Cypher (The Dragon's Bidding Book 2)

by Christina Westcott

  He recognized the familiar scent of the woman, heard her breathing, before she entered the room. His heightened senses gave him the nanosecond of warning he needed to twist sideways before the red dot of the targeting laser touched his chest. In a hyperkinetic blur, he swung the Acton around and fired first.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The stun beam washed across Fitz’s body, locking her muscles and releasing her to drop to the floor in a limp sprawl. The symbiont babbled in the back of her mind, fighting to free her from the paralysis. Thoughts clear, she still had access to her inhead, but it would only allow her to interpret what happened around her.

  Jumper howled, scrambling across the carpet as he charged. Cypher cursed, grappling with the cat. Fitz remembered his radio and sub-vocalized over her link. “Don’t fight him. Get away.”

  The man wearing her partner’s body crossed her field of vision, gripping the cat by the scruff of the neck. Bloody scratches crisscrossed his forearms. She heard the armorglass door open, then close, followed by the sound of Jumper’s paws thudding against the glass.

  “The cat door in the hangar. Go,” she rasped over her comm.

  Cypher knelt beside her, his hands going to the back of her neck. Pulling up her pharmacopeia, she injected a double hit of elixir to speed the symbiont’s ability to clear the stun beam’s effects, then closed down all her augs to avoid the maelstrom of sensations a full power shutdown caused. Her world went black as her night vision disappeared, and sounds retreated into a dim muddle of noise. The pins and needles sensation in her limbs began to disappear. She should be able to move soon, but for now she feigned unconsciousness.

  He lifted her, carried her across the room. Against her cheek his shirt was clammy, and he smelled of seawater and blood. He dropped her into the chair at the desk and began rummaging in the drawers. Through her lowered eyelids, he appeared only as a dark shape occasionally eclipsing the computer’s ready lights. He located a set of tangle ties and strapped her hands together in front of her before stepping away.

  He moved about the room, darkness hiding his actions until the processor beeped and filled the room with the aroma of neubeast stew and coffee. From the sounds, he stuffed the food down like a starving man.

  Most of the tingling gone, Fitz experimented with moving her fingers and wiggling her toes. Lacking night vision put her at a disadvantage, but with her vocal cords and tongue ready to cooperate, she could remedy that. “Lights.”

  He winced at the sudden brightness, raising an arm to cover his eyes. He hadn’t grown so accustomed to his augmentations that using them was second nature to him; he still had to think about shutting down his night vision, and that cost him seconds.

  His appearance shocked her. He was a gaunt scarecrow of a man, torn and bloody clothes hanging off him. Dark hair stuck out in unruly spikes or hung in limp strings, pale roots showing. His cheeks were sunken, eyes haunted. He wore Wolf’s Acton in a shoulder harness and her dropped service pistol stuck in his belt. If she could get close enough to grab it…

  “You’re recuperating quickly,” he said.

  “Your aim was off. You barely hit me.”

  Cypher picked up an ornate silver decanter of vilaprim from the sideboard, pulled the stopper and sniffed. He smiled and took a long drink, shivering as he lowered the bottle. “Gods, this stuff is vile, but I seem to have developed a taste for it. Don’t understand why. I could probably drink this whole thing and not get a nice buzz.” He wiped his mouth against his filthy sleeve and began pacing, head down and shoulders slumped.

  Fitz fought down a flash of compassion. This wasn’t Wolf; she couldn’t allow herself to think of him that way. She had to focus on the differences, the changes Cypher had made in his appearance, but as he turned, she caught the familiar profile and her pulse rate accelerated. She had to keep her composure, her objectivity, and think of him only as just another killer she had to take down.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  He laughed, the sound hollow and brittle. He slammed the decanter down hard on the other side of the desk, green droplets splattering across the glassite surface. He slapped his hands down on the desk and leaned toward her.

