by Carysa Locke
Except for him, of course. Sharing the afterlife with Willem would be a nightmare.
He ignored her.
“I won’t let you destroy everything I have built. No matter what it takes, I will kill you, Mercy.”
“Keep trying. I’m right here.”
“I killed your bitch of a grandmother, and I will succeed with you.”
Wait, what?
Mercy struggled to focus on him, but Willem was just as lacking in a corporeal presence as she was. “What about my mother, you bastard? Did you kill her, too?”
“I’m a scientist. When one experiment fails, I begin another. I will find a way.”
“Answer me!” Mercy struggled to move closer, to find him, but now the weightlessness worked against her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even begin to direct herself in this void. She just was. The more she tried, the more her thoughts seemed to circle. She struggled harder, and chaos twisted the abyss around her, faster and faster.
Dizziness swamped her, chasing away whatever vestiges of peace and calm remained, dragging her down in a suffocating whirlwind. It closed around her like the jaws of some terrible creature until she felt her awareness fading. Even Willem’s voice dulled to white noise. Her struggles slowly ceased.
She’d lost him. And with him, any chance at finding her mother.
It was the last, bitter thought she had before the jaws of oblivion closed around her.
Reaper moved swiftly and silently. As promised, the hallways he walked were empty, the path between decks deserted of crew. Not that he couldn’t control himself, but the wrong word, the wrong posture, or tone…it would take very little to draw his focus.
So Dem ordered the path from Reaper’s quarters to the engineering deck cleared, and people were either smart or frightened enough to listen. Even a ship as large as Nemesis felt small when nothing obstructed movement from one deck to the next. Not even the whispered presence of a mind brushed his as Reaper made his way down the corridor and opened the panel to access the narrow crawlspace housing the emergency ladders that spanned between decks. He wanted no lift to signal his arrival.
When he came out in engineering, Reaper startled a sleeping man who either hadn’t heard the message, or didn’t take it seriously. Slouched against the bulkhead across from the emergency hatch, he wore the brightly colored, battered and stained uniform of a deck mechanic. He had a rough, scarred visage that spoke of many hard-fought battles. Catching the movement of the hatch opening, his hand closed over the grip of a needlegun. The weapon’s flechette ammunition was deadly to soft targets, but unable to penetrate the hardened nanograph walls of a ship. He had the weapon half drawn when his hard eyes finally focused on Reaper’s face.
He froze. Reaper knew what he saw, knew the Killer had leeched the color from his eyes until they burned a cold, wintry blue so pale they might have been chips of ice. He held a telekinetic grip around the man’s mind, his shields pathetically easy to bypass. He was a low level telekinetic, and an even lower-level telepath. He relied largely on his physical stature, which was beefy and strong. His thoughts beat frantically against Reaper’s grip like the panicked fluttering of a trapped bird’s wings, slowly settling as he realized there was no escape.
Carefully, one finger at a time, the man opened his grip on the needlegun until it clattered to the floor.
Reaper tilted his head, eyeing the man dispassionately. He was not on the list, but he was here, between Reaper and his prey. He’d raised a weapon.
I didn’t see it was you…those others you’re looking for, they’re down that way. The man jerked his head toward the end of the corridor.
The words meant nothing, less than nothing. But Reaper found himself intrigued. The man’s mind had quieted. The terror had receded, and he met Reaper’s eyes without fear.
I’ve stared at death before. The man’s thoughts were strangely calm. If it’s my time, so be it.
Nikolos. Dem’s voice was a whisper in his mind. You promised to kill no one who wasn’t involved in the bomb. Our numbers are few.
True.
With a final, long look, Reaper released his grip on the mechanic’s mind. Tension drained from the man’s body and he scrambled back. Reaper walked on without a backward glance. As an afterthought, he lifted the needlegun and floated it down the hallway after him, until it came to rest in the palm of his hand.
