Blood Siren (Chronicles of the Orion Spur Book 1)

by Michael Formichelli

  “No, you’re dead-on right. Cleeb University does have an excellent lab. I’ve made use of their services in the past.”

  “I’ll meet you at your ship, at a time of your choosing.” Maskhim Sinuthros stared at Nero with his large, black almond-shaped eyes.

  “I have another lead to check on. I don’t have a timetable yet,” Nero said.

  I would sigh if I could. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

  Maskhim Sinuthros followed him out of his seat. “Understood, Praetor Graves. Simply keep me in the loop. I would hate to have a diplomatic incident over a misunderstanding of departure times.”

  Nero ground his teeth more. “So would I.”

  “May the Progenitors watch over us.” The Maskhim held his hands out in front of him, palms up.

  “Yeah, sure thing.”

  He hoped the trip to the Gaian Biodome went better than this.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ikuzlu City, Kosfanter

  41:1:1 CST (J2400:3060)

  Cylus rolled away from the annoyance and pulled the pillow over his head. His bed here, in the Keltan family suite within his barony tower, was nearly as comfortable as his one on Anilon, the planet he most wished he was on right now. He had absolutely no desire to awaken, yet the poking annoyance in his side was persistent.

  “I’m sorry to wake you master, but there is an air-car inbound. Its operator is insisting that it be given permission to land.” Ben spoke in a rock-steady voice, totally unperturbed by Cylus’ groans of protest.

  Cylus rolled towards the sound and opened his eyes, squinting. Ben’s cue-ball head was framed by the ornate molding and Earth Renaissance-style frescos covering the bedroom walls. The anachronistic outfits of the plump people depicted in the scenes contrasted sharply with the form-fitting suit of his servant. For some reason he could not fathom, this seemed funny and Cylus burst out into a short-lived cackle. He instantly regretted it.

  His head was pounding after last night’s drinking. He didn’t know how many shots he’d done of Isinari Ale, but he did know that if his unannounced visitor was Hagus Olivaar coming in person to demand he officially get betrothed to Pasqualina, Cylus was going to shoot him in the face. He told his uncle before starting his binge that switching parties in the national political register would precede any other steps towards marriage. It took Sophi’s continued insistence that this was the only way to motivate him to do it. The back of his mouth still tasted like the bile he regurgitated afterwards, and on top of everything else, his parents had paid him a visit in his dreams to accuse him of betrayal. Neither the alcohol, nor the sleep drugs he took had banished their specters from his mind.

  “What time is it?” Cylus’ words sounded slurred in his own ears.

  “Local anti-meridian phase third hour, master,” Ben said.

  “Who the hell insists on landing at this hour?”

  “Heir Sophiathena Cronus, master.”

  He pulled himself up to a seated position. The white silk sheets fell away from his chest. He blinked several times in the dark and ran his hands through his tangled hair and beard twice. “Low illumination,” he said.

  The chandelier above his bed responded with soft amber light.

  “Did she say what she wanted?” If she was visiting him this early in the morning then something must be wrong.

  “Just that she wanted to land, master,” Ben responded.

  “Let her. I’ll meet her on the pad above in the western cloister.”

  He cast the sheets aside. Ben helped him into a thick fur robe and slippers, then trailed behind him combing his long red hair and fixing it into a tail as Cylus headed to the landing platform.

  The Keltan Securities tower was located on the outer edge of the city atoll near the heart of the Corporate District. The west side faced the rolling sea, while the east overlooked the bustling ring of the city. Shaped like a long, twisting rectangular box, the Keltan family apartments occupied the top seven floors of the structure and had an open-air cloister on either side of the tower. The private landing platforms thrust out from the lip of the building like tiny, square wings, and were rarely occupied since he assumed the mantle of Baron Keltan.

  The air was bitterly chilled and wet at this hour and covered his ears and nose with sticky wet kisses. He squinted in the splash of the landing lights, watching as the bloated form of Sophi’s air-car descended out of the night on a red aura of dark energy, settling gently onto the pad. Its engine roared once, and fell silent.

