Until that moment, Raven had forgotten all about the third member of their party. She whirled around to see Daagiis and Laaruu picking themselves up off the floor. Both Paatiin were bleeding, but they were still alive. No one else moved.
Any other time, the blood and carnage would have given Raven pause. However, her every fiber screamed for Vendeen. Hanos had him and would no doubt kill him.
Raven threw herself in front of Daagiis as he charged forward, no doubt ready to run after Vendeen. “There’s a force field up! We can’t get past it from here,” she told him.
Daagiis shrieked in utter fury, his whole body glowing and taking on the look Raven was more used to, the face and body that looked like Douglas Bringer. He shredded his lovely robes in his rage as a nonplussed Laaruu stared at the two of them.
Raven slapped Daagiis hard, not caring that Saazeer’s security head had no doubt figured out they were not slave and master after all. She screamed, “Daagiis, get control of yourself! They took him and we need to get him back!”
Daagiis’ golden eyes cleared. “That bastard Hanos must have recognized him after all. Back to our quarters, Raven. We have to go after him.”
The two ran for their quarters, leaping over fallen soldiers and Paatiin. Raven wasn’t aware that Laaruu followed them until he yelled, “What is going on? This attack is an insult to the esteemed Saazeer!”
Raven and Daagiis swung around to face him as they reached the doorway of their room. Daagiis told him, “I will be most in your debt if you will ask the esteemed Saazeer to join me in my quarters, Laaruu. I will explain all, but we don’t have much time.”
Laaruu nodded, though his eyes narrowed as he looked at Raven. However, he said nothing about her decidedly un-slavelike behavior. Instead, he dashed down the corridor, going in the opposite direction of the blocked corridor.
Raven and Daagiis hurried into their quarters. He helped her as she began to pull all that damned jewelry off her body.
As soon as they’d gotten the fine chains, clips, and gems off her, often accompanied by cries of pain, Daagiis opened his luggage container and flung Raven her camosuit. While she pulled it on, the Paatiin laid out weapons.
“Hurry,” Daagiis urged. “I don’t know how long Hanos will allow Vendeen to live. Convincing Saazeer not to kill us will eat up too much valuable time as it is.”
Raven clipped her bandoleer into place and started shoving blades and a live explosive-bullet gun into it.
Having torn his robes off his body in many shreds, Daagiis swapped the plain armored bodysuit for his camosuit. He strapped his weapons belt and bandoleer on and added a couple of guns and ammo to his arsenal.
Raven asked, “Do I have access to all the programs I need?”
He jerked a nod. “You’re ready to search, hunt, and kill.”
“Damned straight I am.”
The door to the corridor opened. Raven and Daagiis instinctively crouched, ready to fight whoever came at them. Laaruu preceded Saazeer into the room, his hands hovering near his weapons. His robes had been removed to reveal an armored outfit much like Raven’s and Daagiis’ camosuits.
Saazeer looked glorious in white and gold robes, his cornrowed hair resplendent in diamonds and rubies. Raven had no doubt he wore the real bling. Apparently, he’d been as ready for dinner as they when Laaruu had found him.
Saazeer took a long look at Raven, geared up and ready to fight. His silvery smoke eyes moved to Daagiis where they held in cold appraisal. The earlier mocking note was gone from his voice. In a tone Raven thought could command an entire nation, Saazeer said, “Explain.”
Daagiis spoke quickly, riddling the air with bullet-fast explanations. “Abnet is actually Gilothean Supreme Judge Vendeen, of the Wesnas ties. He was also the heir to Hanos’ business and criminal empire until he was able to escape and concentrate on stopping the Corporation’s illegal activities. Raven is his property and protector, not mine.”
Saazeer’s voluptuous lips thinned. “Vendeen. That is the one you walked away from me for. Yet he is not your property.”
“No. I am his protector.”
Saazeer and Laaruu exchanged a look, and Raven remembered Daagiis saying his and Vendeen’s lives would be ended over a Paatiin being made a slave to a Gilothean. She readied herself to protect Daagiis.
