by Ann Aguirre
“Find Ike and Wills,” she answered, ignoring the comment.
Tam nodded and jogged off. The two men were likely to be together, working on some invention. Wills had been especially feverish since they got a share of Grigor’s gear, which was more generous than Silence had to be, and he insisted on Ike’s participation. The old man pretended to loathe the extra work, but Jael could tell he liked being appreciated.
We all want to be more than we seem.
Just as he was starting to relax, Tam returned with Ike; and the old man had a huge knot on the back of his head, slowly seeping blood. A cold chill washed through him as he hurried toward them with Dred close behind.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“I was working when somebody jumped me. Lucky I didn’t end up with a knife in my ribs, I guess.”
“They got Wills?” Tam asked.
Ike lifted a shoulder, his face pained. “I haven’t seen him since I woke up.”
Dred curled her hand into a fist. “How long ago was that?”
“Not sure,” the old man said helplessly.
Tam wanted to know, “Were there any signs of a struggle? Blood trail to follow?”
Ike shook his head as if to clear it. “Come with me and we’ll check. I wasn’t thinking straight when Tam found me.”
It wasn’t like the spymaster to overlook such a critical detail. Then he answered, “I didn’t see one. If they took Wills unharmed, then there’s no injury to follow. The man’s a genius but not much of a fighter.”
Jael silently agreed. When they had made the run to the salvage bay together, anytime there looked to be direct combat, Wills had run and hid. He couldn’t imagine the man fighting a party of armed men even on his home ground. He’d predict a swift surrender, followed by as much crazy talk as the man could generate, likely in hope of being judged worthless and incompetent and discarded by a gullible enemy.
“We don’t have much time,” she said. “Split up. Check the ducts, the side corridors, all checkpoints. Tam, if that’s too much ground to cover, recruit some help.”
The spymaster nodded.
“They’re not in the main hallway. I would’ve heard them.” Jael didn’t explain to the others, but Dred nodded.
“Get moving, people!”
Jael headed for the east corridor and he jogged all the way down to the checkpoint. Everything seemed quiet; the men were at their posts, unharmed, and they looked as alert as Queenslanders on duty ever did. One of them frowned at him.
“Did she send you to check up on us?”
He ignored the question. “Have you seen or heard anything unusual today?”
The man shook his head. “Not so far. Why? Is there something I should know?”
“Just be wary.”
“I always am.” That was pure cockiness, but Jael didn’t have the time to chew the guard out properly.
Instead, he backtracked, checking other corridors, other guard posts. Everything was quiet until he heard a shout from Dred. Jael doubted anyone else could’ve heard it, but he pinpointed her location and ran, his heart pounding in his throat. Before he realized he’d done it, he had two blades in hand, sharp and lovely ones that he’d pried out of Grigor’s dead hands.
That’s surely a good omen.
When he found her, Dred was facing down a hunting party on her own; there had to be a hundred men here. Somehow, they’d gotten past all the checkpoints without alerting the guards or setting off any turrets. At that moment, Silence’s mute slayers were poised to attack—and Wills stood at the head of the column. The man wasn’t injured that Jael could see, nor did the enemy beside him hold a weapon to his throat. Unease itched at the back of his head.
The throne room in Entropy was too empty. Silence had already deployed her troops.
“That’s why she didn’t attack us earlier,” he realized aloud. “To satisfy the letter of the law, she needed us to dissolve the alliance first—”
“And she already had a way in,” Dred finished in a tight voice. Her green eyes glittered as Silence’s men glanced at Wills for their orders. The soothsayer doubtless felt confident—only two of them against a hundred and one killers.
Even I can’t beat those odds.
Dred demanded, “Why? I thought you were loyal.”
“I am. But examine my history,” Wills said coldly. “Ultimately, whom do I serve?”
Jael remembered the story Einar had told him about how Wills blew up an office building with five hundred people inside because it was going to happen anyway. He ran recent events in his head, and every move Wills had made led to more dead bodies, more corpses for the pile. A shudder worked through him.
