“This way,” said one of her escorts. Abandoning the main road, they proceeded down a narrower, even more spartanly fixtured path. This pattern repeated several times more, until the streets had narrowed to the point that they were occasionally forced to proceed single-file.
Then, a bit like being born, they slipped free of the narrow passages and into a broad, high-walled courtyard. Compared to the rest of the city, this place was immaculate. Rather than dirt or worn cobblestone, the ground consisted of well-tended gardens, freshly swept brick walking paths, and simple benches beneath clusters of tall, fruit-bearing trees.
A great weight fell from Jenn’s shoulders at the sight of the capitol grounds, artificial though they might be. Even the sight of soldiers, converging on them from three directions, could not spoil her improved mood.
The first of the soldiers to reach them was a tall, swarthy man with a polished rifle in his arms and an even more polished mustache. His uniform was the same design as that of the gate guards, but was so tidy and well-maintained that Jenn actually had to check to be sure they were the same.
“Your business?” asked the mustachioed soldier. He did not point his weapon at them, though he did hold it at the ready.
“Enhanced at the southern gate,” replied the leader. He stepped forward, setting a heavy hand on Jenn’s shoulder. “We brought her as ordered.”
He must have expected Jenn to be subdued by now. And, to be fair, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Rather than lash out with her vines, Jenn simply wrapped one around his wrist and guided it smoothly off her shoulder. Before he could react to her small act of defiance, however, Andrew’s laugh drew the gaze of both men.
“Forgetting something?” he asked, then turned and casually saluted the capitol guard. “Morning, Lieutenant. I’m Sergeant Gomez and this is Jenn. She’s a militia ward, so I’m escorting her to ensure there are no misunderstandings.”
The Lieutenant eyed Andrew for a moment, then turned his gaze on Jenn for a much longer time. She stared back, keeping her face expressionless as she waited for someone to break the silence. In the end, it was the Lieutenant who did.
“Any further misunderstandings, I assume?” he said. A bit of the man’s stiffness melted away as he nodded to Andrew and tapped his mustache. “You missed a bit of blood, Sergeant.”
Jenn relaxed at the sound of Andrew’s laugh and couldn’t quite mask her smile as the gate guards fidgeted uncomfortably. It was reassuring to know that their belligerence didn’t come with the uniform.
“Thank you, Corporal,” said the Lieutenant, formally. “You may return to your post.”
Even before the guard spoke, and without even turning to look, Jenn could sense the man’s shock and incredulity.
“But, Sir, I—”
“Unless you think us incapable of protecting His Excellency?” the Lieutenant added. It was not a question. “You have your orders, Corporal.”
The pause before the man spoke again was pregnant in the extreme.
“Sir,” the Corporal said simply. Heels clicking, he and his men turned to go. Jenn watched them depart, offering Andrew an appreciative smile.
He smiled back, then stepped forward and clapped the Lieutenant on the arm.
“Thanks, Hersch,” Andrew said. “I owe you one.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” the Lieutenant replied, a bit of brusqueness returning to his voice. He slung his rifle back over his shoulder and eyed Jenn a second time. “She going to behave?”
“She’ll behave.” Andrew said.
“Good.” Turning, the Lieutenant glanced at the men who had gathered around him. Their uniforms were every bit as clean and trimmed as their officer’s, though the men who wore them lacked a certain zeal to set them apart from their sloppily dressed comrades at the city gate. “Red, Boots, come with me. The rest of you, back to your patrols.”
The men—or boys, rather—that Lieutenant Hersch had selected took up positions on either side of Jenn, though neither crowded her in the same manner as before. And so, Jenn did not feel the need to defend against them as Andrew and the Lieutenant led them toward the center of the capitol grounds.
