Inluvis - The second gestational period in turian pregnancy. Between 8 and 16 weeks. Slang: Little one, in the sense of being young and underdeveloped.
Senuxem - Ancient exalted. A term of reverence when referring to one's elders: grandparents, great grandparents. Senux: slang. A derogative. Human equivalent: geezer.
Obluvis - One who is senile or absent-minded.
Nais: (pronounced Nahees) Plural: Naisa (pronounced Naheesah) An asari over the age of emancipation. Equivalent of woman/women.
Cisera: A non-alcoholic, fizzy cider made from the juice of more than twenty varieties of edible cactus analogues.
Maribellas - Beautiful female … a term of endearment aimed more toward a younger female or one with a greater social distance from the speaker.
Puercuna - Cradle or a bed for a child.
45 Days ASR
Emerging from bright, institutional lighting into the deep mauves and patchy, brilliant neon and streetlights of evening, Nihlus paused, blinking a little as his vision adjusted. Sol ran up his heels, then cussed and gave him a shove that rattled every nerve in his already frustrated, twitchy body.
The Spectre took a deep breath and rubbed his hands against the outsides of his thighs, his one pausing over his flask before he clenched them both into fists.
Tearing his thoughts away from the craving hanging from the back of his tongue, a thirst that ached all the way down to his knees, he focused on the business at hand. And that amounted to nothing more than another dead end. He cracked his neck and glanced up at the bank. An entire day wasted. Wrapping an arm around his rolling, angry belly, he headed across the street to the car. He reached for the cab's door control, a flash of grey cloak and silver face plates in his peripherals freezing him in place, hand reaching out. Shattering the ice that held him, Nihlus spun around, searching the crowd for any sign of Specimen Alpha.
Gaze darting over the crowd, he saw only a painting in shades of blue and purple, the odd variant sketched here and there as turians, humans, and salarians pushed through, making their way down the busy street. Not a hint of grey cloak or a turian face he recognized.
"Senux?" Sol called from the other side of the car. "What's going on? I thought we were done for the day?"
Feeling a snarky whinge building on the horizon, he abandoned his search and opened the cab. Sol's muttering about being starved to death had started about the time they opened their fifth empty safety deposit box of the day, and after two more, the racket coming from her guts was reaching a truly disturbing pitch. So when she opened her mouth, mandibles already flexing, he nodded. "Sure, getting something to eat sounds good." Cocking his head, he flicked his mandibles at her, then looked to Thane. "The asari who went into the bar, did she look at home there?"
The drell nodded once, then ducked into the car. "She did. While she appears to have fixated on you for the moment, she is out of her element stalking her prey. She is a spider." He sat back, disappearing into the deep shadows of dusk. "She spins her web, casts her glamour, and waits."
Nihlus ducked into the car, sliding deftly onto the leather seat, his mind already flicking through calculations. If she was a spider, what about him pulled her out of her web? Would he send her scrambling for a hole if he pinged some of its threads? Or might he get a chance to put a face to at least one of the naisa hunting him? No one had interfered with him that day, not even coming close enough to set off any alarms, but the fact he was the center of so much attention tied an ugly knot in his gut. Well, a non-alcohol related knot, anyway.
"Spiders tend to stick to one web until the insects stop getting caught in it." He met and held Thane's stare in the mirror. "How badly will we stick out in the bar she went to last evening?"
The assassin's expression didn't show the slightest trace of emotion when he said, "You, badly. Solana and myself, not at all."
Sol let out a guffaw that settled into cackling. When he turned his glare on her, she shrugged one shoulder, her grin spreading. "Sorry, senux, what can I say, you practically have tight-ass cop tattooed across your forehead in neon."
"I can use that to my advantage." He set the destination for the block across from his building and relaxed into his seat. Closing his eyes, he cracked his neck first one way and then the other. Seven empty banks amounted to nearly twelve hours wasted. Well, mostly wasted. All of the deposits, whether cash or boxes, had been withdrawn by the same asari. He'd set his omnitool to the task of discovering her identity after the second bank.
