The Sixth Discipline

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  ***

  Francesca lifted a gown of shimmering silver fabric. It was beautiful, but the neckline dipped almost to the waist, and Ran-Del might object to it. “What do you think?” she asked Nisa.

  Her father’s assistant surveyed the gown from her perch on Francesca’s bed. “The red one looks like a better choice. It would cover everything Ran-Del is going to want covered.”

  Francesca tossed the silver gown onto the bed and took the red two-piece outfit from her closet. She held it up in front of her and looked in the mirror. “Hmmm.”

  “Try it on,” Nisa said.

  Francesca shed her everyday clothes swiftly and pulled on the silky trousers and short, tight-fitting top.

  “Oh!” Nisa said. “I didn’t realize the top was sheer. I can see right through it.”

  Francesca chuckled. “I could wear body paint under it, but I don’t think that would fool Ran-Del.”

  Nisa picked up the silver dress. “Try this one again and we’ll see if we can find something to make it more discreet.”

  Francesca smoothed her hair after she pulled off the red top. She knew she was nervous because of Pop’s warning, and she glanced at Nisa to judge her mood.

  Nisa seemed her usual calm self as she held out the silver gown for Francesca to slip over her head.

  “You and Pop had lunch together, right?” Francesca asked, slipping her arms under the straps.

  “Yes,” Nisa said. “Why?”

  “Nothing really.” Francesca smoothed the silver fabric over her body. The gown was much dressier than the red evening slacks. She would wear this to the party. “I just wondered if you’re coming with us out to Hayden.”

  Nisa stepped back to survey the silver gown. “Not right away. I have a few things to wrap up here—some meetings with customers and a staff meeting. But I’ll come out in a few days when I get everything cleared up. I could use a few days of vacation, too.”

  Had Pop told Nisa it was a vacation? Somehow that fact rocked Francesca even more than the warning itself. “He’ll miss you,” she said, to cover her surprise.

  Nisa arched her brows. “He had better.”

  The com crackled before Francesca could think of a suitable reply. “Miss Francesca?”

  Francesca moved closer to the wall speaker. “Yes?”

  “Citizen Jahanpur just came in the gate,” said a voice. It sounded like Merced. “You asked to be notified.”

  Ran-Del was back early. That would be helpful. “Thank you.”

  After a brief pause Merced’s voice spoke again. “He seems upset about something. He headed for the house at a dead run.”

  “Thank you.” What could be wrong? Francesca tried to think of a problem Ran-Del could have encountered in the city that would make him run back here. He was more likely to charge at trouble than run from it—unless he had attacked someone, maybe killed them. “Where is Pop?” she asked Nisa. “Has he left already?”

  “I don’t think so.” Nisa moved toward the window. “He wanted Toth to go with him, but Toth wasn’t on duty so he had to find someone to switch with him.” She glanced out the window. “His flyter is still on the pad.” She craned her neck toward the front door. “Wow, Ran-Del is really moving.”

  Fear stabbed Francesca. Her father had insisted on having Hiram with him. She couldn’t remember his ever upsetting the duty roster by asking for Hiram when he wasn’t scheduled to work. But Pop had asked this time. And now Ran-Del was alarmed. Francesca slipped on the silver evening sandals that went with the dress. “Let’s go find Pop.”

  Nisa frowned. “Dressed like that?”

  “Why not?” Francesca grabbed a brooch from her jewelry basket and pinned the edges of her low-cut bodice together. “Now it’s decent. Let’s go.”

  They met Ran-Del halfway down the front stairs. “Something is wrong,’ he said at once.

  “What?” Francesca demanded.

  “I don’t know.” He gasped for breath and didn’t even glare at her dress. “I only know something bad is going to happen—soon!”

  Psy sense, her father called it. “We’re going to find Pop.” It occurred to her she should have tried her father’s com, and now she had left her own com in her rooms. “Come on,” she said, lifting her skirts and racing down the rest of the stairs to the front door.

  The compound looked perfectly normal—grass and trees, children playing near the school, a few people going about their business. A woman carrying a small bag toward the security barracks stopped to stare at them. Francesca recognized her as a senior member of the security staff.

  “Quinn!” Francesca shouted to her. “Do you know where my father is?”

  Marina Quinn moved closer. “I expect he’s either on the flyter or still waiting for Toth to pack a bag, Miss Francesca. Toth took my place on escort detail.” She dropped her own bag, pulled a com from her pocket, and tapped a control. “Toth,” she said, “it’s Quinn. Is the Baron with you?”

