~~~~~~
Marlow’s Chatter account had been inactive for over a year, but now it connected to Enzo’s and rang through to his cell. He was silent because he didn’t believe he would actually hear her, but she said, “It’s nice to know I was missed.”
“You have no idea. Where are you?”
“Well,” she sighed, “explaining that would be rather convoluted. Suffice it to say, I am safe. I love what you did, but now I really need you to release Lieutenant Fallon.”
“Not a chance. Not until it’s proved to me you’re not being coerced, and that means you stand with us at your back. And I have to say, being on speakerphone doesn’t do anything to convince me.”
“No, I don’t imagine it would.” She did not exactly laugh. “Do this for me,” the pause was long, “play this very safe. I will try to protect you from my end, but for now, assume you are playing in a burning house. Stay well underground and I will get back with you soon.”
Sable was done cooperating. She laid the rebel commander’s phone on the table and told the King’s two advisors, “When Remy wakes up, I am going to get Fallon. And while I’m gone, I’m getting proof from the Count that President Pavlović tried to kill us and General Marič supplied the weapons.”
Berringer was torn between vexed disbelief and certain fear it was true. He warned her, “Remy will never allow it.”
She wasn’t happy, but she meant it, “You are going to find that he does.”
The Guard Dog
Through the long afternoon and into the night, every time the King awoke, Sable would press her lips to his head and murmur words encouraging him to fall back asleep until Berringer became convinced she was whispering magic. He’d left her at first to interrogate the prisoners, but each hour he returned to find Sable leaning against the King’s ear, the more unsettled he became. Late in the evening, the General returned and wouldn’t leave.
The base in the foothills had never seemed menacing, but the clouded night was falling darker than any he could remember and the dim light in the room could not hold it back. Sable could barely be seen where she sat beside the King. The General took a seat beside her.
“You want to tell me how you knew to keep Remy out of the front cars today?”
When he had given up hope she would answer, she said, “I am Cloitare.”
“Sable, I have no idea what that means.”
“I can see things you can’t. The things you might feel as wrong in your gut, I can see plainly.” After a moment she added, “Well, I used to see plainly.”
When Remy began to move into consciousness again, Sable meant to rise and talk him back under, but the General held her arm and told her to stay. It had been done so benignly, she mistook it for compassion. Thinking the General perhaps worried she was tired, she ignored it and shifted again to get to her feet, but he held her now firmly, and when she met his expression questioning, it became clear he meant to prevent her from reaching the King. Between them it was understood he didn’t trust her. Sable relaxed not to fight.
It sounded like she was praying.
“And who do you pray to, Sable?”
The General thought she said, “Aidan,” but there was also something else. She kept up the rhythmic cadence, intoning words too low to be clear. He leaned closer to hear what she said and then closer as she spoke lower until he felt her hand on his neck and the words rush up to take him, “Before the creator’s light was my eternal night, it rises again to hold you.” His head fell weak onto her shoulder.
Supporting him by his throat, she turned in her chair to lay her other hand against his chest and push him back, whispering, “The darkness takes you down, quiet to the ground, you rest.”
There was a nightmarish sense he was aware but couldn’t move, like a dream where he thought he was awake when he wasn’t.
She kept whispering, “Let the blackness lay over you and when you awake, the night conceal the memory.”
It felt like just moments and he was back, struggling in the dark, trying to pull himself conscious, fighting against a sleep that was terrifyingly heavy yet left him on the edge of waking. He heard her moving around the room and knew she pressed herself to Remy, telling him to stay asleep. He was sure he could surface. He tried to speak, to shake it off, but this brought her back. In the frightening place between dreaming and waking, he willed himself to be still. And she stood before him, studying him, looking to see if he would move, waiting until the nightmare was about to explode in his mind as a scream.
Next she pulled the phone from his hip, which all his instincts tried to block, but his form was thick and lifeless, unable to respond. Her voice was amused, “You’re a hard one to put under.” Then her hands were on his throat and chest again. The last words he heard were “Return to the night.”
When he woke in the morning, he felt a similar hand against the back of his neck. He startled to his feet taking in the scene around him. Remy was sitting on the edge of the bed looking wrecked, and also in the room were Sable’s four sisters. Two were humming and Amele reached for him again, her alluring voice asking him to sit back down, but the General was having none of it. He knocked Amele’s arm away and shouted them out, “Every last cursed one of you out,” until it was just he and the King.
He pulled a chair to sit under the vacant face of Remy and started to talk him back to life. “You and I have been places, my friend, but no place like last night. It’s over. The sun is rising. I need you back out here with me.” Remy’s eyes focused. He might have yawned, but the threat of pain stopped him.
Lucas kept talking to him. When Remy appeared as alert as his injuries would permit, Berringer asked, “Where is Sable?”
“I’ve asked her to bring back Lieutenant Fallon.”
“On her own? You sent her without guards or protection?”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t do that.” But he was too tired and confused to know.
Before the General could speak again, the door to the room was pushed hurriedly open by a red-haired rogue he had never seen. He ordered her down, immediately moving to drop her, but she spun from his reach.
