Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6) Read online

  “That were well wicked.” Chad didn’t mind admitting this to the soldier-boy, who moved like lightning in a bottle. It were perfectly natural and normal for two men at the top of their games to admit when someone did summink as were impressive, and to be honest, stopping yourself from hitting the ground like a cricket ball just by thinkin’ about it were pretty damned cool. “’Course, it ain’t ‘shoot lightning from a fingertip’ cool, but it’s cool all the same.”

  “Who are you?” 789 demanded hoarsely as a completely unseen foot took him right in the stomach. Harmony had no chance to heal the wound because even as he leaned forward into the pain –there was little in the way of training that could stop that kind of reflexive gesture when you’re caught unawares- Chad Sikkmund grabbed him by the and hoisted him up off his feet like a toddler.

  After that, 789 was firmly invited to enjoy the fate he'd just recently avoided.

  There was no time to waste.

  Expending every last shred of Harmonic energy reserved for last-ditch situations like this, 789 demanded that his severed -collapsed, really- spinal column undergo rapid regeneration. With that underway, the Harmony soldier turned his attention next to his cracked skull, only to find …

  There wasn't enough power left, and with this particular wound, attempting to reconnect with Harmony simply wasn't possible.

  789 was dying. Alive only for a day, he was … he was dying. Vanquished instead of vanquisher.

  Chad knelt, white handkerchief at the ready. He spent a moment wiping blood and other gross fluids from his downed opponent’s ruined face, just to get a better look. Looking distastefully at the ruined hankie, they tossed it over one shoulder.

  “We is tellin’ ya,” they said sadly, tilting the soldier’s head off to one side to peek at the gaping, fist-sized hole, “we is Chad Sikkmund. Crikey, mate, we did a number on the back of your skull, hey? All your thinkin’ juice is leakin’ out the back end like you was a busted down automobile.”

  “I don’t know who Chad Sikkmund is supposed to be. Are you someone important?” 789 felt the words leave slack lips. There was nothing save the chill of the grave in him now, and the only thing keeping him alive and pushing for information being the few white-hot pinpricks of Harmony still keeping the lights on.

  Whatever he could get, no matter how insignificant. Didn’t matter what it was. Anything could help. Anything would help. His brothers and sisters -no more than ten miles out and moving near the speed of sound- needed to be as prepared as possible for their encounter with this Chad Sikkmund.

  789 knew he was doomed. Light was falling now, but training and conditioning, perfected over tens of thousands of years, persisted.

  He would help.

  Chad snapped his fingers once, twice, and finally, on the third snap, a lit ciggy appeared ‘twixt their fingers. They saw the slight widening of interest in the dying man’s eyes as they took a deep, deep puff.

  “Outside of wherever the fuck we is right this moment, sonny Jim, we is the greatest assassin in the known Universe. In addition to that," they added with false hauteur,” We is the first and only son of the Dark Iron King, Barnabas Blake the One and Only. Might not sound like the bee's knees an' all, but we is assure you, it is cooler than it is sounding, hain't it just? If we look past our royal credentials and sterling record of amazing employment down through the years, we is also best friends forever with Huey T. Roboticus, who is the bloke we was comin’ this way to ‘ave a look at, and he is the right hand man for a lad you lot might know as Garth fucking N’Chalez.”

  The skip and roll of the Harmonized, Ushbet M’Tai-given last name of their Greatest Enemy hammered into 789 as cruelly as the wrath of an angry God.

  The shock was so intense that it actually formed a deeper rift into Harmony, one much more profound than imagined possible. It wasn’t enough to heal his wounds or to stave off death any further –no, that was a definite thing, coming too soon- but gave 789 enough resilience to hang on for a few more minutes and to ask a few more questions.

  Arctic chill stealing into his extremities, thoughts turning into frigid puffballs, eyes crossing and uncrossing uncontrollably, still 789 managed to be heard above the cacophonic din clamoring in his ears.

  “What are your powers? How are you doing the things you’re doing?”

