Stark Surrender (11 page)

Scala shuddered, thinking of the dark, oily waters they’d flown over on their way in. “That I can promise.” Serpentians preferred any water they entered to be warm and very, very clear.

“Trix,” Tal said, drumming his fingers on Scala’s thigh. “Run an analysis on our street surveillance, report any anomalies.”

“All ri-ight!” Trix cracked her knuckles and went to work with obvious relish.

“You didn’t tell the twins that Logan Stark is missing, maybe in your city,” Scala noted.

“No, I didn’t. I have good people, but no one in my organization knows everything that’s going on. Too much temptation to rat me out.”

“You trust me with all of it?” Her heart softened, which still made her feel icky-vulnerable, but she was learning that despite the sharp-bladed persona he displayed to the galaxy, Tal had a core of nobility. Warped, yeah, but it was there—she could trust him too.

Although if she said as much to him, he’d sneer and say something overtly sexual to distract her.

His crystalline gaze met hers with a little gleam that said as usual, he’d read her like a twenty-meter-high holovid billboard. “You, Darry, Trix and Dalg. You’re the only ones, snake eyes. The others know pieces. This is our city.”

“Oh hey, get this,” Darry said, snapping his fingers as if suddenly remembering. “Here’s a weird one for you. I was talking with a couple of the street cops this morning. They’ve been hearing about a new man on the streets too. He’s some kind of vigilante, who calls himself ‘Lord’ ... or some rezzed shit like that. But get this—he’s taken out several GloJacs, directly after they’ve committed a crime.”

“Too bad he won’t last long,” Trix said, gaze on her readouts.

The room was quiet as they all contemplated this, because at least the poor quarker was on their side. Then Scala grinned at Tal.

“What?” he asked.

“Just had a thought. Logan Stark’s missing. Maybe he’s our vigilante.”

Darry and Trix snickered. Scala laughed outright at the look of disgust on Tal’s face.

He shook his head at her. “Snake eyes, better save that wild imagination of yours for which position I get to fuck you in next.”

“Yes, Tal,” she said demurely.

Dalg grunted. “We through for now? I wanna get out on the street, see what’s in the wind.”

“Acid rain, at a guess,” Trix grumbled. “Wish we could’ve brought some of that Serpentian sunshine back with us.”

“We did,” Darry said, moving to slide his arm around Scala. “She’s right here.”

“Aww,” Scala crooned. “For that you deserve a kiss.” She leaned over to kiss his soft lips, and he responded.

“You two save that till later.” Tal’s palm landed with a smack on Scala’s leather-clad ass, making her hiss with shock. “Now we have work to do. Darry, I want intel on this Mordacity. Use the cops if you have to—they owe us and they know it. And all our informants.”

Darry nodded. “You got it. Although if this dude’s as bad as they say, we may be minus some informants. Laying low, y’know?”

“Then dig for them,” Tal said. “They all owe me. They can give me intel when I need it.”

If it were her on these streets, Scala thought with a tiny shiver, she’d tell Tal anything he wanted to know, because when he wanted to be, he was exactly as he’d described himself when they met: the scariest monster in the dark.

Chapter Twelve

In a huge warehouse somewhere in New Seattle, Bette hung from her chained hands over a vast dark cavity. She wasn’t sure what lurked down there, but it was no doubt bad—giant flesh-eating insects illegally imported from Zarkon or some shit like that. Didn’t matter, because what was up here was worse. Next to her hung what was left of the man she loved. On a balcony before them stood a real monster.

Mordacity, he called himself—or herself. Bette wasn’t quite sure which, but she was very clear on the monstrosity. Lars was near death at this creature’s hands. Bette had been forced to hang beside him for over an hour, or maybe more, to witness his beating and torture.

Her arms ached fiercely, unrelentingly. Tears of terror, fear and rage stained her face, and dripped down over her chest, and her small bare breasts, along with sweat and rivulets of blood that had sprayed as Lars bucked and twisted. She thought he was dead by now. Almost hoped so, because at least then he was free of the agony they’d put him through.

Later she’d mourn him with rivers of tears. Now, she could only hope his suffering had bought her enough time.

The monster shifted on his balcony, cocking his head to observe her with the strange eyes peering from his flattened face. Those eyes were shadowed by the wide brim of his ivory hat, which bore a chartreuse hatband, but his slash of a mouth was clearly visible, the rim of puffy lips weirdly pink against his pasty gray-tan skin.

She’d met plenty of aliens in all forms, some attractive, some not. What was uber-weird about this one was that he looked as if he’d tried to make himself human … and failed abysmally.

“I haven’t marked you, my little street beauty,” those lips said in a cruel parody of gentleness, “but time is running out. Tell me where to find Darkrunner.”

“I don’t know anything more than Lars told you,” she rasped, her voice broken from screaming at him and his slimy, slinking Ingoes to stop hurting her companion. “Don’t you think I would have said by now? Darkrunner’s gone, and we don’t know when he’s coming back!”

