Page 2 of Salvation
Chapter Two
The fine hairs on the back of Nick’s neck prickled. Someone was following him. Like gossamer-fine threads, the dark certainty wrapped around him the moment he stepped out of the recording studio into the driving February rain of New Los Angeles. A sharp gust of wind plastered his rain duster against his body and whipped the hood from his head. Pulling it back up was pointless if he wanted to listen for his stalker. His fingers tightened around the handle of his guitar case. Who the hell would be following him, and why? Especially in this weather.
It’d be understandable if he were a threat to intergalactic security. But the last time he’d checked, he wasn’t. In the two years since he’d walked out of the New Damon Beach Infirmary and satellite campus of the Collegium of Healers, his days had been filled with quiet research as he and a handful of others recovered the lost musical history of his home-world. Even the days spent recording those songs and musical pieces were low-key. Not the glamour job it once was before the Anferthian invasion, but it was a way to help Terrians regain some semblance of cultural identity.
It also had the added bonus of making flying under the proverbial radar a cinch. His preternatural healing Gift, a talent bestowed upon him by a long-forgotten Matiran ancestor, had laid dormant, buried deep within him. No one in New L.A. had any reason to suspect he was anything other than a normal guy. An average Joe. A starving musician.
But now that Gift stirred, warning him something was not right. Had his sister sent someone to strong-arm him back home? He slowed his pace. She wouldn’t dare, would she? She had been pretty pissed when he’d left. Sure they still spoke, on occasion, but their conversations had been stilted and brief as if the topic of his leaving were a deadly disease.
Nah. Pissed or not, Alex would never do something like that.
He rounded the corner, the rain now pelleting the back of his rain duster. Lengthening his stride again, he headed along the empty street toward his residence. The shadowy presence that had dogged him for six blocks seemed to vanish. Very weird. It couldn’t have been his imagination, not if his Spidey sense picked up on it. He stifled a chuckle as he approached the door of his cube. Yep, he lived in a building block. The Matiran answer to affordable housing. A square, house-size block with windows and a door. No need to call a contractor to build an addition; if he wanted to expand, he could easily have another block connected to it.Voilá.
Pressing his free hand to the ID reader, Nick cast a glance over his shoulder, blinking against the rivulets of water trickling from the ends of his dark hair and into his eyes. Not a soul in sight, which wasn’t unusual for a town of only a thousand permanent residents. The crime rate was lower than it had been since the 1840s. Practically non-existent.
He stepped over the threshold and the door closed behind him, shutting out the cold, damp air.Whew. Home and safe.
“Light.” The ceiling glowed to life at his command, the soft, natural light illuminating the puddle forming at his feet.Making a damn mess, Bock.He was going to need more towels than he owned to dry off. Good thing he'd had the guitar case sealed to protect the precious cargo inside.
The case first, then he’d dry himself.
A hulking, dark form detached itself from the shadowy entryway to the kitchen. “Hello, Nick.”
Nick’s guitar case slipped from his fingers, hitting the floor with a soft thump as he dropped into a defensive position.
The imposing Matiran man glided into the living room, a towel gripped in each square hand, raised one reddish eyebrow in apparent amusement. “Good to know you haven’t forgotten everything.”
An exasperated sigh escaped Nick and he straightened. “Jesus, Graig, what the hell?” Not to mentionwhythe hell? Last he’d checked the former Matiran commander of security had been happily married and living a quiet life farming, helping his botanist wife resolve the food shortage problem on Earth—or Terr as the rest of the galaxy called this little blue-green marble they knew as home.
Graig shrugged and tossed him one of the towels. The other he dropped on the side table before making himself at home on Nick’s small sofa. More of a love seat, really, and it seemed even smaller with Graig’s musclebound bulk sitting on it.
Nick rubbed the towel over his hair as he squinted a glare at his old friend. “Were you following me? No, wait, you couldn’t have been. You’re dry.”
Another nonchalant shrug. Nick dropped the towel atop the guitar case, unsealed his drenched and dripping duster, and hung it on a hook by the door. “So, who is following me?”
“Someone’s following you?”
Damn the man’s evasiveness. “You know they are.”
Graig gave him an “I do?” look. So that’s how it was. Fine. He bent and swept the towel over his guitar case. A treasured gift from Bodie Jones, his one-time music idol who’d become his friend during the Anferthian occupation. Damn, he still missed the man. During the uprising Bodie had bought time for Ora and the rest of their team to infiltrate the Anferthian slave ship; the price had been his life.
Silence dominated the room until Nick finished drying the guitar case and set it next to the bookshelf. Like it or not, there was a reason Graig was here. The sooner this convo was over, the better. Nick lowered his six foot one frame into a ridiculously comfortable leather Matiran recliner adjacent to the love seat. “Gonna tell me why you’re here, Graig?”
The other man’s ice-grey gaze didn’t waver. It never did. His mouth didn’t do much moving either. Classic Graig Roble; Mr. Strong and Silent. This was definitely not a good sign of what was to come.
“I’m here to bring you home, Nick.”
“Iknewit!” He slapped his hands against his thighs, then leaned forward. “You can tell Alex I said, ‘oh,hell, no’. I’m perfectly happy here. I’d planned to visit for Christmas, but now I’m not so sure.” The last statement wasn’t exactly true. Given the awkwardness between him and his sister, she’d probably be relieved if he didn’t show up for the holidays this year.
“The request is not from your sister, although she does miss you terribly.”
Nick brushed off the dig and narrowed his gaze. “Then whoserequestis it?”
“The request comes from Ambassador K’nil, the Terrian and Matiran governments, and the Unified Fleet Brass.”
Say what? What the hell would the Anferthian Ambassador and the high muckity-mucks from Terr, Matir, and the Fleet want from him?
An exasperated sound rumbled in his throat and he pushed to his feet to pace the fifteen-foot room from wall to wall. “They think they can say ‘jump’ and I’ll say ‘how high’? I’m not their stooge, and I’m not going back.”
