Mako Rising - Ch. 1 Part 1

Chapter One

“You’ll find everything to your liking,” Captain Markov told his new business associate.

The greasy man with long hair and three days’ worth of stubble slit one of the packages with his intentionally menacing knife and snorted a bit of the product. “Holy shit, that’s good!” Jacobs exclaimed, blinking back tears from the potent drugs. Necrondan cocaine was all the rage among scum like Jacobs.

Markov started slowly counting off the seconds in his head. “Then we have a deal?”

Jacobs grinned insolently. “We might have if you’d have been smart enough to bring some guards. As it stands, the eight of us are going to be taking this off your hands and very generously letting you walk away with your life.” His pupils were dilated from the cocaine and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from chuckling.

“That is a shame,” Markov said evenly. He was not at all surprised by Jacobs’ double-cross. Unfortunately for Jacobs, his time was almost out. The extra chemicals in the drugs would be taking effect any second now.

“Yeah, it…woah.” Jacobs swayed a bit. “That really is some good shit you gave us. I…I…um, what the hell?” Jacobs toppled over in a heap.

One of Jacobs’ smarter guards drew his gun, but Markov had already tapped the button on his wrist that set off a small explosion inside the crate of cocaine. White powder flew everywhere while the guards coughed and fired their guns in random directions. Markov had already stepped behind the small boulder to his right. Touching a second button opened a door in the “boulder” with a gatling laser and heat vision goggles inside. Donning the glasses, Markov could easily see where Jacobs’ seven guards stood. He leaned around the boulder, still using it for cover while the crooks fired wildly in every direction, and proceeded to mow them down one at a time with his ungodly enormous weapon.

Markov let the cloud of cocaine disperse before he removed his heat vision goggles. He strode forward to where Jacobs lay gibbering in the dirt. All the other thugs were dead. “David Jacobs, you are under arrest for selling illegal drugs, rape, murder, running an unregistered brothel, theft, arson, extortion and just about every other damn law they have on this rock. By the power vested in me by the Google-Exxon Corporation, you are under arrest. And if they ever let you out of prison, which would have to be some kind of miracle, remember this: don’t ever let a man you’re planning to rob choose the location for your deal to take place.”

Captain Markov had hauled Jacobs back to the Mako Rising, thrown him in a cell, and flown back to Masonberg to collect the bounty. Sheriff Ford had greeted Markov warmly, Jacobs was not the first criminal he had brought to justice.

“Boy, I don’t know what I’d do without you sometimes.” Ford smiled as he authorized the transfer of credits to Markov’s account. He was middle aged, with a bushy moustache on his lip and most of his grey hair gone from the top of his head. “If every bounty hunter were as honest as you, why I’d practically be out of a job!”

Markov nodded politely. “Thank you, sheriff. I know you don’t always get the support you need out here.”

“Bah.” Ford waved his hand dismissively. “Them corporate big wigs are all the same. Don’t matter which of them owns this planet, we aren’t worth their attention.”

“That can be a blessing sometimes,” Markov told him.

Sheriff Ford laughed. “Ain’t that the truth? Say, it’s about quitting time. You up for a drink? I’m buying.”

“Then how could I say no?” Markov followed the sheriff out of his office and across the street to Masonberg’s best bar, at least according to Ford.

Masonberg was the hub of activity here on Kardulon, but that was hardly an impressive feat. Kardulon was not rich with minerals, exotic flora or fauna, nor did it have much natural beauty to offer. Perhaps that explained why filth like Jacobs could make a living selling drugs here, nothing else for people to do. It had been colonized because other than being dusty and ugly, it was quite similar to Earth’s gravity and atmosphere. Google-Exxon owned it at the moment, but it had changed hands several times over the years. Perhaps the best thing about Kardulon was that it had been untouched by the AI Wars that ended four years ago.

Ford’s favorite bar was called the Dust Bowl and like most of Masonberg’s buildings it was a sprawling one story building. At least the air conditioning usually worked there, unlike a lot of other places Markov had been on the planet. The Dust Bowl was crowded, the locals tended to start drinking as soon as their shifts ended at whatever job they had to scratch out a living. Country music played at a reasonable volume, pretty girls in tight shirts carried pitchers of beer to the tables, and it didn’t smell too awful except in the darker corners.

The bartender waved to the sheriff as he entered and Ford sat down, leaning his elbows on the bar. Markov took the stool beside him and did a quick scan of his surroundings, more out of habit than an actual worry for danger. Everything appeared to be as it should be in the Dust Bowl.

“Couple pints of porter, Mac,” Ford told the bartender. Mac nodded and got to pouring. “Will you be staying a few days or jetting off as usual?” He asked Markov.

“I’ll leave in the morning, I imagine,” Markov answered. “Only so much work for a man like me on a quiet planet like this.” Mac set their beers down in front of them.

“Cheers to that!” Ford picked up his glass and clinked it against Markov’s. “Quiet is the life for me. You starship pilots are crazy if you ask me. If’n you had any sense you’d settle down somewhere quiet, I know you got enough cash to live like a king on a place much prettier than Kardulon.”

Markov chuckled. He never asked Sheriff Ford’s opinion of his life style, but he got to hear it every time he came to visit. Out of the corner of his eye, Markov noticed several male sets of eyes turning towards the entrance. Hopefully it was just a gorgeous woman, but Markov remained wary just in case.

“And you laugh. Just like you always do. I never understood why you quit the army, Markov. You’re a man who needs a war to fight.”

“I hear he got sick of his commanding officer and couldn’t stand to look at the ugly son of a bitch anymore,” a gruff voice said from behind them.

Markov turned to see his old commander standing behind him. “General!” Smiling, Markov leapt up from his barstool to embrace his friend. “What brings you all the way out to Masonberg?”

“You, of course!” Lexianna, who had been the reason for all the turned heads, said. Tall for a woman, with unbelievable curves, Lex had her hair bright red this time. She was, as usual, wearing a dress so tight that it looked painted on. “Now budge over, Garis and let me give Markov a hug.” Lex wrapped her arms tight around Markov’s middle and he found it difficult not to sneak a peek down at her magnificent chest.

“Sheriff Ford, allow me to introduce you to General Siderus and our good friend Lexianna,” Markov said.

“The General Siderus?” Ford gasped. When Markov nodded, the sheriff whipped his hat off and enthusiastically shook Siderus’ hand. “I can’t believe I’m meeting you in person! The man who finally beat the AI! And not just beat them, obliterated them!”

Markov and Siderus shared a familiar look. Destroying the AI had not sat well with either of them. Siderus did a good job of keeping a smile on his face, as he always did when he met a fan.

“Do you mind if I borrow my former lieutenant for a moment?” the general asked.

“Not at all, anything you want! Mac, anything he orders is on me!” Ford moved down the bar to boast about having just shook General Siderus’ hand.

Markov took his friends over to an unoccupied booth where they could talk privately. Siderus and Lex sat across from him. The general was not quite as tall as Markov and a year younger, but there was just a hint of grey in his dark hair.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t a social call,” Siderus said by way of preamble.

Markov smiled. “I knew it wasn’t.” A man like General Siderus did not have time for a social life.

“Still haven’t put a crew back together?” the general asked.

Shaking his head, Markov answered, “Nope. Ursula was on board for a little while after her last stint in jail, but she moved on like she always does.”

“Well, you’re going to need a crew for this one. I need you on Dartmax. There’s been an incident in their bio-research lab. I’ve already arranged for a scientist to meet you there, she’s an expert in her field…but she’s not that great with people,” Siderus warned.

“Dartmax…” Markov pondered. “That’s a McDonalds-Wal*Mart planet, isn’t it? Let me guess, they made a colossal blunder and came to you to keep it secret from the other corporations?”

“Something like that. You’ll understand when you meet with Doctor Monroe, but in the mean time I have other preparations to make. I need someone I can trust on this. Someone who will know what I would do if I were able to be there,” Siderus said forcefully.

“Anything, general,” Markov assured him. Obviously, Siderus couldn’t discuss the sensitive details here in a bar, but Markov wondered what could upset the general this much.

Siderus nodded. “Lex will transfer the pertinent data to your ship’s computer. I’ve already arranged for a rather obscene fee to be deposited into your account, with double that when you finish the job.”

“Then I’d best get started. Lexianna, a pleasure as always. General, I won’t let you down.” Markov stood and left for the spaceport.

Markov sat in the pilot’s chair of Mako Rising as he quickly scanned the data Lexianna had sent him. “Holy shit,” he breathed. Colossal blunder did not even begin to cover what McDonalds-Wal*Mart had done on Dartmax. A bio-weapon originally developed at the end of the AI War had escaped and destroyed the colony. Deaths topped ten thousand before the evacuation was completed. There was a detailed biology report for the plant-based organism, but it was well beyond what Markov could understand.

It was no wonder that General Siderus wanted Markov to help him out on this one. No one was going to understand the gravity of holding a new species’ fate in your hands other than the few officers there with Siderus at the very end of the AI Wars. Unbidden, Markov’s thoughts strayed to Irene, but he quickly reburied those memories.