The building at the center was, at once, both more and less than Jenn had anticipated. It was, in one sense, unfathomably ornate. Enormous white columns surrounded it, stretching from the manicured grounds to the base of its flared, second-story roof, despite being completely unnecessary to support the building itself. And yet, she almost could have believed that they were, since the walls of the capitol building appeared to be more glass than wall. And what glass! Rather than the small, cracked panes she’d come across in the remains of some abandoned, pre-war shack, the windows before her were massive sheets more than twice her height. They stretched to the roof in four great columns, mirroring those outside. And, comprising the panes themselves was artistry that literally took her breath away.
The scenes had been constructed from bits of colored glass no larger than her thumb, but it might as well have been made of gemstones for the way it glittered in the morning sun. The first showed a multitude of scenes and unrelated imagery, the significance of which she could only guess at. There was a ruined city, crowned by flames and the tattered remains of a blue and white flag. Below this scene, the same city was portrayed again, this time in the shadow of two enormous men, one of whom appeared to be bleeding from his brow.
On the opposite side of the main doorway, the city reappeared, though much transformed. Rather than a burning ruin, it now gleamed like a white pearl nestled among green hills. And above its peak, a new flag was portrayed.
It was the last of the four vignettes that caught Jenn’s eye the most, however. The city, the flag, the flames, and the hills were all gone. Instead, the dark, glassy scene displayed six men: three in the grey uniforms she’d seen on the city’s guards, and three in red-sashed camouflage. The camouflaged men were toppling over in transparent agony, their eyes narrowed to slits and mouths wide in a silent scream. And, just in case the reason for their pain was not clear enough, the men from New Lewville leveled rifles and blades in the direction of their victims. Motionless flames curled about the Occs’ feet, mirrored by blazing, golden disks that made it seem as though the sun was rising behind each of the victors’ heads.
“Hell of a sight,” Andrew muttered, practically in Jenn’s ear.
She jumped, surprised to discover that she’d stopped walking. Embarrassed, she collected herself and began to move again. Andrew remained at her side, however, and continued to speak in a low, conspiratorial voice.
“I remember the first time I saw it. Felt like I could’ve just stared for hours. Supposedly, there used to be ones like it all over, you know, before the war. Art on every street corner. It sounds amazing, don’t you think?“
His tone was friendly enough, but pricked something in the back of Jenn’s mind. She nodded in agreement, but said nothing, even as they reached the door to the capitol building.
“Wait here,” Lieutenant Hersch said.
There were two men at the door, one on either side. They saluted the Lieutenant as he approached and one leaned over to open the door for him. Returning their salute with a practiced, casual sweep, Hersch stepped inside.
He reemerged a moment later, red-faced and visibly uncomfortable. Clearing his throat, he waved them forward.
To Jenn’s surprise, the overwhelming majority of the capitol building was comprised of a single room. A handful of small, deceptively painted doors lined either side of the vast chamber and there was a small anteroom where an ensemble of guards stripped them—including Hersch—of their weapons, but otherwise, the building consisted entirely of the single, enormous chamber. Jenn was reluctant to part with the sharpened, steel rods that served as her preferred javelins, but she was not about to make an issue of it here. And the moment she stepped through the anteroom doors and into the audience chamber, she promptly forgot all about them.
The floor of the chamber wa
s some sort of polished stone that clicked and echoed with each step she and the others took. The walls were relatively plain, at least compared to the impressive glass artistry behind them, but hung with dozens of portraits whose realism staggered her imagination. They were lit by high, narrow windows—clear, not colored—as well as matching rows of actual electric lights.
In short, it was the sort of wealth and grandeur she could never have imagined had it not been laid out before her. At the center of the far end of the chamber, however, was opulence of another kind.
Lifted on a high, stepped dais, was an immense, gold-lined throne. The man sitting on it wore the same sort of stiff, grey uniform as Hersch, but unbuttoned. And though his chest was bare, the exposure was nothing compared to the women around him. A half-dozen women lounged on or around the throne, the most-clothed of which were still naked from the waist up. Two straddled the arms of the throne, casually massaging the shoulders of the man seated in it. They managed to strike the delicate balance between attentive and idle, but from the sharpness Jenn spotted in their eyes, it was far from accidental posturing. Equally penetrating were the eyes of those seated lower on the dais; though reclining on an ocean of silk cushions and blankets, the women studied her intently.