  Chad loved the taint of carcinogens and other chemicals rushing through his lungs. Sure, he could make non-poisonous cigarettes as easy as anything, but what were the point in that? They were essentially immortal, barring, of course, another round of ‘lightning bolt through the chest’ or summink equally murderous, fings was goin' ter be done the proper way or not at all.

  There were such a fing as propriety, hey?

  They exhaled a great plume of white smoke into dying 789’s eyes, no remorse or pity in his bosom. This were one of the Great Enemy’s foot soldiers, a being in the ‘employ’ of Garth N’Chalez’ Old Da, a man –a legend, really- who sought to destroy the whole entire Universe for his employers, a great nasty old group of monsters calling themselves the M’Zahdi Hesh.

  “Sorry lad, you ain’t gettin’ any Intel out of me. Wot, is we lookin’ stupid or summink?” They tapped the dying soldier’s forehead hard, very hard indeed. The dying soldier groaned like a dying animal and tried to move, only furthering the dying beast imagery. “Wotever you got in this melon o’ yours is the sort of fing as lets you ‘ave tellypathic chinwags wiv everybody else, yeah, so you is right off you fuckin' rocker if you is fink I is like 'oh yeah, no, squire, I is blahblahblah'. That’s a rich one!"

  789 could no longer focus on the scarecrow thin, chalk-white face of his murderer. Death was fast approaching, the deep river of Harmony had started the irrevocable process of turning his cells into burned ash.

  No matter.

  Nothing mattered, in these, his last few moments, his eyes found the skies, and there, high in the Heavens, a brilliant pillar of light blazed, bright and pure and wonderful.

  Their Lord and Master, Kith Antal, was making planetfall.

  789 started laughing, then. Extended senses draining through the cracks in his skull, 789 felt one furtive Harmonic dart from his reinforcements, an assurance that his murderer would suffer an indignant and painful death.

  Hilarity redoubled. As did pain; where before his limbs and soul had been full of ice and pitiless wind, now … now he burned. Bright and hot like the stars in the skies, and as 789 turned incandescent, his choking laughter reached upwards to his Lord, Kith Antal.

  Then he was gone.

  Chad Sikkmund stood up, dusted his hands free of imaginary dirt, then considered the rushing horde of green-clad Harmony soldiers with displeasure. Then they looked up at the sky, nonplussed, at the … wotever the fuck it were as were busy rippin’ the atmosphere into shreds. None of him knew what the hell it might be beyond the well obvious fact that wotever else it were, it were definitively anti-Chad.

  There were no point in belaborin’ anyfing as were fallin’ out the sky, not when there were lads in green unis comin’ their way, hey?

  “Well, shit. Wot you fink, lads, if a fag is takin’ three seconds to work up when it should take zero, ‘ow long you fink we is need run before we is gettin’ proper weapons? An’ by proper, we is point out we is mean summink as can do for lads and lassies as are probably close to greyskins, or poor cousins to our man Nickels.”

  All of thems answered quickly and adroitly, as the problem with their powers being sort of on the fritz were the sort of fing the thems as weren’t driving the bus had a tendency to focus on right quick.

  The answer were … discouraging, but they'd been through worse, hadn't they just?

  “Christ on a fookin’ bicycle.” Chad muttered unhappily to himselves as they geared up for a quick trot. “An hour? An’ us wivvout running shoes. Orl right, lads, let’s get this show on the fuckin’ road, hey?”

  And so it was that Chad Sikkmund, nanotech knight and friend to Garth N’Chalez through his immaculate friend
ship with Huey, definitely did not turn and run away but engaged in something akin to a tactical retreat until they could all figure out what in the actual fuck was going on …

  Them Shapeshifter Blues

  Indra Sahari banged through the double doors that kept the main stage from the back areas, absolutely drenched in sweat and grinning ear to ear.

  What a great show!

  What a great night!

  The crowd –nearly a million strong in person with somewhere in the neighborhood of nineteen to twenty times that size in virtual and through specially enhanced ‘LINK connections- had been a single entity formed of men and women, young and ancient, shifting and singing and dancing and strutting alongside her, metaphorically lifting her up and carrying her aloft on their shoulders.

