by Skyler Grant
“Gun, corner,” Quinn said.
Kara shrugged. “She’s not going anywhere.” Still, she made her way towards the corner. She didn’t make it, the door flying up to smash her chest as a leg-sweep hit her behind the knees.
Mara pushed herself off the floor, hair disheveled and she was bleeding from a cut lip. Her own movement towards the gun was cut off when Kara’s leg lashed out, her foot catching Mara behind the knee. Mara didn’t quite go down, the collapse turning into a roll before she hit the floor and came up into a crouch.
“Strong,” Mara said.
“Never met a Yek before?” Kara asked.
“First time,” Mara said.
“Might be the last,” Kara said, as she dropped into her own fighting stance.
“Doubt it,” Mara said, and charged.
The two exchanged blows, a rapid fire exchange. Mara was the better fighter, she landed several punches that probably would have floored a human opponent, but that just left Kara looking stunned.
It wasn’t a one-sided fight though. Kara got her hands briefly on Mara and with a surge of her great strength threw Mara bodily across the room to slam into the wall.
Quinn couldn’t do anything to help, his muscles still not responding.
Mara wasn’t done, although she was looking a lot more wobbly after that hit. It seemed to almost make her fighting even more controlled and the next time she and Kara closed on each other it ended in a twist of Kara’s arm so forceful that the crack of the bone was audible.
“Stop right there,” Jinx said, holding the gun pointed at Mara.
Quinn hadn’t even seen her moving. She must have sneaked around the edge of the room while the fight was going on.
“Should have stayed out of it,” Mara said, rolling to the side even as the gun flashed blue. There was a meaty thud and Jinx looked startled with a throwing knife suddenly in her throat.
“Didn’t want to kill anyone, especially if you’re telling the truth,” Mara said.
Blue light flared from Jinx. It wasn’t another shot from the gun, it was coming from her throat. The knife clattered out of the wound in an eruption of blue energy. The glow of mana—her magic.
“A royal,” Mara said in disbelief, her foot lashing around to catch Kara in a blow that shattered her nose and sent black blood everywhere as Kara charged. “Time out. Answers, now. Real ones.”
“Kara, stand down. Check on Jinx,” Quinn said. Everyone went still. “Is there way to unparalyze me already?”
“Gun,” Mara said.
Jinx kicked the weapon over.
Mara swept her finger along the barrel and aimed it at Quinn. A green shot this time, the pulse restoring life to his limbs.
“Answers,” Mara said.
Quinn had to admire how much utility she got out of single words.
“What we told you was the truth. Jinx, you don’t need to know her story. She is a member of my Centauri, they both are,” Quinn said.
Mara chuckled at that, a mirthless sort of sound. “Here I was thinking you’d just stumbled into something way over your head. If that is true, you were already drowning. Jinx, or whatever her name really is, needs to get out of here. Fast. That little outburst will have triggered every mana sensor in the place, my dampeners can’t protect from so much. Magic like that is both against the rules and not on the guest list.”
Quinn couldn’t let Jinx get captured, but he couldn’t give up the mission either.
Quinn said quickly to Kara, “Our story is I got bored and wanted better company. You two are leaving the party early. Take the Foxtrot and get out of here.”
“Stud, you need backup. This is no place to be alone and little Miss arm-breaker here is no friend,” Kara said.
“I can handle myself. Get Jinx clear,” Quinn said.
Kara grunted but nodded. “Come on.”
“I’m sorry,” Jinx said.
“Was brave going for the gun,” Quinn said.
“And stupid. Weapon like that left me one option,” Mara said.
Kara gave Quinn a look filled with doubt, but left the room with Jinx in tow.
“So, I want my sisters. You want something here worth risking your life for. What is it?” Mara asked.
A trade? Quinn hadn’t been thinking of that, but if Quinn was putting the pieces together now, those girls in his hold weren’t going to a happier life after all, not if he delivered them where he was supposed to. While he hated the principle of breaking a contract, not all contracts were equal—and Tamara’s life was on the line
“I need access to Lord Barr’s private data server,” Quinn said.