  “I want out. I want to run so far away that no one has even heard of the Yig-be-damned Scyran Empire. Somewhere politics isn’t some cruel sport. I’m sick of being the pawn of an asshole who’s such a coward he won’t come out of the shadows and fight his own battles. Tritico jerks me around like I’m a token in one of his stupid VR games and not a living, thinking being. I want to be free to make my own decisions, to go where I choose. You of all people should understand this. The Emperor has her fingers wrapped tightly around your strings.”

  “I do the Dragon’s Bidding because I choose to. I believe in what Ari Ransahov is trying to accomplish.”

  “Then you’re a fool. I just want a little peace to live my life—my life.”

  “You don’t have a life. You’re nothing but a computer program running inside a hijacked body. You’ve stolen another man’s life, a man I care deeply about, and I’m not going to let you keep it.”

  “You’re never going to stop coming after me, are you?” He backed away and walked to the weapons cabinet. When he returned, he held a long slender dagger in one hand. “Tritico’s right. I have to kill you. I don’t want to.” His lips twisted in a sad smile. “I’d rather you saw me the way you see him, The Other, touch me the way you touch him, fuck me…but you never would, would you? Killing you is the only way I’ll ever be free. Tritico’s got these hooks in my mind…”

  “You mean in your program? You don’t have a mind. At least, not one that’s your own.”

  He glanced at her, then looked quickly away. “On Coronia Station, I tried to run, even had the ticket in my hand—to some world, I don’t even remember where. Just away from here. I made it down the companionway, saw the hatch of the ship, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t take one more step. The compulsion ate me alive from the inside out, and the only way I could make it stop was to go crawling back to Tritico. He told me I had to eliminate you so he could get at Ransahov, then he’d be through with me. He’d remove the leash he has wrapped around my mind and I’d be free to go.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Doubt flickered across his features. “What other choice do I have?”

  “You could surrender.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? How fast would your finger hit the delete button on me?” He pointed the dagger at her. “How old are you?”

  Fitz was confused by the sudden turn in the conversation. “A gentleman never asks a lady her age.”

  “Don’t mistake me for a gentleman,” he said. “I meant that you’ve lived a life; you’ve felt love and happiness, experienced pleasure. I’ve had seven days.” He held up his hands, fingers spread wide. “Seven days of blood and pain. Of fear and hiding. Of being used and tossed away. And despite all that, I want more. I want to experience life. Don’t I deserve that?”

  “This it isn’t about you or what you want; it’s between Wolf and Tritico,” Fitz said. “When you went crawling back, it wasn’t you he saw groveling, but Wolf. And killing me is only meant to inflict more pain on his old friend. And when he gets tired of tormenting Wolf, he’ll kill him. You’ll only be collateral damage.”

  Cypher looked down at the table. “I know. That’s what the voice keeps telling me. Yammering inside my head over and over. Shut up,” he yelled, hands clutching his skull.

  Fitz started, breath catching in her throat. “Wolf? He’s talking to you? Now?”

  “Talking?” His laughter was manic. “He’s whispering, shouting, ordering. Sometimes he just comes in and takes over.” He pounded a fist against his head, heedless of the dagger in his hand. “Sometimes I want to drive this knife into my brain and chop him out of my mind.”

  Fitz forced a calmness into her voice she didn’t feel. “Listen to me. This procedure they did to you—I’ve heard the results. They wer
e never successful. Once the two entities became aware of each other, began to struggle for dominance, irreversible personality disintegration always resulted.”

  “Disintegration?”

  “Insanity. And that almost inevitably led to one or the other committing suicide.”

  He perched on the edge of the desk, rotating the dagger in restless fingers. “I’ll take my chances. You see, tonight I’ve been shot. Twice. Had a knife shoved in my gut. The fall over the cliff alone should have killed me. I think I’ll risk suicide.”

  “Then you’d rather spend eternity as a madman?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, and beneath his lids they whipped from side to side like a man caught in REM sleep.

  “Eternity? I can’t die?” Fitz couldn’t tell if that excited or frightened him.

  “You’re tough, but not indestructible. A Tzraka could skewer you. You could get your head chopped off. Explosive decompression would do it. Blown to bits, burned alive, total cellular dissolution…”

  “Enough, Gray Eyes; I get the picture. Give me your hand.”

