by S A McClure
“Warning. Unidentified intruders detected. Warning. Warning.”
The phrase continued to repeat. Lumbering from her bed, Amber wrapped a silk kimono around her shoulders and sent a quick message to Morta asking what was going on. When no response came, she pulled on a pair of boots and exited her room.
Red lights flashed, disorienting her as she ambled down the hallway. Half-dead to the world, she bumped into people as they ran in the opposite direction she was heading. They whispered about the blood. So much blood. And death. Her mind couldn’t wrap itself around their words.
She placed a hand against the cold metal of the wall, letting it awaken her just a smidge. The voice from the holograph blared all around her, calmly requesting that everyone take refuge. Ignoring the command, she raced towards the cacophony of screams.
She slipped on the metal floor, her feet sliding out in front of her. She grasped the handrail to keep herself from falling. Thick, still warm liquid coated her feet. It took her a second to realize that it was blood. Crimson stained the walls and was smeared across the floor. Her stomach somersaulted at the sight of it. There was so much—too much—of it.
Not just the hair on her neck rose as she shot around a corner. She’d forgotten her pulser pistol and baton in her room. Stars! She hated her limited capacity to remember things.
Bodies smoldered where they’d been struck down by explosive darts. Gaping holes covered their chest cavities. Some didn’t have heads. Others had flesh so charred they were barely recognizable as human. Her skin crawled at the sight. It didn’t matter who these people were. They didn’t deserve to die like this.
She prayed Morta hadn’t been on the main floor of the casino when—whatever this was—began. Sure, she was angry at her, but she didn’t want her to die. She didn’t want to lose another person who meant something to her.
She lost count of the bodies. Shoving aside the smell of burnt flesh and the shit spray, Amber charged into the main floor of the casino. Every single security guard was pressed into a tight circle. It could only mean one thing: Morta was here.
Several of them pointed their pistols at her as she approached, hands high in the air.
“It’s me,” she called. None of them responded. “Please, Morta. Tell them to let me through.”
One of the guards stepped forward slightly. “Fortuna?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s me!” she sighed in relief. She didn’t know why the rest of them didn’t recognize her. She thought she’d known all the guards employed in the Underworld, but their faces didn’t look familiar.
“She’s been badly wounded. We were ordered to wait here until the medic arrived,” the guard was saying, drawing her attention back to him.
“What do you mean she’s been ‘badly wounded?’” Amber asked. Sweat soaked the small of her back as the image of Morta lying on a table before being incinerated and shot into space filled her mind. The girl’s unseeing dead eyes followed in quick succession. Her brow furrowed and her eyes stung.
Shaking her head, she leaned towards the man and said in a conspiratorial voice, “If you let me see her, I will owe you a favor.” She winked at him for good measure.
To her surprise, he rolled her eyes at her. “I know your tricks, Fortuna. I’ve seen you in action one too many times. Look, if it were up to me, which it’s not, I would let you through to see her. But I’m not. And you’re not the medic. So, I’m going to have to ask you to take your manipulative ways away from here.”
For a second, Amber just stared at the man, her mouth gaping open. And then, anger struck her. “First of all, Mr. Rude, I’m here because these blasted sirens went off. Second of all, Morta would trust me to be by her side if she were mortally wounded. You’re making me think she is, therefore, you will let me pass.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Amber crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him.
The guard opened and shut his mouth several times before finally saying, in his most appreciative voice, “I know you’re only trying to do what’s best for her. I get it. But having you here, when she’s in her weakened state, is something she will not forgive lightly. You know leaving is the best thing to do right now.”
“I don’t know that, actually, but thank you for making me doubt myself. Look. I just want to know she’s okay. And I honestly won’t believe anyone but her. So, you don’t have any other choice but to let me pass.”
“Let her through,” Morta’s strained voice said through the rows of guards. “Let me see her.” She coughed.
Amber shot the guard a look of ‘I told you so’ before slipping past him. Morta’s left eye was completely swollen shut, and a mixture of puss and blood was seeping from a cut on her eyebrow. Dark purple splotches ran across her face like craters on a moon. Muscle pulsed beneath the thin layer of torn skin covering her wounds.
“What happened?” Amber gasped as she dropped to her knees before her.
Morta shuddered as she lifted her chin and met Amber’s gaze. “Clearly, we were attacked.”
“Yes, but by who? And why?”
Wheezing, Morta lifted a slip of paper from the floor. Droplets of red dripped from its corner as she shoved it into Amber’s hand. “Read it,” she murmured.
Amber grasped the paper, her fingers trembling. A part of her already knew what it would say. They had killed Justine LaRue’s nephew. Well, to be fair, Morta had been the one to do it. She had made that choice. And the entirety of the Underworld was being punished for her mistakes.
She scanned the tight, cursive scrawl, and her heart sank. They were the legal owners of Spade, but the LaRues would never be satisfied. Not now. They vowed they wouldn’t stop launching attacks—bloodbaths—on the casino until Morta experienced a loss the way they had.
