Chapter Twelve

Twelve

The entire world seemed to be rejoicing over Mikail’s return, but Noel couldn’t find it within herself to enjoy it. A national holiday had been declared, and the portal building was virtually empty apart from her and Danail. It seemed more than likely that Mikail’s creation spark had worked through Renee to heal the damage to both of them, a small updraft in Noel’s thoughts that she hadn’t yet seen fit to share with Sidriel. Not yet. Jackson had thwarted Renee’s promise to give her Dr. Tayler, but that didn’t mean the sun would rise with the woman still on Earth. That they had wisely moved her out of snap range convinced Noel the humans knew the doctor’s value—and culpability.

Wings tight to her back, she continued through the nearly abandoned portal building, working her way to the portal floor with Danail a persistent shadow. Sidriel’s bodyguard had insisted, and Noel quickened her pace as they approached the outer door to the portal floor, raising her wings until he got the point and backed off. The heavy weight of the lodestone was about her neck. Time to see if the updraft is strong, she thought, a sliver of fear wedging between her thought and reason.

A second, smaller pendant in a fold of her ribbon shirt held a single spark, taken from the portal building’s coffers. It had been put there in trust to pay the family for the loss of their kin, but there were better uses for it than moldering in a drawer.

“Your passage to Earth will be recorded,” Danail said as she raised her wrist holo to the ID pad, and a request for an entry code came up with a little chirp.

“Obviously.” Finger stiff, she typed it in, not liking that she would have to trust Sidriel’s promise that the old jin would erase it. If all went well, there would be no record of her here but in the mind of the gate agent tending the floor. She’d put the precaution in herself after a militant mer bent on shutting the portal down had gained the lobby with a homemade explosive. And whereas the incident had been minimized on the news, the warning had been heeded.

The door opened, and with Danail in tow, she strode onto the unusually quiet, cavernous floor. Earth-side was after hours as well, but it was late there, not early, a fact that was an increasing bother to the translocation specialists who insisted that the Earth was their own world, simply in a different dimension, changed by time and the age of the universe.

But Earth went around its sun faster than they went around theirs, and the theorists who insisted that a portal connected not dimensions but space were becoming more popular. The older theory made it an easy step to absorb Earth’s economy as their own. The newer…not so much, and that the two ran on different time zones was being kept from the general population.

Winners write history, not the truth, she thought as she wove through the pallets of goods. Her bare feet were silent on the cool preformed floor, and her white ribbon dress billowed as she walked. It was a modest outfit but one chosen with care. With her wings raised slightly, she would look like one of their angels—helpful in convincing Earth’s religious stewards to listen to her. The need to find justice for the people she’d sent burned like the sun…but first, she had a task to finish for Sidriel.

The tall ceilings were lost in the dim light, medical and scientific supplies stacked to one side, personal effects and convenience foods to the other. A faint red glow at the end of the ravine-like passage was the labyrinth itself, set to receive.

“Stay here,” she whispered as she paused, half-hidden behind a pallet of sleeping pods. The gate agent was at the desk, his head down as he played a holo game. “I’ll send him to get me a drink. Hit him with the Insensate in the break room. That way there’s only a record of him leaving, not you downing him.”

Danail’s finger knuckles popped in annoyance. “I am not to leave your side.”

“You aren’t coming Earth-side with me. Wait for him in the break room,” she insisted, her soft words intent. “Down him, and take his place. You’re about the right size and color. No one will know the difference between you and him on the cameras.” Danail hesitated, and she inched into his space. “Is there a problem with the way I’m expressing my desires?” she said calmly, but her eyes were a nictitated red, and he backed off.

“No, madam.” Danail set the air canister down, glancing once at the gate agent before walking away, his dark form quickly vanishing in the dim light.

The faint click of the door shutting sounded, and a surge of worry rose. She wanted her presence here minimized. Sidriel’s promise that she would be immune to political fallout didn’t convince her. The jin had lived too long to leave threads that could be pulled, and if Noel could weave a few ends in, all the better.

Wings placidly at her back, she picked up a discarded holo tablet and strode calmly out into the labyrinth’s hazy light. The agent saw her immediately, his feet hitting the floor and his game on the holo shutting off with an attention-getting trill of music.

“Madam Noel!” he said, somewhat breathy. “Can I help you with something?”

