Lindsay Buroker - Torrent

“No.” Temi gave him a curious look. “They want to hire you.”

“Erp?” Simon said.

I didn’t say anything, but my response would have been similar. I stared around the bland hotel room, wondering if this was a trick and if we should all be fleeing, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. The bathroom lacked a window. There wasn’t even a closet with proper doors one could hide behind. I hadn’t peeked under the southwest-print bedspreads yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the frames were too low to hide beneath.

For some reason, everyone’s gaze turned toward me. Was I in charge here? We hadn’t decided how much of the business Temi would control yet, but Simon and I were equal partners. Surely we should share such big decisions as whether or not a door should be opened. Autumn waited with her back to the wall, her elbow propped on the television stand. She had the look of someone wishing she had a bowl of popcorn to enjoy while she watched the entertainment.

“Let’s see what they want,” I said.

Temi unchained the door and opened it.

Eleriss and Jakatra, still wearing the same black leather and the same wool caps, stepped inside.

“Good evening,” I said cheerfully-it seemed like a good way to greet people one had been stalking of late. “Can we assist you?”

The riders exchanged long looks, and I sensed there’d been an argument or two as to whether they should come here. Jakatra took a single step to the side of the door, putting his back to the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest. His sleeve shifted enough that a hint of something white came into view. A bandage encircling his wrist? My breath caught. If that was his blood sample and not the monster’s… Dear Lord, they weren’t human, not at all. Even a genetically modified human ought to have A, B, or O blood, right? I glanced at Autumn, but she shrugged, probably not understanding my unspoken question. She hadn’t seen enough, didn’t know all that had happened.

Calm down, I told myself. Just because he was bandaged didn’t mean that had been his blood I collected. The monster might have been wounded too. Except the monster was apparently made of plastic…

Eleriss stepped forward and smiled at us. “Greetings,” he said in the same tone of voice I’d used. “It is unfortunate that you did not leave to go to your Alaska. Further, by following us, you’ve exposed yourself to great dangers.”

I flicked a hand. “Danger is our middle name.”

I didn’t feel the casualness I feigned, but putting up a brave facade seemed important. I wasn’t sure why. It was clear from Eleriss’s curious head tilt that he wasn’t familiar with the expression. He was probably trying to figure out how we’d all come to have the same middle names.

“How did you find us in the forest?” Eleriss asked. He didn’t seem angry or irritated, merely curious. Mr. Stony and Silent by the door was another matter. Jakatra appeared irked by the entire situation.

“You first. How’d you find us here?” I gestured toward the hotel room.

“You have our blood,” Eleriss said, as if that explained everything.

Jakatra hissed something to him in his own tongue. A troubled expression flashed across Eleriss’s face, but he shrugged and dismissed the comment.

“This is your blood?” Autumn asked, losing her I’m-just-here-for-the-entertainment mien. She flicked her thumb toward the microscope. “From your veins?”

Eleriss stared down at his wrists thoughtfully. Jakatra stalked past him to the television stand, his face hard and cold. I’d always considered Autumn a tough girl, but she shrank back at his approach. He removed the slide from the microscope, pocketed it, and stared at her, as if to ask if she meant to battle him for it.

Eleriss spread his arms in a gesture that he might have intended to be placating, but he got it wrong, with his palms toward the carpet and his fingers curled. “It is blood that belongs to us,” he said, “and we can find it when it goes missing.”

“What?” Simon mouthed.

“I think they’re bad liars,” I said sotto voce , then raised my voice for Eleriss. “You said you wanted to hire us?”

He nodded firmly and looked relieved to have the blood topic dropped. “You said you are good at research and locating things. We have witnessed that you located us more than once.”

“Yes,” I said carefully. No need to mention the tracking device. As far as I knew, it was still on one of their motorcycles. I’d swat Simon later for not checking in every five minutes to see if those guys were leaving their hotel to cross town and stroll up the stairs to our room.

“We are,” Simon said brightly. “What do you want to hire us to find? And in what currency will you be paying us? I only ask because we’ve learned that your motorcycles aren’t legally yours. Do you have money?”

I winced. I hadn’t been a business owner for long, but I had a feeling it wasn’t a good practice to accuse one’s potential clients of being thieves, even if it happened to be true in this case.

“We wish for you to locate a cavern near this population center,” Eleriss said. “It is deep beneath the ground and may not have been breeched for several hundred years.”

“Near this population center?” Autumn asked. “As in Prescott? You expect them to do an electrical resistance survey of fifty square miles? That’d take a lifetime.”

“Simon has developed some software that taps into the satellite system for remote sensing applications,” I told her. “It might not find an old midden beside a buried building, but it’s good for finding caves and mines. No need to wander around sticking probes in the ground.”

Autumn fiddled with the hoop earring dangling from one of her lobes. “Tapping into the satellite system? Is that… legal? For private citizens?”

“Of course,” Simon said with one of his innocent Coyote smiles.

“This means you may be able to assist us?” Eleriss asked.

“Yes,” Simon said at the same time as I uttered a, “Maybe.”

Simon drove on, adding, “I like a challenge. We do need to discuss payment however, and you’ll need to share any information you might have on depth and location. Do you anticipate an entrance in the hills somewhere? Or is it closed off?”

“We have ascertained that there is not an accessible opening,” Eleriss said. “One will have to be made.”

I thought of the tunnel they’d melted into the solid rock of that cavate. “How far can you excavate to reach an underground chamber?” I wondered if there was any way they’d show me whatever tool they’d used to create that passage. Whatever it was, it must be compact enough that they were able to carry it on their motorcycles. Such a device would be a hit in the world of archaeology, not to mention all the practical applications for miners and engineers.

“As deep as we need,” Eleriss said. “We do not require your assistance in that area. We only seek the location of the cavern. Our historical records tell us that there are several miles of passages with at least three larger chambers.”

“Several miles?” Autumn asked. “I didn’t think there were caves in this part of Arizona.”

“We didn’t either,” I said.

“I’ll find it,” Simon told Eleriss. “Now, about that payment…”

Eleriss slid a hand into his jacket and pulled out an octagon-shaped coin with runes on both sides. “I understand gold is no longer used for currency in your world, but that it retains intrinsic value, is that right?”

Simon’s eyes lit up. An ounce of gold was a generous finder’s fee under any circumstances, but if the coin had a numismatic value, it might be worth even more than the melt price. It’d also be another clue, one that we could carry around with us, as to these people’s origins. Funky blood or not, I wasn’t ready to accept that they, and their language and devices, might not be from Earth. That would be too… farfetched and weird. We might yet find a rational explanation for them.