Saren had left a trail of pebbles behind, Nihlus felt sure of that, but someone else was sweeping it up before he could get to them. His day would have been better spent back at the apartment reading the journal, but sending Thane and Sol out on their felt too risky. Besides the banks might not have told them anything regardless of the paperwork they carried.
He could pull the Spectre card. The council had left his Spectre status intact in order to track his business. If he used it, they knew his exact location and what information he wanted. Not that he cared. Let them track him. He didn't rely on their good graces or on stealth. The chances of being able to do anything related to Archangel without the entire galaxy knowing was slim to none anyway.
Maybe he would let Thane and Sol go out on their own the next day and spend time with the journal. What he'd read the night before mostly covered the time around the occupation of Shanxi, long before he and Saren met, and provoked more questions than it answered.
If the Alliance had known what was going on under their noses, they wouldn't have retreated. They would have fought to the last soul to make sure Desolas didn't retrieve the artefact. What they might have done with it … he shuddered to think. Some objects just needed to be sent directly into the center of the sun.
More mysteries clouded the artefact General Desolas Arterius called the Arca Monolith than anyone should have been comfortable with. Who found it? Why and how had the Hierarchy come into its possession for its ship to crash on Shanxi? Desolas didn't just stumble upon it there; he'd been ordered to retrieve it and make sure that it made it back to Palaven.
Desolas wanted to elevate turians above the rest of the races, a goal he made no secret of. He believed that the turian empire needed to spread across the stars, to display a might that would bring all the races together under one rule. Saren shared his brother's goals even though he'd held his aspirations close to his chest rather than making the hierarchy privy to them. They were goals that Nihlus recognized from the fifty thousand cycle old memories in his head.
Somewhere in the back of his head, he felt a pattern forming. He just needed to—
"Hey, senux obluvis, are you just going to sit in the car, staring at the console?"
Nihlus looked up, blinking in the storm of neon flashing the entire spectrum of colour in his face. He glanced at Sol, who sat in the next seat, one reaching for the handle to get out, a genuinely concerned scowl making her mandibles twitch. The Spectre shook his head and waved her hand back inside, embarrassment heating his plates. Senux obluvis indeed. He was starting to wander.
He checked to make sure Thane was still inside, then hit the control to close the top. Who knew was listening in the crowds milling along the street. "Sorry, I was trying to figure out what I read in Saren's journal last night, and why all the accounts and safety deposit boxes have been empty." He nodded toward the club's brightly lit door. "You two go ahead, get seats in a booth as far out of the way as you can get. I'll go in and spend some time at the bar before I join you."
His belly grumbled, but not for food, and he rubbed his hands on his thighs again. Soon he wouldn't be able to hide the tremors. Sliding his hand down to the pouch on his thigh, he sighed. No, he'd been doing so well since Shepard came to him and called him dilan. He could quit.
"Sere Krios," Sol said, "go ahead. I'll be with you in a second." She waited while Thane got out of the car, then closed the top before she turned to face Nihlus. Silence dragged on long enough that he wondered if she was trying some sort of interrogation technique on him before she said, "Take a drink, Nihlus." Letting out a deep, sad sounding breath, she turned to look out the side window. "I know you're trying, and I respect the hell out of that, but I can see your hands shaking. I know the nausea is getting bad." She looked back, meeting his stare, the sea-blue sparkling like jewels in the light. "And I'm pretty sure you had some sort of hallucination earlier."
Nihlus held the painfully compassionate stare for another second, then nodded and looked away. Damn, Herros Vakarian had raised his offspring to be far too observant. The love in her stare shamed him, the heat beneath his plates building until it writhed like maggots.
"You can't just quit, not now," Sol continued, reaching out to wrap her talons around his. "You're going to be sick for days when you do. So, sit here for the next ten minutes, sip at that damned flask, and then come in." She popped the top, but held it closed. "If there are assassins in there, you need to be functional and as alert as possible."
He turned his hand over to squeeze hers and nodded again, relieved as hell when she got out and closed the cab up behind her. Still, it took five minutes before he gave in and removed the flask from his pouch. As he held it to his mouth, he needed to fight down the urge to throw up. He was a weak fool who threw his pride and honour down the neck of a bottle every time life challenged him to rise above pain and difficulty.
