Wrapped Read online

  He stared. “What? Give me the orb?”

  She extended her hands out at her sides. The armour she was wearing was still too flat to hold an orb. “Where do you think I am hiding it?”

  Her grandfather frowned. “Didn’t you get it?”

  “Oh, I got it, I just don’t have it. Your thugs—”

  “My sons.”

  Ah, that explained it. “Your sons are dust. They forced me to take action, and that action was to destroy them.”

  The power around her laughed and wriggled across the suit.

  He paled and staggered. “Both of them?”

  “Well, yes. They had guns, and I didn’t. They wanted to kill me, and I didn’t want to die. What choice did I have?”

  He blinked several times and leaned heavily against her vehicle. She held out her hand and made the vehicle disappear.

  He struck the sand hard. On his back, he lay looking up at her. “Where is the orb!” His voice was a shriek.

  She bent carefully, the suit supporting her. “You have had enough exposure to the orb to reduce your lifespan to a week. Your organs will shut down, your nerves will burn, and you will spend your last days screaming.”

  “What are you talking about!” Spit flew from his lips when he screamed.

  She tsked. “Yelling isn’t a good thing. You appear to lack control. What I am telling you is that when your boys confronted me in the chamber before I contained the orb, I had one choice. I could let them shoot me, or I could step into the orb. I can’t give it to you because I am wearing it. You are a hateful and psychotic old man, and you deserve the death you are going to get for being this close to me. Enjoy.”

  She turned and was about to take off when he screamed. “You are just like your mother. That bitch never knew what was good for her.”

  Brneary nodded. “I think so, too, but you are wrong about that last bit. She saw my father and knew a good man when she saw him. Enjoy your lingering death.”

  She flew off and realized she needed a new containment unit. A quick dip back into the facility and she had the canister in her hands again.

  Now, it was time to go to the prearranged storage facility. The power was very happy to be out, and it hummed and sang as it cruised over her suit. She was pretty sure it was trying to find a way to get inside. The sooner she got this stuff off her, the better.

  The memorial of the blast was a large stone edifice, panels covered with names facing outward in a circle, left the centre empty for the canister to be stored.

  The power got excited when she landed. The energy signature of the ashes and bodies buried under the memorial all contained the same radiation. There was no way they could have been interred inside a city.

  She walked to the dead centre, and she found the icon that she had been told about. “Right.”

  She touched the small crest of the Ornuac family, and when she did, the small door in the stone floor slid aside.

  “Okay. You need to get off and get into the canister. If you truly want to play again, I will come for you.”

  The power wasn’t happy. It swirled over her suit.

  “If you touch me, you will kill me. I need the suit to survive, or you wouldn’t have even had this little bit of time out and about.”

  The power objected. It wouldn’t kill her. She was the primed one. The power had been sent out and found a home in her body.

  Brneary remembered the defense against the blast and tried not to think about how it would have felt to be unprotected.

  “Right, but right now, I can’t have you in my skin. I don’t want to hurt anyone else, and my skin can’t contain your radiation, even if I can survive it.”

  The power wasn’t happy, but it understood wanting to survive. It agreed, and Brneary exhaled in relief. She put her hands in the centre of the canister and watched the power resume its orb shape. It looked a little bigger than it had in the lab, but she didn’t get into that.

  As it cascaded off her, she heard a whisper, and it made her blink. Once the orb was in the suspension field, she closed the unit to seal it, and then, she placed her hands on top of the cannister and added layers of metal around it with a thick cap on the top. She poured five pounds of the mineral that could contain the orb, and when it was done, she lifted the canister, and she slid it into the hole. She sealed it up and pulled her helmet off. Since she was here and she had a long walk home, she may as well speak to her parents.

  The walk around the memorial showed hundreds of family crests. All were arranged equally, no matter what the income level of the deceased.

  Her parents’ names were cut into the stone, and she stroked her fingers across the incisions.

  “Sorry I didn’t come sooner. Things have been very strange over the last few weeks.” Tears started to flow, and she updated the memorial with everything she had been working on. She talked for an hour until her voice was breaking, and finally, she stroked their names and smiled.

  “So, if all goes well, I will be on a hero team soon.” She patted her father’s name. “Just like we planned. Well, we didn’t plan for me to be on the team, but I think it is safest now.”

  She chuckled. “It isn’t like there is a lot for me to do around here.”

  She heard the slight scuffing of a foot, and she turned, ready for a fight. Leadra was standing there, hands at her sides, and a sad expression on her features.

  “So, is it done?”

  “It’s done. No one is getting in to get that thing out.”

  Leadra smiled slightly. “It will be under guard regardless.”

  “Oh, I meant that if anyone tries to get it out, they will be irradiated and the orb will return to wait for me. It has set my cells to accept it, and it likes coming out to play. It is not going to be used for energy anymore.” Brneary rubbed her forehead. “Well, not until it gains enough mass to split. Then, perhaps.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Brneary touched each of her parents’ names and touched Itian’s as well. She turned and walked toward her friend, bodyguard, and cousin. “It told me. It is exceedingly chatty once it gets started.”

  “Miss, are you all right?”

