by Zen DiPietro
Two shouts of surprise morphed into aggression almost in unison. A man grabbed a mace and a short sword with the vigor of long experience and crossed the space between them. He swung the mace over his head and almost simultaneously thrust the sword up at her heart. Kassimeigh neatly ducked one and sidestepped the other with minimal movement. Then she stepped in and ran her sword clean through the guy’s chest, pivoting to keep his body between her and the woman as his look of shock faded quickly into bland emptiness.
The dead man began to crumple, dragging her sword downward. She planted her foot in his chest and freed her blade. The entire exchange took less than half a minute.
As soon as the man’s body fell out of the way, the woman’s hand flicked out and a knife, no, three knives flew at Kassimeigh. Quite impressive, actually, as Kassimeigh only saw one hand movement. This one must be a trained blade. Maybe the first one had been, too, but she hadn’t known him long enough to find out. She didn’t mind.
Kassimeigh spun away, leaving the knives to clatter against the back wall. She brought her sword up in front of her to deflect any additional knives. But it appeared the knife supply had run out, as the woman retrieved the fallen man’s short sword and strafed slowly across the floor. With a yell, the woman burst forth with a twisting jump and sliced at Kassimeigh. The former shiv knocked the short sword aside and stepped forward instead of back. Overpowered, the woman stepped backward and her heel slipped as she stumbled over her fallen comrade. She cried out as she fell backward and Kassimeigh followed her. Reversing her sword, Kassimeigh brought the heavy hilt down and cracked the woman on the head. She’d be asleep a good long while.
With the room cleared of distractions, Kassimeigh climbed the staircase. Her feet made no sound, but surely whoever was upstairs had heard the ruckus and knew they were about to receive company. Even if they hadn’t, the manahi should have sensed her mana signature and known that trouble was on the way.
She certainly had no difficulty perceiving the weak mana signature that was a perfect match for the one outside Trent the bowyer’s shop. She should probably be glad that the abductors had used mana to grab Arc, as the lingering effect had made it possible for her to find them in a fairly short amount of time. Somehow, the gratitude didn’t come. Didn’t mitigate her desire to mash that manahi into a puddle of goo.
She pressed her back to the wall and checked around the corner, but the hallway was empty. She crept along, then pushed off and kicked open the first door. A bedroom. Empty. She kicked in the next door. Washroom. Also empty. When she kicked in the third door, a tingly wave of mana brushed against her. Her skin burned hot for an instant, but she easily neutralized it and released the mana. She wasn’t sure what the manahi had tried to do, but it hadn’t increased her affection for him in the least.
She harnessed a wide expanse of mana and pushed it down into a tiny ball inside her, ready and waiting. She narrowed her eyes and stepped into the room. Arc sat tied to a chair and sporting a black eye. His right arm hung at a strange angle. He looked pale, but his eyes sparked when he saw her, and he sat up straighter, as if energized.
She turned her attention to the manahi who’d caused all the trouble. A very average-looking, middle-aged man pressed back into a corner. She cast a thought toward Arc’s bonds, and they dissolved. He immediately stood and launched himself at the manahi, landing a solid punch to the face that snapped the guy’s neck back and made his eyes roll up.
“Nice one. Left-handed, too.” With Arc now safe, she could indulge in a small joke she knew he’d appreciate in spite of the circumstances. In fact, he could probably use a joke now more than ever.
With him standing there, alive and breathing, she could resist the urge to do something unspeakably nasty to the unconscious manahi. Later, she could entertain herself with all of the things she could have done to the guy.
“Thanks. The right one’s not much good right now.” He waved his left hand at his sad, broken right arm and mustered a weak smile.
She crossed the room and embraced him, careful not to touch his broken arm. He put his left one around her and held her close.
“What took you so long?” he asked. “We’ve been here a whole twenty minutes.”
She wanted to laugh but couldn’t. She gave him a weak smile instead. “Sorry. Best I could do.”