  Her air-car was designed after a kind of wheeled ground machine from Earth’s past. It had chromium runners and something attached to the front that she once told him was called a “bumper” for some reason she could not supply. The body of the craft looked like three squeezed marshmallows put together with tumescent curves, with large fins rising from the rear turbines that seemed to serve no purpose other than to draw attention to themselves. She told him once she liked it because it looked classier than the modern cars, but in his eyes it only looked anachronistic and meretricious. The way the headlights shone from above the forward chrome air intake was creepy too.

  The door swung upward, and Sophi stepped out from the driver’s side. She was wearing a robe the color of arterial blood, open with the hood cast back, and had on a crimson-red strapless dress beneath it. She bared her alabaster face to the air defiantly, as if daring the world to deny her dominion of the night. It was unusual to see her so naked, but he remembered that the darkness of the pre-dawn hours was always the most comfortable time for her. Her hair was loose, falling over her shoulders both in front and back to her waist, blowing in the wind like long writhing snakes about her body.

  “What’s wrong, Sophi?” he shouted to her.

  She gave him a hard look, turned on her heel, and went around behind the car.

  A chill crawled down his spine.

  “Sophi?” He said.

  She emerged with an oversized purse strapped across her chest and a suitcase in each hand. She approached with an agitated gait that made her whole body vibrate.

  “I will be staying with you indefinitely.” She walked past him without pause, heading directly for the entranceway on the opposite side of the cloister.

  He blinked. “What happened?”

  “Ask my mother,” she said from the garden, already several paces ahead of him. Ben moved to block her but Cylus waved him off.

  The whine of another air-car brought his attention back to the pad. This one had the streamlined design of a modern vehicle, and bore on its long hood the stylized line image of a microchip, the symbol of Intelligent Systems Incorporated.

  He inhaled sharply, wishing Ben had just let him sleep instead of being his usual, dutiful self.

  “You threw her out?” Cylus approached the vehicle.

  Aurora emerged from the air-car with the fury of a typhoon. Her honey-blonde hair was twisted into a frayed bun on her head barely held in check with silver and gold star pins. The long sleeves of her blue dress looked like melted wax on her wrists. He felt the heat from her fury-twisted face and had to will himself not to shy away. The expression of rage made her look like a demonic doll.

  “Inside.” Aurora’s voice was like a whip. Cylus found himself inside his tower before he could tell his legs to resist.

  “Aurora, what’s going on?” He struggled to regain his composure after her tone stripped his adulthood from him.

  “Don’t act like you don’t know, Cylus Keltan. Your parents must be rolling over in their graves.” Aurora shoved him down the short hallway from behind. The florescent lighting somehow seemed to make her words even harsher.

  “Is this about the party affiliation?” He waved off Ben again as he made to block Aurora. He didn’t need his former step-aunt any angrier than she already was.

  They reached his western sitting room within moments. Once over the threshold he took the opportunity to move several steps away across the antique woven carpet that bore his family’s seven-pointed star.
The smell of sandalwood and pine-ash closed in around him.

  “What do you think? How could you two? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Aurora went straight for the wooden liquor cabinet hanging above the fireplace of the sitting room. She poured herself a brandy, downed it, then did so again.

  His eyes did a quick inventory of the room. Four padded leather easy chairs, a matching sofa and a holographic projector disguised as an old chess table, but no Sophi.

  “Aurora, we didn’t just switch for the sake of switching, we’ve got a plan—”

  “What plan? The one where you erode my political base and alienate your family?” Aurora slammed the crystal snifter on the mantle.

  He scrunched his face at her.

  “What? Didn’t think about what the announcement today would do to your aunt’s political career? Cylus, let me explain this to you as best I can. The Cronus family has been known for generations for being pro-labor and pro-the common sentient. I’m a prominent member of the Democratic Labor Party; the party that fights for the workers in our Confederation and ceaselessly makes sure their voices are heard in our government. Do you know who we fight against, Cylus?”

