Once Upon A Midnight Drow (Goth Drow Book 1)

by Martha Carr

  The Nightstalker hissed, then turned slowly toward Cheyenne. The five inches of dazzling razor-sharp claws—or blades—at the tips of his fingers drew back into his hand with a sickening whisper. After glancing over his shoulder one last time, Corian stalked toward the drow halfling propping herself up with her hands behind her in the grass. She couldn’t find a single thing to say.

  Apparently, the same loss for words hadn’t hit him. “Not quite ready for this kinda showdown, are you?”

  The halfling glanced at the magical bodies scattered across the grass and the sidewalk and the glistening asphalt under the streetlights. When she looked back up at him, Corian had extended a hand to help her up. She took it, grimacing at the extra ache even that much pressure brought to her shoulder, but at least the feeling was coming back to her leg. It was like pins and needles on steroids.

  Corian grabbed her wrist with his other hand too when she swayed on her feet. The concern in his glowing silver eyes was unmistakable when he scanned her, then he released her and nodded. “You good?”

  “I’m…yeah. I’ll be fine.” She couldn’t help but study the devastation the Nightstalker had wrought on a dozen magicals in about thirty seconds. “What was that?”

  “That was what happens when someone as powerful as they’re supposed to be knows what they’re doing.” His silver eyes bored into hers, and there wasn’t a hint of a smile on that feline face this time. “I’ll take care of these idiots. You should go home. Get some rest. Maybe walk off that bum leg until it starts following orders again. Then come back with that box, Cheyenne, and I’ll show you how to do what you can’t yet.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Nodding slowly, still not sure what had happened, the halfling limped slowly toward her car. When she opened the driver’s door, she stopped and looked over the hood at Corian again. “Thanks. For coming out here when you did.”

  A short huff escaped through his nose, and he nodded as he scanned his body-littered front yard. “It’s my job.”

  Cheyenne ducked and slid into the driver’s seat, grimacing at the pain of…well, pretty much everything at that point. She started the engine, got a quarter of the way through buckling her seatbelt before giving up, and took off slowly down the street.

  The Nightstalker who knows my dad just demolished a magical gang and told me to get some rest. She puffed out a sigh and shook her head, blinking heavily under the streetlights racing past on her way back downtown. If I’m gonna take anyone’s advice, I guess it should be his.

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  It took her ten minutes to climb the stairs to her second-floor apartment. Everything still hurt, and she was too exhausted to pretend she didn’t care. When she reached the second-floor landing and pushed the door open into the hall, she wondered how long it would take her to walk past the five other apartments on either side to get to hers.

  Although she could feel her right leg and her foot again, it still didn’t want to listen. The hall filled with the slow thump and drag of the halfling half-limping, half-pulling herself across the stained old carpet. Halfway down, a door on her right opened quickly, and R’mahr stuck his head out into the hall.

  “Cheyenne. Hello.”

  The most she could give him was a grunt and a hand lifted in a weak wave. If I look away from my front door, I’m not gonna make it.

  “Are you busy tomorrow evening?” The troll standing cheerily in his doorway grinned at her as she approached, leaning forward between his hands clutching either side of the doorframe. “We’d love to have you in our home for a meal. I’m…well, I’m sure you have plenty of obligations, but if tomorrow would suit you to—oh. Uh, are you all right?”

  The halfling just gave him another grunt, weaker this time, and shuffled past him down the hall.

  “Cheyenne?”

  “What is it?” Yadje asked from inside the trolls’ apartment. “R’mahr, what did you say?”

  “I didn’t say anything. She’s just… She looks hurt.”

  “What do you mean, hurt?”

  “I mean hurt, woman. What else could that mean?”

  Cheyenne didn’t have to turn around to know Yadje had joined her husband in the doorway and poked her head out alongside his to stare at the drow halfling moving at a snail’s pace.

  “Oh, for the love of— Leave her alone, will you?”

  “She might need help.”

