Protected

  I did feel different—I felt alive in a way I never had before. But I didn’t want to get into that.

  “What I meant to say is, I don’t feel any more, er, powerful,” I said. “I mean, I’m not suddenly super strong or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound or anything like that.”

  “That’s not the kind of power a La-ti-zal usually exhibits,” he said, frowning. “It’s more subtle than that.”

  “So how am I going to know if these powers ever do manifest if they’re so subtle?” I demanded.

  “You’ll know,” was his oblique reply.

  Before I could ask for more details, we came to a sudden stop in front of a dark alley. Well, if any alley made of gold and platinum could really be called “dark.” The narrow walls gleamed in the dim light like a Pharohs’ tomb.

  “Okay, this is it.” Grav took a deep breath. “Down here is the entrance to The Hell Hole.”

  “The what?” I began to feel uneasy. “What’s that?”

  “A bar owned by the guy I need to talk to—Da’relk Shekk. He’s a Balloonian.”

  “A what?” I asked again. “Sorry, I thought you said he was a balloon something or other.”

  “I did,” he said patiently. “Balloonians are from the Hygerian Nebula—they’re sentient gas. To keep from drifting away and to be able to communicate with more solid life forms, they enclose their consciousness in thin, elastic bladders.”

  “So…they’re living balloons?” I asked. Every time I thought I had heard or seen it all, something stranger came along.

  “Essentially,” Grav rumbled. “But we need to be careful around Shekk. He’s got a bad rep—even worse than mine.”

  “Yours?” I asked, frowning. “You have a bad reputation? You didn’t tell me that.”

  Grav’s face went hard as granite.

  “Yeah, well there’s a lot you don’t know about me, darlin’. And we’ll both be happier if you never find out.”

  “But—”

  “Now Shekk is a crime boss that runs most of this station,” he continued, clearly wanting to change the subject. “He deals most of the illegal tech in the galaxy. He’s also one of the meanest son-of-a-bitches you’re ever gonna meet so it’s best you stay back and let me do the talking.”

  “How mean and scary can he be if he’s just a talking balloon?” I objected. “I mean, one pin and he’s history, right?”

  “Sure.” Grav gave a short, barking laugh. “If you don’t mind getting your hand burned off to use that pin on him. Shekk wears a suit that includes a layer of high-intensity laser protection. Nothing gets through that.”

  “Oh, I see.” I nodded. “All right. I’ll keep my hood on and keep quiet.”

  “That’s for the best.” Grav took my hand again and we started walking down the alley. “Nobody should bother you. If they do, we’ll make it very clear you’re with me.”

  “Will your bad reputation protect me too, as long as they know I’m with you?” I asked, smiling a little. “I mean, if anyone tries to mess with me?”

  “It should. If not, I’ll rip their fuckin’ heads off.” At first I thought he was joking but he spoke with absolute sincerity and the serious look on his face made me shiver.

  Hopefully no one would bother with me at all, since I was covered from head to toe in the soft, dark green cape. But if they did, I knew that Grav would keep me safe.

  So it was with less trepidation than you might think that I walked through the thick black door that led into The Hell Hole. Grav was with me so I wasn’t worried a bit.

  I should have been.

  Chapter Nine

  Grav

  “State your name and business.” The bouncer at the door was a Dorox, about twice as big as me, with saggy blue skin and a snout long enough to use as a third arm. Or a second…well, you get the idea.

  “Grav to see Shekk. I’ll tell him my business myself.”

  “And your companion?” The Dorox’s snout swiveled in the direction of Leah and I knew he was probably smelling her sweet scent. It was something I hadn’t accounted for, though I should have. Back in the confines of my ship, I had somehow gotten used to breathing in her devastatingly feminine fragrance all the time. Now, out and about in the Sincon station, I was aware of it all over again. She smelled good—damn good. It was another reason I’d bought her the cloak but even that didn’t seem to be doing a good job of blocking her scent. It was almost as though it had gotten stronger.

  Or maybe I was just more aware of it, as I was more aware of her. I kept her small hand firmly in mine and glared at the bouncer.

