by C. G. Hatton
“I must admit I didn’t anticipate the full consequences. Didn’t appreciate the extent to which a mere mortal would try to help you. I liked her. You handled that very well, by the way. But yes, you signed your own death warrant. The Chief would have been most puzzled when his little trap showed that it was you who sent out the message that you were headed to Tortuga. I wish I could have seen his face.”
“Was it you that tampered with the drones?”
The boy laughed. “No. I’m good but my time has always been limited. No, credit for the masterstroke with the drones goes to the Assassins. Most impressive how they got access to your precious cruiser. Pity they underestimated the strength of the poison they needed.” He frowned again. Dark. Petulant. “I wanted my body back, Nikolai, and see what you’ve done to it.”
The pain started to creep back, a pulsing, agonising heat deep in his chest overpowering every other wound. It vanished as quickly as it started.
NG stared at this young boy who was him, not sure if what he was feeling was his own emotions or Sebastian’s.
“You had control,” he said. “In the alley on Redgate, at Arturo’s place. You had control. Why did you give it up?”
“Trust me when I say I didn’t. Not willingly. It irks me to say it, but you’ve always been too strong in that regard.” Sebastian leaned against the bars. “But you don’t have what it takes to destroy these creatures. Let me out. Let me finish this.”
“I told you, I’m not keeping you in.”
“Oh, but you are. I’ve been working hard for a long time, Nikolai, very hard to break the bonds the Man put in place and to stay hidden from him while I did it. But since you and your irritating little protégé combined to lock me in here, it’s been so much more difficult. I’ve had to wait to do what I want.”
“Until I’m asleep.”
The child shrugged. “I’ve been able to play to an extent. It has been most amusing. But Nikolai, we’re at end game here. Free me.”
NG rested his hand against the sealed door frame. He could feel the individual molecules of the metal buzzing. Knew then that he could scatter them at will. Knew also that if he opened it, he’d be freeing Sebastian forever.
“You’re not the most powerful piece on the board, Nikolai. I am. And I do not believe in noble sacrifice. Set me free.”
He lingered, taking warmth from the sun-baked metal and drawing it deep into himself, before looking Sebastian in the eye. “I don’t know what’s the greater evil to unleash on humanity – them or you.”
The child that was himself smiled.
He made a decision and stood. Backed away. And watched as the cage door swung open.
The cold and noise and pain crashed back into his reality with a fury. For a split second, his eyes met those gleaming orange eyes of the alien killing him. Rain beat down on them, lightning crashed and the knife twisted in his heart.
He was done. Too much to heal, too much blood loss too fast. The muscles of his heart were tearing, sliced apart, arteries cut. Poison was coursing into his bloodstream from the talons digging into his throat. He felt himself going into shock, gasping, sinking. He couldn’t breathe. He grasped at the Bhenykhn’s thick ropy wrist with his left hand, the right refusing to move, no strength in his grip, the alien commander smirking as it forced the jagged knife deeper.
There was nothing he could do.
A cold, numb darkness beckoned.
He fought against it. Fought the edge of panic that this was it. He’d never been beaten. Never backed down. Never failed. At anything.
He closed his eyes and conceded control.
Sebastian blinked, nose to nose with orange eyes, and breathing in the stench of alien sweat.
“I hate pain,” he yelled at it, turned his face up into the rain, and laughed. He’d forgotten how bad this could be. He snatched his right hand up, ignoring the shooting pain that fired up his arm, and grabbed the alien’s other wrist. He didn’t need the contact but it made the whole thing so much more dramatic. The connection he made sparked as if charged with electricity and he fed, using the energy to block the pain, feeling Nikolai relax as the agony eased and the dark void was pushed back with the onrush of power.
He smiled, his most charming smile, looking right into the shocked face of the alien as it realised the change in this small being it thought it had crushed.