She glanced at the holo tablet as if going over a list. “We’ve been getting too many piscys in with the food stocks. I wanted to see that my protocols are being utilized.” They were, down to the last dot. The offending vermin making it across were intentional, and it irritated her that August had neatly nullified her attempt with his overly cautious nature. Just as Sidriel had warned… “Everything is checked before being flung, yes?”

The gate agent held his wings at an embarrassed slant. “Yes, madam. Wrapping them in plastic after initial inspection wasn’t foolproof, so we implemented a life-detector sweep prior to fling.”

Her wing hem curled as she glanced at the holo board. “That’s August’s idea. Show me.”

Nodding, he all but bolted to a rack against the wall to come back with a swordlike wand. “It’s from the pest-eradicator sector.” The mer scuffed to a halt before her, maintaining a respectful distance. “It finds them by their heartbeat.” He touched his wrist holo to a pad on the hilt, and a screen lit. “You dial in the speed you’re looking for here…and then wave it over the boxes. I can do the entire floor or narrow it to a single container.”

She’d only been trying to make light chitchat and provide him with a reason for her to be down here, but she leaned in, interested. It found life. Fascinating…

Eager to show her, the agent wanded a box. His wrist holo remained static, earning a satisfied head bob. “Everything is scanned when it comes to the floor, and again when moved to the platform for shipment. Unfortunately it does not detect Earth’s ant pests. They have no detectable heartbeat, and we’ve had to resort to radiation bombardment on incoming foodstuffs.”

“I see. Thank you.” Danail wouldn’t wait in the break room forever. “That should prove effective. I’m going to be here for a while checking the medical supplies. Something got misplaced and it’s easier for me to look for it instead of waking someone up to do it. If you want to get a hot blok juice, I won’t say anything.”

The young mer flushed, his dark wings rising. “I’ll help you search, Madam Noel.”

“No, I know what I’m looking for.” She forced a pleasant expression. “Your shift runs for four more hours, yes? Go get a hot drink. I’ll mind the floor until you get back. Nothing is scheduled to come in or go out, is it?”

“No, madam,” he said, glancing at the labyrinth. “Earth went downshift a few spans ago and won’t be up for at least six more. We don’t fling until there’s a crew to receive it.”

A rare, golden span where both sides of the portal would be quiet. “It’s going to take me at least twenty minutes to check my manifest against what’s here,” she insisted, her words taking on a precise cadence. “Go get a hot drink. And bring me back one.”

“Oh!” the agent started as he figured it out. She wanted a drink. That was different. Flushed, he began backing up. “Yes, madam. Thank you, madam. How do you like it?”

“One salt, please,” she said, head down over her holo board.

“Yes, madam. One salt,” he repeated as he set the wand down and hustled away.

Noel tensed at the sound of the door shutting. Her gaze went to the camera set high above the floor as she strode to the desk’s holo and changed the metric from receiving to outgoing. A soft chime rang out, making her shiver as the labyrinth’s color shifted from red to green. In reality, the color change was the only thing she’d done. The labyrinth was always able to function as incoming or outgoing. The color was to help prevent accidents.

This could be helpful, she thought as she took a wand from the rack and tucked it in a sleeve. Wing tips curling, she went to both the beginning and ending of the pattern. A tingling warmth, unusually strong, rose through her, and her fingers touched the lodestone, sure it was responsible. Light glowed up from under her, and she took a step forward to walk the labyrinth.

An odd, uncomfortable sensation rose, almost a hurt, and her hand slammed against the lodestone to try to muffle it. It was as if they were awake, and she gripped the tiny amulet tighter. Her pulse quickened, and as she rounded the first turn and began to make her way to the outer loop, she wondered if Sidriel had known it would react like this before she set her on this task.

She walked faster, the glow of the floor slowly losing the green color as her psyche began to pay less attention to reality and more to the unreal. In her mind, the floor became white, and the air above her darkened as she finished the outer two loops and her path began to focus, spiraling in with ever-tighter turns.

Like magic, her inner thoughts became everything and she lost her feet, lost her lungs, lost everything, her body moving forward as her mind centered to the one task of focus.

Within her grip, the fifty sparks began to rally, pressing on her with demands and regrets, joys and pain that were so fast she couldn’t name them. They were all awake, panicking her. It was akin to being in a too-crowded room with everyone snapping out and more snapping in. The ache grew until she almost faltered, blinking in shock when she found herself at the end.

There was nothing before her, the black above and the white below having narrowed to an event horizon of the mind.

And the sparks would let her cross it.

