Death's Handmaiden

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Let’s begin,’ the president said. ‘Sebastian Ranta Voll, please come to the lectern.’

  Sebastian rose as Pascual stepped to the side and started for his seat. Up on the steps at the side of the audience seating, the blonde girl reached down and flicked her skirt aside, reaching for something strapped to her right thigh. She was not moving quickly. In fact, the girl was taking her time, as though no one could see her raising a spell pistol and aiming it at Sebastian as he got closer to the lectern. This was not a MagiTag weapon, but a general-purpose spell enhancer. Nava did not know what spell the girl planned to use, but nothing she could think of was likely to be good.

  Raising her arm, Nava fired off the weakest version of her Magic Burst spell she could manage. It hit the girl’s hand and exploded into a sphere of white light which washed over the girl and then hit the three people nearest to her in the seats. There were screams, and the girl, who was now missing her right hand, bolted for the door even as Nava bolted after her. Nava hit one of the lower doors and then turned, charging up the corridor outside the auditorium, but she reached the door the girl had left through and could see no sign of her target. There was nowhere she could have run to in that time, but she was gone.

  Turning, Nava pushed through the door beside her. The room was in chaos, but the SSF people were holding everyone inside. Nava glanced at the three people her spell had hurt. None of them were badly damaged, but the effects of raw magic were akin to burns and would be extremely painful. She was casting the last of three Active Recovery spells when Courtney, in a thunderous mood, stormed up the steps to reach her.

  ‘What the Hell was that?’ Courtney more or less shouted.

  Nava simply pointed down at the pistol lying on the steps nearby. The shell was partially melted, but it was still clear what it was. ‘I assume you couldn’t see the shooter?’

  ‘There wasn’t– Invisibility! How could you–’

  ‘It’s a cantrip. For me. I’d imagine you’ve got the power to do the same. A blonde girl in school uniform. These skirts are really quite useful for concealing weapons. She was aiming for Sebastian Ranta, but I don’t know what she was aiming to fire. She could have taken out the stage and the front two rows with something like Fire Blast.’

  ‘You didn’t recognise her?’ The anger was gone. It was like flicking a switch with Courtney. One second she was a flaming demon and the next she was all reasonableness.

  ‘She looked familiar. I assume I’ve seen her somewhere on campus.’

  ‘There’s a fourth year in the Arts Club who’s good at getting images from descriptions. You’ll work with him. We’ll find her.’

  ‘I’d suggest checking that pistol for fingerprints. She’s badly wounded. She can’t have got far.’

  ‘How badly? She wasn’t outside when you looked?’

  ‘She’s missing the hand that was holding that pistol. And, no, she wasn’t outside. I don’t know where she could’ve got to, but there was no sign of her.’

  The Captain frowned, her eyes fixed on the fallen pistol. ‘Teleportation? Teleportation and invisibility.’

  ‘That would explain her ability to vanish, certainly.’

  ‘So, all we need to do is catch an invisible woman who can disappear at will.’

