Tessi

TESSI

I drifted in and out of the twilight realm between waking and sleep, but my mind must have known this wasn't natural, refusing to let me rest.

Yet I remained mired in the shackles of my subconscious.

I came awake in fits and starts. The first flash of consciousness came to me when I opened my eyes and saw bright lights high overhead. I smelled machine oil and metal. My vision dimmed again before I could make anything else out.

The second time I surged back into the world of waking, the cause was a sharp pain at the back of my head. I opened my eyes and then shut them tight against a bright light shining right at me. I made a muffled, weak protest as someone lifted me up from the floor by my hair for a moment, and then set me back down without explanation.

Just the effort of staying awake that long took its toll, and I fell asleep once more. When I came to for a third time, my mind functioned better—marginally. I still felt as if I had woken up from a three day bender, and all I wanted to do was let my eyes close again.

Three aliens, their heads shaped vaguely like footballs, loomed over me. The four dangling mouthparts beside their beak-like mouths gave them away as Voleks. I remembered now. This was the same type of being that had tried to kill Alkard at The Nebula during our dinner date.

My thoughts slipped through my fingers like sand. Whatever they had dosed me with must have been quite potent. Already my vision began to dim at the edges. I tried to move, and realized my wrists hurt because my hands had been bound behind my back. My legs were similarly tied, and something was strapped tightly around my face, plugging up my mouth.

"I told you, that was too much," said one of the Voleks with a crown of brown spires on top of his head, almost like a wig. My addled brain decided he'd be a good Bigwig.

Sure.

"She almost went into a coma, shit for brains."

He slapped a pudgy Volek beside him on top of his bare dome. The other Volek rubbed his head and glared, but didn't retaliate.

"Hey, I think she's going back under," said a third Volek, whose bristly hair thrust out on either side of his temples, but was otherwise bald as the one who had been slapped. "At least get that gag off so she can breathe. Dead, she's no good to us."

I was going to stay here, alone, forever.

And I'd never even told Alkard I was falling for him.

Hell, that wasn't even the truth. I'd already fallen.

But he would think I'd run away, been an idiot.

I faded out again, but this time I took a tinge of panic with me into the dreamworld, nightmares plucking at my feet, ready to pull me down.

At last, one thing stirred me from that dark oblivion for good.

Alkard's voice.

It penetrated the darkness and found the sliver of my consciousness still stubbornly refusing to fade out.

"Where is she? If she's been hurt, I swear you'll all pay."

Sucking in a gasp of air, I sat up, looking about wildly, finally able to take in my surroundings. I sat on the floor of a warehouse, the ceiling a good thirty feet overhead. Racks of metal crates were arranged in rows along the wall most distant to myself.

Two of the cube-like crates had been arranged to form a kind of defensive bulwark around where I was left bound, and it seemed, unguarded.

I couldn't see Alkard, only heard him talking to the Voleks. The chittering sounds in the background sounded like Ewani talking to each other in their native tongue.

He was here. Relief washed over me. Everything would be all right.

Wait a minute.

Ewani and Voleks? How many of the enemy were there? I fervently hoped that Alkard hadn't come alone.

"You're in no position to make demands, Vinduthi," hissed a new voice. That was one of the Ewani, I was next to certain. "If you haven't noticed, you're badly outnumbered and outgunned."

Had he come alone?

Whoever tied the knots on my bindings really knew what they were doing, but years on a dance pole had given me a certain level of flexibility. I worked my bound hands down the back of my legs and then under my feet. I gnawed on the knots with my teeth to loosen them as the conversation continued.

"Are you going to let this rodent do your talking for you, Volek scum, or are you going to say something?" Alkard wasn't trying to make friends.

I worked harder on the knots.

"You sound like you're trying to interrogate me or something." With a jolt, I recognized the voice. Bigwig. "I think you need to reassess where you stand, Alkard. And one other thing…this Ewani here isn't part of our crew. He's actually my client."

"You're the one who wanted me dead?" Alkard sounded incredulous.

"You killed my sssson, blood ssssucking sssscum," the Ewani spat vindictively. "All because he wanted some fresh meat."

"I'm sorry," Alkard said and I stopped, shocked. Since when did he apologize?

"I don't remember killing him. You've got to understand, there's been so many bodies."

That was more like him.

"Three weeks ago!" the Ewani shrieked. "He was just playing with that little human!"

"Oh, you fathered that misbegotten wretch of a rapist? Shame on you."

Don't taunt them, you idiot, I thought, but at the same time I felt a glow of warmth inside that Alkard still took up for me.