  “My companion is also my business. She’s no threat to Shekk. Just tell him Grav wants to see him.”

  The Dorox shrugged. “Fine. I’ll see if Mr. Shekk will see you. Wait here.”

  He left us for a minute, which gave Leah a chance to look all around The Hell Hole with wide eyes. I’ll give it one thing—the place lives up to its name.

  It’s a dim, smoky room lit mostly by the red glow of the tanna vines growing all over the walls. They’re a parasitic species that feeds on blood so you have to watch where you stand while you’re in The Hell Hole if you don’t want a bite taken out of your hide. Their bell-like flowers glow and give plenty of free light though, which is probably why Shekk tolerated them—he always was a cheap bastard. Most of the vines were in bloom, their flowers glowing plenty strong enough to see the various patrons of the bar, sprawled across the gold and silver bar stools.

  I counted seven wanted criminals and three more who weren’t even supposed to be out of the slam. There was also one extremely nervous Imperial Barrister who was meeting with what was probably a client. Clearly he didn’t care for the meeting place because he kept looking over his shoulder and adjusting his fluffy neckpiece anxiously.

  The bartender was a Trankor who had obviously had limb enhancement—he had seven arms instead of the usual four. He was serving three patrons at once with shots of Berrillian blaze. The blue flames licked up the sides of the glasses, looking as hungry as the tanna flowers.

  “Wow, this place is really scary,” Leah remarked in a low voice.

  “Nah.” I squeezed her hand and gave her a reassuring smile. “Just dark and dirty, that’s all. And watch out for the tanna flowers,” I added, as she was reaching for one of the invitingly glowing buds. “They bite.”

  “They what? Oh!” Leah gasped, pulling her fingers back just in time as one of the red bell-like flowers made a snap at her.

  Just then the bouncer came back.

  “Mr. Shekk will see you, Sir,” he said to me, with a hell of a lot more respect than he’d shown earlier.

  “Good.” I started to step past him but he stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “Say, are you really the Grav N’gol? The one who broke out of the Rebax Triple Max slam and killed thirty guards with nothing but a shiv and your bare hands?”

  Beside me, I saw Leah’s eyes widen again.

  “You got the wrong guy,” I said roughly. “The name’s just a coincidence.”

  “That’s not what Mr. Shekk says. He said—”

  “Hey!” I grabbed him by his dangling snout and pulled, yanking him down so we were eye to eye. “I said, you got the wrong guy,” I growled softly. “You got it?”

  “Yeah, please! I’m sorry, Mr. N’gol! Sorry!” he squeaked. Grabbing a Dorox by the snout is like grabbing another male by the balls, though you have to have balls yourself to do it, since they’re so fucking big.

  “Good. I’m glad we have an understanding,” I let him go and wiped my hand against my black leather trousers. “I’m going back now.”

  “Enjoy your visit,” the bouncer returned in a muffled voice, still rubbing his wounded snout.

  “Thanks.” I nodded at Leah and we continued through the bar. I could tell she wanted to ask questions but for right now she was keeping her mouth shut. Good, I didn’t feel like explaining—I had to deal with
Shekk first and hope like hell he would sell me what I needed.

  Leah

  I tried not to stare at Grav as he led me through the bar but I couldn’t help wondering if what the weird, elephant-looking bouncer had said was true. Was he some kind of ex-convict? An escaped ex-convict? And if so, what had he done to be incarcerated in the first place?

  It made me realize that while we had talked a lot about general matters in the past two and a half days, Grav hadn’t really told me a lot about himself. Oh, I knew he was a Protector, which Zoe had told me in her message was kind of a professional bodyguard, but I didn’t know what he’d done before he started doing that.

  But when I remembered how gently he’d held me after my fright in the shower and how tenderly he’d healed me, I couldn’t believe he would do anything awful enough to be locked up in prison. Unless maybe he’d gotten into trouble during his work protecting someone? That seemed possible—I had seen how enraged he was when he pulled Gerald off me. So I could imagine something like that happening. But even if he had been in prison, I didn’t believe he would kill people to break out of it.