Saazeer’s shoulders abruptly sagged. Raven nearly gasped at the sorrow that filled the Paatiin’s face as he looked at Daagiis.
Sounding hurt, Saazeer said, “You have no idea how much I want to hate you. For abandoning me and giving yourself to a lesser creature, you deserve my loathing and death, Daagiis. Yet if I have Laaruu cut your throat and end your life, it will empty my heart. I will not wish to live any longer myself.”
Daagiis said nothing. He only waited. Raven tried her best not to fidget, though if Saazeer wasn’t going to kill Daagiis, she wished he’d get the hell out of the way so she could find Vendeen.
Saazeer’s look darkened again. “This may be Hanos’ territory, but he has still dealt me great insult. I do not allow mere Gilotheans and their thugs to attack me or mine. My security is yours in order for you to recover your … friend.”
Daagiis bowed so deeply Raven thought he might tip over. “Thank you, esteemed Saazeer. You have every drop of my gratitude.”
Saazeer grimaced. “It’s a pity that your gratitude is not what I want.” He turned to his security head. “Laaruu, give him whatever support he requires. Then we will leave for home and forget this entire fuck-up of a trip.”
Whatever Laaruu thought about the situation, he kept it to himself. His face bland, he merely bowed to his employer. “As you wish, Esteemed One.”
“Good luck, Daagiis. Perhaps someday we will meet under more fortuitous circumstances. Truth be told, I’d rather not see you again at all.” Saazeer’s eyes brightened, as if he might actually cry.
Daagiis’ tone was soft. “My thanks again.”
For a moment it seemed like Daagiis might reach out to Saazeer. He settled for bowing again, though not so deep.
Saazeer refused to look at him again. Instead, he gave Raven a tight smile. “Is Vendeen really worth all Daagiis has sacrificed?”
Her heart in her throat, Raven said, “More, esteemed Saazeer. Much more.”
She felt Daagiis look at her. She knew he’d caught the feeling in her voice, but she didn’t care. They needed to find Vendeen.
Saazeer exited the room grandly, with his nose pointed haughtily in the air and robes swirling about his magnificent body. As soon as he had left, Daagiis addressed the staid Laaruu. “Have you been in Hanos’ stronghold?”
Laaruu finally animated, an evil cast crossing his features. “Many times, a few of which he knew nothing about. I know the layout quite well.”
Raven’s heart sped up at the Paatiin’s sudden fierce grin.
* * * *
Hanos’ home on the edge of Tansur’s city was a hulking mansion. The foreboding structure was something Raven would have expected to see on a movie screen. It wouldn’t have surprised her to spy Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy emerge from within to attack hapless villagers.
Through her night vision goggles, she noted Gothic-style spires reaching high into the black velvet sky, as if the structure would impale the very heavens to make them bleed. The nightmare vision of this place was only enhanced by its black-trimmed blood-red walls. If Hanos had told his architect to go for scary as hell, the designer had nailed it with apparent gusto.
Raven was on her own, skulking in the shadows as she made her way around the terrifying edifice. Despite the camosuit turning her into a chameleon, her passage only marked by a slight wavering in the air, she avoided the blaze of security lighting and proximity arrays. Laaruu had done more than scout the mansion as head of Saazeer’s security; he had mapped the whole damned thing. Raven was more than a little impressed with Laaruu at this point. The man missed nothing, not even for a seemingly innocent shopping trip to buy sexual playmates.
&nb
sp; Raven was also impressed with her own programming. The computer installed in her brain worked to make her instinctively move as soundlessly as a breath of wind. It had turned her into a living stealth weapon, one that the less technologically-advanced Earth would have been hard pressed to detect. It gave Raven a chill to know that in her home dimension, she would be capable of sneaking up and assassinating anyone no matter how advanced their security measures. She hoped no one in this dimension ever got it in their heads to take a camosuit through the portal to sell to the highest bidder.
Raven skulked near a hedge, just out of the reach of the security lighting on one side of Hanos’ mansion of evil. She looked across the wide expanse of lawn that was a dusky sort of pink in the bald light. Large windows set in the scarlet stone of the house stared blindly back. This was supposedly where the mansion’s kitchen was situated, the place Laaruu believed Hanos would least likely to expect infiltration of his lair.
