by Aral Bereux
Should’ve listened. They warned me, they knew this would happen.
Only she had listened, but the months of covering her tracks had failed. Now she was squaring off a watcher and batting her usual out-of-league average.
‘Holy fucking shit, boss. Look what she done to yer hand!’
Steady streams of blood trickled under his shirt sleeve as the number six supported his lean, and he cringed. The teeth marks went deep into the webbing of his thumb and finger. His rare experience in pain in the way norms felt pain wouldn’t end well. It served to flick a deep switch in a watcher’s preternatural instinct and she’d flicked his good and proper. Two Militia officers returned with their assault rifles pointing at her, from their side of the line, as the blood continued to pool on the ground.
Sergeant Kicker’s cunning smile broadened. She weighed the knife in her hands and stepped from their reach. She waited. His calm reaction unnerved her.
‘Taris,’ she called. The heavy knife twirled back and forth between her able fingers.
His cold eyes met with hers, turning grey in his anger. Taris struggled in his search for self-control.
She held her ground and waited, knowing if the door opened, he’d pounce and rip her apart.
‘Right where you should be, Taz.’ The traitor peered through his cell door, giving her first glimpse of his dark thick hair and matching brown eyes. ‘Remove the invocation and heal yourself. Take your knife back,’ he taunted before moving from her sight again. ‘Or they could do it for you. You weak bastard of a dog.’
She closed her eyes; yes, an invocation, of course! Safeguarding a breakout at all costs, he had cast an invocation to remove everyone’s abilities. The building bound his power; he was a normal man standing before her, a watcher without ability. His very own paranoia had clipped his wings.
Taris calculated the situation; his expression though, still rested upon her. Julianna twirled the knife and stood still.
Please keep the door closed, she thought. He’s going to tear me apart.
But it was the whisper of words in her mind saying ‘Nice move,’ that caught her undivided attention.
She spun at the faint whisper inside her mind and dropped the knife.
The invocation stops him from tearing you apart, the whisper continued. She nodded.
The unexpected intrusion from her fellow comrade next door had broken her concentration. The guns rose higher, aiming the red lasers on her chest and neck before settling once more into position.
‘Leave her for now,’ Taris ordered. He hung over the bars of her cell door. His bloodied prints remained while his hands slipped to a lower grip.
‘Julianna?’ Taris called quietly.
She retrieved the knife and pushed it into her pocket. His magnetic glare arrested her first glance up and his lips parted into a satisfied smile.
Her panicked mind spewed out her thoughts. Well, now I’m screwed. The music rhythm she’d hummed had disappeared.
‘Hold that thought, sweetheart.’ His lips stretched into a closed grin. ‘For my visit tonight. You know I will.’
She sat heavily on the bunk and stared at the wall in front of her. Her comrade’s footsteps paced restlessly behind, back and forth in his captivity.
‘Promises, Taris. You know I like it rough,’ she said, but it was halfhearted. The pain from the interrogation crept into her body again. ‘Looking forward to our next encounter.’
‘Once I’m done with you, you’ll beg for my mercy,’ he said.
Julianna’s frayed mind endured his constant tugging. Invocation or not, he still reached deep into her psyche to disturb and taunt. He couldn’t get his answers, but he could mind slap her with his intrusions, when he wanted too. The concealment tricks the Guild had imparted, wore thin, her headache grew thick.
He sung gently in his smooth tones, teasing her. ‘I know something you don’t know.’
She sighed. ‘Come on, Taz, we’re playing childhood games now?’
The singing stopped. ‘Your parents are alive.’
She stood again, facing him from a safe, unreachable distance. Her quick movement made him step back, but her own heart pounded.
‘They’re dead,’ she said, and watched the strangers’ whitened knuckles curl the cell bars.
‘Are they?’ He crossed his arms. More blood dripped carelessly onto his boots.