  She nodded and headed down the hill where Alfus was waiting with the vehicle. “It has been a complicated evening. Oh, we will soon have notice that Lord Temlia is dying. Don’t worry about it. His departure from this life is inevitable and will be quick.”

  Brneary worked on shucking the layers of sand and dirt from under the mineral casing. She hadn’t worked on forming minerals, but she managed to get some of them back into cylinders in her belt. The rest was formed into thick plates that she dropped in the back of the vehicle.

  Leadra was talking to someone on her com, and she looked worried. “Miss, your mother had two brothers, and they might be out for revenge.”

  “They will have to get it in the afterlife. I ran into them first.” Brneary had her suit down to the fabric, and she slumped into the vehicle, being joined by Leadra. Alfus drove them away from the memorial.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened tonight?”

  She nodded. “I will give a briefing. Though, if you have any connections with Lord Temlia’s household, you may want to warn them that he is radioactive. If they care for him, they will be collateral damage.”

  Leadra paled and started making calls. In the three-hour trip back to her home, Brneary thought deeply about the orb and what it wanted from her. That kind of power was tempting, but the orb had promised to stay away from anyone else. It would be her burden to bear.

  When she got home, everyone was waiting for her, and she stepped out to greet the solemn faces.

  They all trooped inside, and she waited until they were down in the workout area before she said, “Tonight, I took my first steps with your training and the gift that was triggered on that horrible day. I did a good job. I managed to use all of the skills that I had learned, and I used them well.”


  Leadra asked, “What happened?”

  “Ah. Well, I was listening to the orb when two figures in radiation suits with blast weapons pointed at me, ordered me to put the orb into the canister.”

  She inhaled. “Instead, I backed into the orb, and it wrapped into a living web around my suit. A flick of my fingers and I turned the two men to ash. I didn’t learn until later that they were my uncles.”

  The gathered dozen gasped.

  “I flew upward through the layers, and when I came out, there was a familiar figure standing next to my vehicle. It was Lord Temlia. He had been waiting for me to make my move. He didn’t back away from me and demanded the orb, I told him that I didn’t have it, and he flipped out. So, I made my vehicle disappear while he was leaning on it and warned him that the exposure to the radiation he had already had would be fatal. I had to explain that the orb had gotten into my suit and wasn’t an orb anymore, and then, he got nasty, so I left.”

  Monarth looked hopeful. “So, Lord Temlia is definitely going to die?”

  “Oh, yes. He was basking in the glow. There is no way for him to get around it.”

  Monarth’s shoulder slumped. “Thank the stars, the heavens, and whatever else you want to. How long does he have?”

  “I am not a doctor, but I am guessing he will be dead within the week. No one should get near him.”

  Leadra nodded. “His family has been warned.”

  Brneary sighed. “Right. Well, I appeared on plenty of monitors and cameras, this should escalate rather quickly. Tonight, I got started. Let’s see where this takes us.”

  Chapter Eight

  With her meetings done for the day, Brneary headed to a restaurant to get together with some of the few acquaintances she had left.

  The restaurant was just down the street from Kiniak Corp’s offices, and the hostess at the front remembered her. “Miss Ornuac! It is so good to finally see you. May I express my condolences?”

  Brneary blinked and smiled. “Thank you for the greeting, Alietta. I am meeting Maro and Kiiva.”

  “Of course. They are waiting in the lounge. Please come with me.”

  Brneary followed the hostess, and it felt so surreal to be following her through a restaurant where she had met with friends and had frivolous conversations before everything had tipped sideways.

  Her friends looked the same. Kiiva wore her black hair and golden skin with the pride of one of the high families. Maro had similar skin and hair, but his bright blue eyes twinkled and proved that one of his ancestors had gone wandering.

  They both rushed to their feet and hugged her. Kiiva looked at her hair and lifted it. “Wow, it is so soft.”

  “Yeah, pull out the pigment, and this is what is left.”

  Maro looked at her eyes. “The same thing with the red?”

  “Yeah, no pigment in the eye, so you see the colour of blood. I have filtering lenses in place.” That was a slight lie. She didn’t need correction or protection from light. It was another gift on top of her gift. Her immune system was more robust than it had ever been, and she could see easily in bright light and low light, equally.

  They chatted about the last year, the changes, and then Kiiva winked, “So, you have taken over the corporation?”

  “Yes, and no. I have it in the hands of very capable people, and we are taking it in a new direction that should benefit Akerhar in the long run.” Brneary sipped at the fruit juice that she had ordered instead of a cocktail.

  “But how much are you worth now?” Maro was sly.

  Brneary smiled. “You aren’t my type, so you will never know.”

  She heard something from the front of the restaurant. Shouting.

  “Please excuse me.” She got to her feet and headed to the front of the house.

  A group of young men was jostling for space and demanding a table. Alietta was trying to get them under control, but she was vastly outnumbered.

  The other servers were gathered, but no one would make a move.

  Brneary knew those faces. They were members of the Barcor clan. “Alietta, who are these idiots?” She made her voice honey sweet.

  The head bully drew himself up and scowled at her, swaying slightly. “You don’t know who you are talking to, you albino bitch.”