The corridor was short, with only a handful of doors. Reaper passed by them all, for none held his quarry. It ended at an enormous door designed to cut off this section of the ship and contain a drive breach during a catastrophic engine failure. The door was several inches thick, spanned the length and height of the hall, and was secured by support beams that came out several feet on either side. It was closed.
Reaper could feel a dozen minds behind the door. Five had shields raised high, their minds tightly closed. Seven were less frightened, or perhaps had less reason to be. They were huddled closely together, sharing a conversation. The careless holes in one shield allowed Reaper to slip past all seven, connected as they were. He could have killed them then, but their words gave him pause.
…how is holding us hostage going to help? No Killer will give two fucks about our lives.
They ain’t thinking clearly.
Doors won’t stop him. Hostages won’t either.
Quiet! You want them to kill us before Reaper ever gets here?
We’re dead either way. Ain’t no way out of this room alive. I heard they attacked the Queen. If the Killer don’t kill ‘em, Cannon will. We’re caught in the middle.
Wrong place, wrong damn time.
Because he’d promised his brother not to waste lives, Reaper eased back from their minds without killing them as he could have. Just as he was leaving the conversation, a wisp of stray thought caught his attention.
…maybe the door will take him out. Lotta plas-charge on that thing.
Idiot! It’s a fucking blast door.
Idiots indeed. These doors were designed to contain an explosion many times more powerful than plas-charge, even if it was coated in a layer of the stuff an inch thick. If it was designed to go off when the door began to open, most of the blast would be reflected back into engineering…right onto the people inside, not to mention the propulsion engine and jump drive.
In their zeal to kill him, they might have doomed the entire ship. How had such minds conceived of the plan to kill a queen? Simple answer: they hadn’t. Someone much more capable had used them. They were pawns.
He could kill them from this side of the door. It would take time to work his way past their shields. Two of the five, in particular, were more powerful than the rest combined. They had to be the ones who handled the plas-charge.
Reaper considered his options. These men were foolish enough, or perhaps terrified enough, they could panic and blow the door in an ill-conceived attempt to kill him in the time it took to overcome their mental shields. The door had to be neutralized.
Sebastian? Reaper reached out to the man who acted as Cannon’s first mate. In reality, Sebastian was the Captain of the Nemesis in every real way. Cannon just appropriated the title because he felt more comfortable being called Captain than King.
It took Sebastian a moment to answer after Reaper brushed up against his mind. An intelligent man, he was probably debating the wisdom of allowing a Killer in full-on hunting mode past his shields.
Reaper. The word was spoken cautiously.
I need to get past the blast door in engineering. It is covered in plas-charge. I am going to use telekinesis to remove it. At which time you will open the door.
Sebastian’s Talent gave him absolute control of the ship’s systems. It was a rare gift, the ability to mentally interface with the complicated, energy-driven pathways of machines like the brain of a ship. Sebastian had spent so much time learning every pathway, every nano-bot of the Nemesis, he often seemed connected to the ship like a living organism. Opening the blast doors was a simple matter.
&n
bsp; They covered the blast door in plas-charge? Sebastian’s shock was palpable.
Apparently hoping I would walk through it and set it off.
And what, kill you, them, and Nemesis herself? Creating a drive breach and killing us all?
Reaper shrugged. They are desperate men, and not thinking clearly. I could open the door myself, but it would be a risk while handling the plas-charge.
No, I’ve got it. You make sure my ship doesn’t blow up today.
Sebastian went silent, and Reaper began the painstaking task of slowly scraping the plas-charge from the surface of the door with his telekinesis, effectively creating a thin layer of space between the explosive and the ship. He also surrounded the volatile mixture with a telekinetic shield as he worked, to hopefully contain it if something went awry and the charge detonated.
They used a thermal mix for the detonator, I see, Sebastian observed. Smart, since it mixes in with the explosive and effectively disintegrates when it goes off. Untraceable.
Almost, corrected Reaper. He had, after all, found them despite all their precautions.
