Chapter Sixteen

A quick psychic scan of the base, and my stomach sank. Mami and Clio weren’t here. Had someone taken them? Or was Mami on one of her adventures? Drekk. Probably the latter. “I don’t sense them at all.”

“They’re not within fifty miles of the base,” Quinn advised.

Wulf shook his head. “Nothing on the tracking scanners either.”

My grim-faced father stormed up to us. “Cameras caught Eleni and Clio sneaking onboard a transport going to Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles?” I let out a groan. “You don’t think Mami is taking Clio to the Magic Kingdom, do you?”

Quinn raised an incredulous brow. “I thought your mother was agoraphobic?”

“In most situations, but when Eleni wants something badly enough, she can overcome her fears,” Papa answered.

“Good to know.” After a moment, Quinn added, “Uncle Saul has agreed to lend us one of his turbo-charged Blackhawk helicopters.”

“We’ll need to arm ourselves. Where Mami goes, trouble follows,” I warned.

Wulf grinned. “I have never been to the Magic Kingdom.”

“You’re in for a treat. It’s a lot of fun,” Quinn said.

I rolled my eyes. Fun? With my mother on the prowl, it would be pandemonium, laser battles, and things going boom. Quinn looped his arm around me, and poof! One minute we were in the Command Center, the next we were standing by a military helicopter. “Where are the weapons?”

“Relax, darlin’. It’s handled.”

Wulf and Papa appeared, loaded down with weapons.

I took a laser pistol, weapons belt, three knives, and some stun grenades. “You got any thermite grenades?”

“No!” Quinn, Papa, and Wulf bellowed in unison.

“What? It’s not like I go around blowing stuff up.”

Quinn gave me a look. “Have you forgotten the slavers’ base?”

“Or the Sandokan pirates’ stronghold?” Papa’s expression held of mixture of pride and anger.

I shrugged. “They attacked me first, and I have the right to defend myself.”

“If anything needs blowing up, I’ll do it,” Quinn stated and put me in the helicopter. “Buckle up.”

“Yes, my lord.” Giving him a big smile, I palmed the thermite grenade I had swiped off Wulf’s weapons belt.

Quinn eyed me suspiciously before powering up the helicopter. “Put the earphones on.”

I placed them over my ears and flinched when Quinn growled, “Give it to me.”

With a sigh, I handed him the grenade.

“Sticky-fingered little thief.”

“I like being prepared.”

Wulf gave me the stink eye when Quinn handed the grenade back to him.

Papa just shook his head.

Quinn continued his rant. “You’re a one-woman demolition team, but we do not want to blow up the Magic Kingdom. And why is that?”

“The kids.” Someone was being awfully cranky.

“Right.” Quinn expertly lifted the helicopter into the air.

He was bad as my father. I watched the landscape change from mountains to desert to badly damaged cities and towns. The roadways were littered with bomb craters. The closer we got to Los Angeles, the worse the damage. Charred metal superstructures of a once vibrant downtown rose like freakish skeletons against the turquoise sky. It was about time the Tai-Kok got punished for their crimes.

His right eye twitching, Papa announced over the headsets, “I can sense Eleni. She and Clio are at the Magic Kingdom.”

“Copy.” Quinn landed the helicopter in an abandoned supermarket parking lot. “We teleport the rest of the way.”

I instinctively reached for my communications bracelet’s tracking scanner and sighed. Quinn still hadn’t replaced it.

A brilliant orange glow popped into existence and spun rapidly. Adan rolled out of the vortex and morphed into his junior wizard form. He walked over to me and handed me a Coletti warlord-class communications bracelet. “As promised.”

I put it on and threw my arms around him. “Thank you.”

Quinn pulled me away. “Adan is merely the messenger. I got you the bracelet.”

“You didn’t forget.” I was so relieved.

“I did not.” He leaned down. “What’s my reward?”

One look at my father’s narrow-eyed gaze, and I kissed Quinn’s cheek. “Thank you, my lord.” I linked with him mentally and added, “Lots of hot monkey sex.”

Quinn grinned. “I’m holding you to that.”

“Eleni and Clio are in a place called Futureland,” Wulf advised, his gaze on his tracking scanner.

I checked my scanner. They were ten feet in the air and going around in circles. Mami did love the rocket ride. The last time we were there, we rode on it so many times I lost my breakfast all over the poor attendant.