She willed herself forward…

…feeling as if she’d never traveled before, as if she’d never seen infinity stretch before her until now. The multitude of sparks she carried saw the universe cuttingly vivid, and she gasped as she felt herself split into multiple shards of time, not just the one she was used to. Stumbling…

…her foot found the floor, and she blinked, trying to focus on the scratched tile of the embassy labyrinth. She had arrived, but the voices in her head still clamored, demanding to be heard—desperately fighting the sleep that was slowly swamping them like an onrushing rain as she moved off the labyrinth.

“Madam Noel?” the receiving gate agent said at her elbow, and Noel grasped for the mask she held out, her eyes almost closed as she breathed in the moist air, waiting for the sparks she carried to calm. One by one, they fell back into slumber, the multitude of voices vanishing. It wasn’t air she needed, but space.

“Are you okay?” the jin asked, and Noel nodded, only now looking up. “We weren’t expecting anyone until later. Do you need to sit? It’s hard to adjust at first. If I had known you were coming, I would have prepared.”

“I am not here,” Noel said. She pulled herself upright as her pulse slowed. It was dark in the courtyard, the tree lit from below with a harsh light that somehow made the branches and leaves beautiful. “I will see August and return. I only need twenty minutes.”

The jin looked relieved as Noel recovered. “Oh.” She thought about that for a moment, her wings tight against her in uncertainty. “Allow me to be sure he’s in his room. Renee has threatened to quit because of Hancock’s refusal to honor her promise, and Jackson has locked her in her room again. August might be there persuading her to stay.”

Renee is quitting? Noel let the mask fall from her, already missing the moister air. Perhaps humans were not all thugs and liars after all.

It was getting easier to breathe, and Noel followed the agent off the landing pad. “Don’t call August,” she demanded, and the agent stopped short, a questioning look on her face. “He knows I’m coming,” Noel lied, hoping the agent would think it was the foul air that made her wing hem curl. “I know the way. I need his input on something I’m putting together.”

Still the gate agent hesitated, and Noel pressed forward, her wings slightly extended. “I am telling you to make no record of my visit, verbally or otherwise. I don’t want to compromise his relationship with the humans. He will deny it and there will be strife.”

The agent’s eyes nictitated briefly in understanding, accepting the lie as fact since it was the only logical reason for the project’s CEO to show up unannounced after normal hours with her wing hem curled like a three-year-old caught eating too many salt cubes.

“Yes, Madam Noel,” she said, and, satisfied, Noel took one of the human phones kept on-site for as-needed use and headed for the hall. She kept her pace fast until she rounded the corner and was out of the agent’s sight, whereupon she leaned against the wall to catch her breath.

“How does August do this?” she rasped, but even she had to admit that it was easier than the first time she had come to this Puck’s hellhole of a world. Fingers trembling, she propped herself up in a corner and used the phone to bring up the live camera feed of the church that had been featured on the humans’ news circuit. It was hundreds of miles away, and where it had been full of angry voices and flashing lights, it was now deserted in the dark.

“Time to see if the updraft holds,” she said, focusing on a spot in the shadows. There was no one there, and with fifty sparks in her grasp, all she had to do was will it as if she were at home among the throngs of her people. At least, that was what Sidriel had promised.

Breath held, she stepped forward…

…and her eyes flashed open at the sudden chill and damp feel of the air.

It worked! she thought, elated as she sent her eyes to the sky. There was a dull thrum of what had to be traffic at a distance, the sounds odd in the thin air. The clouds were so wispy she could see open space beyond them, and she shuddered. Space. She could see space.

“How do they not go mad with that above them?” she whispered, her gaze dropping to the pavement. It was wet, not from rain but from the water cannons used to clear the area when the protesters had become violent. The record of it had not been shared at the portal building beyond a handful of upper portal agents.

Only now did she reach a thought out through the ether, a light trace back to the labyrinth etched on Earth’s portal floor. A welcoming ping of sensation returned, and her wings eased. As long as she didn’t lose her lodestone, she could snap to it, and then home.

Almost immediately her relief shifted to anger as she imagined the people she’d sent here being forced into seclusion, kept apart and tortured with no way to escape by the simple chain of being too far from their kin.

Someday there would be enough of them here that it would be impossible. For now, not being able to snap this far from the labyrinth would give her anonymity as nothing else would, and it bothered her that she was going to bury such power in the Earth’s dirt.

