Mercenary Mage - A Dark Space Fantasy (Star Mage Saga Book 4)

by J. J. Green

  “Not that I can see,” she replied, “but it’s hard to see anything in there.”

  “He must have left as soon as the alarm sounded.”

  “Maybe, but—”

  “Did you catch Castiel?” Oriana asked as she reached them. “Is he in there?”

  Bryce had clearly told the others about Carina’s deduction that their brother was the stowaway.

  “Let’s move away from here,” Carina suggested, shepherding the children down the passage. If Castiel was still in the galley, she didn’t want him to overhear her telling them that might be the case.

  A few meters from the doorway, they stopped.

  “Are we going to search for him?” Ferne asked Carina.

  “Yes. But we have to be methodical about it. I don’t want anyone deviating from the plan or he could slip through our fingers. And you must be careful. Castiel may have elixir with him, though probably not much or he wouldn’t be trying to make more.”

  “I wish we had something of his,” said Parthenia. “It would be so much easier to Cast Locate.”

  “Wishing isn’t going to help us,” Carina said, “but we can catch him. It’s five mages against one. As soon as you have him in your sight Cast Enthrall. Then he’ll come quietly.”

  “Then we can make him do whatever we want,” said Ferne.

  “Except we aren’t going to do that, are we,” Carina said. It wasn’t a question. “We treat even Enthralled people with dignity, right?”

  “He doesn’t deserve any dignity,” said Ferne. “He knew the Dirksens were going to massacre the mages and he didn’t care.”

  “Our treatment of him isn’t about him,” Carina said. “It’s about us.” She waited a beat for her meaning to sink in. “If Bryce or I see him first we can stun him. Parthenia, are you okay with leading a search party? One person will have to restrain him to give the other time to Cast Enthrall.”

  When her sister nodded, Carina continued, “I’m going to Lock the elevator doors and the doors to the service tunnels. We’ll Transport between the decks and search each room thoroughly, one by one. When he’s found Castiel will try to bolt.”

  She ran her gaze over the waiting children, considering how best to divide them up. She wanted to keep Darius with her because he was so little. On the other hand, she and he were the two strongest mages and if he stayed with her it would leave the others more vulnerable.

  A sudden movement from the direction of the galley caught her eye.

  “There he goes!” shouted Ferne.

  Castiel had burst out of the room and was pelting down the passageway.

  “Enthrall him, Darius,” Carina called as she aimed her weapon at him.

  Castiel was heading for the service tunnel she had used to come down to the crew’s section. He was nearly there.

  She fired but missed. When she fired again, Castiel had slammed open the door, and her round hit it. Then he was gone.

  “He was too fast,” said Darius.

  Carina was already running toward the service tunnel. As soon as she reached it she leaned inside, angling her weapon downward, but she could only see a short distance.

  “Dammit!”

  She climbed inside and onto the ladder. The top of Castiel’s head was below her, growing smaller as he hurriedly descended. Clinging to the ladder with one arm, she fired at it. In the narrow space the flash of the pulse round blinded her.

  When she could see again, Castiel was gone.

  She’d heard a door open in the distance. Her brother must have exited the tunnel on another level, most likely the level directly below, but she couldn’t be sure.

  She climbed out of the tunnel. “At least we know one thing,” she said to the others. “He’s short on elixir, if he has any at all, or he would have Transported out of the galley and not risked being captured. But that’s also going to make him desperate and dangerous. We all know how little he cares about anyone except himself, so please take care as we go after him. Parthenia and Darius, help me Cast Lock on all the exits on each level, then we’ll all Transport to the level below us and start our search there.”

  She re-entered the service tunnel to Lock the doors from the inside, but as she did so she heard a door below her open. A couple of levels down, Castiel appeared.

  Hastily, Carina aimed at him. But it was hard to shoot straight one-handed while hanging off a ladder. Again, her shot went wide, dissolving harmlessly against the tunnel wall and Castiel disappeared.

  But now she knew exactly where he was.

