Her body shook with sobs; the person most like family wanted her to die. “I’m sorry…”
“Shh.” He stooped, intangible fingers brushing over her head. “You have not gone astray, little one. This is not la penitenza.” He smiled. “Mr. Pryce is no longer on the roster. He is out from the shadow of their protection.”
Somewhere in the back of her thought process, the figure of two million credits spun around in a chaotic mess. She was certain he’d mentioned a price that high but found it as scary as the concept of the job. Money like that would get noticed. If not by Division 0, by them.
Her fingers brushed at her throat, remembering the cold metal stunner. Tears stopped, replaced by the calculated calm of a plan. “This is not a good idea, El Tío. Please, hear me out.”
He leaned back, head tilted. “They will give you medals for this, Kate. The man has already killed several other officers. We’re not sure what is driving him, but he’s clearly out of control. My sources tell me he is a wanted man. In an unusual turn of events, the wants and needs of the police are parallel to mine.”
“It’s more than that.” Kate rested her hands in her lap. “I didn’t agree to join Division 0 to run away from you.”
El Tío’s mouth curled into a weak smile. “No? Yet you do not wish to help me. What can these lawmen offer you that I cannot?”
She bowed her head. “I mean no disrespect. I was detained by C-Branch.”
His lips peeled into a thin line. The energy in his mannerisms drained away into the same place the color in his cheeks went. Whatever arrangement the Syndicate had with the National Police Force held no sway over military intelligence.
“David said the police could protect me from them. They’re the people who created me, and they want me back.” She fidgeted. “I did not want to lead them to you. Even if Division 0 can’t protect me forever, whatever happens to me will not affect you.”
He paced back and forth. “Military intelligence…”
“I was scared and alone. You took me in and protected me. I love you like family, even though I had to kill.”
“You never told me it bothered you.”
Kate looked up at him. “It didn’t… then. My loyalties have not changed, but there are some things I just can’t do anymore.” She blinked the last of the tears away from her eyes, struck by a sudden mental image of Althea smiling at her. What did that girl do to me? She ran her hands up and down the sheer sleeves of the robe.
“I would not ask this of you if I had another choice.” He flickered out of existence and reappeared at the door with his back to her a second later. “I never found the time to take a wife, but I would have been proud to have you for a daughter.”
She twisted around to look at him, savoring the feeling of the plush cream-colored carpet between her toes. “What of C-Branch?”
“They do not bother with our business.” He sucked on his Nicohaler, face aglow for three seconds in reflected orange light. “Will you take the job if it is the last I ask of you?”
The disappointment in his voice sounded too much like it would be the last time he saw her alive. “I will always be loyal, but I can’t hide everything from the telepaths. They won’t let me get my hands dirty without consequence.”
“Your arrangement of convenience with the police could wind up serving our purposes. Agreements can be made, even with them.”
Kate stood and glanced at the clock. David would be there any minute to pick her up. She’d never be able to hide her guilt from him. She’d have to hope this Aaron Pryce was as bad as El Tío said and on everyone’s shit list.
“I understand. I’ll do what I can.”
El Tío took one last pull from his Nicohaler; his hologram disintegrated into columns of whirling black and cyan pixels as he hung up. She stared at the last of the tiny black squiggles seeping into the carpet and closed her eyes. Seconds later, an eerie chill passed over her.
Happiness would not be hers for long.
6
The War Within
Mamoru
Sadako lay in the hospital bed, her expression the same peaceful calm it had been since the old man vanished. The local doctor, Ruiz, had been in long enough to perform a cursory examination. Whatever he had seen with her had alarmed him enough to rush out of the room.
Crinkles in the white sheet deepened and faded as she breathed. Mamoru clasped her hand, his mind swimming with rage at how limp and lifeless she felt. The crash replayed itself in his mind in an endless loop, yet he could not find any explanation for the sudden failure of every critical system. If something had shot them down, he would have felt the impact against the hull. If someone had sabotaged the computer, he would have sensed it happening and overridden it with ease. He had not detected other aircraft close enough to engage. Surely, the military would have been aware of his theft of the shuttle, but they wouldn’t have bothered chasing him into the Badlands; they would’ve waited for him in the west.
Even the orbital particle cannons the government denied having would have been noticeable as a burning lance piercing his body, tactile feedback an often unpleasant side effect of his mental link to machinery. No, the shuttle simply decided to drop dead in the sky. Having no target for his anger frustrated him beyond measure. Someone had tried to kill him, and may yet still succeed at taking his sister’s life, and he could do nothing in the name of vengeance.
As much as he tried to summon sorrow over the life of servitude forced upon her by his failure, his emotion found only the handhold of rage. The NSK had stolen her childhood because he had been weak. Mamoru sighed and bowed his head. The repeating shuttle crash gave way to the memory of trees rushing past as he chased his little sister’s screams.
He stood at her bedside and lifted her arm, touching the back of her hand to his forehead. His thinking mind wanted to shed tears for what had happened to her, but the well held only blood and a need for revenge. Mamoru shuddered, face twisting as hate wrenched his outward calm.
“Stay with me, sister, or I swear upon our father, the entire world shall cry for your suffering.”