Vision clear in the dim light, she studied the imposing building that housed their god. The angles and sharp lines stood at an odd contrast to the softer details chiseled in stone, and a pang of worry took her as she went to a colored window and looked in. The room was full of unsittable benches all facing one direction as if for a performance. There was no movement, and, deciding it was empty, she made the quick snap inside.

A shudder pulled through her as she stepped forward, materializing between rows of silent wood. The open sky was gone, replaced by arching works of stone that were almost more daunting. She shook her wings in a sliding hush to dispel the alien feel of the place.

Benches, benches everywhere, but nowhere to sit, she thought as she drew the swordlike wand from her sleeve and paired it to her wrist holo. Immediately it began to ping, and she looked in shock at the readout. Piscys? Here? she wondered, then remembered that Earth had its own small pests. “Miceandrat,” she muttered, then changed the target from a hundred beats a span to one.

The readout went dark and Noel began to search. The religious steward had to be here, working to solve the latest crises to befall his church. She simply had to get close enough to him for her tech to work. Her eyes unnictitated in the dim light, and she looked from dusky artwork to shadowed statue. All of them held an eerie familiarity.

Finally the readout pinged, and she squinted at it, sending her gaze up an almost hidden set of risers. A tiring option if you didn’t have wings.

She started up, slowing to study the artwork she passed. The paint and canvas depiction was of her own people there among humans. Their faces had been shaped to look human, but the wings and ribbon shirts were unmistakable. Several even had ring staffs. It was odd, but not unexpected after Sidriel’s claim that they had been here before. Strange, though, how her pale kin seemed to be helping the humans while the more ruddy ones were aggressively sticking ring staffs into half-dressed humans.

We had a war over Earth’s conquest, and not everyone was in agreement, she mused, slowing as she reached the top and paused to catch her breath. They would never know what had happened; the only records made at the time were focused on what human men did.

Light filled the upper hallway, painfully spilling out of an open door. She could hear music that sounded like stars looked: cold and alien, distant and hiding secrets. One of their timepieces clicked the moments away at the end of the hall, and a thin mat gave her some relief from the cold stone.

She put her wand away as she moved closer, eyes nictitating as she came to the open door. It was too bright to see, and she fumbled for Jackson’s sunglasses, her shoulders easing as the light became tolerable and she looked in.

Racks of what she recognized as books took up much of the walls, and there were more of those useless, overly soft chairs that left no room for wings. It wasn’t until she saw the human sitting at what was obviously a desk that she realized it was an office. He was a male, old judging by the white in his hair and wrinkles on his face. And though she was not good at matching faces to names, he looked like the human the news had interviewed, still in his black clothes.

But beyond the strangeness of the room was a telling wealth. He might be a holy steward, but he was a wealthy holy steward, and a faint hope lifted her wings. Sidriel was right. They were greedy.

“Good…even,” she said, her throat catching at the barbaric sounds humans gave meaning to.

The man looked up, clearly startled, his eyes going right to her. His oddly colored face went a proper white as he stood, hands atop the desk as if for support.

“You…” he said, his small eyes going wide.

She raised a hand to mimic the benevolent statue below them, her palm insultingly out. “I…noth here…thoo harm,” she said, hoping she was getting this right. “I…here thoo speek?” she added, remembering to raise her voice to indicate a question.

The man backed away from his desk. “You’re one of them,” he said, so fast she almost couldn’t follow. “You’re Noel?”

His tone had gone up, and she nodded, recognizing it as a question. She’d done it right.

“I am Noel,” she said, becoming more sure of herself. “You are a religious steward.”

The man’s eyes moved from her to a statue of an angel, and she raised her wing knuckles high over her head. It was a show of anger, but he didn’t know that.

“I here thoo say creation spark noth a soul,” she said, setting a thin trace of thought back to the labyrinth in case she had to leave fast. “Creation spark is…energy. I bring spark so you can see?” She held up the single spark in its sealed locket, and his eyes went to the dull metal orb as it gently swayed. “You hold. See spark is noth soul that some have some noth. Spark is tool.” Her tongue was almost getting the hard T sound right, and her confidence grew.

The man inched closer, moving to stand beside his desk. “That’s what lets you move like magic, isn’t it.”