  Would he?

  My musings were interrupted when we got through the bar and into a small, back room decorated entirely in black.

  The room was already small and the black walls and ceiling and floor made it seem tiny. It was dominated by a throne-like chair which was, ironically, carved of some kind of wood instead of the ubiquitous precious metals that made up the rest of the space station. I supposed that here, wood was more precious than gold because it was rarer.

  On the rare wooden throne-chair sat the strangest creature I had ever seen.

  He had a puffy body and a round, bulbous head with strangely malleable features that looked more like a rubber mask than an actual face. But as strange as his face was, his clothes were even stranger. He was wearing a suit made of brilliant red light that covered everything but his face. It crackled and glowed in the black room and I could feel the heat of it, even from the doorway. I wondered if the suit was insulated so the glowing lights didn’t pop his puffy body.

  “Ah, Gravex N’gol!” he exclaimed in a high, squeaky voice that sounded like air being let out of a balloon. “So good to see you again, my friend.”

  As he spoke, his features molded themselves to look like an exact replica of Grav’s own granite-like visage. Wow. Weirder and weirder. Grav had described him as being kind of a mob boss—or at least that was what it sounded like to me. I wondered how such a strange looking individual had gotten to this place of power.

  “Shekk,” Grav nodded, apparently not freaked out at all by the way the balloon man had suddenly started looking like him.

  “And who is your companion?” Shekk demanded, leaning forward. “Let me see him or her.”

  “Her. It’s definitely a female.” There were several other people in the room and now one of them stepped forward. He walked upright on two legs but they seemed to be bent backwards, as though his knees went the wrong way. Also, he was covered in dark brown fur and had a long snout for a nose. Gleaming silver eyes like twin moons glared out of his hairy face as he took another step towards me.

  I bit back a little gasp, shocked at what seemed like his sudden appearance. I know it seems strange that I hadn’t noticed there was a freaking werewolf-looking guy there the minute I stepped in the room, but he was wearing dark clothing and sort of blended in with the black walls. Plus, Shekk’s glowing laser-light suit sort of eclipsed everyone and everything else.

  “Oh? A female you say, Karf?” Shekk’s eyes gleamed in his doughy face. I couldn’t really say what color they were—they kept changing.

  “Yes, boss.” The werewolf guy lifted his snout and sniffed deeply, as though he could somehow smell me across the room. “Scent like that, ain’t no mistaking it. She’s female all right. Ripe, too.”

  “Let’s see her, then.” Shekk nodded at me. “Go on, my dear—take off that nasty hood—it hides your loveliness.”

  I glanced at Grav who gave me a short nod.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled back the hood, making sure I kept the rest of the cloak pulled closed around my body. Now I was glad Grav had bought it for me. It would have been unbearable to appear in the naughty school-girl outfit in front of the balloon-man mob boss and his hairy werewolf lieutenant.

  “This is Leah and she’s my partner in our current venture,” Grav growled.

  “A partner, hmm?” Shekk studied me and this time his features shifted to mimic my own face. It was almost unbearably weird to see my own eyes looking back at me from his malleable face. “A partner but not a mate?”

  “No.” Grav shifted uncomfortably and frowned. “Leah’s…not my mate.”

  “Then you won’t mind if my associate, Karf, takes a deeper sniff,” Shekk said.

  Before I could protest that I minded, the hairy werewolf guy had his muzzle under my cloak and was trying to get his snout under my skirt like an over-friendly Great Dane.

  “Hey!” I gasped but before I could say more, Grav had the guy by the throat and was holding him, one-handed, over his head.

  “Grrrf! Rrrft!” the dangling wolf-guy choked and gasped, clawing at Grav’s hand to no avail.

  “Gravex, old friend,” Shekk said, sounding slightly exasperated. “I must ask you to put down my associate. Karf is quite indispensable to me when it comes to sniffing out danger.”

  “This time he put his nose where it doesn’t belong,” Grav growled. Shaking the wolf-man like a rag doll he growled up at him. “Just because she’s not my mate doesn’t mean you can go molesting her. She’s mine, damnit! Mine.”

