by Carysa Locke
Curious, Mercy eyed the little girl. What Talent had she been using?
Tama said something out loud, but it was so muffled no one could understand it. Wolfgang lifted her away from him and gave her a look Mercy knew well. Uh-oh. He set Tama gently but firmly on the floor, crouching so he was at her level.
“Tamari. Answer your Aunt Nayla.”
The girl was back to fidgeting with her stuffed cat’s ears and not looking anyone in the eye.
“Tama.” Wolf’s voice was soft, but unyielding.
“Ask ‘mission,” she said in a very small voice.
“And did you ask my permission?”
She shook her head.
“Do you understand why you need to?”
Those tiny shoulders hunched, but as Mercy knew well, no one escaped the old Wolf’s interrogations. He had endless patience. When Nayla made to move forward, Wolfgang just shook his head slightly. “It’s better if she understands why. Tama, why do you need to ask permission?”
“Privacy.”
“And what else?”
A shrug.
“Did you know that nulls like me don’t have shields like you?”
Startled, the girl looked up at him. She shook her head, eyes wide.
“That means it’s easier to hurt us, even unintentionally. I know you wanted to help me, but it really is important to ask first. Next time, we can have someone who knows how monitor what you’re doing. It’s safer for me and you.”
“Okay.” She reached out a tentative hand and touched his face. “Wolf hurt?”
Wolfgang smiled. “No. You helped me. Thank you. Just be sure and follow the rules from now on.”
She gave a tremulous smile. “Okay.” Then her gaze focused on something beyond him, and the moment was forgotten. “Papa!” Joy filled her face.
In the next moment, Tamari was gone. There was the snap of air rushing into the space she’d occupied a moment ago, and then she was across the room and in the arms of a huge, dark-skinned man who made Wolfgang look small. He wore an expensive suit and had a serious face, with close-cropped black hair and cold blue eyes that sent a shiver through Mercy.
That was why Tamari’s eyes had seemed so familiar – they were the same color as Reaper’s eyes. An icy, pale blue that verged on colorless. Except Tama’s eyes held a warmth Reaper’s lacked.
A warmth her father’s eyes lacked, as well. Tamari’s father was a Killer, like Reaper.
Mercy stood up slowly. She had the urge to place herself between Wolfgang and this man in case this went badly. She had the sense that she was standing in the same room as a very dangerous weapon, a hair’s trigger from going off. The man’s blue eyes focused on her, and it wasn’t nearly as comfortable a look as Reaper’s gaze. For the first time, Mercy understood why everyone had such a reaction to Reaper.
She cleared her throat. “Apparently your daughter likes to visit Atrea,” she said cautiously.
“Yes, I know.” The man’s voice was deep and calm. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded…flat. Unaffected. “Tamari, are you supposed to be teleporting without supervision?”
No, Papa. The mental voice sounded so chastised Mercy had to choke back a laugh. She was starting to see a theme with this little girl. Then Tamari tilted her head, and there was a crafty look to her. But you were here! And Rasa. That’s super-ized.
“No, it is not. I need to know before you teleport. As you well know, Rasa does not count as supervision. If you do it again, I will have Uncle Treon lock down your Talent until I believe you can follow my directive.”
Her lower lip quivered, but Tama didn’t try to bargain further. Considering her interaction with the girl, Mercy supposed Tama knew such tactics didn’t work against her formidable father.
“Okay, Papa.” Her voice sounded exactly like it had when she’d agreed with Wolfgang: resigned.
The man looked back at Mercy and the others, and gave a single nod. “Thank you for watching her. Nayla, thanks for the heads up.”
“Anytime, Dem. Have you met Mercy?”
“Not yet.” He inclined his head, and Mercy returned the nod. “I’m the Chief of Security aboard Nemesis. I hear Reaper is taking care of your security.”
That was true enough. Then she thought about the arena and frowned. “For now, anyway.”
Dem studied her for a long moment. “I see. I have no doubt in my brother’s abilities, but perhaps you do.”
Mercy wanted to argue that she didn’t doubt Reaper’s abilities, just his intentions. But then she thought better of it. Whatever manipulation had happened today was between her and Reaper.
“Wolfgang, when she’s ready, perhaps you would escort Mercy to her quarters?”
Mercy bit back the urge to argue with him. It was clear that no one was comfortable yet letting her run around the ship unattended. If she had to have someone with her, better it was Wolfgang than someone she didn’t know. Besides, she wanted a chance to talk to him.
“You don’t trust that she’s safe on this ship?” There was a challenge in the old Wolf’s voice.
Dem simply raised one black brow. “Do you?”
Wolfgang barked a laugh. “Point taken.”
“Now.” Dem studied his small daughter, and Mercy was surprised to see his lips curve into a smile. “Why don’t I give you a lesson on teleporting, halla? And you can explain to your mother where you’ve been all afternoon.”
Okay! Bye Mercy! Bye Wolf! Bye Auntie!
The two of them were gone between one blink and the next, with only a snap of air to show they’d ever been there.
“I thought the ability to teleport was extremely rare,” Mercy said aloud. She was thinking not just of Tamari and Dem, but also of the young girl who’d facilitated Willem Frain’s escape from the space station.
