allies and enemies 02 - rogues

by Amy J. Murphy

  “You? I have little doubt.” Fisk performed a shrug. His tone took on a lilting curl, a mockery of a Eugenes accent. “Captain Veradin is a different story. Brojos is filled with a particular anti-Kindred sentiment that extends to even one of a ruined caste, I’m afraid. Keeping him safe will prove a challenge.”

  How can he know so much? A familiar prickle spread across her skin, like the crawl of insects.

  Fisk’s shoulders drew up, chin dipping like a scythe cat tracking a rodent.

  Sela shifted her weight, ready to retreat up the ramp. Withdrawal would be smarter than fighting here. “State your purpose.”

  Another bloodless smile. “An offer.”

  Her scowl would have driven anyone else away. He grinned.

  “Join us. Join Poisoncry. We are the logical place for a soldier of your abilities. Serve Poisoncry Guild. Ensure a future for yourself and your…partner.” His eyes went to the Cass again. “Become something…more.”

  “I’ve already worn a collar,” she scoffed, looking down at his chain. “I’m free now.”

  “Free?” It was a sharp laugh. “How well do you enjoy this freedom, Commander? Constantly looking over your shoulder…begging for work and scraps from others like Ephid. Insects you would have crushed in your former life. And now he holds sway over you.”

  He knew right where to pick at the scabbed-over wound of her pride. Part of her railed in defiance, recognizing the manipulation for what it was. How dare this stranger try to maneuver her like a strategy piece? He was just like Ephid, only wrapped in different packaging. Where the Trelgin was a grotesquerie of corruption, Fisk was insidious. He was the voice that whispered from the dark shadows when sleep surrendered to worry.

  He spoke the truth.

  A white-hot fury churned within her. “You should leave before something bad happens.”

  “This is not Origin, Tyron. Anywhere in the Reaches you may go, it will always be the same: If you are not Guild, you are no one.”

  Her jaw went tight.

  He made a clucking noise, a mocking of disappointment. “I can see I won’t persuade you tonight. A word of advice: Remaining in Obscrum is not feasible. Despite my intervention, Ephid will eventually seek you out. Perhaps some time in Brojos will adjust your perspective.”

  Fisk made a gesture with his hand. Sela tensed. His bodyguard, the same armored female from the club, disengaged from the shadows of the passage.

  “Please do consider my offer.”

  She drew her chin up. “You know what you can do with your offer.”

  From behind her came the familiar groan of the Cassandra’s outer hatch. She turned. Jon’s dark silhouette cut the warm light of the interior. His voice was wide and gentle against the tense air: “Ty, you can’t stay out there forever.”

  When she looked back, Fisk and his bodyguard were gone.

  PART II

  7

  Lingering and invasive, the rough hands moved over her body.

  Time was playing tricks.

  This should be the interior of the medical suite. Maynard was here to do his gloating. But the smells were wrong. No sharp anesthetics. She didn’t feel the familiar pressure of a metal table at her back. A deep, straining ache gnawed at her shoulders and neck. The air was too warm and humid. It reeked of sweat and rust.

  Erelah lifted her head. From high overhead, harsh white light stabbed into her skull. She squeezed her eyes shut defensively. The hands tugged at the fasteners of her shipsuit.

  “I wouldn’t do that, Spivey. Jin-ji claimed her—”

  “Well, Korbyn ain’t here. Is he? Just shut up an’ watch the door.”

  Commonspeak. Thick, plodding accents.

  Erelah pried open her eyes to be greeted by a heavily tattooed Zenti male’s menacing grin.

  “Wakin’ up there, lovely?”

  With a gasp, she tried to pull away. Panic blossomed. Her body was hanging, suspended by her bound wrists. Her hands had gone numb, the circulation cut off by the tight bonds.

  No. This was not one of the hateful medical labs aboard the Questic, nor was it Jon’s ancient Cassandra vessel.

  I should be dead. Why am I not dead?

  “Who says Asher always gets the pretty meat?” Spivey licked his lips. His flat yellow gaze studied her. His thick fingers brushed over her cheek.

  In reflex, she bit down on his hand.

  Spivey squealed, jumping away. “Bitch bit me!”

