by Mark Henwick
Her blade poked me in the ribs and I had to spin away.
She chased me with a complex flurry of blows, alternating high and low.
“Something missing,” she said, as calmly as if we were talking recipes.
Words and blades. As if she was backing me into a corner.
“Shut up,” I said and made a low sweep to catch her knees.
She jumped over my blade.
“Sometimes when you hold poison inside, it becomes part of you,” she said. Her wooden blade whipped past my face as I stumbled out of the way. “No one likes to lose something that’s a part of themselves.”
I doubled my attack to shut her up. It didn’t work.
“With some people, it’s grief,” she said.
Rap. Rap. She slipped past my bokken. Hers dipped, lifted and stabbed. The point thumped me in the gut, making me grunt.
“With some, it’s hate.”
My attack was dissolving in the face of hers. She’d become a blur of movement. My parries came later and later. I stopped her blade closer and closer to my aching flesh.
“Or shame. Or fear,” she said. “And with some, it’s a mixture, all bottled up, just waiting to explode.”
She split her attack, brushed my bokken aside and kicked me in the stomach.
I used it to roll clear, put some distance between us.
“There’s nothing left,” I managed to gasp, retreating in a circle as she stalked me.
“No?” She casually threaded my defense and hit me across the mask. “Tell me about how you escaped from Forsythe’s house.”
“I’ve told you.” I swung tiredly. I was amazed that I grazed her chest. “You’ve seen it in my head. Dozens of times.”
She rapped my ribs again while I was out of position, and stepped backwards.
“Take me through it again,” she said, barely breathing heavily despite the onslaught she’d unleashed on me. “You’ve gotten dressed. You’re leaving the basement. How many steps up to the hallway?”
“Fifteen,” I said without thinking. I hadn’t realized I knew that. Maybe I counted them at the time.
“So now you’re in the hall,” she prompted.
“Yes.” It slipped out. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to go back there. I couldn’t.
“No one’s there. Where are they?”
When I hesitated, her bokken swept across my ribs, a stinging blow.
“Upstairs!” I yelled. “I told you. You saw it.”
“Why? Why are they upstairs?”
“I don’t know!”
“Lie.” Her bokken shot through my defenses and glanced off my mask, leaving my head ringing.
“Shit. Damn you.” I swung wildly at her, trying to get her to back away. She deflected every blow and came on. “Damn you. Leave me alone.”
“Why are they upstairs?”
“I don’t know!” Tears and sweat. My eyes were stinging. I could barely see her as she slipped around my ineffectual guard. Suddenly she was right in my face. She broke my grip on the blade. Her arm trapped mine and she hurled me over her hip in a judo move.
She landed with a knee in my belly. The breath exploded out of me, and her bokken came down across my throat.
“How do you know they’re upstairs?” she shouted.
I can’t tell her. I can’t. I can’t. The same way I couldn’t tell Top and never did.
“How?”
She was relentless. Her bokken pressed harder on my throat.
“I can hear them,” I gasped before she crushed my larynx.
The pressure on my throat eased. She tore both our masks off and loomed over me, face inches from mine, eyes hard as knives.
She let me go and I covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t meet those eyes.
This is my shame. She’s right. This is the poison in my heart.
“You can hear them,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I shouted. I wanted this to be over, but I couldn’t go on. I would lose everything. I’d be too ashamed to look anyone in the face ever again.
She wouldn’t stop. “What can you hear, Amber? You have to tell me.”
Something broke inside me. Something ugly, something vile and corrosive that I’d locked away. The last of the last in my strongbox. The thing I could never let go.
“They’re raping Fay,” I screamed at Bian. I was blinded with tears. “They’re all up there. Every sick bastard in the whole house and they’re taking turns with her. I can hear them. I can hear them laughing and joking like it’s funny. I can’t do anything.” The pressure came off me and I lashed out blindly, but Bian wasn’t there. “I can’t do anything. I can’t feel anything. If I feel anything I’ll have to try to stop them and they’ll rape me again. Or kill me. Or kill both of us. So I can’t feel anything. If I can’t feel anything, I can run away and save myself.”
The anger went out of me and I collapsed back, sobbing.
“So I run. I stop feeling anything so I can leave her there and I run. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I left her there.”
Bian slipped in behind me. She made a pillow of her lap and lifted my head into it.
“Shhh.” Her fingers stroked my hair. “Because of your shame at running away, you couldn’t tell anyone, couldn’t do anything. You couldn’t even bear to see them afterwards. Because they’d know. They’d know you abandoned her. Even if she was a bitch you owed nothing to.”
She slipped an arm beneath me, cradled me and began rocking gently.
“And from this comes what you are today. Oh, my sister,” she whispered. “My wonderful, crazy sister.”
Chapter 20
Redemption. Redemption. Redemption.
I failed Fay. I left her in that house. I did nothing. What if Forsythe—
“Shhh.” Bian kissed my forehead. “You’re done with the therapy.”
For a moment, I didn’t want to be done. I wanted Diana and Bian to scrub my memory.
But I am all the things I’ve ever done, all the things that have ever been done to me.
I had people who were depending on me now. I had to move forward.
