Текст книги "Heat"

Автор книги: R. Lee Smith

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 54 страниц)

Chapter Fifteen

Tagen heard Daria’s feet on the stairs and knew just by the swift, heavy stride of her that she was edgy. He picked up the tuning controller for the tee-vee and changed the channel from his law program to the media feeds. By the time Daria came down into the front room with wet towels on her hip, he was leaning back and looking as though he had been watching the news for hours.

She paused at the side of the sofa to glare at the screen. Humans were taking turns solemnly informing viewers of a brutal double murder in a place called Fever Falls. No one was saying exactly how the two had died, but an image showing one of the bodies being removed caught Tagen’s interest. The body was covered, but there was a red stain on the litter by which it was carried indicating injury to the back of the head. Tagen flexed his claws thoughtfully.

“Anything?” Daria asked.

“Mm.” The media feed changed to a briefing on Earth’s civil war, and Tagen turned all his attention to Daria. “Is it possible to find more images?” he asked. “I would like to see the bodies.”

“I can look,” she said, but she seemed doubtful. “It takes time before gory stuff gets leaked onto the internet,” she added, answering his frown.

But the tightness in her seemed to be assuaged by his interest in the media, and that was a relief. She had been in a foul mood this morning, passing hours seemingly at ease, and then suddenly snapping out at him without provocation. He suspected (although Heat stole much of his objectivity) that her conflict stemmed from the events of the previous day, and while that was understandable, he did not appreciate being made the target of the anger that was the foam of her simmering anxiety. This time, it seemed he had dodged the battle, but who knew for how long?

“Fever Falls isn’t that far away, I guess. Do you think it was him?” Daria asked. She was looking at the tee-vee, watching the pop and smoke of the human’s war spill over the screen while the briefing agent calmly recited the day’s casualties.

“I think I will not know unless I see the injuries.” He thought it a politic answer, but it earned him a ferocious glare. Cautiously, he added, “If it is E’Var, I will know it by the way in which the victims were killed.”

Daria thought that over, her shoulders relaxing somewhat. “Okay, I see your point.” She walked away.

Tagen exhaled slow relief and switched the tee-vee off. The sun had reached the setting point by which the screen was nearly invisible anyway, and the light focused through the windows made the front room into an oven. If he couldn’t watch his law program, he didn’t want to be here. He was emptied for now. He wished to prolong that precious state as much as possible.

In the kitchen, Tagen filled a glass with ice and water and sat at the table in the shade to drink it. Daria joined him shortly, tension back in her body the instant she saw him. She sat before the bulky computer and began to work its keys.

Neither of them spoke. The silence was not a comfortable one, but at least it was familiar. Tagen sat and gazed levelly at the sink, sipping water and pretending Daria did not exist, feeling Heat creep in on him.

“Nope, you’re out of luck,” she said suddenly. “No pictures yet, but it does say the two of them had their skulls crushed.”

“Crushed?”

“Yes. Um, broken. Smashed.” She mimed a heavy, bludgeoning blow and then examined the computer screen once more. “A portion of the brain was removed,” she said, apparently reading. “Looks like they think it’s a cult thing.”

“Removed,” Tagen mused, and scowled.

“What, is that…?” Daria pushed her chair back and looked at him intently. “Is that how he’s making his drug? Out of…brains?”

“No.” Tagen bared his teeth. “Yes.” He put his hand on the back of his head. “Here,” he said. “Here is where he takes it.”

Daria stood up fast and paced across the kitchen. She stood a long time over the sink and then started running hot water. “What…What does it look like?” she asked softly.

*

It was beautiful. Amber heaven. Liquid crona.

Kane rolled the ampule of harvested fluid between his thick fingers and considered its contents, now brilliantly gold with backwashed light from his hotel window. It was only the first he’d filled, the first of forty vials, and it had taken five humans. True, Kane hadn’t really put much effort into the hunt yet, and true, he’d seen no sign of Fleet pursuit. It was possible, however unlikely, that Kane had come to Earth completely without notice, possible that the loss of the prison transport ship had been discounted by those in power as fallen to accident.

Possible.

Kanetus E’Var had lived fifty-three years in the company of chemists and smugglers. He had not done so by conceding blinding to possibility.

And so…

The fluids culled from five humans could be cured into decent product, and Kane could expect to see a good profit by it. With forty vials, at five humans apiece, Kane would see four thousand crona, give or take. That was enough profit to go to ground somewhere deep in the back reaches of So-Quaal space and pay out fore-wages to a fairly decent crew. He had no ship, and that was a pisser, but his name might be enough to rent the use of one. He’d end up paying double its worth in a damned short stretch of time, but at least he’d have a way around space. He could come back to Earth on his own time and with his own crew, and hunt until they had enough crona for a top-line cruiser like the Yevoa Null.