  He felt pinned by her gaze.

  “We fight Zalor Revenant and his Mercantile Party cronies. The same people you and my daughter just got into bed with. When this hits the morning news, when it becomes known that my daughter and you, the last surviving member of House Keltan, have joined Zalor Revenant, do you know what will happen?” Aurora was trembling.

  “We’re not really—”

  “It doesn’t matter Cylus, it really doesn’t. People are going to see you standing with that monster after Yoji’s death and they are going to think that he’s won. It will be the seal on the coffin for them, Cylus. They’re going to give up. My seat in the Conclave is in danger now, as is everyone else’s who was joined with Yoji. Not only might we get voted out next year, but Zalor’s stooges will be voted in. He’ll have total control of both branches of government.” The anger drained from her with the admission, and Aurora fell into one of the four ornate padded chairs.

  “Next year is the election?” He hadn’t known it was coming so soon.

  Aurora sighed. “Cylus, I mean you no offense, but you spent way too long in absentia. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, mother.” Sophi, less her bags, entered the room. She closed her robe and put her hair back with an ivory-and-gold clasp depicting the seven-pointed star of Keltan Securities. Cylus briefly wondered where she’d gotten it, then realized she must have raided his mother’s jewelry box. How she knew where to find it was a mystery to him.

  Her appearance put fire back into Aurora’s expression. “The two of you may have just ended our fight.”

  “We did no such thing, mother.”

  “Oh? What does your brother think of your little stunt? What will he think when his mother is ousted from office after over twenty years of service? What will he think of what you two are doing to his father’s memory?” Aurora crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  Cylus shared a look with Sophi. He hadn’t thought of any of this, but she should have. She was smart; she always knew what to do. She’d have planned for this.

  Sophi stared at her mother, tight-lipped.

  “He’s in on it?” Aurora said. The shock shattered her anger like it was window glass.

  “Mother, we know what we’re doing. Something must be done now. You know that. Father—”

  “He renounced you. Don’t call him that,” Aurora said.

  Sophi pressed her lips together, folding her arms across her chest exactly as her mother was doing. “Father,” she said, and waited for an objection.

  Aurora locked eyes with her daughter. She looked angry but did not say a word.

  “Father has won a major victory. The Mitsugawa threat to him has been removed. He’s at his most vulnerable now because he is thinking that no one can stop him. He’s right—for now, at least——but it creates a window of opportunity that we cannot afford to waste. We’ve come up with a plan—” Sophi’s voice was steadier than Cylus thought it would be. Maybe she did know what she was doing after all.

  “You, Cylus, and my traitorous son?” Aurora said.

  “Yes mother, your traitor children and Cylus have come up with a plan. We need to have the appearance of joining father for now, while he’s relaxed enough to let us, so we can learn what his next move is going to be. Only by learning his mind are we going to be able to stop him,” Sophi said.

  “We can’t rely on Praetor Graves alone,” Cylus added.

  “Praetor Graves is an Abyssian and knows what he’s doing. Sophi, you’re twenty-one. By the time Zalor was your age he’d already wrested control of Cosmos Corp from his mother and banished her to the far reaches of known space. Do you have any idea how smart he is? How cunning? How evil?”

  “I am my father’s daughter.” She met her mother’s gaze with pride.

  The words caused Aurora to jerk back as if she’d been slapped. She blinked several times. “Are you so determined to be? He doesn’t want you, Sophi. The moment he realized you were a threat to him he disowned you. I left him over it—”

  “You left him because he asked you to break with your political party and pass his bill. I checked the records, mother. He disowned me months before that vote and it was only after you decided not to support him that you left.” Sophi’s voice quivered.

  Cylus’ mouth dropped open.

