by Ann Aguirre
They prey on weakness. Uncertainty.
She had little of either left in her. Whether her decisions were right hardly signified. Nothing mattered in this hole. The smart ones gave up and died; maybe they found the afterlife the priests and holy women had promised, shortly after her arrest. At first, during the trial, she had missionaries in her cell every day, trying to save her soul, trying to sell her on Mary’s grace, but after everything she’d seen, everything she’d done, she couldn’t believe.
Could. Not.
The awful cast of her ability had burned anything like faith out of her. Over the years, she’d learned to block it out—to read darker emotions only of her own volition. Otherwise, she lived with a barrage of other people’s violence drumming in her skull. That was probably why she’d snapped. Maybe her sentence would’ve been lighter, at a different facility, if she could have brought herself to whisper those words of remorse the judge so badly wanted to hear.
But she couldn’t. Because she wasn’t sorry for a single murderer she’d put down. From the tone of her trial, it was clear they thought she was insane—and it would’ve only made her case worse if she’d admitted to being an unregistered Psi, using illegal gifts to hunt down psychopaths. Though Dred had heard that less than 3 percent of humanity possessed talents like her own, Psi Corp required all Psi-positives to be delivered to the nearest training facility, where the company oversaw their upbringing. As a kid, Dred hadn’t realized she had any particular ability, and when she left home, the die was cast.
Besides, what that ancient Old Terran philosopher had written so many turns ago was true, after all. He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. She had become what she despised most . . . and she belonged here.
I am the Dread Queen.
“Come,” she called to Einar, who caught up to them at a jog.
“How long until docking?” he asked.
“Half an hour,” Tam guessed. “When everything goes dark, we’ll know they’re here.”
She scanned the dingy, rusted-metal corridor walls. “Let’s see how far we can get.”
During docking, recruiters didn’t interfere with each other, even if they crossed borders. This one time, it was allowed, because otherwise it would be impossible for any group to augment its numbers, save the one in closest proximity. On this side, that would be Priest. He cared only for adding worshippers, but it often took longer for convicts to succumb to his brand of brainwashing. It wasn’t the sort of thing that made for a quick pitch. Still, she didn’t linger in Priest’s territory. Since they moved fast, they reached the second set of doors before the lights went down, and the barricades came up, along with the energy fields that would fry anyone who tried to cross. A few distant screams told her that some convicts had a timing problem.
Uneasily, they shared the space with Silence’s people, unusual, because the quiet killer didn’t often take an interest. But it had been a while for her, too. Silence must have advisors who let her know that if she killed too many of her own people out of sport, then she wouldn’t have the numbers to drive off anyone intent on taking her territory. There were six in all . . . and Dred’s was among the largest, with space on all decks. The lifts didn’t work, but she had shaft access, which meant her people could sneak around the ship unseen. Tam was particularly good at it.
The neutral zone lay just past the docking bay, a shantytown inside the prison ship, where fish often huddled until they realized it was worse there than when they affiliated. Townships had rules, at least, enforced by the leader’s people. The neutral zone had only one—take what you can. It was impossible to sleep there without being robbed, raped, or shanked, sometimes all in the same night. And so she’d tell anyone she deemed worthy of a second look.
That was the extent of Dred’s pitch: Come with me, and you may not die. There was no reason to be more persuasive. The smart ones listened.
In the dark, it was eerie, with only the red glow from the nearby shock field and the crackle of electricity. Silence’s people didn’t talk, even among themselves, and their behavior made for an uneasy truce. Tam kept a hand on his shiv, eyeing them with wary attention. On her other side, Einar played the role of gentle giant, but he wasn’t gentle. Nobody inside Perdition was. If they’d been sent up on a wrongful conviction, then they learned to fight, or they died.
Einar had been inside longer than Dred, and she’d been here for five turns before she got tired of etching hash marks into a sheet of metal to mark the days. Forever wasn’t a number anyway. It just was. At her best guess, she had thirty turns beneath her belt, give or take. She’d been killing for three years before she got caught. Before she got cocky. At the height of her career, she’d thought they’d never figure it out.
Ah, hubris.
At last, the vigil ended. The lights came back up, and the security measures died, which meant it was safe to proceed. Pushing to her feet, Dred signaled her two men and jogged past the two sets of security doors, through Shantytown, and toward the reception area, where fish always milled around, as if expecting to be greeted by guards, someone to tell them where to go, what to do, how to get food and water. Poor, stupid fish.
This crop looked particularly sad. A few of them were crying, faces wedged between their knees. They all wore prison-issue gray, numbers and chips in the backs of their necks. Most of them had been shorn and deloused though a few looked as though they had been dragged from the darkest hole in the system, then set on fire. The weak and wounded wouldn’t last long; she ignored them.
Then her gaze lit on a man near the back. At first glance, he looked young, but his eyes refuted the initial assessment. Though he was slim and clean, with a crown of shining blond hair, his summer-sky eyes held a hardness that came only from turns of fighting, violence, and despair. He might well be the most dangerous man on the ship. Time to find out if he’s stable. Giving Tam and Einar the order to guard her, she closed her eyes and let slip the dogs of war.
