The Drow Hath Sent Thee

by Martha Carr

  “Those people are insane.”

  “I know. Hopefully not too insane to listen to me this time. I gotta go.”

  “Yeah. Good luck.”

  “Thanks. Feel free to tell Matthew all about it when I get back.”

  Ember rolled her eyes. “Very funny.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  If there was ever a good time to sit down with those idiots and start telling them what needs to change, I guess now is it.

  Cheyenne stepped out of her car in the parking lot of the FRoE compound at 1:15 and locked the doors. The Panamera chirped and flashed a dim violet glow from the tops of the headlights. She headed for the front door, slipping into drow mode on the way. Yeah, Lee outdid himself.

  She walked slowly past the line of glistening black FRoE vehicles, three of which were black Jeeps like Rhynehart’s. But not his. Rhynehart’s unemployed now.

  The compound’s front lobby was just as empty as that weird row of cubicles lining the back wall, but that didn’t last very long.

  “I swear to the brilliant asshole who invented fellwine, Grot. If I even smell your fat ogre fingers on my cards, that ugly mug of yours is gonna pay for it.” Bhandi emerged from the short, narrow hallway leading to the common room and snorted. “Cheating asshole! ‘Sup, Goth drow?”

  Cheyenne jerked her chin at the troll woman in black fatigue pants and the standard-issue black t-shirt. “How’s it goin’?”

  “Can’t complain.” Bhandi shrugged and ducked into the closest cubicle to rummage around in one of the drawers. “Some of the others might not be able to say the same, though.”

  “They get in trouble after the other night?”

  “Ah-ha!” Bhandi lifted a pen in the air, then slammed the drawer shut. “‘Get in trouble.’ What is this, first grade?”

  Cheyenne cocked her head. “I’m having a hard time figuring out what first grade and this whole thing with Colonel Thomas have in common.”

  “For real? First grade sucked. Probably because I went to a shitty school, though. Shitty neighborhood too, growin’ up.” Bhandi flashed the drow a mischievous grin. “I got sent to the principal’s office more times than I could even count back then. Not as much as you, though, huh?”

  “No principal’s office for me.”

  “No way.” The troll woman raised her hand to bring it down to Cheyenne’s shoulder, but the drow lurched away from her. “Right. No touching. I knew that. So, what? Were you like one of those goody-two-shoes kids who did everything right and never got in trouble and cried when you got an A-minus on your report card?”

  Cheyenne snorted. “Not exactly.”

  “I mean, it’s cool if you were. You turned out pretty fucking badass.”

  If Mom had had a principal’s office to send me to, she would’ve used it every single day. “Well, thanks.”

  “Yeah, for sure. Hey, why are you even here?”

  “Debriefing.”

  “What, you mean about the other night?”

  Cheyenne nodded.

  “Well, shit. No one called any of us in for a debriefing. Just kept it all hush-hush.” Bhandi scratched beneath her scarlet braids with the end of the pen. “I mean, it’s not like word doesn’t get around on its own in this place anyway, but I’m surprised they called you in. You’re not even on the payroll.”

  “Tell me about it.” Cheyenne stuck her hands in her pockets and forced herself to relax her throbbing shoulders. “So, everyone else on our temporary team or whatever, they’re all good?”

  “Hell, yeah.” Bhandi nodded at the short hallway leading to the common room. “Tate’s still walkin’ around with a limp, but I call bullshit. That fae friend of yours healed him up better than any of the idiots calling themselves healthcare providers in the med bay. He’s milkin’ it at this point.”

  “Good. I’m glad you guys didn’t get any blowback from that whole thing.”

  “Are you kiddin’? We might as well be fucking heroes!” Bhandi threw her head back and laughed. “Except for Todd. He basically got a slap on the wrist for pulling out that fucking fell laser before it got the official stamp of approval. A hard slap, but whatever. Saved all our asses, right?”

  Cheyenne gave the troll woman as genuine a smile as she could manage. “Yeah. Right after he almost took our asses out, but whatever.”

  “Yeah. Whatever.”

  “Bhandi!” The gruff bark echoed toward them from the other side of the hall. “How long does it take to find a fucking pen?”