Markov fired up the engines and announced his departure to the control tower. A half-hearted “go fer it” was all the clearance he received from the night shift docking officer. The Mako Rising climbed into the atmosphere and left Kardulon behind. While it was possible to make an FTL jump from within a planet’s atmosphere, it was generally a terrible idea. Faster than light creates a bubble around the engine and transports everything inside that bubble to the programmed destination. Using the FTL drive on the landing pad would have taken a large chunk of the pad with him. Markov punched in the coordinates for desert hellhole his old first officer called home.

The Mako Rising’s conventional engines kicked off and the FTL drive fired up. A ship needed to be stationary for at least thirty seconds to make an FTL jump, which was an eternity in a combat situation. The necessary calculations by the ship’s computer finished just as the FTL drive reached optimum power and Markov executed the jump.

FTL jumps are not fun. Unless of course you are one of those sick and twisted pilots who can’t seem to get enough of having your innards smashed into atoms, scrambled about, tossed into a crack in the universe, and then dumped back out halfway across the galaxy in a shape that is hopefully similar to the one you left in. Markov was mostly used to it after spending his early years in the military, but civilians had to be strapped in and sedated before travelling via FTL. Some of the kookier cults did not believe in FTL travel and launched themselves out into the stars with their passengers either frozen in cryostasis or on massive farm ships that would – hopefully – keep them in food and oxygen during their decades or centuries long flight. Unfortunately, a lot of them ended up falling prey to pirates now that FTL ships were small enough and cheap enough for individuals to own them.

Markov glanced out the window at the aptly named planet New Sahara. He shook his head. “You would settle in such horrendous place, Liam.”

*

“You can’t save him, doctor.” The woman tugged at his sleeve insistently. There were other patients to see. Patients who would be much easier to save.

“Honey, did you spend nine years practicing combat medicine on marines too stupid to quick hurling themselves at an endless horde of killer robots?” Doctor Liam Lafayette growled as did his best to quickly cauterize all of the boy’s internal wounds. He had been mauled by one of those damn giant lizards that came closer to the settlements as they got hungrier; and everything on New Sahara seemed to be starving these days.

“No,” she admitted. Liam could hear the disapproving frown in her tone of voice.

“Then kindly let me work,” he snapped. If he had been in any kind of reasonable hospital rather than a tent city in the middle of an unending desert the boy would have been in no danger at all, but if wishes were fishes no one would live on New Sahara.

The bleeding was bad, but Liam had seen worse. Back when the captain had been a lieutenant he had gotten half his guts torn out by a Screamer and Liam had patched him up right there in the field. He had had the best equipment the AT&T-Boeing corporation could buy, of course, but still. If he could save that stubborn son of a bitch then he ought to be able to save this sweet little kid. Liam wondered what the captain was up to these days. Hopefully he was avoiding Irene, but with the captain that was hardly a smart bet to make.

“Doctor,” the woman said nervously. She was supposedly healer of some kind, but her knowledge was rudimentary at best. This was her clinic that he had been working out of for the past three weeks. Middle aged and bossy, Liam kept forgetting her name.

“Dammit woman, not now, I said!” Liam was very close to closing up the last of the boy’s wounds.

“But doctor, the Marauders are back!” She insisted fearfully.

“Then tell them to wait!” Liam snarled.

A cruel laugh answered him. “That will not be possible, I’m afraid. You see, doctor, I’ve returned with more men and we won’t be frightened away by silly tricks with flashy chemicals. I want my protection money.”

“In a minute,” Liam told the Marauders’ leader calmly. Just one more…there! Now all he had to do was close the kid up and he would be right as rain…not that the boy had ever seen rain, but that was a tangent Liam didn’t need to pursue.

A sickening thud interrupted Liam’s pleasant thoughts at having just saved a small boy’s life. The lead Marauder had slammed his long, curved knife down into the patient’s heart. “I think now would be better for me,” the Marauder said through a crooked-toothed grin.

Liam’s nostrils flared. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Give me my money, plus an additional twenty percent for the insults you gave me last time we met.”

What Liam gave him instead was a blast from the cauterizing laser right in his eye. The man screamed as he died and Liam dove for cover, which was limited in a small tent. Drawing his gun, Liam fired at the shins of the men he could see from under the desk he taken refuge behind. A salvo of return fire greeted him and one blast ripped into his shoulder. Laser wounds hurt like hell, but they were less messy clean than exploding bullets. If he survived, that is. Plus, anything was better than drowning.

The unmistakable, yet utterly unexpected sound of a gatling laser spinning into action and firing in quick, controlled burst replaced the sound of the Marauders’ solar powered pistols. “Captain?” Liam called out when the gunfire died down.

“Who else brings a gatling to a doctor’s office?” Captain Markov answered.

Liam climbed out from under his desk with difficulty. “What the hell are you doing here, man? Not that I mind, naturally. Your timing is as impeccable as ever, but good Lord!” The Captain stood in the entryway of the tent with his favorite preposterously large weapon slung across his torso. Tall and thin, the captain had his blonde hair cut short just like he was still a marine, but at least he had a smile on his face. Those had been rare since the war ended and rarer still after Irene had double crossed them. Again.

“I’m putting the crew back together. General Siderus needs us,” the captain told him. “You’re my first stop.”

“No Irene?” Liam asked warily.

“No Irene,” Markov assured him.

“Thank God. Where’s the healer woman? Did she survive?” Liam looked around. The patients who had been able to had fled, the others had either fainted or were screaming in terror.

“I’m here, doctor.” Hana – that was her name! Hana stood shakily.

“There are sedatives in that case, give them to the screaming ones. Here are enough credits to make sure the boy gets a proper funeral. Take care of that for me, will you? I have to leave now with my friend. If you have any sense you’ll leave too. The Marauders aren’t the only gang around, others will be keen to move into their turf.”

“What the hell were you doing on New Sahara?” Markov asked as they left the sweltering tent for the unbearable heat outside.

“Can’t bloody drown on a desert planet, now can I!”

Superhero Story - 1

Superhero Story

Despite being rather thin, as a six-foot-two man who dressed like the poor college student he was, Lucas Pyke was not accustomed to being accosted by street thugs.

“Give me all your money!” The man had a black ski mask pulled over his face and he was wearing a bulky sweater with baggy jeans. In his hand was a switch blade.

Lucas cocked his head to one side. “What money? I think I’ve got some quarters in my pocket you can have.” He reached into his pants, pulled out seventy-five cents and held it out to the mugger.

“Your credit cards and your phone, then!” His assailant sounded agitated. He was of average height and was probably scrawny under his loose clothing, but it was hard to tell.

“I don’t have a credit card. Here’s my phone.” Lucas pulled his five year old flip phone out of his other pocket.

“Don’t you have anything worth anything?” The robber growled. He grabbed the phone and threw it across the street. It broke into several pieces when it landed.

Lucas looked down at his shabby clothing and shrugged.

“Come on, man! I’m desperate! You’re holding out on me, aren’t you!” The tough took an aggressive step forward.

“Easy there. I really don’t have anything of value. You probably ought to be doing this over by the frats and sorority houses. That’s where all the rich college kids live. Only the poor ones live in this part of the U District.”

“Shut up! I know what I’m doing!” A note of panic had crept into his voice.

Lucas couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. “No, you obviously don’t.”

“Why the hell are you so calm? I could kill you any second!”

Again, Lucas shrugged. “I guess I’m just a calm guy. That, and you don’t seem particularly violent.”

“Oh really? Would a guy who wasn’t violent do this?” He thrust the knife at Lucas and cut his left arm just above the elbow.

“Son of a bitch!” Lucas threw a punch with his right fist without thinking. The blow landed on the crook’s nose and staggered him.

The mugger threw himself as Lucas, but Lucas twisted away from the knife so he only got a scratch along his ribcage. The two of them fell to the dirty sidewalk, Lucas holding the thief’s wrists. They wrestled for a moment and then Lucas headbutted his attacker. His forehead hit the young man’s already broken nose and the knife clattered to the pavement.

Lucas kicked the knife away and stood up with some effort. With the quick, jerky movements that only adrenaline fueled desperation can give, the robber punched Lucas in the groin. Doubling over in pain, Lucas didn’t see which way the thug went.

Eventually, Lucas was able to limp home to the cramped apartment he shared with his best friend Virgil. He begrudged every step as he climbed the three flights of stairs it took to get him to their front door. Lucas fumbled with the keys, but got the door open finally, and was rewarded for his efforts with a flying-tiger tackle from a giggling blonde.

“We thought you were never going to make it!” Ellie hugged Lucas’ neck as she pinned him to the hallway floor.

Lucas could only groan in reply.

“What’s the matter?” Her perky grin instantly melted away to horror when she saw Lucas’ bloodstained shirt. “What happened? Oh my God, Maggie! Get over here, Lucas is hurt!”

After lifting being lifted up with far more tender strength than Lucas would have guessed Ellie possessed, he let her lead him into the apartment and lay him down on their lumpy couch. Lucas was starting to feel less like he had just been punched in the testicles, but what he had initially thought to be a scratch along his ribs was proving to be nearly as painful as the deeper gouge in his arm.

“Don’t you have any bandages or antiseptics?” Lucas could hear Maggie shouting at Virgil as she rummaged through their pitiful kitchen cupboards.

“He’s never come home stabbed before!” Virgil protested.

While the search for proper medical equipment continued, Ellie yanked the shoelaces out from one of her shoes and tied a quick torquinet around Lucas’ arm. She looked around the living room for a moment, then pulled off her t-shirt in one fluid motion and pressed it against Lucas’ ribs to staunch the bleeding.

