Sultry is not easily deterred. But, fast and efficient as she may be, she never gets more than halfway up the wall.

"I could give you a boost," I offer. "It'll save you time."

"And why would you do that?"

I shrug. "You'll return the favor somehow."

"You don't know that."

We sit down against the wall across from one another. The wall projections that settle in look too flimsy to work with. We can't wait forever, but we may as well see what we get in the next few cycles.

"Just because you said that," I go on. "It leads me to believe, you'll do what you can."

"You know nothing about me."

"Everyone knows something about you. It's why I asked about Kozlov. I know your type."

She straightens her spine an inch and it may as well have been six. There's a lot of malice stored up in that tiny body of hers. "I hope you mean kill type."

"I do. Mostly. . ."

She lifts another inch, cocks her head, looks deep into my eyes, and then sniggers. "You better watch it, wolf. I still haven't made my mind up about you . . . if you're worth the trouble. . ."

"I'll solve that riddle for you. I'm not."

"Aw, poor little doggy. No one loves you."

I sniffle and set my elbows on my raised knees. "Truer words were never said."

"I've heard it all before, and I'm sure I've heard worse. . ." She looks up from the fingernail she's fussing with.

"Doubt it. If you knew the truth, you'd hate me as much as everyone else does. You'll regret not killing me sooner."

As if she's bored and trying to kill time, she starts a fire in her left hand. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to care enough to ask?" She tosses that tamely glowing ball back and forth, up and down. She can clearly juggle. She'd be quite the freak show on deck if she wanted to be. If Ivan would allow for such a thing. . .  

"What makes you think I'd tell you even if you did ask?"

"You have a conscience," she replies. "And it's buried right now, under all the weight. You think you're about to die, and you want me to relieve you of that burden."

I grunt in response. She's not wrong, but I don't have to like it.

We both watch the pit walls form a dome-like structure. The hole at the top shrinks to the size of a human fist. Looks like we have no reason to get off our asses just yet.

"Kozlov is not dead, by the way." When she snaps her hand shut, the flame is extinguished. "It was a trap. He seemed . . . receptive, but he led me to a room where his strongest Deviants were waiting. It may have been possible to elude them. It would have made a mess, though, and I'd have lost the anonymity. They knew what I was, not who I was. Had they known, they may have attempted every abomination in their playbook, right then and there."

"Won't that happen anyway?" I squirm in my seat. "Once we land?"

She pauses for a second and her yes is surprisingly gentle. "Ivan is a very busy man tonight."

Oh, yes. He's promoting Orbit, his new recreational drug, and screwing around in the House of Ill Repute.

"He has buildings dedicated to these endeavors," she goes on, her eyebrows bobbing. "He'd want privacy and his state-of-the-art collection of . . . devices."

I knew this was coming, but with just the reminder, I burst into a sob. "Can you please just kill me now? No matter who gets their hands on me, they'll . . . they'll crucify me, nice and slow."

"How old are you?" she asks out of the blue.

I wipe my face dry with my shirt sleeve. "Nineteen."

I get an eyeroll for that. "You're just a child!" Her bare shoulder twitches out a slight shrug. "A year older than I was when all hell broke loose. And that isn't hyperbole or metaphor."

"You turned out all right," I say, already much calmer.

"This is me making the most out of an abysmal set of circumstances." She snaps her garter strap. "I live on out of spite. Would you like to know where everyone is who did this to me? They've all been gone and forgotten for almost two hundred years, including the sick bastard who sired me. I'm glad to say, they all expired before their time. I admit, most of that was my doing. And I never spent a second of my undead life feeling guilty about it."

A weak chuckle pops out of me. "Is that your way of saying I should forgive myself? That behind every evil deed is an even eviler deed?"

"You were the bomb scare, weren't you?" she surmises. Correctly, I might add.

"Would you believe me if I said I had no choice?" I lean back and clunk my head against the wall a little too hard.

With a slight twitch of her hands and shoulders, Sultry lets her indifference show. "It didn't go off."

"I know," I concede. But it doesn't make it right. . .

"Did you want it to?"

I pause for thought before answering. "You know what Ivan is capable of."

"I do. That's why I was going to kill him. Not everyone else on board."

"Aren't they just the rich who are making the rich richer?"

"The mayor's daughter is up there somewhere," she comments, "having the time of her pampered, privileged life!"

"My point exactly." The mayor is about as corrupt as they come, and his daughter is jumping from one scandal or shady business endeavor to another. "And I bet you only care because you were hired to care. Handle this safely and quietly. Disappear into the night."

"I still intend to." She stretches out her slender legs and crosses them relatively high, closer to the knee. The seductiveness just emanates, even when she's not trying. "And what's wrong with that?"

"I accept that you have no love for Ivan, but, at the heart of it, you don't really care. . ."

"And you do?" she lashes back. "I thought you were just doing as you were told?"

I sigh, good and deep. "You remember Zombie?"

