Samael's Fire (2 page)

The little boy missed his step and fell into Char, and they both stumbled against a huge guy in flame-colored overalls. The label on his chest read Imperial Homeland Security.

“Hey, now, little man. You don’t want to be doing that.” He scooped up the boy and steadied Char, his voice pleasant and concerned. Not a jerk. “Be still and mind your mom. You don’t want to be stuck in California just now.”

The woman went stone silent, sweat breaking out above her eyebrows.

California.
 
The old state name sounded odd coming from IHS. They usually insisted on using
 
Pacific Zone
, never California or Oregon or Washington. At the mezzanine, he stepped off to the right, his free arm on Char’s elbow, guiding her away from the human stream that flowed toward the screeners.

He asked for Char’s ID and put the little boy down. The woman’s eyes were wild as she grabbed the boy’s hands. “
Shibadeh
, do you want me to leave you for the raptors?”

A collective gasp erupted all around, not at the curse word but at the mention of raptors. The woman broke into sobs and hugged the child. She glared at the onlookers defiantly. Everybody was starting to crack.

“Raptors.” Char tried to sound light-hearted. “They’re the new bogeyman.” The IHS guy laughed.

Char wasn’t enthusiastic about children herself but acknowledged their necessity. She hoped the IHS guy wouldn’t mark the woman’s license. It was hard enough to get clearance to have one, and who could blame anybody for stressing when the entire zone was freaking out?

But he’d forgotten the woman and the boy. He was fixed on Char’s ID. He nodded, with the same forced pleasantry as the woman at the guard station. “You’re pre-cleared.” Her card was blue level, another favor from Mike. “I’ll take you to your gate.”

“How do you know where I’m going?”

“You got a blue card, you’re getting off this rock.” He could play for the Corporate League, he was so big; but for IHS he wasn’t very scary. Apparently it was true that Homeland Security treated people with blue cards better than anybody else.

It would have taken an hour to get through the screeners, but the IHS guy took Char past the line for them.
 
You got a blue card, you’re getting off this rock.

There was a coffee kiosk in the pre-cleared terminal, and Char grabbed the IHS guy’s arm. “Do I have time? I need to get some caffeine in my body.”

“It would be a crime to deprive that body of anything it wanted.” The man who said that was standing at the kiosk. He could be a cover model for Natural Man Today. There was nothing enhanced about him. Dark brown eyes and unprocessed medium brown hair, casually shaggy but not too long, broad shoulders—perfect. And calm. A touchstone of peace in the maelstrom. With a self-satisfied twinkle in his eye.

Char was more interested in the coffee.

Natural Man scanned her from boots to bare shoulders, his gaze lingering on her shoulders. Jerk. But to her surprise she responded to him.

He knew the IHS guy. “So, Tyler. I take it you found that package?”

“Being delivered as we speak,” the IHS guy, Tyler, said. “Did
 
you
 
get clearance, Jake?”

“Cleared and waiting for you.”

“You got it. As soon as I make sure Ms. Meadowlark gets her place on the Imperial Shuttle.”

“Blue carder.” Jake turned back to Char. “Must be nice.” He had great teeth and a dangerous smile. “There’s an interesting bar on the ISS. The Blue Marble. Maybe I’ll see you there sometime. My junk is slow, but it eventually gets me where I need to go.”

“Such beauty spoiled by such bad jokes.” She wished she hadn’t said that.

“Tyler, she thinks I’m beautiful.” He spread his arms to display his goods. His flight pants were the real thing: olive green, sturdy canvas, the pockets actually full of stuff. All kinds of tools and gizmos hung from D-loops on his suspenders. His long-sleeved T-shirt looked like real hemp, same as his pants. Char had the urge to touch the fabric.

“She’s phoenix, Jake,” Tyler said, not like a warning exactly, but a reminder.

There was a firebird logo on her ID, but she didn’t know it meant anything. Tyler might have said
 
she’s a mutant
, the way Jake took a step back.