Quinn pulled me against his chest. There was a flash of black, and we popped in by an awesome display of shiny orbs. The Magic Kingdom had miraculously survived all the attempts by the Tai-Kok to destroy it. It was a place where kids could be kids. A place where peace and harmony reigned. Where you could be a fairy-tale princess, a handsome prince, a big bad wolf, or a cartoonish robot.

Wulf and Adan stared around in amazement at Futureland’s kinetic sculptures, flowers in the shape of animals, and the roaming robots.

Papa’s irritated gaze was fixed on my mother.

My attention was drawn to a giant rock sphere spinning on a bed of water. Holy Goddess! A shocking amount of power radiated from it. “Do you feel that?” I walked over and placed my hand on the rock.

Papa, Quinn, Wulf, and Adan followed suit. Varying degrees of astonishment flashed across their faces.

“We found the Shebu!” I did a little dance.

“Now we know why the Tai-Kok never managed to destroy the Magic Kingdom,” Quinn remarked.

Papa smiled. “The Nabatean’s Shebu shielded it, and my Eleni found it.”

A piercing scream shattered the happy chattering of children.

Three males wearing ill-fitting black stormtrooper armor were dragging Mami off the rocket ride.

The crowd watched with astonished interest.

“No hurt Geema!” Clio transformed into a twenty-foot tall black and purple dragon. She swung her tail, knocking the stormtroopers down.

Mami quickly ducked behind Clio’s massive form.

The stormtroopers charged.

Clio blasted them with her dragon’s breath.

Whoosh! Fire danced over the stormtroopers’ armor. The goons jumped in a small lagoon and flailed about in a desperate attempt to put the flames out.

Huh? The armor wasn’t armor at all. It was plastic. The charred pieces fell off in large chunks, revealing scorched Tai-Kok warriors. They honked crazily and made another run at Mami.

Backing away, my mother quickly lifted the tubes on her necklace and started blowing. Tranquilizer darts peppered the exposed Tai-Kok warriors’ skin. They squawked furiously and yanked them out.

Adan morphed into a large purple tyrannosaurus and roared.

Whoa! He had a set of lungs on him and some nasty-looking fangs.

The crowd gasped and backed up.

The Tai-Kok drew their laser pistols and pulled the triggers, but nothing happened.

Papa laughed. “The fools don’t realize those are props, not weapons.”

I took a closer look. Yep, they were plastic, but I had to admit they looked like the real thing. I’d bet a hundred credits Dolon was behind the screw-up.

The idiot Tai-Kok warriors hurled the useless weapons at Adan and ran for it.

People got out of their way.

Adan thundered after them. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. The buildings shook and the ground shuddered. He quickly caught up with the terrified warriors, and chomp, chomp, chomp; they disappeared down his gullet.

The crowd stared in awed disbelief.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and little ones, I hope you enjoyed our show,” Quinn called and bowed dramatically.

Everyone started clapping.

Clio changed into the big, bad wolf and howled.

“More!” the crowd shouted.

Mami watched proudly as Clio transformed into princess, a cartoonish robot, her true form, and back into a toddler.

Papa walked over to Mami and whispered in her ear. She nodded and clapped her hands loudly. “We are continuing our show at the front entrance. Please come with us.”

The crowd obediently followed.

A little girl walked up to Quinn and gave him a gap-tooth smile. “Are you a real Coletti warrior?”

“I am.”

The little girl hugged his left leg. “Thanks for saving my mommy.”

Quinn kneeled and hugged her back. “You are very welcome.”

Giggling, the little girl ran off.

“You’ll make a good daddy.” My psychic senses suddenly went on red alert. “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a Tai-Kok.”

Papa sighed. “I wish your mother hadn’t read you those fairy tales.”

“I smell him too,” Quinn said.

Wulf tapped his tracking scanner. “Got him. Komodo is ten feet below us in a tunnel. He has to be after the Shebu.”

Quinn grabbed me. A fleeting second later, we were standing in the tunnel. Wulf popped in with my father and Adan.

Komodo, dressed in a long, hooded brown robe, pulled a nasty-looking sword and spat a bunch of angry, quacking gibberish.

Wulf glanced down at his communications bracelet. “He demands the rite of combat.”

“He isn’t Coletti,” I pointed out. “Let Adan eat him.”

Adan groaned. “Do I have to? They give me indigestion.”

“Stop being such a crybaby and eat the drekking monster,” I snapped.