Raven spoke in a very low voice, barely more than a whisper. Yet that slight sigh of a voice was all she needed to be heard via her suit’s communication system. “I’m in place. I see no sign of guards.”
Daagiis’ voice sounded in the earpiece contained in the hood of her suit. “We’ll disarm the defensive shielding a minute after we start the fighting.”
“Copy. Good luck and be careful.”
“Get him out of there, Raven. I love you.”
Daagiis’ bald admission, made without the slightest hesitation or inflection, shocked her. Her whisper choked with feeling, she said, “I love you too.”
Silence spun out, giving Raven time to get her suddenly rioting feelings under control. She had to concentrate on the rescue mission ahead of her, but Daagiis’ abrupt and unexpected declaration of love shattered her composure for a few seconds.
He loved her. Maybe it was a weird kind of love, rather like the bizarre, somewhat twisted adoration her heart held for him and Vendeen. But then, his and Vendeen’s apparent love for each other was a tumultuous agony too.
Daagiis loved Raven. She loved him. Unconventional or not, it felt right. Who was she to question it?
Distant shouts and the sounds of explosive shots firing yanked her attention back to where it needed to be: getting inside Hanos’ stronghold and rescuing Vendeen. Raven tensed and waited, her heart doubling its speed. The attack led by Daagiis and Laaruu against the mansion occurred in three different places: the rear entrance, at a side entrance opposite from where Raven hid, and near the dungeons.
The place had actual dungeons, though probably not the medieval type with iron maidens and thumbscrews. Daagiis had confirmed Hanos did torture his prisoners, however. Raven wondered if that was where Vendeen was being held. She wondered if he even lived.
The Paatiin attack was a diversion, one to enable Raven to get into Hanos’ home and track Vendeen down with no one the wiser. As the sounds of fighting went on and on seemingly forever, Raven could only wait and hope Daagiis wouldn’t get killed.
That and pray Vendeen was still alive.
Daagiis’ voice sounded in her earpiece. “Shielding and all power is down, Raven. Go!”
She didn’t hesitate other than to take a quick look around to confirm no one else was around. Then Raven slipped out of the cover of the foliage, racing for the illuminated area that was apparently not tied to the stronghold’s power grid.
She ran across the stretch of lit grounds. She tried not to think too much about how the telltale shimmer of her camosuit could give her away to anyone who might be watching closely. Instead she focused on the window before her, running full out to reach it quickly.
According to Laaruu, the window pane should have slid to one side if it was unlocked. It wasn’t. With the sounds of battle continuing in the distance, Raven braced herself and aimed a solid kick at the window. The reinforced heel of her suit shattered the glass, sending it down inside the darkened room beyond in glittering diamonds. She shot through the opening before it stopped tinkling to the stone floor within.
Raven slid into the deepest shadows, waiting to see if her entrance had been detected. Hanos had scores of sensors and redundant power sources arming the house. Hanos was one paranoid fucker. His backup systems had backup systems. Laaruu hadn’t been entirely confident he’d mapped the whole of the stronghold’s security grid.
When seconds ticked by and no one rushed in to challenge her, Raven finally dared to hope for the best.
“I’m in,” she breathed to Daagiis.
He was apparently too busy to answer. Raven ran through the room, not trying to make sense of the surfaces or structures that made up an alternate universe’s kitchen. Daagiis had programmed the layout according to Laaruu’s information into her array. It quickly oriented her as to where she needed to go to find the dungeons, where they all guessed Vendeen to be.
She gained the corridors. The long stretch of hallway before her was also dark, probably due to the loss of power. The night vision goggles kept her on course and she hurried through the maze-like passages. She could hear the blasts of the ongoing fighting, and Raven hoped that everyone was fixated on the Paatiin attack.
Her luck did not hold out. As she rounded a corner, she came upon a trio of Gilothean soldiers in the hall. The visor-wearing security instantly alerted and trained guns on her, letting her know their eyewear was thermal vision.