A life for a life.
Amber crumpled the paper in her fist and glared at Morta. “You did this,” she hissed. “You just couldn’t resist consuming all of what that man bet, could you.”
“You know I warn everyone who enters here to be careful not to gamble away their soul.”
“Yes! I do know that! But did you ever stop to consider most of our guests don’t realize that you’re actually serious about sucking the life out of them?”
Morta coughed again, and a bubble of blood blossomed on her lips. Amber stopped yelling at her, concern overtaking her every thought. She was angry. She was disappointed. She was drained. But mostly, she just wanted things to get better.
“You are still very young, Fortuna. You don’t understand. Not yet.”
She shot to her feet and turned away from her. That was the last nail in the coffin, as far as Amber was concerned. She closed her eyes, the dead girl stared back at her. Clenching her hands tightly, she released a long, slow breath. “I will stay until the deal is officially finalized. After that, I don’t know.”
Morta didn’t try to stop her as she stormed away. The death toll was rising. And Amber was running out of time to stop it.
Amber paced back-and-forth in Morta’s office as she waited for the other woman to arrive. She didn’t know why she was here. Why she had accepted Morta’s invitation to discuss what had happened that morning. The death. The lies.
The future.
Nervously, she fumbled with her bracelet. She kept checking and re-checking for messages. She hadn’t received anything from the mysterious messenger. Although she’d initially believed it was J, now she wasn’t so sure. Full of nervous energy, she paced back and forth across the room.
The office’s door hissed as it slid open, and Morta strode in. Her wounds were almost completely healed. Amber wasn’t surprised. She had a long list of people who ‘owed’ her years of their life. And, each time Morta consumed their energy, she grew not only younger, but also stronger.
“I am so thankful you decided to meet with me, Amber. I know how angry you were this morning,” Morta said as she crossed the room and sank into the chair behind her desk.
“Really? You know how ang
ry I was? I find that hard to believe, Morta, considering you asked me to be here right now.”
Morta met her eyes. There was something there that Amber had never seen before, but she wasn’t sure how to define it. It wasn’t exactly sorrow or frustration. It wasn’t even remorse. But, it did give her pause.
“Why am I here, Morta?” she asked.
“After this morning, I wanted to clear the karma.”
“The karma?”
“You and I have been off kilter since this whole fiasco with Spade began, and I wanted to ensure that we were on the same page,” she responded. She unlocked a tablet and shoved it across the desk towards Amber. “As you can see, I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up an agreement that I think you will find to be quite generous.”
Amber flipped through the pages in the document Morta had pulled up for her review.
“Please tell me this is a joke,” she whispered.
“It’s not.”
Amber glared at her over the top of the tablet. “You’re just like everyone else. Just like my uncle!”
Morta shook her head, her expression impassive. “No, dear, I am nothing like your uncle. If there is anything I learned from this morning’s attack, it is that even I am not immortal. No matter how much I want to believe that I am.” She sighed as she motioned for Amber to sit. “From the moment I plucked you off the streets when you first arrived on Thoth, we have had something more than the typical employer-employee relationship, have we not?”
“Yes, but—”
“—But nothing. You might not believe me, Amber. And, that’s fine. You don’t have to. I have come to view you as more as a daughter than anything else. I want the Underworld, and all its assets, to be yours if anything happens to me.”
“You’re just trying to keep me here.”
“Check the date, Amber. I signed this document months ago. Before we began negotiations with Spade. I’ve told you before that I was grooming you to take over after me. I just didn’t expect to make it official so soon.”
Amber scrolled to the end of the document and looked at the verified timestamp. She was telling the truth. She’d signed the will over six months ago.
“Why me?” she asked. Her fingers went numb as coldness spread through her body. Her mind flipped through all the times she and Morta had been alone over the past few months. It was difficult for her to believe that this was real. That it wasn’t a ploy to trap her.
“I told you. You’ve become like a daughter to me. You should know that I rarely show affection to anyone. As to why you…it’s difficult to say. But, it’s probably because I see a little of myself in you.”
Amber was at a loss for words. She felt like she was missing something, but didn’t know what. She didn’t even have the words to begin that conversation. To ask the right questions.
“I need time to think. To process. I’m sorry,” she managed to get out.
“I understand.”
Amber set the tablet on the table and turned to leave. When her back was to Morta she closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. The girl’s unseeing eyes filled her vision, and she knew she couldn’t leave without finding out what Morta knew about the experiments.
“You promised me you would tell me about the death house. So, tell me.”
“You really do think I’m a monster, don’t you?” Morta asked.
Amber couldn’t tell if it was rhetorical or not. “I need to know,” was all she said.
“If you honestly think that I would ever condone such behaviors, you don’t know me at all,” Morta replied bitingly. “The reason I was so focused on acquiring Spade was to stop the experiments, Amber. I told you before that there are things happening beyond my control. The war for our rights—for our lives—is still waging, and I will never give up until NAs have the same rights as everyone else.”