  Aurora scanned the face of her daughter for several long minutes. “You think I should have voted with him? He was trying to make it easier to take people’s livelihoods. You think I should’ve thrown all of the struggling people to the Wolf?”

  Sophi licked her lips. “If they aren’t strong enough to survive on their own—

  Aurora was on her feet and across the room in a second. She smacked Sophi across the face so hard the sound echoed off the wall behind Cylus. Sophi bent her body with the blow, letting her face turn towards the floor as her mother followed through. After a moment she slowly righted herself and met her mother’s eyes. Her cheek was bright red.

  “—then they don’t deserve to survive at all. That’s the doctrine we are to live by. It is the one we have to live by, or the ones that do will destroy us. Wolves eat sheep, mother. It is just the way it is. You’ve been living in denial, sheltered by Aunt Hephestia’s power, but things are changing and you have to wake up or father will devour you along with the rest of the flock.”

  Cylus couldn’t believe his ears. Sophi was spouting the same philosophy his uncle had tried and failed to impart on him as a child. It was what he thought they were trying to fight, and he hoped to the stars that Sophi was just saying these things out of hurt and anger with her mother and didn’t actually mean it. It was all part of the plan, right?

  Aurora stared at her daughter, her mouth partly open and her eyes wide. The color drained from her face and she took a step back.

  Sophi took a step forward, drawing closer to her mother. “I am not like you. I am not a sheep.”

  “No, I can see that, Sophi. You are your father’s creature. I tried to make you into a decent human being but there is too much of him in you isn’t there? I didn’t have a chance with you. I hope I didn’t fail with Ichiro. I don’t know why he’s going along with this. His father would not have.” Aurora’s shoulders slumped and she looked more tired and older than Cylus had ever seen her.

  He wanted to go to her, hug her, and try to explain that what they were doing was necessary, but he wasn’t sure that it was. Sophi said there was no other way, but was that really true? Did they have to betray their principles in order to preserve them? Couldn’t they fight Zalor a more honest way? A way that didn’t keep him up at night worrying that his father wouldn’t have approved?

  He looked to Sophi, expecting to see the doubt and sympathy he was feeling reflected on her face, but what he saw instead stiffened him with horror. Her fac
e was a mask of disgust, her faded blue eyes burned with a hate so intense that it scared him as much as it shocked him to see it. He couldn’t believe this was the same Sophi he knew, the same Sophi he always felt was the only person he could ever really trust. How could she look like that?

  “Mother, you better leave now. Cylus has a long day ahead of him. His betrothed is coming over in a few hours and he could use some sleep.” Sophi’s expression vanished as she spoke, replaced by the familiar, neutral look.

  “Betrothed?” Aurora asked.

  “Not officially. Not yet, but it’s the only way,” he said. He wondered if Aurora could hear the doubt in his voice.

  “To whom?” Aurora asked.

  “Pasqualina Olivaar,” Sophi said.

  “Oh Cylus, you don’t have to do that. If you marry her then Zalor will—” Aurora started.

  “He’s aware, as am I, of what father might do,” Sophi said.

  “Might? He will do it. He will. The bastard has never let a little thing like human life come between him and money—or power.” Aurora gave Cylus a long, pitying look.

  He looked at the floor. “It’s not going to come to that,” he said weakly.

  Aurora gathered herself up, took a deep breath, and moved close to him. “There is always another way, Cylus. Remember that.” She paused, her mind elsewhere for a moment before adding, “Pasqualina has a stronger connection to Zalor than you might think. If you do marry her, things will not go as you expect.”

  He looked up. Aurora’s sky blue eyes were brimming with pathos, as though she knew what was going to happen and was already feeling the pain he would soon be in.

  “You don’t have to do this, and you don’t have to listen to Sophiathena. There is another way—a more honest, truer way that will honor your father and my sister,” Aurora said.

  Her words were like a warm, soft bed after a long day. Cylus wanted to believe her, wanted to make Sophi believe her so they could turn away from this mad course they were on. He felt his resolve weaken.