They made the colossal mistake of not shooting her on sight. Instead, one yelled, “Halt!”
Raven didn’t surrender or run away. Instead, she went straight into attack mode, springing at the much bigger but very surprised men. She went at them with a ferocity that made the nice Southern girl she’d been cringe in horror. Fortunately, her fighting program took control, knocking her Miss Manners aspect out of the way as her body strove to take out the enemy.
Hoping to remain in stealth mode and not alert any other guards, she attacked with a pair of daggers and well-aimed kicks that drove the three men back and sent two guns flying. Raven didn’t even have to think as the fighting program and reflexes found openings and weaknesses. Even the blows of the Gilotheans, while painful, were ignored by the computer array implanted in her brain as she kicked ass and took no names.
She hadn’t been able to disarm one of Hanos’ men, and he finally got the opportunity to shoot. The bullet glanced off her left shoulder, exploding against the wall a few feet behind her. Though the robotic arm took the worst of the grazing hit, showing only minor surface damage, some of her own flesh and blood went flying. It wasn’t enough to incapacitate Raven, but it slowed her enough that the three men were able to converge on her. She fought on, but fists pounded against her from every direction, and she went to one knee as she was overwhelmed. Her hood was yanked back, exposing her head to regular sight. It didn’t matter when they could see her body heat signature anyway.
Suddenly, one man jerked and yelled as he was knocked to one side. Raven had a bare moment in which she recognized the visor-wearing spy Mikroe as the assailant on that attacker.
With him taking away one, Raven handled the other momentarily surprised two. Within seconds, she and Mikroe stood over the crumpled soldiers staring at each other.
Raven said, “It looks like I owe you another show.”
Mikroe scowled at her. “Just get that meddlesome asshole Vendeen out of here and I’ll call it even. Incidentally, you’re headed the wrong way. He’s not in the dungeon.”
“Fuck,” she swore. “Where have they got him?”
“They’ve been beating the shit out of him in Hanos’ assembly room. I’ll show you. Pull your hood back up.”
She did so with the comment, “If they’re all wearing those thermal goggles, what does it matter?”
“It matters because it’s fucking with me to have a floating head following me around.”
He trotted off and Raven followed close behind. She asked, “Speaking of fucking up, what’s this doing to your undercover work?”
Mikroe snorted. “Exactly that. But Vendeen ali
ve is worth more to us fighting Hanos than he is dead. I promise you, Hanos will see him finished as soon as his men kill off your Paatiin friends.”
His words worried Raven for Daagiis, but they’d known none of them might get out of this alive when they’d come. Right now she had to concentrate on getting Vendeen out. Setting her sights on her mission and that alone, she raced to keep up with Mikroe.
Chapter 20
Raven and Mikroe flitted through the halls. Raven’s brain matrix automatically recorded the route they so she would be able to find her way out once she found Vendeen. She thought adding a computer array to her gray matter had been a pretty sweet deal. The twists and turns Mikroe led her around would have had the old, natural Raven completely lost.
At last her guide slowed. They approached a great open doorway, the ponderous carved doors flung wide. Noting how Mikroe crept towards it on silent feet, Raven followed his lead. The Gilothean spy reached the edge of the door and peered in. His shoulders relaxed an instant later.
He whispered to Raven, “They left him hanging there when the Paatiin attacked, apparently. Let’s get Vendeen out of here.”
Mikroe walked into the room beyond with no fear. Since Raven didn’t know him well enough to count on his benevolent friendship, she chose to peek around the opening and take a good look around before following him.
Damned if it didn’t look like a medieval throne room to her. The wood plank flooring was polished to a high gleam beneath the vaulted ceiling. Ivory walls with gold trim added to the richness of the space, giving it an almost cathedral-like appearance. A round gold chandelier and matching sconces provided lighting, though the bluish-white points that illuminated the room was certainly not produced by flames. At the opposite end of the room sat an actual throne seat, thick and blocklike with carvings and seemingly made of white marble. The seat was softened by a billowy gold cushion. In all that white and gold, the long runner of carpet that ended at the throne was a startling burst of aqua blue.
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