Perdition

by Ann Aguirre

  I’m sorry seemed like the wrong response—insincere besides. She hadn’t known Martine was shagging anyone particular and wouldn’t have cared if she did. So Dred answered honestly. “I’ll lay plans. And when I’m sure we’ll win, we take the fight to them. I’m not Priest . . . I won’t squander personnel just to test them. I didn’t take Queensland by playing against long odds.”

  The other woman nodded. “Fine. I’ll wait.”

  Martine stormed away as Einar approached, with Wills wriggling in his grasp. “It’s not time for the spots!”

  That was as normal as the man got. Dred signaled her lieutenant. “Let him go.”

  “Please don’t let the darkness win,” Wills pleaded.

  Hell. That sounded almost coherent.

  “I’ll do my best not to,” she said gently. “But I need you to roll the bones for me. Can you manage that?”

  Wills stumbled toward her and clutched her hands. “He’s still here.”

  “Who is?” The danger of dealing with crazy people was that their delusions started sounding all too plausible.

  “Our enemy.”

  She wanted Wills to root out a traitor, and it sounded like he might already be glitching on some psychic irregularity. Pity he couldn’t just point and say, That’s him. But Dred wasn’t sure she’d believe it even if the man were sane. Anyone in here might lie for his own gain or to settle a grudge. At least she could trust that Wills was a full-on nutter with moments of helpful clarity.

  This just wasn’t one of them.

  “Can you cast for me?” she repeated.

  Finally, the request penetrated. “Yes. I can.”

  The rodent bones came out of the sack, and the man slit his fingertips, smearing blood all over them. Once, twice, three times, then he spat and cradled the mess in his palms. He rattled the ivory, blew on it as if it were lucky dice, and cast it out so that it bounced on the ground. Dred had never seen a pattern before; to her it always looked like a random assortment, but this time, she swore she saw a pattern in the long arrangement of red-smeared bone.

  “Beware the knife in the dark.” For a moment, lucidity burned in Wills’s eyes, and the man looked genuinely frightened.

  She hid her reaction, the sickness roiling in her stomach. None of the precog’s glimpses had offered a look at the past before, so this must be a coincidence. Or history will repeat itself.

  Dred forced herself to ask, “Are you saying it’s someone I trust?”

  “I’m saying. Saying. Saying.” Wills jerked his head to the left three times.

  When he started in with the tics and the repeating random words, it was impossible to talk to him. It only came on when he was really agitated, too. “Thanks. Go . . . fix something.”

  Wills raked his beloved bones back into the tattered sack and hurried away; Einar watched him go, a crease between his fair brows. Then the big man shook his head.

  “He makes my skin crawl. You know what he did to end up in here?” Einar’s voice was a low rumble, the question soft.

  “I don’t ask. You know that.”

  “Neither did I. He was on one of his tears and wouldn’t stop talking about it.”

  Dred knew she would regret it, but she asked anyway. “And?”

  “He killed a whole building full of people. Day care, restaurants, office workers.”

  “Mary,” she breathed. Even in here, that was saying something. “How many?”

  “Over five hundred.”

  “Did he say why?”

  Einar’s gaze met hers. “He said it was going to happen anyway, and he made it quick.”

  “Remind me not to turn my back on him.” That was the only reaction she permitted herself though a small part of her was still human enough to be horrified by madness on such a scale. The rest of her was numb, had been dead so long that the excesses and cruelties of her fellow savages no longer surprised her at all.

  “I wouldn’t let you. Sorry that wasn’t as productive as I hoped.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t really expect Wills to be able to solve the problem, but there’s no killing hope apparently.”

  “‘Hope is a waking dream,’” Jael quoted softly. “And it’s the last thing to go. It torments you like a bird killing itself slowly against the glass.”