“Now listen to me,” he said to it. “For starters, let’s get this knife out of my chest.” It was easy. He’d forgotten how exhilarating it was to wield such dominance. To have such an opponent to conquer. The knife shifted, the arm with it even though the muscles in that massive arm were straining against him.
“You cannot stand against me,” he said incredulously as if affronted that it might dare to resist. He was still smiling. “Do you not understand that yet?”
The knife pulled out and he healed the wound with insane speed.
He felt Nikolai calm again, deep inside, as his heart started beating, nice and regular, strong, intact.
Sebastian laughed again.
‘Nikolai, you worry too much. Have you learned nothing? We are invincible, immortal, enjoy it.’
‘They’re still killing us, Sebastian,’ Nikolai thought, still tense, more tense now that he could see past the excruciating pain to see the trouble his people were in.
He liked Nikolai, he decided suddenly. Now that he was free, he could afford the luxury of looking back with such insane fondness. Nikolai hadn’t been such a bad jailor. Entertaining at times. And for all that he was squeaky clean and so caring, he had a dark mischievous side to him that had made life interesting. It had been fascinating to watch the relationships the boy nurtured so tenderly, relationships he could never tolerate himself. Saying that, he truly did regret what had happened to Devon. She’d been fun. While she lasted.
He looked around. The battle was still raging around them, yelling, screams, gunfire and the clash of metal on armour. It was invigorating.
Martinez, dear Martinez, was down. The little bastard Anderton was sprawled in the mud, out cold, with a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, bleeding his life away. See how the damned virus fared with that. The big man, Duncan, was fighting hand to hand with one of the grunts, machetes clashing, fists flying, dirty, desperate combat, the kind they never taught you in the military, the kind you had to learn the hard way out in the field or on the streets. Compared to the giant alien, the big ex-marine looked tiny but he was holding his own rather impressively, bleeding, but still fighting.
Nikolai was fretting. Thinking he’d made a mistake bringing them all out here.
‘You had no choice,’ Sebastian murmured. ‘The Bhenykhn were never going to let you go. Not once they saw what we are capable of. Now relax and watch. Learn. This is going to be fun.’
He had the Bhenykhn commander incapacitated, immobile.
He couldn’t help smirking.
He pulled more energy from it until it sagged, little trouble in manipulating it to set him back on the ground and release its grip around his throat. He got his balance, healing the knee enough so he could put his weight on it, a shooting stab of pain in his other thigh demanding more urgent attention. The poisoned tip of the crossbow bolt was grinding against the femur. That was just irritating.
‘Careless, Nikolai, careless. You should have seen that one coming.’
‘You could have warned me.’
He laughed. ‘I didn’t think then that I’d be feeling the pain myself.’
He sent the bolt flying and healed the wound easily. He flexed the muscles. Injuries aside, he had to admit that Nikolai had always worked hard to keep this body in shape.
‘Sebastian, we don’t have time.’
‘We have all the time in the world, Nikolai. Let’s enjoy the moment.’
He sensed one of the grey cloaks moving towards them. He glanced right and the Bhenykhn flew backwards.
He turned back to the commander and regarded it with curiosity. “Now get on your k
nees.”
It thudded down before him, veins standing out and muscles trembling in the effort to resist.
Sebastian smiled again. He moved his hand, lightning fast, to its throat and linked with the hive in a jolt of intensity that sent Nikolai spinning for cover.
Chapter 41
“How profound that, after all this time, it was Sebastian who turned out to be our last hope.”
The Man stared into the dying embers, watching the last few curls of flame lick around the charred remains of the firewood. “He has learnt much from Nikolai. I just wish they had had more time.”
“What do we do now?”
“What we have always done. Prepare. Wait. What else can we do?”
She set her empty goblet on the table. “And the dramas of this galaxy? Zang? The Order? The Assassins?”
“All pale into insignificance.”
•
The Bhenykhn were ready to launch. Just waiting for the ground force to mop up outside and get back on board. With their prisoners.
“I don’t think so,” Sebastian murmured.
