“It’s your mother. Mekrikzi.”
Something vicious crossed his eyes. I fought an urge to step back.
“My mother is a remarkable woman,” he said quietly. “She won’t spend a single moment in hell and you’re not fit to sully her name with your filthy mouth.”
That’s just great. Now I had a filthy mouth. Well, if that wasn’t a splash of emotion, I didn’t know what was. “I can understand now why you have no wife.”
“And why is that?”
“We have a term for men like you on our planet.”
“And what that would be?”
“Momma’s boy.”
He smiled again. There was no humor in the smile, just a vicious baring of alien teeth. “Everyone has a weakness. We all have people who are close to us. I will find yours.”
“You should look for my parents,” I suggested. “Tell me what you find.”
The smile faltered slightly. “You have friends. Family.”
“They are all in this inn. Everyone I care about is here.”
“I’ll sift through your life. I’ll find every guest who ever stayed in your inn.”
“Start with the Khanum of the Hope-Crushing Horde and her elite warriors. You should totally pay them a surprise visit and drop some vague threats while you’re at it. They love that sort of thing.”
He stopped. His beautiful face turned savage. “When this is over, I’ll burn your house to the ground, put a slave collar around your neck, and drag you out of here. You’ll suffer for years and when I’ve satisfied myself with every cruelty and perversion my mind can invent, I’ll sell the pitiful wreck that you’ll become to the highest bidder.”
His cloak flared and he vanished into the brush.
I sighed. “Come on, Beast.”
We finished our walk and I came back to the porch. Sean had put together a wicked-looking gun. Caldenia was on her third can of Mello Yello.
“Well, that was that.” I sat down in a chair. “I’ve learned nothing useful, except that Freud would love to interview him and that he has apparently given some thought to torturing me.”
“On the contrary, my dear.” Caldenia set the can down. “We’ve learned a great deal.”
“What do you mean?”
“You heard, but you haven’t listened. You must learn to listen, Dina.”
Within the depths of the inn, the door to Baha-char opened. I felt Maud and Arland and nobody else. Crap.
“What?” Sean was on his feet.
“They’re back. Alone.”
The door flew open in front of me and I hurried into the kitchen and then into the front room, Sean and Caldenia behind me. Maud and Arland emerged from the hallway. Mush, fruit peels, and garbage covered their armor. Some unidentifiable sticky yellow slime stained Arland’s breastplate, and pieces of some broken circuitry stuck to it. White ash filled Maud’s hair. Arland was shaking with rage. Maud looked ready to rip someone’s head off. The reek of rotting garbage filled the room and I gagged.
“What happened?” I squeezed out. “Where is the Archivarian?”
Maud hurled her sword onto the floor and spat a single word. “Muckrats!”
* * *
“You let muckrats steal the Archivarian? Are you crazy?” Of all the… How could they… Argh!
“They were already there!” Maud waved her arms. “I swear!”
“Lady Maud is correct,” Arland said. “When we arrived, the merchant’s shop was ransacked.”
“He owed money to the muckrats,” Maud added. “He missed a payment so they went through his shipment and took the Archivarian.”
I put my hand over my face. Of all the creatures, it had to be muckrats.
“Why would they want the Archivarian?” Sean asked, his voice calm.
“The lights,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Sean asked.
“The tank is likely big, ornate, and has blinking lights on it.”
“We pursued,” Arland said. “And then we tried to bargain. When reason failed, we attempted to storm their compound.”
“Did you happen to storm it through a garbage compactor?” Sean asked.
Arland gave him a blank look.
“It’s not his fault,” Maud said. “He was brave and he tried. I tried too. They dumped garbage on us and then acid.” She crouched, grabbed her sword off the floor, and stood up, all in one fluid motion, and stuck her sword under my nose. The blade resembled a half-melted candle.
“Two years.” Maud’s voice trembled, and I couldn’t tell if it was from despair or outrage. “I’ve had this sword for two years. It saved my life. Look at it.”
