“But we have no intel!” Zea sighed. “You know I like to be prepared for this stuff.”
“I understand your worry,” I said. “But we are going to do it anyway, and we are going to win. You are my wives, and you are the best at what you do. Jotnar thinks they are safe from me because no one would try something this risky, they don’t realize that I’m married to the best hacker, twin engineers, and space witch in the galaxy.”
Zea stared at me for a few moments, and then she shrugged. “Well, yeah. Okay. Fine. So let’s start with step one. How are we going to get a ship?”
“I already have that part figured out.” I smiled and then turned to Madalena “Set course for Queen’s Hat. It’s time to call in a favor. We are going to leave after Eve and I talk to Yu.”
“Yes, my lord,” Madalena answered, and then I took Eve’s hand in mine, and the group of us walked out of the hold.
Chapter 5
It took Eve and I about an hour to shower, get dressed, and get an escort through the Odin Geirr to where Yu was being kept in the jail. My other wives had asked to come with us, but I didn’t think any of them would really be able to help, and I wanted Zea, Paula, and Kasta to spend more time with Aasne and Elana before the mission preparing for potential threats.
Yu was laying on his bed staring at the ceiling when we walked into the hallway outside of his cell. He glanced down at us briefly and then returned to look at the ceiling without speaking.
“Let’s talk more about the Draugr,” I said after ten seconds of silence had passed.
“I’m really bored,” he sighed.
“Too fucking bad,” I growled.
“Yeah, it is,” he laughed. “I feel like my brain isn’t working anymore because of the boredom. It’s making my mind all fuzzy and I can’t really remember anything.
“Then you can relieve your boredom by speaking to me about these fuckers,” I hissed.
“Mehhhhhh,” he sighed. “I don’t really feel like it right now.”
“What do you want?” Eve asked.
“See, this one is smart,” Yu said was he sat up a bit and glanced at Eve. “I’m dropping hints all over the place, but Mr. Eats Crayons For Breakfast can’t perform simple math.”
“Let’s go,” I said to Eve. “This was a waste of time.”
My wife nodded at me, and we turned to walk away.
“Wait!” Yu said after we had taken three steps. “Let’s negotiate.”
“You have no power here,” I said. “You have no leverage. I own your life right now.”
“Well, I do know things about the things that you want to know things about.” Yu shrugged his narrow shoulders and then laughed as he drapped his long legs over each other so that he was sitting cross legged on the bed.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Can I speak with Hanekawa?” he asked quickly.
“No,” I spat.
“Pretty please, with sugar on top?”
I was about to say no again, and then turn and storm out of the hallway, but Eve rested her hand on my bicep and smiled at me.
“We can ask if she wishes to speak with you,” the vampire said. “If she does, we will allow it. Now, you will tell us of the Draugr.”
“Hmmm,” Yu said as he curled his lips to the side. I guessed that he was considering asking me to confirm her offer, but then he just shrugged his shoulders and lay back down on his bed. “What do you want to know?”
“You said I would betray Adam,” Eve started. “What did you mean?”
“What do you think I meant?” he asked.
Eve squeezed my arm to keep me from spitting out an angry reply, and I held my breath.
“I am connected with them. I have some of their DNA. I am guessing that is what you meant?”
“Ahhhh, yes,” he said. “They are linked together. Somewhat like my kind are, although the differences would take me a few months to explain to someone like Adam.”
“Give us the high-level summary,” I said.
“What do you know of the vampire myths?” he asked, but he didn’t move his gaze from the ceiling of his cell.
“They drink blood, turn into bats, hate garlic and the sun.” I crossed my arms and fought against my frustration. We were moving slow, but this was the farthest I’ve gotten in acquiring information from Yu, so I reminded myself to be patient.
“Some of that comes from the truth,” he said. “Just like the stories of various shifter creatures. I’ve talked about this before, though.”
“What did these legends get correct?” Eve asked.
“They aren’t called vampires. Well, their name doesn’t matter. Draugr is actually pretty well fitting, so let’s go with that. Their species propagates by infecting other life forms. Some forms work better than others, and it isn't always successful. Failures turn into even more horrific creatures, but the ones that fully take to the parasites become linked with their masters, and then all of them are linked through their species.”
“Eve is enslaved to them?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that,” he replied. “She might be, but I don’t know how Elaka Nota got the DNA for the experiments. If they got it from one that is still alive, then yeah, she has a master somewhere, but if they got it from one who is dead, then I don’t know what would happen. Maybe that one’s master would have some sort of claim.”
“There is one I keep seeing,” I said after I considered if it would be worthwhile for me to share any more information with him.
“Oh?” he asked as he sat up in his cot.
“Yeah. In my dreams it seems. They were chaotic at first, but then I started to recognize her more.”
“Her?” he asked with a raised blonde eyebrow.
“Yeah,” I answered. “She looks a bit like Eve.”
“Hmmm,” he said as he swung his legs off his cot and leapt to his feet. Then he started pacing his cell. “In your dreams?”
“Yeah.”
“Every time you sleep? Or is it when you are traveling through hyperdrive or warpdrive?”
“I haven’t paid attention,” I said as I tried to remember.
“Of course you haven’t,” he sighed. “I’ll save you the trouble of trying to exercise your brain. It’s probably been in hyper or warpdrive. Definitely folding drive if you have tried it. She might have come to you when not in those time leaps, but that is part of their domain.”
“Time leaps?” Eve asked.
“Yes, time leaps,” Yu answered, then he must have read the confusion on our faces and he rolled his eyes. “Fuck, they don’t teach humans anything in school nowadays, do they? Look, there is only two units of measurement that matters in the universe: Time and mass.”
“Not distance?” I asked.
“It’s just a derivative of the time it takes to get the mass there,” he said. “The closer a species gets to understanding how to manipulate time or mass enables them to ascend in the power which controls the universe. Take Adam for example.” Yu pointed at me. “His kind inherently understand mass. They and the lizards are the only two species we know of that seem to have kind of figured it out, and that is how they change. My kind and these Draugr are closer to time. I could go more in depth, butttttttt…” Yu shrugged his shoulders and then smirked at both of us.
“Which of these aspects do humans understand?” Eve asked.
“Humans understand nothing,” he laughed. “They kind of get how hyperdrives work, but warpdrive engines are just designs they keep tweaking with hopes that they will get faster without imploding the craft they are attached to. They got the technology from us, we needed to start our rebuild somewhere, so we leaked the designs to them when we felt that they wouldn’t accidentally destroy the Earth with a misstep.”
“How many of your kind are there?” I asked.
“Not enough,” he sighed and then looked off into the distance behind us. “We hide, and we hide your kind and the lizards so that the Draugr won’t know we are getting ready for them again.”