The Saffron Malformation (83 page)

             
“You should have killed him.”

             
His eyes met her’s.  “A little more of me in there than you care to admit.”

             
Her gaze left his and she knew it was a mistake, she should have held his eyes, he would have respected that.

             
“A man like Sticklan Stone is-”

             
“A monster.”

             
“Yes.  But he serves a purpose.”

             
“What’s that?”

             
Richter took a long breath and finally reached out for her.  He took her hand and pulled her from the chair.  Before she knew it she was buried in his strong arms, pressed against his hard chest.  They shared an embrace and when they parted he met her eyes and smiled at her while his eyes spilled tears and remained soaked in sorrow.  “He does what I don’t have the heart to.”

             
She didn’t understand until something moved and she spotted the man emerging from the corner of the room.  Sticklan Stone will break your bones… and death will follow after.

Where To Go and What To Do

             
“Have a drink with me,” Quey said.  He was naked standing by the window in Ryla’s bedroom holding a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

             
She smiled at him and said, “Okay.”

             
He was surprised.  Ryla never drank until recently, as a matter of fact when he’d come to her door looking for shelter from savages she’d claimed alcohol did not perform a function she required.  He reminded her of that as he spilled a little into a glass for her.

             
“Rain liked to drink,” she replied as she took the glass.  Then she looked down at it with a heavy heart.  “We should have gone after her anyway.”

             
Quey shook his head.  “This was her play.  If her father is serous about a truce of sorts then our being there just complicates things.  If he’s not and it’s a trap then going’ll just get us all caught.”

             
“It being a trap is exactly why we should have gone.”

             
“She’ll be okay,” he assured her.

             
“How do you know?”

             
“Have you met her?” he asked as he filled his own glass and took a sip.

             
She peered at him.  “That isn’t meant to be a legitimate question.”

             
Quey kissed her cheek, “No.  It’s meant to suggest anyone who has would know she’s scrappy.”  He settled on the bed beside her and touched his glass to her’s.  “To tenacity, may it bring us all out of this shit alive.”  Ryla looked at him, her eyes still amazed him when he looked deep into them and he could feel his heart flutter a bit.  He leaned in and kissed her lips.

             
Ryla wanted to stop him.  She wanted to tell him she didn’t understand what was happening.  Was there something between them or was Jacob right.

             
He kissed her again and she met it with one of her own.  Their eyes met again and suddenly she didn’t want to know.  She just wanted to enjoy whatever this was for as long as she could.

             
His hand slid along her body and cupped her breast, soft and firm and supple.  She felt urges become needs as he massaged it gently and then leaned in and kissed her again.

             
They parted long enough to finish their drinks quickly and then met in a dance of tongues and fingers and hands that probed and caressed until finally he was atop her.  He lingered there, kissing and touching her skin until finally she couldn’t take it anymore and she shoved him onto his back and used her mouth to slather his cock.  It throbbed as she slipped her lips along it, so she did it a few more times, reveling in his satisfied groans before straddling and gliding him inside her.

             
Time didn’t matter any more than the slowly growing cluster of Angels of the Brood gathering along the road.  All they had on their mind for the next half hour was each other’s bodies, writhing as one as they extracted pleasure from the other.  Her’s rose, crescendoed and subsided twice before the final release that tightened her every muscle and quivered through her in a violent spasm.  Quey throbbed as she gripped and pulsed around him and when she fell limp he moved on her with a hunger, quick and deep again and again until finally he burst and filled her with fluid as he settled atop her, breathing heavily.

             
He kissed her neck and nuzzled her gently before rolling off and onto his back.

             
“Hand me the thing,” she said breathlessly as he passed her a towel from beside the bed.  She pressed it between her legs and settled against him, kissing his shoulder, neck and cheek.

             
That was when he noticed his sheet buzz.  He reached over and picked it up off the nightstand.

             
“What is it?” Ryla asked as she finished wiping herself off and tossed the towel aside.

             
“Its Render.”  His voice trailed off.

             
She nodded slowly.  “Then we should be prepared,” she said hollowly and stood.  He watched her cross naked to her closet and select a dark blue dress with black lace and step into it.

             
Quey tapped his screen and Render appeared.  Quey stared at him, unmoving for a good many ticks.

             
Finally Render spoke, “It seems our time is coming to an end.”

             
“What does that mean?”

             
“It means Richter Crow would like to speak with you.”

             
“He knows where I am,” Quey replied briskly.

             
“He’s not an idiot.”

             
Quey took a long moment to think as Ryla finished dressing.  “What’s he want to talk about?”

             
Render shrugged, “I think it’s about ending this nonsense.”

             
Quey peered at the man, but couldn’t get a read on him.  “Why now?”

             
The leader of the Brood shrugged, “Claims he and his daughter came to an understanding.”

             
Quey’s eyes bulged as he swallowed the knot in his throat.  Render’s words had arrested Ryla’s attention as well.  She was staring at him from across the room.  When he glanced to her she took two silent steps toward him.  “What’s his proposal?” he asked.

“He says they’re in a small town a hundred kilometers west of Saffron City.  Gave me coordinates to give you.”

              After a brief hesitation Quey said, “Send it.”

             
Render tapped his sheet and a notification appeared in the lower left corner of Quey’s screen.  He tapped accept and the message came through.