Lucas did his best to look at Ellie’s pretty face rather than her bright green bra. He focused on the details, the curve of her mouth, the angle of her nose, the sparkle in her blue eyes.

“Quit blushing, it’s no different than when we go lap swimming,” Ellie scolded playfully.

“I’ll stop blushing as soon you do.” Lucas chuckled and instantly regretted it.

“Don’t do that!” Ellie put her other hand firmly on his chest to hold him still. She was now leaning over him and staring intently into his eyes.

Maybe it was the bloodloss that made him brave, but Lucas leaned his head forward towards Ellie—to kiss her, he realized after he had already started moving—and she was bending down closer to him!

But in a flurry of red hair and harsh language the kiss was aborted. Maggie pulled Ellie out of her way, barked at her to get back to keeping pressure on Lucas’ ribs, and got to work on her patient.

Maggie was a genius and her mission in life was to heal the sick. She had some huge government grant to build some kind of suit that sped up the healing process and even Ellie didn’t fully understand how it worked. So when Maggie knelt beside Lucas with a needle, thread, a bottle of vodka and a lighter he had no qualms about letting her operate on him.

She stitched and muttered and cursed, but when she was done Lucas was no longer bleeding from either wound. “Why the hell aren’t you at a hospital?” Maggie growled once she was finished.

“He took my phone and the apartment was closer than the Med Center.” The University of Washington had an excellent hospital, but it was on the other side of campus, which meant it was miles away.

“He took your phone?” Virgil asked, incredulous.

“And then he threw it away,” Lucas admitted sheepishly.

“Never mind that! What happened?” Ellie was still not wearing a shirt and her hands were covered in Lucas’ blood.

“Some idiot with a knife. I think it was his first mugging, he wasn’t very good at it.”

“Good enough to stab you!” Maggie snapped. Then her expression softened and her eyes lit up. “Hey! I know, you can test my suit!”

“Maggie! You can’t test your experiments out on Lucas!” Ellie protested, crossing her arms across her chest and planting her feet defiantly.

“Nonsense, I’ve got the green light to test it out.” Maggie waved her hand dismissively. “Meet me at my lab in the bioengineering building first thing in the morning. Oh, there’s so much to do!” She began gathering up her things to leave.

“But don’t you think Lucas needs his doctor here for the night, just in case something should happen?” Virgil put his hands on Maggie’s waist and kissed the base of her neck.

“He’ll be fine! So much to do…” She trailed off and bit her lip. Lucas and Ellie watched, thoroughly amused, as Maggie wrestled with her eternal struggle: her work versus Virgil. The two of them had grown up next door to one another and seemed to be each other’s only weakness.

“That can all be done in the morning!” Virgil turned Maggie around so she was facing him. “What matters right now is Lucas’ safety.” His voice was serious, but Lucas could see the little smirk at the corner of his best friend’s mouth.

“Fine!” Maggie threw up her hands, dropped her coat and purse, then grabbed Virgil’s shirt collar and dragged him into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind them. She may not have been able to resist Virgil, but she certainly wasn’t fooled by him.

Ellie shook her head. “So you’re going to let her test the suit out on you?”

Lucas shrugged. “Why not? It’s Maggie, she knows what she’s doing.”

“I suppose…”

Lucas reached out from where he sat on the couch and took her blood encrusted hand in his own equally bloody hand. “Everything‘s going to be alright, I promise.”

Ellie rocked back and forth for a second, then smiled. “Okay, but I’m going to be there to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Now let’s wash your blood off our hands.” She gingerly pulled him into a standing position and they scrubbed their hands clean in the kitchen sink.

“Lucas Pyke! I see you peeking!” Ellie accused as they washed their hands.

The two of them were standing side by side at the sink and, truth be told, Lucas had been using his several inches of extra height to look down at Ellie’s chest. She was not an overly busty girl, but that did not mean she was anything but stunning while shirtless. “I was doing no such thing!”

“Don’t you lie to me! You’re a horrible liar anyway.” She couldn’t quite keep the smile off of her face as she chastised him.

“Maybe I did…a bit.”

“A bit? You’re lucky I didn’t catch you drooling!”

“Drooling? I’ll admit to peeking, but there was no drooling!”

“Well, if you are going to be a pervert, I’m going to put a shirt on,” she said with an exaggerated huff as she dried her hands and threw the towel at Lucas.

Lucas chased her into his bedroom where she was rummaging through his dresser. He leaned against the doorframe and watched Ellie pretend to make a scene.

T-shirts and socks flew in every direction as she dug though the drawers. “All your shirts are so ugly! No, this will never do! Nope. Oh no. Yuck!”

“They aren’t as bad as all that.”

Ellie smirked at him over her shoulder before returning to her rummaging. Then all of the sudden, she stopped. She reached down into the back of the t-shirt drawer and—her hand trembling slightly—grabbed a purple shirt with a photograph of the four of them from freshman year printed on the front. Ellie’s father had taken that picture when he came to visit them. He had given Virgil, Maggie, Lucas, and Ellie the shirts last year; right before he died.

Ellie cradled the shirt in her hands before throwing it back into the drawer as though it burned her fingers to touch it. Then she snatched a random shirt and darted past Lucas with tears welling in her eyes.

She was across the hall and into the bathroom with the door locked before Lucas had time to turn around. Lucas walked over to the door and could hear her crying. He knocked softly.

“I just need to brush my teeth. You can go on to bed, you need your rest.”

“I can stay up a while longer.”

“I…I just need to be alone for a little bit.”

Lucas stared at the door for a minute. He could hardly keep his eyes open. “Alright. Good night.”

“Good night.” She turned the faucet on so he couldn’t hear her crying any more.

With a sigh, Lucas sat down in the hallway, leaned back against the wall, and waited. Ellie and her mom were not close, so losing her dad had been devastating. It was the reason Lucas and Ellie hadn’t gotten together last year when they really, really should have. The long distance boyfriend had finally been gone. The crazy ex-girlfriend had been dealt with. Lucas had thought nothing could stop them.

And when Lucas drifted off to sleep, he dreamed that nothing had stopped them.

*

Ellie dried the last of her tears and gave herself a long, hard look in the mirror. “You were in his bedroom. His bedroom! And you still managed to screw it up.” She shook her head, blonde locks swinging to and fro.

When she opened the door she saw Lucas asleep on the floor. Ellie put her hands on her hips. “You stubborn idiot,” she whispered. “I don’t deserve you.”

She bent down to help him up, but couldn’t help herself—she kissed him on the cheek before waking him and getting him moved into his bed.

Lucas muttered some incoherent thanks and then Ellie went to sleep on the couch that Lucas hadn’t bled all over.

*

The suit was blue, skin tight, and covered Lucas’ entire body save for his head, hands, and feet.

“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” Lucas was in the middle of Maggie’s lab. Maggie was making last minute adjustments from her computer console before she powered up the suit.

Maggie rolled her eyes. “It’s designed to be used by people rendered completely helpless by their accidents or illnesses. Of course there’s a waste disposal system!”

“Okay, just checking. It’s very tight.”

Ellie ran her eyes up and down the length of Lucas’ body. “Payback’s a bitch, huh?”

Lucas shrugged and looked down at her chest. “Worth it, though.”

Ellie blushed.

“Alright you two, enough of that!” Maggie snapped. “It’s time to plug you in. Lie down on your back.”

Virgil helped Maggie haul an enormous power cord over to Lucas. They strapped the strange looking cord to circular ports on Lucas’ chest, shoulders, and thighs.

Ellie knelt beside Lucas and took his hand. “You’re sure that you want to do this? It’s not too late to back out.”

“Everything is going to be fine, I promise.” He squeezed her hand.

Maggie waved everyone back and then threw the switch. Electricity jolted Lucas. Energy coursed through him. His whole body burned…and it felt amazing! Lucas was sure that he could lift a car over his head with ease.

Then sparks began to fly from the power ports. Maggie swore and began feverishly entering commands into her control console. Lucas gasped. It was starting to hurt now. He could hear Ellie screaming.

And suddenly it stopped. Maggie breathed a sigh of relief and slumped down over her computer. Ellie tore free of Virgil’s restraining grip and threw herself down beside Lucas.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Answer me!”

Lucas chuckled. “I would if you gave me half a chance. I’m fine. Better than fine, actually.” He could still feel electricity pulsing through his muscles and while he longer felt able to lift a car, he still felt bizarrely strong.

“Sorry about that!” Maggie called. “A slight miscalculation due to Lucas being so damn tall and skinny. I was designing this for old people with crippling injuries.”

“No worries, I feel great!” Lucas waited while Maggie and Virgil unhooked him from the power cables.

“Shouldn’t we take the suit off to make sure he wasn’t burned by all those sparks?” Ellie asked.

Maggie bit her lower lip nervously. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

Ellie put her hands on her hips and rounded on her friend. “What do you mean?”

“According to the last readings I got, the suit is rather more…attached to Lucas than what I would consider advisable.”

“And what the hell does that mean?” Ellie demanded.

“That we are going to have to be patient, that’s all. The bond between the suit and his skin should begin to weaken after a couple days. Then he can take it off.”

“Should?”

“Well there’s no guarantee, I have no data for this contingency, but I’m about as certain as I can be that there will be no lasting effects.”