  Dred had heard the first part of his statement before, but she couldn’t recall where. At her gesture, Einar found something else to do. Prior to those words, she hadn’t even noticed Jael’s arrival. The new fish sank into a careless slouch at the foot of her throne, but it wasn’t a subservient pose, more of a watchful one, as if he meant to kill anyone who approached. She didn’t chide him. By permitting Jael to name himself her champion, she had endowed him with rights that few fish ever gained at all.

  She still wasn’t altogether sure why she’d done it.

  “By which you mean, you still intend to escape.” It was hard not to let scorn color her words, and by his expression, she’d failed.

  “Given time. We have a few loose ends to tie up before I go.”

  At that, she laughed. “Certainly. I can’t imagine why the rest of us haven’t left ere now.”

  “You didn’t have me,” he answered, as if it were that simple.

  Sometimes she suspected he was as mad as Wills, only prettier about it. “Then why are we bothering with Priest and Grigor? Why don’t we just go?”

  “I’m not a wizard. I need time to gather certain assets and learn the lay of the land. Dealing with your enemies will grant me time and opportunity to do that.” He pushed to his feet and offered her a hand. “Come, I need to show you something.”

  She stared as if his fingers were five snakes about to strike. “I’m not interested.”

  Jael sighed. “Not in that, yes, I’m aware. But this? You’ll want to see. I had a look around after our meeting. It was . . . most productive.”

  Dred was tired and hungry, but she knew a man who wouldn’t be dissuaded. If he tried anything, she had her chains, and Einar was always watching. She’d lost track of Tam, but he might be around, too. With a faint mutter of annoyance, she followed the new fish.

  Jael led her out of the hall and through a twist of corridors. The journey ended in a blind, a corridor ending in a blast wall. Back when it was a mining refinery, the massive ship had been outfitted with safety measures in case of a meteor shower. By pushing the button, the other end would seal, and this whole hallway was double-strength durasteel, far stronger than the bits they routinely tore free from other sections.

  “I can see by your expression that you realize the purpose of this place.” He seemed to be willing her to come to some other conclusion, too.

  “It can be used as a bunker, or a shelter. So what?”

  Jael made an impatient noise. “Look at the floor, queenie. Prove to me that you’re as clever as you are pretty.”

  At first, she had no idea what he was talking about, but then the predator kicked in. Once, she’d been fairly good at stalking men, paying attention to the signs they left behind. This site had been used by an entrenched group. Their feet left scuffs on the metal; other gear had been set up here, resulting in a series of scratches. She bent and sniffed the ground, seeking the distinctive smell of the oil that Priest’s people used in their “holy sacraments.” To her horror, she found it.

  “This was a campsite,” she realized aloud. “Where they waited for word.”

  He nodded grimly. “Inside your borders. How, exactly, did they manage that, love?”

  12

  Traitors in the Hall

  Jael watched as Dred scoured the area for clues, but the signs were faint enough that it was unlikely she’d find anything more. It took the combined acuity of his sharpened senses to narrow down the spot where their enemies had lain in wait. And she searched without his advantages.

  Eventually he said, “I don’t think you’ll find anything more.”

  She flattened a palm on the floor, her braids tumbling over one shoulder. “It makes me
sick to think of them hiding here, waiting. Secure in the knowledge that my people wouldn’t report them.”

  “We need to plug that leak, queenie.” But he understood her anger; there was nothing quite like learning people would sell you out without blinking an eye.

  I was so young when I learned that lesson—that it was better to sell than be sold.

  “How did you stumble onto this site?” she demanded.

  Ah. Blame the messenger. This was familiar to him at least. Jael donned a mocking smile, expecting that she’d rail and drop her own failures on his head.

  “There was no stumbling involved. While you were playing doctor, I searched every centimeter of the corridors.” In truth, he’d gone out because he couldn’t stand to watch her being kind. Even the men she judged too injured for recovery were granted a quick death. To his mind, that was better than being left to linger. He half wished somebody would offer him that release though he thrashed like a trapped animal between twin desires for oblivion and freedom.