  Just as her com crackled in response, Francesca saw her father’s flyter lift above the roof line of the security barracks.

  “Yes, we’re just taking off now,” Hiram Toth’s voice said. “What’s up, Quinn?”

  A tremendous thumping noise echoed from the com, at the same time it resounded through the compound. Francesca stared in horror as a hail of sparks rained down from the flyter. A second later the ground shook as the automated mortar batteries on the security towers opened fire. Flashes of light alternated with loud booms.

  The flyter burst into flames, hung in the air for a second, then dropped like a lead weight.

  Francesca’s heart thumped in her chest. She hiked her skirts up around her hips and ran as fast as she could go.

  The door of the barracks opened and people poured out. Alyssa D’Persis shouted orders. A claxon wailed. The automated fire skimmer darted from the hangar, its siren shrieking.

  Time stood still. Francesca stopped running. The inferno on the flyter pad burned so hot she could feel it where she stood. A black column of acrid smoke rose into the air and drifted in the breeze. Francesca sobbed, drew in a deep breath, then coughed as the smoke filled her lungs.

  Pop was dead. He had to be. Nothing could live in that hell of heat and smoke.

  She had to know. She started forward, but hands caught her and pulled her back.

  “Francesca.” It was Ran-Del. His eyes blinked from the smoke, but his grip on her arms stayed firm. “You’re too close. Come back a little.”

  Numbly, she let him pull her back a few paces. The fire skimmer sprayed fountains of water and chemicals. The flames died down quickly, leaving a blackened hulk, piles of ash, bent and twisted metal.

  Pop was dead. Hiram, too. And the pilot and whoever else had been aboard.

  Suddenly cold, Francesca shook herself. Ran-Del put one arm around her. She sobbed a quick convulsive sob, and he folded her into an embrace, holding her tightly against his chest.

  Pop was dead.

  “Get those kids out of here!” Alyssa D’Persis’ voice shouted.

  Francesca pulled away from Ran-Del. The compound was full of people. D’Persis directed her staff and some of the house servants and office workers who stood looking dazed. A few children had run from the school, followed by a teacher, who stopped and stood with her hand over her mouth. The guards kept everyone back; the servants ran to fetch tools. The teacher shooed the children back toward the school.

  Francesca wanted answers. “What happened, Alyssa?”

  The security chief pushed her hair back from her face. “Our security program must have malfunctioned. Our own defense system shot the flyter down.”

  “How could that happen?”

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.” D’Persis strode over to one of the cooks who stood sobbing and rubbing his eyes. She directed the man back to the house to fetch drinking water for the workers.

  Ran-Del put one arm around Francesca and pulled her close. “I need to talk to you.”

  �
�Not now.” Francesca looked around. Even with D’Persis’ directions, people still milled about aimlessly. Marina Quinn had restrained Nisa from getting too close to the fire. Her father’s assistant looked ashen, as if she had painted her face with gray paint.

  “It’s important.” Ran-Del took Francesca’s arm in a tight grip. “Very important.”

  Nisa sank to her knees, sliding through Quinn’s grasp.

  Pop would want her to look after Nisa. “In a moment.” Francesca considered the nearby buildings. The barracks was closest. “Help me get Nisa away from here.”

  Ran-Del let go of her and picked Nisa up in his arms. He followed Francesca up the steps and into the security barracks. As they came in the door, Nisa stirred.

  “I can walk,” she said.

  “I have you,” Ran-Del said. “Rest easy.”

  Francesca surveyed the now-deserted duty room full of benches and desks, and an array of monitors. “Put her on that bench,” she said.

  Ran-Del set his burden down gently.

  Nisa half sat, half leaned against the wall. Tears streamed down her face. “How can you be so calm, Francesca! Stefan is gone!”

  Pop was dead. She knew that. “I have to stay calm.” She started in surprise when she realized someone was behind her.

  Marina Quinn had followed them into the building. “Can I help, Baroness?”

  The title stabbed Francesca in the heart. Pop was gone. She was Baroness Hayden now. “Get Miss Palli some water, please.”

  Quinn disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Francesca!” Ran-Del sounded almost angry. “I have to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  His eyes flickered around the room, glanced at Nisa, then back at Francesca. “I should tell only you.”

  She shouldn’t leave Nisa alone. “It’s all right. You can talk in front of Nisa.”

  He hesitated but finally spoke. “D’Persis lied to you.”

  She frowned, uncomprehending. “What?”

