The Human

by Jenny Foster

  Talon followed the blonde down a narrow hallway. All of the doors were shut, except for one at the very end. The only thing he could hear was a strangely muted lullaby floating through the eerie silence in the entire house. The voice was untrained but had great potential. The singing was coming from the open door, and when he went in, he stopped dead in his tracks in shock. A handful of men were standing around a huge chest filled with water. They were in various states of arousal, as Talon could see. One of them wiped the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief that had once been clean. Another was fingering around in his fly with an empty look. Nobody seemed to take offense. The third – no, this was too much. There were things that Talon did not want seared into his memory. He quickly turned his gaze from the men to the creature in the water tank. It was a woman, or at least, Talon suspected that it was of a female gender. Long hair that floated in the water like seaweed, a delicate, heart-shaped face, and full breasts at least pointed in that direction. The one thing that irritated him more than the long fishtail that started where a human woman’s legs would have begun, was her mouth. When she opened it to sing another verse underwater, she revealed razor-sharp teeth. A sharp intelligence was lurking in her sweet ocean-blue eyes, and when she looked at him, an ice-cold shiver ran down his back. Talon took a step closer to the glass tank, and then another.

  This creature was not as scary as he had thought at first. When she opened her mouth to sing, he noticed that her voice wasn’t that bad, either. Quite the opposite. The longer he listened to her, the lovelier she sounded. The words flowing from her mouth were sweet, so sweet. She was singing only for him. The other men were nothing more than idiots. She just needed admirers, but he, Talon was the one for whom she sang a song about love and death, of blood and joy.

  Cat.

  He blinked, as Cat suddenly appeared behind his eyes. Delicate and vulnerable. Strong, angry, and more passionate than any other. Cat. What in the world had just happened to him? He looked at the woman again, as she floated weightlessly in the water, flexible and graceful like a leaf in the wind. He shook his head, and the last of the illusion fell away. He thought he heard a satisfied giggle in his head, but it was so soft that he must have been mistaken.

  Talon turned around and grabbed the blonde, who was watching him intently, by the arm. “Take me to your mistress, right now. No games, or else…” He looked down at her threateningly, but his harsh words only elicited a smile. She, too, had lost the majority of her charm. Her features looked tough, but not unfriendly, as she wriggled out of his grasp with a jerking and highly effective move.

  “As previously stated, you are expected.” With her chin, she pointed to a door that blended in perfectly with the wallpaper around it. He hadn’t noticed it until now. Without another word, he went to the door. It was slightly open already. Before he entered Sharita’s domain, he turned around one last time. That was a mistake, because he saw a man holding a razor to his own throat. His first impulse was to turn around and to rip the razor from the man’s hands, but it was already too late. The water woman sang while the red pearls turned into a necklace around the pale skin. The song reached its climax, and as the last note died away, life came back into the man’s eyes. He reached for his throat with a terrible wheezing, held his blood-splattered hands up in front of his eyes, and opened his eyes so wide that only the whites were visible. It was too late to help the man.

  Talon’s mouth went dry as he finally sat down across from the woman whose help he so desperately needed. He thought of Cat, and that he might have made a mistake in coming here, but what he had just witnessed was nothing compared to the new shock that awaited him. Sitting next to Sharita, who looked harmless and human, sat a figure that he would have recognized among thousands, even if it was hiding its face under a hood. The snout alone, gray and flexible, would have given him away.

  The Sethari had lured him into a trap.

  Chapter 5

  Cat was slowly getting restless, as Talon still hadn’t returned four hours later. She had followed his example and had walked through the building, where she had discovered bathrooms for the employees. Water flowed from the faucets, the toilets worked, and even if the pipes gurgled threateningly, it was a sight that Cat thanked all of the Gods she could think of for.

  The sun set, and still no sign of Talon.