“No.” Quinn drew his sword and gave Komodo a predator’s smile. “I’ll fight him.”

And testosterone struck again.

For a long moment, they slowly circled each other, then with a vicious squawk Komodo suddenly attacked. Their blades met with a loud clash.

I watched their deadly dance. I had to admit Lovey’s skill with a sword was phenomenal, but Komodo wasn’t so bad himself. A strange tingling grew in my body. My eyes widened in horror when I realized what was happening. Before I could warn the others, the glittering blue light of a transporter engulfed me.

My molecules abruptly stopped whizzing about. The light faded, and I was standing on an ice-cold platform. “Balock’s balls!”

Dolon’s hate-filled voice growled, ““You blew up my ship, you drekking whore.”

I turned around and my jaw dropped. Enormous sores covered Dolon’s now bald head. His nose and ears had been bitten off. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

“You think this is funny? Look what you did to me.” Dolon put his laser pistol on the console and yanked his filthy bloodstained jumpsuit open, exposing his shriveled black penis.

“No, not funny. I believe the term is pathetic.” I pulled a stun grenade off my belt and tossed it at him. “Catch.”

He automatically caught it.

I dropped to the floor behind the transporter platform. A blinding flash of light was followed a second later by a loud cracking boom. Whoa. I had never been this close to a stun grenade. It felt like I had been punched in the face. Hard. There were funny white spots filling my vision, and my ears rang like crazy.

“Xenia! Xenia! Answer me,” Quinn shouted in my head.

“Stop yelling. I’ve got a killer headache.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Not exactly. I got a little too close to a stun grenade.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“No, don’t you?”

“Something is blocking our tracking scanners, and I’m unable to locate you psychically.” Quinn’s voice was filled with a murderous fury.

My father butted in, “Who took you?”

“Dolon.”

“Does he still live?” Papa’s anger beat at me.

“Don’t know. Let me check.” I pulled my laser pistol and got to my feet. The room spun dizzily around me. Whoa! Head rush. I staggered over to Dolon’s limp form. His right hand was a mangled mess. Blood ran from the remnants of his ears; his eyes were open and staring blankly at the ceiling. My uncle made a bubbling sound with each breath he took.

I stuffed Dolon’s laser pistol in my weapons belt. “He’s still alive, but I don’t think for long.”

Quinn asked, “Are you near the transporter controls?”

“Yes, the coordinates for this location are 451.1 mark 321.2. Does that help?”

A high-pitched whine sounded as the transporter activated. A glittering blue light formed. Twenty seconds later it vanished, and Quinn stood there, holding a laser rifle.

Exhaling a relieved breath, I grinned at him. “What took you so long, lovey?”

“I had to kill Komodo.” Quinn stepped off the platform and embraced me. “For a moment there, I thought I had lost you.” His mouth claimed mine in a frantic kiss. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“I’ll try.” I stroked his face soothingly. “Remember, a berserker is really hard to kill.”

“I don’t care how hard you are to kill. I’m buying you battle armor, and you will wear it. Every day.”

“I love you too.”

The transporter activated again. This time Wulf, Uncle Saul, and Papa beamed in.

Papa demanded, “Where’s Dolon?”

“Relax. He’s in no condition to fight,” I said, pointing at him.

Everyone walked around the control console and stared down at him with varying degrees of disgust.

Uncle Saul asked, “Is that his pecker?”

“It is.” I grimaced as bits of it crumbled off.

Rattling clicks sounded from Dolon’s jumpsuit, and out crawled a dozen var bugs.

“Holy shit!” Quinn hurriedly stomped on them. “This isn’t good.”

Wulf asked, “Can var bugs survive on Earth?”

“Don’t know,” I answered.

Another bug scurried from his body.

Papa crushed it under his boot and leveled his laser pistol at Dolon’s chest. “Time to die.”

“Wait! I need to know what information Dolon passed to the Tai-Kok,” Quinn interjected.

I patted his arm. “You sure you want to wade into that cesspool?”

“No, but it has to be done.”

I felt Quinn gingerly probe Dolon’s mind and caught fleeting glimpse of a one-arm Nilus frantically working to decode my bracelet. How Komodo ate him, piece by piece until it was deciphered. With a shudder, I backed out of Quinn’s head.

Uncle Saul patted my shoulder. “You okay, sweetheart?”

“Dolon has a lot to answer for.”