  “She won’t be touched again, I promise,” Shekk said. “Now if you wouldn’t mind lowering Karf there to the ground…”

  Grav gave one final squeeze of his powerful hand and I heard a choked gurgle come from the hapless male in his grip. Then he opened his fingers and let the wolf-guy drop. Karf fell face-down with a thump in a heap, on the floor at my feet.

  I honestly couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive.

  “You know, if you didn’t want Karf scenting your female, you should have named her as your female to begin with.” Shekk’s voice was mildly disapproving and his face had gone back to its original, bulbous state.

  “Sorry.” Grav flexed his fist and cast a glance at me. “Didn’t mean to make a scene. I just…didn’t want him hurting her.”

  “I think she’s quite well. Aren’t you, my dear?” Shekk raised one puffy eyebrow at me. It, like all his facial hair, looked like something someone had drawn on a balloon with a magic marker.

  “I…I’m okay.” My voice came out shakier than I liked. Down at my feet, the wolf-man Grav had half-strangled to death stirred and gave a long, rasping gurgle, as though he was trying to breathe through a crushed windpipe.

  I gave a little cry and hopped back, nearly falling when I tripped on the trailing hem of my long cloak.

  Grav reached for me but someone else caught me first.

  “Now, now, my child. All is well,” whispered a soft, ancient voice in my ear.

  I looked down to see two wrinkled light blue hands gripping my arm. When I glanced up, I saw a kindly-looking face, seamed with wrinkles, the same light blue color as the hands.

  I might have been tempted to think she was Braxian, like Grav, but her skin lacked the grayish-undertone his had. And also, her eyes were a faded violet instead of the strange but beautiful white-on-black. Her hair was a lovely swirl of silvery-blue and she was wearing a cloak much like my own, but hers was black.

  “Ah, Magda!” Shekk actually rose from his throne-chair and bowed, showed the old lady a mark of respect. “Gravex and Leah, may I introduce Magda, my wise-woman. She is a Seer from the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy on Helliox Prime. But she came to this humble station and into my service some five cycles ago.”

  “Uh, hello,” I said, nodding to the old lady who had finally released her surprisingly strong gr
ip on my arm.

  “Hello, my dear one.” She inclined her head. “I have been waiting many long cycles to meet you. It is a great honor to finally see your face.”

  “Oh, uh…” I didn’t know what to say to that. Grav frowned and took a step towards us but Shekk simply laughed.

  “Oh, don’t mind Magda! She’s always saying mystical things—it’s part of her charm.”

  “This girl is special,” Magda insisted, looking at me intently. “I am not jesting, my Lord Shekk. She is not the one, but she is the one before the one who is to come. I must read her fortune in the yarex dregs.”

  “The what?” I looked at Grav for help.

  He frowned. “Yarex is a kind of hot beverage brewed from ground up fragrant bark of the yarrow tree. I don’t know anything about it telling fortunes, though.”

  “Don’t look so frightened, my dear,” Shekk said to me. “Old Magda is simply asking if you’d like some nice hot yarex to sip while we discuss business.”

  “I don’t know.” I looked at Grav again, who shrugged.

  “Up to you, darlin’,” he rumbled. He glared at Shekk. “But they don’t leave this room.”

  “Naturally not. Magda has her brewing station right over there, in the corner.” Shekk nodded at the corner behind his throne-chair and then looked at me. “Go on, my dear. You can refresh yourself while your partner tells me why he came to this Goddess-forsaken corner of the galaxy to see me.”

  It seemed safe enough and after what I had just seen Grav do to the wolf-man guy, I felt the need of a little space between us. Not that I was afraid of him now or anything it was just…well, I don’t know what it was. I wanted some time to digest what I’d seen—to get over the way he’d choked the guy almost to death and then growled that I was his, claiming me in no uncertain terms.

  I looked at the old woman with the faded violet eyes and nodded.

  “All right. I’d love some, uh, yarex. Thank you.”

  “Come then, child.” She took my arm, which I thought was really unnecessary since we were only taking two steps to the corner behind the throne in the tiny black room.