Shadows and Anguish (A Cat Among Dragons Book 8)

by Alma Boykin

  He stared over his glasses. “Let me make certain that I understand this. You gave yourself over assuming you would die one way or the other? Why?”

  The one-eyed woman’s answer stunned him. “To get your scouts back to you alive.”

  “You walked into enemy lines of your own free will on the off chance that it might ransom Lee and his squad?” She nodded. McKendrick repeated, “Why?”

  “You don’t trust me, sir, and you no longer need me. So why not? Eight for one is a good trade in anyone’s books,” she said calmly. Rachel decided not to mention anything about the Houses and the T’sorwou’s other threats.

  The Scotsman sat back in his chair and stared at her. He didn’t know what to think. His first impulse was that she’d gone insane, but her behavior before the event and since didn’t fit with that diagnosis. So he had to assume that she’d been in her right mind, which led to the next question: why did she believe that he didn’t trust her? Of course he did—otherwise she wouldn’t be standing in his office: she’d be dead of her injuries. And he for damn certain needed her both as his intelligence specialist and as a medic. McKendrick thought back over the past weeks, trying to remember anything that might have made her think that he doubted her.

  “Rachel, if I did not trust and believe in you, I wouldn’t have used the notes you left for me,” he quietly reminded his advisor. “And if we all didn’t value you, I wouldn’t have had my entire command volunteering to recover your body when we thought you’d been killed.” He paused, then asked in turn, “Why do you think that I don’t trust you?”

  “Because I can feel your unhappiness, your discomfort and suspicions, sir. I haven’t tried to read you to find out the specifics or to learn why,” the scarred woman assured him, “but your feelings get stronger when I’m near. And you’re skeptical of everything I suggest or offer.”

  McKendrick took off his glasses and shook his head. “You could have just asked me,” he pointed with the glasses. “And you should have, before things reached this point.”

  “What have I done to make you so unhappy?” she inquired, matching his tone.

  He got up from his chair and walked over to the open window, staring out at the quiet autumn afternoon. “Nothing. It is because, physically, you very much resemble the woman who broke up my marriage.” He glanced back to see Rachel blinking hard with surprise, her mouth hanging open slightly. “I’ll spare you the tale, except to say that a bit of fun I had in my younger days returned to haunt me two years ago.” He glanced at the calendar on his desk. “Two years ago this past Sunday, in fact. She was taller than you are, but slender with fair skin and hair that she colored mahogany brown to match her eyes.” He studied his advisor’s face, adding, “and her face was broader and flatter than yours. But she moved as gracefully as you can and from a distance you two look very similar.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” she told him, and he knew that she meant it. The woman’s tone suggested that she’d had her own difficulties. And why not? McKendrick thought. Just because Rachel wasn’t human didn’t mean that she didn’t feel similar emotions or have relationships.

  He returned to his seat. “Thank you. And I’m skeptical of everything having to do with the GDF, not just you personally.” He motioned for her to sit, which she did. “So, now that each of us knows where the other stands, there will be no more talk of your not being wanted or trusted. Yes, we could have defeated the T’sorwou without your help, probably. But it would have cost a great deal of time, treasure, and blood, including Sergeant Lee and his people.”

  “Yes, sir,” she agreed.

  “Lock the door,” he ordered, and she got up and did as told. “This will go absolutely no further Rachel, unless you force it to,” he began quietly, leaning forward to study the alien closely. She went on guard, wary of what might be coming. “Answer me truthfully—are you trying to die without doing it yourself?”

  She met his eyes, her face and voice calm and controlled. “No, sir. Do I look forward to the day when I won’t live in constant pain and am no longer haunted by death and sorrow? Oh yes, very, very much. But I am not trying to kill myself by tricking or forcing someone else to do it for me.” She took a deep breath and exhaled quietly as McKendrick considered her words. “That would be a double sin, sir—suicide and ruining another person’s life. I don’t think even Last Rites would protect my soul after that,” Rachel opined, surprising her Calvinist superior.