  Carina spoke to the others through the doorway, reluctant to leave the tunnel in case Castiel moved again. “He’s in the hold. We’ll approach it from both tunnels and the elevator, Locking all the exits as we go down.” She quickly divided them up: Parthenia and Nahla, Bryce and Darius, and Ferne and Oriana, who were to come with her. They would meet up outside the hold and enter it together.

  Aside from worrying about the children’s well-being, she hoped the inevitable fight wouldn’t damage the smuggled goods badly. She’d left them strewn over the floor of the chamber, intending to repackage them at a more convenient time.

  A couple of minutes later, Carina climbed out of the service tunnel with Ferne and Oriana into the passageway to the hold. Bryce and Darius emerged next, and then Parthenia and Nahla. No one had spotted Castiel moving between the levels. He was still there, somewhere amongst the artworks, luxurious furnishings, drug shipments and the rest of the various stolen and illegal cargo.

  After a brief discussion, they had their plan. Bryce would remain at the hold’s only exit after Carina Locked it. As well as being a second gun, if Castiel managed to Cast Unlock, he would be a physical barrier to the Dark Mage’s escape. Carina and the children would form a line and walk slowly across the chamber, searching the hold. They should be able to capture Castiel easily.

  The hold looked the same as it had when she’d left it. The place was a real mess. She hadn’t tried to be tidy as she’d unwrapped the many packages. She’d been too keen to discover what they contained. Among the many objects, empty boxes, netting, and discarded packaging, there were many places to hide. In the corner stood the mech, its operator compartment empty.

  Carina gestured to her siblings to spread out along the nearest wall. Parthenia went to one corner and Ferne to the other.

  When they had all formed a line, Carina swept her arms forward. They all began to walk across the room. The white carpet wrapping lay across Carina’s path. She lifted it with the toe of her boot and peered beneath it. Nothing.

  To her right, Oriana overturned a box. It was empty. Parthenia pressed lumps in the carpet with her feet. Ferne peered into the foot well of a desk. Darius looked behind a painting propped against a trunk.

  The searchers worked in silence, moving items quietly to avoid giving Castiel notice of their close approach. Tension stretched taut in the hush, the gentle rustle and scrape as objects were moved the only noise.

  By the time they’d crossed half the room, Carina’s heart was in her mouth. Each passing second she expected Castiel to leap from his hiding place and try to make his escape. Or had he already Transported?

  As she advanced, she was holding her weapon in one hand and her open elixir flask in the other. Castiel was spiteful and evil enough to Cast Split if he was cornered, and Carina dreaded not being able to Repel it in time.

  Suddenly, a flurry of movement disturbed the mess of cargo. Nahla screamed. In another second, she was gone, dragged down by her ankle into a jumbled pile of boxes. Carina flew toward the spot and ripped away the boxes. She saw Castiel holding Nahla around her waist. In his other hand he held a canister. His eyes were closed.

  “No!” Carina yelled. She lunged at the two of them, but her hands snatched empty air.

  Chapter Nine

  They crowded into the elevator. Bryce had made the sensible suggestion that their priority now was to protect the bridge. The hub of the ship’s operations, it was the place Castiel could do the mos
t harm. Carina was uncertain Castiel knew how to fly and navigate a starship but she couldn’t deny the potential damage her half-brother could do from there.

  The thought of Nahla as the creep’s captive made Carina sick to her stomach. The sweet girl had been the butt of all Castiel’s bitterness and rage, built up over the years of growing up without any special powers in a family of mages. Who knew what he was currently doing to his younger sister? Taking out his revenge on her, not only for her abandonment of him but also all that he probably suffered at the hands of the Dirksens.

  Darius began to sob. He pushed his face into his little, chubby hands and wailed.

  “Hey,” said Bryce, squatting down and hugging him. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her back.”

  “He’s feeling everything we’re feeling,” Carina explained. “All of us. Even you, I think.”

  The knowledge that Darius was a sponge to all the despair and sadness among the group made her feel wretched but she didn’t know what to do about it. Except to make Castiel give Nahla up. Then they would deal with him.