“I’ll expect better next time. You can fly, after all.”
“I promise. Let me see that arm.” She touched it with gently probing fingers. “Sorry. I’m not a doctor. I can’t make it whole like Azure can but we can’t leave it like this. We still have work to do.”
“Whatever you need to do,” he agreed. “I’m not much good to us this way.”
“It’s going to hurt,” she warned. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Oh, great,” he said with a weak laugh. “That makes me feel a lot better.”
She gave him a sad, sympathetic smile and had him sit in the chair again before she put her hands on his shoulder and upper arm.
Arc mostly managed to muffle the groans of pain as she concentrated on reknitting the bone. Sweat broke out on her forehead. Transmuting bone felt nothing like transmuting inanimate objects, and she hoped she’d never have reason to try it again. She only hoped she didn’t cause irreparable damage.
“I have to stop there.” She dropped her hands to her sides. Arc gingerly bent his elbow and tried an experimental roll of his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “We’ll have a doctor give you a real healing as soon as possible. I’m pretty sure you have soft tissue damage, but I don’t dare touch that. You should be able to use the arm if you’re careful, but it’s going to hurt like crazy.”
While he tested out the arm, she added, “I saw your bow and quiver downstairs. You’re in no shape to use them, but we can secure them to the kite.”
“No, I want them. My arm’s much better now.” He gave her a reassuring smile.
She shook her head. She just couldn’t smile back. There were too many what-ifs in her head.
“It’s okay. I’m fine. We’ll talk about everything later. Right now, let’s deal with what we have here.”
She yanked her center into place and let out a breath. “Right. There’s this one . . .” she jerked a thumb at the unconscious manahi, “. . . and the woman downstairs. The man had a fatal encounter with a pointy object. Then three deaders outside.”
“Can’t say I’m heartbroken about the man downstairs. He’s the one that broke the arm.”
“Good. Glad I killed him, then.”
Arc looked bemused. “I’d think you were joking, except somehow I suspect you aren’t. Not completely, anyway.” When she shrugged, he did too. She’d been a justice and had dutifully meted out deadly punishment many times before. That guy probably would have gotten a death sentence anyway, if he’d lived long enough to have an adjudication. “Guess it doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll drag this one downstairs with the other.” She grabbed a manahi foot and pulled.
“Couldn’t you just float him down with mana?”
“I could.”
Dragging the manahi down the stairs the hard way proved far more satisfying. If his head bounced around now and then, well, too bad. He was still alive, which was better than he deserved.
After she and Arc shoved him and the woman against the wall into a sitting position, she secured them that way with a bit of mana. With that done, she went outside and checked the perimeter around the house. Satisfied that there were no other people to worry about, she secured all entrances to the house with mana, then focused on the task ahead of them.
“When those two wake up, we’ll see what they have to say. Did you hear anything about their intentions? Or about the bombing?”
“What bombing?”
“They bombed the monorail the Guard was on. We lost three. I’ll tell you the rest later. Did you hear anything?”
Arc’s eyes drifted toward the ceiling and he rubbed at his goatee. “No
. The manahi bound me up as soon as I stepped out of the bowyer’s and into the street. I couldn’t move, couldn’t yell. They dropped my hand comm so I couldn’t be tracked, and the big one punched me. I woke up in a cart, tried to fight my way out, and ended up with a broken arm. They were kinda pissed at me and didn’t say much.”
“We’ll just wait for them to tell us, then. Shouldn’t take much longer for them to come around. I can give them a nudge if I need to.”
“Why didn’t you use mana to get into the house? You didn’t have to do any hand-to-hand fighting.”
“I don’t often get to engage in real swordplay these days. I don’t want to get rusty.” At his skeptical look, she shrugged. “Fine. Given the choice between zapping them with a mana bolt and stabbing them with a sword, I really preferred to stab them.”
“Fair enough. I’m pretty glad I got to punch that manahi.”
