“Or the basement.” Syri brushed by Toria to stride into the center of the room.
Not bothering to ask how Syri even knew about a basement, Toria caught up to the girl and led the way into the rear. Feeling like a character in a bad espionage movie, she drew the pistol from behind her back and clutched it in both hands, pointed toward the ceiling. The dagger was better for close combat, but Toria wasn’t in a hurry to let anyone get near enough for a dagger to be effective. Syri was in no shape for a fight.
Toria pushed open the kitchen door, and did a quick sweep of the room. Dark, save for the emergency light above the back exit, and deserted. Stepping aside to let Syri in, she said, “So, that basement you were talking about?”
“Right. This way.”
Toria followed her to the left, toward three doors. The first was marked “Storage” in stenciled letters, and the center door stood open, revealing a cluttered management office. Syri walked straight to the remaining door, and the two paused outside, listening for sounds below.
Syri gestured for her to go first. After giving her a mocking bow, resisting the urge to thank her for the honor, Toria tried the knob. This one wasn’t locked, and her fingers didn’t tingle with the presence of a ward.
It swung out, and the glow of dim light rose from the bottom of the stairs. Taking cautious steps and keeping the weapon at the ready, Toria crept down with Syri sticking close behind her. The basement spread to the left, but the stairwell walls stretched all the way to the bottom. They were blind until they reached the last few steps.
Toria poked her head around the corner, ready to pull back and make a break for it at any second. Though boxes and crates filled the majority of the large basement, the low light shone from a small lamp in a far corner. There, the boxes had been stacked to partition off a small room, and she could see the edge of a mattress poking out from between them. Now that they weren’t moving, Toria could hear small snores emanating from the corner.
Breathing into Toria’s ear, Syri said, “It’s Fabbri. Pretty smart. She must have come back after she knew this place had been cleared.”
Keeping her own voice low, trusting in the sensitivity of elven ears, Toria said, “You sure?”
“I’m sure. Let me handle this.”
Feeling like an idiot, but needing to ask anyway, Toria repeated, “You sure?”
Syri patted her on the shoulder and drifted past Toria down the last of the steps, making Toria’s earlier stealth sound like a stampede. Ghosting through the maze of stored goods, she rounded the bend protecting the snores.
Toria started at the sound of a muffled thump. Then, Syri said, “Got her!”
Gripping the pistol tight, Toria wound her way through the basement until she reached Syri’s side. At their feet lay a pajama-clad Emily Fabbri, sprawled on the mattress and covered in quilts. The snores had stopped, at least.
Toria transferred her gaze to Syri. “What did you do?”
“Put her into a deeper sleep,” Syri said. “She won’t wake up until I tell her to. So now we take her to your mother or whoever can take charge of her.”
“This can’t have been that easy,” Toria said, looking back at the prone body below them. She replaced the pistol in the holster at her back. “But I’m not about to complain after everything else we’ve been through. C’mon, let’s get her over to Daliana’s place since I doubt my mom’s back yet.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Syri said. “You get her shoulders.”
Daliana collected Fabbri’s unconscious body when Toria and Syri showed up on her back steps. “I cannot believe you two,” she said, directing the floating body with small finger gestures. It preceded the three women into the house and settled onto a couch.
Fabbri never stirred, not even when her leg fell off the side of the couch and her bare foot hit the hardwood floor with a thud.
“We’re just lucky?” Toria collapsed onto the recliner next to the sofa. Syri dropped to the floor at her feet, stretching all the way out on an area rug with a purr of contentment.
Daliana replaced Fabbri’s leg and covered her with a quilt. “While I find it amusing that you two did in one evening what twenty of us have been trying to accomplish for days, you do realize your mother is going to be outraged?”
“Nah,” Toria said. “She’ll be pleased I took the initiative.” She hoped. Did the small clock on the mantle really read half past three in the morning? Time did fly when you were breaking into buildings and kidnapping people.
“Despite disobeying every single one of her orders?” The front doorbell chimed, and Daliana retreated with one last shake of her head.
“How long is she supposed to be out?” Toria waited for Syri’s answer, closing her eyes and laying her head against the back of the recliner. Her exhaustion was catching up with her, and the chair threatened to lull her straight to sleep.
“Until I say so,” Syri said. “Hopefully I didn’t misjudge the strength since I was using your power instead of my own.”
Oh dear. Toria tried to feel concern, but lacked the necessary energy. “Hope you didn’t give her brain damage or anything.”
“Give who brain damage?” Max’s voice sounded from the hallway.
Toria shot out of the recliner. She collected herself in the middle of the room while Syri struggled to her own feet. “Good evening, Max.” Her nonchalance sounded false even to her own ears.
The head of the Mercenary Guild, her boss and mentor, filled the doorway, his gaze shifting from them to the body on the couch and back again. “I’m not even going to ask how you two pulled this one off.” He entered the room and stole Toria’s seat. “Better warn you, your mother’s in the front room with Daliana.”