Her fingers twitched as if to curl around his, the motion enough to feel but not see. He squeezed her hand with as much care as he could muster, and laid her arm back at her side. The sound of a metal door banging open out in the hall got him to his feet.
“Where?” asked a child.
“Be careful,” replied a deep voice.
Dr. Ruiz’s hard shoes echoed closer. “Room nine.”
“Althea, wait,” yelled a teenaged boy.
Mamoru faced the door at the approaching pap-pap-pap of bare feet on the polished hallway. All the fury swirling in his heart condensed beneath the surface of an outward calm. A wisp of a blonde girl, maybe ten or eleven, rushed into the room and stared at him. Her eyes glowed with an inner light like fireflies, but azure instead of yellow, her irises a deep sapphire. She skidded to a halt two steps in, staring up at him. The look of concern on her face faded to one of worry and then of anger.
The sight of her started a war of awe and discomfort in Mamoru’s heart. All at once, he felt deep respect for this scrawny child and a stark sense that her presence here defied the natural order of the world, as if her mere existence offended the kami. Her eyes narrowed to a distrustful squint and flared brighter for an instant. The inexplicable urge to destroy her slid from his consciousness, a shadow careening back down the well from whence it had climbed. His numbness evaporated; worry flooded into the void, sending him to one knee fighting the urge to weep like the ten-year-old version of himself who could not save his sister.
A sienna-skinned teen in a white shirt and jeans caught himself on the doorjamb as he ran in and stared at him over the girl. “Althea, be careful. We don’t know him.”
The girl moved closer. “The woman is hurt.”
Her simple statement of fact triggered a wave of dizziness that blurred the room. Whatever force had so focused his thoughts toward hatred had receded. Sadako is d
ying. The girl moved past him, a blur of a white dress glided by in his peripheral vision. A massive figure obscured the doorway, too muscled to seem real, watching the girl.
“Help… my sister.” Mamoru’s words came slow and raspy, with the great effort necessary to cloak sadness from his voice.
Dr. Ruiz jockeyed side to side behind the huge man, unable to get into the room. The child scurried to the bed and grasped Sadako’s arm. Mamoru stared at her back and the upwelling of gratitude disintegrated, collapsing to a blind desire to kill. Why do I wish to harm this child? She wants to help Sadako. This makes no sense.
His right hand moved to his katana; his left hand followed, trying to stall it. Sadako. He would not fail his sister again.
“Althea!” shouted the boy, rushing at him.
The aggressive motion allowed reflex to smash his concentration. His blade leapt from the scabbard, a clean stroke aimed right for the girl’s neck. The boy jumped between them, flinging himself into the blade to keep it away from her. The katana cut him across the back from left to right, breaching both lungs. He screamed and collapsed to the floor, his limp legs buckling under him. Red seeped down his shirt, expanding in a puddle.
Mamoru readied another strike at the girl, who still had not reacted, apparently lost in meditation over Sadako. Again, the idea that she helped his sister stalled him. The effort to hold back the Akuryō’s killing urge made him shake where he stood. The huge man charged, roaring like a wounded beast. Instinct brought the katana around, but the giant ignored the blade stabbed into his side. A fist as large as Mamoru’s head smashed into his chest, launching him off his feet into the wall. The strike knocked all the wind from him and cracked a ronin-shaped outline in the cinder blocks.
Dazed and unable to breathe, Mamoru blinked at the katana still protruding from the titan’s breast and fell forward like a plank. Somewhere in the fog reality had become, a little girl’s scream broke the silence.
The big man grunted, and the clatter of metal came from the left. Hands seized Mamoru by the shoulders, hauling him into the air. He punched the giant in the chest, as close to the bleeding wound as he could, but the man disregarded his attack and hurled Mamoru across the room. Before he hit the wall, he concentrated on hardening his body; white energy flames crept down his arms as power coursed through his bones. The throw embedded him in the wall, his body crushing an opening in the cinder blocks deep enough to support his weight.
The giant charged.
This time, Mamoru rolled out of the way, leaving the man to bury his arm up to the elbow in the wall. Dr. Ruiz stared in horror at Mamoru for two seconds and ran out of sight into the hallway. His leap for the discarded katana ended in midair as a meaty hand closed around his shin, and swung him up and over before driving him into the floor. Mamoru weathered the hit with a burst of psionic effort reinforcing his bones.
As soon as Mamoru sat up, a massive fist careened into his face, spreading a spider web of pain around his skull and flooding his senses with a loud crunch. His body crossed the room in under a second, sliding along the floor into the wall. Rage bloomed; his smashed skull crackled and shifted under his skin, mending itself. Mamoru couldn’t tell if his fear came from fighting a man who could crush him with one hand, or from the power of the Akuryō within him.
He rolled away from the monster’s grabbing fingers, getting to his feet as another punch caught him in the middle of the back. Mamoru sailed across the room again, crashing chest-first against the wall. He bounced away, landing on a table and smashing a tiny vase on his way to the floor. The giant sprang, forcing him to roll to avoid it. Mamoru scrambled upright, cringing as ribs knit back together, and circled around behind, using the seconds it took the ogre to find him to alter his power from reinforcing his body to making it stronger.