“Right,” Jake said. “So Tyler, if you’re coming with me, you’d best hurry.” He glanced sideways. “I’m leaving as soon as I get some caffeine in my body.”

Tyler swung Char’s backpack over his shoulder. “We should get to the gate.”

“Meadowlark,” Jake said. “Now that’s…real pretty.” Not safe, not like Brandon. “Sure you don’t want to see my junk?”

“Oh, groan,” she deadpanned. “Let’s go, Tyler.”

Jake put his hand on Tyler’s shoulder and dropped his voice. “Be careful. Rani picked up some chatter on the com. The DOGs know the Imperial’s here.”

Char’s stomach turned over. The DOGs. They weren’t just responsible for Sky going into the vault. They’d also killed Brandon, her boyfriend since grad school. Sweet, apolitical Brandon. Happy in the world. Dreaming up ways to infuse micronutrients into mung sprouts. No match for the bomb on his commuter train.

“Shit, no way.” Tyler tapped the patch on his jumpsuit. “DOGs can’t get through IHS.”

The barrista called out a four-shot iced latte, and Jake picked it up. Char really wanted some coffee.

“Sorry, Ms. Meadowlark,” Tyler said. “There’s no time.”

“Don’t worry, Meadowlark.” Jake downed a third of his drink in one gulp. “Once you’ve had the stuff on the Imperial Shuttle, you’ll never want this swill again.”

As he walked away, Char’s insides grumbled like they wanted something. Not Jake. He was infuriating. Too cavalier. He acted as if everything was fine and the world was a playground, nothing falling apart. As if people weren’t starving, the rivers weren’t burning with crap, the ocean fish weren’t dying off and the world’s women weren’t losing their fertility. As if the DOGs weren’t out to destroy everything that still worked.

He looked back and caught her watching him. He winked at her and said, “See you at the junk, Tyler.”

She ran to catch up with Tyler. “What did Jake mean, see you at the junk?”

“
J-u-n-q-u-e
. He takes private pays up to Vacation Station on the
 
Space Junque
. His shuttle. He uses that line on everybody, man or woman.”

“Ah. You want to see my
 
Junque
? Got it.”

“He thinks it’s funny. And it is. The first three hundred times.”

“You know him well then.”

“Nobody knows Jake Ardri well.” Tyler seemed to ponder, then added, “Except Rani, maybe.”

At the waiting area, Tyler motioned Char to a plush real leather chair. “It’ll go faster if I get your boarding pass.” He took her card. “I’ll be right back.”

The monitors were huge up here, but the sound was muted. Two bartenders mixed complimentary cocktails in front of a glass wall that looked out on the Imperial Shuttle. Like a monster’s umbilical cord, a silver boarding bridge connected the shuttle from the tarmac to the gate.

Char kept forgetting Tyler was IHS, he was so decent. Typical IHS was an obnoxious goon or a pompous bureaucrat. Both in love with their power to make people miserable. No one in the line knew how decent Tyler was. None argued when he cut in, flashing her card with its logo.

What had Mike done to get that ID? Sky had said he was attached to the Imperial household—the phoenix was the Imperial logo—at some mid level position. Things must be a lot worse than she thought for him to risk faking an ID for her.

The monitor switched to local news and showed 801 K Street collapsing into rubble and ash. So the fire hadn’t been a mere maintenance issue. The shot switched to a scene from last week. Paris, when the Eiffel Tower had been bombed. The bottom crawl read:
 
Another DOG pile?

A bone-chilling scream split the air. It was like a war cry, eager and bloodthirsty. Outside on the tarmac, flames licked the pad underneath the shuttle. At the counter Tyler looked up at Char, and she mouthed the words,
 
What’s going on?

A ripple of explosions obliterated the shuttle moving from the tail to the cockpit, and a delayed blast disintegrated the glass wall behind Tyler. He looked surprised. His head and torso flew off to the right and his legs collapsed to the floor with her backpack.

