Chapter Thirty-Two

I moved by memory, by touch, not by sight, other than what was illuminated by the flickering glimmer of lights that signaled the main lift bank. Three lifts jutted out into the core, narrow rampways between them. The emergency control panel was set in the middle. Shut them down. Had to shut them down. Then it was only us against Berri and her seven followers.

And I knew the core.

Up. We could go up. The darkness and the latticework of ramps and ladders offered many more possibilities than the open corridors. We could exit, hit the corridors, then enter the core again. Move up.

Somehow I felt if we got to the commercial sector we'd make it. That's where the shuttle bays were, back to the terminal. That's where the shops were on the Promenade. More people. Someone would help.

I heard Sully breathing hard behind me, felt his light contact with Ren. Ren was at an advantage, but a disadvantage. The darkness didn't hamper him. The narrowness of the rampways, and the fact he couldn't sense them, did.

Watch Verno, watch Verno. Sully sent caution wrapped in encouragement. He sent to Ren what the panel would look like, what to do to disable the secondary lift bank. Only one lift there. Not the three we had.

The station rumbled slightly, jarring me sideways. A small tremor, but I knew what it was. Sully had set off the explosives in the lab. A final parting gesture. A worthy one.

We crossed into Red, Berri's people grunting, careening behind us. They weren't used to the core, as I was. They fired occasionally, but off the mark.

We didn't return fire. It would only give away our location.

The core groaned, clanked, pinged as if to protect us. Machinery squealed on, whined off. I ignored the sounds, well used to them. I doubted Berri and her people were.

"Sullivan!" Berri's voice echoed. "You can't get out. Your ship's marked. We'll take her."

I hoped Gregor was smarter than that. I may not like the man, but I never thought he was stupid. At least not stupid enough to let the Karn be taken. Dorsie was onboard. I still had hopes for her and Ren.

We got to the main lifts before Verno and Ren reached the secondary. They had to proceed more slowly, Ren able to see Verno's thermals and various energy from core panels, but not the walkway rails and floor.

A lift whizzed by, buffeting us with a sharp wind, plunging us into darkness. Then we were in the light leaking in from the corridor, silhouetted. Laser fire burst through the air. I ducked down as Sully did, his hand on my arm.

Chasidah!

I'm okay. I'm trained for this, remember? And I was. I was back in Fleet mode again. Moving. Focused. Singular.

He squeezed my arm. I'm going to try for the panel. Cover me.

I swung the Stinger out in a two-handed grip, locked on where I'd last heard Berri's voice, moved up from that. Fired. A harsh groan, a half scream. Not a kill. But it gave them something to think about. And, I knew, it also gave them a need to search for a med-kit.

I saw and heard more movement. Berri's people had split up, too. Some followed us. Some followed Verno and Ren.

Shit. I should've gone with Verno, and Sully with Ren. But things had happened too fast. It didn't break that way. Just like cards when dealt. Only this time, they were more in Sully's favor than Ren's.

The lifts behind me shuddered and groaned just as Sully's Got it! echoed in my thoughts. Nothing behind us but endless thin stripes of light. Nothing in front of us but the gaping maw of the core.

And Verno and Ren just now reaching the secondary lifts, with Berri's people closer, firing again. As unfamiliar with the core as they were, they could move faster than Verno and Ren. The closest exit into the corridor was still ten, twenty feet farther in front of them. They'd never make it. They'd-

The light of the lift behind them approached, slowly. Their silhouettes disappeared.

I threw images and words, and prayed Ren would understand. On the lift. Top. It's stopping. Handholds. Clear space. Ride up!

I felt Sully grab my thoughts. His hand clamped hard on my shoulder as he rose halfway. His other lifted the Carver, laying down cover fire, drawing attention to us. Not Verno and Ren.

Two tall figures scrambled onto the stopped car that was innocently, conveniently disgorging its passengers from the other side into the corridor. Passengers who had no idea a life and death struggle waged behind them.

Kneel! Handholds on the floor! Grab them! I'd ridden lift cars hundreds of time as a teenager. A game of betcha-can't. Betcha-I-can.

The lift moved, surging upward, two forms hunched at its top. I felt Ren's slight trickle of amazement. Water moving upstream.

