Shoot the Messenger (The Messenger Chronicles #1)
Pippa DaCosta
Summary
In the Halow system, one of Earth’s sister star systems, tek and magic—humans and the fae—are at war.
Kesh Lasota is a ghost in the machine. Invisible to tek, she’s hired by the criminal underworld to carry illegal messages through the Halow system. But when one of those messages kills its recipient, Kesh finds herself on the run with a bounty on her head and a quick-witted marshal on her tail.
Proving her innocence should be straightforward—until a warfae steals the evidence she needs. The fae haven’t been seen in Halow in over a thousand years. And this one—a brutally efficient killer able to wield tek—should not exist. But neither should Kesh.
As Kesh’s carefully crafted lie of a life crumbles around her, she knows being invisible is no longer an option. To hunt the fae, to stop him from destroying a thousand-year fragile peace, she must resurrect the horrors of her past.
Kesh Lasota was a ghost. Now she’s back, and there’s only one thing she knows for certain. Nobody shoots the messenger and gets away with it.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Messenger series is a reverse harem. The harem elements develop during the series. This is NOT a love triangle.
Part I
"Father, O Father, what do we here,
In this land of unbelief and fear?
The Land of Dreams is better far
Above the light of the Morning Star."
Old Earthen, William Blake
Chapter 1
You have eighteen seconds to live.” My hovering drone’s voice sounded flat, the words spoken in the same way all secure messages were delivered. He might have equally said the weather outside Calicto’s environmental domes had settled today—no ion storms on the horizon—or reminded the recipient to pick up a case of salt on his return journey from the mines.
An awkward silence fell over the restaurant. The recipient—a stocky man of some fifty years with arms and legs the size of ventilation ducts—blinked in disbelief at the drone, and then narrowed those gritty eyes on me.
“Sota?” I asked, professionally formal.
Sota—the drone—wasn’t much larger than a soccer ball. He didn’t look at all threatening to anyone unfamiliar with military tek. “Sixteen seconds.”
The recipient dipped his greasy fingers into a small cup of synthetic cleaning fluid and wiped his hands dry on the shirt stretched over his barrel chest. “Is this some kind of joke, Messenger?”
I had delivered some unusual messages—a happy birthday ditty at a funeral, dates for illegal inter-species rendezvous, packages of cyn, and parcels that squeaked in a decidedly living and illegal way. It wasn’t my job to query the messages, just deliver them. But an eighteen-second death threat delivered by a drone and what he saw as a harmless messenger girl? Yeah, some might consider it amusing.
I flicked my fingers against my palm, activating the ocular display and schedule for the day. The recipient’s name blinked low in my vision, along with his date and place of birth, occupation and current address. “You are machinist, José Crater of Calicto’s Sector C, Level Four, Container Zero Zero Five, born GE thirty fifteen?”
He smirked, fat lips stretching. “That’s me. But you’d better check your source. That message is definitely not for me.” He leaned back in his chair and spread his arms, oozing confidence. Too much confidence.
I discreetly scanned the other tables. Seated at all of them were men and women equally smug as Crater. They chatted and laughed and did all those normal things, but several were carefully side-eying us with more than a passing interest. Most wore the typical ragged mineworker overalls. Probably just clocked off the day shift. Crater and his crew weren’t just machinists. People like him were the reason I delivered messages armed with a hot pistol and electrotek whip.
I ignored the urge to reach for my whip and tacked a smile on my face that suggested, “Hey, I’m just the messenger. Let’s all just get along.”
Crater grinned back. He was in his territory, surrounded by his people. If this was a joke, it was on me.
Sota buzzed in the air to my left, hovering around seven feet off the ground, patiently waiting for my instructions. SOTA—Secure Observational Tactical Assistant—was seldom quiet.
I pulled a palm-sized signature strip from my coat and tossed it onto the table. “The contents of the message are not my concern, sir. Acknowledge receipt and I’ll be out of your hair.”
I winced. The guy likely had more hair on his back than on his head. His big grin wobbled. “I’m not acknowledging anytang.” He grunted, accent slipping into the outer Halow dialect. “Who sent it?” he asked.
“The sender is anonymous,” I drawled. Most secure messages were sent anonymously, a safeguard against the messenger getting picked up by the marshals and snitching on the senders. My messages had never been intercepted.
He snorted. “Do you know who I am?”
I considered reciting the information I had in his sizeable file, just to irk him, but the onlookers were losing the humor in their glares. I did know of his reputation. He spearheaded the mineworkers’ union on a lovely backwater rock near Calicto’s domes. He might have started out honorable, but word in the sinks was that he and his men were itching for a fight with the Halow government.
The mineworkers’ creed and their arguments were none of my concern. I’d done my job, delivered the message. It was time to leave. “The contents of a message, the sender, and the recipient are none of my concern,” I repeated in a monotone. “I’m just the messenger. Acknowledge receipt and I’ll be on my way. A thumbprint will do.”
If he didn’t acknowledge receipt, I didn’t get my cut, which would mean another week of tasteless rations and no water. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d tasted real water—the wet kind, not the synthetic syrup.
He picked up the signature strip, pinched it between his chunky fingers, and regarded it with a sneer. “I’ve got a message for you to send back.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. “Do you know what anonymous means, Mister Crater? It means put your fucking mark on the signature strip and acknowledge receipt before we have ourselves a disagreement.” I peeled back my long coat, revealing the coiled metal-linked whip and holstered pistol. Neither weapon was common Halow tek and both would like to rip strips off Crater.
To his credit, the surprise on his face was genuine, if diluted by years of lines and fractures. His cracked lips quivered. Right now, he would be wondering how a girl like me—armed to the collar of my long coat—had walked through the restaurant’s security sweeps without setting off a single alarm. Few people took the time to really consider the secure part in Secure Messenger, and fewer knew how it was done. I had just shot up in his estimations. Unfortunately, that new respect also meant the death threat suddenly had teeth.
Crater shot to his feet, bumping the table and knocking over his cleaning fluid. I snatched for my whip. Someone nearby let out a bark of alarm. Weapons rattled. Crater opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to yell never left his lips. A precision blast tore off his lower jaw and ripped out much of his cheek. Half his face vanished in a splash of blood and bone, and the big man dropped like a sack of machine parts, dead before he hit the ground.
I blinked, clearing a red blur from my right eye. Shock sank its claws into time, slowing everything around me to a crawl.
Sniper.