Page 47 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
“He also terrorized my grandson for knocking on his door at Halloween one year, so if the big one wants to knock him around a bit, I’ll be a witness and say it never happened. If you don’t want trick or treaters, you turn the porch light off. It’s not rocket science.”
“I will avenge your grandson,” I said.
She let us through the back of the property and once we were alone, I asked Enix what the fuck Halloween and trick or treaters were.
“It’s a human holiday where their younglings dress like demons and the elders give them sweets. Some of the younglings vandalize property if an elder doesn’t give them sweets.”
“Weird,” I grunted, boosting Kuka over the fence.
Enix was next, and I vaulted over after them. Enix had the cameras back there on a loop. Omi gave me a brief lesson on how to pick locks on this planet and I honestly didn’t know how anyone felt safe here with flimsy doors and easily accessible locks.
We stayed hidden because we didn’t need Valtens looking out of a window and seeing us. We needed to wait for Omi to do her thing.
And I gave my sister shit all the time because she liked being reckless, but her shenanigansalwaysworked out in her favor.
Valtens had a fairly nice house, but it looked like he bought it, furnished it, and just never took care of it. And he never paid anyone to clean either. Valtens was stuck here fifteen years without servants, and it looked like he never learned to cook either. There were half-eaten takeout containers everywhere, and it smelled awful in here.
But I smelled something else over the garbage and rotten food and I didn’t like it at all. Especially not when I was helpless and tie to a chair. It wasn’t my aliens because they wouldn’t do this shit with me inside. This was probably someone who met Valtens as Kevin and couldn’t stand him or maybe he was finally trying to cook for himself.
“Kevin!” I yelled. “I smell something burning and I’m not dying from a fire in your shitty house.”
“What the fuck?” Valtens said, running out of the house.
I mean, I wasn’t bonded with Valtens. We’d worked together for ten years and basically couldn’t stand each other when hewas just Kevin. Still, wasn’t I some kind of vital element in his sinister plot? Dude just left me in a burning building. If I didn’t die, I was going to kill him.
But then Enix and Torrek came in and started untying me.
“Where’s Kuka and Omi?” I asked.
“Kuka is getting all his weapons. Omi was the distraction.”
“I’ve got big opinions about setting a house I’m stuck in on fire as a distraction.”
“Quick, now that you’re untied, help us find the weapons. The house isn’t on fire. Omi told some well-meaning young men that the owner of this house besmirched her honor at the tavern and she needed them to help her defend it. They had an arsenal of things at their disposal and set off for this house.
“They were writing something in the grass with some kind of liquid and then set it on fire. We needed to get Valtens out of the house and away from his weapons without tipping him off we found him,” Torrek said.
“Valtens was actually Kevin, my boss, this entire time.”
“The one that mistreated you and spoke to my sister like that when he thought you were ill?” Torrek asked. “I’ll kill him.”
“Actually, I had to deal with him ten years as my boss. If anyone is going to kill him, it’s me.”
“None of us can kill him except Kuka and only if Valtens strikes first. It’s treason otherwise,” Enix said.
“Well, then I want to get a good dick punch in. He has that coming.”
Valtens wasn’t outside long. I was guessing if the inside of his house looked like this, the outside wasn’t that much better. I wouldn’t think he had a hose because I doubted he did much gardening, but he came stomping back inside. He stopped when he saw me untied and flanked by Torrek and Enix.
“I’m guessing you are responsible forrapistbeing burned into my front lawn?” he snarled.
“No, I am,” Omi said, coming in behind him. “You’ve never laid a finger on me, but you had some consent issues with a very good friend of mine.”
“Everyonehasto say yes to me. I’m a royal. There were no consent issues with anyone.”
“If you don’t punch him in the dick, I am,” I said.
And now Ghol had joined the chat. He stepped in behind Omi and glared at Valtens. I was pretty sure at this point, Valtens had figured Kuka was somewhere with his guns and if he tried to make a break for it, he was going to get rugby tackled by a giant Saki.