"How dare you! I should sssstrangle you until you sssspeak no more lies?—"

"Will you stop using so many words with sibilants in them? I swear you're doing it on purpose."

"Enough," Bigwig snapped. "The longer we wait, the more likely it is that his men will figure out he's missing and come looking for him. Did you guys search him? He's unarmed?"

"Yeah, he's clean."

"Then, Mr. Tamlit, sir," Bigwig said "I'd say it's time for you and your family to exact your revenge."

"With the utmost pleassssure?—"

I heard a hard retort, and Tamlit stopped speaking cold. I pulled my wrists free at last and then went to work on the knots around my ankles.

I rose to my feet and went to the edge of the cube bulwark, looking out on the fight taking place in the middle of the warehouse floor. At first, my heart soared at the sight of Alkard.

Then I felt it sink into my feet, because he was unarmed and sorely outnumbered. There must have been a dozen Ewani fighting him, and they weren't just rushing in blind.

One of the Ewani darted forward from behind Alkard and struck him with a truncheon. Alkard turned about in a flash, ripping the truncheon away with a slash of his claws. When he charged his attacker, however, two more Ewani surged in from his flanks and struck him several times with metal wrenches before dancing out of his reach.

He bled freely from a gash over his left eye, but several of the Ewani were down. Alkard wielded a truncheon in each hand, whirling like a dervish, crushing any Ewani who ventured too near.

Bigwig and the other two Voleks stood nearby. He sighed and took aim with an energy rifle.

"I think I need to give Tamlit a little hand, fellas."

"Alkard, look out!" I screamed.

Alkard's gaze darted my way, and then over to the Voleks. He threw himself toward the floor, but a bright yellow line streaked out across the room and tore through his shoulder. The beam continued through on the other side, hitting a stack of fabrics and setting them aflame.

"Alkard!"

He went down hard, and the Ewani seized upon the opportunity. I watched in horror as they disarmed Alkard and bludgeoned him like a pack of wild animals.

My stomach flipped and I started to retch.

This was all my fault.

If Alkard hadn't agreed to help me, this wouldn't be happening.

If he hadn't come looking for me, he'd be safe.

He's going to die, and it's all my fault.

I couldn't even think of a world without Alkard in it. Without thinking, I ran forward, picking up a truncheon from the floor as I went.

Screaming, I took a two handed swing and cracked an Ewani right on the back of its head. The rat man's eyes crossed, and he went down in a crumpled heap.

But I hadn't noticed the bald Volek rushing me from the side. He barreled into my shoulder first. It felt like being hit by a speeding truck. I flew through the air, the wind knocked out of me.

I hit the far wall hard and something inside me broke. My breathing didn't seem to work right as I finally landed in a twisted heap on the floor.

"Tessi!"

Alkard's scream echoed through the building, growing increasingly guttural as he rose to his feet. The Ewani struck him harder than ever, but he didn't so much as flinch. With one eye swollen shut, he scanned the room until he found Tamlit.

Alkard moved in a blur. Through a red haze of pain, I watched him tear through the ranks of Ewani like a force of nature. Alkard crushed Tamlit's collar bone on both sides of his body, making the rat man's arms go limp.

He stepped behind Tamlit and held him as a living shield while Bigwig took aim with his rifle.

"Are you going to kill your client, fool?"

"Why not, he already paid us," the Volek said with a shrug.

Then Bigwig fired, punching a hole right through Tamlit. But Alkard was no longer there. I hadn't even seen him move, and evidently, neither had the Voleks.

"Where did he go?" Tamlit asked.

The lights went off, and the three Voleks spoke in frantic, panicked tones.

"What's going on?"

"Someone turn on a light."

"I didn't bring a torch."

"Quiet! Use your other senses, idiot. He's got to be in here somewhere."

I saw a pair of red eyes in the darkness behind Bigwig. His sigils glowed faintly, but the Voleks were focused on the last direction they'd seen Alkard.

Alkard blurred like a living shadow, and then one by one the Volek fell over, the sound of blood rushing from their throats spilling onto the floor like broken jugs of water.

He was at my side in an instant, cradling my body in his arms.

"Tessi? Tessi, can you hear me?"

"Yes," I said with difficulty. Every breath was a labor, and came with a froth that boiled out of my throat and trickled down my chin. "I'm sorry, Alkard."

"No, don't talk," he said, cradling me close. "Save your strength. Tessi, I can save you, but you might hate me for it."

"No," I gasped. "I could never hate you, Alkard."

He didn't seem to hear my weak, pathetic voice. I cried out as his fangs pierced my neck.

He's…claiming me, I thought right before everything went black.