More flames erupted from his shoulders and spread down his arms, casting the room in wavering shadow. Mamoru caught the man by the wrists, both of them growling as they wrestled and knocked furniture around. The stalemate surprised Mamoru for only a second. No longer hesitating, he released a guttural noise from deep within his throat and twisted. A fleeting memory of the stunned look on Caiden’s face when the boy watched him rip armored doors apart appeared in his mind.
His strength, boosted beyond even that of a cyborg, hauled his opponent off his feet. Mamoru let his movements flow with the weight. In a move half jiu-jitsu throw, half brute force, he tossed the man as hard as he could. The giant crashed through the cinder blocks, raising a cloud of dust and shaking the entire building. Upon a pile of rubble in the next room, the huge man lay dazed and moaning. Strands of pre-war electrical wire dangled from the top of the hole, swaying back and forth.
Mamoru had pushed himself too far. His body throbbed with a dull ache from forehead to toes. He staggered to his sword and struggled to pick it up before whirling about, looking for the girl. She knelt by the wounded teen with both hands on his back. The boy gurgled bloody foam from his lips, staring into space with no consciousness behind his eyes. Her tear-streaked face warped with anger as she let off an unintelligible scream.
Every muscle in his arms twitched and tightened. The undulating ripple crawled up into his shoulders and seized him by the throat. Mamoru wheezed but found himself unable to move to grasp at his neck. Force like that of a titan strangling him cut off his ability to breathe. His arms creaked as his body turned against itself, twisting bones in ways they were not meant to bend. The innocent little girl staring at him had changed. Her visage filled him with dread unlike anything he had ever experienced. Deep inside Mamoru’s head, a roar of terror rang out in a polyphonic voice many octaves too low to come from anything human. He needed to get away from her—it—at any cost, but his legs refused to obey.
Consciousness slipped. Grey hazed the edges of his vision. He felt himself falling and focused his last aware thought toward his sister.
You don’t want to hurt me. A little voice echoed in his mind as the horror crawling under his skin ceased. That is not why you came here.
Mamoru’s vision cleared. The child stood, leaning her weight forward on one leg in a threatening posture he’d have found humorous if not for the undercurrent of dread her presence triggered within him.
Her eyes widened. “You! Why are you inside that man?”
Mamoru raised an arm to shield his face. “Otasuke wo negaitai!” He staggered for the door, dragging his katana. “Please… help.” He crashed into the doorjamb, one arm and his head out in the hallway. It took every ounce of his willpower not to run screaming from the thing staring at him. Why had he tried to kill the person who could help Sadako?
“Sumimasen…” He slipped away from the door, into the hall. “I do not know why I have done this.”
The hospital melted into a haze of running, lights, and shouting men. A sharp crack, perhaps a gunshot, rang out behind him. White fire licked over his back as he forced himself to run faster and faster. Streets and people blurred by. A metal staircase flashed, bright lights streaked overhead, voices shouted, sparks appeared with the ping of bullets glancing off plastisteel. The stairs led to the top of a wall, but he kept going straight. Running became falling. Darkness and starlight filled his vision. He hit the ground boots first and rolled into a somersault back to a run. Dust puffs blew up everywhere, the continuous crackle of gunfire behind him.
Mamoru surrendered to the terror of what dwelled within the city, running blind into the night. Despite the wall surrounding the settlement and every building in between, the creature in the guise of a little girl seemed to stare right at him.
7
Mercy for a Shadow
Althea
Althea scowled at the doorway, her glower softening as Dr. Ruiz pulled himself upright with the help of the doorknob. The stranger had bowled him over on his way out as if he didn’t even see the doctor standing there. Warm blood slicked the ground at her feet. Shouts and gunshots outside faded into the night. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms aroun
d Den.
Her mind linked to his life-shapes and she focused on the great bundle of white roots down the center of his back. The sword severed them around where they passed the heart, turning the tendrils below that dark. Althea had seen raiders suffer similar cuts. Without her help, the wound would have left Den unable to use his legs. She shuddered from the amount of effort it took to force the hairy threads back together, despite the relative smallness of the damage from a thin, sharp blade. The stringy shapes had always been difficult to mend.
Once she finished restoring his ‘back root,’ she turned her attention to the hasty closure of his air bags she’d managed to do while Shepherd fought the outsider. Compared to the backbone, it felt easy. Den moaned and moved while she chased the last of the blood-shape out of his airbags.
“Althea,” he wheezed.
“Amazing,” muttered Dr. Ruiz. “You reconnected his spinal nerve.”
“What?” She looked up at him.
“The police said your abilities represent an enhancement of the body’s normal healing capabilities, but at an order of magnitude faster. Nerves don’t usually regenerate, or if they do, it takes decades.”
“I don’t understand.” Althea pouted.
“It’s not important right now.”
Den rolled over and sat up.
“Can you move your legs?” Dr. Ruiz helped him balance.
“Yeah.” Den wagged his feet back and forth. “What happened?”
Althea draped herself on him and burst into tears. “You saved me.”
Angel Descended (The Awakened Book 6) Page 7
