Silent Lucidity

by Tiffany Roberts

  They walked to the door she’d indicated, and Tenthil took out the masterkey again. The access panel on this door was the same as the one on the manor’s roof—it read ID chips rather than requiring an input code or some sort of keycard.

  If this tunnel had been built as part of the city’s intended infrastructure, access through the alleyway hatch was likely controlled by maintenance codes—if city workers used this space for official business anymore at all. It was far more probable that the wealthy of the sector kept it open as a means of traveling to and from their homes in secret.

  Tenthil set the masterkey to work. Such locks often took a long time to break, if they could be broken at all.

  Abella shivered against him. “This is how…how they removed the bodies.”

  Tenthil frowned, making the skin around his scars pull taut. “Bodies?”

  “Sometimes Cullion would get…carried away with his punishments.”

  Nostrils flaring with a heavy exhalation, Tenthil nodded. He’d seen the evidence himself in the marks on Abella’s back and legs when he rescued her from this place. Though he’d long since lost count of how many people he’d killed, Tenthil could at least say one thing about himself with certainty—he’d never gone out of his way to make any of his victims suffer.

  Perhaps it was only a small, ultimately meaningless distinction, but it was all he had.

  The masterkey’s small display flashed green, and the door’s maglocks released with a metallic thump. The door slid open on a hallway with metal floors. To the left stood another door, most likely leading into the garage. Depressed grooves lined the floor on both sides—more runoff drains, undoubtedly. The short corridor ended on a set of double sliding doors less than ten meters away.

  Tenthil collected the masterkey, pausing for a moment to study it on his open palm. He’d expected a much longer wait; was it possible that the system controlling the door locks had also been damaged and compromised during his prior visit?

  He couldn’t quite shake the suspicion that this was a trap, though logic said it was merely a matter of the would-be inheritors of Cullion’s assets refusing to perform any repairs on the manor until the legal matters regarding that inheritance had been cleared up.

  When Tenthil stepped forward, Abella moved with him, her stride in sync with his own. The door to the access tunnel closed behind them.

  Her tension had not eased; in some ways, he understood her trepidation, but he could never fully know what she’d experienced, could never fully understand how it had affected her. All he could do was eventually figure out how to take that pain away from her.

  “Where do we need to go?” Tenthil asked as he pressed the button beside the double doors.

  “He had a few stashes throughout the house,” she replied, “but the biggest was always in his bedroom. Third floor, toward the back. Right over my…over the chamber he kept me in.”

  The double doors slid apart silently, opening on a small elevator with another set of identical doors directly ahead. Just like the corridor in which they stood, the elevator was devoid of the overwrought ornateness permeating the rest of Cullion’s estate. Its floor and walls looked rundown and were covered in faded stains.

  He had to discreetly dispose of the evidence. Even though they were his property, he knew there’d be uncomfortable questions asked if he wasn’t careful. Even he couldn’t have bought his way out of alien trafficking and murder charges had all this been exposed.

  Abella could have been one of the nameless slaves dragged through this tunnel if Tenthil hadn’t acted when he had. Her blood might have contributed to the stains on the floor.

  They entered the elevator together, and Tenthil glanced down at the controls. The only thing on the touch display was an arrow pointing up. He reached for it but stopped his hand before making contact.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Abella dropped her right hand between their bodies to grasp the blaster on her hip and nodded. “Yeah.”

  Tenthil tapped the arrow.

  The doors slid shut behind them with a faint whoosh. Only a barely noticeable hum and a slight sinking sensation in Tenthil’s gut indicated the elevator was moving. Within a few seconds, the doors in front of them opened.

  Dropping a hand to his blaster, Tenthil led Abella off the elevator. The room they entered was lit by pure white overhead lights, and everything within was pristine, shining as though it had been polished only moments before. It reminded him of a surgical room, with an adjustable table in the center—but the gutters running along the underside of the table, which emptied over a floor drain, suggested a sinister purpose.

  He lifted his gaze; in the corner, large hooks dangled from chains which were attached to the ceiling by automated pulleys. Along a section of one wall, numerous long, black bags hung on a rail. Tenthil didn’t need to open the cabinets to guess the sorts of tools stored within them.

  Wasting not another moment, he hurried across the room to the only other door.

  The door opened into a dark room with implications as dire as the last; cages lined the walls, and implements of torture were on display in numerous places. Tenthil glanced down at Abella; she stood with her head turned toward him and her nose buried against his chest. She stared ahead with one wide, determined eye, but her face had paled, and her lips were pressed tightly together.

  Even the strongest of us have weaknesses.

  The room’s confused smell assailed him; it wasn’t a single scent, but an amalgamation, with blood and metal being the foremost components. His chest tightened; part of the blood-odor was familiar. He focused on it and was forced to clench his teeth against the wave of revulsion and rage that crashed through him when he realized what it was—Abella’s blood.

  “It’s okay, Tenthil,” she said softly, tightening her arm around his waist. “It’s over. I’m with you now.”

  Shouldn’t I be comforting her?

  “Never again,” Tenthil vowed, tugging her closer, only barely preventing his claws from lengthening.

