The Outer Dark (Central Series Book 4)

by Zachary Rawlins

  “We have done it, uncle,” Lóa said, cheeks flushed with exuberance. “The war has begun.”

  ***

  There was a confusion of ambulances outside the estate. In the gardens in front of the house, a row of bodies lay beneath sheets, slowly gathering dew as the night crept toward morning. The estate was evacuated, while staff attempted to triage and transport the wounded, gather the dead, and extinguish fires.

  Anastasia clung to her father’s hand until the contractors charged with the preservation of his body arrived. Even then, it took several minutes of combined effort from Mai and Renton to pry her from Josef’s cold side, her dress burnt and torn, the hem dragged thoughtlessly through the mud of the trampled garden.

  Ignoring the concerns of her servants, the Mistress of the Black Sun turned her attention to the wounded, comforting her sister-in-law Huian while she was stabilized and then transferred to a hospital, caring for her niece Kirsten until she was apported, and helping to coax her shell-shocked and weeping younger sister, Diane, into the back of an ambulance, carefully directing Diane’s attention away from her severed ear, which was collected in a plastic bag by an attentive maid and passed to the medic. The paramedics and house doctors spent several minutes trying to stabilize Pavel, Anastasia mopping the sweat from his feverish forehead with a scrap torn from her dress, before electing to apport him directly to a Black Sun clinic in Switzerland.

  Prevented by security from following her wounded family to medical facilities, Anastasia Martynova turned her attention to the dead.

  She examined and wept over the dead, each in their turn, drawing a shroud across each of their faces. Anastasia was noted to linger over her distant cousin and fallen bodyguard, Timor Zharova, his body resting awkwardly upon his hip, the cluster of nails lodged in his spine preventing him from being lain flat. That the Lady Martynova, even amid her grief, found the time to mourn a mere bodyguard, was thought an act of extraordinary generosity.

  ***

  “Are we sure about this?” Rebecca shook a printout at Emil. “Did we double-check everything?”

  “Everything, Director. I promise! We even pulled in our reserve staff, to confirm…”

  “Confirm it again,” Rebecca said, slapping down the printout on a vacant portion of Emil’s desk. “Cross check everything. Apport tracking, telepathic signatures, travel records, satellite scans, the whole deal.”

  “Yes, Director Levy.”

  Rebecca scowled as she lit a cigarette.

  “Level with me, Emil,” Rebecca said, shaking out her match and tossing it in a waste basket. “Do we really think that the Thule Cartel is behind this?”

  “We are certain, Director.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Forgive me for saying this, Director, but in my opinion, they made no attempt to conceal their responsibility. The Etheric Signatures were there the entire time, masked beneath an illusion protocol. The Operatives were in Harbin since the early afternoon, operating under telepathic and illusory disguises. Immediately after the explosion, they apported directly back to Reykjavik, to the Thule Cartel estate.” Emil tapped at his keyboard nervously. “I think the Thule Cartel wanted everyone to know what they did, Director.”

  Rebecca exhaled a stream of smoke at his monitor.

  “That’s what I think, too,” the Director said. “But, why? What the hell are you doing, Gaul?”

  ***

  Renton expected to direct Riesa to begin an immediate and thorough inquiry. At his orders, an immediate review of Etheric Signatures for the evening was performed, in the hopes of beginning a search for suspects.

  The list is assembled, sir. Riesa Martez was a crisp and efficient presence in his head. Are you ready for download?

  Proceed.

  The download was expedited, the data raw and poorly formatted. Renton stumbled as he was briefly overwhelmed, a small moan escaping his lips as he stood in the vacant ballroom, not far from the smoking remainder of the wall that had collapsed between the Lesser and Greater Halls. The servants and medics rushing around him were careful not to take notice of the way he reeled as the data flooded his cranium, or of the tears that appeared in the corners of his eyes.

  He scanned the list in his head, and then paused at an unexpected entry among the recorded Etheric Signatures. And then another.

  Renton’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

  He continued down the list, expression hardening as he located names.