As the sweet burn hit his tongue, a single thick, choking sob belched up from the pit of self-loathing in his gut, spewing half of it across the console. Fuck! Gagging, he fought back the legion of sobs trying to boil up his throat to follow the first. No! No! His self-pity could fall straight into the pits of buratrum. Finally wrestling down his gag reflex and walling up his emotions, he wiped his face and laid his head back against the seat. Closing his eyes, he focused on drawing in long, searing breaths. Sol was right. He didn't have the time to flush it out of his system. Functional needed to outweigh his old, destructive companions for the time being.
Gagging on another drink, he forced himself to think about something else. Why would Specimen Alpha leave out the bank information if someone was just going to run ahead of Nihlus, emptying everything out? Was someone trying to keep him from discovering what Alpha wanted him to find? Was the turian just messing with him? Playing with his head for kicks or who knew what other reasons?
The second page of the journal had only a few lines, Saren's usual handwriting jagged and broken … large and ungainly, like that of a child. When Nihlus read them, it felt as if something branded them into his mind, and for the first time since Eden Prime … maybe even long before, Nihlus had felt sympathy for his old friend and one-time lover.
Your time is at an end. It is the way of things. It is inevitable. You can't fight it. You can't avoid it. You have only two choices. You can hide. Or you can accept your fate. We are your destiny. (1)
That message, the discovery of what Sovereign was and what it intended to do had prompted Saren to do neither. He'd taken the wrong path, but nonetheless, the Spectre heard the message and said, 'No, I won't hide, and I won't accept that nothing can be done.' As much as Nihlus hated what Saren had done, he needed to respect that much.
"And he protected me from both the Reapers and the ones behind the black orbs." The sound of his voice echoing back off the window alerted Nihlus to the burn in his belly and his steady grip on the flask. He choked down one last small drink, then shoved the bottle back in its pouch. Taking a couple of long breaths, he opened the car and climbed out, the noise and glaring lights beating at his head.
He winced against the onslaught and pushed forward. The bar wouldn't prove much better than the street—he could already hear the music booming inside—but it would dull as the alcohol kicked in. Numb had its advantages.
The sheer noise level when he entered the bar knocked him back a step, and he made a mental note to get aural implants that allowed him to adjust the ambient volume. Still, exposure deafness set in, and he continued to the bar. Thane couldn't have been more correct about his ability to fit in. Other than a small squad of very tipsy asari police officers at one booth, he couldn't have discovered a more ill-fitting demographic if he tried.
Oh well, like he'd said, he could use it. Pushing up to the bar, he nodded to the bartender. "Puala nectar, please. In the bottle."
The nais chuckled and slid one down the counter. "In the bottle, how very badass of you, officer."
He just winked and flicked his mandibles. When she flushed, he grinned. Oh yeah, he still had it. He'd finished off one bottle and just started another when he felt eyes heating the back of his neck. Making a point of ignoring whomever it was, he turned to watch the gyrating taking place on the dance floor, and let out a long breath. Spirits, he was getting old.
"That's not what I'd expect a torin like you to be drinking," a soft, smoky voice said from behind his left shoulder. The sound brushed over him like warm, gentle fingertips down the arch of his neck.
Nihlus chuckled and glanced back but not far enough to see the speaker. Even though she left a metre or so buffer between them, the energy she gave off felt like silk and leather grappling hooks trying to snag him and draw him in. Without a good long career of dealing with seductive killers of all stripes, he might have fallen for it. "Oh," he answered after a pause long enough to make his lack of interest clear, "I'm a Spectre in a bar, which to my mind makes fruit nectar the ideal drink."
The asari finished closing and leaned against the bar a reasonable distance away. "Most cops I meet in bars can barely stand." She tilted her lovely, sculpted face up a little, creating the perfect angle to showcase her long neck clad in commando leathers before she tipped it toward the asari cops. "Those beauties couldn't be a better example. They see so much ugliness, that they come to places like this looking to forget."