Magic. It was what they called the power of the spark. She nodded, then realized him waving his arm was him inviting her to sit. Motions hesitant, she came deeper into the room. The chairs, though, all had attached backs, and she stood, wings draped elegantly behind her. “Spark is tool,” she said again more firmly. “Is how I come here to see you.” She set the amulet on his desk, the linked metal chain sounding odd on the wood as it coiled. “When Neighbor die, soul move on. Spark remain.” Her fingers reluctantly left the cool metal, the snap of disconnection almost a pain. “Spark always remain. We give to a child. Child carry until old and she die. Give to new child.” She hesitated. “Now give to you?”

The man reached for it, pulling it across the desk by the chain until he took it in his hand. “I can do magic with this?” he said, his face white again. “Can you teach me?”

“Maybe?” she said, hoping it was a lie. Mikail seemed to think Renee used his spark to heal both of them, but they didn’t know enough yet. Giving it to this holy steward would be a controlled study. “When many sparks close, one spark can make big…miracle? When alone, one spark make small miracle. But still miracle,” she added when his lips turned down in what she was increasingly associating with doubt or anger.

“It depends on how many of you are around?” he said. “So if we drive you away, it’s worthless?”

“No worthless,” she said, her pulse quickening. Sidriel was right. They were smart, but they were far more greedy. “Only small. You decide if spark is soul or miracle. You take. Keep even if Neighbors…must go. But if you say truth, that spark is not soul, that Gorman speak mistake, Neighbors stay. You have big miracle.”

The man shook his head to make his white hair shift about his thick, ugly ears. No wonder they were so big. They had to be to hear anything in this vacuum. “You’re bribing me.”

She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “Truth is expensive,” she said, glad she’d learned how to pronounce the big word. “Even if Neighbors leave, you probably not be sick if you have spark. If Neighbor stay, become many…Who know? Perhaps you do more. Maybe anyone you touch go from sick to no sick.” She tried smiling again. “Miracle.”

“I could heal the sick with a touch?” he whispered.

Noel nodded. “Sad if Neighbors leave because of untruth. Sad if never know.” She hesitated, the thrill of victory a slow seep into her. “You take? Say truth? Keep spark secret or someone may take it.”

He looked at the amulet in his grip, and she took a step closer, wings slightly open. He did seem to like them that way. “If Neighbors stay, we be friends, maybe. Sparks rare. Have only one to give. If you say no, I take spark and find someone who say yes.”

His hands closed about the amulet, and her wing hem trembled. She had him.

“It would be a shame if a misunderstanding drove you away,” he said, his grip tightening.

“Then listen to spark.” She reached out, and he started, freezing as her hands wrapped entirely around his and she willed the spark to wake.

His breath came in fast, and his head snapped up. Eyes wide, he mouthed something, then exhaled. “I can feel it,” he said. “It’s in there. My God. It’s real!”

Noel’s hands flashed open. Doubt raced through her, and she backed up, willing the spark to be still.

But the man held it to his chest, his face again white as he stared down at it. “It’s like candles and thunderstorms. How do I heal the sick?”

He can feel it? she thought, alarmed. Puck take it. What if the stories were true? What if humans still retained the ability to use creation energy more fluently than they did? “Spark heal, not you. If it can, it will.”

“It’s warm,” he said as he looped the chain over his neck, then hid the orb behind his clothes. “Sweet mother of Mary. It’s like…nothing I’ve ever felt before. And you all have them?”

Maybe it was the presence of the fifty in the lodestone. “I go,” she said, then glanced at her wrist holo. “Air is dry. You say good words about Neighbors?” This was not good. If Sidriel knew, she would make her live in this hellhole at the bare minimum.

“Yes.” The man took two steps forward and jerked to a stop, his loose clothes flapping to make him look like a storm-tossed phoenix. “I will swing my voice to you. But Gorman will find someone else to rally fear against you. The flat-earthers, or anti-vaxxers, maybe. Where are you—”

He reached for her, and, in a panic, she strung a thought out across space, letting the labyrinth serve as her marker to draw her home. Frantic, she took a step back…

…and found herself in the embassy hall. She stood, pulse fast and wings slack, their hem drooping to brush the floor. It was the corner where she’d vanished from, and she made a mental note of it, tucked away and likely to never hold anything but air.

Air, she thought, her lungs feeling as if they were full of sand. Sidriel had given her open skies to solve this issue on her own, but gifting a spark to a human who might be able to use it was probably more than Sidriel was willing to stomach. I will tell her it was a calculated risk to determine how sensitive they are to it. That the human felt it will remain my secret.

