The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,13

to set humanity free?

Dane rolled his eyes and jerked his head for her to step off the stage. He put on some recorded music and ordered the dancing girl to get up there. As soon as she did, the guests seemed to forget about the incident, returning to their drinks and conversations and slow dances.

“You’ve got ten minutes to pull yourself together,” Dane threatened Cora. “And then you sing when I tell you to sing.”

The guest with the sunken eyes had been close enough to hear their conversation. His head was cocked in her direction now, as though he could see straight into the offstage shadows where they stood. He smiled slightly.

She hugged her arms, feeling cold despite the humid air, until a hand reached out from the shadows and pinched her.

6

Leon

IF THERE WAS ONE thing Leon liked, it was a full glass of vodka.

Not the fancy stuff, no. It was quantity he was interested in, and Bonebreak had plenty. As a black-market trader, Bonebreak seemed to be able to get his hands on anything from Earth or any other planet. The more Leon drank, the easier it was to overlook the fact that Bonebreak had a seriously ugly hunchback and breath that smelled like something had died. Also, that he wasn’t human.

Leon tipped the dusty bottle toward the Mosca. “Cheers, mate.”

“Cheers.”

The Mosca’s voice came in fits and starts from behind his mask. In the two days that Leon had known Bonebreak, he hadn’t seen his face once, or the faces of any of Bonebreak’s underlings, who scuttled around the corners of the room. After Bonebreak had passed out drunk the night before, Leon had tried to pull off the mask to see what was underneath, only to find it was sewn into the edges of the creature’s face with thick black wire.

Leon tilted the bottle up, then frowned. Empty already. “I need another bottle,” he said. “This one must, uh, have had a leak.”

Bonebreak groaned as he pulled himself to his feet. He scuttled around the various crates, poking and prodding through the contents. He’d set up his smuggling operation in the back half of a shipping node on a lower level that no one seemed to even remember was there, judging by the dirty halls and neglected lights. There was a bored-looking, low-level Kindred official who staffed the front of the node, collecting shipments for the level’s few residents, and accepted Bonebreak’s steady supply of bribes to get first dibs on the shipments’ contents.

“Ah. Here.” The Mosca unearthed another bottle of vodka, this one still shiny and new. “From the latest supply run.” He held the bottle to his mask and breathed audibly. “Smells like Earth. Rotting plants and burning coal.”

Leon shifted uneasily. “So how long ago was this run, exactly?”

“Recent enough.”

“The Kindred said Earth was destroyed right after we were taken. Humans ruined it or whatever—some climate-change shit. That true?”

Bonebreak snorted behind his mask, making a sound like a wheeze. “The Kindred think they can explain the universe with their mathematics. They forget the universe was here long before mathematics was. As were we. And so we shall be long after they are all dust in space.” He swiped a gloved finger along the dust-composite crate, coming away with a chalky powder.

“So . . . Earth’s still there? For real?”

Bonebreak held up the vodka. “Where else would I have gotten this?”

Images filled Leon’s head of his sister Ellie’s apartment back in Auckland. A cramped place that always swarmed with every kid in the neighborhood, it seemed, but suddenly he missed all that chaos. “Maybe the next time you go back, you could give me a lift. You know, a little favor among friends.” Leon scratched his ear, playing it off casually.

Bonebreak snorted. “Nice try. The last ship bound for Earth left four rotations ago and won’t be back for, oh, forty human years.” He admired the bottle. “You are stuck with us.”

An uneasy feeling set up shop in Leon’s head and wouldn’t move out. The Kindred swore Earth was gone; the Mosca swore it was still there. He didn’t trust either species, but if he had to pick sides, he supposed he’d take the one with the booze.

He reached for the bottle.

Bonebreak held it just out of his reach. “Not yet. You see, my hospitality is finite.”

Leon knew an endless supply of potato chips, vodka, and a crate to sleep in was too good to be true. He’d been waiting for the catch ever since he’d fallen