  He stepped closer. “When she said she didn’t know what had happened, D’Persis lied. I could tell easily. Even with the fear and sorrow all around me, her deceit stank like rotting meat.”

  D’Persis had lied? She had said she didn’t know what had happened. If that was a lie—if she did know—then she must have been a part of it.

  Quinn came back with a glass of water that she took to Nisa. “Here you go, Miss Palli.”

  Nisa took the glass but didn’t drink. “Francesca!” Her eyes were huge with distress.

  “Don’t worry, Nisa. I’ll take care of it.” Francesca needed more information. She stepped over to the desk com and buzzed D’Persis’ private code.

  “Yes, Baroness?” D’Persis’ voice said in a few seconds.

  Francesca could hear the claxon in the background. “I’m here in the barracks with Miss Palli. Could you come here right away, please? It’s urgent.”

  “But—”

  “It’s urgent,” Francesca repeated. “Now, please.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “If you don’t need me, Baroness,” Quinn said, “I should get back outside.”

  Francesca raised one hand. “Wait!” She had to think! D’Persis would never have killed Hiram. It couldn’t be true. She looked at Quinn. But Hiram wasn’t supposed to be on the flyter, Quinn was. Pop had made a last minute change. “I do need you, Quinn.” She held out her hand. “Give me your weapon and wait in D’Persis’ office, please.”

  Quinn’s face went blank. “Ma’am?”

  “Quickly!” Francesca stretched her hand out insistently.

  Quinn pulled her shock pistol from the holster on her thigh and handed it to Francesca.

  Francesca took it and waved the guard to the open office door. “Leave the door open so you can hear when I call you, but keep out of sight.”

  Quinn went reluctantly, but she was gone before the front door of the building opened and Alyssa D’Persis stepped inside.

  “What is it, Baroness?” She turned from shutting the door and glanced at the shock pistol in Francesca’s hand. “Has something else happened?”

  “In a way.” Francesca pulled a chair away from the main console and pushed it into the middle of the room so that it faced the security chief’s office. “Have a seat, Alyssa. We need to talk.”

  D’Persis’ eyes went from Francesca to Ran-Del to Nisa, and back to Francesca. “I have things I need to be doing, Baroness.”

  “I know that.” Francesca pulled out another chair and sat down at an angle to the first chair, holding the shock pistol negligently in her lap. “But there are things I need to know.”

  D’Persis strode across the room and sat down, swiveling the chair a little towards Francesca. “What things?”

  “How could we shoot down our own flyter?” Francesca said.

  D’Persis shook her head. “The system is supposed to be foolproof. I can’t think of how it could have been compromised.”

  Francesca let her eyes stray toward Ran-Del, who stood against the far wall with his arms folded across his chest. He shook his head firmly.

  “I don’t believe you, Alyssa,” Francesca said, lifting the pistol. “Would you come out here, Quinn?”

  Marina Quinn came through the office door reluctantly.

  D’Persis’ reaction was immediate. “What the hell are you doing in my office, Quinn?” Her frown deepened. “You were on escort detail today.”

  Instead of answering, Quinn looked at Francesca.

  “Go ahead, Quinn,” Francesca said. “Tell D’Persis why you weren’t on the flyter.”

  Quinn cleared her throat. “Toth asked me to switch shifts. The Baron wanted him to go instead of me.”

  The color drained from D’Persis’ face in an instant. “What?”

  “Hiram is dead,” Francesca said brutally. She wanted Alyssa to suffer, to feel the pain and loss that she was feeling. “Whoever sabotaged that flyter killed him along with my father.”

  D’Persis’ mouth went slack. She slumped in her chair, then bent over as if she were ill.

  “Lock the door, Quinn,” Francesca said.

  The guard moved to the barracks door and secured it.

  Francesca got to her feet. “Why did you do it?”

  D’Persis only moaned.

  “Why did you kill them? Why, Alyssa?”

  D’Persis began to rock back and forth. “Hiram is dead.”

  “You killed him!” Francesca said. “Why?”

  “Hiram! Hiram is dead,” Tears flowed down D’Persis face. “All for nothing. I did it all for nothing.”

  “Why?” Francesca’s voice rose in volume, trying to penetrate D’Persis’ shell of grief. “Why did you sabotage the flyter?”

  “Money.” D’Persis spat the word out. “Enough money so that Hiram and I could go away from here—be alone, without jobs and rank. Enough money to be happy together.”

