The stone man and Avery locked eyes for a long moment. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were communicating somehow. Maybe they were, because Avery’s hard expression wavered for a split second. Those piercing blue eyes pinned me like a bug for a sharp moment, and then he dismissed me in favour of Treagor.
“Where did you track her from, Treagor?”
Treagor’s smug smile wavered. “What?”
Avery cocked his head. “It’s a simple question. What part of the Shadowlands did you track her from?”
Treagor’s mouth worked, his eyes flickered from side to side and then he pushed back his shoulders and stood tall. “You feckin’ know where I tracked her from, Avery. But she’s mine. We had a deal.”
Avery smiled, cold and calculating. “Yes, we did and you broke your side of it. You ventured into my museum.”
“But—”
Avery held up his hand. “I think it’s fair to say that, in this case, you’ve relinquished your rights. I should dissolve the whole deal. I could, but I know you have pups to feed, so how about we let it go this time? I keep this human and you can have the next one. I think that’s fair, don’t you?”
Museum? What was he talking about? I hadn’t been in any museum . . . Oh. The perfectly kept street with all the food? Was that what he was talking about? Was that his museum?
For a moment, I thought Treagor would argue, but instead, he turned his attention on me. “I’ll make sure to tell your friend you said hi.” And then he was spinning on his heel and striding toward the door.
I lunged for him. “Wait, please, you have to let her go!” I glanced up toward the balcony, hoping for some assistance from this Avery person, but he was gone, and when I looked back, so was Treagor.
CLAY
The sphere scanner was firmly in place. It had taken three hours to finally get it set up thanks to a maintenance emergency in Corridor 5. The cooling system, which he’d thought he’d sorted, had started leaking, blowing out some of the lights. Clay had been on it, patching it up and was all set to sort the lighting once the corridor had dried out. And he’d get to work on sorting out a new cooling system, replacing the existing parts with new and improved ones.
A Technician’s work was never done.
With the sphere scanner up and running, it was another waiting game. Waiting games were crap. Why did he always have to partake in them? Yeah, he had to be patient, and was actually a patient person, but the greenhouse made him anxious. He just wanted the place to run smoothly, so many depended on it.
Sarah was busy with some carrots, while Simon had gone off to hi
s laboratory to whip up some new concoctions.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Clay said.
“Thanks again,” Sarah said.
“I’ll check on it before bed tonight. Make sure everything is as it should be.”
“You look hassled.”
“I’m fine.”
“Take a break.”
“Can’t, got a dodgy screen to fix in the Eye.”
Sarah laughed. “What’s that code for?”
“What?”
“You don’t need to pretend. It’s okay to have a little rendezvous with your man. I so would.”
Clay frowned. “No, really, there is a screen that needs fixing.”
“Have fun.”
Seriously? “Bye for now.”
The Eye really had sent word of a flickering screen in need of some care. He would never hook up with Blake on the job like that. Sure, he’d kissed him hello whenever he needed to come to the Eye, but never anything more.
Not that he wasn’t tempted by that thought when he walked in to see his boyfriend hard at work, recording what he saw on the monitors, a mass of paperwork spread across his desk.
Blake blinked a few times, and Clay saw his boyfriend’s expression for what it really was: not concentration, deep worry.
“I’m here,” Clay said.
Blake turned to face him. “Hi, babe.” There was no smile offered, no warmth, just a furrowed brow.
“How’s your day going?
“Fine. Yours?”
“Fine. I’ll start work on that monitor.” There it was, picture all jumpy, the screen an irritating flicker. He had a good mind to drag Sarah up here to prove he wasn’t doing a horizontal dance.
Clay pulled out his tools, smaller ones for the screens, and did his thing. “You seen Ash today?”
Blake took a moment to answer. “No, sorry, I haven’t.”
Clay sighed. “I’m worried about her. You should have seen how upset she was when the council said they were shutting down the Reaper programme. I mean, that’s been her whole life! She went all conspiracy theory on me for a moment.” He shook his head. “It’ll take her time to adjust to it all.”
