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“Ah, you’re the second coming of Poseidon.”
“No, I’m Nico Portsmouth, who would like to see Teneric Course. Do you have an apartment number?”
“You want to see Teneric?” Pascal, with the monkey, says.
“Yes, he wants the number. Are you going to look it up, or do you want me to do your job while you just stand and gawk at someone who probably knows how to kill you with his thumbnail?” the first one says.
“Um, right.” Pascal’s eyes go wide, and the monkey on his shoulder takes off for the branch of a tall tree behind them. “Now look at what you’ve done. You scared Buddy.” Pascal lifts his tablet and smiles at me. “Yes, yes, Teneric lives here.” He turns his tablet around and shows me a floor map of the 30th floor. “It’s complex up there. You take the first left, then the next right, two more...”
I pivot and walk away. “Thank you,” I throw over my shoulder, remembering what Annabelle would want me to.
“He didn’t even listen to all of it... He’s going to get lost.”
“He’s not going to get lost, Pascal.”
“Yes, he is...” Their voices trail off as I make my way to the elevator. If I get lost in an apartment dome, I should never have been leading missions. I grab one of the communal robes, ditching the towel that I found on the lower levels. Most who come to visit a dome would have come in via solo and hence come directly to the lobby. The level I came in would have been more for those who live here.
The robe’s bright pink and orange. While I don’t care what I wear, this is a bit much even for me. Then again, Little Krill always tells me to look less intimidating. Wearing bright pink and orange, it’s hard to be intimidating. And I’m wearing the colors Teneric will associate with a friend.
The elevator is mercifully empty when I get on and much faster than before. This one has the buttons to the lower level, as the other one did. I get off and take a right, followed by two more lefts. The fact that the apartments don’t have numbers but rather names is not charming, and there is nothing that is going to convince me of that. Not even Annabelle.
I take the next left and then a right. I’m ten steps down the hallway when I realize I’ve made a wrong turn. I go back to the last turn and take a left. Down this hallway, the schematic had it to be two more lefts. And Pascal was wrong because I’m soon standing outside of an apartment that reads Purple Hippo. And I have to laugh because there has never been such a fitting name for an apartment for the old curmudgeon that he is. Hippos don’t look dangerous until you’re up close to one in their territory. So yes, it fits perfectly.
I knock, and the door opens immediately. “Commander. They said you were on the way up and that I should go find you because you were going to get lost. I didn’t believe a word of it. I guess you are going to want to come in.”
I nod once.
“Well then, get in here.” He’s older than I remember. His hair is thinning, and his face is more weathered than the last time I saw him. “You can stop staring anytime now. I’m old and broken, and you will be someday too. Now that you’re a mated male, you’re not going to go down in a blaze of glory. Crazy. I always assumed you would go out like a warrior.”
“Yes, well . . .”
“You look fucking stupid in that robe.” Teneric tosses me a black robe from the wall. I catch it and change into it. “Good, now I can look at your ugly face. Why are you here? The first person you go see after the curfew is lifted is my ass? I’m guessing this has something to do with my brother.” Teneric shakes his head.
“Yes.” I cinch the robe’s belt tighter.
We haven’t moved out of the entryway, and he’s not asked me to come in any farther. No, he glares at me for a long time. I’ve found in my life that if you give people time to fill the silence, they usually do and they give you information that you need without asking.
But not Teneric; he just stares. “Get on with it. What do you want to know?”
“There is reason to believe that your brother was trying to gather information from tech locked in the security chamber of the Maelstrom lobby. That the breaking of the glass at the top of the dome was a diversion to access the lockers.”
Teneric nods. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“You weren’t there, but it was Veneratia. Why weren’t you at the Maelstrom?”
“Because my brother is a monster with a god complex.” He shrugs and then arches his eyebrow at me.
His upward smirk lets me know he thought the same of me. And it was true, or at least true before Annabelle. Now I can feel it. I feel the change in my gut. “You’re not partial to what your brother is doing?”
“I didn’t say that. I said he was an ass with a god complex, like you.”
I nod. “Right, god complex. That’s a normal trait in a Dorian male.”
“You would think. But—” He shakes his head, cutting himself off. He runs his hand over his face. “I’ve always liked you. You’re a likable murdering ass. Whereas my brother lacks the likable portion. I can feel the change coming from the current. You and your mate have swept it in. It’s a good change. So yes, I know about a lot of things. My brother asked me to be in the Maelstrom that day. Asked me to do a little thievery for him. And I told him to go take a trip to the bottom of the chasm wearing a lead collar. So what you’re telling me isn’t new. After I told him no, he didn’t tell me any more of his plan, so I have no idea what it is or why he needed the blocks in the lockers. He told me there was supposed to be a leak as a distraction. I don’t think he meant for the whole damn thing to come down or for anyone to die. Especially not our cousin, whom I’m guessing was who he got to do his dirty work for him. So he didn’t get any of the information he was looking for, anyway. Really, Nico, I have no idea what he was looking for.”
I nod. “What about the labs under this dome?”
“If I tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re not going to believe me, are you?” He crosses his arms over his large barrel chest. “You know, I never noticed before, but you really look like your mother.”