The officers positioned themselves behind him with their weapons ready, and Sergeant Kicker’s cunning smile became a shit-eating grin.
‘Rumor has your father working for the Rebellion.’ He leaned in. ‘Know anything about that? Know anything about this so-called Isis, or anything to help our cause?’
His mind closed in again. She looked away.
‘Anything at all, Julianna. Tell us so we can come to an arrangement. I could let you work for us.’ His eyes lowered. ‘But you’re not a Rebel, so you wouldn’t know about those things, would you?’
She closed their gap, touching her toes to the bottom of the barred wall between them, waiting for him to take the last step on his side.
‘I wouldn’t know. I work for someone far more important than the Rebellion.’
His hands reached for the bars again. ‘Your Guild connections don’t threaten me—’
She shook her head, pulled back, and aimed.
Spit trailed down his cheek until it met with a handkerchief from his back pocket.
‘Typical of your disgusting habits.’ He locked her into his hypnotic, serpent stare. His charisma melted away as his pupils engulfed the usual brightness they held, to display black, bottomless pits of nothing.
Let the invocations hold, please, let them hold, she thought. Christ, let them hold or I am so screwed right now.
Taris exchanged his handkerchief for Sergeant Kicker’s rifle. ‘And what should I do to repay you for that deed?’ He cocked it and weighed it in his hands before pointing it in her direction.
‘No,’ he muttered to himself, lowering its aim from her face. ‘Something better.’
Taris punched the stock of the rifle between the cage bars. He hammered it through again, dropping her into the ground as it drove into her ribs. He pulled back with his body, thrusting it down a final time into her soft belly, as she lay helpless below him.
Blood seeped from the broken skin, trickling through her splayed fingers pressing hard against her side. She let her weak body fall flat. The ceiling hung over her in a dizzying spin.
‘Keep the knife, bitch,’ Taris snarled, while the rifle returned to the Sergeant’s rough hands. The officers stood to attention, their weapons lowered. ‘When you’re ready to talk, call for me. You know how.’ His voice was sharp.
He peered into the cell next door.
‘What about me, Taz? Forty-eight hours now. I’m getting claustrophobic.’ The prisoner rested against the wall, keeping his distance from the bars, eyeing the rifles.
‘The Council are still deliberating.’ Taris examined the blood congealing in clumps on his hand. ‘No hurry.’
‘Still gunning for my Council position?’
‘Nah, only the good fight, Cade. I have my spot guaranteed on the Senate after this, I’m happy with that.’
The prisoner stood at the cell door. ‘You okay over there, princess?’
‘Keep your distance or you’ll be moved to the slot.’
‘But she likes it rough, Taz.’ He raised his eyebrows, taunting him. His voice pitched higher and he extended his bound wrists. ‘Do I get my cuffs off now?’ He batted his eyelids and blew him a kiss.
Julianna laughed despite the pain. The officers lingered over her before flanking Taris along the walkway to administer the electronic door locks on a panel. Taris stopped at the end to press his hand against it. He quietly counted the manual override keys before signing himself out.
‘Enjoy the company, Caden. I believe the Council will be reaching their decision tomorrow morning.’
‘Prefer the firing squad,’ Caden called back. ‘For
what it’s worth.’
Taris swiped his security clearance to open the external doors. ‘I prefer a good hanging myself,’ his voice trailed out behind the slamming doors.
Julianna pulled herself against the bars to face his cell.
‘Pretty girl,’ he said quietly. ‘What you did just then…’ He pointed a finger in the air. Silver cuffs bound his hands and a glimmer of light reflected.
‘Was a really dumb move,’ she finished. The static cameras in the corner walls blinked in their direction.
‘Rebellion?’ He leaned against the bars for a better look.
She moved from the cameras. ‘Only against The Family. I refused initiation. You?’
‘Jealous cousin.’ A smile reached his eyes and he nodded toward the knife in her hands. ‘Any good with a blade?’ He stretched his hands through the bars.