Or…or Kane could cull another five humans, refine the mix, play with it, orchestrate it…And divine from it a superior product, one worth easily ten times the profit. That wouldn’t just be any ship under his command. That would be a Kevrian Light-Slicer at the very least.

Twice as much effort to harvest. Twice as much risk…if risk were a variable able to calculate. But ten times the profit.

Hmm.

“So, um…”

Kane slid his eyes towards his human, still rolling the ampule in his claws.

Raven was sitting on the edge of the bed, thighs splayed and shoulders hunched, on the pretense of cleaning her piercings. She was not facing him, but he could see her eyes anxiously seeking his reflection in the dark eye of the television. She was watching him and watching the vial in his hand.

Kane smiled, just a little. In Raven’s human face, he thought he saw much of the same curiosity and hunger his own father might have seen in the face of young Kanetus, still hip-height and new to the chemist’s craft. His Raven was human, but she was quick as a whip for all of that, and Kane was inclined to see to her education, if she were curious.

Raven stirred a little, enough to turn her face to him. “So, you’re like…a drug dealer? You make drugs?”

He did not know the word. All the same, her meaning was evident. “Yes.”

“From people? From humans?”

“Yes.”

“Just from humans?” she pressed. “You can’t make it from…dogs or cows or…or your own people?”

Clever Raven.

“Sure, I could.” Kane placed the ampule back into his case and sealed it, running his mind through an idle debate on just how much of the truth to tell her. “But humans are more convenient and they make a superior product.”

“What does it do?” she asked.

Kane leaned back with a laughing snarl, and shook his head at her, showing his teeth in a hard grin. “It makes fools feel pleasure. We call it Vahst. It means, ah…Heat.”

*

“Well, I’ve got to say, it’s got to be pretty hot shit because I just don’t see how it can be remotely profitable to come all the way to Earth, kill a bunch of people while evading the cops, and then fly all the way back. That would have to be one hell of a high.”

Tagen glanced wearily at Daria, specifically, at her hands, splotchy with foam as she scrubbed tensely at their dishes. Her tone was casual, almost indifferent, but her posture betrayed the same anger and fear that always seemed to lie just beneath her surface. He wished he knew the human words enough to explain about Vahst, but that might mean having to explain also about true Heat, and he could not face that. More and more often these days, his eyes had a way of resting on her hips, on her loins concealed beneath her clothing, and she was beginning to notice. She was easily smart enough to realize he was in Heat if he had to describe it for her, and he could well imagine her response.

“It is profitable,” he said only.

“Why doesn’t he just butcher his own damn planet?” she demanded. “There’s got to be less overhead in it. Or don’t you have murder on your perfect planet?”

“We do.” He returned his gaze to his glass of ice water, watching jewels of condensation drip down the outside of the plastic tumbler. “And it is done the way you say. But those chemists that do so are caught.”

“Every single time?”

“It is difficult to produce Vahst on-world, more difficult still to market it.” He shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position on the hard wooden chair, telling himself as he did so that he was not feeling the slow itch of Heat creeping up on him so early in the day. “And so sooner or later, they must leave Jota. And then they are caught.”

“If it’s that hard to get off-world, how did this…E’Var do it?” She was shooting him swift, angry glances as she asked this, as if she held him personally responsible for E’Var’s escape.

“You must forgive the lapses of our law,” Tagen said dryly. “E’Var left Jota when he was two, and his criminal years well ahead of him. The young of Jota are…” And there he was stumped for language, sitting in silent frustration and staring at his water. “…different,” he finished finally. “You humans keep the offspring you bear. Jotan do not.” And to forestall the questions he knew he had no words to answer, he added, “What you mean to ask, I think, is not how did E’Var leave Jota, but how did he come to Earth? Ships able to ride deep space are not idly passed out, and the Gates that open on the outer reaches like your world are both guarded and regulated.”

“Okay.” Daria ran a little more water into the sink. “Okay, we’ll start there. How did this guy get a ship and how did he get through your Gate and come to Earth? You said he was captured when his father’s ship was taken. I assume you didn’t give him the keys and tell him to follow you to the station.”

Anger flared, brief but very hot, and Tagen clenched his jaw and quietly said, “I know you are being sarcastic, Daria Cleavon, and I do not appreciate it.”

She went still as stone at once, her head bent and a tremor running just below the surface of her skin. She gripped the sides of the sink and stared into the water. She did not speak, not even to apologize. Somehow, that was the greatest indicator that she was, in fact, sorry for her words.

“I was not among those who took Uraktus E’Var’s ship, but I heard of the conflict. Twenty-five officers lost their lives, but of the criminals, only Uraktus E’Var was killed and only his son, Kanetus, escaped. There are on deep-space ships what your tee-vee programs call ‘escape pods’. When the Jotan officers took the ship, Uraktus held them away from the escape pod bay until Kanetus was away.”