The humanoid reached out and ran a gloved hand down her body, stopping to cup her bare mons.

Bette sneered at him as revulsion shuddered through her, but instead of kicking at him, she twisted her hands to get a firmer grip on the loops of chain that held her.

“My turn to play now? This the only way you can get your thrills, you filthy slimer?”

“There are many ways to make a female talk. Do you want to begin by servicing me, or my Ingo friends here? They have special tricks they like to perform on human females.”

The two shambling, blue-skinned beings behind him shifted. One bared his crooked yellow teeth at her, and the other made a harsh, rasping sound as if he were laughing.

“They’re no fouler than you are.” Grimacing in disgust, she spat in his face. “You’re a monster—inside and out.”

In his immaculate cream duster, her tormentor stiffened, looming closer. Her heart nearly stopped as his flat face twisted, folding as if he were morphing into something else before her horrified gaze.

“You call me monster,” he hissed, his human tones regressing. “I’m a man, damn you, you stupid little bitch. You humans are all alike, you’re like her.”

Reaching up, he swept off his hat and let her get a good look at him. Opened his pink lips to bare row upon row of sharp teeth. As if that wasn’t horrific enough, his button of a nose flattened and disappeared into a crease in his face, the two eyes set under bulging brow bones closed, and from the top of his head unfurled tentacles with eyestalks that turned one by one to glare ferociously down at her.

Bette’s breath nearly froze in her throat, and for a sec she forgot everything but terror. He was some kind of byproduct of cross-breeding between beings who’d never been meant to intersect. Part Occulan, part human ... or at least he’d tried to make himself look human.

The process had clearly gone horrifically wrong somewhere. But then, maybe he fucking loved the way he looked. These thoughts skittered through her mind as the monster held out a hand to one side, his multiplied gaze locked on Bette.

One of the Ingoes put a vial in his hand. The contents were livid chartreuse, fizzing and hissing in the open vial.

“Now,” Mordacity hissed, “Tell me what I want to know about Tal Darkrunner, or I’m afraid your end will be much worse than your friend here.”

“I don’t know anything!”

He shook his head chidingly. “Well, then, since you won’t talk ... let’s hear you scream for me.”

He held the vial up in a mock toast to her, and drew back his arm.

It was now or never. Bucking with every bit of her strength, Bette kicked out her strong fighter’s legs and slammed her feet into his chest. Using him as a fulcrum, she pushed off, and pivoted up and over her bound wrists. They slid from the loosened loops and she was free.

She had one glimpse of the monster falling back against the Ingoes, the vial spraying its contents out into the air before she twisted sideways and grasped Lars’ bloody torso with her thighs. As she’d hoped and prayed, the force of her leap and the combined weight of their bodies snapped the chain-ropes that held him.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she squeezed her eyes shut and plummeted with him into the darkness.

Every cell in her body rebelled against this, but she’d rather die from a fall than screaming with agony from acid burns, while those Ingoes raped her. And she wouldn’t leave Lars with them, even if he was dying.

They’d die together. She was pretty quarking sure there’d be no soft landing in the blackness below, so whatever dwelt down there would have to scrape their remains off the ground before devouring them.

* * *

Lode had been in New Seattle for weeks—how many he couldn’t recall.

The days and nights flickered in and out of the darkness in his brain, in a tangle of  impressions—the loud, discordant pound of music from a club, a neon sign high above the street dripping golden coins to advertise a casino, the babble of galactic voices on the crowded streets, the rumble of the pavement under his feet as a gang rolled by on their enhanced aircycles, the muffled boom of flashbombs exploded in the distance, the smell of yeasty beer and popped grains, the stench of filth rolling out of an alley where druggers lay, lost in deadly bliss.

He had nothing but the present, this huge, teeming city, and a visceral sense that here he could make a stand—if he survived the hell inside his own skull long enough. The pain was getting worse, sometimes it battering him to his knees, although he made sure always to get out of the public eye before succumbing.

He’d even let Liss bring him illegals one night, when the agony was so great he could hear himself moaning like an animal. He’d let her slap the patch on the skin of his throat, and then descended into a disordered haze where the pain drifted around him like a foul curtain, only touching him if he moved into it.

But he discovered he must power his way through the brutal sheers, for on the other side waited a woman. Not Liss, but a slim woman with small breasts and short dark hair, and eyes as golden as the holo-coins above the casino on the next street. She smiled enticingly, and then turned away, sauntering off into the enless shadows.

He struggled to follow her, shouting after her, ordering her to come back to him, but when he looked down, his feet were mired in black. No, it was him—he was turning black, morphing with the filthy pavement under his feet, with this city.

And he knew that soon his black side would overtake him completely. Then he would take her, his dream woman, and know no regret. So he stood and watched the glimmer of golden skin that was her in the shadows, and waited for his chance.

