Chapter Five #3
Torun got a chair and sat with Ival while the invaders were slowly removed with the call of Hamburger preceding their entry.
They sat and spoke quietly about the past and Zukker and how much she missed him.
Torun smiled wryly. “His mother hated you.”
“Oh, I know. She was a young mother; she probably still does. He was only twenty-eight when he died.”
“I was twenty-two.” Torun smiled. “Oh, the twentieth anniversary of his death is coming up. That’s big for them. Are you going to go?”
“I don’t think so. I will send them a video for the festivities.”
“If you want to go, the rest of the stellar team will stand with you.”
“Right. That... I will consider it.” She felt sadness wash over her. “I didn’t want to go alone. I am alone too much. Oh, my grandparents on my father’s side are alive. That gives me a thought. I want to check something.”
She started to work on her tablet, snorted, and then started laughing. She brought up an old image. “Torun, who does this look like?”
“You, when I first met you.”
She got up, walked over, and held the image next to Hemma. “What do you think now?”
Torun blinked. “Holy shit. You two are extremely similar.”
“Yes, and how are the Thorassen about sex after widowhood?”
“Most are fine, but some adhere to the once per lifetime... oh. She’s being advertised to alphas. She’s Uraddan with Sethir mannerisms, and your ex-in-laws really hate you.”
“I have found a number of inquiries coming from Thorassen and some from Sethir. I think she and my aunt are trying to kill me, but I don’t look like me anymore, and they haven’t seen this particular iteration. So, Hemma looks far closer to the old me than the current one does.”
Hemma was awake and staring, pointing from her chest to Ival.
“Yes, Hemma. I used to look like you. No gills, though.”
Torun grimaced. “I will have the guys from tonight questioned to find out who they were looking for.”
“If they were looking for Gorgon, we have our answer.”
Hemma typed quickly. “Ask Caska if you have any inheritance or trust funds. Ava, too.”
Ival nodded and sent a query to Ava. The response was quick for three in the morning. I will check things. Ival, Gorgon, and the wife of Zukker?
Yes.
Give me a few minutes.
Ival licked her finger again to stay alert.
Torun smiled. “You still stay awake that way?”
“Yeah. It’s a habit and great when I am finishing a book.” She smiled.
“How is that going for you?”
“Pretty good. Have a comfortable house. Live quietly.”
“Companionship?”
“Lots of calls. The contact thing is pretty extreme. My friends are huggy, so if I see them, I have to wrap up and glove up and hood and mask. So I get pretty warm.”
Torun ran his hand over his head. “I wish I had known you were in town. I could have helped. Zera is helpful and extremely smart. She can work out what you need if you give her time.”
“I don’t even know what I want. I think it is just a place I can stay where no one can kick me out and hand me over to monsters.
Renovik is open to me, but they insist on my wearing layers to protect those around me.
That’s fine, but I really just want to get up, walk outside, and stretch naked in the sun.
Of course, I look like a scarred map of downtown right now, but I still like fresh air. ”
Torun sighed.
The com pinged, and Ival nodded. “Bingo. Those two bitches are sloppy. Huh, and I had inheritances from my parents and my husband.” She looked and grinned.
“Caska is beginning a claim with both courts for my accounts, as I was never recorded as having left either country. And I was sold for torture both times, which is illegal in Thorassen and Sethir.”
Torun frowned. He got on his com and started to send a message to someone.
Hemma looked at her and made a questioning pose.
“Oh, my mother-in-law and my aunt have put a price on my head in order to keep the money that my husband and parents left me. My grandparents still have it in the stronghold, and my mother-in-law would get access to hers on the twentieth anniversary of my husband’s death.
” She grimaced. “Now I have to travel. I hate travelling.”
Zera walked in and said, “Hamburger.” She held up a vial. “We got Khytten to make an antitoxin, and once she woke up and understood your activation, she got to work on skin healing, and if this vial can manage that, Kritz will work on your eye, getting it to match.”
“I don’t want any of Kritz’s cum in my eye. Ask Keska if she can alter it a little.”
Zera blinked. “How did you know about that?”
“I can smell it; I can also hear it. He and Arcady go at it at every opportunity. The interaction contains the same scent as the implants all over Arcady.”
“I didn’t know you had scent skills as well.” She carefully handed over the vial.
Ival took it. “It is like Hemma’s tracking. Hiding is the other part. I can change the skin chemistry within certain boundaries, and I need to check scent to figure out what is currently riding on me. Could be energy, could be toxin. The sniffer knows.”
Torun took his com and showed it to Zera.
“Hemma looks very nice.”
“Not Hemma. This is Ival in Thorassen.”
Ival smiled and sniffed the contents of the vial.
“Yeah, my family is coming after me, but Hemma has recently been in the public eye in Daycross, and that activated a lot of things. Anyone who was stupid and hadn’t seen Ival in the last twenty years might mistake one for the other.
The name change isn’t remarkable. A lot of people think that all Uraddans are hiding or that they changed their names when they registered.
The truth is that for some of us, the names were all we had. It was our call signs that we ditched.”
Ival looked at the monitor, and the last little light winked out. “Well, Hemma, as soon as Kritz gets in, you will be out of that tank.”
Hemma smiled and gestured from her face to Ival’s.”
“Oh, you didn’t know we looked alike. It never really came up. Well, down the hatch.” She drank the vial and grimaced. “Pumpkin spice? Good god.”
Zera laughed. “Khytten has been experimenting with flavours.”
“Tell her to start a new test batch.”
“I will mention that you are not a fan. Do you feel anything?”
“No, but my skin is covered in a paralytic that nothing touches unless it is for containment.” She returned to her seat and looked at her hands. “Nope. Nothing.”
Zera nodded and took out a second one. “She said if the first didn’t work, you needed to take this. Sorry about the flavour.”
Ival carefully took the second vial, sniffed, glared at it, and then she shot it back. A heat started inside her. “Something is happening. Oh, shit. This isn’t going to be good.”
She dropped to the ground, and when the first seizure hit, she started thrashing and hoped that she didn’t hit anything.