Queens of Tristaine

by Cate Culpepper

  “I’ve asked that Brenna be housed in the communal cell with the male predators for a few nights, until her sentencing.” Caster stroked her paralyzed arm. “You won’t see her again, dear.”

  Jess didn’t give Caster’s claim much credence. She couldn’t bear to, that was certain, but she also knew her wife. Brenna was strong and fast, and she might well have escaped the Clinic. She had to believe that Brenna and the child, and their adanin, were on their way to the hills with the medicine that would save their clan.

  Jess decided to make good use of the blood welling in her mouth. She spat at Caster, but hit the polished floorboards a yard from her feet.

  “Oh, Jesstin, that’s just nasty.” Caster plucked at her shawl. “You should know I’d never get close enough to be struck by your venomous Amazon spittle. Is that all you have to say to me, after our many years apart? Don’t you even want to ask how I escaped that tacky flood?”

  Jess stopped listening. She shuddered as the pain of a dozen blows and kicks reached her. Nothing felt broken, but her head pounded with a terrible ache, and she was dizzy and sick. But the sudden loneliness was worse. In the unnatural brightness of the gym, Jess longed for the green hills of Tristaine with a yearning so deep tears almost rose to her eyes.

  “Oh, dear. You’re really quite uncomfortable, aren’t you?” Caster attempted sympathy. “Mr. Cornell, I told you and your boys to take it easy on this prisoner while bringing her here, didn’t I? Pity, the working classes never listen. Not to worry, my delectable warrior. I’ll have the pleasure of doctoring you myself when the night’s over.” Caster lifted her good hand and waggled her fingers in the air. “I still have the dexterity to wield a scalpel! Staunching your wounds might prove the very best part of the evening.”

  Jess waited, hoping Caster would tire of talking soon and just hurt her. She wanted this over.

  “Tomorrow you belong to them, Jesstin.” Caster’s wheelchair creaked a few inches closer. “In the morning, I’ll have to turn you over to those Military cretins who think they run the Clinic. But tonight, it’s just the two of us. It took all the money in my sadly depleted coffers to buy these guards for a few hours, but hearing you scream up there will be worth every penny.”

  “It suits you, Caster.” Jess was hoarse, and she had to spit again to clear her mouth of blood. Caster moved her wheelchair back hastily. “The hideous wreck of your face. For the rest of your life, everyone who looks at you will see you truly, your cankered heart.”

  Caster had been a handsome woman before being mangled by the floodwaters, and now her scarred visage darkened. Jess turned her mind inward and called on Dyan’s memory for courage. She pictured Shann’s loving smile and promised her queen she would endure what was coming with the strength of an Amazon warrior. She saw Brenna’s eyes, large and soft, and almost felt her light touch on her skin.

  “The Military might believe your primitive tribe is no longer a threat, Jesstin.” Caster’s voice now held the icy calm that Jess remembered so well. “But I know better, and I’ll convince them. You’ll never see Tristaine again, proud savage—but I will, someday soon. From the front seat of the helicopter that drops napalm all over it.”

  Caster turned her chair sharply, its treads squeaking on the wooden floor. “Now, let’s begin our intimate chat! You can start, dear, by telling me what’s so important about Samantha’s sullen little brat that you risked enduring all this for her. Mr. Wilson? Our big battery, please. I’m almost positive our prisoner will require some persuasion.”

  Jess heard a low creaking behind her, and a third guard pulled a large portable generator up to the right side of the wooden frame. A dozen paddles and clips were connected by wires to its bulky shape.

  “Drat. I wish I’d brought that nice chilled sangria I’ve been saving.” Caster smiled up at Jess brightly. “It’s getting hot under these lights, Jess, yes? All right, gentlemen, hook her up. I want clips wherever I see blood or a bruise.”

  A small door in the wall behind Caster exploded outward. Two blurred figures hurtled into the gym, and Jess heard the crack of a pistol as Caster gasped and jerked her chair around. Breath gushed out of Jess’s lungs as Brenna came into focus, clubbing Caster so hard with her joined fists that she toppled out of her wheelchair and sprawled on the floor.