  There was no better drug, no better high!

  And the Nickels material?

  In the words of her manager, she was knocking them dead.

  The old style music had been fantastic, of course, but getting hold of that one song rumored to’ve been crafted by the legendary Box Opener himself had been something … unique. That twangy, rustic guitar track alone had hooked right into her guts, transforming her entire outlook with a single, quavering note.

  Indra pushed past the hordes of adulating fans who’d spent more money than they’d ever see in their lives again for the chance to have her accidentally sweat on them. These weren’t fans, these were fools and morons who thought they could be her friends or her lovers or some kind of strange in-between ground between the two. Indra didn’t like them, loathed them for their assumption that because they could afford to be backstage that they were better than the people out there in the audience or those poor folks who could only afford to watch through the ‘LINKs, but they were wrong.

  They were all the same, all of them. Each and every one.

  A young girl, no more than twenty, jumped right in front of her, the orange-frosted tips of her Indra Sahari Hairstyle #32 glinting with encrusted diamonds. Before the girl could get a single word out of her mouth, Gargand –an ex-God soldier, one of the few to remain disinterested in returning to the fold now that their drug addictions had been magically cured overnight- grabbed her around the midsection with a single hand and held her high above the now silent crowd.

  His heavy voice boomed through the backstage area. “We do not touch Indra. We are lucky to be in her presence. To breathe her air, to taste her sweat on our tongues. We will hold this memory with us for the rest of our lives. If we try and touch Indra, what happens?”

  The rich and indulgent of Latelyspace opened their mouths and parroted back the answers they’d been given. “We can lose our lives.”

  “And why is that?” Gargand demanded, ignoring the struggling teenager in his hand like she was a playtoy.

  Indra gave the crowd one last look, that saucy hot look that drove the boys wild and made the girls squirm in envy before pushing through the doors leading into her private rooms.

  It was good to be the most famous person in the world. The attention people paid you was the exact wrong sort of attention that should be paid to a person like her.

  ***

  Silence. Absolute, blissful silence. Gliding through her soundproof chambers –there was only so much chanting, shouting and screaming you could endure before you wanted to pop your ears with a drumstick- Indra Sahari hummed the refrain from the next song she planned on releasing. It wasn’t perfect yet, mostly because her people were finally having a difficult time digging up more information on the other most famous person in the solar system:

  Garth Nickels.

  The story went he’d come to Latelyspace with nothing more than larceny in his heart, that, and an intention to steal their Box from under their noses without so much as a by your leave. By the end of his time, with his battle in the arena against the gargantuan Gurant, the arrival of the ancient Harmony soldiers and his disappearance, he’d apparently fallen in love with the place just as much as the place had fallen in love with him.

  What a figure! What a mystery! She ached to know the whole truth about Garth Nickels, how he’d learned to do the things he’d done, how he’d managed to survive against overwhelming odds so often. She’d give anything to find out the truth behind him, and with their being persistent rumors that there was a file out there somewhere in the wilds of the ‘LINKs that showed the viewer precisely who he was, Indra knew she …

  “Whoever the hell is in these rooms, you have exactly two seconds to show yourself before I call Gargand in here to deal with you.” Indra put a sharp smile on her face. “And you don’t want that.”

  Nothing. Indra inhaled through her nose. Her sense of smell was … exacting. This didn’t smell like a teenager or rich old man or anything like the normal assortment of fools who managed to find their way into these rooms, not that it was terribly difficult; Gargand understood her needs and passions better than anyone, and so, from time to time, let it happen.

  Latelyspace was a violent system, a rough system, a dangerous system. Indra Sahari Events were known to see the deaths of at least a dozen people, and that wasn’t even taking into consideration the people at home, choking on their popcorn. A wayward child here and there wasn’t even worth looking into.

  Just like her.

  Someone had finally caught up to her.