“You needn’t worry, my lady,” Arland said quietly. “I assure you that you will have a new blade, one suited to your skill, before nightfall.”
I heaved a sigh. Berating and yelling wouldn’t fix anything. It would make me feel a lot better, but we didn’t have time to waste.
“We came back here as soon as we could,” Maud said.
“I still think that a prolonged assault may have yielded some results,” Arland said.
“No, Maud is right.” I pulled my robe off and grabbed the car keys from the hook by the door. “You can’t fight muckrats. You can’t reason with them either. You can only trade. Maud, I need you to defend the inn. The Draziri likely won’t attack. It’s broad daylight.”
“Where are you going?” Sean asked.
“To Walmart!”
“I’m coming with you. Kiran’s fixated on you. You can’t count on him being rational.”
I opened my mouth… It would take longer to argue and we didn’t have time. For all I knew the muckrats were prying the argon tank open as we spoke. Besides, he was right. The Draziri had made it personal during our last conversation.
“Okay.” I turned to Maud. “Hold the inn. Please.”
“I got it,” she said.
I stuck my feet into my shoes I had left by the front door and ran for the garage. Sean followed me.
I jumped into the driver's seat, he took the passenger one, and I forced myself to casually drive out of the garage and pull into the street at a reasonable speed instead of peeling out of there like a Nascar driver. Nobody assaulted us. Nobody followed.
“What are muckrats?” Sean asked.
“Magpies of the galaxy. They have a fort at Baha-char.”
Ten minutes later we marched through Walmart’s doors. I headed straight for the toy aisle.
“What are we looking for?” Sean asked.
“Look for the most annoying thing you can find. Anything that’s loud, has flashing lights, and complicated moving parts.”
I surveyed the toys. The pickings were slim. I thought there would’ve been more, but with the holidays approaching, the toy isle had been picked over.
Wait. I pulled a box off the shelf. Musical Fun Hammer Pounding Toy Game. A variation on Whack-A-Mole, with plastic eggs with funny faces in bright Easter colors popping up and a hammer to whack them with. Please tell me there is a demo… There it was, at the end of the aisle, where the toy was hooked up to a cord. Four buttons on the bottom. I pushed one. Horribly loud music blared from the toy. So far so good. I grabbed the green plastic hammer and pushed the demo button. The blue egg popped up. I smacked it and it lit up from the inside with a seizure-inducing strobe light and gave a police-siren wail. I whacked another egg. A primate’s screech cut my eardrums. Perfect. I grabbed the box and emerged from the aisle, almost running into Sean.
I showed the box to him. “What do you have?”
He lifted a bizarre-looking contraption that resembled a cross between a hair dryer and a megaphone with an array of lights along its plastic frame.
“What the heck is that?”
“It’s a fart gun.”
“A what?”
Sean pressed the trigger. The lights dramatically lit up and the gun made a loud farting noise. “A fart gun. From that kid movie. You said annoying.”
He pressed the trigger agai
n. The gun farted. A woman with a child in her cart looked at us. Sean’s mouth slowly stretched into a smile.
“Okay, fine.” I sped toward the checkout.
A fart.
“Will you stop doing that?”
Another fart.
“Sean! What are you, five?”
He laughed under his breath.
The express checkout lane was empty. Miracle of miracles. I slid my box onto the belt. Sean followed.
The cashier, an older plump woman, smiled at us. “Aww. You’re such a cute couple buying toys. Are you expecting?”
What?
“Yes, we are,” Sean said and put his arm around me.
I would kill him.
“No rings?” The cashier swiped the fart gun across the scanner. “Better get on that wedding fast.”
Of all the… I swiped my card and punched my code into the terminal. That’s why I never came to Walmart.
The card went through. Sean grabbed the two toys and we headed out.
“Good luck, you two!” the cashier called after us.
As soon as we were out the doors, I turned to Sean. “Will you take this seriously? The future of an entire species is at stake.”
“Yes, we’re going to save them with a fart gun.”