  Cat had found a different room for them. It had a large, intact window. Through it, she was able to admire the sunset in all its glory. It was a stale pleasure without Talon at her side. She tried to contact Shazuul, so she could tell him about the changes in their plans, but he remained silent. Once, she thought she heard his typical laughter from a distance, but it sounded so dull that she thought it was probably just wishful thinking. She called out to him again, loudly this time, but without success, so Cat snuggled inside the nest she had built for herself and Talon out of blankets and sleeping bags and waited.

  When she closed her eyes, it was so easy to forget where she was. Building castles in the sky and daydreaming had always been Coran’s things. Despite, or maybe because of, his sharp and overactive mind, he had always been the one who talked about their parents – who didn’t want to give up searching for them. Cat had taken over this obsession after he had disappeared, as if from the face of the planet, but if she was honest, they had been doing it more for his sake than out of deep need. Sure, she had wanted to find her birth parents too, but never with the same intensity with which Coran searched for them. She had continued Coran’s research, but for one reason only, that she owed it to him. She had always imagined that one day he would be standing in front of her, and she could say “Oh, by the way, I found Mom and Dad.” Well, that topic was over, at least for now. Her mother was floating around in space somewhere, caught in a deep cryogenic sleep, and her father had disappeared just as much as Coran had.

  Cat frowned when she noticed the parallel. Was there a connection, maybe? One that neither she nor the Sethari had understood? She imagined her father and Coran training together. Maybe he had taken her brother with him, to turn him into an unbelievably good fighter, who one day… no. The castle in the sky collapsed. That was complete nonsense, and it did nothing to help her with her problem with the Krak and the king.

  What was taking Talon so long? She realized that he hadn’t told her exactly where he was going to meet this informant or contact person or whatever she was called. Did he keep that from her on purpose? Enough, Cat told herself. The more space she gave fear and paranoia, the stronger they would become. Instead, she should be thinking about how she was going to get the king out of town without being noticed, after he had fallen into her trap.

  She stood up restlessly and paced up and down the room. If Talon didn’t show up in the next half hour, then… what then? It didn’t make any sense to look for him, especially if he was already on the way back. Cat cursed her negligence. She should have asked him where he was going, or insisted that he take her with him. Now it was too late. She couldn’t even concentrate hard enough to think through her plan once, that’s how anxious she was.

  And then, finally, Talon was there. She recognized his footfall even before he pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway. His confidence and far-reaching strides were unmistakable. Before she knew what she was doing, she flew into his arms and he caught her. Talon squeezed her once before putting her down. Then she saw his face and knew immediately that something wasn’t right.

  “What happened?” she asked. She felt like her heart would explode inside her chest.

  “There has been a change in plans,” he said curtly. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but then thought better of it and pressed his lips together until they were just a thin line on his face.

  “Talon,” Cat said and tried to reach for his hand. “Please talk to me. What did I do?”

  He raised his hand and balled it into a fist. At first, she thought that he wanted to hit her, and ducked. Then his fist banged into the wall. Plaster crumbl
ed, and dust swirled around. The spot where he had hit the wall was now a pretty big, gaping hole. Either the building was poorly constructed, or Talon was very, very angry. Cat took another step back, but then decided on a different path and went to him. This time it was he who stepped back. Cat lifted her chin and looked him right in the eye. “Talk to me,” she said again, but not asking. She was demanding it.

  “Fine,” he growled. His eyes flashed at her aggressively. “Your best friend, the Sethari, lured me into a trap,” he said. His voice sounded bitter. Cat thought at first that his pride had been wounded, because the Sethari might have tricked him, but there was more to it than that. It was then, that the meaning of his words really registered.

  “What?” she said in disbelief. Shazuul lured you, lured us, into a trap? That can’t be. Are you hurt?”

  “It wasn’t that kind of trap,” he replied. His eyebrows were pulled together, forming an arch over his flashing eyes. “He went over both of our heads and decided what was best for us. He convinced my contact to give us shelter and thought of a whacky plan for how he could lure my king into a trap.” His arms were hanging lifelessly at his sides. Cat could see that he was clenching his fists until his knuckles were white.