“I’m sure everything will work out,” Lucas told Ellie. He put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down.

“Not to be crude,” Virgil interjected, “but, I’m not going to have to live with him for the next two days while he goes to the bathroom in that thing, am I?”

Maggie groaned. “Of course not! I told you, there is a waste disposal system. Lucas will attach one of the waste bags to the tube by his ankle when he has to go and then throw the sealed bag away. The suit takes care of hygiene afterwards.”

“How…practical.” Virgil grimaced.

“This is a miracle of human ingenuity and all you can think about is poop!”

“That and how beautiful you are.” Virgil put on his most suave grin.

“Why would you be thinking about those two things together?” Maggie raged.

“I’m always thinking about how amazing you are.”

Maggie punched Virgil as hard as she could in the shoulder. “Stop!” She punched him again. “Being!” Another punch. “So!” Again. “Charming!” Then she kissed him. Virgil held her close for a long kiss, because he had known exactly how she would respond. He had, in all likelihood, brought up the waste question again just so he could do this to Maggie.

When the kiss was over and the two of them had untangled themselves, Virgil announced that he and Lucas had an errand to run.

“We do?”

“Yes. Now put some clothes on, I won’t be seen with you in public like that.”

*

“A jewelry store? What do we need in a jewelry store?” Lucas asked, very perplexed.

Virgil looked at him as though he were the biggest idiot on the planet. “Jewelry.”

“But neither of us have any money!” Lucas protested as he followed Virgil inside.

“Yes…about that. I’m afraid I haven’t been one hundred percent honest with you about my finances these past few months.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve been saving up.”

“Virgil! I work two jobs and tutor sorority girls in math! Sorority girls!”

“I’m well aware of how much you despise stupid women, but not everyone in the Greek system is a moron.”

“All the ones I tutor are!”

“Learn to be more open minded, Lucas. And quit shouting. I’m here to buy my engagement ring.”

Lucas stopped and sputtered. “Your engagement ring? But I thought you and Maggie weren’t going to get married until after you graduated!”

“Yes, and we will be graduating in a little over a year. It is time to get engaged. We’d have done it years ago if she’d have let me. Damn stubborn woman.”

Lucas snorted back a laugh.

“What was that indelicate sound for?”

“You calling Maggie stubborn. You’re lucky you weren’t struck dead out of sheer irony.”

“I am not stubborn!”

“You’re being stubborn now.” Lucas smirked.

“No, it is not stubbornness when the other person is in the wrong. I am merely educating you right now.”

“You are so arrogant!”

“I am neither arrogant nor stubborn! If I were then how could I have won the love of the world’s perfect woman?”

“First of all, you could seduce anything with two legs.”

“That is ridiculous! I have never been with any other woman besides Maggie. Why would I want to be?”

Lucas ignored his protests. “And secondly, Maggie is the only other person I know as arrogant or stubborn as you, which is perfect because that is exactly what the two of you maniacs need, each other!”

Virgil regarded him for a moment and then blatantly chose to hear exactly what he wanted to hear. “As long as you admit that Maggie is perfect.”

Lucas rolled his eyes, but said nothing. The store owner had finished with the other customers and was ready to assist Virgil.

Virgil had already selected the ring he wanted, which the owner of course praised Virgil’s fine taste in choosing. The ring was quite sparkly, but Lucas had no other way to judge a ring so he was forced to assume that Virgil had indeed done a good job in picking it. Virgil came from a family with money and knew things like what made one engagement ring better than another. Of course, Virgil would not doubt have purchased an even more extravagant ring if he had been on speaking terms with any of his wealthy family members.

While Virgil was paying for the ring, Lucas noticed a nervous looking man wander into the store from the street. He stopped for a moment, stared at Lucas and Virgil, took a step back towards the door, and then muttered to himself before back and pulling a gun out of his coat.

“Everybody freeze! This is a robbery!”

“Christ, not again!” Lucas groaned. He raised his hands.

“Alright old man, put everything in this bag!” The gunman threw the owner a canvas sack.

“I think we can take him,” Virgil whispered.

Lucas scoffed. “You think we can take everyone! Just stay silent and this will be over soon. I cannot believe my bad luck, getting robbed twice in two days. Ellie will never let me hear the end of it.”

When the jeweler scooped up Maggie’s ring from the counter and was about to put it in the bag with the rest, Virgil protested. “Hey! That’s my engagement ring!”

“Not no more it ain’t, pal!” The thief, who hadn’t even bothered to wear a mask, growled. He was young and scruffy, with a glossy look to his eyes and a twitch in his cheek.

“Please, it’s for the girl I love!” Virgil, the romantic idiot that he was, reached his hand out to grab the ring.

The robber’s eyes bulged with panic and he swung the gun around.

Lucas actually had time to wonder why everyone else was moving so slowly as he leapt forward and tackled Virgil to keep him from being shot. Their attacker was so stunned by how quickly Lucas had moved that he didn’t even pull the trigger, he just stared, dumbstruck.

Lucas kicked the legs out from under the thief and then dove at him to slap the gun away. Again, Lucas felt as though everyone else was moving in slow motion.

“Please, don’t kill me! I just needed the money for drugs, please!”

“Shut up,” Lucas told him. “Mister, can you call the cops?”

“Of course, young feller. My stars!” The store owner wandered over to the phone still shaking his head.

After the police arrived and took the would-be armed robber away, they congratulated Lucas for saving his friend from being shot (they had less kind words for Virgil) and sent them on their way after taking down their contact information. Lucas, now without a phone, had given Virgil’s phone number as well. Virgil had, naturally, been allowed to keep his engagement ring.

*

Late that night while walking home from his job at the sporting goods store, Lucas saw a girl with long dark hair stumble hurriedly out of the bar he liked to go to on the rare occasions he had money to spend. She looked over her shoulder and Lucas recognized his ex-girlfriend, Ursula. He ducked sideways, hoping she hadn’t seen him. For once, Lucas caught a lucky break and Ursula had been looking back at the entrance.

Lucas heaved a sigh of relief until he saw the two gargantuan drunks stagger out of Earl’s and leer menacingly at Ursula. She yelped and scurried away down the street and around the corner.

“Shit,” Lucas muttered. Ursula may have been a horrible, crazy bitch, but she didn’t deserve what those two bruisers looked to have in mind for her. “Hey guys, wait up!”

They were both as tall as Lucas and each at least twice as broad. They glowered at him and then turned back to pursue Ursula.

“No, hey, wait a minute. I know that girl can be kind of a tease, but—”

“Shut the hell up, twiggy!” One of them roared without turning around.

“Listen, I really can’t let you two do what it looks like you’re about to do. So why don’t we head back inside and I can buy us all a drink?” Thank God that Earl’s was so cheap! Lucas had barely enough cash in his pocket to buy three well drinks.

“This is none of your business, buddy!” The red haired one shoved Lucas hard, but he managed to keep his balance.

“I don’t want a fight.”

“It sounds like you do, dipshit!” The brown haired one shouted as he threw a punch at Lucas.

Lucas leapt to the side and the brown haired man stumbled forward and fell on his face. His red headed counterpart stared at Lucas, shook his head as though to clear the fog of alcohol away and tried to punch Lucas.

This time Lucas dodged and had time to grab the drunkard’s shirt and throw him head first into the grimy walls of Earl’s. By now the brown haired man had regained his feet and dove at Lucas to tackle him.

Deciding to press his luck and see what he could really do, Lucas stood his ground, and as the drunk came sailing through the air at him, he twisted underneath his assailant and shoved upwards as hard as he could. The man flew several feet higher into the air before coming down hard in the middle of the sidewalk at least a dozen feet away.

Lucas whistled appreciatively. Then he glanced around to see if anyone had witnessed their little scuffle. No one had. He shoved his hands into his pockets and hurried off towards home.

Wondering just how he was ever going to thank Maggie for giving him this suit that had saved him twice in one day, Lucas strolled down the less than tidy streets of the northwest corner of the U-District. He was feeling quite content with life. That is, until he heard a girl crying somewhere off to his left.

Under normal circumstances, Lucas would have walked on by; maybe called the cops if he saw something that looked violent going on. He was not an uncaring man, but he was not particularly strong or intimidating and he did not carry a gun. He did not want to get involved if it meant he would likely make the situation worse rather than better.

But tonight did not feel like normal circumstances. Having thwarted two crimes today, Lucas peered around the corner to see if there was a third crime he could stop. What he saw made Lucas burn deep down in his gut.

A waifish Asian girl was being held up against the alley wall by a brutish looking man who was obviously enjoying raping her. The girl was crying and whimpering and trying feebly to keep the man’s hands off her. An even more brutish goon stood behind them, watching the vile show and the alley entrance.

Lucas had already stepped around the corner and started sprinting at them before he realized he was doing it. The man watching drew a gun from his coat pocket and fired at Lucas. Lucas dodged to the right, kicked off the wall, and flew the last ten feet or so to tackle the gunman. A quick jerking motion brought the man’s head up and down against the pavement. Lucas saw the man’s eyes flutter closed and heard the gun clatter from his hand; he wasn’t getting up any time soon.

The other man, the raper, turned away from the girl and pulled a knife out of his jacket. Lucas kicked him in the chest, punched him in the jaw, picked him up, and threw him into a nearby dumpster. The man had felt as light as a rag doll. Lucas looked down at his scrawny arms.