“Don’t!”
Fart.
Ugh.
Fifteen minutes later I ran into the inn. Gertrude Hunt seemed no worse for wear. Maud was in the war room. I stuck my head in. “Anything?”
“They tried to send a probe in and I nuked it,” she said. “Go, Dina! Go, we’re fine.”
The inn dropped my Baha-char robe, dark brown with a tattered hem, by my feet. I pulled it on, took a sack out of the closet, and held it open. Sean stuffed the toys into it and I handed it back to him. If anyone could keep it from being stolen, Sean could. The door at the end of the long hallway opened, spilling the bright sunshine of Baha-char into the inn. We stepped through the door.
Heat washed over me. We stood on pale yellow tiles lining the alley. Buildings rose on both sides of us, built with sandstone and decorated with colorful tile, fifteen floors high, each a mess of balconies, terraces, and bridges. Trees, vines, and flowers thrived in planters, adding a welcome relief from the uniformity of sandstone. Banners streamed in the breeze, burgundy, turquoise, and gold. Above, in the purple sky, a gargantuan lavender planet, cracked down the middle, oversaw it all, pieces of it floating by the main mass like misshapen moons.
I hurried out of the alley, Sean next to me. We stepped into the street, and a current of beings swept us along. Creatures in every shape and size walked, crawled, hovered, stomped, and slithered between the buildings, searching the merchants’ stalls and shops for that particular something that couldn’t be bought anywhere else. The street breathed and spoke in a thousand voices.
We wove our way through the current and stopped before a large building, its rectangular doorway dark. Sean grimaced. It wasn’t his favorite place. Damn it, I should’ve thought about it before bringing him with me. Nuan Cee, one of the powerful Merchants of Baha-char, was the one who'd hired Sean to become Turan Adin. Sean was probably being hit with all sorts of memories he was trying to forget.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “But we need his help.”
“It never comes without a price.”
“I know.”
“We could just go back, get Arland, and storm the place…”
I stepped close to him and kissed him. It was meant to be a quick kiss, a brushing of my lips on his, but the moment we touched, excitement dashed through me. The memory of what it felt like to kiss Sean Evans short-circuited my brain. I threw caution to the wind and kissed him hard. My tongue licked his lips. He opened his mouth and I tasted Sean. Like drinking fire.
We broke apart. I opened my eyes and saw the deep forest in his eyes and a scarred feral wolf looking back. He was close, much closer than he’d ever come before.
Sean wrapped his arm around my waist, and pulled me close. A little thrill dashed through me. I was caught and I didn’t mind. Sean studied my face, leaned, and his mouth closed on mine. He kissed me back, deep, deliberate, seducing me right there on the street. I didn’t want it to stop.
Sean broke the kiss and turned his head.
A creature had emerged from the doorway. Hulking, shaggy with long black fur, with massive arms ending in clawed fingers and a monstrous face filled with fangs, it looked like nothing Earth could produce.
“The Merchant will see you,” the creature boomed.
“We should go in,” I whispered.
He let me go, slowly.
We followed the bodyguard into the tall foyer lined with gray tile. A waterfall splashed from the far wall, falling into a narrow basin. Here and there plants in all shades, from purple and magenta to emerald green, flourished in ornate planters. A table of volcanic glass waited in the middle of the room. I sat on a soft purple sofa by the table. Sean remained standing.
A curtain on the right opened and a fox-like creature barely three and a half feet tall, criminally fluffy, and wearing a jeweled apron, scurried out on two legs. I opened my mouth and forgot to close it. I had expected Nuan Cee. This was…
“Cookie?”
The short fox opened his arms and ran to me. I hugged him.
“What are you doing here?” Sean asked.
Cookie reached out to hug him. Sean hugged him back.
Cookie twitched his lynx ears. “Uncle is away on business. I’m in charge until he returns.”
He stepped back and very formally held his paw-hands together. With his sandy fur and bright blue eyes, he was almost too cute to be taken seriously. However, he was of clan Nuan and underestimating him would prove deadly.