But Gorman…The Earth’s holy steward was right. Even if he calmed their fears and spoke for them, Gorman would find someone else.

Uneasy, she glanced at her wrist holo. The portal floor at home was likely still empty. She had time. And unlike Monroe and Tayler, Gorman was on-site. If anyone stopped her, she would lie and tell them she was looking for August.

Her wings clung to her back like a guilty secret, weighing her down as she pushed into motion. Gorman was in an isolated area, confined to his quarters since the second, illegal holocast. Her breath rasped, and she longingly thought of the air canister as she wove through the night-emptied, silent halls, nodding to the few human sentries posted.

Her anonymity seemed secure as she reached his room. It was unguarded, but there was a seal on his door. This, she decided, she could snap through. It was only a door. Who puts anything in front of a door?

But still, the fear she would materialize within a chair or table set her pulse racing. Puck take it, she thought, emboldened by having snapped herself halfway around the world with nothing but a real-time video to guide her—and she stepped forward…

…to find herself in darkness. Her breath eased as her eyes adjusted to the faint light of a numbered timepiece glowing in the dark. There was little personality in the small, bland room. A desk with one of their folding holo boards, a chair with no back that was actually useful, discarded clothes, and a tray of food, the nose-wrinkling scent of something alien rising from what remained.

In the corner was one of those “cots” that August insisted on sleeping on, little more than a raised platform open to everything instead of pleasantly covered. Noel’s wing hem curled. Gorman was on it, nothing between him and her but a thin cloth.

“Gorman,” she said, adding a click of anger.

He woke, sitting up with a great deal of noise, and she whistled in annoyance when he turned on a light to flood the room with a harsh glow.

“What do you want?” he said as she retreated, glad she still wore Jackson’s sunglasses. “You want to kill me? Sure. Go ahead and do that. Prove to the world what you are.”

“No,” she said simply. “I ask if you will be bribed into wishing Neighbors well.”

He made that rhythmic chuffing sound that meant laughter, his head shaking as he sat with his feet on the floor, elbows on his knees, and stared at her. “You want me to stop ragging on you? Be your advocate? Sweetheart, there isn’t enough money in the world.”

Her wing tips curled as she stared back. Giving Gorman a spark was never in her thoughts. No, Gorman was going to die. But not until she found out where Tayler was. “Maybe there’s enough money in two worlds?” she said, head tilting as she lied. “I give you power. But you say to the world you change your thoughts. Creation sparks not soul. All Neighbors have souls, even those who don’t believe in them.”

Half his lips turned up, half down. She’d never seen that before. “And why should I do that?” he asked.

The weight of the fifty sparks was heavy against her. Gorman wouldn’t be moved by the ability to heal. Even himself. “I give you Nextdoor tech,” she lied. “Wrist holo.”

He straightened where he sat. “A businessman? Not really my style, and I can make more money by keeping you on your side of the portal. Sorry, sweetheart. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

She bobbed her head, the motion somehow meaning the same thing in both worlds. “Where is Tayler? She might say yes.”

Again he made the chuffing sounds, his teeth bared at her. “You think she’ll go for it? I have half a mind to tell you.”

I’m going to wring his neck, she thought, hands behind her back. “Maybe? Tayler is smart. Know what side of the mountain it’s raining on. Her words are heard more than yours.”

His head went from side to side, but his lips were tight. Uncertainty? she wondered, remembering August mentioning it.

“You would give her that?” he said. “After what she did to your people?”

She blinked, glad the dark glasses were helping to hide her lie. “Tayler…is worker. Monroe is boss. Tayler say apologize to what she do to my people. Maybe if I give gift, she say apologize again. She might fly chancy updraft to make apology real. Jackson happy, I happy. You stuck in room.”

Gorman rubbed his face, the sound of his fingers on the short hair there causing her to shudder. “And you believed her? Noel, I gotta say you will never make it on Earth. You are too damn trusting. Let me give you a little primer. A little something for free. And then we will talk about what I want to walk back my comments about you saying humans don’t have souls. Tayler was the one who came to me looking for a way to dump the two she killed and gutted, not Monroe.”

Noel froze, her hands clenched behind her back, hidden.

“That woman you want to make rich tortured your people to see how far they could heal before they died. And when she went a little too far, she cut them up and put their parts in jars. How does that make you feel?” He bared his teeth at her. “Still want to work with the bitch?”

She took a step forward, unable to help her wings from rising. “Say where Tayler is.”