“Maggie, what have you done to me?” He asked himself.

A flurry of words in a language that Lucas didn’t understand brought his attention back to the Asian girl. Her skimpy dress was torn and her tears had ruined her makeup. She stepped forward as though to hug Lucas, seemed to think better of it, and then ran off quite a bit faster than Lucas would have thought her high heels would have allowed.

Lucas reached into the gunman’s pocket, dialed 911 from his phone, and left the phone on top of the unconscious man’s chest. Out of the corner of his eye, Lucas spied an orange extension cord hanging out of the dumpster. This gave him an idea. He fished the other man out of the dumpster and tied up both men with the cord before leaving.

*

“I swear to God, if this is a crank call, I’m gonna kick somebody’s ass,” Officer Sam Avery growled as he slammed the door of their Seattle Metro patrol car.

Officer Charlene Monroe clicked on her flashlight and shined it down the dark alleyway. “I don’t think this is a crank call, but I’m not sure you’re going to be any less inclined to kick someone’s ass after you see this.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sam swore.

Charlene studied the scene. Two men, apparently unconscious, were tied together with an orange extension cord. One of them had his pants undone and partially pulled down to expose his genitals.

“What the hell do you think happened here?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Charlene answered. “But this is the second pair of very large, particularly nasty looking men that we’ve seen pulverized and left in the street.”

“You think they’re connected?” Sam scratched his head and looked around the alley.

“The people in Earl’s said those two guys harassed a girl and then chased her out of the bar. The guy here with his pants down would be in jail for date rape if his daddy hadn’t gotten him such a good lawyer last year.”

“Jesus, you’re right! I remember this little pissant! Do you think we’ve got some kind of defender of women running around the U-District?”

“That would make him a vigilante, Sam.”

“I know that! But he still saved two women tonight, how bad can he be?”

Charlene fixed her partner with a level glare. She may have been the youngest person on the force, but she had already acquired something of a reputation as a hard ass.

“Don’t look at me that way, I know it’s wrong! I was just saying…ah hell! Never mind.” However, Sam leaned down close to the tied up men and whispered, “You bastards got a taste of what you deserve.

*

After pushup number two hundred fifty-seven, Lucas gave up on tiring himself out enough to sleep. Even after the initial adrenaline rush from saving that girl in the alley, he had still felt brimming with energy. Energy and strength.  Lucas had never done more than twenty or so pushups at once before, but now he had done more than two hundred fifty and he felt like he could do at least that many more without feeling the least bit tired.

Lucas glanced at the clock. Three twenty-two. He grabbed his jacket and headed out.

“This is stupid and dangerous,” he told himself as he started down the street, but that didn’t stop him from walking down 50^th Avenue checking every dark corner and keeping an ear out for sounds of violence.

After about half an hour he came across a painfully obvious drug deal in process. Lucas approached the two men. They glared at him, but did nothing more. They likely hoped he would simply move along.

“I don’t think you want to do that here,” Lucas told them.

One, the dealer, growled, “Piss off!”

Lucas shook his head. “No, but I am going to need you to leave and never come back to this neighborhood. Please.” It was important to be polite.

“Listen, idiot, I said piss off!” He pulled a gun out of the waistband of his baggy jeans and pointed it at Lucas’ chest.

Lucas sighed. In a blur of motion he karate chopped the dealer’s wrist and the gun went flying. “Now, as I was saying. Please leave and never come back.” He turned to the would-be buyer. “And you, why haven’t you run away yet? Go on, shoo!”

While Lucas was shooing the customer away, the other man came at Lucas with a snarled curse and a knife. Lucas spun away to avoid the tackle and the stab. The drug dealer landed flat on his face with an oomf. The buyer turned and fled, finally displaying some modicum of good sense.

Lucas stepped on the remaining criminal’s wrist until he released the knife. Then, while pinning him with his knee, Lucas removed the man’s shoelaces and socks. He tied the dealer up with the laces so that his arms were behind a telephone pole and shoved the socks in his mouth.

“Phone, where is your phone?” Lucas dug through the jacket pockets full of drugs, which was tricky with all the squirming the tied up man was doing. Eventually he did find a cell phone and used it to dial 911 just as he had before.

“Have fun in prison!” Lucas called over his shoulder.

This was fun, Lucas reflected as he walked. It felt like he was doing some good. He had always been disappointed that he couldn’t volunteer more, but he had been working at least two jobs since he was fifteen. There just hadn’t been time.

Continuing his patrol around the University District, Lucas eventually came across a drunken frat boy dragging his crying girlfriend by her elbow. She had an ugly bruise over her left eye and she kept falling down. Evidently, she was drunk as well.

“Help!” The girl shouted at Lucas when she saw him.

“Shut up!” Her boyfriend turned around and backhanded her hard across the mouth. Lucas saw blood fly as the girl collapsed to the sidewalk.

Before the bastard had turned back to face Lucas he closed the gap between them and sucker punched the frat guy in the ear. It wasn’t honorable, but Lucas felt like if anyone deserved a sucker punch it was this asshole.

The punch sent him sprawling, but he staggered back up to square off against Lucas. Lucas kicked him in the groin. He stayed down after that.

“That’s what happens when you misuse your manhood,” Lucas lectured as he stole the groaning man’s shoelaces and tied him to a stop sign.

After dialing 911, Lucas checked on the girl. She was snoring softly. Lucas looked around. The cops should be here within a few minutes and no one else was around, but he still didn’t feel right about leaving the girl alone and unconscious in the street. He hid behind a dumpster until he saw the patrol car drive up.

Dawn would be coming soon so Lucas decided to call it a night and head home. He practically danced the whole way back, he was that giddy.

*

“What a weird God-damn night,” Sam muttered as Charlene carefully put the tied up frat boy’s phone into an evidence bag. “You really think we’ll get a usable print off the phones?”

“It’s the only lead we have. The drug dealer said it was a monstrously huge blonde guy and no one else has woken up from the beatings he gave them yet.”

“He sure does beat the shit out of the ones hurting women.”

Charlene nodded. “It must upset him more.”

“The Lieutenant sure as shit ain’t going to be pleased to hear about a vigilante on his turf.”

“I’m more worried about the media getting wind of it, actually.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Until he makes a mistake and gets someone killed he’ll be treated like a hero.”

Sam snorted. “And after seeing the bruises on that girl’s face you’re going to tell me that’d be wrong?”

Charlene looked over to where the EMTs were treating the girl they’d found. She ignored Sam’s stupid question. “The girl. He wouldn’t have left her alone like that. Shit!”

Sam blinked in surprise. He had never heard Charlene swear in anger before. “What? What is it?”

“He was here! He had to have been! He has to protect women, he couldn’t have left her unconscious where some other scumbag could have come along and raped her. Don’t you see?”

“Uh…”

“We could have caught him! He would have stuck around close by where he could make sure she was safe until he arrived!”

“Right…yeah.” Sam scratched his head. “Doesn’t really help us now though, does it?”

Charlene rolled her eyes in frustration. Sam was a good cop with great instincts, but his grasp of logic and strategy were meager at best. That was why he hadn’t been promoted to detective yet—that, and his horrible temper, actually.

*

“What’s got you in such a fine mood this afternoon?” Ellie asked as she dried the plate Lucas handed her.

Lucas shrugged. “I guess I’m just excited for tonight.” He was helping Ellie do the dishes after she made lunch for him. He had been starving after staying out all night and there had been nothing to eat for breakfast in his apartment except half a scoop of oatmeal one piece of toast. When he got paid tomorrow he would be able to buy some groceries…probably.

“I can’t believe they’re finally getting engaged! They’ve been dating since they were eleven, can you believe that! Ten years and I’ve been their friend the whole time. I feel like I’m part of it, you know?”

Lucas nodded. “Does Maggie know?”

“Oh, she totally knows! But she’s pretending she doesn’t.”

“Of course.” Lucas finished washing a bowl and handed it to Ellie. He glanced over at her. She looked incredibly happy. Lucas doubted he would have a better opportunity than this. “So, after Virgil proposes, I’m thinking that they will want some privacy.”

“Probably,” Ellie agreed with a little smirk on her lips.

“Perhaps the two of us ought to give it to them. We can go down by the fountain or get ice cream cones at Dicks or…something.”

Ellie bumped him playfully with her hip. “You mean like a date or…something?” Her grin told Lucas she was making fun of him, but her blue eyes stared intently at him, waiting for an answer.

Lucas pushed her back with his own much bonier hip. “Yes, actually.”

“God, you’re boney! I think I’m going to have a bruise.” She rubbed her side exaggeratedly.

Lucas stared down at her, waiting for her answer.

Ellie waited longer, her smirk growing wider.

“Oh God, please just say yes!” Lucas begged finally.

“On one condition.” She held up her index finger.

“Anything…within reason.”

Ellie snickered. “Fine, no pink tutu—this time. I want to buy you dinner at that Thai place you like so much in Queen Anne.”

Lucas grinned from ear to ear. He would gladly have worn the tutu, but he would never admit that to her. “Deal.”

“Yay!” Ellie threw her arms around Lucas in a ferocious hug.

Lucas hugged her back. It’s about damn time, he thought. Nothing can go wrong this time.

*

The Taegrim Family Trials - 1

Padrig darted around Nurse Maddi and the tray she was carrying, zipped past Clerk Jim and his armful of ledgers, and mostly avoided careening into the hard stone walls outside his father’s study.