  The taste of his blood was revolting. She spat onto the deck.

  He glared. Cradling his hand, he disappeared from her field of vision. Something heavy collided with her side, enough to knock the wind out of her. Erelah gasped. He had kicked her. There was an ensuing ripple of laughter from the occupants of the room’s dim corners. The space echoed: large, like a hangar or a cargo hold.

  She sincerely hoped that this was a nightmare. Again, icy panic rushed in. On top of it, something else asserted itself, like a wall:

  Feel that fear? It’s fuel. Use it. That pain? The pain is good. It means you’re still alive, still in the fight.

  Not me. That voice isn’t mine. The memory isn’t mine. It belonged to a Regime soldier named Tyron, a woman who very likely would have wished her great personal harm.

  Could Tyron be here as well? And Jon?

  Remember. Think!

  The last thing she remembered was the Jocosta. The fiery azure lights of the singularity. A diving plunge into oblivion to take out the Questic, to end Defensor Tristic’s relentless pursuit of her, to end Tristic.

  I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be anywhere.

  Did I fail?

  She got her feet under her to take her weight. It alleviated the pressure in her arms and shoulders. The deck plates transmitted a vibration that suggested powerful engines beneath her bare feet.

  My boots. Why would anyone take my boots?

  Erelah tried to peer into the darkness beyond the white circle of light where huddled shapes shifted and merged.

  Six? Perhaps more? All sounded male.

  Zenti. The one, Spivey, was a Zenti. Heavy black-and-red clan tattoos etched over his features. They addressed each other as clan members.

  Erelah’s panic spiked. It meant only one thing: pirates.

  Spivey lunged at her from the huddle of dark shapes. Fury compressed his brute features.

  “Spivey! Back off! I said no one touches her! She’s mine!”

  The sharp command was given by a deep resonant voice from somewhere behind her. It raised a fragmented memory of that same voice, commanding and insistent, trying to rouse her.

  The bright acid smell of ozone and seared wires. Smoke cloying her lungs. The voice barking more orders, the sounds of others nearby. Powerless, she felt her body lifted, haphazard and limp. A broad shoulder dug into her stomach with each plodding step. The pronouncement in Commonspeak: She’ll live. Being flopped on the deck.

  The voice belonged to Korbyn. Their jin-ji. Captain.

  More shouts and hails from the men in the shadows. Their mood seemed celebratory, in a menacing sort of way.

  Spivey shrank. “Jin-ji. I check on her for you.”

  “Right,” came the reply, completely unconvinced. “Don’t ‘member ordering that.”

  “Wake now. You see. Got lots of fight in ‘er.” Spivey backed away, tucking his bitten hand behind his back.

  “Give me the room, brothers.”

  More sniggering and sounds of roughhousing as their shadows dispersed.

  The room quieted, then:

  “Spivey!”

  The Zenti stopped in his tracks for the door. His shoulders shrank together.

  “Yes, jin-ji?”

  “That’s once I caught you,” Korbyn warned.

  “Right,” Spivey muttered, by way of admission of guilt. Then as an afterthought, “Amends, jin-ji.” A door slammed shut.

  After that, the only sounds were the purposeful slow thud of Korbyn’s boots on grating and the creak of leather somewhere in the
darkness behind her.

  “You’re very lucky that I found you.”

  He was much closer than she expected him to be, his voice mere inches from her back.

  “Something nasty took a swipe at your stryker. Sturdy ship to keep you alive.” His voice circled to her left, just outside of the baleful light that bore down from above.

  Jocosta. Her heart bounced. But she said nothing, spine stiffening. If the vessel were nearby and still intact, then there was a chance to—

  “Oh, escape, she thinks.”

  Korbyn stepped into the light. He was tall and muscular, his shaven head inked with clan markings. Not Zenti. He was Eugenes. Almost handsome, he possessed brutally cunning eyes. He studied her, but not with the same animal want as Spivey.

  “You’re not a breeder.” It was a pronouncement, his evaluation. “Too scrawny. Wrong color eyes.”

  He leaned into her neck, inhaling. His voice seemed to feign a shared secret, intimating. “Not a tech. Too tall. Wrong smell.”

