Chapter 24
As soon as the gold-plated shuttle landed, a large, four-armed grogax leapt from the back, wearing a soft purple suit. Gold chains hung down around his neck, and rings wrapped around each finger. He snarled at the first person he saw, revealing his gold diamond-crusted teeth.
"Where the fuck is Finnegan?" Perez shouted loud enough to make the kikai servant's ears flatten to the top of her skull as she flinched back.
"He hasn't called, master," she answered.
The grogax grabbed a table of tools in the hangar and flipped it over in his frustration.
Every fiber of his being was on high alert.
His grogax nervous systems were all sparking at full capacity.
He had just watched one of the operations passed down to him by the divines completely and utterly ripped apart by three measly individuals.
He had a feeling his problem was the fucking baby divine.
At least, that's what he wanted to tell himself.
"Cameras!" he snapped. "I want all of the footage we have from the mining operation.”
His assistant stood frozen for a second, looking at him as if waiting for more.
He snapped his fingers. "Now!" he shouted, spinning around and calling up Finnegan with a few flicks of his fingers at a wall-mounted screen.
The line connected, but there was no video, just audio, which made Perez fucking furious.
"Where the fuck are you, Finnegan? Aren't those your marks, the ones I paid you to kill? They don’t seem dead to me!
" Perez's saliva splattered on the screen as he walked past one of the many coolers he kept around his estate, ripping out a quick snack and throwing it in his mouth with a smack of his lips.
"Come on, Finnegan, answer the goddamn question. "
Perez’s patience was gone. The divines were going to come to this clusterfuck of a mess unhappy. If they were unhappy, Perez would be lucky to have a swift death. The memory of his predecessor shivered down his spine.
"I believe, as I've said before," Finnegan answered smoothly, "that these people are very likely outside of our reach, which is why I recommended we pass this up the chain."
"Pass this up the chain?" The grogax spat some of his food that hadn’t quite made it down his throat, splattering it on the tablet. "Oh, you say it like it's easy. It’s not like I can tell them what to do!"
Finnegan chuckled. "Well, that does sound like a you problem, doesn't it?"
"A me problem? A fucking me problem? Finnegan, we're in this together.
If they come for me, I hope you know, I'll give them your name as if you're the little shit who ruined all of this.
" Perez refused to go down alone. What bound those whom the divine had left in charge of various aspects was that they needed to work together lest one of them bring down the whole system.
"Now, I think that is wildly unprofessional," Finnegan answered smoothly.
"What's unprofessional is your failure to perform. You had them out in the open at the spaceport. Don’t think I don’t know you gave up early." Perez wagged a finger at the screen as he tried his best to breathe.
"Yes, well, I'm sure the divines are so easy to fool.
That's certainly why they've taken over an entire sector," Finnegan reminded him, though it did little to cool Perez's rising anger.
It wasn't like he was actually upset with Finnegan.
The reality for both of them was that if they didn't get this resolved, and resolved soon, they weren't going to get a second chance.
The divines would come and make an example of them.
"Well, what would you like me to do?" Finnegan asked smoothly. Smoothly enough that it made Perez's eyes narrow in suspicion.
"What I'd like you to do is fix this, and the best way to fix this is to kill them like you were supposed to. Take a damn ship over theirs and just bombard it or something!” he yelled.
"Perez, some days I think you're not a very good listener." Finnegan chuckled. "I can't kill them."
"Sounds more like you won't," Perez corrected him, "which I think is going to become a bigger problem for you than me."
"Is that a threat?" Finnegan asked.
The hitman was known to be hyper-aware of any danger.
As long as Perez had known the man, he'd been good at what he did, but he wasn't the best simply because his loyalties always tended toward himself.
It was one of his flaws as a hired killer.
No one wanted an unfaithful blade too close to their operations.
Perez needed to rein the man in, and do so hard.
If Finnegan thought this group was too much trouble, then perhaps the simplest solution was to force him to throw himself at them.
Worst case, Finnegan was dead. Better case, Finnegan was brought back under Perez’s thumb and made to listen.