He slowly and deliberately connected with every Bhenykhn soldier outside of the ship.
Each one froze then collapsed, dead long before they hit the ground.
The pop of void buffeted him like a wave.
He felt Nikolai reeling deep inside, overwhelmed. Shocked.
Sebastian laughed, revelling in it, even though the effort of it had left him completely drained, something he’d never admit to Nikolai.
“This is living,” he shouted out loud.
He was keeping the commander alive just enough to maintain the connection, toying with it, letting it know exactly what was happening as its brethren were decimated around it.
The chatter in the depleted hive reached fever pitch as the crew on the ship realised what was happening. He taunted all of them with it. It was exhausting but it was incredible.
He turned his attention to the chief officer on board, taking every detail from their charts and systems, not understanding a fraction of it but throwing it at Nikolai, storing it to process later. He connected with the remaining ranking Bhenykhn, felt a mind that was cold, calculating and ferocious. It could see. Knew they’d been beaten. It was on the verge of giving the command to leave.
‘Stop them,’ Nikolai urged.
‘Stop them? Stop them now? Now that they know what we can do?’
‘Yes. Dammit Sebastian, stop them.’
Nikolai was unnerved by the swirl of darkness, the power he was seeing in its entirety for the first time.
‘Yes, I’m fucking unnerved. Christ, Sebastian, we have to stop them. What are you doing?’
‘I’m doing what needs to be done. And that, Nikolai, my friend, is the fatal flaw in the Man’s plan. Right there.’ Sebastian laughed and in a flash, they were back in that courtyard, the late afternoon sun beating down on them. He knew how much Nikolai hated the cold. He could afford to be so considerate now that he was free and yes, he was toying but why not – one hundred and nineteen years was a really long time to be trapped.
He sat on top of the cage, legs dangling, Nikolai standing there in front of him, shaken, breathing hard, those dark eyes flashing in the low light of the setting sun.
“You don’t get it, do you?” he said intently, leaning forward. “All that preparation. All that nonsense about balance. It means nothing. There is nothing mankind can do against these creatures. They devour. You, Nikolai – I – am the only thing that can stop them. We are a freak of nature, you and I. The Man has been trying to reproduce what we are and he has failed. Do you understand? He has failed. This virus,” he waved a hand casually, dismissive, “this amazing regenerative elixir, that has caused so much avaricious turmoil and tragedy across our galaxy, it is nothing compared to us. Nothing. You see now what I can do? What you can do? This whole drama is nothing to do with Zang or UM or the pathetic Order. It’s about evolution. Survival of the fittest. You and me versus the Devourers.”
Nikolai opened his mouth to speak, to object, but Sebastian banged on the top of the cage. “Be glad you’re not in here.”
He threw them back to the battlefield.
He turned his full attention back to the Bhenykhn chief on board the alien ship, took hold of its mind as if he had hold of its throat and said simply, ‘Know me. Fear me. I will be waiting.’
He disengaged, drawing the last essence of life out of the Bhenykhn commander before discarding the husk.
He stood back then, breathing in the death and horror as he watched the alien ship lift and take off with a deafening roar, the power of its engines sending a blast of super heated air billowing across the battlefield.
‘And that’s how you do it,’ he whispered, dark and mocking. ‘I’m tired, Nikolai. I’ll sleep now. Wake me when they get back.’
Dropping back into his body was like returning home to find it trashed by intruders. NG staggered, the pain hitting hard. He could hardly see, hardly stand, ears resounding with a silence that was deafening and a bone-deep fatigue dragging at every joint and limb.
The Bhenykhn were gone. That incessant buzzing of the hive gone. And they would be back, in force, stronger and armed next time with the knowledge of what they were up against.
He felt hollow. Sick.
He was chilled through and shaking.
He’d failed.
Bodies were strewn across the moorland, a handful of survivors standing stunned by the sudden change or scrambling to help the wounded. He had no idea who was still alive and couldn’t sense anyone as much as he tried. It felt like the pounding rain was too loud for him to think.