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened. The bridge door was closed but that didn’t mean a whole lot. When Carina approached it didn’t respond.

  “I set it to only open for me,” said Bryce. He pressed his palm against the panel and the door slid to one side.

  The bridge was empty.

  “Thank the stars for that,” Bryce said, walking immediately to the captain’s interface. “I’ll restrict access to—”

  “Where’s the elixir?!” exclaimed Parthenia.

  Carina swiveled to face the spot she’d seen the container. It was gone. She groaned. Castiel must have used his last mouthful of elixir to Transport himself and Nahla to the bridge, probably intending to take over the ship, when he’d come across an unexpected prize.

  For the first time in all her encounters with Castiel, Carina began to feel afraid. From the looks on her siblings’ faces, they felt the same fear. A Dark Mage with a large supply of elixir could wreak havoc.

  Ferne clapped a hand over his mouth and his eyes widened. “The soil!”

  “That’s right,” said Carina. “He knows where it is. Go and get it Ferne. If he takes it all we won’t be able to make any more elixir. Then we’ll never beat him. Go with him, Oriana. I don’t want anyone moving around the ship alone.”

  Ferne and Oriana left. Even as a pair Carina was concerned about them. Should they all travel around as a group in case Castiel struck again? She was confused, unnerved by the amount of power Castiel now had over them.

  “I don’t think he’ll hurt any of us,” said Parthenia. “He wants us to work for him, the same as Father did.”

  “If he hurts Nahla I’ll kill him,” said Carina.

  “Will you, Carina?” asked Darius, his teary eyes blinking. “Are you going to kill Castiel like Mother killed Father?”

  The comment froze Carina’s heart. Parthenia began to weep.

  “No,” Carina said. “Not like that.” She’d never been sure how much Darius had seen of his father’s death aboard the Sherrerr flagship, the Nightfall, when Ma had Split her rapist and torturer in two. Too much, clearly.

  Yet the problem of what to do with Castiel if she caught him resurfaced., and catching him was the absolute priority now. He might spare the mages due to their usefulness to him but the same didn’t apply to Nahla or Bryce. Their only value lay in emotionally blackmailing the mages to do Castiel’s bidding—threatening to hurt them in order to exert pressure, exactly as his father had done. Yet Castiel could use the mage siblings themselves for that.

  “But what will you do?” asked Parthenia.

  “Let’s just concentrate on catching him first,” said Bryce.

  “I know he’s a terrible person,” Parthenia persisted, “and I know he’s hurt Nahla, but I don’t think you should kill him.”

  “You don’t think he deserves to die?” asked Carina. “What about all the people he killed when he went to war with the Dirksens?” She herself had seen a shuttle Split during flight, to crash in flames.

  “Haven’t you also killed people in battle?” Parthenia asked in return.

  Carina couldn’t answer. She had been responsible for more deaths than she could count. But that had been when she’d been a merc. She hadn’t used her mage powers to kill then, and when Stefan Sherrerr had forced her to she’d felt dirty and disgusted with herself. Somehow, killing as a soldier felt cleaner and more honest. It felt fairer.

  But if she tried to articulate her reasoning to Parthenia she was sure it would sound like a cop-out.

  “If the tables were reversed,” Carina asked instead, “do you think he would spare you? You know his only concern for you is what you can do for him.”

  “I don’t know,” said Parthenia. “I really don’t know. Maybe the fact I’m his sister might count for something. But whatever the truth of it is, you can’t execute someone for a crime they might commit.”

  “Dammit!” exclaimed Carina. “I only want to protect you all. You know how evil he is.”

  Ferne burst onto the bridge, gripping his backpack in both hands. “I’ve got it!” he panted. “He didn’t take it.”

  Oriana was behind him.

  “That’s something at least,” said Carina. “Now we need to figure out a plan to catch him. It won’t be easy now he’s taken the elixir you made, but there’s still only one of him and five of us.”

  “Please don’t kill him,” begged Darius, his lower lip trembling and tears running down his cheeks again.