  “No, I think the question is, ‘How many ogres does it take to find a pen?’” she shouted back. “Answer’s zero, by the way. ‘Cause they’re all too fucking stupid.”

  “You’re holdin’ up the game!”

  “I’m busy! Gimme a minute.” Bhandi shook her head and pointed at the hallway with the pen. “That fuckin’ guy. Laughs his head off in the field, but Texas Hold ’em is apparently life-or-death.”

  “Man, who the hell are you talkin’ to?” Heavy footsteps thumped down the hall, then a massive ogre with warty brown boils over every inch of his skin like a toad’s entered the lobby. He was even bigger than Jamal, his blunt, crooked teeth jutting out from between his lips in every direction. He caught sight of Cheyenne and sneered. “That fucking bitch, huh?”

  “Hey!” Bhandi thrust the pen at him. “We’ve been over this, wartface. This drow’s a goddamn hero.”

  Cheyenne looked the ogre up and down with a raised eyebrow. Not the first moron to call me a bitch. If he wants to go, I’ll let him throw the first punch.

  “Hero?” Grot’s upper lip caught on his snaggled teeth when he stretched his huge head out on his thick neck and growled at her. “All I see is a fucking traitor. That’s what all you drow are, ain’t it? Sneaking your way into every dark little corner to chew things up from the inside out.”

  “Watch it, bud.” This time, the tip of the pen in Bhandi’s hand flickered with a deep maroon light. “It’ll be pretty hard to say you can’t find a pen when you’ve got one stuck in your fuckin’ eyeball.”

  The ogre grunted. “Should’ve taken you out the first time you stepped in over your head, drow.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Cheyenne cocked her head. “When was that, exactly? I’ve done that a lot.”

  Bhandi choked back a laugh. Grot snarled. “Showin’ your face round here. Better watch your back.”

  “Better watch your fucking mouth!” Bhandi shouted. “I don’t care what the pot’s up to, asshat. Keep it up with this conspiracy shit, and I’ll take your stuff anyway.”

  Grot’s yellow eyes darted to the troll woman. He hunched his shoulders and spread his arms in a challenge. “Try it. I dare you.”

  Bhandi shot Cheyenne a sidelong glance. “Never back down from a dare, right?”

  “I mean, maybe, when it’s stupid.”

  “What the hell happened now?” Yurik barreled down the short hall and ducked under Grot’s arm when the enormous ogre turned to see who was coming. “Come on, guys. We’ve made it this far without tearing each other apart over stupid shit, so how abou…Cheyenne.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him.

  “Shit. I get it.” The muscular goblin with the thick bullring through his septum glanced between Bhandi and Grot, then smacked the back of his hand against the ogre’s beefy forearm. “Get back to the table, huh? I saw Zolu tryin’ to sneak a peek at your hand.”

  “I’m gonna kill that fucking troll.” Grot pointed a thick, grimy-nailed finger at Cheyenne with another snarl. “And you too if you don’t watch it. Ain’t no room for drow in here.”

  With a grunt, the ogre whirled and stomped back down the hallway, ducking to squeeze his massive frame between the walls.

  “Just ignore him.” Yurik shook his head. “He’s always that pissed off.”

  Cheyenne frowned at Bhandi. “That’s the ogre who laughs in the field?”

  “Pretty hard to imagine, huh?”

  “What’re you doing here?” Yurik asked.

  �
��Debriefing.” Bhandi and Cheyenne said it at the same time.

  “Shit.” The goblin folded his arms, then lifted a hand to rub his chin. “Nobody said anything about a debriefing.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess I’m special.” Cheyenne wasn’t trying to be funny, but both agents sniggered anyway.

  In the common room, Grot roared in anger, followed by the crash of a table being overturned and the poker pot spilling onto the floor.

  “Hey, what the hell’s your problem, man?”

  “You, fuckface. You look at my hand?”

  As the magical agents scuffled in the common room, Cheyenne pointed down the hall. “Not that I give a shit, but is that something I should pay attention to?”

  “Nah.” Yurik waved her off. “He’s always breaking shit.”