Berri's people fired but Ren and Verno rose, moving too quickly. Safe. Gone.

That left only Sully and myself.

Berri and her armed associates knew that, too. Sully was who she and Hayden Burke were really after. Lots of money rested behind that wicked, wicked Sully-smile.

I wondered if Berri realized how expendable she was as well. Hayden Crossley Burke didn't strike me as someone willing to share, his charitable works notwithstanding.

My thoughts exactly, angel.

Sully!

Where to? This is your backyard.

Up. I sent images of the crowded corridors on Levels 12 to 15. Shops, bars, hotels. We could play a serious game of hide and seek. Sully's ability to link with Ren guaranteed we'd find him again.

Up it is. We broke in a low run toward Green. Boot steps resounded toward us and behind us, hoping to converge on us before we hit a ladder.

They didn't. We did, upleveling to 27, then 26. I was sucking air, my lungs burning. Twenty- six dead-ended. We had to go left to pick up the next ladder, our pursuers close on our heels.

I searched for the double red light, saw it, lunged for it, my hands hitting the cold metal of the ladder. Pulled, pulled, pulled, hearing Sully breathing hard behind me.

Laser fire burned around us. I zagged, zigged on instinct. Through it all, I blessed my boot camp instructor, Maguire. Regretted the day I'd ever called her an ignorant slut. She'd taught me well.

Twenty-five, twenty-four. We hit another dead end, the uplevel ladder far to our right this time. We had to cross over the now-dead main lift banks in Red. We'd be open, exposed on both sides, with angry, armed religious fanatics on a holy mission right behind us.

I jogged to the right, stumbling on an uneven section of rampway. Sully caught me under the armpits and pushed me on. His brief touch was warm, reassuring but contained a flare of need, desperation, encouragement.

"We'll make it," I gasped.

Don't talk. Save your air. Think.

Got it.

Then suddenly there was more movement on the rampways, more boot-sounds, more shouts. I'd caught a flash of light moments before, but hadn't put it together. An access had opened. Berri's reinforcements had arrived on Level 24.

Three. Only three.

But it was three too many, too close to Sully and myself, momentarily stopped at the lift banks, with stripes of light from the closed corridor doors glowing dimly behind us. Laser fire arced again. I spun, crouching, and fired.

I wasn't so lucky this time. No groans responded, no med-kit seemed to be required.

Sully fired in the other direction. Berri's people were between us and any ladders uplevel. We'd killed the lifts. We couldn't hop on them, like Ren and Verno. We'd be too exposed in the time it would take to reactivate them. Plus, there was no guarantee one would stop, so we could climb on.

I stayed in my crouch, watching our three new players approach. They were our best chance. Only three. Still six on the other side, gaining rapidly. We had to get by those three. Had to get to the next ladder-

Chasidah.

What?

Two things. Hear me well. First, trust me. Second, under no circumstances, scream.

What?

Sully rose up quickly beside me, pulling me with him.

Arms around my neck, now.

What?

Do it!

He yanked me against him. My arms coiled automatically over his shoulders. Instinctively, I tightened my grip on my gun. He raised his boot to the railing. I didn't like this position. There was nowhere to go but down. And down, in the middle of the core, was a deadly location.

"Sully-"

"Sullivan!" Berri was close. The rampway vibrated as feet pounded in approach.

He grasped me, tight, hard, locking my body against his as he pushed off from the rampway, pushed away from the rampway. We dropped backward into the center of the core, where there was nothing but darkness, but emptiness, but falling-

Don't scream.

My God. He was committing suicide and taking me with him.

I buried my face against his shoulder, but didn't scream. It didn't matter. Terror washed through me. Terror and wind rushing, gravity grabbing, bodies plummeting...

Sully's body thrusting, moving, surging. Up.

We were going up.

Wind rushed against my face as I raised it, wet with tears.

Wind, against my arms, which were locked around his neck.

Wind, pushing. And a hushed sound.

I knew the sound.

Not wind.

Wings.

I could see their outlines in the smudgy faint light of the core. They moved below my hands, below the Stinger I clutched tightly, just over Sully's shoulders. Dark, wide and powerful. Two curved arches, beating, drawing power from the cold air of the core. From Sully's body.