While she felt her skin pale with that bit of news, Toria had more pressing concerns. “Where’s Kane?”
Max met her eyes, his gaze steady. “Octavian wouldn’t release him to us.”
“What?” Toria’s nails dug into her palms, a hold on reality to prevent her from collapsing. “Do you have any idea what they’re doing to them?”
“We were assured they were safe,” Max said. “But being a prisoner of war is no vacation.”
Syri placed a hand on Toria’s arm, but she ignored the elven girl’s look of concern. “They’re starving Asaron,” she said. “Keeping Kane drained so neither of them is strong enough to escape.”
“Damn it.” Now Victory’s voice came from the entrance to the room. “I knew something like this would happen.”
Toria whirled around. Victory strode into the center of the room, and Toria wrapped herself in her mother’s cool arms. “I’m sorry, Mama.” She buried her face in the crook of Victory’s neck, inhaling the familiar vanilla scent of her mother’s shampoo.
“Don’t be sorry, love,” Victory said, murmuring in Toria’s ear and squeezing her once. “Daliana told me what you two did. I’m so proud of you.”
Lifting her head and taking a short step back, Toria dropped her arms to clutch Victory’s hands. “Even though I didn’t stay at the hospital with Dad?”
“What’s good isn’t always right,” she said. “Cliché, I know, but still true. I might not be pleased, but I understand when it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”
“Spoken like a true mercenary,” Max said. “And she’s not the only proud one, girl.”
With that load lifted from her shoulders, Toria broke her more important news. “Syri managed to get me in contact with Kane.”
“At least we know for sure they’re alive,” Victory said. “Octavian wasn’t even willing to discuss a ransom. We’ll get them soon, though.”
That, Toria knew without a doubt. With Asaron being held, Victory must be going through the exact same riot of emotions. Toria considered herself stubborn, but her mother had had centuries to perfect t
he art. Time to break the bad news. “Ma—”
Daliana brushed past Toria and Victory to stand by Fabbri. She placed two fingertips, which glowed green, on the unconscious woman’s forehead. “I called the rest, Victory. They’re on their way.”
“Good, thank you,” Victory said, turning her attention away from Toria. “We’ll be meeting in the front room?”
“Yes,” Daliana said. “I’ll go put the coffee on?”
“Bless you,” Max said. His tone belied the fact that he looked dead on his feet.
More political stuff. Toria shared a look of mild resentment with Syri. Time to be sent home again like good little girls, despite all they’d done that evening.
“I’ll make up the guest room upstairs first,” Daliana said. “The girls can rest while we talk.”
Toria waited for her mother to disagree, but Victory surprised her. “Good idea. Okay with you, Toria?”
“Um, sure. That’d be great.” Unexpected, but she wasn’t about to complain. “Wake us up when you guys make a decision?”
“I wouldn’t dream otherwise,” Victory said. “You are the heroes of the hour, after all.”
Even more unexpected. Victory gave Toria another hug before accompanying Daliana out of the room, Syri trailing behind.
“Wait, Toria.” Max reached up to touch her elbow, stopping her from following Syri. “I need to speak with you.”
Time for the other shoe to drop. “Yes, sir?”
Max opened his mouth to begin, then paused with a significant look toward the occupied couch.
Toria dismissed Fabbri with a wave. “Don’t worry, she’s out.”
Max’s shoulders loosened. “You understand we’re vastly outnumbered right now, yes?”
Since that was the exact impression she’d received from Kane, Toria said, “Yep. You have no idea how well I understand that.”
“Then you’ll understand why you are now the proud owner of a battlefield promotion. Congratulations, Mercenary Torialanthas Connor.” Max stumbled over her full name a bit, but it did not detract from the weight of his proclamation.
She was stunned. Even her journeyman status was tenuous until she finished college and could, well, journey around with Kane.
Max softened. “Be happy, but also be wise. We need all the fighters we can get right now. But this still isn’t going to be easy.”
“I understand,” Toria said. “There’s another perk, too.”
“Yes?”
“If I get kidnapped with Kane, you can charge the full ransom price for me.”
Max snorted. “That’s my girl. Always looking on the bright side. At least I know you’ve been paying attention to something other than sword work.”
“One more thing.” Toria paused, unsure of how to break the news that the situation they faced was even worse than he thought.
He must have sensed the gravity of her attitude, for he sobered at once. “What’s wrong?”
“Have you ever heard of a nuclear weapon?”
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where we stand.” Max finished his speech and resumed his seat on the piano bench in Daliana’s formal sitting room.
Victory scooted over a few more inches to make room for him. They had all squeezed in, since no one wanted to leave Fabbri unsupervised. It wasn’t like Toria could ward the house in her present state.
“What did you guys do with Sethri’s body?” Lorus said. The pain in his voice crept through the weresnake’s natural stoicism.