Still staring absently ahead at the wall, Remy said, “Lucas, relax, that’s Sable.”
She backed away from the gun he had drawn, pressing her hands against the air to pacify and give space.
The scars in her palms, the wide bracelet on her wrist, then the sticks in her hair had him trying to place her as Sable.
“Are we cool?” It wasn’t Sable’s voice. She tried again, changing the way she held her face, looking more like a nun and saying with careful, refined inflection, “I am going to put on my robe, then everything will be fine.” She reached warily to pull the black fabric from the end of the bed, hiding first her braided hair under the headdress and then concealing the jeans and boots beneath the clergy’s long garments. When she lifted her head, she was Cloitare.
Berringer holstered his sidearm. “You were busy while I slept.” He wanted to accuse her of something that would make him sound crazy.
“You were tired. I had hoped you would sleep longer.” She motioned to Amele who had come to stand in the door that they were leaving.
But Berringer pushed Amele back and shut her out. Blocking Sable’s exit, he said, “Remy, I don’t think you know what is happening.”
Very calmly, still gazing directly ahead, he returned, “Sable is going to get Lieutenant Fallon.”
“And you’re sending her alone?”
“I am perfectly safe.” Her voice was slow and full of breath.
The King met Berringer’s eyes, convinced with what he was saying, “She is perfectly safe and capable, Lucas.”
“Remy,” Berringer commanded his attention with his military voice. “You would not send her. And never without guards. You would not do that.”
The whole time Sable was sliding her steps over to the King, countering with a smooth insistence, “I am perfectly safe and capable in the world that was my own.”
“You’re right.” Remy drew his brows together in confusion. “I would not do that.”
Berringer noticed Sable was looking between the two of them, vacillating between still beguiling the King or coming down on him like a hammer to knock him back into the night. While she incessantly coaxed, he tried to ride over her. “Tell me now you’re not letting her go.”
But she was persuasive. “The night knows no worries. Tell the General to stand aside.”
Remy was starting to hurt. He felt where his ribs had been separated. He felt the tears through his back radiating fire into his chest, and this talk was ripping at his lungs. He squinted against the threat he might cough, the muscles contracting and promising more pain. Sable and Lucas were now scuffling to reach him, which further hurt his head. He heard Sable rumble the angry words, “Obscuring darkness!” and push through to place her hands against his face while Berringer stumbled to a knee.
“I’m so sorry, this is too much.” She kissed his cheek. “Please forgive me. You need to lie down.”
He felt her exhale, giving him not power but heat and comfort. She was trying to lead him into the softness of the bed. “You will be careful,” he told her.
“You can’t send her alone.” Lucas’s voice was outraged.
“No, of course not, you’ll go with her.” Remy felt Sable harden in his hands.
While Berringer gripped the railings of the bed but was still unable to pull himself up, Sable became more insistent, “Go to sleep.”
“Sable,” he held her hard to keep from falling where she pushed, and she knew Remy was talking through, “promise me you won’t hurt anyone.”
“It is all going to be fine.” She was entrancing. “The night is long; you want to embrace it.”
But despite her enchanting assurances, he was still coming up. “Promise me you won’t kill anyone.”
She again began to form the deflection that would mollify, but he was hurt and she had to be gentle. “The darkness protects,” she began when Remy pushed further through, clearly seeing, “This is a bad idea.”
Before she lost him completely, she made the concession, “I promise. I promise to hurt no one. Now stop fighting.” And he did. One hand on his chest, one wrapped around his neck, she lowered him into peace. “I will do what you say, but you must go back into the night.”
~~~~~~
Through the hours of darkness, Catherine had watched Sable turn into the elusive Guard Dog. It started with a call to her sisters to gather supplies that had been collecting in the sisters’ room, concealed from the General’s inspection. Sable talked Amele through the cabinets and wardrobes, requesting phones, SIM cards, electronics, tools, clothes, hair dye and sticks, then boldly, as the Queen, she arranged to have the sisters brought to her by helicopter. Catherine had not helped, but she certainly did not interfere because Sable had agreed to deliver her contacts for Catherine to use as spies.
When the sun began to rise, Catherine was still observing from the edge of activity. She saw the five nuns sweeping fast through the long corridor of the base’s main building with the General in pursuit. Berringer had stopped to hold the wall, looking for several moments like he might retch, and this delay left him a good length behind. He tried to jog to catch up, but again had to stop and gain his balance, huffing from his gut like he was trying to expel toxic fumes from his lungs.
Outside, Sable paused to look over the airfield. She was shaking her head, displeased with what was on display: jets, transports, helicopters, all modern military aircraft she didn’t know how to fly.
Catherine followed loosely behind the General while Sable questioned a soldier on the field. The nuns were off again, going where they had been pointed to a small passenger plane beside the storage hangars so far out it was barely visible from where they stood.
Berringer quickened to a steady jog. When Sable heard her name shouted, she took a shoulder bag from Amele and started to run while the four sisters turned to confront the General.