“Exactly. Now, I’m going to let Ina and Luc know that you’re safe, and . . .” She blinked. “I’m not a justice. They need to send one. Punishment and interrogation is not my jurisdiction.” Dressed in black as she was, with her hair loose, she’d momentarily forgotten about her change in circumstances. For a few minutes there, she’d been a justice again, at least in her mind.
Arc blinked too. “Right. But what about them?” He gestured at their captives.
“When a potentially dangerous manahi is in custody, a more powerful manahi is usually dispatched to work with the justice. I suppose Luc will see to that. Though, if they wake up while you and I are still in charge of them, I’ll have to keep him in check.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not for me. But he won’t like it.” She nodded toward the unconscious manahi.
Arc sat on a couch and closed his eyes while she rang in to Ina. He didn’t complain, but she knew he was exhausted. Ina answered the comm almost immediately.
“I’ve got him,” Kassimeigh announced without preamble. “He’s okay.”
Relief poured over Ina’s face, as well as Luc’s. She engaged in a brief conversation with them, agreed on strategy, and logged off.
“You probably heard.” She took a seat next to Arc and he lifted his head. “But Ina’s going to send a justice and a manahi, who will probably take an hour or more to get here. Meantime, she’s given me permission to handle the interrogation until they show up.”
“Right. Why the rush? I missed that part while I was . . . resting.” She knew his arm hurt much worse than he was letting on, but she wouldn’t dishonor him by saying so.
“Because there has to be more to this plan than six people and a farmhouse. So.” She turned to their two captives and focused her attention on them. Arc leaned forward in his chair. He’d seen Kassimeigh adjudicate when she was a justice, but he’d never seen her interrogate. She could tell that he didn’t intend to miss a thing.
The two unconscious people jolted as if they’d received an electrical shock. Their heads snapped up and their eyes opened.
“Oh, good. That worked.” Kassimeigh stood directly in front of them. “Now, you’re going to tell me what your plan for Arc was. Every detail.”
They barely paid attention to her as they struggled against invisible bonds. It didn’t take long for them to realize that they were bound with mana, and their faces tightened with understanding. They were at her mercy. The manahi, she knew, could sense the magnitude of her ability and would be unlikely to try anything stupid. She kind of wished he would. She felt an unfamiliar sense of savagery and defiance radiating upward from the spine in her lower back. She set her jaw against it.
“You.” Kassimeigh pointed a finger at the woman as if it were a weapon. “Where are the others?”
“There aren’t any others. Just us.”
“Lie.” Kassimeigh stepped forward and punched the woman in the eye. She’d have liked to do it a few more times, but checked the impulse. She’d follow shiv protocol exactly, and in so doing she’d ensure that she’d have nothing to regret later. She’d also protect Ina’s reputation. If she indulged her desires, Ina would pay for it, both politically and personally.
She turned to the manahi. “Your turn. Where are the others?”
The man licked his lips and looked at the woman, whose eye was already darkening and puffing up.
“I’m . . . not sure.”
“Another lie.” Kassimeigh wouldn’t mind decking the guy, too. Actually, it would feel pretty good. But she didn’t have time to waste and needed to get her answers before the justice arrived. Once that happened, Ina’s direction would become moot and the genuine justice would gain jurisdiction.
“As much as I’d enjoy mashing both of you to a pulp, I just don’t have the time. So let’s skip to the end, shall we?”
Kassimeigh’s attention shifted to the kitchen, where a huge, green-husked melon sat on the counter. She enveloped it in a blanket of mana and floated it easily across the room and before the two captives. She guessed the oblong fruit weighed fifteen pounds, by the feel of it.
“See the melon?” she asked as if teaching a classroom of grade-schoolers. She indicated the fruit while keeping her eyes on her captives. The melon exploded with a loud, wet pop. Chunks of rind and lurid red pulp buffeted the pair, who cringed and sputtered under the fruity onslaught. “No more melon,” Kassimeigh concluded with unnecessary helpfulness.