Nihlus took a long drink. "And do you help them forget?" He turned just so he could see her from the corner of his eye and raised one brow plate.
Her turn to laugh. It practically sparkled, effervescent and lilting, music that whispered in his aural canal and twined around his will. 'Just relax' it sighed. 'Let down your guard.'
Not in a million cycles.
"Oh, not while they can't stand on their own," she replied, nodding to the bartender in a way that confirmed what Thane had said about her being comfortable there. The bartender knew her order even amidst a teeming crowd. Drawing slow circles on the counter with a single, elegant finger, the nais stared—sapphire eyes warm and curious on the side of his head—but didn't speak until the asari behind the bar slid a shot glass of something purple in front of her. Lifting it with two fingers, she tossed it back. "I prefer my quarry to have their senses intact. They enjoy themselves far more that way."
Nihlus didn't rise to her bait. Quarry had been used very deliberately, as she tried to shake something loose. She wanted to know something about him … probably why one of his other shadows was following him. If his instincts proved him out, and she was a predator and a murderer like he believed, it was his connection to the Justicar she wanted to know about. Would he prove to be an enemy or an ally? He didn't even twitch in her direction while she ordered and downed another of the purple drinks.
"Pleasure talking with you, Spectre," she said and turned away, hips swinging seductively. She walked a slow circle of the dance floor before approaching a young turian. The nais spoke to the tarin for a moment, then began to dance next to her. Swaying, a sultry midsummer breeze blowing over the tussat fields, her every move amounted to poetry … poetry meant to ensorcel his mind and inspire another part of him altogether.
Nihlus made a point of watching, his mandibles lifted a little, a clear signal that he knew she was trying to toy with him, but he didn't mind watching the show. Everything about her toyed with people, an ungentira batting about a preteril.
He turned away and smiled at the bartender as he set his bottle on the counter. "Another, please." When she set the juice down in front of him, he tipped his head in the direction of the seductive asari. "She's here a lot, I take it?"
The nais nodded, but glanced toward the dance floor and back. "She is. Not to be rude, but you're hardly her type. Too old. She prefers them young and filled with all that misunderstood angst." She slammed her lips together, looking terrified to have said too much, a quick glance darting toward the dance floor. "Apologies, shooting off my mouth. Your meal is being served to your table, sir." Her hand lifted from wiping the counter, flipping the cloth toward where Sol and Thane were accepting the food.
He chuckled, curious, brow plates lifting. "How did you know I was with them?"
She smiled. "Been doing this a long time. I've learned how to read people and situations. They've been keeping an eye on you, but trying to look like they aren't." She had a good face, broad and pleasant, kind brown eyes. It surprised him, but mostly because he hadn't noticed. At one time, he would have scanned her like a security checkpoint and not only filed her appearance, but decided her potential threat level and psych profile as well. A cool blush spread across the bridge of her nose. "Have a good evening, sir."
"Thank you." Nihlus lifted his drink from the bar and started toward the booth.
"Sir?" the bartender whispered. Nihlus turned, the fear in her eyes drawing him back to the counter. He waited for her to speak, but after a minute, decided maybe she wasn't going to, except she remained standing there. Finally, she winced and busied herself wiping the bar top. "You said you're a Spectre?"
Nihlus answered with almost imperceptible nod.
"That one is bad," the bartender whispered without lifting her head. "As I said, I've learned to read people." When Nihlus nodded again, the bartender shrugged. "She smiles and acts sweet and charming, but it never touches her eyes. There's something broken there."
He took a long drink, then set the bottle down. As much as he didn't want the asari in commando leathers to be suspicious of him, he couldn't just dismiss the bartender's gut reaction. He placed far too much faith in his own. "She done anything suspicious? Leave here with anyone you should have seen again, but didn't?"
"No." Nervous glances darted between his face and her cleaning. She shrugged, one shoulder rolling ever so subtly. "Can't say she's put a finger wrong."
"I can't do anything unless she tries to hurt someone, but thank you for telling me." Turning on his heel, he skirted the busy dance floor, sliding into the booth next to Sol.