  “Nobody asked you to do that. So why did you?” By her expression, criminals didn’t do extra work without threat of punishment.

  “I’m guarding your flank,” he said quietly. “Remember, you’re all that stands between me and an interminable lifetime with Silence.”

  She studied him, pushing to her feet. “I can see why you’d want to avoid that.” To his surprise, there were no further words of recrimination, no anger. Her manner became businesslike. The change startled him. “Did you learn anything else in your patrol?”

  I’m starting to understand why men follow you, princess in chains.

  “No. But I’m wondering why your guards didn’t spot Priest’s men. Maybe you ought to talk to the men responsible for this area. At best, they’re guilty of negligence, and—”

  “At worst, treason,” she finished. “All right, come with me, pretty lad. Since you uncovered this lead, you get to handle the interrogation.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “Standing behind you, making them afraid of worse.”

  Jael laughed. “You’re asking me to pretend to be the nice one? I’m not sure I can sell that.”

  “All you have to do is refrain from hitting them.”

  “I might be able to do that, but the first one who lies to me—”

  “I’ll be watching for that,” she cut in.

  “That thing you do, you can tell when somebody’s lying?”

  How . . . awful. Jael finally understood why they called her the Dread Queen. There was something terrible about how she read a man and sorted his truth from falsehoods. He didn’t want her peering beneath his skin and seeing the monster at the bone.

  “If it makes them feel . . . violent. Sometimes, when they’re angry or frightened, and their story’s being questioned, a killer wants to solve the problem by murdering the person making him feel that way. That’s when I can tell. Quiet, controlled lies look the same as truth to me.”

  He wondered why she’d told him that and if she realized she’d given him the keys to getting away with murder in her domain. Her gaze was level on his; and if Jael didn’t know better, he’d swear this was some kind of a test. He met her look with one of his own, hoping it was level and inscrutable.

  “I’ll bear that in mind. Let me guess—the men think you can read their minds.”

  “It’s all part of the legend,” she said. “Tam’s idea, not mine. He says a little shock and awe goes a long way toward cementing their loyalty.”

  “Seems to be working,” he observed with a touch of mockery.

  She sighed but didn’t rise to the bait. “Not well enough, or we wouldn’t be questioning a squadron of treacherous guards.”

  So easily she confessed to failure, admitted her strategies weren’t perfect. It made him want to help, a foreign impulse. Of course, her confidences could be a strategy, meant to bind him closer and ensure his loyalty. Some men found it impossible to resist a woman who needed them; if that was her angle, it was working better than he’d like to admit.

  “Why are you telling me this?” he demanded, wondering if she would be honest. Unlike her, he wouldn’t confess his tricks . . . and he’d smell a lie in her sweat, hear it in her quickened heartbeat.

  Dred met his gaze levelly for a few seconds. Then she answered, “Because I can trust you. I’ve had Tam watching you since your arrival. Since you’re new, you haven’t had the opportunity to form any other allegiances. You’ve been mine since the moment you stepped off the transport.”

  A knife made of longing turned in his stomach. He had never belonged to anyone before. Not like this. For once, he didn’t resist his better nature or pretend it didn’t exist. “Point me at them, and I’ll get this party started.”

  “I’ll alert the jugglers.” Her tone was wry, but she skimmed the crowd in the main hall until her attention lit on a knot of men playing cards across the way. “That’s them. Looks like they’ve just come off patrol, and they’re . . . celebrating.”

  Yeah, now that she’d singled the men out, he could see that their mood was quietly more euphoric than the rest of Queensland. Others were downcast or angry; those who had lost people who mattered seemed sad. But these four? None of the above. They had the relaxed body language of men who thought they’d gotten away with something.

  “Just one question,” he said. “Are we doing this in here?”

  “Absolutely. I don’t care about protecting their good names. We already know they’re guilty of something. I’ll throw them to the others once we’re finished.”