  “You stupid bitch!” Francesca moved closer. Her finger itched to fire the pistol, but D’Persis might not be able to talk if she were in pain. “Pop respected you, and you betrayed him. Even if Hiram hadn’t died, do you think he would have stayed with you after he found out what you had done?”

  “I had a story ready to account for the money.” She wiped a hand across her face and glared at Francesca. “Who are you to call me names? You always had whatever you wanted. What do you know of hard work and sacrifice?”

  “Who gave you the money?” Francesca aimed her pistol at D’Persis’ stomach.

  “I don’t know.” The words came out with no emotion at all.

  Francesca glanced at Ran-Del. He nodded. This, at least, was the truth.

  “Just a voice on the com,” D’Persis went on, with no inflection at all. “Make sure it was the Baron only, not you. Money was there when it said. The rest to come later. So I did it.”

  “I know.”

  Francesca turned her head in surprise at Nisa’s voice. She had forgotten Nisa was there.

&nb
sp; “I know about hard work and sacrifice,” Nisa said, getting up from her bench. She walked with one arm outstretched, her fist pointing at D’Persis. “I know about loyalty. I know you don’t deserve to live, Alyssa.”

  Francesca had just noticed the silvery tip of a weapon under Nisa’s thumb when a rapid fire series of tiny pops came from Nisa’s hand.

  D’Persis gave a short, strangled cry and slid from her chair clutching her throat. Her heels drummed on the floor and then she lay still.

  Francesca stared down at the body. D’Persis’ throat had burst. Blood spilled from the gaping wound onto the floor. D’Persis lay on her back, limbs sprawled and eyes blank and staring at the ceiling.

  Nisa dropped the weapon and put both hands over her face.

  Francesca took a deep breath. “Quinn, we need to do something with the body. I don’t want anyone to know our security was compromised.”

  The guard nodded. “I’ll take care of it, Baroness—make it look like an outside attack.”

  Francesca set her jaw. She was Baroness Hayden now. This was her dominion. Whatever she said was law, just like it had been for Pop.

  But Pop was dead.

  She swallowed. He had done a lot for her. She owed it to him to make it all worthwhile.

  She glanced around the room, her eyes moving from Alyssa D’Persis’ lifeless form to Nisa, who sat with her face buried in her hands while she sobbed soundlessly, then to Quinn’s alert pose, and finally to Ran-Del’s grave expression.

  Pop had found Ran-Del for her. That was something. Without Ran-Del, she might never have known about Alyssa’s duplicity.

  If she could keep the House of Hayden independent—a thought came to her, burst into her brain full blown. There was one way to keep Hayden out of the cartels. She could make it so unattractive no one would want it.

  “Quinn,” she said, “how would you like to be head of Security?”

  The woman blinked, stood a little straighter, then nodded. “I’d like it fine.”

  “Good.” Francesca nodded at the floor. “As soon as you take care of the body, I want you to contact Baroness Leong. Ask her to come here to meet with me—this afternoon.”

  Quinn cleared her throat. “Do I tell her about the—the Baron’s death?”

  “Yes.” Might as well. It would be all over the city soon enough. And the news would have Elena falling all over herself to take advantage of Pop’s death—if it was news.

  Quinn nodded, took a brief look at the scene and then stepped into Alyssa’s office.

  “What do you plan to do?” Ran-Del asked.

  “First,” Francesca said, “I’m going to ask Elena Leong if she knows anything about the murder.” She gave Ran-Del a stern look and spoke in a way that made it plain she wasn’t making a request. “You’ll let me know if she answers truthfully.”

  He nodded.

  “Then,” Francesca drew a deep breath, “assuming she didn’t murder Pop, I’m going to make Hayden too bitter a pill to swallow.”

  “How?”

  She smiled and was dimly aware that it pained her to do it. “By signing a contract with Leong-Norwalk to sell them everything my House produces at a fixed price.”

  He frowned, his expression even more grave. “How will that help you?”

  He had said you, not us. Still, he would be loyal. Pop had said so. “It helps because anyone who tried to take us over would be stuck with that contract.”

  Nisa lifted her head. “How can you think about business at a time like this?”

  “Because I’m my father’s daughter.” Francesca looked at Ran-Del. “And by the time Elena Leong gets here, I’ll be Ran-Del’s wife.”

  He looked a little pale at the news, but he nodded. “If you wish it, it shall be so.”

  Francesca looked down at her silvery gown, still pinned with her mother’s diamond brooch but streaked with soot and frayed at the hem where she had caught it in her high-heeled sandals. This would be her wedding dress.

  But Pop wouldn’t be there for the wedding.