  “Right in front of our faces,” Renton said, voice trembling. “Fucking Thule bastards.”

  ***

  She sat alone in her father’s study and made no response when he knocked, so he let himself in. Anastasia had changed from her torn and burned debut dress into black mourning garb, but Josef Martynova’s blood was still smeared across her face and hands. Donner and Blitzen curled protectively around her legs, one of them – Renton could never tell the difference – extensively bandaged, a single eye tracking his movements.

  “Renton?” Anastasia did not look up from her lap. “Do you have news from the hospital?”

  “I’m just back,” Renton said, pausing to catch his breath. “Doc says Huian’s gonna make it. There’s a metal sliver lodged near an artery, so they need to operate, but he’s confident.”

  “Good.” Her voice was cold, her hands restless. “What about the girls?”

  “Molly’s fine, just a little rattled. Diane will be okay, too. They can even put the ear back on, if they can find it. She’ll probably be deaf, though.”

  “Kirsten?”

  “They got her heart beating, and she’s on her respirator, but it’s not good.” Renton searched for comforting words, and found none. “The doc said it could go either way.”

  “Pavel?”

  “I…I’m sorry, Ana.” Renton swallowed hard and looked away. “The doctors are doing everything they can, but he still hasn’t woken…”

  “I understand.”

  “And you, Ana? What about you?”

  Anastasia glanced at him, and Renton shivered.

  “Who is responsible for this?”

  “Thule,” he stammered, unnerved. “We pulled signatures from the background scans for Mateo Navarre, Muhammed Omar, Courtney Lede, and Lóa Thule. They were here the whole time, Ana, with that damn ice sculpture, wrapped in illusion and telepathic misdirection. When it was done, they ran straight back home. They wanted us to know they did it, Ana.”

  Anastasia made the smallest of nods.

  Eventually, when it became obvious that nothing else would be said, Renton quietly let himself out.

  ***

  Is this a joke?

  No.

  Oh. Fuck, Becca! Why you always gotta bring me bad news?

  Bad news? That’s an optimistic way to describe the end of the world.

  We are fucked.

  Yeah.

  Completely fucked.

  Yeah.

  How did this even happen? The Black Sun has security up the ass…

  Gaul moved heaven and earth. He put Thule’s best people on the job. Illusions, telepathy, and alacrity. There’s a bunch of shit they could get up to, with that personnel grouping.

  What are we…what do we do, boss?

  Get back here as soon as you can. I’ll figure something out.

  ***

  They waited together through the remainder of the night and into the cold of the morning, but as far apart as the room would allow. They strained their hearing, though distance and careful engineering made the possibilities of overhearing something from the bedroom remote.

  Renton leaned against a corner, bandaged and telepathically stimulated beyond human endurance. Shijun hovered near the door, occasionally pacing, one arm in a sling from a bad landing. Svetlana lay on the couch, curled in a ball, unblinking.

  Hours passed.

  Mai emerged first, grief etched into her soft features. Shijun and Renton crowded around her, so eager for news they began talking over the other. She
held up a hand to quiet them.

  “The Mistress thanks you for your concern – each of you. She is not presently in any state for company; she requests your presence, however, in the Great Hall, shortly after dawn. Now, I have orders to deliver to the apport technicians and the diplomats…”

  “Mai, wait,” Renton said. “Ana. Is she…?”

  “What do you expect me to say?” Mai snapped. “That our Lady is fine and well?”

  Renton exhaled, and then hung his head.

  “Sorry, Mai.”

  “Do not be sorry,” Mai said, hurrying out. “Be whatever she needs, instead, Renton.”

  ***

  Renton studied the telepathic model of the incident obsessively. There was little that he could learn from it, but that was not what concerned him. Renton was bothered by the piece of evidence that the Analysts did not have.

  The Analysts had noted the sustained presence of three Thule agents – Navarre, Omar, and Lede – and the late appearance of a fourth, Lóa Thule. Her covert arrival, lost amongst the activity of the debut and Navarre’s illusions, was a risky move. Analysts suspected that it was done to allow her to witness the event directly, or potentially to ensure the death of a specific victim.