  “R’mahr, if she needs help, she’ll ask for it.” The troll woman’s voice carried down the hall. “Cheyenne, if you need anything, please ask. We’re right here.”

  The halfling’s strength gave out again and she staggered sideways. She slapped her hand against the wall and steadied herself. Her head dropped toward her chest and she sighed, taking a moment to get some strength back before she limped toward her apartment again.

  “I don’t think she’ll ask—”

  “Of course, she will. Now stop bothering her and come help me with the—”

  The troll family’s front door clicked shut, and Cheyenne took two more slow, halting steps before she stood in front of her apartment. Her keys came slowly out of the pocket of her black jacket, and it took a moment before she found the right one and jiggled it into the keyhole.

  She almost fell on her face when the door opened and wouldn’t stay still to take her weight. It was harder than it should have been to yank her keys back out of the door before she pushed it shut again and stumbled out of her black Vans. Then she dragged herself into her tiny living room and dropped into the office chair behind her huge executive desk. The force of her weight sent the whole thing rolling back across the plastic mat, but she didn’t mind.

  It could have been two minutes or twenty that Cheyenne just sat there in the chair, her hands dangling over the armrests, her legs stretched out in front of her. However long it was, it was enough sitting and doing nothing without having to think or focus or move anything that she started to feel better.

  I thought getting shot in the hip was bad, but this is all pain and no gain. Sitting straighter in her chair, the halfling rolled her shoulders gently and stretched her neck from side to side, hissing out a sigh through clenched teeth. Her eyes drooped heavily, her shoulders slumped, and her head dipped slowly toward her chest. Cheyenne sucked in a sharp breath and jerked upright again, slapping herself in the face. “Wake up!”

  That jolted her as much as she needed, and she scooted the office chair back across the mat toward her desk with a bitter chuckle. Her new Nightstalker friend was legit when it came to fighting larger numbers of magicals on his own than Cheyenne had been able to take on. But Corian running around on the dark web as gu@rdi@n104 and claiming he had useful information on Durg was a whole different ballpark, and seeing how legit he was with that was more important right now than sleep.

  Shaking her head, she turned on the main monitor and gave Glen time to power up.

  When everything was running and ready to go, she logged back onto the dark web, found her way quickly to the Borderlands forum, and didn’t even have the time to glance at the most recent topic threads before a chat window popped up in the corner of her screen. From gu@rdi@n104, of course.

  gu@rdi@n104: As promised. This’ll help you find him. Don’t let tonight stop you from walking down the other path you’re pursuing. I’ll be waiting.

  There was a file attached to the message, unencrypted and benign, something Cheyenne was apparently supposed to trust because they’d already talked about it in person. She opened the Bunker program anyway and dragged the file in there first to scrub it. If it needed any scrubbing. I’m done taking chances.

  No scrubbing necessary, apparently. The Bunker turned up the results of its scan in five seconds. Zero viruses, no malware, not even so much as a tag on the back end that might feed information back to the source if a user like Cheyenne hadn’t thought to look for it. “Okay. Looks like Corian’s done playing games too. As long as whatever’s in this file looks like the real deal.”

  She pulled it out of t
he Bunker, logged completely off the dark web to close all her access, and opened the plain text file. The title centered at the top would have made her laugh if she’d had the energy. Durg Br’athol.

  The rest of the text was a lot more interesting.

  ‘Registered pure O-class #19842; cataloged and processed through Rez 7 on March 4th, 2021. Two months in assimilation, no red flags, no delinquent reports. First and only transfer appeal approved. No special incidences, no specific requests for residence and/or employment.’

  And at the end of the first paragraph was the last registered address of the orc bastard she’d been trying to find for the last two weeks.

  The rest of the document contained the same cut-and-dried information about the FRoE reservation officer who processed the orc, where Durg had lived in Q4, known or speculated acquaintances, and the training modules he’d been put through and subsequently passed as part of his assimilation into the human world on this side of the Border. Same thing with the FRoE official who’d processed the orc’s request to be released from the reservation and shipped on out on his own almost seven months ago.

