Blaedergil's Host by C.M. Simpson (reading well .TXT) 📕

I frowned. Well, at least I knew, now. I figured the Odyssey training contract was a pretty good one, and not just from the credit side of things. The intelligence benefits had to be a nice add-in, too.

Mack shifted uncomfortably as he caught the thought, but I didn’t know why. It’s not like I didn’t know what the benefits of working with Odyssey were. I caught a flare of annoyance, and then nothing. It puzzled me, but I could always chase it later. Right now, we had more important things to worry about. Sandoval was speaking.

“You said you were hired. Who sent you?” he demanded.

“Andreus Corovan,” Mack told him, and Sandoval’s face twisted with distaste.

Beside him, Treivani looked horrified.

“And Melari?” she asked, before Sandoval could respond.

That was interesting. None of us had known Treivani was aware of her sister’s presence in, and disappearance from, Blaedergil’s mansion. “Is she all right?”

“We didn’t see her after they took her pod,” Mack said, but he didn’t explain how we’d been captured shortly thereafter.

He didn’t need to; she had already turned to Sandoval, her face filled with anxious appeal.

“We have to get her back,” she said. “The clan needs her.”

I watched as Sandoval jerked his head towards her, his face showing concern.

“Please,” she whispered, and I thought I saw the shimmer of an escaped tear running down her cheek.

Sandoval’s mouth tightened, but he nodded, raising a hand to stroke her cheek as he turned back to us.

“We want Melari returned,” he said.

“And the antidote,” Treivani added, catching her husband’s startled glance. “We need that. Andreus must not be allowed to keep it. There is no other cure.”

There wasn’t? Now why did I think that was more bad news than anyone needed right now?

Amusement lifted Sandoval’s expression, but only for a moment.

“You said you came to retrieve my wife,” he said, and I felt my heart sink, wondered if Mack and Tens were having the same sensation, but Sandoval continued. “Well, now I have something for you to do.”

“We cannot take a second commission until we complete the first,” Mack interrupted, and Sandoval gave him a mirthless smile to rival his own.

“You can,” he said, “because I am voiding your original contract. I have seen your company profile; you operate as above board as your business allows, which means you don’t traffic in lives; you don’t carry out assassinations; and you don’t topple governments. In fact, if I didn’t have the facts to prove otherwise, I would say you operated as an extension of Odyssey.”

Mack didn’t let him continue.

“We don’t!” which made me wonder what Odyssey had done to earn that much of his ire.

“You’d be surprised.”

I didn’t think so; Odyssey had pissed me off plenty.

Mack gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement and shifted his attention back to Sandoval. I followed his gaze, unnerved to find the Skymander lord observing us closely.

“Very well,” he said. “You don’t work for Odyssey. Even though, I think you do liaise with them, and that is why I found a pair of their agents in my castle.”

“Your castle?”

Mack shot Tens a look that carried an order, and Tens went still. Sandoval twitched an eyebrow.

“I could save you the trouble,” he said, “but it’s more fun this way. In the meantime, I am voiding your contract with Andreus Corovan.”

I heard Mack’s sharp intake of breath, but Sandoval cut across him, even as Tens spoke.

“You don’t have an option.”

“It’s gone live!”

Live? I looked down at my boards, but saw nothing. Mack looked down at his console, and paled. When he raised his head, he’d schooled his face to a careful blankness that I knew all too well.

Mack at his most inscrutable was a Mack that was about to create more than a little havoc. I wondered exactly how Sandoval was going to deal with that. The Skymander lord raised a hand.

“Before you say something you’ll regret, yes, I know her life is forfeit.”

He gestured at me, and I tensed, waiting for the axe to fall. Sandoval ignored me, and continued.

“But scans show no explosive in her skull, and that the implant is new, so I’m going to assume you fixed that little problem.”

When Mack made no reply, Sandoval revealed how he’d known what my predicament might be.

“Treivani says that’s a favorite of her ex-fiancé’s, so I’m going to assume you’ve dealt with the Corovan’s threat, and her life is safe, for now.” Again, he paused, as though waiting for Mack to speak. When Mack said nothing, he went on. “We need you to retrieve Melari, and bring her to us. She needs to be out of Corovan hands.”

Mack looked back down at his console, and then up at Sandoval.

“It’s not like you have a choice,” the lord added, but Treivani stirred restlessly, and he looked down at her, catching the expression on her face.

That look was hard to describe. It was almost as though she was telling him what to do, without ever saying a word.

“Like I do,” Mack murmured, and it made sense—if Sandoval had a battle cruiser, then having an implant wasn’t too far a stretch. I felt ten times as dumb as usual, but kept my attention on the pair on the screen. Sandoval sighed, and lifted his gaze from his wife’s face.

“My beloved has a point,” he said. “Threatening you probably isn’t the best way to gain your cooperation...”

His voice intruded in my head and, judging from Tens’s hiss of indrawn breath, and Mack’s sudden tension, in their heads, too. “Even if I’d rather just destroy you, now.”

“...so here is what I am prepared to pay,” he said, out loud, and he named a figure I found ridiculous, even by Mack’s usual standards of cost.

Mack obviously felt the same way.

“It’s too much,” he said, just as Tens interrupted.

“Powered down.”

Mack relaxed a trifle, and named a price that was a third lower than Sandoval’s initial offer, and I watched surprise flit across the Skymander’s face—surprise and suspicion. Before he could say anything, Mack explained.

“We have