‘I heard your whisper.’ She reached for his cuffs with the knife tip.
‘Then you know I’m a watcher. It’s about all I can do in here. He’s covered the place with a preclusion hex. It’s thick with spells.’
‘Means nothing to me.’ The blade glided over the steel and into his skin.
He pulled his hands away. ‘Hey! Careful!’
‘Trying,’ the blade tip slipped into the lock. ‘These aren’t what I’m used to.’
‘They bind watcher abilities.’ The cuffs loosened with a click and he drew his hands away. ‘It seems you and Taz have a history,’ he said.
‘I can still get them off,’ her hands hung through the cold bars.
‘No. They’ll tighten if you play anymore.’ He moved from her sight and she listened to his steps along the concrete. ‘Julianna Rae,’ he said to himself. ‘You’re the young girl Doug Cathan took in years ago, Peter’s daughter.’
‘Can’t help the blood you inherit,’ she watched him pulling at his thumbs, trying to dislocate them with his brutal strength.
He’d spoken her father’s name and her mouth opened to ask, but the sickening crunch and popping noise from his thumbs reached her ears. The chomp of bone moving made her every hair stand on end.
The cuffs fell from his deformed hands and landed heavily against the floor. Pacing past her view, he slipped the first thumb into its place. Beads of sweat travelled down his neck and he rested against the bars holding his other hand.
‘Initiation issues? You don’t think you’re in here for other reasons?’
The sweat thickened across his face while his other thumb stubbornly resisted his attempts to put it into place.
‘No, why would I? Just pissed on the wrong people’s boots. Here, let me try.’
He gave over his broken hand. ‘You sure you aren’t Rebellion?’ He locked eyes with her and nodded, giving her the go-ahead. ‘We could use someone like you on our side, if you’re not.’
Julianna wrenched his thumb toward her. It popped, the joint slipped in and he pulled away to pace the length of his cell, shaking his hand and quietly cursing. She edged away from his self-directed temper, sliding her fingers along the smooth walls to the steel bars. The only way out was the way they came in.
‘Thanks.’ He gave his hands another shake. She could see him again. ‘But, Taris clipped my abilities with the spells he cast over this place. I can’t get us out.’
Julianna smiled. ‘Maybe I can.’ She knelt in front of the lock on her cell door.
‘You didn’t answer me,’ he said.
‘You ask too many questions,’ the blade slipped into a gap between the metalwork encasing the control board for her door. ‘You’re a Council member,’ the knife dug in deeper. ‘Who’s to say you don’t use me, to save your own ass?’
‘The thought did cross my mind, but treason charges tend to stick. No getting away from a good lynching.’
The metal plate dropped to the floor. She worked calmly, pulling the board and crossing its wires. Sparks flew and dropped on her hand.
‘I’m not with the Rebellion – some connections with the Guild, but nothing to speak of,’ she crossed the second set of wires. The gate popped and she pushed it open. ‘You know my father?’
He pointed to the cameras. ‘What about the rumor of the Seer appearing?’
‘What about it?’ She looked up at them. ‘Just a myth,’ she said. ‘I think it’s shift change, we probably have some time.’ She paused. ‘My father, is he alive like Taris said?’
Caden peered from his cage, following her quick walk towards the security panel.
‘Use your shirt,’ he called. ‘Press over it carefully; there should be enough residual for another scan.’
She did. The edge of her shirt wrapped her thumb. She pressed down slowly and carefully.
It blinked.
The scan line froze.
‘It’s not working,’ she called.
‘Then press harder!’ he snapped.
‘I should just leave you here,’ she muttered as Caden’s cell door appeared on the schematic with the word LOCKED flashing in bold red lettering.
‘Yeah, but I know who your father is,’ he taunted. ‘Open the damn door already.’
Her finger slid along the rectangle until it blinked a green UNLOCKED.