Perhaps three inches of the door had been scraped clean. That was the problem with finely controlled work like this. It took time. But he was nothing if not patient. They had made a mistake holing up in a place where there was nowhere to run. Not that they could escape anywhere on the ship. Cannon and Dem had the flight deck locked down, as well as the escape pods, and guards at every airlock as an added precaution.
Reaper stood pressed against the blast door as though listening for sounds on the other side. The needlegun floated in the air beside him. The metallic surface was smooth and cold beneath his hands. He was using the physical contact as an anchor from which to work. His telekinesis was not as powerful as either of his brothers’. Dem, in particular, could have had the plas-charge removed in easily half the time, but Reaper had to feel for it through six inches of door. Working from sense rather than sight added a layer of difficulty.
A thought occurred to him suddenly.
Sensing it, Sebastian tensed.
What is it? What’s happening?
Nothing, yet. But be ready.
Reaper focused on the blast door, on the miniscule imperfections in its form, crevices so small as to be considered insignificant. He sought them out with his Talent until he had suffused every infinitesimal scar or crack. In other circumstances, he might have used his telekinesis to widen them, to literally rip the blast door apart. It would take a herculean effort, but he thought he could do it. Not with the plas-charge, though. It probably wouldn’t go off just from such movement, requiring the thermal heat of a human form passing closely by it, but just to be safe…
Instead, he tapped the door with his gift, like a hammer taken to steel. It reverberated, subtle vibrations spreading out from each imperfection. Reaper rode them with his mind, right through the door to the plas-charge. It, too, moved, though so subtly as to be imperceptible…except he was counting on that movement. Reaper used it as his leverage, riding the vibration with his Talent and pealing the plas-charge from the door in one swift measure.
The startled oath from Sebastian was almost admiring.
Clever, the other man said as Reaper moved the plas-charge away from the door, choosing to push it off to one side, carefully contained within a telekinetic shield. Once he built the box, it took very little concentration to maintain it. Hopefully none of the five he was hunting happened to look closely in this direction.
Not that it mattered much if they did.
Sebastian, if you please.
Right.
The locks that held the door securely in place disengaged with a hiss of released air, and it began to slide open. There was no disguising that, but if they still believed it to be rigged with explosives…
A flurry of panicked thoughts rose from the hostages. Nothing came from their captors, still safe behind their shields. No shots came toward the door, either. They still believed it to be a risk. Reaper sought out their minds and mapped their positions in the room.
He retrieved the needlegun by raising it into the air with his gift. With his focus no longer on the plas-charge, his Talent was free for other uses. When the opening was big enough, he stepped through, sending the needlegun arching up sharply and to the left. Before he fully entered the room, he pulled the trigger twice. Two minds went silent, their thoughts simply ceasing to exist between one breath and the next.
He took another step, adjusting the needlegun’s angle further forward as he did so. He pulled the trigger, emptying the cartridge. Another mind went silent. Reaper tossed the useless weapon aside. The two strongest were left. They’d begun to realize their clever plan for the door wasn’t working. Panic beat at their shields, creating weak spots where their concentration and focus slipped.
A disruptor went off. The fools didn’t stop to ponder why the plas-charge had failed, actually using energy weapons when a heat discharge could easily blow them all to pieces. It bounced harmlessly off the telekinetic buffer Reaper had encased himself in seconds before. Their panic spiked. Cracks formed in their shields. Reaper arrowed through one, lethal and fast.
He dove past surface thoughts, rifling through thoughts and memories until he reached the time and place he was looking for. Nothing. Empty blackness.
For the first time, he frowned. Emotion touched him, even in the cold dark. Frustration. They had no memory of whoever had helped them attack Mercy. Just missing time, and the outline of what they were to do.
Someone, a telepath with the skill to do so, had altered their memories. He closed a mental fist around the man’s mind, and gave a sharp, vicious twist. He fell like a rag doll, his mind empty.