  She did not shrink away. Erelah knew this play from Maynard, her former jailer. Korbyn’s menace was flimsy in comparison to that monster. Somehow, she sensed this jin-ji was more concerned with appearances. He was testing her.

  “You got a name, girl?”

  “What is this?” she rasped in Commonspeak. “What do you want?”

  Internally, she cringed at the sound of her own voice. Erelah had never developed much of a knack for the brutish language. It sounded just as it was: a high-born attempting to speak the language of the gutter.

  Korbyn laughed.

  “Her majesty stoops to use Commonspeak.” He said this in High Eugenes. The pronunciation was awkward, as if rusted from disuse. “Good. Now, does she have a name?”

  Erelah bit the inside of her mouth. She had already revealed too much. Her assumption of the lazy intellect generally assigned men of Korbyn’s musculature was misapplied here. He was quite observant and might prove too clever to outwit.

  “Maybe we’ll stick to Regimental. Common ground,” he continued, switching languages easily.

  Perhaps he thought he had a wealthy lost Kindred in his possession and was already guessing at what her ransom would pay. Oh, was he in for a bitter surprise. There was no grieving great house left to pay for her safe return. The man who had raised her, Helio Veradin, a man she called “Uncle,” was long dead, the last member of a lineage that had once wielded influence. And Jonvenlish was…where?

  “Hmm…green eyes. Nice.” He tilted his head. “Rare color for a Eugenes. Brought some embarrassment, I’m sure. Not the purest line. Maybe a little back-birth world, way out in the raggedy bits. Some peasant Kindred. Maybe a Last Daughter they couldn’t marry off.”

  He slid one of her sleeves down. “No bonding brands on your arms. So they shipped you off to Fleet then. And now look at you…all the way out in my little corner of the black, all lost like.”

  She swallowed. A chance encounter with this man and he struck closer to the truth than anyone would have guessed. Uncle had altered Erelah and her brother in many ways; eye color had been the least of his concerns. His main objective had been to skew their genetics in order to hide their true nature as Humans and not Eugenes. As a child, she had begged Uncle to have her eyes fixed. But child, he would say, smiling down at her, there is nothing broken.

  “That it?” Korbyn pouted in mock sympathy. “Would the grand matron of your Kindred even pay to get you back?”

  He reached out to touch her chin. She jerked back, fearful of what visions the Sight would wring from him.

  “Don’t,” she hissed. “Please don’t.”

  He snorted. Undaunted, he traced the unraveling plait of her hair. He leaned closer. “I ain’t got the rot, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  She could try to use the brutal invasion of the Sight on him—a sight-jack—to get him to let her go. It had worked with Maynard. To do that, she needed his touch, and she didn’t know if she had the strength for that.

  Everything felt so heavy, as if the a-grav had doubled. Her very spine was brittle with fatigue. Sight-jacking meant feeling herself fall away and slipping under his skin. It meant becoming him, if only for a brief moment. Each time she used it, she left a little bit of herself behind.

  Too weak. I couldn’t withstand it.

  “Just don’t touch me,” she said.

  “I can’t touch the lady. Too nice for Asher Korbyn.” He mimicked a Eugenes accent. “Got news for you, sister. You’re far gone from Origin. This place eats everything. Even lost little girls like you. Right now I’m the closest thing you got to a friend out here, sweetling.”

  “Here? Where’s here?”

  Korbyn reached above her, his face looming closer. She shrank back. There was a clank of metal and the tension on her restraints lessened.

  “You really don’t know. Do you?” There was an incongruous flicker of something in his deep maroon gaze. She might have mistaken it for pity.

  Maroon, like a Binait skin slave’s. Far from a purebred Eugenes himself.

  Although her wrists remained bound, she could now lower her arms. She gasped at the relief in her shoulders. Her legs were dead things. She staggered and almost fell.

  He gripped her arm, steadying her.

  “Look.” She licked her lips. “Just let me go. This is—”

  “This is business.” His arrogance reappeared like a shield. “Sorry. Nothing personal.”