  When she didn’t comply immediately, he grabbed her bound wrists and dragged the blade in a shallow groove along the inside of her arm. He watched the blood well up, and waited.

  Her symbiont responded sluggishly, letting a red trickle reach the crook of her elbow before it began to zip the wound closed.

  “Bloody hell, that’s not healing properly.” The words were delivered in a soft Willcommin accent. She looked up, into Wolf’s eyes. Worry burned in their blue depths. He blinked and Cypher was back.

  “You don’t heal up as fast as I do, Gray Eyes. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised after Tritico insisted I use those modified black darts to kill you. Malick’s Hell, that means the Emperor is like us, too. Who else?”

  “Tritico. Of course. And some of his augies.”

  “Hell, it’s bad enough I’ve been thrown into this insane political firestorm, but if this is going to turn into some real life VR game with a bunch of power-mad supermen in a never-ending squabble over the Empire, then you can count me out.” His eyes flickered, side to side, looking everywhere but at her.

  Flickering.

  Wolf was there, then gone. Cypher twitched each time they flickered, but with an effort managed to fight down Wolf’s attack. Rubbing his hands over his spiky hair, he jumped up and stalked away.

  And left the dagger on the desk.

  Fitz snatched it, hiding her hands beneath the top while she sawed at the tangle ties. Her movement caused them to tighten around her wrists, but she kept at it until the blade cut through the plastic.

  Against him, this dagger was laughable. The only way she could do any damage would be to get close enough to drive the blade up under his armored ribs and sever the main power leads, but getting into knife-fighting distance with an augie amounted to suicide for a Normal, and that’s all she was right now. If she expected to survive this confrontation, she’d have to keep her distance. Once he got his hands on her, the game would be over. She needed a better weapon.

  Wolf always deactivated the pistols stored in the cabinet. She wouldn’t have time to grab one, load, and fire before he grabbed her. Her only option was the slug thrower, still loaded, but across the house in the bedroom where she’d left it when she removed her uniform earlier. If she expected to reach it, she’d have to slow him down—a lot. The dagger might be enough for that.

  She surged up, hurled the knife and ran for the door in one fluid movement. His threat assessment system must have given him a warning. He spun around, trying to bat the weapon away, but bobbled it. The pommel struck him on the bridge of the nose, slowing him enough for her to make it to the door.

  She palmed it closed, activating the locking mechanism as he hit the other side. Fitz ran through the dark house, blundering into chairs and walls and desks she should have remembered. Across the polished marble floor her bare feet left a trail visible to his thermal scans, showing him where she’d gone, leading him to the place she’d chosen for their confrontation. If she couldn’t beat his augmentations, she’d use them against him.

  Reaching the bedroom, she locked the door and snatched the heavy weapon from the dresser.

  “Lights. Full.” She scanned the room, smiling as her eyes came to rest on the large vase filled with Blue Nova roses. She dumped out the flowers and water, retreating toward the freshener. Cypher’s staccato footsteps drummed closer in the hall beyond the door. She lifted the delicate vase above her head and smashed it down, scattering jagged fragments across the floor. She studied the pattern of shards. Even in the dark, they might be too visible to an augie’s acute sight. She grabbed a thick rug from beside the bed and draped it over the glass.

  He pounded on the door, then stopped and began entering his access code to unlock it.

  “Lights. Off.” Fitz dodged through the freshener’s door, pressing her shoulder blades against the wall, hardly daring to breathe. The barrel of the slug thrower felt cool against her skin as she pressed it to her forehead to keep her hands from shaking.

  The bedroom door slid open.

  He didn’t request the lights, knowing he could see in the dark and she couldn’t. If Cypher had known her as well as Wolf did, he would have wondered why she’d put herself at such a disadvantage.

  But Cypher didn’t know her.

  No sounds of the storm outside seeped through the walls, leaving the room in tight silence. Had he paused in the doorway, hoping to draw her out? Or would he fall for the trail of cooling footprints she’d left him to follow toward the freshener? Fitz waited, sweat trickling down her spine and sticking her nightshirt to her back. Her heartbeat, loud in her ears, almost hid the sound she’d been straining to hear.