2
The Pale Knight
She’s a beautiful killer, this princess in chains.
Her swagger amused him, especially the way she’d gone still and quiet, eyes closed, as if in some medium’s trance. But it gave Jael the opportunity to study her, even with the bodyguards to either side. They didn’t know it yet, but if he meant her harm, the two most dangerous men in Perdition stood no chance of keeping him from doing as he willed. The rest of the bodies belonged to human flotsam, no more important than refuse washed up on a lonely shore.
But this woman shone.
It wasn’t just her long, lean form, tautly muscled and sinuous. Nor was it the gleam of her skin, artfully embellished with tattoos that curved around the graceful slope of her shoulder, played peekaboo where the strips of rough fabric gaped across her rib cage. Chains wrapped around her forearms, both weapon and adornment. They weren’t merely for show, either. In an instant, he assessed how much weight they would add to a blow and judged it significant. Steel links also wrapped her boots, which hit her at midthigh. They were thin and worn, as though she never took them off. Her brown hair fell in a multiplicity of braids, trinkets woven carefully here and there, so that when she tilted her head in response to something she saw with senses other than her eyes, they clacked.
Nobody else would’ve heard it beneath the din. That was part of his unique heritage.
Heh. Heritage.
All told, she presented an interesting package, but it didn’t explain her behavior. Jael took a step toward her, and the blond hulk at her side growled deep in his throat. Scars covered him like a map of roads he shouldn’t have traveled, and the implicit threat moved Jael not at all. He’d faced worse. Killed worse. Even if this was allegedly the worst place in the galaxy, at least it was full of humans and not wretched, chattering Bugs.
“You will not approach until bidden.”
“I’ll do whatever I damned well like,”
he said softly. “And I’d like to see you stop me.”
The giant took offense to his tone. Maybe they would’ve danced then, but the woman opened her eyes; they were green, like the rolling hills on a world where he’d killed . . . a lot of people. Funny, he could recall the exact shade of the treetops with the veined leaves glimmering in the sun but not the name of the planet.
She raised her hand, shielding him. It entertained him, that show of power. “This one could be of use. He’s not mad . . . yet . . . for what it’s worth.”
“How do you know?” he asked, not much caring.
In a place like this, there would be petty despots. Factions. This was a sunless world where madness and depravity reigned. At least he knew not to expect order, which was a leg up from the idiots with whom he’d been forced to share transport. A few of them had found interesting ways to hurt each other, so that the ship stank of sweat and blood and urine by the time it docked. A look from Jael had been enough to deter any but those truly determined to die.
And he obliged. He had artistic hands, made for killing.
“I read you,” she said.
He eyed her in surprise. “I don’t come with a manual.”
Though she was closer than she knew with that statement. Unease prickled on his skin. Her henchman would prove no threat, but this woman bothered him. As he stared, someone jostled him from behind. In reflex, he spun, drove an elbow into the fool’s throat and ended him with a closed fist to the temple. Precision work. Perhaps he should feel some flicker of regret, but the man wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t a bastard. It doesn’t pay to crowd me.
“You’ll do,” she said, as if that had been an audition.
“Unlikely. I have issues with authority.” He turned away. The whole ship was a danger zone, but instinct told him to get the hell away from this one.
“Do you have issues with going hungry and living in filth?”
Ah. Bribery.
“Usually,” she went on coolly, “I’d say, ‘come with me and you may not die’ but I can see you’re fierce enough to protect yourself, even in Shantytown. But it’s a disgusting cesspool compared to what I can offer you.”
The slight, dark man on her left spoke up. “It’s clean in Queensland. Plenty to eat, comparatively.”
Jael cocked his head. “Bed and board? You must ken I’m a cut above. Is that the best you can do?”
“You’ll never know. Good luck in Shantytown. Mind you, don’t let Silence’s people haul you off. They’re a bit odd. And Mungo’s folk are worse. But if you wind up in Abaddon with Priest . . . well.” Her words trailed off, and he was meant to wonder what she knew.
It was blatant bait. Obviously, she knew the lay of the land. And she intended him to sink the barbed hook deep into his mouth like a good, curious fish. Ripping free might hurt like hell later, but he healed fast. That was the beauty and the horror of it. Not a single wound he’d ever taken in his life showed on his skin. Instead, he carried the scars elsewhere, damage so deep that he’d become a human-shaped thing. Ironic, because that was what they’d wanted him to be, so many turns ago, the fate he’d fought so hard to avoid.
“Queensland,” he repeated mockingly. “How precious.”
The giant stirred and growled again, taking another step toward him. Don’t, Jael thought. I’ll have to kill you. There was a macabre serenity about knowing even a severed spine couldn’t end him, but the horror and pain lingered. The period afterward was most horrendous, where he lay paralyzed and helpless, feeling what his enemy did to him yet there could be no release; he was tied to his broken meat like a cursed devil from the old stories. So he feared no violence. Not anymore. The universe was an infinite sea of blood in which he could swim but never drown.
“I’m bored,” the woman said then. “Best of luck, pretty lad. You’ll need it.”