  Nava shrugged. ‘It may be easier than you think. She’s an invisible woman who can vanish at will, but she’s lefthanded now.’

  ~~~

  In a capsule apartment more or less identical to Nava’s, the girl with the blonde hair flexed the fingers of her right hand and contemplated her failure. It was apparent from the video stream playing on one of the display screens that the debate was going ahead more or less as planned. It even looked like Sebastian Ranta Voll had gained a little from being the target of an assassination attempt.

  It was annoying. Very annoying. However, she was going to have to report her status. She might have preferred to have good news to send, but the situation was what the situation was. It was apparent that her invisibility was not as effective now. Someone had figured it out and employed countermeasures. That girl had figured it out. The other SSF members would be deploying the same spell where they were able, which meant operating far more carefully.

  Placing her hand on a device which rested on the dining table, she composed herself, formulated her message, and activated the device. Magical communicators were almost impossible to intercept and extremely hard to detect, but she kept her message concise anyway. ‘Operation failed. Target intact. Operative compromised but effective. DH fourteen confirmed.’

  She took her hand off the device. There would be no response. Not now anyway. She might receive further orders at one of the scheduled communication times, or she might be left to continue her mission with the same parameters. In truth, she did not care which. She had plans to make and people to kill.

  235/2/17.

  ‘Overall,’ Mitsuko said over breakfast, ‘I think that went quite well.’ Her eyes were glued to the rolled-out screen of her ketcom portable unit which was displaying data compiled following the debate. ‘Sebastian Ranta is up in the polls, presumably since he seemed to be the assassin’s target. However, his showing is still somewhat underwhelming.’

  ‘I don’t think he answered any of the questions well,’ Melissa said.

  ‘That is being kind,’ Nava responded. ‘He was insipid. The man doesn’t have a personality.’

  ‘I’m not exactly the life and soul of the party,’ Rochester said, ‘but even I think he was boring. Someone trying to kill him was the most exciting thing about his performance.’

  Mitsuko’s lips twitched, but she refrained from commenting. Why do so when she could appear magnanimous and let her companions denigrate her opposition. ‘Tracey Spears is slightly down.’

  ‘She showed too much of herself,’ Nava said. ‘She’s probably managed to alienate almost the entire support stream population.’

  ‘She does poll most strongly among the combat students. I am a few points up. Even with Sebastian Ranta’s rise in popularity, I do still seem to be ahead of the others. This would be a lot less clear if the other candidates had stuck with it.’

  ‘We would probably have had more dead ones by now. The SSF would be hard-pressed to guard all of them.’

  ‘Do you think that assassin will try again at the next debate?’ Melissa asked.

  ‘No, she’ll try something different,’ Nava said. ‘She knows at least one person can see through her invisibility. If she has any sense, she’ll figure out that the senior members of the SSF can do it too, now they know what’s needed.’

  ‘She’s lost a hand,’ Rochester said. ‘Doesn’t that mean she’ll have to back off? Even if they send someone else, that one’s out of the picture.’

  ‘That would be worse. We have a likeness of that girl…’ Nava paused, remembering the drawing she had helped to create and wondering again why the face seemed so familiar. ‘We know what she looks like. If they sent someone else, we’d be back in the dark. Besides, I’m not sure there’s anyone else involved. Not in the active portion of the mission. I think she’ll be back, even if she does have to use her left hand. I’m ambidextrous. No reason why she can’t be too.’