“You need to tell the others about this session,” she said. “You owe it to them.”
I shook my head, but she ignored it. “When you tell them, it’ll break your misconception that they’d think any differently of you.”
I would have to tell them face to face. The thought of looking them in the eye and speaking, rather than knowing they were there in a reliving session—it seemed harder.
Bian’s eukori brushed mine. “You have to move on.”
She was dosing me with pacifics; the pheromones were wafting down over me. Not as effective as Diana, but enough to help me relax.
“It’s gotten more complex,” I said. “Not just Forsythe, but I have to do something about Fay.”
My subconscious had been telling me for weeks.
Redemption. Redemption. Redemption.
More important than Forsythe?
What Forsythe had done to me was history. But I’d failed Fay and that lived on. I’d failed by not doing anything, by being too ashamed to do anything, too numb to consider what she’d gone through.
“Ease up.” Bian murmured as my heart struggled against the grip of the pacifics to race again.
“What if Fay’s still suffering? I had the strongbox, and all of you. What if she’s had nothing all this time?”
“Ease up,” she said again, her face devoid of expression. “Here’s the difficult part: I tracked everyone I could from your year at school to try and understand more of what happened. There were a couple I couldn’t find.”
“Fay?”
She nodded. “No record of Fay Daniels after she left South High.”
I frowned. Nothing?
“People don’t disappear,” I said, “present company excluded. Family? College? Driver’s license? Bank cards?” I licked my lips. “Police reports?”
“I haven’t been able to check
every possibility,” Bian said. “I’m no net wizard.”
“Dead?” The word slipped from my mouth.
Pray she hasn’t killed herself.
“No reports of that either. Dead or missing usually gets a report. My gut instinct tells me Forsythe’s the key to finding Fay. And you know…”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s in LA.”
She checked the time. “We’re due for a meeting with Skylur. We can talk more after; make some plans. Decide what it is you’re going to do.”
I could think of several things that wouldn’t take a lot of planning and would be over quickly. If Forsythe had been in the room, I’m not sure whether I’d have changed and torn his face off, or dripped excruciating poisons into his bloodstream.
I didn’t need to tell Bian that. She hated Forsythe with that sort of hate that starts low and burns upwards through your body.
She’d kept her voice neutral when she’d talked about him, but the sort of thing she’d do to him was obvious to me. For her, this was personal too. I didn’t know why. I hoped someday she’d be able to share with me.
In the meantime, what I had to do about Forsythe had just gotten more complicated.
Bian was frowning. Her earpiece, discarded on her bag, squawked and I could hear Tom Sherman’s voice, loud in the stairwell. Along with the sound of boots—Altau guards, all of them in a hurry.
They came bursting in moments later. All three had their ugly Herstal P90s out and Tom was wearing an Altau commset.
“Both here,” he said into the mike. “Secured.”
We got to our feet.
“Tom, what the hell?” Bian said.
“We have a situation,” he replied. “Multiple attacks. The worst confirmed so far: a cross-party group meeting off-site to discuss a complaint from the Were in LA and a Basilikos team hit them.”
Alex was out there. And Yelena. Dominé and Dante.
Tom wouldn’t have everything. It’d be confused.
“Casualties?” I asked, keeping it level.
Tom knew why I was asking.
“Nothing on your House I know of. Two fatalities from that meeting. Four, if you count the assassins. I’m hearing a dozen others injured at other places.”
“Who’s dead?” Bian said.
“House Lindberg and the Diakon of House Karamazin.”
Lindberg: the leader for the Swedish Athanate. Karamazin: a Diakon of an old Basilikos House, now Hidden Path. Why had they been targeted? Random, unfocused violence? An accident? Or had Karamazin been contemplating voting for Emergence?
Tom wasn’t finished.
“Here’s the kicker: the Hidden Path are claiming the LA Were are involved. The meeting with Karamazin was only taking place because the Were made the complaint, and the meeting place was chosen by the Were. Everyone’s clammed up behind security until this gets fixed.” Tom checked his watch. “I’ve sent a couple of guys to retrieve the rest of your House from the club.”
Jen was in New York and well out of it at the moment. Julie and Keith were with her and they’d hear the news. They’d know what to do.
“Alex?” I asked.
“He’s out with the patrols.” Tom shrugged. “A Basilikos team would be dumber than they seem to be if they try taking one of those on.”
Regardless of how many were dead in the attack, this was exactly what Basilikos wanted—to disrupt the conference and halt progress to a new Assembly. Skylur had to understand that, so what was he going to do about it?
Tom held up a hand and turned away, pressing the earbud of his commset tighter into his ear.
“Yes, sir,” he said, and turned back to us. “Skylur wants to see both of you, now. Let’s go.”
Chapter 21
Tom had a box van outside. From the plain white color you’d have thought it was an ordinary workman’s utility vehicle. Only the slight settling on the suspension would give anyone a clue it was as armored as a SWAT truck.
We crossed to the truck and slipped quickly inside, Bian and me still in our workout gear. I’d managed to grab clothes to change into, and a pair of Sig Sauers in shoulder holsters.