The next day he woke with a bursting bladder and a mouth dry as dust. His mind was still so foggy he could hardly think, wasn’t sure at first he was truly awake.

He let Liss feed him and put him back to bed. Strangely it was the look of satisfaction in her green eyes that made him refuse the next patch she offered him. He was no caged pet—not for her or anyone else.

He grabbed her wrist and glared up at her with all his strength. “No. No more. You put that on me, and when I wake I’ll make you sorry.”

She nodded quickly, her eyes wide. “Okay, Lode. I won’t, I swear.”

He watched her retreat to her own bed, only then letting his guard down. But before he closed his eyes again he stared at the patch discarded on the nearest table. Waiting for him like a patient spider. And knowing that he might be begging her for another if the pain returned that brutally.

He couldn’t afford the illegals’ dubious comfort. The only memories he had were recent, and holding onto them meant survival. When he remembered the dream, he didn’t know what the hells it meant, so he ignored it.

He and Liss had relocated to a three-room flat, which she’d furnished with what she called ‘luxe’, on the eighth floor above Raly’s Bar. He called it cheap, tawdry flash, but didn’t care as long as she was content to stay and cooperate with him. The red and black slider was parked in a rooftop hangar.

He had credit on his com, held in a blind account. Where it had come from, he did not remember, so he didn’t concern himself with that. It was his now, and he would use it to survive.

Liss sauntered at his side when they went out, clad in her own snug red leather ensemble, with high-heeled boots on her feet. She still wore Rat’s duster, like a trophy.

And when they sighted anyone in a chartreuse jacket, they headed for cover.

Because the pain wasn’t the only thing trying to kill him. He was being hunted systematically. The first time he pulled Liss into a building to evade a trio of toughs cruising by on flashy aircycles, she protested. Then she saw who they were hiding from and ducked below the level of the store window, crouching among cheap statues of jolly, bald, fat men and women rubbing their bellies.

“The GloJacs,” she hissed, her face going pale. “Lode, no. What’d you do to get them after you?”

He stood still in the shadows of a batch of hanging faux-silk lanterns, watching the street. “Everywhere I go, I see those slimers,” he gritted. “I don’t like it.”

She tugged at his pant leg. “Don’t matter what you see. You can’t save everyone.”

“I’m not trying to save anyone,” he said coldly, shaking her off.

He was here now, so this was his territory. He was the alpha, no one else. It wasn’t that he was some kind of do-gooder—this end of Astra Quadrant was his now. What space he’d claimed in the past, he didn’t know or care. Now it was these streets, and he’d allow no others to run rampant here.

“Lode, you can’t afford to get on their grid, you hear me? They’re new, but they’re already the worst gangers in New Seattle. Hells, on this entire planet, maybe.”

“Relax. I’ll stay out of their way.” The aircycles were out of sight now.

“You’d better. They get you, what’ll happen to me? I’ve heard things ...” she shuddered.

“May I help you to obtain a certain object?” a gravelly voice asked behind them.

Lode pivoted to face the Occulan shopkeeper who stood at the end of a table of goods, eyestalks waving gently on top of the freckled, dark beige head. She wore an elaborate but faded kimono wrapped around her thin body, with ornate earrings hanging from her earpods.

“My woman would like to purchase a few of your lanterns,” he said. “But she felt faint, and had to sit.”

The Occulan trained four eyes on Liss, the others on Lode. “Okay, sure,” she said. “As long as she is not performing fellatio. I do not allow such acts in my shop.”

“Right,” Liss muttered. “Means you gotta bribe her first.”

Lode hauled her to her feet. “Choose a lantern, and we’ll go.”

He paid the store owner twice what she asked for the lanterns. When four of her eyestalks flicked his way in surprise, he nodded. “Forget you saw us.”

“But of course, venerable sir.”

They walked out into the dark afternoon, a lantern hanging from Liss’ hand. She was frowning, and he raised a brow. “What’s the deal we made?”

She immediately erased the frown and changed her stance, strutting and tossing her head. “I’m your woman, and I haven’t a care in the world because you’re the baddest dude out here on the streets.”

His mouth twitched. “Smart ass.”

“‘I do not allow such acts in my shop,’” she said, mimicking the shop owner. “Right. All she has to do is look out the window to see anything and everything right on the streets.”

As she spoke, they passed a doorway, in which a young couple were copulating noisily, their pants around their knees. Liss was right. Life was hard on these streets, and likely to be short. New Seattle street folk took their comfort where they could find it.

He didn’t have even that. His strength taken up with dealing with his headaches and marauding GloJacs, he could recall only vaguely what lust or desire felt like.

His mood plummeted the rest of the way as they approached a familiar building, the old church. A hoarse cry sounded from the shadows of the portico. “Leave ‘er alone, you monsters! Leave ‘er.”

A familiar hue flashed. The GloJacs had found new victims.

“Go home,” Lode ordered, letting go of Liss. “Stay there until I get back.”