“So what can the great Nuan Cee do for you?” Cookie asked.
“We need your help to bargain with muckrats,” I said. “They have taken an argon tank with a creature inside it as means of payment for a debt owed by a merchant. We need to retrieve the tank.”
“What do you offer in return?”
“A favor,” I said. I didn’t have anything else.
Cookie’s blue eyes narrowed. “I shall do this. In return, I will call on you in time of need.”
“Deal,” I said.
Cookie rubbed his paws together. “What do you have in trade to the muckrats?”
* * *
Fart.
Fart.
Faaaaaaart.
“Will you please stop doing that?”
Cookie giggled and waved the fart gun around.
Males and farts. Any species, any planet, didn’t matter.
We walked through the shadow area of Baha-char. The streets were narrow here, the colors duller, the canopies worn. Grime had settled on the doorways. The merchants stayed in their shops with their weapons within reach. Sean scanned the street with his gaze. I felt weary. Cookie skipped without a care in the world as if he was in the middle of a sunny meadow. Possibly because the hulking monstrosity that served as his bodyguard followed us, breathing down my neck, but most likely because his apron identified him as a scion of a Merchant clan. Harming a member of the Merchants meant signing your own death sentence.
We turned the corner. Sean stopped. High stone walls rose on both sides of us, enclosing an area about the size of a football field. Directly in front of us was an enormous metal wall, hammered together from giant rectangular hard steel plates. Smaller plates interrupted it, with rust and acid trails stretching from them over the metal. The huge gate in the center at ground level was big enough for two elephants to pass together side by side.
Cookie rubbed his hands together. “Stand back please and do not say anything.”
He raised the fart gun and let it rip.
A small plate slid aside about fifty feet off the ground.
Cookie took the smashing game and pounded it with the hammer. Lights and awful screeching noises broke the silence.
More plates slid open.
Cookie raised his han
ds and spoke in the chirping language of the muckrats. He waved his arms. He walked back and forth. He walked some more, lecturing. He lifted the fart gun and let out another blast of sound. He smacked the game with the hammer. He spoke again, then he fell silent.
A short chirping question came from the wall. “Chichi-chichi?”
Cookie launched into a second lecture. He stood on his toes, raising his arms as far as they could go and drew a big circle. He put his arms behind his back and walked around. Then he waited.
The fortress remained quiet.
“I say we storm it,” Sean whispered.
“Hush.”
Another chirp.
Cookie turned to me. “Can I have your shoe?”
I reached for my sneaker.
A chorus of outraged shrieks emanated from the fortress.
“The other shoe,” Cookie said softly.
I took off my left sneaker. Cookie raised it like it was a treasure and deposited it by the toys.
A metal clang echoed through the fortress, followed by rapid thuds. The gates swung open and a horde of muckrats spilled out. About four feet tall, they resembled weasels who somehow walked upright and developed monkey hands. Their sleek fur ranged from rusty brown to black, and they wore little leather kilts adorned with lights. They poured out of the gates, dragging the massive argon tank. The tank was deposited on the ground. A short muckrat dumped a pile of gold coins by the tank, another added a dead scree rat the size of a small cat, and a third put some complex electronic part on it.
The leading muckrat pointed to the pile. “Chi?”
Cookie made a great show of inspecting the goods. “Chi.”
The leading muckrat grabbed my sneaker and raised it up over his head.
“Chiiiiiiiiiiii!”
The muckrats erupted in screaming. The toys vanished and the horde ran back into the fort, as if sucked into it. The metal doors clanged shut.
Sean picked up a gold coin from the pile. “Are these Spanish doubloons?”
“So sorry about the shoe,” Cookie said mournfully as his bodyguard hefted the argon tank onto his shoulder like it weighed nothing, “but they wouldn’t budge on it.”
CHAPTER 8
“You’re not carrying me.” I pulled off my right sneaker and started down the street.