Tagen’s voice trailed off and he gazed down at the tabletop. He disliked the way those words sounded, the nobility they conjured up. A father, dying for his son. Kolya Pahnee would have never—

“We know that E’Var had many allies among the criminal set,” he said, killing that thought before it could be fully birthed. “Kanetus was hidden by them for some time. And then, one day, he was arrested.”

“Just like that?” Daria turned around. “I’m not being sarcastic, I’m—”

“Just like that,” Tagen said. “And you are not the only one who was surprised to hear it. I believe…I do not know, but I believe that Kanetus E’Var may have planned his arrest.”

Tagen stopped there and rubbed at his eyes. The strain of having to pick apart his thoughts and fold them into human speech was wearing on him, invisibly but indelibly, like wind on a mountain. And there was Daria, watching him, faintly but distinctly hostile. “E’Var was being moved to a rikers—”

“To a what?”

His confidence in human speech evaporated and Tagen mentally replayed his last words. He hated this. Hated his ignorance. The video feed that had taught him so much of his N’Glish had said rikers, he was sure of it, and said it nearly every episode, but that was clearly the wrong word now. Cautiously, watching Daria’s face for clues, Tagen began again. “E’Var was being moved to a…place…for captured men…”

“Prison.” Comprehension suddenly flooded Daria’s eyes and she laughed. “Oh, I get it! Rikers! Riker’s Island is the name of the prison on Law & Order.”

He accepted that with a shrug and a nod, filing this new word away and feeling a faint relief that his lapse in N’Glish hadn’t been so grievous after all. “The prison is not near to Jota. We lost it when it passed through the Jotan Gate. It was suspicious, but not a cause for immediate action. Ships are lost at times.”

“Just like that, huh? Oh, drat, lost a ship. Ho hum?”

He rocked back in his chair and looked straight at her, a little grimly pleased to see her fall silent and drop her eyes. “You have ships that cross the sky here, I have seen them. Do they fall?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, after a pause lengthy enough to clean three plates.

“And when they fall, it is assumed that one of your evil men has caused it to happen?”

A longer pause. She shook her head.

“So. There are many, many things which can cause a ship to break apart during a Gate. And the ships that are used in…prison transports are old and prone to accident. No, we did not suspect E’Var. There are some who still do not suspect him, but I believe that he killed his guards and took the ship. E’Var is a chemist, a very good chemist, and one that needs a lot of money if he means to return to his trade. That kind of money is made with Vahst, and Vahst is made on Earth.”

The fight wasn’t out of her yet. She just had trouble finding a new angle to come at him. She washed dishes and Tagen watched her, noting the slight flex of her back in the instant before she struck.

“How is he manufacturing this stuff?” she asked. “He can’t be just carting around a couple of human hypothalamuses in a Scooby-Doo lunchbox! Doesn’t he need a lab or gear or anything?”

“Yes.”

She waited, stacking her dishes with increasing noise. “And?”

“Give me time. I do not have your words.” Tagen leaned back over his glass, slid his thumb down the side of it to chase condensation into rivulets of cold water. “I have come to believe that one of the guards provided E’Var both with the means of escape aboard the ship and with the needed materials to harvest and manufacture Vahst. In exchange for what, I do not know, but what he got for his effort was death. E’Var has demonstrated great loyalty to his…his…family,” he concluded, but very slowly, knowing this was not the right word. “But he does not trust to the silence of mere accomplices.”

Both were silent. The dishes were washed, dried, stacked. Daria was scrubbing at the sink and countertops.

At last, in a small voice, she asked, “How many people is he going to kill for this drug?”

“I have no way of knowing. But as you say, if it is to be profitable, it must be many, and E’Var means not only to make the cost of the trip, but enough to keep himself comfortably beyond the reach of Jota.”

“How many?” she asked again, and her eyes beneath the veil of her hair were young and frightened.

*

“Two hundred,” Kane said. “Perhaps as many as four. Or it could be as few as fifty. It depends on certain things, and I haven’t decided how I want to go about it.” He watched Raven absorb this, rolling the ampoule of Vahst between his fingers.

“Christ, that’s a lot of people,” she said in a thin, faint voice. She was rubbing at her clit-ring, long after the lotion must have been absorbed, and he watched her hand. She seemed to have forgotten what she was doing. “So many people. How could you possibly get away with it?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I guess I would, because…four hundred people!” She shuddered.

“There’s a lot of humans on this planet,” Kane shrugged. “And they all mill around together and sometimes wander off and vanish or bump up and kill each other. We take a few here, a few there. No one notices.”

Raven’s hand had stopped its movements, but remained cupping her sex. She was staring at the wall beyond Kane’s head, her face locked in an expression of shock so profound it was almost grief. “No one?” she echoed, her voice scarcely audible.