“It is,” said Nayla with a sigh. “That’s what makes keeping track of Tamari so hard. People aren’t used to an active, curious child who can teleport.”
“That’s not all she can do.” Mercy glanced at Wolfgang.
“No.” Nayla smiled. “Tamari’s mother is my sister, Sanah. An empath. We’re still learning how that gift has manifested in Tama, but it’s clear she has some form of it.”
A teleporting empath, who was also the daughter of a Killer. “That must make for some interesting family time.”
Nayla laughed. “You have no idea.” She shook her head, then went back to whatever task Tamari had interrupted.
Wolfgang touched her shoulder. “When was the last time you ate?”
“Not long ago. Cannon fed me right after I woke.”
“Hmm. Probably couldn’t manage much after so long with so little. You’re too thin. You should eat small amounts at regular, short intervals, until you’re back up to fighting weight.”
Mercy barely managed not to roll her eyes. Wolfgang didn’t miss it, the corner of his mouth twitching as he suppressed a smile.
“If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for this old man. I can only pester one of you right now, so you get the brunt of it.”
Mercy saw his gaze go to Atrea, saw the raw worry and pain that moved through his steely eyes and grizzled face. Her heart twisted.
“Okay, fine. I’ll eat.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Come sit with me?”
His attention switched back to her, and he smiled. Tired, but genuine.
“I would love to.”
With one last look at Atrea and a silent promise to return, Mercy led the way out of the infirmary. Nayla waved, and Doc didn’t look up from the datapad he was muttering over in the back. He hadn’t even stirred with all of the coming and going from the infirmary, and Mercy figured he must be used to Tama’s unscheduled visits. That was just fine as far as she was concerned. Mercy planned to avoid the good doctor for as long as possible.
“You know,” said Wolfgang conversationally as they moved down the corridor together, “Doc keeping tabs on you isn’t the worst thing, given the condition you were in when you arrived.”
Ha! Mercy didn’t dignify that with an answer. She hated doctors at the best of times, always too worried about what they might discover about her to relax around them. Doc’s abrasive personality just made it easy for her to distrust him.
Wolfgang signaled for the lift as they reached the end of the hall, smiling at Mercy sardonically. He knew exactly how much she hated medical facilities and doctors poking their noses anywhere around her.
“You don’t need to worry about being discovered here,” he pointed out. As if she didn’t know that.
The lift arrived, and the doors began to open.
“Look,” she said, “just because—”
The tremor of something wrong hit her a second before Reaper’s voice burst into her head. An awareness that had her eyes widening, adrenaline flooding her limbs.
MERCY, DOWN!
She moved, shoving into Wolfgang with her entire body.
Stupid. It shouldn’t have worked. His implants should have kept him solidly on his feet. But the two of them stumbled to the side, hitting the wall just as the doors to the lift opened and a blast of heat and flame belched out.
Chapter Fourteen
Reaper waited, unfettered by emotion. The cold dark had driven away distractions like worry and anger beneath an implacable wave of endless quiet. Relaxed and alone, he closed his eyes. The cold stilled his body, suffused his bones, and sharpened his mind with a clarity of thought only attainable in times like this, when the killer washed away everything else, weaving an emptiness around him so vast he might have been suspended in space like the ship that carried him.
A faint awareness glimmered within his mind like a distant star, the knowledge that he wasn’t safe to be around any living person. So he waited for his dogs to report their findings from the scene of the explosion. He sent only two: Titus and Jaxon. The object reader and the Hunter. The two had worked together often in the past. Titus’s gift for reading residual mental impressions from objects worked well in tandem with Jaxon’s ability to track.
Boss, Jaxon told him only moments after arriving on the scene. Your brother is here.
Reaper didn’t need to ask which brother. As the chief of security, Dem would have been the first to arrive.
He won’t interfere, Reaper told Jaxon.
If you say so. Doubt came through loud and clear in the Hunter’s tone, but Reaper remained unconcerned. Dem was the only one of his kind, both Hunter and Killer. He also knew Reaper better than anyone else alive.
This is a mess. Titus sent Reaper a visualization of the scene. The blast radius had warped the corridor, twisting metal bulkheads and rupturing the walls and floor. The lift shaft was a smoking black hole. The gravity generators woven into the floor had clearly been compromised. The damage radius could be seen in the floating debris that crowded what was left of the lift and corridor. Larger pieces of shrapnel, blackened and twisted, floated weightlessly among scattered metal shavings that slowly spun, glittering like stars where emergency lighting cut through the black. Where the damage stopped, so too did the weightless zone, as though an invisible wall separated the unmarred corridor from the damaged section.
It wasn’t a wall, exactly. It was where the working gravity generators and the field they created bumped up against the weightless carnage of the blast zone. A few scattered pieces of shrapnel flung further down the hallway littered the floor, but if Titus wanted to get his hands on something the bomb maker had touched, he was going to have to find it inside the floating mess.
We’re damn lucky the hull didn’t breach, Titus said. This could be a slow process.
However long it takes. It didn’t matter. The ship was locked down. No one was leaving.