  He closed the door, glancing behind to see that it blended seamlessly with the wall, as though it had never existed.

  More secrets.

  The Master would’ve delighted in learning of them, though this chamber wouldn’t have roused much suspicion, even in the social circles to which Cullion belonged—the wealthy enjoyed many of their kinks without shame or limitation, thanks to their standings.

  Allowing himself no further time to contemplate this torture chamber—and having no desire to imagine Abella on her knees here, being whipped and beaten without mercy—he walked with Abella to the door at the center of the far wall. Her movements were stiff, but she didn’t lag.

  However much he wanted to be done with this, she must’ve wanted it a thousand times more.

  They emerged at the end of a long, dark hallway—dark due as much to the décor as the lack of light. He shut the as door as quietly as possible without releasing his hold on Abella before continuing forward.

  The sound of voices from far down the hall halted Tenthil after only a few steps. He darted aside, taking cover with Abella behind one of the sculptures arranged along the hallway, and peered in the direction from which the voices had come.

  A pair of armored guards walked across the opening at the end of the hallway, their shoulder-mounted lights casting luminous blue-white cones in front of them. Their heavy footfalls echoed on the polished stone floor.

  Abella tensed against Tenthil, and he swore he could almost feel her pounding pulse through their clothing.

  The guards vanished from sight after a few seconds.

  She pressed her lips close to his ear and whispered, “Second door on the left leads to a servant’s corridor. There are stairs there that go all the way up and let out near Cullion’s room.”

  Tenthil nodded. He waited ten more seconds before creeping out from behind the statue. Abella matched his slow, careful steps as they approached the door she’d indicated, but even their caut
ion was not enough to fully silence their passage—the stone floor and walls amplified each nearly-silent footstep. He kept a hand on his blaster as they moved.

  Somehow, they reached the door without being heard. Tenthil kept his eyes on the open space at the far end of the hallway while Abella opened the door, producing faint clicks as she grasped the handle and the latch released.

  She slipped through the opening first, tugging Tenthil along behind her. He released hold of his weapon only long enough to close the door once he’d cleared it, teeth clenched against the inevitable sound of it latching.

  Despite the darkness, the narrow hallway was familiar to Tenthil—it was almost identical to the one in which he’d killed the guards and destroyed the surveillance equipment on the night he rescued Abella.

  They hadn’t gone far when Abella turned and crept through another doorway, this one opening on a staircase. The steps to the right led upward, while the left set led down, likely into a basement area separate from the access tunnel through which they’d entered the manor.

  “This will take us to a hallway upstairs, just a few meters from Cullion’s chamber,” Abella said.

  Tenthil kept his left arm around Abella’s shoulders as they climbed the steps. Fortunately, the stairs were carpeted, padding the sound of their movement. They turned at the landing and moved up the next flight. Tenthil froze near the top, staring at the door that led to the second floor; faint light was visible in the tiny gap at its base, and an instant later he heard soft footsteps over the carpet on the other side. A shadow passed the sliver of light, trailing darkness in its wake.

  Though the footsteps had been too muted to tell for sure, Tenthil guessed it had been another pair of guards who had walked past the door. There were likely more in the transport out front; many security forces used such vehicles as mobile surveillance centers. It was safe to assume they were dealing with at least six guards on the premises.

  He allowed fifteen seconds to pass before resuming their upward trek. When they reached the third-floor door, he paused, pressed his ear against it, and listened.

  The only sounds he picked up were those of his own heartbeat and Abella’s soft breaths. Leaning back, he carefully cracked the door open and peered into the hallway. It was dark and still—a fitting atmosphere, given the death Tenthil had delivered in this corridor before.

  Slipping through the doorway, he and Abella turned right—away from the scene of the short, brutal battle he’d fought here—and walked toward the rear of the manor. Soon, they entered a larger hallway with high ceilings and Cullion’s signature overbearing adornment; this was the antithesis of the secret tunnel below.

  Abella lifted her left hand and pointed to the large wooden door at the end of the hall. Despite the hall’s dimness, the metallic accents inlaid amidst the door’s intricate carvings gleamed with tiny points of reflected light.

  A faint sound from somewhere behind them made Tenthil’s ear twitch as he reached the door. He turned his head to listen; several seconds had passed before he realized that he was hearing the quiet jingling of equipment as someone walked.

  Blue-white light spilled into the far end of the hallway from one of the side corridors.

  He turned his attention back to the door, but Abella had already taken hold of the handle. She pushed it open and darted inside, pulling him along.

  Tenthil released Abella once he was inside the room and spun to face the door, taking the handle in one hand and flattening the other higher up on its surface. Holding his breath, he eased the door closed, releasing the handle only after it was in place.

  The latch clicked; the sound was thunderous in the silence.

  Tenthil turned his head toward Abella, catching her worried gaze.

  “Are they coming?” she asked quietly.

  “Hide,” he whispered before pressing his ear to the door.

  Muffled voices drifted to him from somewhere down the hallway—apparently, the sound dampeners Tenthil had sworn were in effect when he’d first come here were no longer active. Footsteps sounded in the hall, drawing steadily closer.