“Death. You serve Death.”
“You’re a clever one despite such a pretty face. I have always belonged to Silence. Who do you think suggested the alliance to Tam?” Wills laughed then; and it was a raucous, awful sound, like the call of carrion-eating birds.
Dred squared her shoulders, but Jael glimpsed the despair in her eyes. “You set up all our defenses. You know all the codes.”
“That was a master stroke, I must admit. I’m a little surprised you didn’t work it out sooner, my queen.” His tone became ironic. “I did warn you with my reading, some time ago.”
“You said, ‘He’ll cost you everything.’ I thought you were talking about Jael, then we found Niles . . .” That was the man who’d tried to assassinate Dred.
That made us think we’d rooted out the last traitor.
Jael wondered if his former crewmates had felt like this when he betrayed them. Not fond of the flip side of this. Now come on, love. We’ve come too far. Produce the trick up your sleeve.
Yet she only stood, clicking something in her palm, a nervous gesture. That was when he got worried. “Run. I’ll hold them off.”
She flashed him a cryptic look, smiled, and shook her head.
45
All Fall Down
Dred wished she could explain since Jael looked like he was ready to fight a hundred men to give her a chance to get away. She had the remote Ike had given her earlier, just in case Silence betrayed them; it made sense to have a backup plan . . . and to expect the worst. Despite the cold tightness in her chest, she wanted to smile. I called for help sixty seconds ago. Hopefully, the cavalry would arrive before Wills lost patience. Then she heard it.
Finally.
The thumping tread and whir of gears behind them made Silence’s death squad whirl as one. Wills froze, apparently recognizing the unit without even looking. The feeling that came over her was a cross between jubilation and triumph. Somehow, she schooled her expression to one more suitable to the Dread Queen.
Dred gestured with a mocking smile. “Don’t you want to turn around?”
She enjoyed the moment more than she had any in a long time. Satisfaction exploded like a heavy missile, filling her head with color. She savored the despair that flickered across his face when Wills realized he was beaten. Then he snarled, both hands clenching into fists.
“How?” he demanded.
“Peacemaker unit 1574 reporting to distress call. Please state your emergency.”
She ignored his question and spoke the first command. “Hostiles in Queensland territory. Neutralize threat immediately.”
The Peacemaker unit intoned, “Acknowledged. Noncombatants please stand clear.”
Wills tried to run as the rounds tore through Silence’s killers like so much meat. Their skills lay in slitting throats, the silent blade in the back. Against such a mechanical juggernaut, they were all but helpless. Gamely, they charged the machine, but without Einar’s raw strength—now lost forever—and Jael’s resilience, they had no hope of damaging it. Her former bone-reader crawled underneath a corpse and didn’t move, though if he thought escape from her judgment would be so simple, he was entirely mistaken. Her stomach turned at the raw carnage, but as the Dread Queen, she couldn’t look away. Drawn by the din, her men gathered at her back, cheering the bot on.
She couldn’t waver, couldn’t show how weary she was, or how disgusted with the waste, with death itself.
It’s endless. It won’t stop as long as I live.
She watched until the last of Silence’s assassination squad dropped. Then she gestured Jael forward. “Pull him out of the pile.”
Wills looked like a ghoul when her champion hauled him out from under the bodies, so covered in blood that the whites of his eyes gleamed in comparison. His whole bearing radiated thwarted malice. As Jael dragged him forward, he spat at Dred’s feet. She backhanded him with calm brutality, earning a cheer from the assembled audience at her back.
“You’ve succeeded in weakening Silence considerably. Thank you for that.”
A cunning light entered the bone-reader’s eyes. “Yes, that was all part of my plan. I knew you would foresee—”
“Kill him,” she told Jael.
“With pleasure.” Most likely in honor of Einar’s execution style, he snapped the traitor’s neck and dumped him in the pile with the rest, then kicked it for good measure.