“And I’m assuming your exit strategy is flying away right now?” Mara asked.
“Pretty much,” Quinn said.
Mara stared blankly ahead for a long moment. “You picked a terrible time for this. You have a way to get what you need from it?”
“In my comm,” Quinn said.
“Good. I’ll try to get you in and us out, but the odds of you dying are good. Sorry. If you do, I’ll try to get the data to your crew. Will they honor a deal?” Mara asked.
Quinn triggered the recorder on his comm. “This is recording of a deal with a woman calling herself Mara, the one who broke Kara’s arm. In exchange for extracting and delivery of the data we need from the server, we’ll turn over our cargo of passengers. If I die, well, fuck. Honor the deal, Taki, it’s what we do.”
Mara nodded at that and went about getting dressed. Boots, jewelry, wiping off the blood from her lip, and concealing a still-forming bruise with some makeup. “Let’s go.”
35
“So what is your plan?” Quinn asked.
“You kicked down my door and set off a major mana flare in my room. If my cover isn’t blown yet it very soon will be and the guards are already on alert. We go physical, steal a shuttle, and fly away,” Mara said.
“That’s a really bad plan,” Quinn said.
“Tell your people not to break down the door next time.”
“So what are you anyways? A spy? Isn’t stunning beauty kind of a drawback?”
“Again, if you wanted to flirt, the time was before my door got knocked down,” Mara said, as she led the way down the hall. A winding series of corridors took them into a set of rooms where there seemed to be no guests wandering about looking for privacy and a tryst. Not at the moment.
A pair of guards guarded the corridor ahead. Each had a submachine gun in their hands.
“Excuse me,” Mara said, advancing closer and flashing them a smile. “We wanted to leave some things at our seats in the meeting room before tomorrow. Is that allowed?”
“No, ma’am,” said one of the guards. It was all he got out before Mara shot him, the second getting a blast before he managed to get his gun halfway up. The gun dropped but the guard stayed on his feet, an awkward punch swinging towards Mara who ducked and kicked him hard in the groin.
Quinn stepped forward and punched the guard in the back of the head. He went down hard.
“Fun toy, extremely short range and a limited charge that is now out,” Mara said, taking a submachine gun off one of the bodies and throwing it over to Quinn.
“Can’t they scream for help?” Quinn asked.
“Upped the intensity from when I hit you,” Mara said.
Farther down the hall and around another turn there were a set of double wooden doors engraved with a massive depiction of a kraken leaping out of the sea.
“I’ve got something that should get us past the sensors,” Quinn said, kneeling near the door. Another of Melody’s surprises. They hadn’t had a way to duplicate the biometric readings the door would be looking for, but there were certain test sequences this model of scanner had. It wasn’t quite that simple, of course.
Finding exactly what channel the door used was a matter of trial and error. Quinn hit the sequencer—and the door didn’t instantly pop open as he’d hoped.
Right, Lord Barr wasn’t an idiot then. This would ta
ke some time.
“Don’t take too long. We’ll have already gotten their attention,” Mara said.
Green light flared from the ceiling. It must have been some sort of built-in weapon, and it wasn’t on the plans. Quinn saw Mara crumpling to the ground even as he was doing the same.
When Quinn came to he was cold. The hallway had been replaced by walls of cement blocks, stains on them that looked like blood. That would fit, this wasn’t a very nice sort of room. Quinn was secured naked to some sort of table—a table full of intimidating-looking hammers, picks, saws, scalpels. A torturer’s toolbox.
Quinn wasn’t alone. Mara hung from a set of chains in the ceiling with the tips of her toes barely touching the floor. Her clothing was missing too. Bruises on her body might have come from the tussle with Kara, but her face was bloodied and swollen. She’d been worked over since they went unconscious.