She spun on her heels, threading toward the dark corridor beyond. The lights flickered, yielding an intermittent burst that made it look as if she glided, taking only one step for every meter. Despite her leather and chains, she was graceful. Quiet. And he could hear so many things. Too many. This place would drive him mad in short order, and it wasn’t as though he had far to travel.
He expected her to pause to give him a chance to reconsider, but she didn’t. In fact, she’d already written him off. That tore it. With inhuman speed, he closed the distance between them and leapt over their heads, dropping down into a fighting crouch before them.
“Maybe I was hasty,” he said. “It’s a curse.”
“Come on then. We can’t linger.”
Her two minions fell back, talking softly. Jael heard every word though they were trying to be subtle. This was a skill he didn’t advertise, but he could’ve told the woman at his side that she had slight arrhythmia.
“What do you think of the fish?” the blond giant asked.
“Too soon to say. He seems smart enough . . . and skilled. Not crazy.”
“Do you think she took him because he’s pretty?”
“What do you care?”
The giant sighed. “Because I’m not.”
Hm. So the big scarred brute had a thing for the princess in chains. I wonder if she knows.
Before he could calculate how the information might serve him best, he stopped cold, held up a hand. Occasionally, his acute hearing proved useful in other ways. Jael could also hear the slight hitch in her breathing when the décor changed. New territory, he guessed. She was afraid, but the adrenaline kicked in. The woman beside him was ready for a fight—wanted one—and that was . . . enticing.
“Party guests on the way. Shall we show them a good time?”
She nodded. “Let’s.”
He had no weapon, but it didn’t matter. The enemy couldn’t have anything more than shivs, chains, hunks of metal forged into something equally primitive. There would be no blasters, shredders, or disruptors. Which made for a fine melee . . . for him, anyway.
Jael whirled into battle as the convicts broke from the shadows. They all wore the same colors, and they carried homemade knives. They radiated a desperate, frantic air; he’d seen the same light in the eyes of holy warriors—fools convinced they were dying for a holy cause instead of just dying.
Punch, block, roll. He came up behind his target and broke his neck cleanly from behind. The giant’s surprised grunt told Jael the other man was surprised he had the brute strength to manage the maneuver. Everyone was, until they realized he wasn’t normal. That he was other. Then the whispers would start, even here.
It was hard not to stop and watch her because she was beautiful like a ferocious storm. Her chains twirled and lashed. He leapt them while the henchmen held back, clearly worried about getting in her way. But he wasn’t afraid of a misdirected blow. It was only pain, his old friend, his nursemaid and mother. She hit him once, and he shook it off, finished his kill.
There were ten bodies on the ground when he stopped moving.
“Priest’s people,” she said, not even breathing hard.
That meant less than nothing to him, but in time, he’d figure out the politics.
The trek through the ship was enlightening in other ways. Anything that could be stripped, stolen, or recycled had been. In places, whole wall panels were missing, and others showed signs of hard use, pocked with holes and rust and ominous stains. The floors showed just as much wear, to the point that it was miraculous Perdition held together at all.
“What’ll happen when someone pries off the wrong piece?” he asked.
She cut him a wry, appreciative look. “We’ll asphyxiate. No great loss, right?”
That might do it. A jolt of anticipation startled him. I could die here. And it wasn’t an awful, terrifying thought. It was like the promise of sunrise at the end of the longest, darkest night. Another man might raise a fist and rail because he hadn’t asked to be born. But Jael could only whisper in his own head: I didn’t ask to be created.
But that was too pathetic. He’d grown accustomed t
o his status as renegade science project. Even took pleasure in killing the people responsible from time to time. Not all of them, of course. Some had to live because otherwise, how could they enjoy turns of tortured fear?
He smiled.
“What did you mean when you said you read me?”
“I’m Psi,” she said flatly.
He actually stumbled. “Oh, shit. You’re not a mind reader, are you? I hate those fookers. Always poking about, looking for your darkest secrets.”
She surprised him with a husky laugh. “No, though I’d keep busy for a thousand turns in here if I were. You can’t go five steps without stumbling over some ass with a dark secret.”
“I don’t have any. So what then?”
“I find killers . . . and I feel how they go about it. If it’s rage or pleasure-driven.” She was holding back, he could tell. The way she bit her lip to prevent another round of explanation.
But it was enough for now. He’d charm the rest out of her later. Women liked him; or they always had, right up until it was too late to reconsider. When you got right down to it, there was a monstrous face beneath his smooth skin.
“And me? What did you see?”
“You’ve taken pleasure in killing but not in a psychotic way. Your pattern felt . . . organized. Like you were righting a wrong, real or imagined. You don’t kill in anger. In fact, you’re mostly cold, pretty lad, like a field of endless snow.”
How right she was. It shook him a bit, so he summoned a caustic smile. “Look, I’m properly undone. Watch now, you’ll have me weeping. Do you think you could fix me, queenie?”
“No,” she said. “I can’t fix anything. I can only break it. Or kill it. But you’re welcome to come sleep in my boneyard.”
“Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse.”