The feint and dodge across the tarmac with the nuns was the most absurd thing Catherine had ever seen. She couldn’t understand why Berringer was set on avoiding getting close when he could easily swipe aside every sister in the group. Before they could surround him, he sprinted wide into the grass, forcing them to lift their robes and give chase if they hoped to delay him.
Catherine wasn’t important to the sisters, so she jogged straight in line with Sable who was pulling open the hangar door to grab batteries off the floor. Looking back to see the General cut ahead, Sable knew she had no time for steps or ladders. She tossed her bag and the batteries high onto the wing.
The General was impressively faster than the sisters and they soon billowed behind, calling words into the wind. Sable was under the plane hurriedly unblocking the wheels when he got his feet back on the pavement.
Not yet upon them, Catherine heard Berringer yell, “You’re not leaving,” but Sable was already climbing through the blades to swing herself onto the wing. The General had no alternative except to jump and grab a handful of her robes, then quickly, before she had a chance to shed it, he sharply snapped the material to yank her down.
She was slipping, one foot sliding along the blade, spinning it around, her fingers losing grip on the smooth metal casing. She abandoned the intended escape to pivot and jump to the ground.
The General was ready. He had seen Sable in the Basilica repel the mothers with her rage. She came up purring about the darkness, but he was already shouting her down. His fear and anger were real, afraid she was about to put him face first on the tarmac when she got her hand around his throat.
“The night returns,” and his peripheral vision went dark before he knocked her off.
The scene was utterly surreal. Catherine found herself stepping away to distance herself from any part of it. Sable appeared to be thrashing in too much fabric, but her voice was sultry calm, and the General was casually blocking and restraining while loudly raging, demanding silence from the nun who was also queen.
Unable to maneuver in the confinement, Sable was trying to get separation, so the General kept her close. Because she was not out to kill him but subdue him, Berringer’s greatest concern was the hypnotic somnolence of her voice. He released his grip just enough for her to spin but held the belt so the slipknot dropped from her waist.
“Darkness is all around,” her words were compelling, turning the morning into night. She reached back to get her hands against his pulse.
The General could hardly see her, but he knew how she would try to evade an attempt to catch her wrists. She flipped with the expected pressure and when she did, he wrapped the belt around her throat and pulled her back.
“Black—” was all she managed and all he saw before he tightened the band to stop her speaking.
To keep her from landing the heel of her boot in his leg, he kept them spinning in the dark, but still he could feel her stretching to get behind at his face, looking for any purchase to stop the choke. He forced her forward, but she used the space to wrap her hands through his and cartwheel to face him, ready to thrust a knee in his groin.
Blocking her kick, forcing her around, he heard Catherine’s worried voice warning, “That may be a bit excessive,” and then, “That definitely is.”
But all around another wail was rising, threatening malice he couldn’t see. He jerked the belt taut and ordered, “Tell them to stop.”
The force of Sable nodding yes tugged against his hands, but when he gave her a chance to speak, the word she formed again was “Black—.” He stopped her short, yanking tight, but the sisters finished for her, saying, “Blackness falls.”
It fell hard, driving him down with its own strangling force. He pulled them both to their knees.
Catherine felt it, too. She meant to shove a sister aside, saying, “Whatever is happening, it ends now,” but the aggression finished in a slur. Drunken weakness collapsed her into the nun. Grappling down the length of the clergy’s raiment, Cath
erine thought the pitch black in front of her eyes was merely Cloitare robes.
But Berringer knew he was blind. Vertigo made him reel, but he could also feel Sable clawing at her neck, so the General extended a final warning, “One more chance to call them off.”
She stopped fighting and was instead waving up currents of air, signaling the sisters to halt their rumbling speech.
When they were silent, he could barely find his voice. Heaving for the air that Sable also wanted, he asked, “Do we have to keep doing this?”
Sable shook her head no, emphatically no, so he would understand what he couldn’t see.
The slight release left her gasping for air while prying at the belt to let the blood flow evenly through her veins.
For the moment, she was quiet, so the General curbed his rage. “This has been interesting, Sable, but now I would like to see.”
When sound broke from her mouth, he cinched the belt, not willing to risk where her words would send him. Sable snapped her fingers in one direction so Amele answered from the position, “Your vision will return soon.”
“Soon, Ok. Well, until it does, you and I, Sable, are going to remain here and you’re going to tell your sisters to shove off.”
Sable swayed with the vigorous assertion they should disappear. He barely heard the movement of their feet across the asphalt, and when he looked to where they should be walking, he saw nothing in the dark.
Moments later, Catherine, confused, trying to stand but staggering and close to sick, slurred the question, “Oh, Sable, what did you just do?”
Berringer asked Girard, “Can you make out the sisters?”
“I think they’re waiting just beyond where I can see.”
“Send them into the main building, Sable.” Light was gathering in a dim circle before him so he could perceive the outline of her pointing to where he said. Shadows laid heavy at the perimeter, preventing him from confirming where the sisters went, but Sable’s physical defeat was apparent. Still feeling the belt ready around her neck, Sable gave up and sat back on her feet.
Sister Sable (The Mad Queen Book 1) Page 23