“Mm.” Kane’s interest in the conversation was dissolving. He stood up and approached the bed, still watching her hand, and hooked one claw in the waist of his pants. He’d been patient, she was healed, and it was time to enjoy the work he’d had done on her.

“Hey, no!” she said weakly. “It’s too early! You’ll tear ‘em all out.”

He paused with one hand on her shoulder and the other raised to cuff her for her protestations, and considered that.

Her cunt was beautiful. Shaven smooth and gleaming with steel. He wanted to feel those rings rippling against the side of his shaft as he plunged in and out of her. She looked plenty healed up to him, but then, she might know better. And if the piercings ripped free, they might never go back in.

Of course, she could be replaced. There was no shortage of humans on this miserable planet, as he had just observed.

But there was no guarantee a replacement would prove any hardier than his Raven, who was, besides a convenient fuck, obedient and clever as well as decent company. Plus, he liked her hair, and he still hadn’t seen any other humans in that color.

And there were options, weren’t there? If the human video feeds had taught him nothing else, they had taught them that.

“Give me that,” he ordered, lowering the hand poised to strike and pointing at the lotion sitting beside her on the bed. “And get on your face…on your belly.”

Her face did a curious thing, like a buckling or crumpling, but she rallied to stoicism and slid forward onto her knees and then rolled to brace her hips against the foot of the bed, gathering in folds of blankets to muffle her mouth and presenting her hocks to him. She held up the little hotel bottle and her hand was fairly steady.

Kane tapped out the remainder of its contents into his palm, dabbed one finger into the white cream and rubbed this down Raven’s crevasse to the dimpled bud of her cloacae. The rest he lathered onto his cock, stroking and squeezing until it warmed slightly on his skin. He worked both, his cock and her wrinkled orifice, content for now just to do this.

“What is this?” he asked suddenly. “Tell me the name of it.”

“What?” she stammered, raising her head slightly, as one awakening, befuddled, from a dream of pain.

Kane pulled back his hand and cracked his palm across her flanks with his full strength, reasoning that she seemed thicker there and he wasn’t likely to break anything.

Raven shrieked into her arms, scratching at the bedding before shuddering and sobbing back into place.

“That,” he said coolly. “What is that?”

“My ass,” she wept.

“And this?” He punched his finger into her. Tight. Tighter than her cunt. He squeezed himself hard.

“Asshole,” she sobbed. “A-anus.”

He knelt carefully behind her, rubbing at his glans and sliding his arm beneath her belly to raise her just right, and fit them together. “Have you ever done this?” he asked mildly.

“No.”

Memories of Urak’s male human swam up from the black and Kane paused again, uncertain. “Will it kill you, do you know?”

“I don’t think so. You j-just have to go s-slow and stop if you see b-b-blood.” Her voice broke on the last word and she sank her human teeth into her own clenched fist, shivering.

“Slow,” he echoed. He flexed his arm, bringing her back instead of thrusting forward. He could feel in exquisite detail the tight muscle of her cloacae—of her anus—admitting him, feel the hot passage clamping and fighting him. His shaft sank into her; he withdrew a little ways and pulled her back again, imbedding himself a little deeper this time, shivering with the effort of restraint against the surging heat of pleasure. He eased back, stroked one hand down the jumping muscles of her belly, and then tightened his grip on her and shoved until his hard stomach pushed at her ass.

His head was thrown back, his throat working in silence, his fangs bared. He was scarcely aware of her, and yet intensely conscious of her all at the same time. His arm was an iron bar gripping her tight against him while his free hand moved lightly across her flanks, almost caressing, sometimes reaching up to comb out the tangles of her hair. He could feel his cock swelling, throbbing, almost jerking in the first throes just from the feel of her so tight and shaking with her tears.

Without warning, he yanked back and out (casting one swift glance downwards; no blood) just to punch into her again. She shrieked and tried to scramble away, her hips humping at the bed in her efforts to escape him.

Kane reared back and began to ride her, both hands on her hips now, letting her flee a little ways just for the pleasure of yanking her back, sliding her up and down his pumping cock, falling into the rhythm of thrust and draw. Sometimes he caressed her, drawing the backs of his hands down from the nape of her neck, down the bare shadow of her spine. Sometimes he struck her, beating out cracks like gunplay on her flanks when her struggles waned. He fucked her, hard and fast and steady. He savored the fucking, thinking with the rational part of his mind that this was better than anything he’d ever had, even with that fine female, Tari’i Sunorrok. And just why that should be, he didn’t know, since Raven surely didn’t have her heart in it at the moment.

No, it wasn’t the way she was moving, and it wasn’t just the grip and the pull of her. It was all of her, all his Raven, and the knowledge that she was his. He bent swiftly and savaged Raven’s shoulder in a bite, feeling a sudden swell of affection for her, then reared back and split the night with her screams again.

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