Sebastian was gone.
He tried frantically to find him, sense some trace of him but there was nothing.
It was weird. He’d given up control. After all this time, he’d given up. And Sebastian had conceded control back to him in an almost conspiratorial nod to their enforced partnership, willingly standing aside and he had no idea why.
He stood there, struggling to look around, struggling to breathe.
There was a shout behind him. He turned to see Hilyer, staggering up the rise, bleeding and limping. “Hey NG, don’t worry, they won’t get far,” he yelled.
As the kid said it, the entire horizon flashed orange, a false dawn, the light so bright it couldn’t have been anything but a ship exploding at the outermost edge of the atmosphere, darkness descending again fast.
Hil laughed. “How many fucking standings points is that worth then, boss?”
NG stood, blinking rain out of his eyes. “You can have ten.”
The back of his neck started to prickle, a rumbling above that was too close to be thunder. Lights appeared through the cloud.
Dropships coming in fast.
He looked up, squinting. If they had to fight, he was screwed.
“They’re guild,” Hil shouted.
Rescue.
Of sorts.
It was quiet when he limped out onto the deck of the Alsatia, the Chief and Quinn at his side, both in full combat gear, having dropped to the surface with the extraction teams and medical units. It had been a military mobilisation on a scale the guild hadn’t seen in decades. Impressive. It would have been more impressive if it had been two hours earlier.
Evelyn was waiting, high security, with the Watch on full alert and a line of the Man’s elite guards behind her, watching and waiting.
The worst of the wounded had been loaded onto medevac ships and docked straight with Medical. He was missing Martinez more than he’d realised. He’d done everything he could for her and it hadn’t been enough.
Evie wasn’t waiting to give him a briefing the way she always had. Now it was him who was required to report, like a good field operative. She stared at him, dismay in her eyes and a weight in her mind he’d never seen before. “Do you need to go to Medical?” she said.
He was standing there, soaking wet, soaked in blood, one knee bound so tight he couldn’t feel it any
more and one arm incapacitated in a makeshift strapping, the break so bad he couldn’t even move his fingers.
He almost smiled. “Yeah.”
She raised her eyebrows at the admission, the first honest answer she’d ever got from him in response to that question.
He did smile then. “I need to see the Man first.” He knew as soon as he said it that the Man wasn’t on board. That sent an uneasy chill through his stomach, knowing that the Man wasn’t here when his ship and the elite guard were. “He’s not here.”
“No,” she said, glancing behind him at Hilyer and Duncan, seeing the state they were in, wondering where LC was, where Martinez was, if they were okay, and wanting desperately to know what had happened to them all. The Duck was on board so she’d got some of it from Elliott.
She’d find out the rest soon enough.
“His ship is here,” she said, “but the Man’s gone. He left this for you.”
NG stared at the small wooden box she offered, took it with his left hand, gave it a shake and gave it back to her with a shrug. “Open it.”
It wasn’t locked or sealed. She opened the lid and held it out to him. A key lay nestled in folds of red silk. He took it, the ornate metal heavy in his hand. It was fashioned in the same design of twists and knots as the kill tokens of the Bhenykhn.
He glanced at the guards. They were moving into position as if they’d been waiting just for him.
He was beyond tired and he still couldn’t sense anything from Sebastian. He stood there, back on the Alsatia and feeling like an intruder, like he didn’t belong anymore.
He looked down at the key then up into Evelyn’s eyes. “Come with me.”
It was a purely ceremonial gesture of course but the key made a poignant and resounding click as the mechanism shifted. He pushed open the door and entered.
It was hot in there. Dark. He touched a candle as he walked in and it burst into light, another and another. There was a bottle of wine, unopened, resting on the desk. Two goblets and the chessboard, set up with white facing the Man’s chair, an envelope there, propped up against the white king and queen as they stood there so elegantly.
