I should have saved my breath; Griffin disappeared and Pheligar had me out of there in a blink, landing me in a smaller apartment with fewer windows and not nearly so nice a view. There were two men there, waiting for me. One was around six-three and wider across the shoulders than Gavin. He had Asian features, wore a scowl on his face and had long black hair, braided down his back. His arms were also folded across his massive chest, as if he disapproved of me right off the bat. I was going to have to take lessons from Wlodek and get that non-expression thing going. I needed it more and more often, nowadays.
The other man was around six feet tall with light brown hair, hazel eyes and was mostly human looking but didn't have much of an expression going, either. If I expected Pheligar to make introductions, I was very wrong. "Here is the girl," he said and promptly disappeared.
"Fuck," I muttered. I wanted to shout it, but didn't know how much trouble I'd be in if I did. This was their plan—just to dump me somewhere and leave me to my own affairs?
"They sent a vampire," the brown-haired man declared. Well, it was nice to meet him, too. He was dressed in something that looked like surgery scrubs—in blue. The Asian man was barefoot and wore dark, loose pants with a long-sleeved white shirt. He might have been handsome—I mean really handsome—if he'd get rid of the scowl plastered on his face. It didn't look as if that might happen any time soon.
"They told me I'd have clothing and blood supplied," I said, since neither of them seemed willing to speak after the vampire comment. At least brown-haired guy hadn't called me a f**king vampire.
"Down the hall, second bedroom on the right," the brown-haired man said, jerking his head in that direction. Okay, maybe I wasn't supposed to know their names.
"You will not be biting either of us, if you wish to keep your life," the Asian-looking man finally said something. All righty, then.
"Honey," I said, "as hard as you are, I'd probably break a fang." I stalked away from both of them, going to the designated second bedroom on the right. The Asian-looking guy had to be Dragon, I thought, as I checked out my bedroom. At least Griffin had been correct about the supplies—there was a full-size refrigerator contraption, with cold blood in the bottom half, frozen blood in the top. Clothes were in the closet—the styles differed from Earth; I saw that right away. Loose trousers, loose tunics; Pheligar was dressed better for this place than I was. The shoes were fabric, with rope soles on most of them. A couple pairs had hard rubber soles and there was a pair of rubber rain boots. I'd need those if it were wet out.
Pheligar hadn't lied about communication—there was a stack of newspapers lying on the bed that I could easily read, with plenty of articles about a religion imported from another star system (yeah, I said star system) that was attempting to take over. I sat down to read, and the more I read, the angrier I became. The rogue religion was attempting to take over the entire planet, looked like. Journalists were being killed, along with politicians and public servants, or just about anybody who disagreed with these guys or stood in their way. But the priests and such were so sneaky and slick that nobody could pin the crimes on them or their church. And there were tales that they had a lot of law enforcement either too frightened to arrest them or paid off in some way. These were only rumors at this point, which served to unsettle the population and terrify everybody.
The religion called itself Solar Red, whatever that meant. Maybe my translation was too literal. The other thing that drew my attention in this particular newspaper was that these Solar Red priests were rumored to practice human sacrifice. Why didn't somebody go and shut them down? I grabbed a newspaper and stalked out to the living area. Nobody was there, so I walked into the kitchen.
"Is all this true? About these Solar Red ass**les?" I shook the newspaper I held at the brown-haired man. "Are they really killing people?"
"Yes," he shrugged indifferently, scrubbing a mug. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up and was washing dishes.
"How much night do I have left?" I watched as he rinsed the mug and placed it on a draining mat.
"Around six Earth hours," he grumbled.
"Good. Where's the nearest Solar Red temple?"
"About two miles that way," he pointed to his left, not really looking at me.
"Good. See ya before dawn," I said, dropping the newspaper on the kitchen table and turning to mist right in front of him. I then went straight through the wall. The city I flew over that night was as large as many Earth cities, and was lit half as brightly. I'd already discovered that Refizan was solar powered. Like any city I was used to, it had its share of tall, rectangular buildings. A few Refizani had gone wild and built something circular or in a pyramid shape. I guess geometry is the same, no matter where you are.
The brown-haired guy was right; I found the temple about two miles away. The guards posted outside had guns and looked to be serious about shooting trespassers, but my mist didn't set off any warning bells. I misted inside and found a gathering of priests, all dressed in formal, dark red robes. They smelled evil, and the fact that they were taking bites out of a human heart before passing it on to the next guy didn't improve my opinion of them. Well, I'd misted over a river on my way to the temple. Too bad nobody was there to see what I did next. I had sixteen heads lopped off sixteen priests in about thirty seconds. Then I hauled them as mist to the river; it was flowing swiftly as I hovered above its surface. Sixteen bodies were dropped into the dark waters with a quiet splash. My clothes were bloodied afterward, but at least the job was done.
I made one more trip to the temple, found the Refizani equivalent of a garden hose, dragged it in and washed down the marble floor. Then, taking the hose with me, I shredded it before dropping it into the river. I could smell the ocean five miles away and hoped that the priests would end up there or in a shark's belly before it was over.
* * *
"Where the hell have you been?" Dragon guy demanded when I showed up at the apartment again, my clothes covered in blood.
"I did a little worshiping at the Solar Red temple," I said, brushing past him and heading toward my bedroom, second door on the right.
* * *
As messages go, mine was received loud and clear; the news program I heard when I walked into the living area the following evening was abuzz with it. I was the only one in the apartment, so I drank my dinner as I watched the news on a flat, built-in screen on the wall.
"And to worsen the insult, the perpetrators washed the floor of the inner temple before leaving, without alerting any of the others to their presence. There are no leads or explanations as to what happened to these priests," the reporter said. He sounded almost gleeful, to be honest. "The remaining six hundred priests in the temple on Red Street are threatening retaliation of course, but that has been their stance for months now."