  What they did not know was where Lóa Thule had been, just a few hours prior to the detonation. Renton remembered the feel of the Thule agent’s skin against his own, in an anonymous safehouse in chilly Scotland, and gnashed his teeth.

  ***

  Three hours was not much time to work with, but many of those concerned were already present in Harbin, for the Debutant’s Ball. Monitoring stations across the world and in Central marveled at the sheer number of apports and the significance of the names being transported to Manchuria.

  Prudence dictated that the cartels send representatives, rather than leaders, to the ball. Such prudence was flung aside in the wake of the attack on the Martynova family. Across the estate and Harbin in general, the full apparatus of the Black Sun security mechanism came down like a high-pressure front; omnipresent, oppressive, and invisible, operating under the exclusive and unquestioned direction of Renton Hall. Scores disappeared before the dawn broke, snatched from homes and hotel beds, apported with bags tied over their heads to a black site in the Ukraine for interrogation, or summarily drowned in the waters of the Songhua River in an exercise of caution. The murders of Edvard and Marta Koss, belatedly discovered after the bombings, were variously attributed to both the attack and the security response.

  It was fortunate for Anastasia’s opponents and rivals within the Black Sun that the Thule Cartel could do little to obscure their involvement, given the scale and intrusiveness of the operation. It took security very little time to center their suspicions on the ice swan and its possessive couriers. Every aspect of the ice sculpture’s selection and procurement was closely investigated, vendors and contacts seized or expunged. Renton and his advisors were privately amazed at the extent and effectiveness of the telepathic illusion created by the Thule Cartel – the like had never been seen, and assessments of Mateo Navarre were accordingly adjusted for the suspicion of a M-Class protocol. A painstaking reconstruction of the evening was built by staff telepaths and analysts, lingering traces exhumed and explored by the empaths, and wave after wave of specialists, dogs, and sensors swept the Harbin estate.

  All signs pointed to the same conclusion – the elite of the Thule Cartel were responsible. No one, however, believed that they could have done it without help from the inside. Much of the whispered conversation in the Great Hall centered on suspicion and the potential for coming purges.

  Twenty minutes before the break of dawn, the guard in the hall doubled. There was a brief swell in conversation, and then most discussion ceased, apprehension or grief silencing nearly the whole of the crowd waiting in the Great Hall.

  Ten minutes before dawn, Renton Hall arrived at the head of several very serious young men and women, all dressed like diplomats, with the dispassionate eyes of killers. There was another flurry of agitated discussion, which ended almost as quickly as the first. Renton’s people took up position at one end of the hall, near the largest of the dormant fireplaces, subtly displacing the crowd that had previously occupied the spot, and then waited, not exactly at attention. Instead of watching the door from which Anastasia would presumably arrive, like the rest of the crowd, they oriented themselves in the opposite direction, facing the guests in a half-circle arc like concert security arrayed around a stage. There was an implicit message in their empty eyes and presently empty hands, and the muted crowd absorbed it.

  Dawn came unremarked.

  She made them wait a fraction of a minute more, because it was expected, and for the message it sent. The delay was brief, however, because Anastasia could not abide tardiness.

  The Mistress of the Black Sun arrived in the damaged Great Hall with no fanfare, in mourning garb, her face veiled. No one walked ahead of her, but Donner and Blitzen followed close behind, Donner limping noticeably and missing both an ear and an eye. Mai followed behind the Weir in a simple black dress, eyes downcast and cheeks stained with tears and smeared makeup. Renton took a brief step forward, and then thought better of it. Anastasia walked past him without remark, to stand between the carved wooden chair that her father had occupied at affairs of state, and the chair that had been kept carefully empty since her mother had died. The crowd did not quiet, because the room was silent already.

