Jessica Andersen - Nightkeepers

The winikin didn’t bother looking ashamed. ‘‘Matebonded Nightkeepers are stronger together than they are apart. You’d serve your people better to choose one of your own kind.’’

Thoroughly annoyed, and halfway wishing his father had been a dogcatcher or something, Strike pushed himself to his feet. ‘‘I’ll call you from Denver.’’

Nathan Blackhawk scowled as he scanned his laptop screen. Handheld computer sales were up, indicating that the gamers had latched on to the upgraded pod, which gave players near VR quality control over their characters. Problem was, the games themselves weren’t showing the same spike, whereas his competitors’ products were flying off the shelves.

‘‘Goddamn violent-ass kids,’’ he muttered under his breath, spinning in his chair and glaring at his office walls, which were painted the same glossy black as his furniture. ‘‘They’d rather blow shit up than use their brains.’’

It didn’t escape him that he’d been exactly that sort of kid until a stint in juvie and a social worker who hadn’t taken ‘‘fuck off and die’’ as an answer had set him more or less straight. But it probably served him right for thinking he could change the thought process of an entire generation with the physics of extreme sports and a handful of quest sagas that contained far more actual history than your average LOTR rip-off.

It’d taken balls—and admittedly a bit of bloodless disregard—to leave the software company that’d given him his start, promoting him to developer despite his lack of a formal degree. It’d taken even more testicular fortitude to hire a bunch of nobodies like himself and call the whole mess a software gaming company, but he’d made it work; for the first three years Hawk Enterprises had made obscene amounts of money selling the same sort of bloodthirsty pap the rest of the industry spewed out. When Nathan had started tweaking things a year ago, though, sales hadn’t kept up, and now the frigging profit-and-loss charts were looking grim.

‘‘Hey, boss?’’ A quick knock on the door frame followed Denjie’s hail. Before Nathan could answer—or not—the sandy-haired programmer, rotund and wearing tight black jeans, an obscene concert T-shirt, and electric blue-framed glasses, stuck his head through the door.

Nate held up a hand before Den could start. ‘‘I know, I know. I’ll have a decision for you on the new blood’n’ -guts slasherfest by this afternoon.’’

The programmer drew himself up to his full five-seven. ‘‘If you’re referring to EmoPunk III , then I’m not sure why there’s any question in your puny excuse for a brain. EP3 is going to be a freakin’ best seller.’’

‘‘It’s also freakin’ nasty, and guaranteed to curdle the gray matter of anyone stupid enough to play it.’’

‘‘Which is why it’s going to outsell the shit out of your pathetic Viking Warrior franchise, and do double the numbers of all the celebrity skateboarder VRs combined. But that’s not why I’m in here.’’ Den hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘‘Guy’s here to see you.’’

Nate frowned. ‘‘What guy?’’

‘‘Dunno. Dark hair, cool tats. He buzzed from downstairs, said he had an appointment. I put him in the conference room.’’

‘‘I don’t have any—’’ Nate broke off as Den ducked out again, clearly not giving a shit whether or not the guy’s story was true. ‘‘Damn it.’’

Nate knew he really ought to get a receptionist, someone who’d help him organize things and run interference. But he’d never bothered, mostly because their games were sold under the aegis of a bigger company, which meant that Hawk Enterprises flew pretty far under the radars of most gaming crazies, leaving them relatively unmolested.

That, and the fact that he liked to do things his way, all the way.

The bad news was that the lack of a receptionist meant he was sometimes ambushed by ambitious low-level developers, along with the occasional wacko who wanted to meet Hera, the stacked blond heroine from the Viking Warrior games. Not to mention that he got to personally field the weird-ass phone calls, like the one he’d gotten the week before from some guy who claimed to have information about Nate’s parents. Yeah, like he’d never heard that one before.

The good news about having no receptionist, though, was that it left him free to ignore people until they went away. He seriously considered doing exactly that with the guy in the conference room, but since his other options seemed limited to P&L statements or going over the EP3 projections again, he climbed to his feet and headed for the conference room.

The offices of Hawk Enterprises took up the front quarter of a warehouse, with the rest of the building left open for real-time modeling of X-stunts using VR suits and the semipermanent half-pipes and ramps they’d built with some of the early money. At the moment, most of the pending projects were either in the conception phase or final testing, so the stunt area was deserted. That was a relief, because it could get damn loud back there when the adrenaline junkies got the music blasting and started trying to outdo one another.

Bypassing the break room—no way he was offering his uninvited guest coffee until he knew what the guy wanted—Nate headed down a short corridor to the conference room.

Whereas the developers had each done up their own offices—ranging from Nate’s all-black to Glitch’s ode to Battlestar Galactica —the conference room looked pretty normal. The same could not be said for the man who stood staring through the floor-length windows overlooking the half-pipe in the warehouse beyond. He was six-five if he was an inch, with long black hair dropping to his massive shoulders and features that looked like they belonged in Viking Warrior 5: Odin’s Return . He was wearing black cargo pants, scarred lace-up boots, and a wide webbed utility belt, with a white button-down shirt that saved the look from being straight out of military-surplus -goes-Goth. Barely.

The stranger turned and took a long look that made Nate feel as though he were being judged, or maybe weighed. ‘‘You’re Nathan Blackhawk,’’ the guy said. It wasn’t a question.

‘‘And you’re trespassing,’’ Nate replied, more or less pleasantly. ‘‘Lucky for you I’m in a good mood. You’ve got five minutes.’’

‘‘That’ll do.’’ The stranger shot his cuffs, unbuttoned one, and bared his right forearm to reveal four black-ink tattoos: a stylized leopard’s head of some sort, along with three unfamiliar symbols that stirred something deep inside Nate.

‘‘Nice ink,’’ he said casually, wondering if he should call Denjie in, or maybe the cops. This guy was registering pretty high on the freak-o-meter.

‘‘Ever seen anything like it?’’

‘‘Should I have?’’

‘‘Where’d you get the chain?’’ the stranger asked, jerking his chin at Nate’s chest. ‘‘The hawk medallion.’’

‘‘None of your goddamn business,’’ Nate said, trying to keep it on the level, though the pucker factor was rising quickly. ‘‘You’re down to four minutes and you’re bugging me. I’d suggest you state your business or go away.’’

‘‘I need to talk to you about your parents.’’

The single sentence, the dream of so many kids in the foster system, shot through him on a sizzle of anger. He pointed to the door. ‘‘Get. Out.’’

‘‘Or not.’’ The stranger moved suddenly, grabbing Nate’s wrist.

The battle rage of Nate’s youth rose fast and hard, and he twisted away and swung a punch. The stranger dodged, got his wrist again, and barked out a word.

And everything went gray-green.