‘Attention being paid, sir.’ She saluted him.
Hulk-Rossiter had a button nose that was almost adorable, especially now when he screwed it up. ‘You need to get down there while the spacemen are at prayers.’
Curiosity surfed over trepidation, and Kira leaned forward. The aliens held a prayer service every morning at five, like clockwork. Their captain, a.k.a Mr Asshat, made them pray to some god of theirs for an hour. Eron had never given details, and Kira didn’t want them. Other things to do.
To him. To his bits. And then him to her bits.
Shit, damn it, shit. Don’t go there.
‘You do know that’s kind of…racist…or alienist…or something,’ she said. ‘It pisses them off, calling them spacemen.’
Eron had told her he hated the word. Almost as much as he hated being poked in the belly in the mornings. But it was so irresistible. His belly, not the word. Just the right mix of muscle and softness. So silky. And as for what lay lower, well hello sailor. Whatever moisturiser they used on that planet of theirs, Syrana, she needed the formula.
Holy Christ in chains, what was wrong with her? Sober up.
‘Kira, pay attention for god’s sake. The car will take you to the Quartermain entrance, I’ll meet you there. Once the spacemen are at service, I’ll take you to Blake on level eleven. ’
‘Roger that.’ Kira saluted him again. ‘Whoa, hang on a gosh-darned second. Level eleven?’
Two kilometres underground,with far more concrete and rock and steel between fresh air and freedom than she cared for. Made her chest tight thinking about it.
‘See you at Quartermain in fifteen.’ Rossiter signed off, leaving her glaring at a black screen.
‘Dick!’ Kira slumped into her seat, and the bongo drums in her head grew louder. Level eleven. Jesus. Kira hated being under bedcovers, let alone underground.
The car shot past her all-time favourite tree. A lone cactus, giving a one-fingered salute to the world in a giant, prickly display of defiance; set far apart from its clustered brothers and sisters that formed packs across the desert landscape.
Sighting the rebel of the cacti world meant the first of the Facility’s three security gates was about a minute away. The hired guns behind blackened windows would watch her speed past, already aware she was coming from the moment Perry had shoved her into the car. A drone had probably filmed her throwing up on the roof-top. Hell, one had probably filmed Liam’s liaison with her vagina. Keeping big secrets at the Facility meant stealing everyone else’s.
Kira flopped across the back seat. ‘Home sweet fucking home.’
Eron - 2
Eron opened his eyes to an emerald world, and awesome, terrible dread filled him.
‘Brandis mer.’ The Syranian curse flew from his lips with the sharpness of an arrow.
There were two places he should not be at this present point in time. Lahar’s shrine on level ten, in the depths of the Facility’s underground, was one of them. Yet, here Eron lay, intolerable fool that he was. Splayed out like a carcass at the base of the petrified tree stump that took pride of place at the centre of the Syranians’ place of worship. Banished from the proceedings of the evening past, Eron’s intention to spend a quiet few hours in repentant prayer had taken a toll. His eyes had closed, and, beyond all comprehension, he had slept.
Flickers of green light shimmered against the glass walls and ceiling and danced across his pale skin. Eron moved to rise, lifting his long limbs. Sudden and shocking pain halted him. It was as though ice had found its way into blood and bone and broken into untold numbers of razor-like shards. The level of discomfort was unfamiliar, a far distant memory from a life he barely recalled. Eron’s appointment as one of the god Lahar’s holy soldiers brought with it a preternatural tolerance for pain and a remarkable capacity for healing. But the only thing remarkable now was the level of agony he endured. Eron dragged himself the short distance to the nearest wall, pressing elongated fingers against the cold glass and using the leverage to raise himself to his feet. He got to his knees and could go no further. Though the Waters did not touch his skin directly – running as they did within the glasswork – the fluid’s power reached inside him with taloned fingers and radiated beneath his pale flesh. The mighty and divine Waters were, as the humans would say, liquid gold. A flowing, transcendental medium that had once, a very long time ago, enabled the gods to move between their realm and the corporeal universes of Earth and Syrana. But for any mortal foolish enough to taste it, the liquid brought no hint of what it felt like to be divine – only a short-lived, desperately painful, and soul-crushing high.
Eron stared up at the domed roof of the shrine and forced a breath through the intolerable spasms. Carved into the glass above him was Lahar’s glaring totem. A Precon beast from Eron’s home planet, Syrana. The predator held some resemblance in appearance to the rats of Earth, if those creatures mutated ten times the size, grew an extra eye and a tail layered with spikes containing enough poison to fell a Syranian army.
‘Forgive me,’ he breathed. His tongue betrayed him with human words, but he couldn’t find the strength to admonish himself. The Precon eyed him with nothing resembling forgiveness. They were creatures feared for their inherent cruelty, known to leave prey hovering on the brink of death whilst they consumed it. The priests of Syrana’s temples had chosen well for divine Lahar. As one of the last three Living Gods—deities still tethered to the corporeal worlds— Lahar’s desperation to rise to the next realm bred a cruelty that had seen Eron’s home planet embroiled in war for the entirety of his memory,