  The crunch of glass under his boots.

  She knew exactly where he stood now.

  “All lights, full.” She stepped out of the freshener, her own eyes slitted against the glare.

  For a second, Cypher froze, his face twisted as his night vision overloaded, whiting out his sight.

  Long enough for Fitz to bring the heavy weapon down and fire. The slug thrower kicked back against her unaugmented wrists, its loud report echoing in the room and ringing in her ears. He stumbled, but didn’t fall. She clenched her jaw and squeezed the trigger again. This time he went down.

  Glass slicing her bare feet, Fitz ran to him and pounced on his back, wrapping her legs around his chest and an arm about his throat. She fumbled at the base of his skull with her other hand, trying to twist out the spike. He elbowed back at her, his blows weak and uncoordinated. His hand knotted in her hair and he tried to drag her over his head, but she held on, fingers clawing at his spike and slipping, but then it came free, and she ripped it out and tossed it across the room. Beneath her, he collapsed.

  She lay there, limbs tangled with his, listening to the harsh sound of their breathing and the song of their symbionts howling together—his growing weaker as he slid toward a coma. She rolled him over. His face was ashen, but the blue eyes, despite the pain, were Wolf. Only Wolf.

  He struggled to speak. “Did you…have to shoot me…twice?”

  Tears flowed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, so sorry, but I had to be sure I put him down long enough to pull the spike. Your augs were…”

  His fingers on her lips stilled her protests. “Just kidding. You done good, Kimber. You done good.” He managed a weak smile. “I may need a little help healing if I don’t want to end up in a coma.”

  “I’m not putting your spike back in to give you access to your pharmacopeia. No way I’m giving that bastard another chance to take you away from me. How about a cup of tea to get you on your feet?”

  “The ampules…med-case?”

  Fitz cursed at herself for forgetting. Wolf had stashed the case in the bureau drawer when he left for his surgeries. She scrambled up to retrieve it, her hands shaking so violently she could hardly open it. She knelt and pressed an injector against his neck. His body twitched as the e
lixir hit his system. One after another, she emptied all the ampules into him until, on the last one, he reached to stop her.

  “Enough. Save one for yourself, Kimber. You look like you’ve been through bloody hell.” Some of the color flowed back into his face, and his eyes cleared. “I think I could use that cup of tea now, if you don’t mind. But maybe a kiss first?”

  Her lips barely brushed against his mouth, soft at first, only a hint of the pleasures she’d offer him once he felt stronger. The loneliness of their time apart, and the fear that she might never touch him like this again, drove her to deepen the kiss. His lips responded, tongue caressing hers, but lacking much of his usual fire. He broke the contact first, struggling to draw a breath, but a promise shone in his eyes.

  “You seem to have me at a disadvantage at the moment, ma’am. Perhaps later?”

  The shadows of the past seven terrible days lifted from her heart. “Affirmative, soldier.”

  She rose and hurried to the kitchen, the words of an old love ballad replaying in her mind. The processor dispensed a large mug of tepid tea, heavy cream and sugar, but she stirred extra honey into it, the clatter of the spoon keeping time to the melody she hummed.

  When she returned to the bedroom, Wolf perched on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees and face in his hands. He accepted the cup, drained it noisily, and placed it on the nightstand next to the slug thrower. Fitz remember their first night together, how he’d placed the weapon close at hand, even during their lovemaking. Old habits die hard. And one of Tritico’s killers might still be out there.

  “How many?” He stared at his fingers with haunted eyes. “How many people did I kill?”

  Fitz leaned her face against his shoulder. “You didn’t kill anyone. Cypher did that. Or Tritico. He ultimately caused all of this. Not you.”

  “In the spirit of Founder’s Day, perhaps I’ll pay my old friend a visit tomorrow morning, but I don’t think he’s going to like the present I’ll have for him.”

  “And I’ll be right there with you to add my holiday greetings.”