"What you really need is more information. Madam Chiksai gave you some, correct? There's a divine in their group and an unknown, but the rest are simple enough. Just take the unknown out first," Perez pushed.
There was a humorless chuckle on the other end of the tablet.
"Sure, sure. Let's continue with stupid assumptions like I can take out this unknown in a single shot.
Trying that will get me killed. But I suppose that doesn't matter too much for you, does it?
" Finnegan scoffed. "See you in a little bit. " Finnegan hung up on him.
Perez was about to lash out, scream and shout, call the man back, throw his nose to the grindstone, and make him fix this. Except his anger dropped to absolutely nothing as his tablet began ringing. His blood went cold as his eyes locked onto the name on the screen.
He answered as quickly as his fingers could move. "Hello!" He wiped his face, making sure there was no food on it, and plastered a giant fake smile in place. "And what can I do for you?"
Two kikai appeared on the screen. Between the two of them, five tails swished back and forth, clearly symbolizing exactly what they were to Perez. Both of them seemed calm, but that didn't tell Perez anything. Rarely, if ever, did the divines he'd met express much emotion at all.
"It sounds as if you have a problem down there," Ishael said, his three tails swishing behind him.
"A problem indeed," Ushael echoed, his two tails swishing in kind. "Though I hear the problem might be interesting to me."
The two of them were identical; only the tails helped Perez tell them apart. They had big ears, even for a kikai, both of them a soft, disarming blue with white tips. But Perez wouldn’t let that fool him. They would be more than happy to paint themselves crimson at any opportunity.
Perez didn't know entirely how it worked. All he knew was that often two divines walked into a room, and one would walk out with an extra tail. Seeing the twins gave him an idea.
"Well, I don't know if it's so much a problem as an opportunity.
" Perez, ever the salesman, grinned, showing off his diamond-studded golden veneers, and waved with his big mitts.
"You see, I know you've been wanting an extra tail, Ushael, and we happen to have an easy target for you. A single-tailed divine."
The two divines grinned. "Is that so?" Their tails swished, and at this, Perez was fairly certain he could read their excitement. He just needed to reel them in.
"It is. And we've got them stuck on this world.
Their ship needed a repair, and we got one of their members hooked enough on gambling to keep them from going anywhere.
I was hoping I could hand-deliver a tail for one of you.
However, it seems the divine, as I should have expected"—Perez shook his head—"was more than someone like me could handle on my own. "
The two kikai looked at each other and grinned. "Of course. You should be careful in the future, tangling with the divine." Ishael's expression sharpened.
"Even a single-tailed one. We are currently headed to Toussaint.
We will be there in two days. Just ensure they don't get a chance to leave.
" Ushael grinned viciously. "I'm in need of an additional tail.
After all, it's simply unfair, the imbalance between my brother and me. " The two of them smiled at each other.
They were an oddity that Perez had met. None of the other divines seemed nearly as friendly with each other.
Then again, who could you trust to have your back if not your twin sibling?
Perez was not sure he would even trust that bond.
Trust was a one-way ticket to the grave, as far as the big grogax was concerned.
He rubbed all four of his hands together. "Don't worry. While we may not be able to take the divine in a straight fight, we can at least keep their ship from leaving. If I have to, I'll ram my entire fleet into their side to keep them grounded."
"As always, we appreciate your…” Ishael paused.
“Dedication,” Ushael finished.
"I live to serve." Perez died a little inside saying those words, but it's what they wanted to hear. Subservience to the divines was a requirement that Perez wasn't going to break. No, he valued his life far too much for it.
Perez's predecessor had refused to act against Akari’s Legacy, and when the divines decided to teach him a lesson, they brought Perez in to watch.
Never before had Perez thought that someone could actually be flayed alive.
It was as horrific as one could imagine, and it entirely served its purpose: to make sure Perez never strayed from the interests and instructions of the divine.
***
"Thank you for not being too difficult," Melgara said with a smile as I sat in the med bay. There was barely any light. Everything was running off a small generator and trying to conserve power. The medical bed’s lamp was on. And the egg was hooked up to what looked like the remnants of a blaster.
"Well, I did promise you I'd come get checked up, though Lily did put some of that ointment on me last night." I smiled.