  235/2/22.

  Friday night and Mitsuko was sitting at her terminal working on her notes for the debate which would happen tomorrow afternoon. She was not reflecting on this for two reasons. One, she was busy. Two, there were lessons on Saturday mornings, so the students generally reserved partying for Saturday nights.

  Nava was not reflecting on the disparity between the kind of life students were supposed to have and the reality of the situation because she was not exactly a party animal anyway. She was, however, beginning to think that Mitsuko was spinning her wheels. The polls still put her ahead of the other two by a respectable margin. Tracey Spears had been haemorrhaging votes all week thanks to various poorly judged press releases. Most of those jumping ship were combat students who had jumped to Mitsuko. Tracey was just comi
ng across as too gung-ho about the superiority of the combat stream.

  ‘It’s almost midnight,’ Nava said.

  ‘I just want to–’

  ‘Lack of sleep is more likely to trip you up than something you haven’t thought of in your notes. You’re just going to ignore them when you get on stage anyway.’

  Mitsuko knew that was correct, annoyingly enough. ‘Making the notes helps to organise things in my mind. Anyway, I’m too wound up to sleep.’

  Nava got to her feet and walked over to the dining table where Mitsuko had her terminal set up. Mitsuko was still in her uniform, which was unusual. That did not stop Nava from squeezing Mitsuko’s high breasts through the fabric. ‘If you stop now, I can help you unwind. If we wait much longer, there won’t be time.’

  Attempting to ignore Nava managed to work for about three seconds. Mitsuko let out a groan. ‘Okay. Alright. You win. I want to take a shower before bed.’

  ‘Sex in the shower sounds good to me.’

  ‘It sounds good to me too, damn it!’

  235/2/23.

  Mitsuko’s body strained against the coming of what she knew would be the last orgasm of the night. She was not exactly sure of the time, but they had been ‘destressing’ her for a couple of hours, in the shower and then her bed. Nava was enjoying what they were doing, but she was also the kind of girl who would eventually place practicality above pleasure.

  To Mitsuko, it was as though her entire body was rising and falling with the waves of pleasure washing in toward her core. Each wave drew her in and higher. Each wave crested without quite pulling her over with it, but she knew she would hit that peak soon and she wanted to stave it off as long as possible. Nava was relentless, however, and she had learned well what her companion needed. Mitsuko vibrated with the tension of holding back the inevitable. Her fingers twined into Nava’s hair, half pulling her closer, half pushing her away. But you cannot hold back a tsunami and, inevitably, the wave broke.

  When Mitsuko’s senses returned to something like normal, Nava was lying beside her. Mitsuko’s body was still trembling from the aftershocks. The room was in darkness and had been for thirty minutes, but Mitsuko could see lights. ‘I think you broke me,’ she whispered.

  ‘If that means you’re ready to sleep now, good. You’re sleeping in the wet patch.’

  ‘Don’t care,’ Mitsuko lied. Well, right now she did not care, but she was sure she would at some point. She was unaware of the fact that the debate had not entered her mind once in over two hours, but she would have been pleased about that if she had thought of it. ‘I can sleep now. Well, when I’ve stopped shaking.’

  ‘Good. It’s twenty past two.’

  Mitsuko grimaced, not in pleasure this time. She might get five hours’ sleep. Six if they skipped breakfast. It was not enough, but it would have to do. ‘Okay. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Suki.’

  Silence fell.