  Three more shots rang out, and Jess twisted in the straps, blood stinging one eye. The guard by the generator had gotten off a bullet, but it ricocheted high off the wall. She could see Dana now, standing braced and balanced, the pistol gripped in both hands. She had taken down two of the guards with one shot each, and now she fired again, and the third man staggered back and fell.

  Jess heard Dana fire one more time, but she didn’t see which guard merited a finishing shot, as Brenna reached her.

  “Jesstin. Look at me.” Brenna struggled to unfasten the heavy buckles on the leather straps binding her wrists. “Say something.”

  “Good evening, querida.” Jess smiled, though it hurt her split lip. “We never got around to saying that.”

  Brenna let out a breath that was part sob and part laugh. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “I can get out of here.”

  “Jess!” Dana belted the pistol and attacked the buckles on the straps holding Jess’s other arm. “Are you sure you can walk? You look pretty rocky.”

  “Aye, I’m sure. Kyla?”

  “She’s got the drugs and Elise, Jess, she’s waiting for us outside.” Brenna grunted as the strap finally gave, and a moment later Dana had Jess’s other wrist free.

  Jess fully expected her legs to support her and was dismayed when her knees buckled and she sagged into their arms. Cursing, she righted herself, shaking her aching head to clear it.

  “Easy, Jess. Just stand here a moment.” Brenna examined her quickly.

  “Well done, adanin.” Jess scanned the now silent gym and the three motionless guards, then looked at Dana. “My thanks to you both.”

  “Well, you’re not exactly rescued yet.” Dana wrapped a strong arm around Jess’s waist and helped her step down from the frame. “We’ve got to make tracks fast, sisters.”

  “Wait.” One hand still on Jess’s chest, Brenna had turned to stare at Caster, who lay twisted on her side yards away. One of the wheels of her capsized chair, devoid of power, still spun slowly, like a metallic eye, under the glaring lights.

  Jess heard Caster’s dry sobbing, a ratcheting, gruesome sound. She looked at Brenna and saw that stillness take her and the sudden glaze in her eyes that signaled trance.

  “She will never give up.”

  Brenna heard the adult Elise clearly in her mind and the heavy dread in her tone.

  “This woman has made destroying Tristaine her life’s mission, j’heika. She will do whatever she must to regain power. Her dark star will rise again. And she will find us.”

  And then Elise repeated the words she said to Brenna the first time she appeared, when she had thought they were talking about the epidemic.

  “Hear me, Brenna. You have seen the face of our enemy. Now act.”

  “Brenna?” Dana looked down at her belt as Brenna slipped the pistol from it.

  “Stay with Jess, Dana. This is mine to do.”

  Brenna crossed the floor to Caster, and a cool breeze swept her that smelled of fresh pine.

  “Br-Brenna.” Caster lifted herself, crab-like, on her good elbow. Her macabre face was drenched in tears. She pointed a shaking finger at Brenna as she came closer. “I could have had your sister’s baby drowned at birth, Brenna. I spared—Br—no!”

  Brenna aimed the pistol carefully, squeezed the trigger, and shot Caster between the eyes.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dana gave one of the double doors to the gym a solid kick, and it swung wide with a crash. After the echoing gun shots, Brenna knew they had to sacrifice stealth for speed. She and Dana half-carried Jess at first, but she regained her footing as they ran down the dark, still deserted corridors.

  “Is there any c
hance in hell nobody heard that racket?” Dana panted.

  “Not a chance,” Jess answered through clenched teeth, and Brenna knew she was right when they rounded the cellblock. Apparently the battle in Caster’s gymnasium had awakened every prisoner in the Unit. Fists were pounding steadily on cell doors in grim celebration of the chaos, and the muted thumping powered them faster toward the outer bay.

  Brenna ran close to Jess, trying to assess her injuries in quick glances. There was a frightening amount of blood on her face, most of it from the blow to her head. Her normally graceful gait was mechanical and stiff, and she ran holding her right side.

  The sirens hit before they were halfway across the utility room, a deafening wail that almost froze Brenna mid-stride. She grabbed Jess’s arm and they hurtled toward the outer doors.

  The baying klaxon only grew more strident as they burst out the doors into the utility bay and staggered up the concrete steps onto the light-drenched grounds. Both Units of the Clinic had gone into full lockdown, and the compound would soon be flooded with added security from the adjoining Prison.