  “Yeah, I was talking about the whole ‘watch your back’ thing. What’s that about?”

  Bhandi and Yurik exchanged glances, and the goblin rubbed the back of his neck. “You won’t hear about it at your debriefing, so I guess it’s technically not a thing.”

  “For fuck’s sake, man.” Bhandi hissed and turned to Cheyenne. “This whole thing with the colonel started some real shit with the rest of the operatives.”

  “Don’t say it like that.” Yurik scowled. “Just a little friction.”

  “Friction? Man, it’s like a damn civil war in there!” When Cheyenne and Yurik stared at Bhandi, she shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Okay, maybe that’s a small exaggeration.”

  “It’ll blow over, Cheyenne.” Yurik folded his arms again. “Just needs a little more than two days, you know?”

  “Yeah, I get the whole time thing.” Cheyenne stuck her hands in her pockets and studied two of the only FRoE agents she might as well call her friends. “But I’m still not getting why there’s an issue. We figured out what the colonel was up to, exposed him, and stopped his lunatic plan from going any farther. What’s there to be pissed about?”

  Bhandi slipped the writing tip of the pen under one purple-tinted fingernail to scrape out whatever was beneath it. “Some of these bastards are way too serious about the chain of command if you ask me.”

  “Like live-and-die-by-it serious,” Yurik added.

  “And we just put a high-ranking official behind bars.” Cheyenne took a deep breath. “Do they know what he was trying to do?”

  “Fuck yeah, they do.” Bhandi pointed the pen at Yurik. “We’ve been telling everyone, and it’s not like we don’t have our story straight. Kinda hard to mix things up when you know the damn truth.”

  Yurik sniffed, and the bullring through his septum bounced against his upper lip. “Yeah, but they’re not ready to hear it.”

  “So, everyone who wasn’t there the other night thinks this is some kind of huge conspiracy to take out commanding officers?”

  “Not everyone.” Bhandi glanced over her shoulder at the hallway and shrugged. “It’s about half and half. Hell, Cheyenne, anyone who’s been in the field with you knows what’s up. We’re not all brainless idiots, just the dumb ones.”

  Cheyenne shook her head. “That’s still a stretch. Even for FRoE agents.”

  “It probably doesn’t help that you were involved,” Yurik added hesitantly.

  “Me specifically?”

  “Yep.”

  Bhandi glared at the empty hall. “The other half is pretty much convinced you’re here to dismantle this place and take control of the whole damn organization. I don’t know. It sure as shit isn’t to force your fashion sense on us or anything. Standard issue’s already black on black.”

  The troll woman snorted at her own joke and didn’t seem to care that no one else thought it was funny.

  “So, me refusing to go on ops, saving that team from a collapsing building, finding the stolen kids, and standing up to Sir means I wanna take all this for myself, huh? Is it because I had Rhynehart bring a team up to my mom’s place, or what?”

  “Nobody knows about that,” Yurik muttered. “Off the A.S.S. and everything. And it’s not something you did, per se.”

  Bhandi gave an exasperated sigh and delivered the punchline for him. “It’s ‘cause you’re a drow.”

  “Seriously?”

  Yurik winced. “There’s gotta be a better way to say that.”

  “No, I’ll take the bare-ass truth every time.” When Bhandi’s head whipped sharply to Cheyenne, the drow smirked. “And no. I wasn’t referring to you specifically.”

  “Good.” The troll woman’s scarlet eyes flickered to the hallway. “What happens in Peridosh and all that. Don’t forget.”

  “Sorry, Cheyenne.” Yurik gave her a sympathetic frown. “We know you being a drow doesn’t have anything to do with the way you operate.”

  “Other than making you seriously badass when we’re goin’ after targets,” Bhandi added. “And you’re only half-drow.”

  “They all know that too, don’t they?”

  “Yep. Doesn’t make a difference, though.” The goblin man rolled his shoulders back. “Dumbasses are gonna think what they wanna think, no matter how many times we lay out all the facts.”

  “Trust me, Goth drow. The facts make you look really good.” Bhandi winked.