  “My father, Josef Martynova, has been murdered.” The calculated tremble in Anastasia’s voice was subtly conveyed to the entirety of the Great Hall. “My brother, Pavel Martynova, fights for his life in a hospital. My uncle, Petrov Martynova, has been murdered, along with his wife, Nastya Martynova.”

  The crowd murmured as the list of outrages grew.

  “My nieces have been wounded and traumatized. Their mother, Huian Martynova, fights for her life at a hospital. Valued and respected members of the Black Sun – Edvard and Marta Koss, Eko al Nasar, and Huseyn Babayev – were murdered. If not for the timely action of my servants and guard, the whole of the Martynova family would have been wiped out in one act of terror.”

  The crowd considered pressing closer to Renton’s well-dressed entourage, and then thought better of it. Renton gnashed his teeth and tugged at his hair, sweat dripping down the back of his undershirt, beneath the bulletproof vest and concealed pistol harness.

  “We each of us took vows. We promised to serve, and we have failed.” Anastasia’s words cooled the ardor of the crowd, her bright eyes hunting among them from behind the fine mesh of her veil. “We have failed our patriarch, Josef Martynova. We have failed our own legacy. We have failed the Black Sun.”

  Renton could hear the sobs and choked breath from the crowd around him. His eyes stung, and his head rang like a great bronze gong.

  “The Master of the Black Sun has never been assassinated by enemies from outside the cartel. The patriarch of the Martynova family has never been slain by enemies in his own home.” Anastasia’s contempt washed over the crowd like cold water. “The failures of this night have shattered the honor of the Black Sun, and the fear that my father beat into our enemies. The Hegemony turns away from its ceaseless bickering to test our boundaries and distant enterprises already, believing us frail and disorganized. They do not even yet know the names of our dead, and yet they feel assured that the heart of the Black Sun has been carved out, the heads of the Martynova family ready to be mounted upon the mantle of some Hegemonic Great Family.”

  The cries of outrage and shame were organic and sprang unbidden from the crowd. All about Renton, people were dropping to their knees and smearing their cartel war paint with tears, crying out to Anastasia in rage or for forgiveness. Renton shoved a soldier who reeled forward from the crowd like a drunk, eyes wild and cheeks tearstained, begging mercy from the Mistress of the Black Sun. The man was sent stumbling back into the crowd without ever even seeming to notice Renton, his attention was so fixed on Anastasia.

  �
��My father is dead,” Anastasia said, her voice cracking. “My uncle is dead, and my brother may soon join them. The honor of the Black Sun Cartel is diminished and its reputation sullied. Our enemies are emboldened, and all our lives at risk. I stand before you today as my father’s heir, the Mistress of the Black Sun, and the Lady of the Martynova family – and each of you has failed me.”

  Anastasia tore aside her veil to reveal her face contorted with fury and smeared with dried blood. Svetlana wept bitterly nearby, and Donner or Blitzen howled, while the crowd cried out in dismay and shame.

  “The rule of the Martynova family over the Black Sun could well die this day.” Anastasia turned her frigid eyes on servants and rivals in turn. “Will you allow it?”

  The crowd roared their disinclination with a passionate cacophony.

  “The Black Sun Cartel itself could be extinguished, our families purged and humiliated by the Hegemony. Will you allow that?”

  Renton cried out along with all the rest of them, possessed by the same wounded rage that animated the rest of the crowd.

  “Our enemies – the Thule Cartel first among them – will seek to deal with me as they have dealt with my father.” Anastasia’s eyes locked briefly with Renton, and he bit the inside of his lip so hard that his mouth filled with blood. “Will you allow them further outrages?” The crowd wanted to respond, but she pressed on through the noise. “Will you see my body laid out beside that of my father and brother? Because I will tell you truthfully – my family has been butchered, and I am tired, to my bones. I know very well that many of you have desired the fall of the Martynova family long before today. Come forward, then, those who would be my enemies, for I am weary of pretense. If you would have my death, then seize your moment, for I warn you – I will not tolerate the least opposition or the smallest treachery, from this moment. If you would strike, then do so, for I will show no mercy to those who so much as doubt our course.”