  “Fence,” Jess gasped, and Dana gripped the collar of her torn chambray shirt and helped Brenna haul her toward the south wall of reinforced barbed wire.

  Even over the siren Brenna heard the flat report of a rifle, and the bullet’s whining trajectory passed perilously close on Dana’s side. She started to shout a warning, but then was distracted by the blessed crash of a large green Army truck through the wire fence.

  For Brenna, it was like seeing a wheeled goddess roar down from the heavens to snatch her daughters from a cobra’s nest. By luck or inspiration, the driver—presumably Eva—executed a nearly perfect churning circle in the grass, and they raced for the truck. Brenna heard more shots now and orders shouted behind them.

  The driver’s door flew open and Eva leaped out of the cab. She darted to the back of the truck and unlatched its tailgate. Brenna had time to see Jenny inside on one of the steel benches, her arms wrapped around Elise, before she jumped into the bed and turned to help Jess. Eva pushed Jess over the metal lip of the bed and scrambled in after her.

  “Kyla?” Brenna heard Dana’s breathless voice as she threw herself behind the wheel.

  “I’m fine, the satchels are fine, are you guys all right?” From the front seat, Kyla cast an anxious glance through the panel window, and then they all lunged as Dana kicked the accelerator hard. There was a sharp clang as a bullet hit the truck, and Brenna could only pray it struck nothing vital.

  Dana plowed the truck back through the sagging fence.

  “Turn left,” Brenna cried, and tried to brace Jess on the bench as they swerved toward the small park that lay across the street from the Clinic.

  “Brenna?” Jenny’s teeth were chattering. “Didn’t you say the frontage road was the—”

  “We circle the park first,” Brenna cut in. “I have a promise to keep.”

  The pagoda at the park’s center was as empty as Brenna feared it would be. She lifted the edge of the plastic-sheet window and tossed Nell’s keys beneath the pagoda, and sent her friend a final, grateful blessing. “All right, Dana, get us out of here!”

  Dana steered them skillfully onto the frontage road, dust roiling up in their wake.

  She hit the headlights and the narrow road was illuminated as it sped under them. The ugly screech of the Clinic’s sirens began to fade in the distance.

  “This will take us around the downtown district.” Brenna tried to speak calmly. Elise’s eyes were huge, and she had to be terrified. “Dana, look for any street that might lead north, out of the City.”

  “Kyla, the drugs?” Jess asked.

  Kyla was already checking the contents of the padded satchels on her lap. “Nothing’s broken, adanin, it’s all here! Vials, hypodermics, the lot.”

  “Bless you, Ky,” Jess sighed. Brenna slid her arm around her to steady her as they bounced over an uneven rut in the dirt road.

  Eva was looking at Jess closely. “Jess took a bad knock to the head, Brenna.”

  “Yes, I’m worried about concussion.” There was no real light to see by in the rocking bed, but Brenna tried to check Jess’s eyes. She slid her hand beneath her hair and cupped the back of her neck, and Brenna’s pulse spiked unpleasantly. Jess’s fever wasn’t high, but she had one. The flu was moving through her blood.

  Jess went still beneath her arm, and then she slid off the steel bench and rummaged beneath it.

  “Hey, Jess, you need to...” Brenna trailed off as she heard the faint, two-note siren far behind them.

  Jess lifted out the rifle and stepped toward the back of the truck. “Brenna, brace me.”

  Brenna went to her quickly, praying the truck’s rocking wouldn’t worsen. She gripped Jess’s waist, and peered over her shoulder through the opening in the canvas hood. There were two sets of flashing blue and red lights behind them, distant but moving fast.

  “We need to get off this road,” Jess barked. She slid the barrel of the rifle through the hole in the canvas.

  Dana muttered an obscenity and spun the wheel, taking them off the frontage road and down a twisting, paved path that wound through a shabby neighborhood. “Good. We’re good, I know where we are.” Dana sounded relieved. “Some of my buddies grew up here, I know these streets.”

  “Take us north as fast as you can.” Jess grasped the bunched canvas with one hand and held the rifle steady with the other. “We might see close fighting.”

  The oncoming sirens were louder now, the two-tone clang marking them as City Police cars. Brenna felt their speed increase.