  “That can’t be,” she whispered irritated. “He told me something completely different.” The sharp look Talon gave her made her flinch.

  “When did you speak to him last?” His voice was flat.

  “Yesterday,” she admitted. “We thought it best for him to stay near me without you knowing about it.”

  “So you were talking with each other behind my back.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Cat started to explain.

  “Oh, really? Then please tell me, what it was like. Was it for my own good that I didn’t know about it? Is it for my own good that I look like an idiot who doesn’t have a clue?”

  “You are acting like I was cheating on you with him,” Cat fired back. She was standing so close to him that her breasts were touching him. She had to lean her head back to look him in the eye. With both hands, she reached for his upper arms and held him tight as if he might flee at any moment. His muscles were hard as stone, and his whole body was shaking with suppressed anger, but Cat wasn’t afraid of him. She was far too angry for that. “He is just a friend.”

  “How can someone whom you hardly know become a friend in such a short time?”

  “How can you make someone whom you barely know into your companion?” Cat hissed and wished immediately that she could take her words back. His face closed off. Talon looked down at her like a stranger. His facial expression was cold. Ice cold. He pulled away from her grasp.

  Talon went into the room. Cat stayed in the hallway. She watched him stuff a blanket and sleeping bag into his backpack and come back out into the hallway. “Talon, please…” Cat couldn’t finish the sentence. The words died in her throat. He looked right through her as he walked towards the door to the stairwell. Cat watched his every move: How his slender fingers wrapped around the doorknob, how his muscles tensed when he opened the heavy metal door.

  “I will find a way to dissolve the bond between us,” he said flatly. What Cat had wished for earlier, now sounded like a threat to her ears. “And by the way,” he looked at her one last time, “when your friend comes to pick you up, so you can keep your promise to the Krak, tell him to stay out of my head. Forever.”

  He was gone before Cat could grasp what he had said.

  Chapter 6

  Talon’s half-pretend anger that he had nursed so carefully the whole way back, had disappeared the minute he closed the door behind him and headed down the steps. Cat’s face had told him that she had spoken with the Sethari behind his back, or whatever you wanted to call it when they communicated with each other in their thoughts, but she hadn’t had a clue about the energy vampire’s devious actions. Her eyes had widened as his last arrow had hit the mark. He had seen that very well. Her pulse had started racing, and the anger he had felt in her, almost as intensely as his own, had turned to complete confusion.

  Now she was on her own. Not really, of course, because the Sethari would be there at any minute to pick her up, or he would at least give her mental instructions about where to find him. His plan really was cunning and clever, especially for a Sethari, Talon had to admit. Still, the whole thing didn’t sit right with him, and he wanted nothing more than to turn around so that he could stay near Cat. He bared his teeth and was happy that Cat couldn’t see his hesitation. One word from her would have been enough to change his mind. She was his companion, and if she couldn’t understand what that meant, then there was nothing he could do about it. Even so, he was almost happy that she wasn’t alone, even if it was a damned Sethari watching out for her.

  Leaving her by herself had been the hardest thing he had ever done. Even his anger, which he had thrown himself into on purpose, didn’t last long enough to make saying goodbye easy. He would never forget the look on her face when he turned away from her. She had looked so vulnerable, despite the stubborn features around her mouth and the flashes of anger in her eyes. No wonder these humans slid from one catastrophe to the next, since they felt so many emotions all at once.