“Sorry!” Padrig shouted without looking back. Father had summoned him! Father never called anyone to his study unless he had important business to discuss!

Even as excited as he was, Padrig remembered to knock and wait for his father to growl, “Come,” before entering. No one went into father’s study without permission, not even Aunt Drusilla, who terrified everyone except for Padrig’s oldest brother Doran.

Greatlord Garis Taegrim sat beside the fire reading a letter and swirling firewhiskey in his favorite glass. Even seated, the Greatlord was a towering mammoth of a man that would frighten even the ugliest trolls in Nurse Maddi’s stories. A wild mane of thick black hair sprouted from his scalp and a beard just as thick and long hung down from his chin. His fierce grey eyes soaked up the firelight, making them seem orange and red – an altogether more fearsome sight, which Padrig knew was not at all necessary. His father could inspire fear better than any man in the kingdom – maybe even the world!

Padrig drew himself up as tall as he could and tried to position his shoulders in such a way that they looked broader. He was the youngest of the Greatlord’s six children, only eight and by far the scrawniest of the brood. Even Shea had a lean strength to slight frame, as she was fond of showing Padrig when he said something that annoyed her.

“You came quickly,” Greatlord Taegrim said without looking up from his letter.

“Thank you, my lord!” Padrig replied a bit too loudly. He tried not to wince at his own foolishness. Father is not an old man that needs to be shouted at in order to be heard!

Father chuckled and finally set the letter aside. “You can be nervous as a maid in a room full of drunken soldiers, do you know that, boy?”

“Yes, my lord,” Padrig admitted sheepishly.

“Well never mind that. I have a task for you. Your sister and the Icethorns will be arriving soon. I need you to gather the whole family in the Great Hall to receive them. Can you do that, boy?”

Padrig nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, my lord!”

“Off with you then.” Father shooed him on his way with one of his massive hands.

Padrig spun around so fast he nearly ran into the door. Hoping father had already gone back to his letters, Padrig opened the door and left as quickly as possible.

“Who to find first?” he asked himself. The twins would be easiest to find. They were always in the practice yard beating each other bloody with practice swords even after master-at-arms Karl Avers got bored of trying to teach them skills beyond brute force.

Padrig ran down the hall, took the stairs two at a time on the way down, and bounded out into the rain-drenched yard. “No time for you,” he told his favorite mud puddle. “Hey! Oxton and Oswald!”

“What do you want, pipsqueak?” Oxton asked as he circled his twin…or perhaps it was Oswald. Padrig had a hard time telling them apart even without their armor on. The twins were identical, eleven, and obsessed with becoming the greatest warriors of all time. Tall for their age, all their time training with swords and axes had given them strong arms and broad chests. Padrig secretly feared how burly the twins would become once they were properly grown.

“Father sent me to…hey! Are you listening to me?” Padrig demanded.

“No!” Oxton and Oswald said together as they unleashed a flurry of blows at one another.

“Father said to meet in the Great Hall!” Padrig shouted at his brothers.

“What?” Oswald asked between strikes.

Padrig tried to think of what Doran would do if the twins ignored him, but that was stupid. No one was foolish enough to ignore Doran. The oldest Taegrim sibling could whisper and everyone in the room would shut up and strain to hear then jump to do as he said.

Grumbling to himself, Padrig fell back to his next best inspiration: his sister Shea. He grabbed the nearest rock of a large yet manageable size and threw it at Oxton’s head. The rock clanged off Oxton’s helm without doing any harm. It did get the twins to stop sparring long enough to turn around and stare at Padrig.

“Father says to get to the Great Hall right away!” Padrig said in a quick rush before dashing off. He was far faster than his brothers, especially when they were in full armor.

The next easiest relative to locate was probably Uncle Faust. Padrig left the keep in search of his uncle’s favorite gambling den. Taverns and brothels were plentiful in the Abyss. The people of Taegrim’s Claw were passionate to a fault according to Doran. The only other place that Padrig had been was to Greatlord Icethorn’s castle and everyone there had seemed so dreadfully somber and boring. Padrig was sure that Doran was right–he always was–but, Padrig just didn’t understand how it could be better to dull than to have as much fun as the people his father ruled over.

Sure enough, Uncle Faust was at the Sultry Opus with a serving girl on his knee and a cup of dice in his hands.

“Kiss the cup for me, dearie. For luck.” Uncle Faust held the wooden cup out for the girl to kiss, which she happily did. Faust groped her breast as he rolled the dice. Evidently the kiss had worked, because Uncle Faust shouted for joy and kissed the serving girl on the cheek.

Uncle Faust was not as fierce as his older brother. He was a skilled swordsman, to be sure, but his passions lay elsewhere. He had wooed a beautiful girl from some place in the eastern half of the kingdom and brought her home to the Abyss only to continue drinking, gambling, and womanizing. Padrig was not entirely clear as to what “womanizing” entailed, but he had been assured by several reliable sources that Uncle Faust was the master of it. Faust kept his long hair neatly groomed and his beard trimmed short. Visiting ladies always complimented him on how handsome he was. He was not as broad across the chest as the Greatlord, nor half as strong, but he was lightning quick. His blue eyes always had this twinkle like he knew some joke that he wasn’t telling anybody else about.

Padrig approached the dicing table cautiously. Uncle Faust did not like to be interrupted when he was drinking, gambling, or womanizing and judging by the nearly empty tankard of ale on the table next to him, he was currently engaged in all three.

“Damn you to hell, Faust Taegrim!” a familiar voice shrieked from the entrance. “You unscrupulous bastard, I’ll kill you!” Aunt Evina tried to storm across the floor in a righteous rage, but she was having a great deal of difficulty walking in a straight line and crashed into a chair. She tumbled gracelessly to the Sultry Opus’ dirty floor. Evina was a beautiful blonde lady who was the very picture of Eastern Courtesy when she was sober…which was almost never. She drank and fought with Uncle Faust constantly.

Uncle Faust laughed raucously at the sight of his wife on the ale-drenched floor. “Enjoying the view, my lady?”

“Get that whore off your lap right this instant!” Evina demanded as she climbed unsteadily to her feet.

“She isn’t a whore, you worthless twat! This is a proper woman, and a hell of a lot younger than you!” Faust chortled and pulled the serving girl closer.

Her rage renewed tenfold, Aunt Evina lunged at Faust. Padrig, seeing the murder in his aunt’s eyes, kicked a chair into her path. Again, Aunt Evina clashed with her old nemesis: the floor. This time she hit rather harder and uttered the most pitiful groaning whimper that Padrig had ever heard. She remained on the floor, muttering curses at Faust and begging someone to bring her another cup of wine.

“Good lad.” Faust ruffled Padrig’s dark hair. “I assume you’re here to fetch us for the big welcome?”

Padrig nodded.

“Then we’d best be off.” Uncle Faust threw his drunken wife over his shoulder and stepped out into the rain with his other arm around the serving girl’s waist.

Slightly stunned by what had just taken place, Padrig left the Sultry Opus and headed for the Old Fountain. Technically, when Taegrim’s Claw had joined the rest of the kingdom fifty years ago, they had given up worshiping the Water Goddess and converted to following the New God. In practice however, everyone from the Greatlord down to the poorest farmer prayed to the Goddess.

The Old Fountain was actually a series of massive fountains and rainspouts that formed their place of worship. There were no walls or benches and no place to give a proper sermon, but everyone agreed it was the best place to seek the wisdom of the Goddess.

It was here that Padrig found his cousin Dragomina. She was Aunt Drusilla’s only child, her father being Drusilla’s first husband. Dragomina was…peculiar. She was thirteen, had purple eyes, and slept in trees rather than in her bed. She was not violent like her mother, at least not all the time. Sometimes she would become enraged for reasons even Drusilla did not understand.

Dragomina was seated next to one of the pools the rainspouts emptied into and sloshing her bare feet back and forth in the water. Padrig sat down next to her. He was not surprised that she did not say anything, Dragomina rarely spoke unless she felt it was absolutely necessary.

After watching the fountains for a while, Padrig cleared his throat nervously. “My father would like you to go get your mother and bring her to the Great Hall. Acacia and the Icethorns will be arriving soon and he wants the whole family there to greet them.” It wasn’t exactly true, but it was definitely the quickest way to locate Aunt Drusilla and it meant Padrig did not have to confront her. Last time he had called on her she had been dissecting a corpse and he had nightmares for a week.

Dragomina hopped to her feet, smiled at him, and patted Padrig on the head before hurrying off without a word. Padrig hoped that was a good sign. He stood and went to find his other cousins.

Not surprisingly, Uncle Faust’s children were to be found in a tavern, the Drunk Pumpkin it was called. Sixteen year old Merritt was using his good looks to enthrall two pretty, but obviously not very smart girls. Not to be outdone by her legitimate half-brother, Faust’s fifteen year old bastard daughter Genni had three young men drooling over her ridiculously low cut dress. Genni appeared to be quite drunk, but she handled her liquor much better than Aunt Evina.

Padrig did his best to be brave and marched right up to Evina and her three suitors. “My father wants everyone in the Great Hall immediately.”

Genni giggled. “Can I bring my friends?”

Padrig shook his head.