  “Well, don’t talk me up into something I’m not, okay?” Cheyenne pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time. Three minutes ‘til showtime. Guess being early paid off. “And it’s not like I put a lot of stock in what anyone around here thinks.”

  “Not even your friends?” The troll woman exaggerated a grimace. “Ouch.”

  “I already know what you guys think.” Turning to the opposite end of the lobby, Cheyenne nodded at the agents. “I gotta get to this thing. Tell Tate I said hi, and that most people quit faking injuries after grade school.”

  Bhandi barked a laugh. Chuckling, Yurik followed her down the hall into the common room. “That’s what I said. Good luck in there, or whatever.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Cheyenne headed across the lobby, shaking her head when Bhandi’s shout echoed after her.

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you, Grot? You can’t be a civilized biped for two minutes while the grownups have a conversation? No. No, put that fucking table down. Goddamn, you’re a sore loser.”

  Chapter Sixty

  Cheyenne hadn’t made it six feet down the wider corridor on the opposite side of the lobby before a woman in a chocolate-brown pantsuit at least one size too small power-walked over to her. “I see you got my voicemail.”

  “You must be Helen.”

  The woman nodded curtly and readjusted her tiny glasses by their thin silver rims. “Ms. Holder, if you don’t mind.”

  Cheyenne fought not to roll her eyes. Then don’t leave your full name on a voicemail. “Sure.”

  Helen looked her up and down and lifted her chin. “I honestly didn’t expect you to be this punctual, Miss Summerlin, or I would have come down to fetch you earlier. This way, please.”

  Fetch? What the hell did they tell her about me?

  Sighing, Cheyenne bit the bullet on anything she might have said in response and followed Major General Van Lurig’s personal secretary through the base.

  Even their elevator ride up to the third floor on the north end of the compound was silent. Helen stared at the closed doors in front of her, her hands folded together, and didn’t make any attempt at conversation.

  I’m not going to, either. Not if she had to fetch me like a dog.

  When they reached the top floor, the woman walked briskly out, turned immediately down another hallway on the left, and didn’t bother slowing down to make sure Cheyenne followed. The drow gritted her teeth and hurried after her, putting most of her attention into not limping on her right leg no matter how unstable her hip felt.

  I better be able to sit down for this.

  After three more sharp turns down different corridors, they reached a much wider hallway with five waiting-room chairs with metal legs and cheap, fraying upholstery lined up against the right-hand wall. Directly across fr
om them was an unmarked door, and that was it.

  “Take a seat, Miss Summerlin.” Helen gestured at the chairs. “They’ll call you in when they’re ready.”

  “I guess being punctual wasn’t that big of a deal, then, huh?”

  The woman gave her a blank stare, and Cheyenne shrugged as she headed for the closest chair on the end.

  “Do try not to go sniffing around in the meantime.”

  Cheyenne sat and slowly looked the woman up and down. “Do I get a treat for good behavior, too?”

  Helen blinked quickly, glanced at the closed door, then turned swiftly on her heels and headed down the hallway again. Her thick wedges thumped across the flattened, colorless gray carpet before she disappeared around the corner.

  If dogs could talk back. Cheyenne hissed and shook her head.

  After waiting what felt like way longer than what could acceptably be called 1:30 sharp, she pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time. Five minutes. Jesus. That’s it?

  Cheyenne propped her forearms on her thighs and leaned forward. One foot started bouncing all on its own, and she had to force herself to stop when even that small movement jolted her unhealing wounds. She leaned gingerly against the seat’s nonexistent back cushion and stared at the door.

  What the hell’s taking them so long?

  She poured her focus into listening, but her drow hearing didn’t pick up a single voice. Either everyone’s just staring at each other in there and wasting my time, or they soundproofed another conference room. Great.

  Her activator didn’t pull up any wards or spells on the door or the room beyond, and there definitely wasn’t any tech between these awful waiting-room chairs and the board members on the other side. As she stared at the door, her drow vision took over, and the opaqueness of the wood and the surrounding walls faded. The blurry outlines of seven figures illuminated. Only one of them glowed a bright yellow-orange color.