  Eyes narrowed, he met her gaze. “You’re trouble. I can see that from where I stand. That’s all I need to know. I don’t want to hear your story, little girl. The Reaches are full of little tragedies like yours.”

  The Reaches.

  A bleak hopelessness spread through her. She had somehow ended up here, on the other side of the Known Worlds from where she’d last been conscious: the dead station and her attempt to destroy the Questic.

  How could that even be?

  Then I am truly lost.

  She allowed herself to sag.

  “So that leads us back to where we started. Your name.”

  Erelah was suddenly exhausted beyond caring. Her body ached and trembled, bones hurting as if they had been ground to mulch.

  Even if I could find a means to get away, how could I navigate out of the Reaches?

  Perhaps I am not meant to.

  He dipped his chin to peer into her face. “All I’m asking for is a name. Just your name.”

  “Tilley,” she croaked, eyes downcast. “My name’s Tilley…Valen.”

  The lie bubbled out of her, unbidden, a spark of self-preservation that Erelah would hesitate to credit to herself. It was the Tyron-voice again.

  The thick fingers of his right hand played an impatient staccato against his thigh, where the bone hilt of a curved blade rested.

  “I doubt it.” He straightened. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a bad liar?”

  “Actually yes,” she rasped.

  He clamped a chummy hand down on her shoulder. “Guess I have to call you something.”

  He pulled her forward and looped his arm under hers as her legs attempted to fold. She felt herself righted as if she weighed nothing.

  “Easy.” His voice was a rough whisper. “Word of advice…Tilley. You don’t want to look weak in front of my crewies. Makes my job harder to keep them off you.”

  Erelah pulled away.

  What sort of game was he playing?

  Perhaps he guessed her thoughts. He shrugged. “Just evening the odds. Come on.” He jerked his chin.

  She wobbled alongside him. The smooth deck plates underfoot transitioned to toothed metal grating that chewed her feet.

  “Why’d you take my boots?”

  “Trel fancied ‘em.”

  She frowned up at him.

  “What? Would you prefer he’d taken something else?”

  She shuddered. “No.”

  They entered a corridor made narrow by stacks of haphazardly piled crates with markings that suggested all ma
nner of origins. Only one or two held writing she could decipher. She tried her best to remember their route as they moved through the ship. That Tyron-voice told her to count doorways, note landmarks. The walls blurred. She lost count.

  At another intersection, they passed a torn-out panel. Three Zenti huddled around it, dodging showers of sparks as they worked. They measured her with hungry eyes. Self-consciously she drew herself up, chin jutting. Act as if they are not there. Beneath me.

  Despite her pretense, unease coiled around her stomach.

  Korbyn’s massive hand on her upper arm tightened, nearly pulling her off her feet.

  “Don’t get any ideas.” His tone was coarse, surly. Something about it seemed exaggerated to her. “I know you’re counting steps, doorways.”

  He was putting on a show for them as well. Perhaps he did not command the authority he pretended. The notion pumped adrenaline into her blood. This man was the only thing standing between her and certain violation.

  They stopped before a closed hatch. Korbyn leaned over a keypad lock, obscuring her view. She counted the beeps of the entry code.

  Four digits. Assuming a standard eight-number template and permitting for repeated digits that meant 4,096 probable combinations. Erelah doubted she would have the time to try them all.

  He kicked the door open with a clang. She jumped.

  “Ladies first.” He jerked his chin at the pitch-black space beyond.

  She dug her heels into the deck, wincing at the pain in her bare feet. “What is this?”

  “Accommodations, your highness. Nothing but the best.”

  Her heart squeezed. “No. It’s dark.”

  He frowned. “Space is dark. Yet that didn’t seem to stave you.”

  “You don’t understand.” Erelah swallowed. The void beyond the metal hull of the ship was not the same. This was being shut in with darkness where terrible things dwelt—a childhood fear Tristic had used for her torment.

  Korbyn growled. Rolling his eyes, he reached inside the doorway. A dull amber light illuminated a modestly sized room. There was an unmade bunk, bedclothes in a jumbled knot. Bits of paper plastered the walls, images of naked and half-naked females in all manner of explicit poses. Untidy bundles of clothes dotted the deck, along with empty scorch-rum bottles.