  That was a cold, practical decision. Nothing angered a populace like a turncoat; these sentries would be torn to shreds. It would also give the convicts targets for their rage, making them more governable. People always responded better when they could understand the reason why a tragedy had occurred. Giving them someone to punish would also restore a sense of balance. Finally, the bloodbath should leave her in a position to take on her enemies with a focused fighting force.

  Jael turned; if she wanted him to run the interrogation, he would though he’d never had a commander trust him that far before. They always kept him on a short leash, like a weapon that could explode without warning. A little voice said, She’s only trusting you because she doesn’t know what you are. If she did, everything would change. He ignored it and closed the distance to the smug-looking sentries. They stopped their card game at his approach, eyeing him.

  “We’re full,” one of them said. He was the biggest of the bunch, with a shock of dark hair and two deep-set eyes. A scar meandered down his left cheek. “Not dealing anybody else in.”

  “Downright rude, that is. But I didn’t come to play,” Jael said in a steely tone.

  “Then what do you want?” another demanded.

  Dred stepped out from behind him, then. The men froze. That’s an unfamiliar experience. He was used to people underestimating him until they saw him fight. But these guards knew how quickly he could gut a man. And still they dreaded the woman behind him more. Maybe it was because they thought she could dig into their heads and pry out their secrets. Or it might be the inexorable chill of her presence; he felt it, too, now.

  “You’ll answer his questions,” she said gently, and closed her eyes.

  The reaction was immediate, so they knew what she was doing—or rather, they’d heard stories. Jael acknowledged that Tameron had a deft hand with a tall tale.

  “We didn’t do anything,” the youngest whined.

  Right. First feign innocence.

  Best not to leave any doubt as to what he knew. Jael wasn’t interested in excuses. “I found a campsite where Priest’s people waited . . . inside your patrol route.”

  “No idea what you’re talking about,” the first one said with a cocky jerk of his chin. He was probably the leader.

  “You realize I don’t have to talk to you. I can just tell the rest of them”—he gestured at the men watching the exchange with narrowed eyes—“what I’ve learned. T
hey’d find your bullshit compelling.”

  “Doubtful,” Dred said softly. “He’s lying. He’d like very much to slit our throats, too.”

  In a prison full of vicious murderers, that wasn’t uncanny prognostication, but the way the sentries reacted, she’d stolen the thoughts directly from their minds. The youngest one swallowed hard, his gaze falling to his cards. He clenched his hands in his lap, and Jael realized he needed to focus on him. He switched gears.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked the young one. “I just got here, and even I know Queensland is the best place inside Perdition.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” the prisoner said shakily.

  Jael’s tone became silky. “That’s the problem. You didn’t do anything. Your job is to report territorial incursions and summon reinforcements if your patrol isn’t strong enough to drive them back. Why did you look the other way? What did Priest promise you?”

  “Don’t say a word,” the leader warned.

  When Dred focused on the kid and closed her eyes, sweat broke out on the kid’s brow. It wouldn’t be long now, Jael guessed. A few seconds later, the boy broke, eyes wild. “It don’t matter. She knows, she always knows. She’s playing with us.”

  “She can’t prove anything unless you—”

  But the youngest guard didn’t seem to hear his cohort. He babbled to Jael, “We were so sure she’d lose, that she couldn’t stand against Grigor and Priest. It seemed like a good idea to have a backup plan, you know?”

  “That makes sense,” he said encouragingly.

  It was the sort of thing he’d do, so he couldn’t judge them. But it was his job to get a confession. He’d always been loyal to his employers until he got a better offer. In this place, he wouldn’t trust such a promise. From what he’d seen of Silence and heard of Grigor and Priest, Dred was the only one still clinging to sanity. That was enough to keep him in her court.

  “We had no idea there was an alliance with Silence in the works,” the boy went on. “It seemed smart to hedge our bets.”

  Bad luck for you. You gambled and lost.