  “Are you going to kill Castiel?” Ferne asked Carina, his eyes round.

  In some ways, the siblings’ attachment to their malevolent brother was touching. In others, it was extremely frustrating. “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. At the moment it’s beside the point.”

  “I don’t know about everyone else,” Oriana said, “but I believe that would be wrong.”

  “Yeah,” said Ferne. “It’s not about him, Carina. It’s about you.”

  She glared at her brother.

  Then she gasped, “I know how to find him.”

  Without another word she ran out of the bridge and along the corridor to the elevator. As the doors opened she sprang out. She couldn’t afford to waste a second. If Castiel realized the mistake he’d made he could fix it easily. He already knew where Nahla’s cabin was.

  Carina sped through the open door into the room. Warm relief flooded her when she saw that Nahla’s old clothes, which she’d worn in the weeks since leaving Langley Dirksen’s estate, remained neatly folded on her bed.

  Silently thanking the stars that the little girl hadn’t put the garments down the garbage chute as they deserved, Carina picked them up. Holding them under one arm, she opened her flask and took a sip of elixir.

  The Locate Cast zoomed in on a cabin in the crew’s quarters. Carina didn’t need to know if Castiel was there too. If he’d tied Nahla up and left her there, he would be back eventually.

  Carina opened her eyes. Now all she had to do was to Transport herself there.

  But something made her hesitate. Was it a trap? Had Castiel thought ahead and deliberately left Nahla’s clothes alone, knowing Carina would use them to find her?

  But so what if it was? Castiel could only Cast, whereas she had a gun.

  She sipped elixir again, and Transported.

  Arriving in the cabin, Carina only had time for the briefest assessment of the situation. First, she saw Nahla, tied to a bed, a rag filling her mouth. Bruises besmirched the little girl’s soft, clear skin. The rest of the room seemed empty. Except…Nahla’s gaze broke from Carina’s and turned upward.

  There he was. Castiel crouched just below the ceiling, one foot on the open door of a cupboard and the other on the corner of the door jamb. One hand was pressed against the wall for support and the other held a flask. His eyes were closed.

  Carina had the opportunity for one good shot. It was all she’d ever needed.

  She fi
red. She did not miss this time.

  She made no effort to break his fall and relished the sound of his bones breaking as he hit the floor.

  Chapter Ten

  Castiel was not a quiet or compliant prisoner. After carrying him to the brig and reluctantly Healing his broken arm, Carina avoided setting eyes on him as much as possible. She asked Bryce to take charge of feeding him and seeing that his other basic needs were met because she didn’t want any of her brothers or sisters to visit him. She was worried their shared history might soften them to his wiles. Perhaps he would persuade one of them to set him free or give him elixir, which amounted to the same thing.

  All she could do to prevent that from happening was keep a close eye on her siblings’ activities so she knew where most of them were most of the time. She didn’t want to outright forbid visits to their eldest brother in case it had the opposite effect and encouraged them to defy her. Oriana and Ferne were of an age where they liked to be contrary just for the sake of it, and though Parthenia seemed to have forgiven Carina for Enthralling her, any further attempts at exerting control would not be well received.

  Rather than using heavy-handed tactics to keep her siblings away from Castiel, Carina was trying to employ softer means. She was trying to make their lives aboard the Zenobia as it traveled its slow, zigzagging journey to Ostillon pleasant and fun and a distraction from their brother’s deservedly isolated and lonely time in the brig.

  It wasn’t easy. Her capacity to act as a replacement for Ma was limited. Since Nai Nai had died, her life had been hard. Living on the streets between the ages of ten and sixteen, she’d received no kindnesses or affection, heard no gentle words. Her days had been spent skulking in shadows, avoiding detection and the brutal treatment usually meted out to gutter rats.

  And after Captain Speidel had rescued her and inducted her into the Black Dogs, things hadn’t improved much. She’d been guaranteed a full belly and creds at least, but mercs were a tough lot, often bordering on psychotic. If you didn’t give as good as you got they would crush you for your weakness. No one wanted to be in a firefight with someone with no guts.