To Jenn’s amusement, Andrew and Lieutenant Hersch seemed desperate to avoid looking at the women. They marched stiffly at her side, leaving Red and Boots to ogle from the entrance, and breathed more purposefully the nearer they drew to the throne. A part of her couldn’t wait to tell Liam about it.
And just like that, Jenn’s amusement evaporated. How would Liam react to such a sight, if he was here instead of her? She didn’t mind him looking, of course; it was only a natural reaction and not one she begrudged him. Besides, these women were strangers, obviously placed by the Mayor to disorient his visitors.
Her problem was the women in her life who weren’t strangers.
Nora would not be an issue; the girl was so naïve that in that regard that she’d actually asked Julie how she’d become pregnant with her children. Her embarrassment at being told the answer, paired with the almost cruel delight Julie had taken in educating her, had been the funniest thing Jenn had seen since destroying the Institute.
No, the problem now, as it ever had been, was Kathryn. The girl was a tireless, incessant scavenger, doing her utmost to burrow her way into Liam’s bed. On the one hand, her desperation was almost amusing and Liam’s refusals only made Jenn want to ride him more enthusiastically. On the other hand, the fact that Liam seemed practically oblivious to the little ways Kathryn manipulated him was infuriating.
She needed to deal with the little vampire now, before Jenn found herself seated at Liam’s feet while the cunning bitch stole her place.
“His Excellency, Tobias Del Reyes,” announced a loud voice from behind them. “Mayor of New Lewville and Sovereign of South Kentuckiana.”
Andrew and Hersch stood fast at the sound of the voice, but Jenn was not expecting it and almost stumbled forward at the abruptness. Inching backward into alignment with the men, she waited. She’d allowed herself to be distracted by her anger and struggled to regain her equilibrium as the Mayor rose from his throne.
The half-dressed women around him shifted without a sound, creating a path for the Mayor to descend. He did so gracefully, fastening several of the lowest buttons on his uniform as he sauntered toward them. And yet, even as she forced herself to observe the man, Jenn couldn’t help but notice several of his female companions rise and follow.
As they drew nearer, Jenn realized that the women were not merely decorations. Though each was elegant and curvaceous—so much so that she couldn’t suppress a twinge of jealousy—they were also subtly muscled. It was an easy thing to overlook, and she fully expected that most men would, but the longer she eyed the women, the more she recognized the signs. A few calluses here and there, the flick of an eye toward the makeshift quiver where she’d kept her javelins, and a way of moving that was practical as well as dainty.
The women were bodyguards as much as they were concubines. Perhaps even more so the former than the latter.
The Mayor stepped close, close enough to make his guards nervous. A woman moved forward, clearly intent on placing herself between Jenn and the man, but the Mayor held out an arm to stop her. Donning the mask of a disappointed lover, the woman clung to his arm instead, legs tense and ready to leap between him and potential danger at a moment’s notice.
“I know you,” the Mayor said, pointing at Hersch. He turned to Andrew, scowling. “And I can guess who you are.”
“I’m Jenn,” Jenn said, before the Mayor could turn to her and ask the inevitable question.
It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room in an instant. Hersch and Andrew glanced at her, outwardly calm but with wide, aghast eyes. Even the women at the Mayor’s side seemed to be holding their breath.
The Mayor chuckled once and grinned.
“Jenn,” he repeated. “You’re enhanced, aren’t you?”
“Did the vines give it away?” she asked. Gesturing slightly, she curved one onto her shoulder like some kind of domesticated bird.
Opposite, the nude woman at the Mayor’s side angled herself under the guise of kissing his shoulder. Her eyes were hard and her jaw tight, clearly prepared to tackle the man out of harm’s way if need be.
For several tense seconds, the Mayor did not move. Then his grin widened.