“We dropped him off at the hospital,” Max said. “I called in Mason, the physician under contract with the Mercenary Guild. He took charge of the body directly from us and will take care of things on that end. The death of the head of the council isn’t something we really want to make public yet.”
“And the two men who—” Lorus halted, unable to voice whatever he’d intended to say.
“Locked up in my basement,” Daliana said.
Victory brushed a finger over the wood covering the piano keys. She had washed her hands when they’d arrived, but she could still feel Sethri’s blood. His murderers would get a fair trial once the city’s more immediate problems were taken care of. But they wouldn’t be held in comfort. No couches and quilts for them downstairs.
“So, any other questions before we start the next stage of planning?” Max said.
“One, sort of.” From her spot on the floor, Genevieve raised a tentative hand. “I, um, don’t even know what a nuclear weapon is. You said it’s just a bomb or missile, right? What’s the big deal?”
Victory gaped at her, along with Max and Daliana, but Tristan nodded in embarrassed agreement. Victory couldn’t blame them for their ignorance. Not all of them had been around for centuries, as she and Daliana had, or studied military history, like Max and Lorus.
“You know what the Wasteland is? The settlers at the edge can barely eke out a living,” Daliana said. More cautious expressions of affirmation. “The center of this continent used to be lush farmland around a major river. The river’s gone. And not much grows there now, and certainly not well.”
“So what would this weapon do to Limani?” Tristan said. “Destroy every living thing?”
“Destroy every living thing, yes,” Victory said. “And every building. And ruin this land for millennia to come.”
“No one knows when, or if, the Wasteland will ever become viable again,” Daliana said. “I used to treat refugees from the area. The war was brutal.”
“And from what Toria told me based on her contact with her partner,” Max said, “the Roman commander doesn’t even know what they have.”
“What?” Victory said. “You didn’t mention that.”
“Octavian even wanted Kane to study the thing,” Max said. “Chances are he found it in a bunker somewhere, missed in the global disarmament and forgotten.”
“Until now.” Victory’s heart chilled by yet another degree. “So not only is it a weapon of incredible destructive power no one knows how to use, it’s an old and unstable weapon.” From what she knew and could read of them, her fellow councilmembers had shifted from uncertainty to fear. Good for them to be worried, but she wasn’t about to start a panic. Continuing into the silence, Victory said, “You all know this information can’t leave this room.”
“We have a duty to our people to keep them aware of the danger they’re in,” Tristan said.
“And cause a full-scale riot?” Max said.
Now Bethany spoke up. Victory had wondered when the woman would put her thoughts on the situation forward. This should be good. “You’re already hiding the fact that the leader of our government has been murdered. It’s a tragedy, yes, but doesn’t need to be hidden. No one has bothered to confirm the rumors that the Roman military is at our borders. Half of my friends think it’s troop exercises and aren’t concerned in the slightest. How far is the military willing to go to ‘protect’ our people? If we fail, they’ll be even more defenseless without preparation.”
“And if we tell them, there’ll be panic in the streets,” Lena said. “Yes, a much better idea.”
“We don’t have time to police the city and deal with the Romans,” Max said. “And we need to face reality here. The head of the government is dead. We don’t have time to hold elections right now, not even internal ones. We obviously don’t know who to trust among the human councilmembers, or else they’d be here with us.” He paused, looking around the room to meet each person eye to eye. “So we’ve come up with a temporary solution.”
That was Victory’s cue. “Martial law,” she said. “Or close enough. We are now in charge. The human councilmembers are temporarily stripped of their power unless we know we can trust them.” That still didn’t solve the problem of a leak in this council, but that would be dealt with soon enough. “This m
eans we can deal with the Romans on our own terms, without having to balance Humanist politics.”
“So, the military’s in control of the city?” Bethany said. “That makes Max in charge?”
“No,” Max said. “Not just me. All the members of the council in this room are. It’s just convenient that the two most experienced military personnel in this city happen to be included.”
“What about all of the weres we’ve recruited to fight the Romans?” Tristan said. “I know at least a few won’t be happy they’ve been drafted.”
“They’ll get battlefield commissions for order’s sake,” Max said. “But it is a voluntary action, like volunteering was in the first place.”
“I know we’re all scared,” Victory said. She didn’t hesitate to include herself in that statement. “But we have to remain calm. We’ll deal with this. This idea makes it easier for all involved to deal with both the Romans and Humanists successfully.”
“And how does this deal with the Humanists?” Lena said.
Victory could always count on the teacher in her longtime friend to make sure people followed through. “Probably the one thing you guys might have a real problem with.” Even she had a problem with it, angry with the prejudiced idiots as she was. “We declare the Humanist movement illegal.” She awaited the outcry.
It didn’t come. “Now that’s the first really good idea you’ve had,” Bethany said.
She waited for dissent. This couldn’t be that easy. But nods met her from around the crowded room.
Steel Victory (Steel Empire Book 1) Page 23