Her eyes flutter, and then she yawns. I didn't even know vampires could yawn. "How could I forget?"

Yeah, I get it. It was a dumb question. Even churchgoing old ladies have heard of Zombie.

Ivan Kozlov's last big thing was originally called Serene. It was affordable. In every slum and drug den. At every underworld party. It gave even shapeshifters a light, airy high. Other Deviants experienced something similar, and it was in such high demand that Ivan went from a millionaire to a billionaire in a matter of weeks. But, with habitual use or just one overdose, Zombie became the word on the street. Humans became these moaning, bedridden vegetables. Shifters, however, turned into these rabid, flesh-eating monsters. If that wasn't bad enough, it became spreadable with just a bite. Any of us showing signs—bloodshot eyes and too much drool—had to be put down immediately. We were already feared and marginalized, and if this variant hit the general population, it would have only made matters worse.

"I'm not a drug user," I make sure to mention, to set the record straight. "I never touched the stuff, but I did bring my Alpha's daughter to the party where she tried Serene for the first time, before any of us knew what would happen with the slightest misuse. I loved her and was supposed to protect her, but. . ." I stop myself and attempt to suck in and swallow the moisture building up in every head cavity. "We kept her in a cage for a while, but . . . there was nothing more we could do. Her father ordered me to kill her . . . in front of everyone I ever knew." Trial and error led us to the only method that worked—three bullets to the head and a slit to the throat. "And I guess I was the coward he always accused me of being. I couldn't do it, so he ripped the gun and knife out of my hands and did it for me. His anguish became rage, and then he beat the crap out of me and spit out an ultimatum. Die right there, bring down Ivan Kozlov in a month, or die if I failed and somehow survived the attempt. . .

"It took me a few weeks just to narrow in on his location. Tonight, it was no secret, but that didn't make it any easier. I may have tried something more humane and targeted, but I was out of time, and I don't exactly have your connections. Or assets." My eyes dip toward her cleavage, and then widen and flutter off. If I looked like her, this task would have at least been possible. And even she didn't succeed.

Sultry reacts to all this, but not the way I was expecting or hoping. She's now standing in the center of the chamber, waiting for the walls to reform.

I join her there, and we pace around, back-to-back.

"I have a good feeling about this one," she tells me.

I keep watching, not sure I agree.

The pit becomes a triangular set of teeth that would fit together if the walls closed in. The first notch is probably fifteen feet off the ground, though.

She darts in front of me. "Good thing you're tall."

Her foot is up, and with just a single, impatient glance, she demands a boost. There's no time to negotiate.

I hoist her up, she climbs to my shoulders, and then steps on my raised hands. Leaping for the first notch, hands ablaze, she gets them embedded in the malleable material and pulls herself up.

With a larger blast of fire, she elongates the notch she's standing on. I'm not sure if it's for my benefit or hers.

While she runs and leaps for the next one on the opposite side, I change to wolf form and try bouncing off the wall and leaping for the one she lengthened. The material is still soft, and I dig my claws in. We both just barely make it up.

We get to a point where we're both on top of our respective tiers, ready to move on, and I figure we'll carry on in much the same fashion, but she turns back toward me and puts her hands up to stop me.

"Change back," she directs me.

I glance at my clothes on the ground, but I follow her command anyway, no more than a beat later.

I'm naked and don't have good balance, but I copy the gesture she's making, lunging forward, my hands out.

Sultry bounces into my grip, does a backflip, and lands on the notch above her head. She skipped the third level and is now on the fourth, melting that one, so she can get closer to the fifth. 

A wolf again, trying to follow her anyway, without help, I make the next leap. The second notch isn't as pliable. My claws just don't get the purchase they need.

Then I hear a boom. The walls tremble. The airship tips. The engine sputters. And I start moving in the wrong direction.

The screaming starts at the same time the walls are reforming. Behind Sultry, pulling herself over the final ledge, there's a mushroom cloud of fire rising into the sky.

At that, I lose my grip. I fall gracelessly and flail thoroughly. I land on my side with a bone-jarring thud.

When Sultry gets to her feet, she looks down at me, expressionless. A strong breeze rustles her perfect blond hair. She turns her head, and a moment later, she disappears behind a rolling inferno. Even forty feet below, the air gets scarily thin.

There are so many ways I could die right now. . .

The list lengthens and the odds reshuffle when the hatch below me opens. After all the time I spent looking up, I'm suddenly plummeting toward the moon-lit ripples of the Atlantic Ocean. They're so tiny. So far away. Then I blink my eyes, and the specks are already discernible ridges.

I close my eyes and don't reopen them. I like being prepared, but the mystery seems to give me a moment of peace.

Bracing myself for impact, I hear a voice. Become a man, go to sleep. . .

There's a truth to these words that I can't quite wrap my head around. But it doesn't matter. I must obey.

I make the transition back to human form. My awareness shrinks to a pinprick. Then, even that light goes out.

(part 2 of 3)
WC: 2076