Wings. Like jukors had wings. Strong wings. Grabbing the air, pushing it.

His wings rose, brushed against the backs of my hands. I held still, not breathing, trying like hell not to think, not to know...

Wings. Sully had wings.

Shape-shifter. I heard Gregor's voice, hard and ugly. Not like your pretty boy. Or are they?

Wings. Oh God, Sully had wings. Shape-shifter. Hellspawn.

Gregor's voice again: Not like your pretty boy. Or are they?

I couldn't see Sully's face. I didn't know what I clung to as we rose, thrusting, surging. I didn't want to look, didn't want to see the burning red eyes. The snout, crusted with mucus. The fangs.

The elongated face in the painting in the temple on Dock Five snapped into my mind. A jukor's face. On a man's muscled, winged body.

Oh. God.

There was a rapid flutter. My body angled suddenly with his. I felt a jolt as his boots hit something solid. My boots found purchase on the rampway. I snatched my arms away, feeling soiled, filthy. Terrified. More terrified than when I thought we were going to die.

That would be preferable, to knowing what I did now.

Sully. Gabriel Ross Sullivan. A shape-shifter. Soul-stealer. Wings like a jukor.

I lurched backward, slamming against the wall. My knees were suddenly rubbery and refusing to cooperate. My breath came in long, hard gasps. My stomach heaved, twisted. Unwillingly, my eyes focused on the dark form standing before me.

Wings. Fluttering, settling behind his shoulders. Like a long cape. A dark surge of energy--

I'd seen it before. On the bridge of the Karn, when Sully had bent over Ren. There'd been a darkness rippling over his back. Wings yet not wings. And in front of the pregnant Taka. Darkness, moving over his back. Ren had turned me away. Don't look.

Ren knew. Don't look, he'd said.

Don't look. Sully's voice had said those words in gray fuzzy soft. Sully's hands, touching me, caressing me. Sully, making love to me. But don't look. Don't look at what's touching you. At what's making love to you.

My knees gave way. I collapsed onto the gridded rampway with a thud. My gun slid under my bent legs.

Chasidah.

I cringed and sucked in a sob. He was in my mind. He'd been in my body. Oh, God.

He knelt down slowly, a rustle of fabric and... wings splaying behind him. My fingers coiled through the latticed gridwork, hard. Painful. I hung on to the flooring for no rational reason, other than I could.

"Chasidah." He said my name out loud this time. It was Sully's voice. But in the dark, his face was in dim outline. I didn't know if it was Sully's form. "We have to find Ren. Verno."

You go find them. I'll stay here. It's nice. Quiet. Dark.

I can't do that. Warmth flowed, trying to reach me, trying to tell me things words could not. Angel, it's not what it seems.

My gaze flashed to his face, even though I didn't want it to. And I saw Sully. Just Sully, now that he was close. But wings still framed his body. I didn't know what he'd looked like, minutes before.

"What are you?" My voice broke, hoarse.

"Someone who loves you." He sounded almost as hoarse, but his words were soft. "Someone who can't change what he is. Someone who doesn't want to believe those two things are incompatible."

I stared at him, part of me intensely aware that we had to find Ren. Verno. Berri and Hayden's people still pursued us. We had to get off Marker alive. But all I could feel was a pain lacing through me, searing me. Pain of my own doing. I recognized it. I'd felt it before, with every step I'd taken with Gabriel Ross Sullivan.

Mercenary. No, not just mercenary. Empath, no, not just empath. Ragkiril. Memory- wipes. Mind-deaths. Then Gabriel, in my mind. Harsh. Intrusive. Unwanted.

Loving, reaching, caressing. Becoming part of me.

All the while, ask no questions.

Because the answer was one I'd never believe: shape-shifter.

I remembered his question to me: Can Chasidah accept Gabriel as he is, now, on faith? With what she knows, and nothing more?

Explain faith to me. Explain goddamned faith. Explain why I'm the one scared, hurting, alone. Ignorant. Every goddamned time.

Explain that to me, damn you!

I waited for an answer, but heard nothing. At least, not from him.

But another voice, one I knew as Chasidah's but for a moment sounded almost like Amaris's, spoke to me. And it told me I was still alive. It told me that I was still alive because of the man, the Ragkiril and shape-shifter, kneeling before me.