“Can I offer you a job?” he asked.
Chapter Thirteen
Liam’s knuckles crunched as he struck the wall of the barracks. The pain that flared in his hand was enough to take his breath away, but it vanished the next instant when his body repaired itself. Much as he might otherwise have appreciated that fact, it was the outlet pain provided that he craved presently.
“Would you stop doing that?” Julie snapped. She glared at him from her seat on one of the room’s eight, narrow bunks, where she sat nursing her daughter.
Liam glared back.
“How can you be so calm?” he demanded. “This is stupid!”
“Of course it is,” Julie said. “But breaking things isn’t going to make Jenn get here any faster.”
“It might.”
“No, it won’t. But it is giving me a headache.”
Liam had no response to that, but neither was he willing to concede the point. “It’s making me feel better,” he lied. “Besides, don’t you want Scott safe?”
He knew at once that he’d made a terrible mistake. Julie’s countenance darkened in an instant, eyes going hard as steel. For a heartbeat, she made as if to rise, then remembered the infant girl in her arms and forced herself to remain still.
She did not look at him, instead turning her rage to a distant spot on the faded, wooden wall across from her. Liam sighed, preparing to apologize, but before he got the chance the woman shuddered. Julie’s face reddened further as her lips pulled back to bare a grim, humorless smile.
“Not another word from you, Liam,” she said, woodenly.
The desire to apologize did not vanish, of course, but Liam knew better than to compound his missteps. He turned to Nora, but the girl would only half-meet his eyes. She flashed a halfhearted, sympathetic smile, then returned her attention to Adam in her lap.
Not even Kathryn was much help, under the circumstances. She’d hooked her ankles through the frame of a top bunk and was too busy using her knife to carve shapes into the mattress of the bunk below her to be bothered consoling him.
Unsure what else he could do, and too conscious of Julie’s anger towards him to risk striking the wall again, Liam sank reluctantly down onto the room’s unoccupied lower bunk. No sooner had he landed than the barracks door swung open, unannounced.
Jenn was sweating, just a bit, but it did not seem to be from exertion. Rather, if her somewhat dazed and overwhelmed expression could be trusted, it seemed to be an effect of mental strain, rather than another sort. Several of h
er vines hung limply from her shoulders like a tattered cape, while others clung to her body as if trying to keep her upright.
“Jenn,” Liam whispered, almost breathless. He stood and moved to embrace her but Jenn swept past him, into the crowded barracks. She paced slowly, chewing both her lip and thumbnail, without so much as a glance in his direction.
Too surprised to be hurt by the slight, Liam shut the door and glanced toward Julie. The woman met his gaze, frowning, but betraying nothing else.
“Jenn,” he said again. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
Jenn looked up as if startled and flashed a brief, insincere smile, then resumed pacing. Her vines seemed to squirm around her limbs and torso, loosening and tightening with each step until they practically rippled across her. For another tense minute, she walked the length of the barracks.
And then stopped.
Liam grinned. However flustered Jenn might be at the moment, they would soon leave the city behind. She would be fine once they were out among the trees again. As would he, once they were on their way to find Scott.
“Ready to go?” he asked. “The Colonel refused to help us, but if we leave now, we can reach the river by sundown. Scott won’t have gone far. Together, we can find him and bring him back before the Occs make their move.”
“What?” Jenn asked, distracted.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Liam pressed. He stepped into the path of Jenn’s pacing. Undeterred, she started to go around him, until he caught her by the arm. “Jenn.”
“Hmm? Oh, right. Sorry, Liam. I’m fine. Just… got a lot on my mind.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“What? No. We just talked.”
“About what?”
Jenn’s brow creased with the beginnings of a frown. Pulling free of Liam’s arm, she resumed her pacing.
“Plenty of things,” she said, at last. “To—the Mayor told me about the city, the Occs, how he plans to protect New Lewville. He’s been… very thorough.”
Feral Empires: Fanning Flames Page 10