  When he had seen the Sethari sitting next to Sharita, his first impulse had been to turn around, or to rip the energy vampire to shreds. It had only taken him a split second to realize that he had walked right into a trap, and when the Sethari had slipped into his head so easily, as easy as it was for him to breathe or kiss his Cat, he had had no choice but to listen. Or, in other words, to see, since Shazuul wasn’t that good with words. Talon assumed that he had showed him the same things he had showed Cat. Images of Cat’s mother, who looked so much like Cat, even though the color of her skin was different, that it took his breath away. No wonder Cat trusted the Sethari, because the things he offered in his memories were really convincing. Nobody who saw Shazuul holding the tiny babies in his arms would ever think him capable of doing something evil. Even Talon could feel himself go soft against his will and start to wonder if his suspicions about Cat’s new friend hadn’t been unfounded.

  He tried in vain to shake Shazuul free, but he was holding on tight inside his head like a parasite. Calm Talon, Shazuul said in his head, and that was almost worse than seeing strange memories, in which you had the starring role, play like a movie. Just when he thought he was going to lose it any second now, the Sethari loosened his grip on his thoughts, and he was finally alone in his own body again. His breathing slowed, but he felt the lion inside him stretching his head and making himself ready.

  “What do you want from me?” Talon asked with a deceptively calm voice.

  It was Sharita who answered him. This didn’t surprise him, since Shazuul had such a limited command of the human language. He should probably even be thankful to the little guy for leaving the communication to Sharita. Talon recognized that he had underestimated Shazuul and his skills. That would never happen to him again.

  “Our mutual friend here has convinced me to help you and your little human wife,” she said with a voice that sounded like liquid honey. Talon didn’t care for the sweet and sticky stuff but could see how men from Earth might react to it. He looked at his information source and took in every detail about her appearance. Now that he was seeing her for the first time, instead of just hearing her, he completed his picture of a hard and calculating business woman with a further, and not exactly flattering description. Sharita was tiny, almost dwarflike, and without her waves of curls, she could have passed for a boy. Her light blue eyes had a hard shine to them, telling anyone who had eyes in their head, and hadn’t been fooled by her girl-like appearance, not to engage in games with her.

  “We don’t have any mutual friends,” Talon replied, even though he suspected that it was unwise to anger her. “If you are talking about the Sethari, then why don’t you ask him why he has secretly taken up residence in my head, instead of telling Cat and me openly what he had planned.”

  Shari
ta smiled tight-lipped and gave a sigh of exaggerated patience. “Because it is important for your kitty cat to believe that she is alone and abandoned. You didn’t actually think that someone like Ferthoris III would just walk into your department store, without any bodyguards, and let you hand him over to the Krak, did you?” She raised her plucked eyebrows as Talon gave Shazuul an angry look. Was there nothing the little bastard didn’t know about?

  In response, Shazuul wagged his snout, which made him look irritatingly embarrassed and then he smiled sheepishly. Sorry, he said in Talon’s thoughts, Shazuul need know everything. Or no can help Cat.

  “Out of my head,” Talon growled. He realized that his lion was becoming increasingly restless, and he was having a hard time keeping him in check. “Either tell me right now what you two have planned, or I am going to go right back to Cat. You can keep making plans, for all I care. We don’t need your help.”

  Sharita grinned, baring her pearly white teeth. They were so perfect that they couldn’t possibly be real. “Calm down, my boy,” she said patronizingly. “This is for your own good.” She paused for effect. Talon passed the time by imagining himself putting his hands around her neck and shaking the truth out of her.

  “To cut a long story short, your kitty cat will move in here with me. I will offer her to your king. He will come to The Red Feather, and Shazuul will take him out of commission. Then you and Cat can take him to the Krak.” Her smug smile made his blood boil.

  Talon laughed condescendingly. He just couldn’t help it, because what they were suggesting was comical, even if he was the only one who could see that. “That plan has so many weak spots, that I don’t even know where to begin.” It felt good to limit himself to facts, and it gave him an unexpected amount of pleasure to rip their ridiculous plan to shreds. “First,” he raised one finger, “why do you think Ferthoris will respond to your invitation at all? Until now, you have only dealt with me in exchanging information. He doesn’t even know you.”