“I wouldn’t worry about her, handsome. I’d be worried about myself.” The voice came from the shadows—a familiar voice, and a moment later he knew why as Janessa stepped into view. She was dressed differently than before, and a bloodstained apron added to her ensemble.
“Didn’t think you were a whore,” Quinn said.
“I’m whatever I need to be to stay alive,” Janessa said, moving over to the tray and letting her fingers play across the collection of tools. “Most people are. You will be. Since I introduced you I’m getting to handle you. We’re going to have fun. Well, I’m going to have fun. A lot of pain, a little pleasure.”
“Great. You’re going to make the torture weird,” Quinn said.
Janessa leaned down and kissed him. It preceded driving a scalpel into his side.
Quinn screamed into the kiss. If anything it just made the contact more insistent as Janessa twisted the blade.
“You’re a real sick bitch, you know that?” Mara asked.
Janessa pulled away from the kiss to look over. “Up huh? I do like a bit of an audience, not that you’re going to live long enough to see much.” Janessa dug a finger into Quinn’s wound, drawing another scream from him.
“He’s not going to last that long if you keep stabbing him like that,” Mara said.
Janessa looked down and frowned. “Mmm, maybe not.” She shifted away, her footsteps echoing as she walked across the room and then back.
Quinn felt a sudden bloom of heat at his side, the numbing sensation of a medkit.
“That was just a teaser, sugar. The boss has his big meeting tomorrow so I need to go get some rest, but then we’re going to have all kinds of fun. I’m going to hurt you, then fuck you, then kill you while I’m fucking you. Then I’m going to bring you back and we’re going to do it all over again,” Janessa said, leaning down to nip savagely at Quinn’s ear.
“You’re so bad at this,” Mara said.
Janessa gave her a harsh look. “Do you like her, Fel? Tomorrow you’ll get to see her without skin. They’re going to burn it off her one layer at a time and you’ll get to see the whole thing. But if you’re good, I get to keep you for myself.”
Janessa straightened up, brushing back her hair and delivering a savage punch to Mara’s midsection before throwing Quinn a kiss and leaving the room.
36
“The lord is a bit of a masochist, can you tell?” Mara asked, still wheezy as she tried to get her breath back.
“Are all his entertainers like that?” Quinn asked.
“Pretty much. So, we know I’m not being rescued. How about you?” Mara said.
It didn’t seem likely. Estate security was too tight. Whatever Taki’s feelings might be, she was the responsible one and without him there she was in command of the ship. She’d do the right thing and the right thing meant staying far away from here.
“Afraid not. Sorry I got you into this,” Quinn said.
Mara flashed a pained smile. “Live the kind of life I have, was never any doubt it was going to end bad. Rather thought it would end with skin though.”
Hours passed, long hours in the cold, chill air and just waiting to die.
“I think that is enough time. I didn’t want anyone wandering in on us,” Mara said. She did some sort of acrobatic flip that wound up with her feet above her head and with several savage kicks undid the pin securing the manacles, dumping her to the floor.
“You couldn’t have done that while Janessa was here and snapped her neck?” Quinn asked.
Mara leaned over the table, releasing him. Quinn sat up rubbing at his wrists.
“Her going missing would have raised an alert. No cameras on his torture chamber—well, not the business one,” Mara said. Their possessions had been laid out on a nearby table. She slid back into her dress although left off the jewelry.
Quinn got into his own clothes. “We have a way out?”
“Not yet,” Mara said. Grabbing her necklace from the table, a clunky thing made of angular gold-colored blocks, she pulled it apart and moved to one of the walls. Pressing the gold blobs one at a time, they clung to the stone. “The main data server is on the other side of this wall.”
Quinn stared at her. “Was it ever your plan for us to just get into his office?”
“It has some of the tightest security on the estate. We weren’t going in through that door. This torture room is right next to where we needed to go, though. Good thing they didn’t throw us into a holding cell,” Mara said. The last of the blobs from her necklace planted, she took a step backwards. A muted ‘oomph’ and the section of the wall exploded into dust, revealing a hole leading into a dark room beyond.