  He turned his gaze to the room. It was a huge chamber, with a wide, four-posted bed directly ahead; the posts were in constant, steady motion, spinning around invisible axis and occasionally breaking into shards to rearrange themselves into new, matching shapes. To the left and right, low steps led up to raised portions of the room, one of which was furnished for lounging while the other—half-obscured behind a partially drawn privacy curtain—sported mirrors and upright cabinets, likely full of clothing. The carpet was soft and intricately patterned, and everything seemed to be draped in luxurious fabrics of more varieties than Tenthil knew had existed. In the center of the room were two crescent-shaped couches arranged in a broken circle with a low, round table between them. The diffused light from the windows in the lounge area only deepened the shadows dominating the room.

  Abella ducked behind the privacy curtain, vanishing into the darkness of the dressing area.

  Tenthil swept his gaze across the room again and cursed to himself. He’d never been in a situation like this; normally, he only needed to rely upon his own ability to remain hidden. But there wasn’t anywhere secure to hide. If the guards performed more than a cursory search of the room, Tenthil and Abella would be discovered, and if they found her first…

  I cannot take that chance.

  He dashed across the room and joined Abella behind the heavy curtain, crouching beside her amidst the thick folds of fabric. She caught his free hand after he drew his knife. He turned his head and listened.

  Only a few heartbeats passed before the door latch clicked, and a blue-white light swept into the room, flicking through the uncovered portion of the area in which Tenthil and Abella were hidden. The guards’ boots whispered over the carpet, and their gear made the faint jingling that had originally alerted Tenthil to their presence. The play of moving shadows and light told of the guards’ slow search of the room.

  “There’s nothing here,” one of the guards said.

  “There never is,” the other replied, “but we have to check, anyway. We make good on this contract and it only makes us look even better than Starforge, you know?”

  “Yeah. Best thing for us that they fucked up as bad as they did. I heard there’s still a lot of money being thrown at this contract.”

  One of the lights turned toward the dressing area. The circle it cast on the wall swayed and grew as a guard’s muted footsteps drew nearer. Abella released Tenthil’s hand, and he raised his knife, preparing to strike.

  The guard grasped the edge of the curtain and dragged it toward Tenthil and Abella.

  Tenthil hooked his left arm around Abella’s waist and stood up, sidestepping with the moving curtain. The folds of thick fabric bunched around them like a flimsy cloth cocoon. Within a few seconds, Abella was pressed against the wall with Tenthil against her, chest to chest, his arms to either side of her body.

  He forced his breathing to remain slow and silent as the sliver of space between the wall and the swaying edge of the curtain lit up with the guard’s light. For an instant, the darkness surrounding them receded, and half of Abella’s face was illuminated by reflected light, revealing one rounded green eye.

  The light abruptly moved away.

  “Third floor disturbance all clear,” said the nearest guard. His quiet footsteps moved toward the door. “Now we can head back down and let Jharon and Krag take over second patrol. Bout time we had a chance to sit on our asses in the transport for a while.”

  “These patrols are pointless. We have the perimeter under constant surveillance. Nobody’s getting in here without us knowing,” the other guard said. “Anyway, let’s get out of here. I’m starving.”

  The door opened and closed. Abella released a soft whoosh of air, and her head fell forward to rest against his chest.

  “That was close,” she whispered.

  Tenthil slipped his knife into its sheath and cupped the back of he
r head with his other hand, absently smoothing the pads of his fingers over her hair. “Almost done.”

  When he could no longer hear the movement and voices of the guards through the door, Tenthil counted to thirty; only afterward did he brush aside the curtain and push away from the wall. He lingered at the edge of the steps leading back down into the main area of the room.

  “We should have a few minutes while they change shifts. Let’s move quickly,” he said.

  Abella walked past him and descended the steps. She put her arms out around waist height as she moved toward the bed—her vision in poor light apparently wasn’t as keen as Tenthil’s—but seemed familiar enough with the room to avoid all the obstacles in her way. Her footfalls were silent as she navigated the shadows between the furniture. Tenthil followed close behind her.

  When they reached the bed, she placed one hand atop it and walked to its headboard, which was made of the same slate gray material as the moving posts—Tenthil wasn’t sure if it was metal, stone, or some strange combination of the two. Carved borders separated the panels that comprised the headboard. Each panel seemed to depict the scenes of some ancient story, the stylized figures lacking any semblance of realism.

  “I need some light,” she whispered.

  Tenthil dipped a hand to his belt and removed a hardlight projector from one of the pouches. He placed the small, disc-shaped device on the back of his left hand. It sealed itself in place on his glove. With his right hand, he pressed the activation button on the edge of the disc.

  An orb of light coalesced in the air about ten centimeters over the projector. He moved the fingers of his left hand to manipulate the orb, shaping it into a cone and directing its beam toward the bed.

  “Over here,” Abella said.

  Tenthil shifted the light to the place she’d indicated as she leaned forward and pushed aside the long, concave pillows gathered around the headboard, revealing the sculpted paneling beneath.

  She placed both hands on the borders between the panels and trailed her fingers over the decorative carvings. “Somewhere along here…”