A car with the remainder of the Altau guards was waiting outside and we both headed downtown, with Tom still querying our exact destination on the commset. Someone at the base was paranoid and kept him guessing. I approved.
Bian and I changed clothes in the back of the van, to everyone’s amusement.
As we approached downtown, Tom got a call to take Santa Monica, heading west.
We’d just made the junction when there was an interruption: a burst of quick Athanate—someone speaking hurriedly in a tense situation. I caught the words ‘Albuquerque’ and ‘Vasana’.
Crap.
“The Albuquerque Were are at the club,” Bian confirmed, holding up a hand to keep me quiet. “Standoff.”
“Tom, get the guards to back down,” I said quickly, reaching over to grab his arm. “There’s no threat. Let me talk to them.”
For a moment, I thought he’d refuse. I was pulling a stunt in the middle of his operation. Worst case, someone got killed because of me. His op, his blame.
Tom’s eyes flicked to Bian, and she nodded.
He spoke in Athanate and gave me the commset.
“This is House Farrell,” I said. “It’s urgent I talk to whoever’s there from the Albuquerque pack.”
I didn’t know the Altau voice on the other end. “Okay. Wait one.”
There were background sounds of an argument, then a new voice, angry and waspish: “Yes?”
I sent up a silent prayer. One of them I knew. I could visualize her: close enough to my size that she’d loaned me a pair of leather pants. A woman with long black hair and a face as fierce as a hawk. On the other hand, not a particular friend, especially after Zane, her alpha, made it clear he wanted into those pants she’d loaned me.
“Haz, it’s Amber. Back off and wait for me to get there.”
“Snake,” she said in greeting. “Why the fuck should we?”
At least she knew who it was—she’d called me ‘Snake’ down in Albuquerque. Among other things.
“Because we’re all associated. Your pack’s associated with mine. Altau is associated with me. Dominé’s my House, so she’s my pack as well. We can settle this. I don’t know what you want, but it’s really important that you don’t start a fight with Altau. Really important.”
There was a long moment of silence, but she came back quieter and more in control. “Why?”
“There’s been an attack on Athanate in LA only an hour or so ago. Some factions are blaming the local Were. Doesn’t matter that you’re out of your territory; showing up and fighting us will get you lumped in with them.”
Another silence. I held my breath.
“You close by?”
“No.” I didn’t want to lie, and I wondered how the next part would go down. “I’ve got to see House Altau first. I’ll come as soon as I can.”
I could hear Haz speaking to the others, breathing hard, and angry voices in the background.
“Problem,” Haz said.
“What?”
“Rita’s with me. She’s squaring off against the silver-haired foreigner. They’re not listening to me.”
Yelena.
“Is Zane there?”
“No.”
“Shit! Hand me over to Rita.” There was a snarl in the background. “Please,” I added desperately.
Silence, and then: “What?” in a screech that was halfway cougar.
It wasn’t much, but Rita was talking.
Whatever the Albuquerque pack wanted to think of Rita, the were-cougar when she was angry was borderline rogue, kept in check by Zane’s dominance as her alpha. Zane wouldn’t have sent her to the club if he’d known there would be a complication like this, not without him being there too. I thought I could talk her down face to face, but over the phone?
And if she stopped talking, her eyes would go that green that seemed lit from
inside, her body would start to slink and no one would be able to reach her.
“Rita, please talk to me. There doesn’t need to be a fight.”
Silence.
“I’ll be there in a couple of hours,” I said, and hoped I was right. “I really need this. Whatever it is you need from LA, we can work together on it, but these are my people, my pack. Please.”
“Two hours,” Rita said. The cougar overtones in her voice had weakened.
“I owe you,” I said. “I really do. Anything.”
“Bite me.” I wasn’t sure if that was a request or a joke, but Rita had already tossed the commset to Yelena.
“Boss?” Yelena’s voice was tense, the Ukrainian accent strong. She was on the same hair-trigger as Rita.
“Whatever you and Dominé can do to calm it all down and keep it that way for a couple of hours.”
“Understood.”
I heard Haz suggest they wait in their truck outside, and then Vera’s voice. I thought it sounded like an invitation.
My heart felt as if it was knocking in my throat. Mixed in with down-to-earth wisdom and solid common sense, Vera was still prone to saying the occasional completely wacked-out thing. It would be my luck Haz or Rita would take offense.
But before I could check, Tom took the commset out of my hands and began reporting what had gone down back to HQ.
I had to trust my House.
I looked out the front, through the window into the cab, trying to calm myself down. Every meeting with Skylur had the potential for horrendous surprises and danger. I needed to be in complete control of myself. Leave the situation at Club Vasana to Yelena and Dominé. Focus on what Skylur would come up with.
My own needs? They had to wait. Resolution. Redemption. Not now.
Focus.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Ten minutes later, we’d come off Santa Monica and taken Venice into Culver City. The road was lined with the blank backs of businesses, and the facility trucks parked along it gave the hint that this was all LA’s industry.
I had thought the driver was only taking a short cut, but the anonymous studios stopped abruptly, and our little convoy turned right to pass through a pair of elegant wrought-iron gates.