“Could have told me?” Quinn said.
“Thought there was a good chance they might kill us outright. It was a desperate plan,” Mara said. One of her bracelets began to glow, a dull illumination that lit the room. Wires extended from the ceiling into a large, oblong box. There was a small terminal on the outside.
Quinn stepped forward. This room was bitterly cold. No wonder they’d been so cold in the next cell, the chill bleeding through the wall.
“I hope you really do have a way to get what you need,” Mara said.
Quinn hoped the same. Opening his comm he twisted a tiny switch to protrude a data connector and plugged it into an open socket on the terminal. A soft beep and lights began to circle.
“Stealing data from a man planning a rebellion, while also seeking out someone of my particular talents as well. You have fascinating hobbies for a smuggler,” Mara said.
“This is a rare case where I seem more fascinating than I actually am,” Quinn said.
“Uh huh,” Mara said with a faint frown. “Unfortunately I wasn’t lying about our exit strategy. It really is shoot our way through and steal a ship.”
“If it helps, I’m pulling down the security network. Our hope was, if we got this far, to sneak out,” Quinn said.
“The guests might be asleep but security isn’t. Any exit from the basement is going to be guarded and when we bring down the network they’ll be on high alert.”
“Any more bombs? We could blast our own way up?” Quinn asked.
“Sorry. I’m down to two throwing knives, one stun grenade, and a small bit of undetectable poison.”
“And you said I had interesting hobbies,” Quinn said.
The comm gave three prolonged beeps and the lights flickered.
“Time to go,” Quinn said.
They didn’t have the option of stealth. When they made their way back out to the torture chamber a security guard was just stepping in, a serious-faced young woman. Mara moved faster than she could raise the rifle, a thrown knife plunging into her throat.
“Not playing nice anymore,” Quinn said.
Mara advanced towards the guard, grabbing the knife and drawing it across her throat before taking her submachine gun and passing it to Quinn. “We don’t have the luxury. I assume you’ve no qualms about shooting them yourself?”
“They were about to skin you and do something really weird to me. I think I’m good with killing them al
l.”
The door from the torture chamber led to a short hall. Mara led them down it and around a bend. A pair of guards with guns raised was just approaching. A knife bloomed in one of their throats while Quinn hit the second with a burst of fire that sent him stumbling backwards slumping against the wall. Mara punched them both in the throat in passing.
A stairway brought them back up to the first floor. It was where banquet tables had been set up earlier in the night. Servants were in the process of clearing them.
Guards rushing into the far side of the room opened fire. At this range they couldn’t be accurate, but Quinn took a bullet in the shoulder and saw Mara take one in her thigh. A brooch went sailing across the room, exploding in dazzling light.
Quinn and Mara ran—into another hallway and another mass of guards. It was Mara’s turn to take one in the shoulder.
“We’re not going to make the shuttles,” Mara said, limping ahead. Quinn pulled her into an alcove, ducking behind a sculpture just as a team of guards went past. How many did this estate have? However many, they seemed to have attracted the attention of almost all of them. That would be great if they were a diversion. Instead it probably meant they were dead.
“In a pinch I’ll take somewhere to hide,” Quinn said.
“Security systems are down. Let’s see if it’s all of them,” Mara said, stabbing a guard in the eye as he stood staring puzzled at the bloodstains they had left behind. As he twitched out his last Mara grabbed his gun and led the way down another hall. Several confusing turns and they were near where the entertainers had played. Mara pressed her fingers against the eyes of a bust of some unknown nobleman. A section slid away.
Down the hall, guards caught sight of them and opened fire. Quinn took one in the thigh while Mara took another in the shoulder. Mara pulled him into the opening. A short hall here took them into a claustrophobic room with a small bunk and several screens. Mara slammed her fist down on a panel near the door and a thick metal hatch slammed shut.
“Saferoom?” Quinn asked.