“Aww, you’re no fun! You’re going to turn out as bad as Doran if you keep this up!” Genni chided playfully.

“Thank you!” Padrig beamed.

Genni rolled her eyes for some reason that Padrig missed entirely. “Sorry boys, duty calls. It’s a hard life being a lord’s bastard. Barkeep! Get me a bottle for the road!”

Padrig watched Genni walk a surprisingly straight line to the door before turning back to Merritt. He scanned the whole tavern, but his cousin was nowhere to be seen. Groaning, Merritt went to the back rooms. Merritt was doing some womanizing, it seemed. Padrig pounded on the door of the largest room. Merritt always took the best of whatever was available.

“Open up, Merritt!” Padrig shouted. “We’re all meeting in the Great Hall!”

“Bugger off!” Merritt growled back. “I’ll be there in a minute, just go ahead without me.”

“I’m not falling for that again!” Padrig protested. “Don’t make me bring Doran back here!”

The door opened immediately. Merritt and his friends were still naked, but he was grumbling and gathering up his clothes. “Stupid little git, ruins everything! Girls, I’ll be back for you after the feast. Buy yourselves something nice for me to tear off you later.” He rummaged through his pockets and tossed them some silver coins as he pulled his pants on.

Padrig tried not to stare at the naked girls, but he must not have been doing a very good job, because Merritt laughed at him and said, “There may be hope for you yet, boy.” Then he was leaving, still pulling on his shirt and coat.

That left Shea, Doran, and father’s ward Cailean Icethorn. Padrig’s older sister Acacia lived with the Icethorns and Cailean lived here with the Taegrims. Those three could be anywhere, but it was most likely that they were in the forest outside the castle somewhere. A quick inquiry of the gatehouse guard confirmed this and Padrig hurried in the direction the guard said Shea went.

It appeared that Shea had followed a narrow game trail into the woods. Padrig followed the trail as quickly as he could, scanning the forest for signs of his siblings as the evening light faded.

Something hard hit Padrig in the face and he was on his back before he saw what it was. He tried to scream, but a hand was covering his mouth. Shea’s hand.

His thirteen year old sister held a finger to her lips as she helped Padrig to his feet. Padrig kept his mouth shut and followed Shea when she took off down the game trail. Shea was almost as good at traveling silently through the forest as Doran and Padrig had a hard time keeping up with her. He felt like a clumsy lummox as he crashed through the underbrush behind his sister.

Shea came to a halt behind a wall of thick brush obscuring their trail from a small clearing. She carefully peered through the shrubbery and gestured for Padrig to do the same. The two of them peaked through the leaves to see Doran and Cailean with their swords drawn, two men kneeling before them, and six dead bodies sprawled out on the bloody grass.

“You have raped, murdered, and stolen the property of your neighbors. I offer you a quick death now or, if you choose, I will take you before my father to face a slow death in the dungeons of the Abyss,” Doran told his two captives. Doran was nearly as tall as father, but only seventeen and slender like Uncle Faust. He had black hair that he kept short the same way he did his beard. His grey eyes were cold and merciless. Doran did not care if you lived or died so long as you did not disobey him.

“Please, m’lord! We never meant to! She was just so tempting, she was askin’ for it, I swear!” one of the men wailed while the other tried to kiss Doran’s boots.

Doran kicked the man trying to grovel in the face and sent him sprawling to the side. “You do not seem the type to choose a clean death. I will take your begging as desire to die by inches in the dungeons.”

“No, m’lord! Please! You didn’t see this girl! She wanted it, I swear it on the Goddess, she did!” Tears streamed down the ugly rapist’s cheeks.

“I have seen a thousand girls,” Doran replied icily. “What I have never seen is a woman ask to be tied up and savaged half a hundred times by eight men missing more teeth than they still possess.”

“It weren’t like that, m’lord! Me and Steeg never touched the girl, it were them six that did the rapin’! I swear, m’lord!” The dirty man waddled toward Doran on his knees.

Doran regarded the pair of them for a long moment in silence. “You have moved me.”

The prisoner grinned from ear to ear. “Oh, thank you, m’lord! A thousand blessings on you! I knew you was generous and fair, I told Steeg as much when you caught us, I did!”

“I will give you a clean death after all.” Doran swung his sword around in a quick arc that flowed seamlessly into a second cut that left both prisoners headless before they could even scream.

“Shea, you and Padrig can come out now,” Cailean said as he sheathed his sword.

“How did you know we were there?” Shea asked as she dragged Padrig out of the bushes.

“Padrig needs to work on his woodsmanship,” Doran answered.

“I…I will!” Padrig assured him. “But now we need to…um…”

“Get to the Great Hall to welcome Acacia home.” Cailean grinned. “Lead the way, Padrig.”

*

The Abyss was as grim as foreboding as ever. Named for the cavern-like valley that one had to pass through in order to reach the castle, the Abyss was one of the few castles in the realm that had never been taken by force. Of course, that had a great deal to do with the men who had held the castle since its construction more than five hundred years ago.

Though her relatives annoyed her with their drunken shenanigans, Acacia was fiercely proud to call herself a Taegrim. Hers was a family that did not get swept up in the politics of the East. They ruled the Claw with iron fists and rarely took their armies to other lands. From time to time exceptions were made however, as the three houses of the Red Rebellion had learned too well. Acacia’s father and Greatlord Icethorn had exterminated all three rebel families as they led their bannermen to victory in the king’s name.

“You look pleased to be home,” Gaius said as he rode beside her. Greatlord Icethorn’s eldest son may as well have been an eighteen year old copy of his father. Full of cold courtesy and driven by an overdeveloped sense of honor, Gaius fit every stereotype of House Icethorn that existed.

Acacia nodded. Greatlord Icethorn had asked her to dress all in deep blues because it was Gaius’ favorite color. “I suppose I am, though I will miss your father’s library while we’re here.”

“I brought along some books on the Western Conquests, you are welcome to them,” Gaius offered.

“Thank you, if I finish all the books I brought I will take you up on that.” It was very like Gaius to bring historical accounts of a bloody military campaign to read for pleasure.

They rode in silence the rest of the way through the valley. When their party reached the gate to the castle proper the sun was hidden behind the surrounding mountains and the Abyss was dark. The peasants would all be gathered near the keep for the feast. The Taegrims were the only great house that Acacia knew of who invited the common people to join in their festivities. It had always been that way on the Claw though, and it was unlikely to change anytime soon.

Crowds of people milled about eagerly as the Icethorns approached. Few of them paid any heed to Acacia. The common people respected her father, feared her older brother, and got drunk with her uncle. Acacia had been seven when she left to foster with Greatlord Icethorn. She had been longer away than she had lived here and those who would have been her people did not know her.

Greatlord Garis Taegrim threw open the doors of the Great Hall and roared with delight. “Icethorn! You always make me wait, you frosty old bastard!”

Greatlord Icethorn dismounted and met his friend on the steps. “And you always get drunk waiting,” he said with a smile stretching across his gaunt face.

Doran strode down the steps towards her with Cailean in tow. Her brother stretched out a hand to help her down from her horse. “Sister, welcome home.” He managed to look happy to see her without smiling. Doran did not smile.

Cailean, on the other hand, was grinning like an idiot. “As always, I am charmed to see you again, Acacia. You look even more radiant than the last time we met.”

Acacia had no notion what the proper response to such a greeting was. She tried to think of courteous reply, but had to settle for, “Thank you,” after a few seconds ticked by and Cailean started to look panicked by her silence.

Doran offered her his arm and the two of them entered the Great Hall with the rest of their family and the Icethorns. The hall was packed with people both of great importance and meager birth. Rank meant little on the Claw, that was refreshing after time spent in other parts of the kingdom. The men and women of Taegrim’s Claw were by turns passionate, rageful, and jubilant. Trying to tell one of them they couldn’t do something because of who their parents were would result in a fistfight if you were lucky and a stabbing if you weren’t.

The fiddles and horns and drums burst suddenly to life as they entered. Doran led her to their place at the front of the room. The food was greasy, the ale potent, and six men and two women had to be taken to the healers after being stabbed or beaten badly in fights. All in all, a standard Taegrim feast.

Acacia sat between Doran and Gaius, which afforded her the rare opportunity not to make useless small talk during the feast. Both men never said anything unless it was important and Doran never discussed important matters where others could overhear. Thus, she ate her meal in silence and enjoyed a fair amount of ale. After all, what was a homecoming on the Claw without ale?

Father rose drunkenly to his feet and proclaimed that it was time for dancing. Desert had not yet been served, but no one besides Doran seemed sober enough to notice. Everyone hurriedly pushed the tables and benches back against the walls.

“Shall we dance?” Acacia asked Doran. She always made him dance with her even though he hated dancing.

Saying nothing, Doran wiped his mouth on his napkin, took her hand, and led her into the middle of the hall where the dancing was taking place. The tune was lively and the more drunken guests were doing more tripping over their partners’ feet than actual dancing.

“I don’t think Gaius has figured out that his father wants the two of us to marry yet,” Acacia blurted out after a few turns and twirls.

Doran gave her a level look.

“What’s that look for? You didn’t spend the last six months with him! He has no idea, but I have to suffer through Greatlord Icethorn picking out my dresses because they’re his son’s favorite color!” Acacia glowered at her brother as they danced. Well, truth be told, Doran was dancing while she followed. Perhaps she’d had a bit too much ale.

