Free Warrior from the Shadowland by Cassandra Gannon Page A

sure of it. 
Almost sure, anyway.  Where the hell had it come from?
    “Mel?” 
Sullivan Pryce, Melanie’s cousin and boss, called to her from the outer room. 
“Everything okay?”
    “Yeah.” 
Melanie said, automatically.  She took a backwards step towards the door. 
“There’s nothing back here.”
    “There’s
not?”  One of the blue-haired lunatics demanded.   His undoubtedly fake
drivers’ license said that his name was Tharsis Waterhouse.  His gaze slid over
to the curvy, little redhead in a “Hello Kitty” baseball cap.  “Ty?”
    She
shrugged, her eyes warily fixed on Sullivan.  Sullivan had that kind of effect
on people.  At 6 foot 6, with a massive scar on the side of his face, Mayport
Beach’s chief of police looked like a badass.  The scowl didn’t help matters. 
Sullivan was never in a great mood, but drug dealers really pissed him off. 
Since, it was a pretty good guess that the three nuts with Goth striped hair
had broken into the hospital lab in order to steal any kind of happy pills they
could find, Sullivan wasn’t exactly on his best behavior.
    Melanie
almost felt bad for the freaks.
    “There’s
another walkie-talkie back there.  I think they had someone else working with
them, but he got away.”  She arched a brow at Tharsis.  “Looks like your buddy
left ya for dead, pal.”
    His
mouth actually curved.  “Honor among thieves is such a crock.”  All three of
them had some kind of odd lyrical accent, but Tharsis’ was the least
noticeable.  His life of crime apparently paid well, since he wore an Armani
suit with no shirt and there was a huge blue sapphire studded through his left
ear.  Amusement gleamed from his turquoise eyes, as if this entire bust was
part of some grand joke.
    “You
didn’t see any bodies back there?”  The other guy asked Melanie.  His phony,
unlamented ID listed him as Uriel Woods.  Melanie couldn’t imagine any parents
being cruel enough to saddle their kid with a name that sounded so much like
‘urinal.’  “Or are you just ignoring the dead Phases because they weren’t
human?”  He looked over at Tharsis.  “Do humans even have laws about killing
us?”
    Tharsis
cringed slightly and pretended not to hear that.
    “Oh,
God.”  Sullivan gave his head a patented ‘why me?’ shake and pinched the bridge
of his nose.  “They think that they’re aliens.  I can’t handle any more aliens
this week, Mel.”
    Melanie
patted his shoulder sympathetically.  Sullivan hated dealing with eccentrics. 
He’d really much rather have a gunfight or even do paperwork.  And the aliens
they usually picked up weren’t armed, either.  Melanie rolled her eyes at the
strange looking sword they’d taken from Uriel.  The Lord of the Rings prop store must love these jokers.
    “We
aren’t aliens.”  Tharsis said, swiftly.
    “There
are no aliens in this galaxy.”  Uriel agreed, straight faced.  “We’d have met
them.”
    “ He’s going in your car, Melanie.”  Sullivan gestured towards Uriel.  “I’ll take
these two and meet you back at the station.”  He grabbed Tharsis with one hand
and Ty with the other.  “Just leave the other walkie-talkie and the rest of the
scene as is and we’ll process it this afternoon.”
    That
perked Melanie up.  Mayport Beach offered very few opportunities for processing crime scenes.  Usually, it was just arresting the same clowns every weekend at
the local bar and giving out some parking tickets.
    Ty’s
eyes went wide behind the lens of her cat’s eye glasses.  Like her soon-to-be
co-defendants, her hands were zip tied behind her back.  “Thar?”  Her voice
sounded too high pitched as Sullivan dragged her forward.  “Are we sure these
are real humans and not working with the Reprisal or anything?”
    “I’m
sure.  Chason wouldn’t even hire a human to scrub his toilet.”  Tharsis glanced
up at Sullivan, looking amazingly blasé about his upcoming trip to the