“You have no idea,” Quinn commented. He drew his laser pistol and fired.

Uncle Dolon’s body disintegrated into a million fireflies.

Papa grumbled, “I wanted to kill him.”

“After I saw the sick things that bastard planned on doing to Xenia, it was my right to end his life,” Quinn countered.

Wulf announced, “There are twelve Tai-Kok warriors and two humans approaching.”

“I’ll be damned. It’s General Georgina Tasker and Brigadier General Lawton, our missing traitors,” Uncle Saul growled, his gaze fixed on his communications screen.

Quinn tapped an icon on his bracelet. “And the bad news is, there are about a hundred var bugs chasing them.”

“Get in bed with the Tai-Kok, and you can expect to get eaten,” I remarked. “Speaking of eating, anyone else hungry?”

A piece of chocolate appeared in Quinn’s hand. “Will this do?”

“It will.” I took a bite. “Yum.”

“Once we wrap this up, I’ll take you out to dinner. You like Mexican food?”

“I do and it’s a date.”

“A date that will include your mother and me,” Papa stated firmly before turning his attention to Uncle Saul. “If the var bugs get loose on Earth, exterminating them will be difficult.”

“There is one way to get rid of vermin.” Wulf set the timers on four thermite grenades and placed them on the transporter console. “You blow them to the lowest level of hell.”

“You don’t need to interrogate the traitors?” Call me curious.

“No. They were tried and convicted of treason in absentia. They both received the death penalty. When located, the traitors are to be executed immediately. Let’s meet back at Futureland. Lysis, with me. We need to get the Shebu to a safe place.” Uncle Saul held out his left hand. Papa took it and they vanished.

I looked up at Quinn. “When will I be able to teleport?”

Wulf laughed at the horrified expression on Quinn’s face, and poof! He was gone.

“Well?”

“Too soon.” Quinn put his arms around me and teleported.

Inky blackness flashed before my eyes, making the white spots stand out dramatically. I sagged against Quinn. “Don’t feel so good.”

“Here, drink some of my blood.”

I cracked an eye open and stared at the blood dripping off his hand. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Drink.” Quinn used his best dictatorial voice.

I knew it was part of the bonding process, but ick.

“Xenia.”

Steeling myself, I put my mouth to the bleeding wound and sucked in a mouthful. Nausea rose in my throat.

Quinn invaded my mind, and the sensation went away.

“More.” I drank and drank and drank. A warmth flowed through my body. The ringing in my ears and the killer headache disappeared. Huh? The healing powers of Coletti blood weren’t a myth.

“Better?”

I went up on my tiptoes and gave Quinn a bloody kiss. “All better.” The ground shuddered beneath my feet. “Whoa! Talk about rocking my world.”

Quinn laughed. “You’re feeling the effects of the thermite grenades.”

“Oh.” I looked around and realized we were standing on a ridge high above a million-credit mansion.

“I thought we were meeting Uncle Saul back at Futureland?”

“I need to make sure the traitors’ underground compound is completely destroyed. Deploy your helmet.”

“Yes, my lord.” I tapped my control belt. “Deploy helmet.” It formed around my head.

Quinn released me, and body armor engulfed him.

KABOOM! A titanic explosion rocked the mansion. The walls caved in, and a rippling fireball rose high into the sky. The ground around the huge house heaved and buckled before collapsing into a gaping crater.

Pieces of debris rained down on us. Thwap. Bap-bap. Thop. Bang.

The earth shook violently, and part of the hillside gave way, filling in the crater.

I checked my scanner. Nothing remained of the compound.

Quinn studied the area. “I’m not sensing any life-forms. Are you?”

Drawing on my psychic abilities, I scanned the area. “A couple of dogs, a cat, some birds, and a bunch of scared bunny rabbits, but no Tai-Kok, traitors, or var bugs.”

Quinn’s helmet melted away. “Good. Have you heard of tonsil hockey?”

I climbed up Quinn’s body and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Is it something like this?” I settled my lips over his and tickled his lower lip with my tongue. He opened for me, and I invaded his mouth.

Zarek was suddenly in my head. “Is this a new form of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

Drekk! I slid down Quinn’s body. “We were, ah, celebrating, my lord.”

“I take full responsibility for our actions, my lord,” Quinn stated calmly.

“No! I kissed you first.”

“Enough!” Zarek roared. “Return to the command center immediately.”

“Yes, my lord,” we said in unison.