  The real her, not the shining, dolled-up, luxuriously coiffed songstress who could set the solar system afire with a single note quavering on flawless lips like an angel, dancing on the head of a pin. The woman -the … thing- playing at being Indra Sahari was willing to admit that she’d had a fantastic run, hiding in plain sight as she had for so very long. Her life was a journey everyone dreamed of, aspired to, everyone wept for every night before sleep.

  If that life was to end here and now, well, Indra had to admit she wasn't ready to go, but if that was what went down, where she was now was a million times farther from where she'd been.

  Indra commanded manicured nails –dripping brightly with Atomic Red polish- to grow long and sharp, and her eyes glittered with spiteful malice. Where before her nail polish had given the impression of violence, the cruel, curved claws she now sported screamed it.

  “Come out, come out.” Indra whispered, adding a lilting, singsong trill into the words as a means of lulling her interloper into doing something foolish. “Who are you? Ministry of Investigations? Crime Prevention? A police officer? Come out, I’m sure you’ve got this all wrong. If you show yourself, we can talk this over like rational people. I’m not guilty of the things you think I am.”

  “On the contrary,” Fenris whispered, head tilted down so that his words would slide directly into Indra’s delicately pierced ears, “I know precisely what your crimes are. And so much more besides all that, ‘Indra’.”

  Instinct took over and Indra whirled around fast as a savannah cat, vicious claws whirling in a double sweep that'd see anyone's guts -all save a Goddie's, of course- spilling out in a soupy mess all over her expensive carpets. A scorpion kick came next, fast and furious, designed to drive the over-sharp tip of her expensive high heel directly into the intruder's throat -or, hopefully- into an eye.

  What she got instead was the shock of an already event-filled lifetime.

  Fenris grabbed the … woman … by the ankle and held her up into the light, twisting her this way and that, eying the claws grown out of her hands circumspectly; they were sharp, and had ruined a very fine jacket. Indra started gyrating and whirling on her own, trying to overbalance him to win her freedom, so he shook her a few times, like a sack of potatoes.

  “Behave, little cat.” Fenris took an errant talon to the forehead. The wound sealed as soon as the wickedly sharp edge passed through his flesh. He gave her one final shake –this time with much more oomph- then banged her gently against the carpet-covered concrete floor. “I said, behave.”

  Indra felt the air rush out of her in one big burst. Gasping, aching from a dislocated shoulder, she flopped as best she coul
d onto her back. Her intention was to shift into something better suited to dealing with this rogue Goddie but sight of the coal-glittering eyes, the cruel jaw, the all-too familiar raven black military coat with the single blood-red stroke over one pocket, deflated her instantly.

  “To what,” Indra gasped as she crawled to the nearest couch. When she got there, the 'singer' hauled herself upwards as best she could, regally ignoring the brute behind her, gritting her teeth against the feeling of snapped bones grinding together beneath her skin, “do I owe this visit, Fenris the Dark?”

  Fenris found a chair that looked capable of supporting his bulk and sat down. He gestured at the woman’s talons with interest. “Is that all you can do?”

  Indra willed the claws to recede, flashing her regular manicured hands at the most powerful man in the solar system.

  No point in standing on ceremony.

  Not in such august company.

  Nor, it would seem, would it be wise; this was the sort of man who didn't waste his time on social calls, so delaying him further would no doubt result in more than a few broken ribs and bruised dignity. “Given time and preparation, I can manage almost anything.”

  “What a wonder you are.” The shapeshifter deserved admiration. Had those labs not been gutted by fire, all documents destroyed, all test subjects gone up like candles … creatures such as the one before him now would've been beyond value.

  And once she was done with the Herrig Problem, oh, the things she'd be tasked with!

  “What a treasure.” The Harmony leader whispered, almost seductively. Under his ruthless stare, the shapeshifter shifted uncomfortably, which was greatly amusing for the leader of the Army; how wonderful it was to see a predator made to realize her true place in the world!

  Fenris almost laughed at her.

  “Come,” Fenris tried sounding less … threatening, “There is much to discuss.”