Shadowmaster

Drakon rose abruptly. Beachboy shrank in his seat.

“My only interest in this female is what she can give us in return for her escape,” he said. “And I’ll make sure it’s worth our help.”

“And if it isn’t?” Brita asked.

Drakon’s silence gave them their answer. Glances were exchanged, and Brita shook her head, clearly disgusted. Drakon ignored her.

“So what’s next, Boss?” asked Grimm, folding his thick arms over his protruding belly. “We gonna make some real money this time?”

“We have a shipment of fresh produce coming in from the South Bay agricultural compound tomorrow night,” Drakon said. “My contacts have arranged for one of the ships to be rerouted to the Hunters Point shipyard for repairs. From there, we’ll have to get the cargo into the city.”

“And you’ll give half the stuff away to the Scrappers, like always,” Shank complained.

“You know how I do business. The Scrappers know things even we don’t, because no one pays attention to them. We feed them, and they help us.”

“Fear is enough to keep ’em in line,” Shank said.

“Would you like to test that theory?” Drakon said, planting his fists on the table and leaning toward the human.

Again, Shank backed down. A charged silence fell over the room.

“I’m going to send most of the crew to watch the passage and make the run to the shipyard,” Drakon said. “I’ll need a few of you with me to take care of other business. Brita, you’ll remain at the Hold and keep an eye on Lark. Make sure she gets food and fresh clothes.”

“Sammael—”

“I need you here. No interrogation. Just provide her with necessities until I return.”

“And if she makes trouble?”

“There are shackles and a blindfold there if you need them. But she’s not to leave my room.”

“Fair enough,” Brita said, though she was clearly peeved at being left behind.

“The rest of you will receive your instructions at 1300 hours,” Drakon said. He walked away from the table, indicating that the meeting was over. The whispers and mutterings he heard as he left the room were no more than he expected under the circumstances.

Listening carefully to make sure no one followed, he strode to the roofless room where he kept his blood stores. The refrigeration unit ran on solar power, but the door was flush with the intact room adjoining it. Drakon had no need to step into the dangerous morning sunlight. He opened the two manual locks, noting again that his supplies seemed more thin than he remembered, and withdrew a vial of blood. He took a careful, measured amount—just enough to keep him strong and alert, but never quite sufficient to ease his hunger completely.

It seemed all he had become was hunger. Hunger for blood, for peace, for revenge. And now for a woman he’d only met a few hours ago.

He locked the blood away again, boarded up the room and returned to the labyrinthine corridors of the Hold. Lark’s unique scent seemed to permeate the entire building, and his new and constant state of arousal was worse than a week without blood.

“Be careful,” Brita said, coming up behind him.

Drakon turned to face her. “More rumblings from the crew?” he asked.

“I’ve known you too long,” she said. “Don’t forget I’ve seen the stray kitten you brought in.”

“Your point?”

“You usually don’t have any problem with women, but that female’s got you riled, and you aren’t thinking clearly.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” he said softly.

She shrugged. “Whatever you plan to do with her when you have the information you want, be careful. Shank could be right—she might be a spy for the Enforcers, just waiting for the perfect time to signal them.”

“I had considered that,” he said drily. “I’ll take your advice under consideration.”

“Just don’t put it off too long.” With a shake of her head, she walked away.

Damn her, Drakon thought. He should never have let it become so obvious. But Brita was right. In a matter of hours he seemed to have developed some kind of unprecedented obsession with his captive, and it wasn’t normal. Not normal at all.

He didn’t like puzzles. He never had. In his old life, everything had seemed clear-cut, the rules easy to follow. All that had ended with his conversion.

Now he had begun to realize that not everything had changed. Once he’d been capable of real emotion. Humans believed that even new-made Opiri lost their ability to “feel,” and Drakon had believed they were right.

But they were wrong. And Drakon was beginning to realize just how wrong. What troubled him most wasn’t just the way Lark aroused physical need, but that she also touched parts of him he’d believed long dead. The ability to admire courage, to recognize the admirable traits among those he’d once served.

And to make dangerous mistakes.

He returned to his room, collected himself outside the door and went in. Lark was sitting on the bed with her knees drawn up and her eyes closed. Her lovely face was almost haggard, with shadows under her eyes and tension above her brows that couldn’t be feigned.

“How was your meeting?” she asked, opening her eyes. “Has your crew decided to throw me to The Preacher’s tender mercies?”

“No,” he said, standing very still as her scent washed over him and produced what had become his body’s inevitable response.

“What next, then?”

Drakon sat on the chair. “Tonight we have a job, and you’ll be left here under guard. When we’re done, we’ll test the validity of your information.”

“I’m not going to run, you know.”

“We’ll know how much you can be trusted soon enough.”

Leaning forward, Lark wrapped her arms around her knees. “Who are you, Sammael? What brought an obviously educated and cultured man such as yourself to become a Fringe Boss dealing in stolen goods?”

Drakon laughed to himself. Yes, in his old life he had received a fairly decent, rudimentary schooling, the one afforded all Enclave citizens. But Lark spoke of education in a difference sense, and her use of the word culture was meant to convey some kind of status far above the one he’d been born with.

He’d never been one of the Enclave’s elite. What he’d learned of “culture” had come from his Opir Sire, who had seen something in him worth cultivating and had boosted Drakon up the Opir ladder from serf to vassal to Freeblood in a remarkably short period of time. He had stopped aging at twenty-nine, five years ago. It seemed an eternity.

“I was one of those dissidents the government is so fond of denouncing,” he said, skirting very close to the truth. “I spoke out against certain unjust laws and restrictions, the forced separation of families under the Deportation Act.”

“Then you agree with the mayor,” she said with what seemed to be real interest. “You’d like to see an end to deportation.”

“I would like to see some other means of dealing with the problem of satisfying the Opiri,” he said. “But I spoke out on these matters before Shepherd came to office, and I was warned in advance that I was to be taken in for questioning. So I escaped.”

“Shepherd held the same views then, and he was a senator....”

“I had no reason to trust any political authority, whatever his or her promises.”