  Brneary smiled at him and turned back to Alietta. “It would be my pleasure to clear the front entryway.”

  When the stunned hostess nodded, Brneary grinned, and she acted.

  She kicked out at his legs and knocked him down. His friends stood back smugly as he leaped to his feet.

  He swung at her, and she ducked easily, catching him in the jaw with a sharp uppercut. A glass jaw was easy to spot, and he went down. She stepped up to him where he lay dazed. “You shouldn’t speak that way to a lady.”

  The hostess was appalled. “Miss Ornuac, do you know who he is?”

  She smiled down at the smug bastard struggling to get up, and she bent to pull him up by his hair. “He is Ramon Barcor, the assassin clan. He likes to insult women and spend money. His mother covers his failings, but that isn’t enough for him. He keeps pushing his behaviour to see what he can get away with. He’s a slug. A coward and an idiot who couldn’t finish standard schooling without his teachers being bribed to pass him.”

  His eyes were wild, and he grabbed her by her throat. She winced when he closed his hand around her, but when he slammed her head into the wall, it was over. The wood wrapped around her and formed light armour, and she struck out at him with a gauntleted fist.

  The wood made an impression on his face, and she attacked him with a flurry of blows that left him bleeding, and his friends attempted to hold her off.

  One pulled a knife.

  Brneary grinned and grabbed the knife. When she pulled her hand back, she had the knife welded onto the back of her hand, jutting out past her knuckles. “Thanks for that.”

  She took up a fighting position, and she cocked her head. The men were hanging back warily.

  “Now, you can grab that sorry sack of shit and haul him out of here. I will call his mother.”

  His cohorts grabbed him and dragged him out, the others who had been injured hobbled away from her, and she pulled the knife out of her gauntlet, closed it, and tossed it at one of the men who hadn’t engaged with her. “Here you go.”

  He paused and smiled slightly. “Are you really going to call his mother?”

  “Yes, and I am going to put pressure on the police to lay charges on any pending investigations that involve him.” She quirked her lips. “He might be a Barcor, but I am an Ornuac. I will always win. I cheat.”

  He grinned at her and inclined his head. “My name is Tebber Barcor. Ramon is my younger brother, and yes, he is an idiot.”

  “Why were you here?”

  “He just got engaged to another dark family. He isn’t taking it well.” Tebber snorted. “He is celebrating and mourning at the same time.”

  “I am going to have a nice conversation with his mother. Now, why didn’t you join in the fight?”

  He grinned. “I recognized the way you move. There was no way I was getting in front of that.”

  “Perhaps the Barcors should start elevating folk on merit and not bloodline.”

  He grinned. “Tell Ramon’s mother that and then duck. She uses death needles.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  He bowed. “Thank you for the entertaining afternoon.”

  She inclined her head, backed up to the wall, and let her armour fade back where it came from so as not to disrupt the design.

  She heard a gasp and turned her head. Kiiva and Maro were staring. She sighed. “Still up for cocktails?”

  Her friends begged off and scattered.

  She turned to Alietta. “I will settle the bill.”

  “Thank you, Miss Ornuac. You really don’t have to.”

  Brneary took a pay pad, entered enough money in it for the entire restaurant. “Here. P
rocess this and close for maintenance for the day. Call it a water main break. I am going to get to the Barcors as soon as I can.”

  “You don’t mean...” Alietta looked horrified.

  “No. Not that. Do excuse me. I need to make some calls. Let the folks finish their meals, but then, I want everyone out of here.”

  She picked up her phone, and the bartender brought her another fruit juice. “Leadra, can you put me in touch with the Barcor matriarch? Or at least the one with a son named Ramon.”

  “What do you want with that bitch?” The fervent tone was a little surprising.

  “I have to talk to her about one of her sons. Ramon, to be specific.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Delinatas.”

  “We are on our way. Do they still wear black and white?”

  “They do.”

  “We will be there in thirty minutes. Lock the doors.”

  “I will.”

  The restaurant was emptying quickly. “So, do you need to call the Barcor woman?”

  “No need, she is going to be on you as soon as that whining snot goes running to her.” Leadra was grim.

  “Wonderful. Well, I am wearing my ass-kicking shoes, and they are already warmed up.” Brneary looked at her foot. Her shoes were also dotted with blood. Ah well.

  The half-hour passed quickly, and Alietta stayed with her while the rest of the staff took off. When the Cadein family arrived, they took over the restaurant and set up in positions at serving stations, the kitchen, and bar.

  Alietta blinked. “What is going on?”

  “Ah, they are preparing for an invasion. I would recommend that you go now.”

  Leadra looked at the hostess, unbuttoned a few of her own buttons and quickly changed her hair colour with a light pressure of her fingertips on her scalp.

  “Oh, you had that done. Nice.”

  “Thanks. It makes it easier to blend in.” Leadra looked at her white locks. “You were designed to stand out, I am thinking.”

  Vehicles began to pull up out front.

  “Alietta, go out the back. Quickly.”

  Leadra shook her head. “No time. Go and put on an apron in the kitchen. A chef’s jacket if they have it, and if anyone pulls a weapon, hit the floor.”