“So I’m all out of fruit,” she observed. “Let’s make good decisions. I just need to know where the rest of the terrorists are.”
“The border to Sub-Apex,” the woman blurted. “An old mining town called Habith. There’s an abandoned mine. We were told to take him there. All members of the movement were to meet in Habith. We stopped here for the night so we wouldn’t be on the road when he was reported missing.” The woman squinted her eye, which was swelling shut. “No one was supposed to notice he was missing for a while yet. You got to us too fast.”
“Good thing for you,” Kassimeigh noted blandly. “If he’d been in worse shape, we wouldn’t be having this civilized conversation. See, I used to be a justice. And now, I’m not. So I have all the skills and none of the rules. I also have the added benefits of mana. So. I’m going to ask just once: Are you two terrorists, or just seriously misguided mercenaries?”
“I was hired!” the manahi shouted, cringing. “They told me it would be easy, and quick. I have bills to pay.”
“You used mana to abduct and abuse someone for money? You’re lucky I’m not a justice. If I were adjudicating you, I’d make sure you could never use mana again. Though I’m not sure you’ll fare any better, once the justice gets to you.” She looked at the woman. “And you? Hired blade or impassioned idiot?”
The woman stared at the floor. “Some of both,” she mumbled.
“Fine,” Kassimeigh snapped. “What was the ultimate plan? What was Arc’s abduction going to get you?”
“To force the Council to eradicate the mana bugs.”
“And if the Council had? You would have released Arc?”
The woman shrugged. “If he was still alive by that point. That wasn’t a priority.”
A geyser of hot fury shot from Kassimeigh’s toes to her fingertips, heating her entire body. It made her feel vicious in a way she’d never felt before.
She used the viciousness against itself, ruthlessly refusing to let it guide her actions. She felt as if there were two parts of her: the part that could destroy this person with a single thought, and the part that was too disciplined to be so weak and impulsive. She gritted her teeth.
She clicked together pieces of information, trying to solve the puzzle of the terrorists’ actions. If-then scenarios streamed through her consciousness as she determined what to do next.
“What do you know about the bombing?”
They both shook their heads, and Kassimeigh recognized genuine ignorance in their eyes. Fortunate for them that they’d been left out of that plan. Perhaps they would live to learn from their mistakes.
“How many terrorists
are there?”
The woman shrugged and glared at the manahi sitting beside her. When he remained silent, she grudgingly answered, “A hundred or so. We lost most of our people after that town hall broadcast. We knew we needed to do something big and dramatic before we lost all of our support. We needed to get the attention back.”
Kassimeigh bit back a dozen different replies. There was no point in arguing reason with these people. Some people choose to believe a lie, simply because it seems more attractive or more interesting than the truth. Stupid people make stupid decisions. No amount of logic can change their minds.
A wave of disgust rushed over her, but she stepped away from the pair. The justice would deal with them. She checked her hand comm and noted an expected arrival time. She felt a frisson of relief, knowing that soon, the fate of these two would rest in someone else’s hands.
She had much bigger things ahead.
The justice turned out to be one she knew fairly well. As soon as Kassimeigh explained the facts to him, she and Arc were on the kite, soaring toward Habith. A small ping of delinquency plagued her, as if she were playing hooky from her duties. But dealing with the manahi and the mercenary weren’t her duties—they were somebody else’s. That left her free to do the things that only she could.
She made no sonic booms on this trip, but she employed as much speed as she felt Arc could handle. She even let him in on the wonders of mana tethers to soften the stresses of high-speed travel. It seemed the least she could do to ease his hurts.
“So how long ago did you figure out you could make the ride easier?” he asked.
“Oh. It’s been evolving since I started flying,” she answered vaguely.
“So a while, then.”
She cast him a sideways look and smiled in response.
“We’ll be talking about that later.”
The terrorists in Habith didn’t expect their cohorts to deliver Arc for another two days. That meant that Arc and Kassimeigh would arrive long before they suspected anything amiss.