Queenslanders howled in vicious approval behind her. Maybe she should have made the execution more entertaining, but she lacked the heart to make an arena spectacle out of a traitor’s death. That was more attention than Wills deserved. That bastard thought he was so clever, taunting me with false readings with real warnings layered in. She thought about kicking his corpse but decided it went against the ice-cold persona Tam had created for her, one that felt more real than her own soul at this point.
I would give so much, she thought, just to feel the sun again. But it took a special kind of insanity—Jael’s brand—to believe that was possible. Dred was pretty sure she would die here.
“Now get a cleaning crew going. We have a lot of material to be recycled.” Speaking of the corpses so impersonally didn’t help with the stink or the knowledge that she’d nurtured a viper in her bosom. For a bit longer, she watched Tam organize the men, then she turned to the Peacemaker, now standing like a giant armored paperweight.
“Resume patrol pattern Alpha Zeta 24.”
“Acknowledged.”
The only way we’ll be safe is if we kill everyone who doesn’t swear to Queensland. Though the idea of being the supreme leader of Perdition held no appeal, Dred understood that she’d changed things irrevocably. With Grigor and Priest’s territories annexed and Silence weakened so drastically, it wouldn’t be long before Mungo responded. Nature abhors a vacuum. With any luck, he’d go after Death’s Handmaiden, smelling an easy kill. There was no doubt Queensland was as strong as it had ever been, though she wasn’t sure if she could count on the men she’d acquired from Grigor.
Yet another worry.
Pausing in his cleanup efforts, the spymaster studied her face for a few seconds, then he shouted, “Make way for the Dread Queen!”
Like the sea in the old stories, the bodies shifted aside. Men stared at her with awe and admiration as she passed; a few patted her daringly on the shoulders in congratulations. To their minds, she had laid waste to their enemies in a way nobody could’ve ever predicted. Dred offered regal nods to one and all, conscious of the weight of her chains on her arms, slowing each step with the way they twined around her boots. She’d never been more aware of the burden of her role, more desperate to shake the pretense for a private hour. Her whole body ached.
The past weeks had taken their toll. She made it all the way to her quarters before a hand snagged her shoulder, spinning her around. There was only one man who dared touch her with such confident demand. Unsurprised, she faced Jael, whose beauty was only heightened when he was in a passion. Sex rendered him exquisite, but wrath suited him just as well.
By the fierce press of his fingers, he was even angrier than she’d suspected he might be. “How did you know? You never let on.”
“Not here,” she said. “Inside.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw, but he followed her and waited until she locked the door. She didn’t want anybody overhearing the conversation for a number of reasons, not least of which was, if people believed Jael was important to her, they would find reasons to hurt him. The next traitor could also use a personal attachment as leverage; she didn’t kid herself that Wills would be the last. In this place, allegiances shifted like the tide on water planets.
He said quietly, “Back there, I was ready to die so you could get away. More fool me, right, love?”
Though the man pretended he had a black hole where his heart should be, he still had feelings. And I hurt them. In a place like this, it was an odd thing to consider. But maybe it’s all that keeps me from becoming just like Grigor, Silence, and the rest. Dred walked a thin line, verging on losing herself to the role she played, until everything inside froze, and only the Dread Queen remained.
“That was . . .” Words failed her, for it had been brave, stupid, and gallant, everything she’d learned never to expect in Perdition. “Heroic. Unexpected. Don’t think I’m ungrateful, but . . . I had the situation in hand.”
He pushed out a furious sigh, raking a hand through his messy hair. That dishevelment rendered him even more appealing. “Obviously. How long have you known?”
She shook her head, disclaiming the credit. “Ike warned me yesterday. Working with Wills so closely, Ike noticed him adding extra kill switches and shutdown codes.”
The light dawned quickly in Jael’s blue eyes, attesting to his keen wit. “Which he’d only do if he wanted Queensland vulnerable.”