  “Man. This could get a little intense, guys,” Dana called. “Hold on.”

  “Get?” Jenny gasped, holding Elise tightly.

  Their Army transport was built more for strength than agility, but Dana guided it skillfully through a maze of ramshackle neighborhoods. She drove at an ungodly speed, but her hands on the wheel were steady and sure. They sped through twisting streets, emptied by the curfew, taking corners at a velocity Brenna wouldn’t dare attempt, but Dana handled them with ease. Elise actually giggled at one such swerving jolt.

  Brenna remembered this feeling. Twenty years ago, on one of the Youth Home’s rare outings, she and Sammy had gone on a ride at a carnival. Their little motorized car had whizzed on tracks through a house of plastic horrors, careening around corners, terrifying them both. Brenna had been far more afraid that they would crash and burn than of any of the hokey phantoms stringed to the ceiling. She had held Sammy on her lap then as Jenny cradled her daughter now.

  In spite of all Dana’s efforts, the Police cruisers pursuing them edged inexorably closer, following their every turn, and the blue-red lights grew brighter. Then the splash of the leading car’s headlights filled the bed.

  “Guide my hand, Brenna.” Jess was trying to site the rifle. She shook her head hard, and tried again. “Where’s its heart?”

  “Aim for the center of the front hood.” Brenna grasped the rifle’s barrel and adjusted it, then Jess fired, the stock hitting her shoulder. The Police car rocked slightly, but kept coming. Jess bolted another bullet in place and fired again, then a third time.

  Steam erupted from the speeding cruiser’s hood. It lurched, and then spun in a screeching arc before coming to a stop broadside, blocking the street. The second Police car swerved hard to avoid it, but the two heavy vehicles connected with a solid crash Brenna could hear from the truck.

  “Excellent, Jess!” Dana pumped her fist.

  “Okay, you’re sitting down.” Brenna took the rifle away from Jess and handed it to Eva, then pushed Jess gently back to the bench.

  Moments later they cleared the dark buildings of the shabby subdivision. Dana cranked the wheel, and they rumbled down an incline and onto the wide, dry bed of a shallow ditch.

  “Jesstin?” Kyla twisted on her seat. “Speak to me.”

  “Bumps and bruises, Ky. I’ll live.” Jess straightened on the bench next to Brenna, holding her
right side. “Our path, Dana?”

  “I think this old ditch peters out soon, but we’re headed toward the hills.” Dana kept their course steady on the rough trail, and Brenna felt the City begin to fall away behind them. Even the close, dank air in the covered truck bed seemed to hold more oxygen as they distanced themselves from the Clinic.

  “We can pick up the north access road from this direction.” Eva slid closer to Jenny and touched her leg. “Thank god those cops didn’t hit our gas tank.”

  “That was a damn fine rescue, you guys.” Brenna felt slightly queasy after hours of adrenalin-charged terror. She tried to smile. “Elise? How are you, honey?”

  The child just studied her curiously.

  “Elise is one brave little girl.” Obviously a natural with children, Jenny cradled the small girl easily on her lap. “She’s having quite an adventure tonight.”

  “Whee,” Brenna agreed faintly. Her vision had adjusted to the dim light Selene sent through the bed’s small windows. She turned to Jess and stared at her for the sheer pleasure of it, soaking in the reality of her presence. Then she touched Jess’s head, wincing. “This is going to need stitches, love.”

  Dana hit a rut in the ditch and they bounced a half foot in the air, coming down with a teeth-rattling thump.

  “Sorry,” Dana called back hastily.

  “Perhaps stitching should wait,” Jess suggested. She lifted her arm, and Brenna slid beneath it. She rested her palm on Jess’s chest and measured her heartbeat, and gradually her own slowed to a more bearable rhythm.

  Caster will never hurt you again. Brenna closed her eyes. Tristaine is free of her forever.

  Her mind replayed Caster begging for her life, crippled and helpless on the gymnasium floor. Brenna had fought in Tristaine’s past battles. She had poisoned a dying soldier and lamed a young policewoman. She had never before looked at a defenseless human being and deliberately taken their life. But she knew if she faced the decision again, her bullet would still shatter Caster’s skull. Brenna was a healer capable of killing, and that was part of the humanity Shann said she must accept.