There'd been no other way off that rampway. We were surrounded. It was either death, or up.

I was the one who'd chosen up. And he'd complied, hurtling us to safety up through the core's deep shadows, where Berri's people would never think to look for us. If they'd seen us jump, if they'd looked anywhere, it would have been down.

Who would have thought to look up, for a winged shape-shifter? Shape-shifters were mythical. Imaginary.

I struggled to my feet and tried to focus. I grabbed my Fleet-issue personality out of cold storage, slammed it on. "Where are we?" My voice shook but sounded definitely stronger.

Sully rose with me, his wings fading. I shuddered, disbelieving my own eyes.

"Level 13. You felt it would be safer with the shops, people."

"Did I? What the fuck do I know." I pushed away from the wall, remembering to holster my Stinger, and stumbled toward the closest exit I could find.

I kept my distance from the man walking alongside of me as we threaded our way through stationers coming and going, eating, drinking and laughing on Level 13's Red-Sector Promenade.

What the hell did they know?

We passed a news kiosk, the 'casters bland face following us. There were still no answers concerning the mysterious disks left at the scene of a recent rape and murder.

Something flitted through the edge of my mind. Ren's voice, through Sully's link with both of us. I sensed him questioning, reassuring, then a series of thought-pictures skittered by: Berri giving Verno a disk of hymns after a service. Verno, innocently, loading them into the entertainment system on the Karn while Sully and Ren headed to Moabar.

Verno, explaining to Ren. Ren, sending to Sully. Sully's analysis, back to Ren. The worm program had been on those disks, and coded to activate once Sully was back on board.

"Where are they?"

"Two levels up in Yellow." He scanned the crowd as we walked. I could feel an edginess, a wariness in him. Just as I knew he felt mine. It wasn't only because of Berri and Lazlo. I had no doubt I was wearing fear and anger like a heavy coat around me.

"We meeting with them?" We'd have to backtrack to the main lift bank and then hope it was operative.

"I need to get to a secure terminal first." He tapped at his jacket pocket. "This goes to Drogue. He knows what to do with it."

Berri knew we'd try to return to the Boru Karn. Which meant we couldn't leave Marker that way. Which meant the data had to be sent, now. Before Berri found us again.

"Up," I said, even though the last time I'd said that, my entire life had shattered. "We need to go up. Level 2. Do you want to get Ren and Verno first?"

"They're safe where they are. It helps if they're watching the corridors."

Main lifts were functional again. I knew they would be. I hadn't been looking to stop Berri. Only delay her. The lifts were easy to shut down. Equally as easy to start up, if no one's shooting at you.

I glanced at an M-2 clock as we waited. An hour past the end of the business day. That meant less people to see us, ask questions. That was good.

We squeezed into a lift already crowded with a maintenance tech and a large cleaning unit on a pallet. I hit the button for Level 2 and stepped back into the only available space in the corner. Sully's hands closed on my arms, hesitantly.

Chasidah. Heat and ice flowed through me, alternating. I shivered, crossed my arms over my chest and tried to dislodge his touch. Tried to keep my mental duro-hards from bursting open, flinging questions, fears, anger. All were more than I wanted to face at the moment.

Level numbers pinged by. Eight. Six. Five. The maintenance tech nodded disinterestedly at us as he exited, guiding his pallet into the corridor. No one else got on. The doors slid closed. I stepped out of Sully's grasp.

But not out of his emotional range. Pain. Pleading. Hope. He sent those to me. Shame followed. Chasi-

"Stop it." Speaking out loud kept my focus outside of my feelings, and what he was making me feel. "I can't deal with that, with you, right now."

Three. Two. The doors opened to an empty corridor. Admin offices had been closed for over an hour. I headed straight for the checkpoint, manned by a security droid. It scanned entry badges. I had none, only the emergency access code created over twenty years ago for use by the Admirals High Council on Marker. My mother had been part of the tech team, and had violated every rule and regulation in making me memorize it. In case anyone ever tries to harm you, she'd said. In case I'm not around to protect you. Go uplevel, get to the people you know will.

I put the code in again and held my breath. The force field hazed, dropped. Praise Amaris. Praise the stars.

And pray like hell Berri or Lazlo didn't have the same code I did.

---