Amber spun around, “Then why be so cryptic with me? Why not just say all of this when I asked you before?”
Morta shrugged. “There’s so much you don’t know yet about life.” She held up her hands, placatingly. “I know, you’ve had a rough go of it, Amber. You’ve been through a lot, and I am truly sorry for the tragedies you’ve experienced. But, what you saw in that house is just a fraction of what has been happening to NAs since the official war ended. We are still seen as less than human.”
Grinding her teeth, Amber considered her words. She didn’t know how much she trusted Morta, but there was something about the vigor in her voice that gave her pause.
“I want to believe you, Morta—”
“—then do.”
Amber shook her head. “How can I? It’s only after I threaten to leave that you tell me all of this. That you offer me the keys to your kingdom.” She closed her eyes again. “I’m still not sure I want to stay here. I can’t make any promises.”
“I don’t need promises. I need an heir. And that’s you.”
“You’re not listening to me! I’m saying I’m not sure that I can be that for you. Not anymore. All the death. All the threats on my life. The bodies—” she trailed off, still unsure how to express her feelings.
“You promised me this morning that you would remain until the contract with Spade was completely finalized. Give it the next few days to think about, Amber. I know you will come to the right decision.”
Amber released a shuddering breath. Her shoulders sagged. She opened her mouth to supply a retort, but stopped short when she realized she didn’t know what she wanted to say. She strode from the room without another word. She didn’t know what the right decision was. Of if there was one at all.
Chapter Seventeen
Amber’s bracelet pinged the moment she left Morta’s office. Inwardly, she groaned, but accepted the text message anyway.
“I need to see you. It’s urgent.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. It was from another unknown number. Certain that it was the same caller from before, she quickly typed a response.
“No can do, motherfucker. You really think that I’d trust you again after you tried to have me killed? Better luck next time.”
She hit send without rereading the message. She didn’t have time to waste on someone who just wanted to kill her. She didn’t know who J was, but she wasn’t going to give him the chance to fool her a second time.
“What do you mean someone tried to kill you?”
She stared at the holographic message for a moment. Her immediate response was to delete and block the number. Not that she knew what number it was since it came through as unknown. Still, she wanted the chance to take back control over the situation.
“Look, I don’t know who in the void you think you are, but I’m not interested, okay? Stop messaging me.”
Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she typed. Whoever this person was, he—or she—could rot for all Amber cared. She was too exhausted to deal with any of it.
Her bracelet pinged again and she pulled it open, her frustration flaring.
“I promise I don’t bite.”
She rolled her eyes at the response before promptly deleting it. If whoever was messaging her wanted to meet her, they would have to seek her out in person.
She wandered outside. Clicking on her music, she began jogging down the street. She didn’t look at anyone as she passed. All she could think about was the dead girl’s facial expression, the attacks on her life, the mutilated bodies on the casino floor, and Morta’s offer.
She couldn’t believe that Morta was willing to give her everything. It was so out of character for her that it left an unsettled feeling in the pit of Amber’s stomach. She didn’t understand why Morta was attempting to do this now. She just kept coming back to her trying to exert control.
Her neck tingled as the hair all over her body began to rise. She turned around just in time to see a hooded figure wrap their hands around her neck. A short, soft squeak escaped her lips before her scream was cut off.
She kicked, trying to break free. Nothing worked. She lic
ked and then bit her assailant’s hand. Still they didn’t break their hold on her neck. If this was going to be the way she died, she didn’t want to go down without a fight.
Throwing her head back, she managed to take them by surprise. Her head cracked against their nose with a satisfying crunch. She smirked as she slammed her elbow into the person’s gut, repeatedly. They grunted, but didn’t loosen their hold.
She scratched at the person’s hand, silently pleading the civilians milling about the street to notice her plight and provide aid.
None of them did.
Everything went dark as a bag was pulled down over her head. Her hands were bound behind her back by what felt like a magnetized cuff. A gag was tied around her mouth. Its cloth bit into the corners of her lips, making them feel numb. She closed her eyes, anticipating what was to come.
Her death.
For a moment, she considered what it would be like: to give up. To not care about the world or its inhabitants.
To just be.
She decided that it wasn’t worth it. Sure, she could do all those things, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to keep fighting. It’s what she always had done.
Her stabilizers ran rivers of heat up her arms as she concentrated on escaping. It was the vaguest sense of a plan, but she knew that her abilities would kick into gear once she initiated them.
Someone picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Blood rushed to her head. There was a moment of disorientation and dizziness before she regained her focus again.
They carried her for several moments before she heard the distinctive pop of a door being opened. They threw her into what she could only assume was the backseat of a car before the low rumble of the engines igniting began and she felt the vehicle lift from the ground.
Although her hands were bound, they hadn’t done the same to her feet. She twisted in the seat, using her legs to feel her way around. She was alone. She began kicking at the front seats.
“Stop that!” a male voice shouted.