Char was out of the chair, but her boots were welded to the ground. People around her screamed and ran in slow motion. Far away, a child was crying. Acrid smoke poured in from the blown-out window and burned Char’s eyes.

She waited for Tyler to get up again, though some part of her brain knew that was not going to happen.

Someone lifted her off the ground. The gaping hole in the wall got smaller as she was carried away. “Tyler.” Her voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere else.

“Tyler’s dead.” Jake’s voice, dull and terrible. He put her down and held her face between his hands, making her focus on him. The calm eye in this storm. “We have to run now.”

Another explosion set Char’s adrenaline flowing. She followed Jake down a service staircase and out of the terminal to another tarmac and a funky looking ship, minuscule compared to the Imperial Shuttle. The cargo bay door at the rear was just closing with the hiss of pneumatic seals.

Jake leapt onto a distended platform that was rising to the cockpit. “Let’s go, Meadowlark!”

She accepted his hand, and he pulled her onto the lift.
 
Char,
 
she wanted to say. But it didn’t matter. They were all going to die.

“Don’t answer that,” Jake said. She realized com was ringing. She reached for her ear, but Jake slapped her hand. “The signal will screw up my telemetry.” He ripped the com off.

“Hey!”

“You’ll get it back.” He zipped it into his pants
.

The lift ended in an airlock. Jake slid the door open and ushered Char into a galley just outside the cockpit. On the wall over the airlock, a sign said
 
Mind the Gap
.

Jake motioned her through the door to the cockpit pushed her into the co-pilot’s seat. He pulled the security harness over her chest and leaned in to lock it. Without thinking she rested her hands on his shoulders. Childishly, she wished he’d hug her or tell her everything was going to be okay.

“I’m sorry.” She pulled her hands back. She wasn’t thinking straight, like her brain and her body had been separated in a freak accident.

“Tyler was my co-pilot.”

“But he was IHS.”

“Not really.” Jake strapped her arms down. “Mike Augustine wanted to make sure you made it to the shuttle without getting the real IHS involved. The orange jumpsuit was too big for me, so Tyler drew the duty.” He secured her legs. “For safety. So you won’t knock yourself out on the way up.”

“Passengers are locked down, boss.” A bald and extremely tall woman leaned in through the galley door. She had tattooed eyebrows and eyeliner and no eyelashes. Her eyes were metallic red-brown. Not implants. Her left cheek was tattooed with the letters SJ. She was gorgeous. “Tyler?”

“Not coming, Rani.” Jake flipped switches and turned dials and punched code into the control panel. He gestured toward Char. “Mike’s package. We’ll take her up. Shuttle’s gone.”

“So I heard.” The disapproval in Rani’s voice could rival the most self-righteous enviro.

“Now would be good.” Jake pushed her out and sealed the door.

He was about to sit down when he stopped and turned to Char, strapped in and unable to move. With an odd expression on his face, he reached for her chest.

“Don’t get excited.” He lifted her necklace over her head. “I’m not going for your precious parts.” He zipped the amulet into a pocket in her flight pants.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Meadowlark.” He secured his harness and punched the ignition. “Let’s get the hell off this rock.”

Sixty seconds in, Char could barely breathe. If only the G-force could purge images of the terminal attack from her memory as well as it pushed the air out of her lungs. Tyler’s eyes. The child’s sobs. That horrific scream. Had it been male or female? As if it mattered.

Ten minutes in, they broke free of gravity’s hold and eased into orbit. Her body wanted to float out of the seat, but the harness kept her secure. Tyler’s harness. Her chair was twice the size of Jake’s.
 
Tyler was my co-pilot.
 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “About Tyler.” Such insipid words for something so horrific.

“He was a good guy.” Jake’s voice cracked. All his former cockiness was gone. He turned dials and looked at readouts and tapped in commands without emotion.