Thane nodded, a wry smile lifting one corner of his mouth. "You used it to your advantage most effectively. She's trying to pique your interest, but she is just baiting you until you give something away."
The Spectre nodded, but then turned his attention to the food. "What did you order me?"
Sol grinned and pushed a large cup in front of him. "The quarian vegetable and grain smoothie with extra vegetables and sterilization." She closed her eyes, her expression one of complete bliss. "So gray and tasteless. You'll love it."
Levelling her with a suspicious glare, he looked into the cup, and let out an undisguised sigh of relief. Cisera.
A cackle far too filled with obnoxious self-congratulations rolling from her, Sol pushed a plate of skewers and spiced tubers in front of him. "The look on your face." She bumped her shoulder against his. "I wish I'd taken a holo. Priceless."
Breathing a sigh laced with both affection and resignation, he picked up a tuber and stuck it into her open mouth. "Eat. I'm tired, and I want to get some sleep." Exhaustion truly did hang from him, heavy and thick, as he started eating. He wanted to stretch out, prop his head up on far too many pillows, and read until he passed out.
She drew his attention as she plucked the long, fried root from her mouth and chomped it in half. "You want to go home, get into bed, and obsess over that journal." When she finished the first, she stole a second tuber off his plate, then turned to her own meal.
They ate in relative peace for five minutes, Nihlus and Thane grunting now and again to acknowledge Sol as she filled the silence with editorial. The Spectre actually found her voice comforting, a little like the white noise of rolling waves or the steady rumble of thunder in the distance.
"Your asari acquaintance just gave the turian child drugs," Thane reported in a low whisper, interrupting Sol's diatribe against bankers, the ease with which the anonymous asari cleared out Saren's assets, and banking in general.
Nihlus kept his focus on his meal. "Let me know if it looks like they're leaving together, or if the turian leaves and the asari follows her."
"Kid looks fifteen at the most," Sol mumbled around a mouthful of food. "She should be home studying for her placement exams or out playing turram, not hanging around with an asari a good four hundred cycles older than her."
Nihlus turned to her, a grin and a raised brow plate greeting her pronouncement. "You never cease to amaze me, maribellas." He wrapped an arm around her back and gave her a quick squeeze. "You've got the best heart under all that smart ass and bluster."
She punched him and dug back into her food. "Eat, we need to be ready if that puercuna raiding psychopath tries to take the kid out of here."
He bent to bump his brow against her temple. "As you command."
An elbow buried itself in his side. "I said eat, you sentimental idiot." Still, when she looked up, her mandibles flicked in a tiny smile. He flicked his back and dug in. How different would his childhood have been with a baby sister to look after and pour all his affection and attention into? He grinned as he nudged her and then started eating as fast as he could. Despite letting out an indignant chuff as if she were too good for an eating contest, she sped up, and soon tubers and skewers vanished at a rate that begged a choking fit and possible death.
As he finished, victorious, he bumped her with his shoulder. Little sister? Better late than never.
As they guessed, they'd barely finished their meals when the asari wrapped an arm around the young tarin and headed for the door. The nais leaned into the turian's aural canal, whispering constantly. The way the young tarin stared up at her companion, enraptured, almost enamoured, set Nihlus's blood boiling through his veins, sickened rage locking his teeth together. Whatever this asari was up to, he wasn't going to allow her to shove that child's death in his face or the Justicar's.
Letting his fury simmer, escaping through his expression and posture, Nihlus leaped up and stormed after the pair, catching up with them just outside the front doors of the bar. Grabbing hold of the young tarin with a bruisingly tight grip, he yanked her away from the asari.
"Spectre," the nais said, her voice full of barely disguised need. 'It's all actually for you,' it whispered. 'I don't really want this little thing.'
Letting his rage build up a thick layer of armour, he met the asari's eyes, challenging her in no uncertain terms. "Leave, now, and don't think about trying this again in my sight. I'm a Spectre; I can shoot you without needing any reason at all."
