“Wait,” the voice said. The chain rattled as the guard moved out from behind him and knocked on a door a few meters away. It creaked open and the sound of hushed voices followed. A tug on the chain made Denver stumble forward, but he managed to regain his balance as he followed the unsubtle direction inside to a larger building. He was pulled further in and made to kneel.
“Take it off,” a female voice said.
The hood came off with a single movement.
Denver found himself kneeling in the middle of a room in front of a raised platform. Sitting on a chair, drinking wine and looking at him as though he were some kind of hunting trophy, a woman smiled at him. She looked up beyond him and nodded an order.
The guard dropped the chain and exited the room. By the time Denver turned his head, the guard had already left and closed the door. Turning back to the woman, Denver stood up and thought about rushing her with a shoulder charge, but her serenity and body language told him she wasn’t a threat—yet.
“Who are you?” Denver asked.
“Call me Aimee,” she responded, turning in her chair to face him directly. “I’m sorry that we’ve had to meet like this. Usually we don’t take outsiders prisoner, but you were spying on us, and quite heavily armed. You have to understand that I take the safety of my people seriously.”
“And who are your people exactly? And where the hell am I?”
Aimee stood and held her arms wide and aloft. “You, my intriguing spy, are in Unity. A safe settlement built by humans and croatoans alike. My people have lived here, quite separately and happily, for generations. When we were cut off from the main fighting before the ice age started, we, that is humans and croatoans, realized we didn’t need to fight each other when we could live together.”
Denver curled his lip in a sneer at the thought of any alien helping humans to survive. He had to admit, though, that she was incredibly sincere in her words, but then he had met many a psycho who truly believed their own bullshit. He rattled the shackles. “Are you going to let me go? What is it you want from me?”
“That depends on you.”
“How so?”
Aimee sat back down and crossed her legs as she sipped from her wineglass. Denver noticed the table had recently hosted a feast of sorts. Plates of bread and vegetables and meat adorned the surface among the candlesticks.
“If you answer my questions truthfully, I’ll let you go—if you want to, that is.”
Denver noticed the sly smile on her face. She was clearly hiding something.
“What does that mean? If I want to?”
“I’ll have an offer for you that you might well take,” Aimee said, placing the wineglass back and standing up from the chair. She paced the room as she continued. “But let’s start with some basics, shall we? What’s your name, and where are you from?”
“Denver, from around.”
“Around, eh? You seem well equipped for coming from ‘around.’ Who’s on the other end of your communication device?”
Denver didn’t answer.
Aimee smiled and inclined her head to him. “I understand. So, Denver, what were you doing spying on us?”
“Just having a look. I’m curious like that.”
“So you didn’t happen to come across a croatoan on your travels?”
“I see them occasionally,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Aimee sighed and turned to him. “Okay, let’s stop all this nonsense, shall we? Baliska, release him from the shackles.”
From behind him the shadows shifted and a large croatoan figure stepped out and loomed over Denver. It unclasped the shackles and sidestepped away. Denver turned to face it and thought he was looking at a ghost.
Could that be… was that…
“You know him?” Aimee said, but Denver wasn’t sure who she was talking to.
The croatoan leaned forward and snarled.
It was him! The bastard hunter from Manhattan… but Charlie had killed him, how… Denver noticed the healed wound across its body. Somehow, it had survived. Denver balled his fists and took up a defensive stance.
Baliska did the same. The two squared up to each other. Even with Denver’s height he had to look up to see into the creature’s eyes. The stared at each other, both flaring their nostrils, waiting for the other to back down.
The situation ended when Denver heard a crackle of energy from behind him.
“You two, calm down; otherwise you’re both going back to your cells.”
Denver turned his head. Aimee held a pole with a black box on the end. Two extended prongs crackled with an arc of electricity. She wielded it like a spear. “Baliska, back off,” she ordered.
Reluctantly, the croatoan nodded its head slightly and did as she commanded, slinking back into the shadows to the side of the room. Stepping forward, Aimee brought the makeshift spear up to Denver’s chest. “You know him?” she asked, pointing her head to the alien.
“Yeah, kinda. We have history. I thought my father had killed it.”
“Him,” Aimee corrected. “He has a name. Who is your father?”
“The guy who defeated… him, and took down the bastards’ ship. The guy who your lot here took from the escape pods after you slaughtered the other aliens. How did that sit with your croatoan population?”
Aimee backed off and a confused expression came over her face. “Wait… Charlie Jackson is your father?”
“Yes,” Denver said. “That’s why I was spying on this place. I came to bring him home.”
“He was responsible for bringing down the alien ships?”
“Damn right he was.”
“This changes everything. Baliska, fetch Charlie Jackson and bring him here, immediately.”
Denver stood from his chair and stared in surprise as the door opened and his dad walked in, escorted by Baliska. He rushed toward him, not caring about the alien or what Aimee would do, and hugged his dad tight. Charlie wrapped his arms around Denver and lifted him up.
They stared at each other, both clearly not believing they had been reunited, especially in these circumstances. The alien skulked around the table, where it sat with its great arms crossed over its chest, like some kind of sentinel waiting to do Aimee’s bidding.
“Please,” Aimee said to them both, “come and sit. We’ve much to discuss.”
Ignoring her, Denver released his father and stepped back to get a good look at him. “You’re looking a bit beat up, but you’re still here, still breathing.”
“Takes more than one of Mike’s bombs to end me, son. Besides, I knew I was gonna miss this place. It’s great to see you again. I never thought I would… not with, well, let’s not get carried away here. You’re safe, I’m safe, that’s all that matters. How are the others?”
Aimee cleared her throat. “Excuse me, gentlemen. Speed is of the essence.”
Before Charlie could answer, the door flew open, smashing against the stone wall. Augustus, flanked by two thuggish men armed with small scythes, stormed in.
“I demand to know what’s happening,” Augustus said.
Charlie, Denver and Baliska stood up from the table and prepared for a fight.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Aimee smiled at Augustus. He returned a glare and straightened his mask. The lying whore had escaped his assassination attempt. His team from the local tavern screwed up. Worse still, she probably had assistance from his stolen property, Jackson and Baliska. Both stood at the far end of the table in Aimee’s chamber, ready for action. Another fool, tall with red hair, completed the cabal of snakes.
He clenched both fists. He raised his quivering right hand toward Aimee and extended a bony finger. “I demand to know what’s going on. Who gave you permission to take my prisoners?”