  “Strange thoughts from an Anglican,” he said. “Very well. In the light of circumstances, here’s what you will write in your report and I’ll do the same: based on your knowledge, you approached the T’sorwou to see if they might be willing to bargain. Instead, they took you and released Lee and his men for reasons known only to the T’sorwou. They thought they had killed you as an example—when their demands were not met—but we were able to recover you before what they did took final effect.” McKendrick’s words had enough truth to fit and covered everyone involved.

  Rachel nodded, adding, “And per security requirements, when it became apparent that the T’sorwou were not going to abide by any agreements, I took actions to prevent the transmission of sensitive information.” How cold and dry the words were, and how unpleasant the realities behind them! Rachel wondered if all languages allowed euphemisms and obfuscation to the extent that English did.

  “That will suffice,” the Scotsman agreed. “One last thing. Why did the T’sorwou’s message claim that you were ‘a valuable prize’?”

  Rachel took a ring off her left hand and gave it to him. It had an emerald-cut blue-green stone with a pattern carved into it, and he realized that it was a signet ring. “That is the sigil for House Ni Drako. My business partner belongs to a House in another part of the galaxy, not far from where I was born.” Both true, and he could combine them as he chose.

  McKendrick wondered what she was not telling him. It’s not that important, he decided. Let her see that I trust her. “Lovely ring,” and he handed it back to the woman, then dismissed her.

  Rachel returned to the lab. When she opened the door, she found Tony Lee waiting for her, looking rather uncomfortable. He turned, watched her come in the door, and relief lit up his face as he saw for himself that she was all right.

  “Good afternoon, Sergeant Lee,” she smiled. “Do you need something?”

  The tall man nodded. “To return your things, for one,” and he pointed to the neat pile on her desk. Then he hesitated as if trying to decide what to say next. “And I need to thank you for saving my life, ma’am. My people and I owe you a lot, and . . .”

  She waved her hands, cutting off his comments. “No, Sergeant. No debts and no owing. You take care of me and I take care of you. That’s how we work here, remember?”

  Lee glanced around, then surprised Rachel by leaning over and hugging her tightly. After a few seconds he released her. “God bless you, ma’am,” and before she could do anything more than blink, the noncom left. Rachel stared after him, then shrugged. She would never understand humans, the Wanderer decided. And wiped something from the corner of her eye.

  January, 2012. Colour Sergeant Tony Lee twitched. Crowds made him uncomfortable. Even here, on the edge of the press of people that streamed toward the Thames River bridges, anxious to be in place for the New Year’s fireworks, the mass of passing bodies felt as if it trapped him despite the open road at his back. Still, he had to grin just a little when a disgruntled voice at his elbow growled, “At least you can see something other than backs and bums, Boer Two.” He tended to forget Commander Na Gael’s lack of physical stature until, well, he glanced down at the top of her head. It stopped level with the bottom of the unit insignia on his anorak sleeve. “Any sign of our sort of trouble?”

  “Not yet, ma’am.” He’d spotted a few cheerful drunks, two teenagers with surly expressions, and several people who might well walk into the river as they texted on their cell phones, but nothing “exotic.” He didn’t want to encounter anything
exotic. “I do hope this is one of our false alarms.”

  “So do I. Although,” she sounded thoughtful, “if we do encounter an exotic, the Mad Scotsman will have something to vent his frustration on.”

  In fact, Commander Rachel Na Gael growled to herself, I could do with a little bit of hand-to-hand myself right now. There was a reason General McKendrick had caught her sneaking out to run the obstacle course in her personal field kit. He’d fussed a little, mostly because she’d interrupted his own run and he was trying to improve his personal best enough so he could beat RSM Smith the next time the seniors had to run the course. Well, that and that she’d been using unorthodox techniques, as usual. Rachel snorted to herself as she looked around, part of her tracking the crowd and part of her a light year or so away. Of course I was. I hate getting wet, even indoors in the warm. Ugh, wet makes me grumpy and things tend to chafe which makes me grumpier still and puts those nasty little knots in my fur in rude places—and what in the name of hairballs is that?