The asari stared him in the eye for a long moment, her stare oddly hypnotic. Nihlus's internal alarm began to shriek, but for the life of him, he couldn't look away. The pale sapphire turned black, his fury fading into a cold and dank layer of shame. That stare opened a door to an eternal hell where a lonely little peur huddled behind his door and wet himself in terror when his mother beat him.
"I can burn all that away, Nihlus," the asari's voice pitched low as she leaned in next to his aural canal. "I can set you free."
Then, in those memories, Shepard stepped up and held out her hand, warm fingers closing around his talons, and he smiled. "I don't need to be free. My past doesn't hold me prisoner any longer. Try again."
Surprise just registered, the nais's eyes snapping back to blue, when her stare broke away, snapping toward a blur of movement to Nihlus's left. The nais froze, her eyes locked over the heads of the crowd for a second, and then her hand jerked away from the turian child. She looked back at Nihlus. Fear and contempt and a white-hot, molten rage stared into his soul for the barest of seconds before the nais turned and bolted into the crowd.
He stumbled, reeling for the space of a couple heartbeats, but careful not to let the young turian get away. What in the name of all the sweet spirits had happened?
After a couple more seconds, Nihlus shook his head, a sharp tug on his hand orienting him. Looking down on the tarin, he drew his face into the most stern scowl he could. "How old are you?" he demanded.
She tilted her chin up, defiant, and opened her mouth, but as he slid one brow plate up and rumbled a low warning through his second larynx, she grumbled and dissolved into petulant submission. "Fourteen."
Equal amounts of anger, disgust, and relief sloshed around, the urge to vomit getting stronger by the second. Spirits, he needed to get back to the apartment and equalize. Focusing on the child, he managed to wrestle everything into a sort of relieved indignation. "You shouldn't even be in bars. You should be home studying." Keeping a tight grip on her arm, he led her over to a pair of Illium police officers standing about halfway down the block.
"Sir, is there something I can help you with?" one asked, stiffening and stepping forward, her hand moving toward her sidearm as he approached, her eyes flitting toward his shackle-like grip on the reluctant child dragging behind him.
"Spectre Nihlus Kryik." Without releasing the young turian, he activated his omnitool and sent them his credentials. "This inluvis needs to be taken home and her parents told that she very nearly went home with an asari who supplied her with Hallex." Not softening a millimetre, he looked down at the petri. "Nolin stultentes puer. Tuesin incepents abir fetrix."
The little one's eyes sprang wide. "I didn't know. She seemed so nice. We were just going for skewers."
"And when you never came home? What of your family? What of your duty to them?" He pushed her toward the officers. "Be more careful."
She wilted as one of the asari took her by the arm and led her toward their car. "She seemed nice."
Nihlus felt rather than saw Thane and Solana walk up, taking positions to his either side. "You did a fine thing, Spectre Kryik," Thane said, "but we should get out of this crowd. She knows you consider her a criminal, she may come after you."
Nihlus shook his head. "No." He turned, eyes searching the crowd for whatever had terrified the asari. Nothing stood out, other than the sensation of eyes watching him. "She ran, and not from me. She wasn't the least bit afraid of me. In fact, she stared at me, and there was something … ." Shaking his head, Nihlus tried to shake off that strange, seductive magnet that still tugged at him, telling him that he needed to just listen and let her love him. "It was like she tried to climb inside my head, to control me, and for a second, I think I wanted her to."
A massive shudder shook him from talons to crest.
"Control you?" Sol prompted. She stepped in front of him and laid her talons on his arm. "Nihlus? You're acting stranger than usual, senux." The talons shifted to his cheek, slapping him slightly. "What? Spirits, snap out of whatever the hell it is."
Nihlus shook his head. "It was just like she was hypnotizing me or something." He nodded toward the bridge to his building, the last legs turning to jelly as the last dregs of his energy burned to ash. "Let's get back to the apartment. Tomorrow is a whole new day of crazy."
"Nolin stultentes puer. Tuesin incepents abir fetrix." - You foolish child. You almost left with a murderess.
1. Mass Effec: Evolution #1, Mac Walters, Dark Horse Comics, Jan 2011.