“That is not what I was questioning,” Doran replied curtly.

“What then?” she asked.

“I would tell you that you will see for yourself later, but I sincerely doubt that will prove true.” Something had caught Doran’s eye over by the remaining benches and he was slowly guiding them in that direction.

“Tell me, dammit! You know how I hate not knowing things.” Acacia craned her neck to see what Doran was staring at, but he was much taller and soberer than she was.

“I know.” The song ended and Doran left her standing on the dance floor.

“Hey! Come back here and tell me!” Acacia shouted at Doran’s back as he disappeared into the crowd.

“Tell you what?” Cailean asked. He had appeared behind her, as he always did after she finished her dance with Doran.

Acacia sighed. She did not really feel like dancing with Cailean. He was not a very good dancer and he always talked about the most ridiculous things while they danced.

*

Shea had seen Doran take note of something and guide Acacia towards it as they danced. Excusing herself to seek a chamber pot, she abandoned her younger relatives to listen to eleven year old Levina Icethorn natter on and on about her dresses. Levina was her mother’s daughter and not at all like the rest of the Icethorns. Cailean and his kin were glum and prone to brooding, but Shea was used to their harsh sternness after growing up with Doran. Levina and her mother spent most of their time in the East where fashion and politics ruled everything. Listening to her always made Shea want to throw up all over Levina’s stupid clothes that she loved so much.

Thus, Shea was ecstatic to have found an excuse – any excuse really – to have left her seat at the high table. She would have even accepted an offer to dance with a boy even though that was just the stupidest thing in the whole world. Girls like Levina loved dancing and dreamed about boys, but Shea had better sense. As though thinking about having better sense summoned him, Shea spotted Cailean awkwardly leading Acacia across the dance floor. She rolled her eyes. “That fool boy,” she muttered to herself as she seared the crowded seating area for whatever had piqued Doran’s interest.

A strong hand grabbed her by the collar and yanked her back behind the fat man she had been about to peer around. “Wait, little fox. You’ll spook her.”

Shea looked up at Doran. His head was pointed at Acacia and Cailean, but she was fairly certain he was watching something else entirely out of the corner of his eye. “Spook who?”

“There is an old woman here that I don’t recognize,” Doran answered.

Shea considered her older brother quizzically. “That’s it? An old woman you don’t know? What’s so interesting about that?”

“I speak to all the elders in the castle regularly. They keep me informed of criminals that need to be hunted down and brought to justice as well as young men in need of a good scare to set them on a more righteous path. A strange old woman appearing at the same time as a visiting Greatlord is worth keeping an eye on.”

“Right,” Shea said, unconvinced. Doran was never wrong, per se, but he could be a tad paranoid at times.

“If you don’t want to help me, you are welcome to go back to your riveting discussion with Levina,” Doran offered.

Shea shuddered. “Actually, this seems like a job you’ll need a second set of eyes for.”

Doran nodded. “She’s wearing the grey cloak and has a hideous wart on her nose. Look around Bartholomew, do you see her?”

Shea glanced casually around Fat Bart. Once Doran described her it was impossible to miss who he was talking about. “I see her.”

“Keep an eye on her. If I’m right about her being up to something she will move away once I approach her.” Doran walked towards the old woman and sure enough, she shuffled away in the opposite direction.

Shea watched the old woman dart behind a pillar and a burly pair of men drinking and singing a completely different song from what the musicians were playing. Doran appeared to lose her in the crowd, but knowing Doran that was just a ruse to put the old hag at ease. Shea followed as the wart lady slipped away from the crowd and up the back steps.

Following someone in a castle was similar to tracking someone in the woods, but at the same time very different. There were so many hard angles and relatively few places to seek cover. The best cover, Shea had found, was to pretend you were supposed to be going the same way your target was.

Unfortunately, this old woman was crafty. She dropped her bag and sat on the floor putting all of her random knick-knacks back in at a leisurely pace. Not wanting to give herself away, Shea was forced to walk on by while her query rummaged. She quickly hid behind the next corner though, and peeked stealthily back the other way to see which way the old woman went next.

Wart-nose eventually finished re-stuffing her purse and took another flight of stairs, this one leading up to the guest rooms. Shea followed from far behind, she had a fairly strong suspicion where this shady character was headed. Up the stairs she climbed, to the highest part of the guest tower. Shea heard little scritch-scritch sounds from around the next bend and stopped to listen.

The unmistakable sound of a lock opening made Shea wish she had her bow handy or at least one of her long hunting knives. Then she heard Doran’s voice and she stepped around the final turn of the stairs to see Doran holding the old woman in the air by her throat with one hand. In his other hand he had a dagger pointed at the crone’s eye.

“What are you doing breaking into Greatlord Icethorn’s rooms?” Doran asked calmly.

“I just needed a bit o’ gold, m’lord! My granddaughter is sick with the plague and I ain’t got no coin for medicines!” the old woman pleaded feebly and kicked her little legs.

“Don’t lie to me. You’re barely old enough to have a daughter, let alone a granddaughter.” Doran flicked her wart-blemished nose with his dagger and the whole thing slid off to reveal a hooked, but utterly un-repulsive nose.

Doran’s prisoner frowned. She stopped kicking and relaxed, she must have been stooping under her disguise because her long legs nearly reached the ground from where Doran held her. “What gave me away?”

“Little old ladies have frail bones and hardly any muscle left. You were far too heavy to be who you were pretending to be,” Doran said and he tore away the false wrinkles and wig she wore.

The would-be thief was of average height for a woman or perhaps a bit taller, it was hard to be certain with her dangling in the air like she was. Shea guessed her age to be about nineteen or twenty. She looked thin, but that was hard to say with her disguise hiding most of her body. She had pale skin, jet black hair, and feisty eyes that were blue, green, or brown depending on how the light struck them. Her chin came to a sharp point and she had a sharp jawline with a wide mouth. Doran had taught Shea to memorize details like that when tracking criminals. She could draw this bandit’s face if need be and pass the drawing out to help bring her to justice. Not that that would be necessary in this case, Doran had already captured her.

“Calling a girl fat, not the best way to make a first impression.” The thief smirked at Doran.

“Neither is lifting her off the ground by her neck. I admit your impression of me was not my primary concern,” Doran answered.

She rolled her eyes. “If you were any other man I would try to seduce you, you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve gotten out of this exact situation by batting these lovely long lashes at someone.”

“You should have tried to rob my uncle or my cousin. They would have thanked a pretty thing like you for it,” Doran replied.

The burglar lass laughed at that. “So I heard. I did my homework on you Taegrims before coming here. You were the only one I was really worried about, but I must admit a little part of me hoped that you would catch on to my plan so I could get a measure of you myself.” Her wide mouth spread into a wicked grin. “In that I wasn’t disappointed.”

“What were you planning to steal?” Doran asked. Shea could see that he was keeping a careful eye on the woman’s hands.

“Oh, you know, a bit of this, a bit of that. Nothing of—” She suddenly cut off and spit something shiny at Doran that sliced his cheek and left a thin trail of blood trickling down his face.

“That was unwise,” Doran began, but then he slumped and toppled sideways, leaving the thief standing serenely in her ridiculously short tattered gown.

“Sorry, dearie. I only brought one poison dart and it was always my backup plan for your brother.” She brought her leg around faster than Shea would have thought possible and the last thing she remembered was the burglar’s foot hitting her head and knocking her into the stone wall of the stairwell.

*

“This is an outrage!” Greatlord Garis Taegrim bellowed from his throne in the Great Hall. “A theft in my own castle! And of my best friend and staunchest ally’s belongings! The shame! How could you allow this?”

“It is inexcusable, my lord,” Doran answered, stoic as always, but likely beside himself with anger at having failed. Shea was also in attendance, mainly to share in the shame of letting a petty crook escape under her nose. She looked far more abashed than her brother, that one was a proper Taegrim and she wore her emotions on her sleeve for all to see.

Garis seethed. Doran had never failed him before. True, this wench had used a concealed poison dart to take him by surprise, but still! Doran should have knocked the bitch out and questioned her in a cell after she had been thoroughly searched!

His head pounded from last night’s drinking. They had not discovered the robbery until late that evening when Greatlord Icethorn had left the feast to seek his bed. Icethorn had discovered Doran and Shea both alive but unconscious and some secret and very sensitive article missing from his rooms.

“You will set this right, Doran. Greatlord Icethorn is furious. Track down this woman and return with her head and Icethorn’s stolen article,” Garis commanded.

“Yes, my lord.” Doran nodded. No doubt he knew that he was to be charged with correcting his mistake. “I would ask your leave to bring Aunt Drusilla and Lora Kell with me.”

“The stable master? Very well, hunt this woman with our women. It makes not matter to me how you do it so long as it is done.” Garis rose to dismiss his children, but before he could do so Shea spoke up.

“Father! I mean, my lord. I want to go too. I can track and fight and it’s just as much my fault as Doran’s that she got away!”

Garis frowned at that. Shea was a capable lass, to be sure. But she was also just thirteen. Ought he to allow her to ride off into danger after this burglar?

1)      Yes! Shea is a Taegrim, not some prissy Eastern Lady! It is past time she tested her mettle out in the real world.

2)      Are you insane? Shea is thirteen and a girl besides! Bad enough that Doran is already taking two women with him on this venture. She stays home.