             
“We’ll be moseying along soon as we’re packed up, you won’t be hearing from us again.  Oh, and you have three days to get to wherever that is.”

             
“Three days?  What happens then?” Quey wondered.

             
“Not sure,” Render shrugged.  “Seems you were right about me.”

             
Quey peered at him puzzled for a moment.

             
“Woof woof,” the Broodmaster said.  “Get my bone and a pet behind the ears soon enough I suppose.”

             
After that the screen went blank.  Quey sat staring at it for a long moment, until he became aware of Ryla staring at him.  Her eyes were so intense, they bore into him like a drill.  Finally he moved, tapping a button on his sheet that would take him back to the main screen.  He meant to look up wherever this place was when he noticed his e-mail claimed he had a new message.  He tapped it and saw it was from Rain.  His brow furrowed as he looked over the message she’d sent and the attachments that had come along with it.

             
“What is it?” Ryla asked desperately.

             
“It’s an e-mail.  From Rain.”  His voice trailed off.  “It’s… it’s everything…”

             
“What do you mean?”

             
“I mean she sent us Richter Crows computer, more or less,” he paused to scan through some more of the attachments, “Along with a ton of Blue Moon internal network files.”

             
“What’s that mean?”

             
He shook his head, “Not sure.”  He jumped to his feet and began to dress.

             
“Well what do we do?”

             
He pulled on his shirt, spun to face her and said, “I don’t know.”

             
In the main room he found Reggie and Leone sitting on the couch playing a game on the holoscreen.  He wasn’t sure what the point was but they seemed to be at war with some alien race amidst a crumbling city.

             
“Leone, would you do me a favor.”

             
“What?” the boy asked without looking away from the game.

             
“Get the others for me.”

             
Reggie hit the pause and turned.  “What is it?” he asked.

             
Suddenly the air in the room seemed thick and hard to breathe.  “I got a call from Render this morning.”

             
Reggie took and breath, nodded, then tapped Leone.  The boy took off, down one hall, knocking on Natalie’s door then Arnie's before racing across the penthouse to the other hall where he knocked on Rachel’s.  Quey sat at the table, his face hanging heavily as they gathered around.  Then he told them what Render had said and about the e-mail he’d received.

             
“So it’s bullshit then,” Reggie offered when he was done.

             
Quey sighed, “I don’t know.”

             
“It must be,” Natalie added.  “There’s no way she’d be able to send that message if he has her.”

             
“Maybe he doesn’t have her.  Maybe they really did come to an agreement,” Rachel said.

             
“Not one that involved giving us all that data,” Arnie countered.

             
Rachel sat up, thoughts churning behind her eyes, and said, “So she sent the message, got caught, and now she’s buying time?”  It was a question, not an explanation and as they each glanced at the other faces around the table it began to settle on them that they had no idea.

             
“I smell way to much maybe in this,” Reggie said, sitting back in his chair.  “And even more trap.  ‘Meet me at this address,’ bullshit.”

             
Quey nodded and agreed, “Yeah.”

             
“So what do we do?” Arnie asked.

             
Quey almost broke into laughter.  He fought it and said, “Fuckin hell.  How’d we get here?”  Now he did laugh a little.  “I’m just a moonshiner for crying out loud.”

             
They looked at him, at the despair threatening to shatter him.  “I’m a programmer,” Rachel said.  She looked around the table.  “I just write code.”

             
Everyone smiled a little and nodded.  “I’m a wannabe doctor who got knocked up and dropped out of school,” Natalie blurted and they all laughed a little.

             
“I’m a fucking bartender,” Arnie offered and they laughed a little more.

             
“I’m just a kid,” Leone said in a small voice and it wasn’t funny.  It silenced the room.  There was more to this than any one of them.  There was a planet full of programmers and bartenders and moonshiners and kids.  People that were going to die and no one was going to stop it, not if the people sitting in that room didn’t because they were the only ones who really knew about it.

             
“I’ll go,” Reggie said, his deep voice solid in those words.

             
Everyone looked at him and Quey said, “Me too.”

             
He nodded.

             
“I would like to help,” Ryla announced.

             
“Well you’re out of your mind if you think I’m staying behind,” Arnie added.

             
“Me too,” Rachel added.

             
“She might be hurt,” Natalie pointed out.

             
“No,” Quey said.  He was looking down at the table thoughtfully.  When he looked up a moment later he saw the looks he was getting and added, “Same goes for you Rachel.”  He could see anger flare through her face so he went on before she could start.  “What about them?” he asked, nodding toward Leone and Amber.

             
The boy’s brow furrowed and he said, “I could go.”

             
“No, you can’t.  Mostly because I don’t want to deal with what’ll happen if things go wrong and she figures out we took you along to a gunfight.”  Leone looked down because he knew Quey was right.  “Natalie and Rachel will stay here.  I’d say Arnie should too but I’m not delusional enough to believe that’s an option.”  Arnie shot him a look and he said, “It’s nothing personal.”

             
“You just don’t trust me to be useful if shit goes sour.”

             
Quey didn’t answer and it said more than any response could.  “When the brood rolls out and the rest of the Once Men’s cars are fixed up we’ll roll out.  I’d rather leave the truck in case you need to go somewhere.  It’s slower but it’ll fit everyone.  Also, Ryla?” She looked to him and he said, “When the cars are fixed, I can’t believe I didn’t think about this sooner, but would it be possible to armor up that truck?”