  “Boer Two, eleven o’clock, low, on the pave beside the second strut past the first cable attach.”

  Beside her Sergeant Lee lifted his night glasses and looked over the stream of heads. “I don’t—belay that. Something disk shaped and glowing that wasn’t there a few minutes ago. Or that wasn’t glowing.”

  Rachel nodded at the confirmation and pulled her mini-scanner out of the pocket of her long, dark grey coat. It looked like a late-model cell phone and she tapped it with the stylus, humming a random tune as she did. “Hmm, mmm, mmm, hmm, mmmeeeowch cover your eyes!”

  Tony ducked and turned away, one forearm up. Even so he sensed a flash and felt his hair lift and his fingers tingle. Without opening his eyes he reached to the side, grabbed Manx One and hauled her back and around the corner, away from the empty road and into the protection of a wall. As he’d guessed, after a heartbeat or two of motionless silence, the crowd screamed and began to panic. People streamed past the warriors, ignoring the barricade in their flight. “Status, Manx One.”

  “Flat,” she snarled from behind him. “Move.” He stepped sideways. “Thank you.” She shook all over. “Not flat. We need to get to the target marker and see what’s left of it.”

  Of course they did, Lee groaned to himself. And that meant wading through the crowd. How were they going to—? He had an idea. “Right, come, Manx One.” Louder, he said, “Idiots never can get their effects right. I told Mack all the cell phone signals would trip the flasher too early, but noooo, he never listens.”

  Rachel caught on as they crossed the crowd. In the dark, Lee’s anorak and her coat looked like the kit of the roadies for the fireworks and effects team. “Of course he doesn’t,” she groused in turn, falling into the role of disgruntled effects technician alongside him, “because it’s his baby. So much for the surprise effect he was hoping for. That’s why God gave us wire and gaffer tape and timers. ‘Scuze me, sorry, thanks,” she squeezed between two of the now less frantic pedestrians, Lee close behind. “What a flippin’ mess.” Rachel ran a hand over her hair. “Mack’s going to be right peeved, he is.” She pulled a tiny torch out of her other pocket and shone it on the remains of the device.

  “That’s a mess all right, ma’am.”

  “Aye. Better tell Mack. I’ll see if there’s anything salvageable,” she said, crouching down and poking at the rounded shape. The bottom appeared flat and it looked very much like a larger version of the skeet they used for shotgun training, but charred. As Lee passed the word to Command One and Boer One, Rachel tested the electronic circuits on the target. They remained intact. “Ah, this is a problem.” She stood up, glanced around for curious observers, and tapped the thing with her foot. It scooted a little, then stopped. Rachel walked around the device and tapped it back the other way. It scooted and remained loose. Further attempts to encourage it to the end of the bridge failed, but it would move toward the center of the bridge. Rachel wrinkled her nose as she calculated whether she had enough charge in anything short of her sidearm to ruin the targeting receiver. She didn’t. Rachel cursed under her breath in Feltari, drew her sidearm under the cover of her long coat, set it to low stun, and popped the device. The readout on her scanner showed that it remained functional. “Right.” She raised the power level, looked away and fired.

  ZZzpop!

  A toe tap moved the device a nice distance and Rachel chased after it, then picked it up. “Ow! Hot metal—blast it I know better.”

  “So is it totally ruined?”

  “Yeah. Mack’s going to be soooooo pissed.” Rachel walked back to where the device had been and looked up toward the top of the buildings around them. Where had the energy pulse originated? The discharge had overloaded her scanner, hiding its point of origin.

  Lee leaned over, shining his own torch beam on the charred mass. “Boer One wants to know if we should look for more of these, and where the energy surge came from,” he said quietly.