  None of that interested Cheyenne because now she had an address and a clear lead. Stupid FRoE system actually made itself useful.

  She typed the address into her search engine and pulled up a map of the area. Turned out the orc lived just blocks from the skatepark where he’d had his little powwow with the other halflings. Where he’d shot Ember and fled before Cheyenne had a chance to rip him apart right then and there. “I know where you live now, asshole. And I’m coming for you.”

  Despite her exhaustion and the pain throbbing in her limbs and pretty much every other part of her body, the halfling leaned back in her office chair and let herself have a good laugh. She hadn’t traditionally had a fondness for weekends over weekdays—they all tended to run together—but she was really glad that tomorrow was a Sunday and she had absolutely nothing else planned.

  “No, I’m overflowing with joy.”

  The flatness in her voice made her laugh again, and in a weird, twisted way, the laughing started to make the rest of her feel better. They call this “slap-happy.”

  After looking a little closer at the area where Durg the orc lived and would soon be having a chat with a drow halfling who only had one real goal these days—whether or not he liked it—she’d come up with a plan to pay the bastard a visit he’d never forget.

  She saved the Durg file on her server just in case, then shut Glen down and turned off the monitor. Before she could stand up and shuffle into her room, a loud buzzing came from the outside pocket of her jacket. “You’re kidding me.”

  After her surprise visit with Corian, she’d pretty much forgotten about Sir and Rhynehart and the FRoE and that screwed-up mission today that was apparently supposed to be her one last test. And she’d forgotten about the burner phone she’d slipped into her jacket pocket in the dry-cleaner’s parking lot. Slowly, Cheyenne pulled the clunky flip phone from her pocket and just held it, staring at the blue light illuminating the tiny square screen on the front.

  It felt pretty good to imagine herself squeezing all that plastic and not-so-advanced tech in her fist until she’d crushed that phone to mangled junk. But her curiosity got the better of her.

  Cheyenne flipped the phone open and brought it to her ear. She didn’t say a word.

  “Good work tonight, halfling.” Sir sounded weirdly cheery. “Maybe you’re already aware, but I don’t give a steaming pile of shit what you think you already know. The FRoE was formed for a reason. Many reasons, actually, and it sure as shit wasn’t to hurt people who don’t deserve to be hurt.”

  He paused, and Cheyenne had no freaking clue what he wanted from her. “Congratulations.”

  “I wanted to make sure you meant it when you said the same thing about who you do and don’t hurt. Rhynehart wasn’t lying when he said that was your last test, kid. Had to make sure your priorities are in order. The last thing we need is to work with someone who doesn’t have their head on straight. You’ve got drow blood in you. That’s about as much room as we have for liabilities.”

  She had to ignore that jab about her drow heritage. Otherwise, she’d get herself more worked up than she could handle right now. So she focused on the second most important thing she’d heard from the other end of the line.

  “So, I passed your idiotic test.”

  “Yeah, halfling, you passed. Don’t expect any gold stars or a goddamn sticker book, and I’m not throwing you a party.”

  Cheyenne clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Bummer.”

  “But I will say this. Although you might not want to admit it, your conscience was showing in that goblin’s house. Apparently, you’re not so blinded by your need for dear ol’ daddy that you’ll do anything we tell you, even if it isn’t right. Maybe especially if it isn’t right.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t even know the guy, so don’t flatter yourself.” She lifted her hand to brush her wild hair away from her face and grimaced at the brief muscle spasm it sent racing down the left side of her back.

  “Poor you. Listen, I’m about to send you an address. I want you to meet me there at oh-six hundred hours tomorrow.”

  “Why? So you can tell me more about my exposed conscience?”

  “I’m not interested in boring myself into an early grave, halfling. This is so you can meet L’zar Verdys face to face. You interested?”

  Holy shit. He was actually gonna follow through with it.