A low buzz echoed and his door swung open. He sprinted out, latching her arm as he went along the stretch of passageway, to stand behind the door keeping them inside. Julianna screwed her face at his fingers digging into her skin.
‘What?’ he said, letting her go. ‘Manhandling new to you? Taz a pussycat in the sack?’
‘I’m beginning to not like you,’ she said.
They both turned their attention to the black security panel attached to the door.
‘We need a proximity card,’ she said.
‘Maybe not,’ he said. ‘Allow me this time.’
He concentrated his fingers over the square panel until a tidy click sounded as the lock slipped open. The door moved, and they peered through its narrow break at the compound shift changes taking place.
‘It won’t be long before the control room notices us missing. We need to make our move.’
‘Not that I’m disagreeing, but you do have a plan in that watcher mind of yours?’
The troops massed, exchanging shift reports and other information before dayshift departed for their quarters. Caden put his fingers between his lips and whistled.
‘You want us killed?’ she whispered as she pressed against the wall.
His eyes moved in her direction. His head did not. He pursed his lips again, silencing the nearby guards with his second whistle. The blood thumped into her ears and her heart pounded. When she moved from the door, he pushed her in front of it again.
‘Get ready,’ he said quietly. ‘Be quick.’
Her eyes widened. Ready for what? Her thoughts were loud enough that he heard her yelling from within her mind. His head turned and the door closed. He heard her all right, loud and clear, with no intentions of telling her anything more.
What an asshole, she thought. He raised his eyebrows. He’d heard everything.
He playfully smiled. The preternatural class clown – their reputation for an entirely dark humor very rarely caught a liberated laugh, and she was on the receiving end of this one.
Rifles pushed through the doors. Two officers followed, steadying their sights against Julianna as the doors swung closed. They scanned her while she waited for his betrayal behind them.
The female officer yelled. ‘Prisoner! Drop your weapon and get down on the ground! Now!’
Her fingers opened and the knife clunked onto the hard floor. The bulkier Sergeant kicked it away and into Caden’s reach, ordered her to her knees and watched as she complied with her hands behind her head.
Caden’s finger rose to his lips for silence. His other curled around the knife, readying for his attack.
‘Where’s the other pris—’
A thin, red line carved ruthlessly into the heavy-set jugular of the Sergeant, poured his warm blood over the flap of open skin onto the blonde’s
clean boots. She fumbled for her radio, holding it to her lips and stumbling with her words, not seeing Julianna’s fist in time to duck as it smashed into her face. The radio dropped into the spreading blood. Her body followed heavily into a heap between Julianna’s feet.
Join the Rebellion now, Julianna thought. Her stomach churned at his victim heaped in the red puddle rolling out. Why not, and add murder to the list while I’m at it. The puddle stretched more as Caden pulled at the dead man’s uniform. The blood soaked T-shirt from the half-naked soldier slapped against the corner wall. Everything else he took.
‘Kill or be killed,’ he said. ‘Get undressed. We just found our way out.’
Julianna crouched over the girl’s boots, unlacing them easily. Dancing scantily-clad at the club with women was entirely different from undressing them, she thought, and she looked down at the pants that she tugged over the officer’s ankles.
Caden buttoned his new shirt over his distinctly marked chest. Ancient black symbols, encased in their own thick circles and lines, stretched around to his back and down his arms. Some she recognized from the time spent with Taris, as status markings of a watcher possessing the highest of abilities.
‘Any slower, sweetheart, and I’ll lock you in the cells myself,’ he said.
A force to be reckoned with, she contemplated. She undressed in the speedy pace he urged, pushing her pants down past her knees and almost losing her knickers as she did. He laughed quietly.
The markings reached his wrists and she watched the last symbol disappear beneath the shirt sleeve he pulled down.
‘Nice ink,’ she stated as she finished dressing herself. The uniform felt warm against her skin. ‘Local shop or something a little more up-market?’
