Blood Double (God Wars #1)(41)

Corent was a master of discretion, and could likely disappear into the city as easily as he might vanish in a grove of trees. He waited for several seconds, then nodded to me. We rose to exit Niff's through the same door Erithia Cordan had entered minutes earlier.

*

Kooper, I tapped the message into my comp-vid, Erithia Cordan is alive and walking around Casino City in disguise. I don't know who Rathik murdered, but it wasn't her, I added before hitting send on my comp-vid.

Sighing, I tossed the comp-vid onto the Queen's bed and flopped down beside it. How could I sleep, knowing she was out there and doing who knew what? She was plotting something, only I hadn't had time to get to the bottom of it—I'd dropped my gaze quickly, worried that she'd see and recognized me, somehow. I also had the idea that Erithia was eons old and that frightened me. If Gavin hadn't leveled his anger against me by keeping Kooper, Trevor and Stellan away, I'd be in Trevor's Casino City office right then, telling him and Kooper what I'd seen.

*

"What's that?" Tony lifted an eyebrow in Gavin's direction.

"I have a diverter application on Breanne's comp-vid. I don't want messages going to Kooper, Trevor or Stellan." Gavin tapped his comp-vid screen determinedly.

"What are you doing?"

"Deleting a message to Kooper, unread."

"Gavin, what if that was important?"

"Nothing from that woman is important."

*

Breanne's Journal

Cheedas could go f*ck himself. Now that I could mist anywhere and everywhere, I could do all the laundry in the palace and he couldn't do a thing about it. Yes, I could fold space, too, but that still frightened me. Worried that I'd end up in another strange place while the local constabulary shot weapons in my direction, I'd avoided it. I'm sure that if Gavin knew anything about it, he'd be plotting to make my demise happen sooner than originally planned.

Two days had passed since I sent the message to Kooper, and I was watching the newsfeeds closely, waiting for an arrest or at least a search for the undead Erithia Cordan, but there'd been no word. I even double-checked my comp-vid, and it showed the message had been sent.

Two dryers hummed at once while I did another search through the local news on my comp-vid late at night—Gavin had paraded me to an opening for a local wine shop earlier—the owner had relocated and expanded his business. Since he carried Roff's oxberry wine, it was a given that the Queen would show up for the ribbon cutting. Roff, too, had stood at my side, but I only saw the occasional tug of frustration at the corner of his mouth as we clasped hands and muttered pleasantries with invited guests.

After stuffing clean, folded clothes inside appropriate drawers in the Queen's suite, I misted to the kitchen and squirreled away two bottles of blood substitute before retiring for the night. I still disliked the stuff and reminisced fondly on the gishi fruit ice cream I'd eaten before shoving that thought aside. Would Kooper discount my message as unimportant? Would he ignore it or worse, just delete it without reading? I hunched my shoulders as I climbed into bed. At least Kal seemed to have lost interest since I'd left him behind the last time.

*

Kay's Journal

The hovervan driver never stopped talking to his captive audience as he drove my five fellow passengers and me toward the hoverbus station on Avendor. Grateful to leave him behind at the entrance to the station, I walked toward the first restroom I could find, waited for the back stall to come available and then slipped inside. There, I removed the clothing and my disguise, shoving them into my bag after trading for casual pants and a loose shirt. My face I cleaned with a makeup wipe, wadded the wig into a side compartment of my bag and braided my long, black hair. Even braided it fell nearly to my waist.

Jamming a tourist's hat onto my head to hide as much of my face as I could, I walked out of the stall, washed my hands and exited to the ticket counter. The trip to the groves lasted another four clicks and I was already exhausted. Squaring my shoulders, I and seven others stepped off the bus at the gates to NorthStar groves.

Three major gishi fruit groves exist on Avendor—not long ago, there had been four but a group had purchased two smaller ones, combining them under the NorthStar name. EastStar was still smaller, but it produced gishi fruit ice cream and had a patent on the recipe. SouthStar, the largest grove (by a very wide margin), was well-established and had a more permanent, regular staff. SouthStar and EastStar did extensive background checks on anyone applying for a job with them. NorthStar was still working on the same type of arrangement. I'd done my research and NorthStar was my best bet.

Two men met us at the gated entrance—one was very tall, broad across the shoulders and had the blackest skin I'd ever seen. His head was clean-shaven and he had a beautiful smile. The other man was taller than the first—nearly seven blocks tall with dark hair, fairer skin and almost black eyes. He wasn't smiling.

"We are only looking for two," the taller one said. "And those two will be placed in the cutting rooms."

Cutting rooms. I'd done my research; that meant the blemished fruit that couldn't be used for anything else would be sent to the cutters, who pared away the bruised portions of the fruit along with the remaining stem and seed before sending the fruit through the pulp machines to be made into beauty creams and other cosmetics. I and two others stepped forward, one woman, one young man. The others wanted the more lucrative work of picking or sorting gishi fruit.