  Cheyenne blinked and pulled the phone away from her ear to look at it, just to make sure it was really there, and she was really having this conversation with Sir, of all people.

  “I can’t read your mind, halfling. I’m gonna need a verbal response on this one.”

  “Yeah.” The half-drow swallowed and felt a little dizzy. “Yeah, I’m interested.”

  “Okay. Keep this phone on you.”

  There was no goodbye, no “see you tomorrow,” but that would’ve been weird anyway. The line went dead, and Cheyenne slowly lowered the flip phone into her lap.

  “Six o’clock tomorrow morning. That’s a lot earlier than I wanted to be up.”

  The phone buzzed in her hand again, and she glanced down at a text from Sir with nothing but an address. It was enough.

  Too curious to leave it at that, she ran a search on the address and found herself looking at a commercial business park on the north side of Richmond that couldn’t possibly be where Chateau D’rahl was located. Sir’s gonna love riding in the car with me.

  She stuffed the phone into her jacket pocket again and pushed herself to her feet. Everything still hurt. Walking into the bathroom felt like she’d put on a hundred-pound weighted vest. She stripped in front of the sink and turned the shower as hot as it would go. Tonight, she could wash off the worst of the day and watch it swirl down the drain. Probably the best of the day too. That didn’t matter, though, because tomorrow, Cheyenne would wake up without any of it weighing her down. And then the halfling would be on her way to see the drow prisoner she’d waited her whole life to meet.

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  Two minutes before six, Cheyenne pulled into the parking lot of the business park at the address Sir had given her. Small birds swooped down from one of the streetlights in the parking lot, flitting around each other in the bright orange and gold sky in the last few minutes of a crisp September sunrise.

  She got out of her car, locked it, and stuck her keys in the pocket of her black canvas jacket with all the extra silver buckles. Then she turned slowly, scanning the nearly empty parking lot. If he doesn’t show, I’ll find that FRoE compound and wrap my hands around his thick neck.

  “Morning.”

  Cheyenne whirled around to see Sir leaning against the hood of a metallic-orange Kia Rio. He wore civilian clothing—jeans and a dark-green polo shirt. Tucked in. They made him look older somehow, even with the salt-and-pepper hair at his temples and the lines in his wrinkled brow. Or maybe tho
se were just because he was squinting at her against the rising sun. And what the hell was he doing in a Kia Rio? An orange Kia Rio?

  “All right, halfling. Quit standing there like a narcoleptic chihuahua and get your ass in the car.” He didn’t wait for her to respond before pushing himself away from the hood and walking around the front of the Kia Rio toward the driver’s door.

  The halfling didn’t waste any time trying to figure out what he’d meant by that analogy. She was too busy walking across the parking lot, trying not to run and give herself away. When she sat down inside, Sir already had his seatbelt on and was slipping a pair of black-tinted aviator glasses onto his face. Pulling down the sun visor with one hand, he pointed at the center console with the other. “Put that on.”

  Cheyenne lifted her arm to find a thick black sack lying between them. She grabbed it, shook it out, and wrinkled her nose. “Seriously?”

  “We’re headed to the highest-security prison full of the most deadly, bloodthirsty magicals this side of the Border. You think we give that location away to every emo millennial with daddy issues?”

  “Aw, come on.” She smirked at him. “You don’t trust me?”

  Sir started the car and still didn’t look at her. “If you don’t put that bag over your head, halfling, I get to pump you full of the knockout juice you got from Rhynehart when you met. Your choice.”

  Hissing out a sigh, Cheyenne rolled her eyes and lifted the bottom of the heavy, thick black bag over her head. “Am I gonna have to do this every time I want a ride to Chateau D’rahl?”

  Her voice was thick and muffled through the fabric, even to her own ears.

  “Probably. If you even get to make another trip after this.”

  “Wait, why wouldn’t I?”

  “It’s still up in the air. But we might use a repeat visit as a reward for good behavior.”

  She snorted. “You seriously don’t have to try bribing me anymore. I can behave.”