  Rachel holstered her sidearm and poked at the warm half-sphere. “Yes, we should. Send him a picture, and it likely came from the top of a building, or at least from the upper floors. It’s probably a line-of-sight device.” Rachel continued her study, then looked around, tapping one claw-tipped finger against the metallic shell in her other hand. They stood on part of the bridge that had been asphalted over the metal base. Farther up the slope of the bridge deck it reverted to bare metal along the edges. It would be very simple for someone in the crowd to drop more of the devices, and they stuck like limpets. Like limpets. “Boer Two, how do your limpet mines work again?”

  “They stick to the hulls of ships using magnets and—ah. I’ll pass the word.”

  “Please do.” Rachel left him talking quickly and quietly on his portable radio. She trudged up the edge of the bridge, skirting the crowd. She found one more lump, but it proved to be the housing of one of the lights decorating the bridge. She leaned against the railing and looked away from the crowd, running her scanner at max sensitivity. Nothing, because a mass of very local signals close by was drowning out what she wanted. Rachel frowned, peering down, then out through the safety mesh at the dark river below. Underwater cable connections? No, that made no sense. Security people doing something? No, she didn’t see the usual figures and silhouettes. Besides, she and Lee would have been informed of their location. All she saw was a barge with a lot of tubes and “Blast it.”

  “Come again?”

  She turned and looked up at Lee. “The barge, Boer Two. We saw a test.” I think.

  Lee’s face went pale. “Understood.”

  “And we need to look for more of these, but on the out route.”

  “Roger.” Again Lee passed the word. Rachel wished her radio hadn’t chosen that evening to break wires, but lowest bidder contracts and Murphy the Universal Solvent had struck again. “Ah, ma’am, I think the view will be better back that way,” Lee pointed to the end of the bridge, a little upstream. “We’re too close to see much from here.”

  Don’t you want to be at the center point of the blast and crowd, Boer Two? It might be rather exciting. Rachel’s thoughts went no farther than her own mind for once, and she made the hand sign for “concur.” The two warriors wiggled their way out of the crowd once more, grumbling about technicians and vast ideas with half-vast wiring diagrams. Rachel felt Lee placing his hand under her elbow to steady her as they came to a nasty set of old, moss-slick stone steps. She accepted the support, looking up and around as she climbed. Something flashed in a window of the office tower ahead of them, about eight floors up. Rachel stopped, eye narrowing with concentration. A red light flashed from the same window, much like a targeting laser’s dot, but larger.

  “Boer Two, twelve o’clock, eighth floor third window from that appalling modern metal excrescence.”

  “Ah, no one’s supposed to be in the building because of the fireworks barge, Manx One.”

  “Then I think someone needs to find out what’s going on, because I’ve seen two lights there and—hang abo
ut.” A dark shape fluttered out of the window, like a curtain caught in the wind.

  “Can’t be.” Lee radioed to Command One. He listened as Rachel watched the people around them.

  “Sorry,” someone said, jostling her. She grabbed the wrist attached to the hand that was trying to slip into her pocket and bent it backward, sinking her claws into the soft, fat flesh. “OOwwwww!”

  “Sorry bout ‘at ‘Duchess,” she exclaimed. “Didn’t mean t’ stomp yer foot.” Rachel released the pick-pocket with a firm shove and a silent curse

  Lee loomed up and the older woman took herself off with a parting curse that sounded Slavic. Rachel rolled her eye. Whatever the woman had invoked would have to get in line. “What did Mack say?”

  “To stay put and watch for more failures.” He turned his attention to the building, while Rachel looked back toward the dark river. She could still see the hole in the shimmering reflections of London’s lights that marked the location of the pyrotechnic barge. “Oh, and they’re checking the other barge as well—the one near Parliament.”

  Rachel and Lee took turns watching their target and keeping an eye on the people and buildings around them. After too long for Rachel’s comfort, Lee put his hand to his ear to hear better, then spoke into his radio. “They’re checking the building now. Which floor again, ma’am?”