  ~~~

  No one had invented a way for cameras to bypass magical invisibility. That was a useful consideration which was helping her get past security. She had no doubt that the cameras here were being watched, but her spell would stop anyone seeing her unless they were physically there and were using the counterspell. Teleportation had given her an easy way past the locked doors and security sensors attached to them. If she could see a spot on the other side, the jump was trivial. Even if she had to jump blind, at short range there was little problem.

  Her ruined uniform had been dispensed with. Passing as a student here was simply not going to work when her face was plastered over the info-net. They would get nowhere with fingerprints, but if someone saw her now, she would be forced to make a run for it. Disguise was no longer useful, so she was in combat gear. Dressed in a tight-fitting bodysuit of composite armour, she walked nonchalantly down the corridors of the apartment block, looking for the right door. The lights had been off for over thirty minutes, so her targets would be asleep.

  Finding the door of Mitsuko’s apartment, the assassin focused and teleported inside.

  ~~~

  The bedroom door was not silent when it moved. The hinges were good, but not perfect. The mechanism which pulled the latch back made little creaks and groans when you turned the handle. And Nava was not asleep yet.

  Mitsuko let out a little grumble, a tiny whimper, as Nava slipped out from under the sheets. The door stopped moving and Nava held her position, crouched beside the bed and ready to spring. She had excellent night vision, but the room was in pitch blackness. Almost. There was a little light coming around the cracked door from the lounge. Not much. Barely enough to notice, in fact, but it was there.

  The door resumed its movement and, a second later, a shape became visible in the dim light. A humanoid shape. Nava was fairly sure what the shape looked like in full light, but right now it was a shadow against the night. Nava went for it anyway, bolting up and across the room to slam into the assassin. A shock of pain ran through Nava’s shoulder as she impacted the other girl. Armour. Nava was naked and the assassin was wearing body armour. Great. Nava locked her arms around her opponent’s torso and prepared to take the fight outside.

  The assassin’s immediate response was to try to break the hold. It was a mistake. They were roughly evenly matched in strength and Nava had the advantage thanks to her hold. Nava twisted into the assassin’s body, used her hips as a lever, and tossed her opponent out through the doorway and into the lounge. She was aiming to do some damage with the throw, but the assassin managed to break the fall properly. Nava could see the girl move and it was clear that she was trained. Also, now that there was a little more light, it was clear that she was not wearing a helmet. Stepping forward, Nava stamped her foot down, her heel smashing into the girl’s face. And the assassin rolled away and into a standing position in one athletic move, putting a metre or so of distance between them. It was not unexpected, but this girl was tough.

  ‘You’re not getting to her,’ Nava said.

  ‘I could make do with you, traitorous bitch,’ the assassin replied.

  Nava frowned, really frowned; that voice… Her eyes widened. ‘Maya?’ It was more of a whisper than anything, but the girl, Maya, seemed to hear it.

  White teeth flashed in a vicious smile. ‘Goodbye, Nava.’ Maya slashed a hand out toward Nava in a chopping motion though she was too far away to hit anything. A small circle of white light left her hand and shot toward Nava. Nava fell backward, away from the Slice spell, the incandescent, magical blade sliding past her stomach with a few centimetres to spare. Nava’s left hand hit the carpet and pushed, and she was upright again, but Maya had taken the opportunity to dash toward the open bedroom door again. Then she let out a shriek as a disc just like the one she had thrown slashed through the left side of her neck above her armoured suit. Blood sprayed from the wound before she clamped a hand over it. She turned, blinking, and saw Nava coming at her with a cocked fist…

  Nava’s fist passed through empty air and she had to catch her balance before turning to look at the bedroom door. ‘She’s gone,’ Nava said. ‘I’m going to come in there and turn the light on, okay? I’d like to avoid getting cut open when I do.’

  ‘Did I hit her?’ Mitsuko called back. ‘Lights. Full.’ Light filled the bedroom and Nava stepped into the doorway to see Mitsuko crouched at the foot of the bed.

  ‘You got her. Sliced her neck open. Probably hit at least a vein. She was bleeding badly.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Mitsuko waved a finger vaguely at Nava and Nava looked down to see the splashes of blood forming arcs across her chest. ‘Do you think she’s dead?’

  Nava paused briefly, considering. She had an immediate answer to the question, but she was wondering whether lying might be a better option. Still, she was not the kind to gloss over unpleasant truths. ‘I doubt it. She had two hands, so she can probably work Active Recovery. She was able to teleport with a smashed nose and a major wound in her neck, so she’ll probably manage to cast the healing spell b
efore she passes out from blood loss. The only way we’re going to kill her is if she dies in one hit.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Nava turned and examined the blood dripping down the doorframe. ‘On the other hand, we’ve got some excellent genetic samples here which might be very useful in tracing her location. Call Courtney. Maybe we can track M– the assassin down tonight and end this.’

  ~~~

  No such luck.

  It turned out that Locate was a cantrip which Courtney knew and was, indeed, able to use on the blood left by Maya – who Nava was scrupulously calling ‘the assassin’ outside her head – at the scene. It was not, however, coming back with a location.

  ‘She’s got a scrying block up,’ Courtney had said. ‘I would have a scrying block device if I were the one running around trying to kill people here.’

  ‘It was worth a try,’ Nava had replied. ‘And thank you for teaching me a new cantrip.’

  Now, after too little sleep, Nava was on stage watching the crowd gathering to see the second and final debate. Mitsuko was already in her seat and also suffering from lack of sleep, but it was a little less obvious. For one thing, Nava rarely wore makeup while Mitsuko customarily did. Today, Mitsuko had gone to some lengths to disguise the dark shadows under her eyes while Nava had not. The two of them had retired to the second bedroom to get some rest while service robots cleaned up the mess. By the time they had got up, the apartment was spotless and even the hole in the wall where Maya’s Slice had impacted after missing Nava was gone. All they had to do now was get through the debate without incident.

  If Nava were to be honest, her mind was not entirely on her job. The familiarity she had felt on seeing the assassin now had a clear reason. She had not seen Maya for years and the girl had changed. She was supposed to be dead. Nava had been certain… Though maybe that had been an assumption. Maya had vanished one day and the ones who disappeared were never seen again. Maya was one of them, but now she had reappeared.