“Exactly. Ike has been rebuilding the Peacemaker from parts we brought back from various raids. I asked him not to demonstrate it . . . or boast when he got it up and running. At the time, I was just being cautious, but—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he cut in.
That was a tougher question. “Nobody knew but Ike and me. It seemed safer that way.”
Yet he only seemed taken aback. “You didn’t even tell Tam and Einar?”
“For the right offer, they might’ve turned. Not Einar, of course. Not now.” And not ever, she suspected. “And word has a way of getting out, the more people are in on a secret. I didn’t want the men talking, spreading gossip. Once Ike warned me, I knew I was right to keep it quiet. It’s best not to show how many shots you’ve yet to fire.”
Jael nodded. “And Wills was clever about hearing things he wasn’t supposed to, pretending to be mad.”
More than once, Queenslanders talked about private matters in front of Wills while he was ranting. They’d imagined he was deaf, dumb, and blind, then he’d reported what he overheard back to Dred. Probably, he carried word to Silence, too. Of all the men who had served Artan before she took over, Dred never would’ve guessed that Wills had the spine to be a spy. He always seemed so frightened . . .
“He gave us just enough information to keep my faith in him,” she said quietly. “But never enough for me to guess the truth.”
“And he didn’t seem to be lying when you read him?”
“He was always the same, a wash of confusion and fear. Did you want to interrogate me further?” she asked dryly.
Some of his outrage had faded, replaced with an enigmatic smile. “I’m good for now.”
“Glad to hear it.” Without waiting for a reply, she stripped out of her chains and set them on the floor. There, they coiled like a pile of mechanical snakes.
She rolled her shoulders and sank down on her bunk, wishing she saw light at the end of this endless tunnel. But in the bleak future, Dred glimpsed only more killing, more mayhem, until she made a fatal mistake, or until her own people decided they’d had enough and wanted a new legend to admire. Then somebody would poison her food or jam a shiv in her spine.
I ought to be happy now, or at least relieved. But there’s no room for hope in here. The nightmare never ends.
“Now there’s a dire look,” Jael observed.
Tentative, he perched beside her, as if wondering whether he ought to leave. For the first time since she’d taken on this role, she
didn’t prefer to spend her private time alone, however. Dred set a hand on his thigh; and he responded by winding an arm around her shoulders. It felt, oddly, more intimate than sex. That was a physiological reaction, but this? Something else. She was afraid to name it for fear the exotic emotion would hiss and vanish in the light.
“I’m just reflecting on how pointless it all is.”
To her astonishment, he leaned in and kissed her. She’d touched him, worked him to a quick conclusion, had sleepy sex with him, then, much later, ridden him until they were both satisfactorily exhausted. But this was a different sort of kiss, less about lips and tongues and more about everything else. There was a raw honesty to it, an emotional hunger that he hadn’t offered before. Her stony heart cracked.
He broke away and leaned his brow against hers. “The thing is, love, you’re looking at this wrong. You’re imagining a life in here.”
“What else is there?” she asked.
Jael brushed another kiss over the corner of her lips. “The whole universe.”
It was so ridiculous, she laughed. “Let me know when the shuttle arrives. I could do with a vacation.”
He cupped her face in his hands, eyes as serious as she’d ever seen them. “Nothing’s impossible, remember? Look at everything we’ve accomplished. The only question is, how bad do you want it?”
He’s not kidding. The idea of leaving Perdition finally took root, and madly, she believed he might work out a way, achieve the impossible. There were so many obstacles, but they’d deposed two petty dictators, found supplies deemed lost forever, and set up turrets at all the checkpoints. From a struggling territory, in a few short weeks Queensland had become a territory to be reckoned with. Her breath hauled hard in her lungs, both from his proximity and the winged creature fighting for freedom in her chest. Hope.
“Bad,” she whispered. “More than anything.”
He flashed the cocky smile that once annoyed her, but this time, she saw the solemn promise behind it. “Then we’re out of here. Just give me some time to work it out.”