He leaned back and rubbed his middle. “Maybe after we come to an agreement about what I want.”

Noel’s eyes narrowed as he gathered himself to rise. Angry, she flung her arm out, grasping his neck and throwing him at the glowing light.

Gorman’s sudden cry of fear choked off when he hit the wall and knocked the lighted timepiece to the floor. Noel lurched forward, losing her glasses as she wrapped her fingers entirely about his neck and lifted him. Disgusted, she threw him into the opposite wall.

He hit with a thump, sliding to the floor with a soft groan. His eyes were open but not focused, and Noel picked him up by the neck again, slamming him into the wall a third time and pinning him there. “Where is Tayler?” she said, her eyes fixed on his.

“Go to hell,” he choked out as his focus cleared.

They see better in the dark than I thought.

“You won’t kill me,” he said, his teeth showing again. “You need Earth. You need Earth, or you will all die.” He laughed as she held him to the wall, his feet dangling. “Jackson is going to love this. Go ahead. Hit me again.”

Noel’s eyes nictitated and Gorman’s smile vanished, his eyes fixed on hers in a sudden fear as they glowed red in the dim light from the fallen timepiece. “You want to be predator?” she said. “I treat you like one.”

“Wait…” he said, but her thoughts found his heart in his chest, and snapped it two feet to the right, the warm, firm muscle landing in her waiting hand. She wanted him to see it there.

Gorman gasped silently as he saw it and spasmed. Noel braced herself with her wings, keeping him against the wall as his heart contracted twice, the gush of blood quickly dribbling to nothing.

“You want this back? Where is Tayler?”

“My house. Oregon,” he gurgled, and Noel’s lips curled in distaste as blood came from his lips, staining his words with ugly burbles.

That was unexpected, she thought. “You may have this back,” she said, then flung it back into his chest.

“Oh, God.” He bubbled, red froth at his lips, and she let him drop. Leaning, she wiped her hand off on him, then retreated to find a discarded shirt, dabbing at the blood on her dress before dropping it on him as well. Gorman sat slumped against the wall, a hand to his chest, staring at her. “I…I can’t breathe,” he said, his head bowed in pain.

“Sometimes you make mistake you can’t fix,” she said, then flung him to the sun.

The room was suddenly empty of sound, and her wings drooped. It had been too fast a death for him, but to wait until he gasped his last would have made more of a mess than she wanted to clean. Killing a dangerous predator was prudent. It was what they had always done. It was how they survived.

Not happy, Noel scanned the room. The bed was fine. The floor was, too, seeing as the blood had dripped down her arm. Leaning, she tapped his folding holo board, squinting as it brightened to light the room. Wing hem curled, she studied the keyboard until she found the dimmer and tapped to bring the light to a more reasonable level.

My house. Oregon, he had said. Where that was would be in his ungainly files. Finding the woman tonight would be difficult, but Noel had finished Sidriel’s errand, and with fifty sparks with her, she had both time and ability. Wing knuckles dropping, she closed the folding holo. The connection to the outside had been severed.

His phone, Noel mused, turning to the bedside table, but it was not there. Jackson had taken it, but Gorman had gotten his message out somehow. Gorman had a second phone.

Eyes nictitated, Noel lifted the thick cot mat, still warm from Gorman’s body. Nothing. She went into the washroom next, not finding it in the obvious places. Puck take it, did I fling it to the sun with him? she thought, then stiffened. His foot clothes.

His boots were under the bed. An odd place when the rest of his discarded clothes are everywhere, she thought. Her long fingers reached inside the first, stretching to the toes. Nothing. But when she looked at the bottom, her wing hem curled. The base held a thin rim of glue.

Fingers like claws, she ripped the base off, a whistle escaping her as she found a secondary phone. It lit when she touched it, the screen open to show an image of one of their couches. Behind it was a food prep area, the window beyond showing a black sky.

Oregon? she wondered, bringing the phone closer. The soft sound of human conversation and music was coming from the phone. Her gaze dropped to a softly blinking circle at the bottom of the picture. It was a live shot? He had a security holo of his home?

And then Noel almost dropped it when Tayler walked into the range of the live feed and sat down on the couch.

She had found Tayler and a secure place to snap to. She could bury the fifty sparks and create a new labyrinth tonight.

But it was Tayler sitting unawares before an unknown camera that curled her toes.

Noel took a breath, and snapped.