One left.
The man came scrabbling out of his hiding place on hands and knees. Crying. Shaking. Pleading with his thoughts and his words.
“Please, please don’t kill me. We didn’t know you was protecting her.” He stopped, curled into a pathetic huddle in the middle of the floor. He was unwashed and unshaven, his clothing old, threadbare, and dirty. For someone of his telekinetic ability to be so low was unusual. Reaper could see it in his mind, his dependence on drugs that skewed his Talent and made it worthless. He sobered up long enough to earn the coin for his next fix, never longer.
The man stretched a hand up toward him, pleading.
“I’m sorry, I swear. I can tell you things. Please!”
Reaper stared down at him with cold eyes.
“You know nothing I haven’t already taken,” he said. It was barely a thought to kill him, to crush his mind into paste.
It’s done, he told his brother a moment later. He left the hostages to Sebastian’s mercy, knowing it to be kinder than his.
You could have left one for questioning, Dem admonished.
Ever the critic. They knew nothing. Someone altered their memories.
Dem took a moment, processing that. So, we know whoever arranged this is a powerful telepath.
Yes.
He felt Dem give him an evaluating sweep.
I’m fine, brother.
You don’t feel it.
I am in control. Reaper suppressed a flash of irritation; the cold dark was beginning to fade.
Good, his brother said. You’re going to need to be.
Reaper sent him a questing thought, asking an unspoken question.
Mercy just woke up. She wants to see you.
Chapter Fifteen
Reaper didn’t relax until he walked through the infirmary door and saw Mercy sitting up on an infirmary bed, a scowl on her face. Somehow, the knowledge of her survival had failed to quiet the tension within him the way actually seeing her did. As he watched, she swatted away Doc’s hand and the scanner he held.
“How many times do I have to say it?” she asked, clearly not for the first time. “I’m fine! You should be working on Wolfgang, not me.”
A dark bruise marred her temple, disappearing into the unruly mop of dark hair now long enough it fell past h
er ears. He wondered if Nayla had made it grow again. The bruise was the only visible sign of injury, but he knew all too well that some injuries were not immediately apparent.
“Kono onshirazu me!” Doc met her scowl with one of his own. Reaper recognized one of his favorite phrases to hurl at patients who didn’t listen. He’d just called Mercy ungrateful. “Captain Hades has implants that protected him from the worst of the blast. The same cannot be said for you. You almost died, Your Majesty.”
“Stop calling me that,” Mercy muttered.
Doc gave her a thin smile in response.
Reaper stopped just inside the door, taking a moment as an unfamiliar feeling swept his body, leaving his hands tingling and his mind confused.
That would be relief, Cannon informed him from where he sat against the far wall, his expression tight with worry. Something we are all feeling right now.
No, Reaper disagreed. Not all of us. Whoever had ordered that bomb to go off had to be feeling a lot of things right now. Relief would not be one of them.
“Reaper!” Mercy’s face lit up when she saw him. He gave her a reserved nod, but did not cross the room to her. Experience taught him to stay out of Doc’s way until he’d released his patient. Let Doc see to you.
He already has, Mercy sent back with an edge to her tone. I keep telling him, I’m fine. “He needs to see to Wolf,” she continued aloud, with a meaningful look at Doc.
Wolfgang sat on the bed to the right of Mercy’s, a nano-skin patch covering his right temple, his left arm suspended and immobilized.
“I’m fine, Mercy,” the older man said. She twisted to get a better look at him.
“Your arm is broken.”
Doc picked up a capsulet. The fact that he had to inject a nano-solution instead of using a standard bone knitter spoke volumes about the complexity of the break. The bone wasn’t just broken, but shattered. Reaper gained a new respect for Wolfgang’s pain tolerance.
“It won’t be, shortly,” Doc said, jabbing the capsulet unceremoniously into Wolfgang’s injured arm. The older man winced, but didn’t complain.