I see Treon did not exaggerate. Dem’s voice in Reaper’s mind was not unexpected. Deep and familiar, it was even welcome, in its way. Dem had trained Reaper when they were young. His voice had been the one to teach Reaper how to manage the cold, how to control it instead of allowing it to dictate his actions.
Since Dem had spoken the words as a statement, Reaper saw no reason to respond. He didn’t care what Treon said about him.
He told me you’d developed an attachment to the new queen, Dem continued. I thought surely he must be mistaken. After Lilith, no queen would ever command you again.
That elicited a response.
Mercy does not command me.
She does. Finding her attackers and punishing them is my job. Yet, here you send your dogs.
Everyone knows I stood beside her. It was exactly why Reaper had taken her to the arena. Not just to show Mercy who the pirates were, and what she was capable of, but to show everyone he had allied himself with her. Word would have spread quickly.
Dem didn’t answer immediately. When he did, the words were measured. You once swore, very publicly, that you would kill another queen like Lilith.
Mercy is no Lilith.
That remains to be seen. There are those who believe she will be, just by what she is. Can you blame them?
For the first time in their adult lives, the Killer within Reaper focused intently on his brother. For a long breath, neither of them spoke, the telepathic connection between them weighted with wordless things.
The next time you say Mercy does not command you, Dem said softly, remember this moment, brother.
Reaper said nothing. He weighed the threat Dem represented to Mercy. If anyone could kill a queen, it would be a Killer. And only two of those existed aboard Nemesis.
I will not stand in your way, Dem said at last. Whoever is responsible for this could have killed many others. Could have killed us all.
Even now, Mercy and Wolfgang were in the infirmary, where Doc and Nayla fought to keep them among the living. It was a genetic imperative hardwired into the Talented not to attack or harm a queen. This inelegant violence had been someone’s attempt to get around that imperative. It might have killed anyone so unlucky as to use that lift at that time. Doc. Nayla. Anyone.
His brother’s words reassured him that for now, at least, Dem was no direct threat. Reaper went back to waiting.
Be wary how much closer you get to this queen, brother, Dem said. If she survives.
She is strong. She will survive. Reaper did not allow himself to consider the alternative. Our people need her. Mercy could be the key to our survival.
Or our destruction. You are no longer objective in this matter, Nikolos. Emotion has clouded your perception.
Suspended within the void, Reaper could give the thought no credence. That is not possible, he said.
You forget, brother, we are but half Killer. Both of us feel emotion. We are just more adept at choosing not to than others.
No. Reaper paused, considering. Dem had never before voiced such things. Your wife is an empath. She does not understand us. Sanah had to be the reason behind Dem’s sudden belief in the impossible.
She understands me more clearly than anyone ever has, said Dem. Make no mistake, Nikolos. You are compromised.
Dem was the one compromised. Reaper chose to end the discussion by changing its focus. Keep my path clear. They both knew what would happen if Dem didn’t.
I will. It looks as though your man has found something.
Titus?
Yeah, boss. The dog’s mental voice sounded distant, distracted. I think this whole area was painted with plas-charge, and activated by a thermal sensor. I’m double-checking with Knox, now.
A small eternity passed while Titus consulted with the dog who specialized in demolitions. Finally, his voice came back.
I’m right. We aren’t going to find the detonator. Plas-charge probably disintegrated it into nano-particles.
Reaper considered. Someone had to paint it.
Yeah. They were careful. Used telekinesis. I can’t quite get an image, and Jax can’t get a psychic trail. Not enough plas-charge left for me to see who mixed the stuff.
So careful. Whoever had done this expected to be hunted.
There are few people with the
fine control necessary to telekinetically paint plas-charge, Dem said suddenly. Less than twenty on this ship.
The Killer wanted to end them all, just to be certain. Reaper choked back the urge. Once, perhaps he could have indulged in such excess, but not now.
Fewer still, said Dem, with the expertise to mix it. Give me an hour, and I’ll have a list of suspects. Give me two, and I can narrow it down significantly.
I will wait.
Boss, said Titus. I can pick up vague impressions. Perpetrators are male…and Mercy was definitely the target.
Of that, Reaper had never doubted.
I am patient, he told his brother. There is nowhere for them to run.
Mercy floated in a black void, an abyss so deep she could sense nothing outside of it. No minds pressed against hers. For the first time since the space station, she was truly, utterly alone.
It was peaceful. She had no sense of time, so it was impossible to say how long she spent floating, letting her mind drift. She could feel nothing of her body. In this place, she was weightless. Giving herself to the dark was calming, serene in ways she lacked the words to describe. No worries penetrated her thoughts here. Nothing disturbed her. It was like the endless quiet of space. Or the calm tranquility of a still pond. It felt safe, and comforting. She couldn’t remember a time in her life to match it.
“Why are you so difficult to kill?”
The familiar voice sent serrated shards of adrenaline through her, destroying the tranquility like waves crashing against jagged rocks. Fear and anger followed in equal measure.
“What the hell are you doing here?” She didn’t speak the words either physically or mentally. In this place they just existed as though already spoken and waiting to be acknowledged.
It felt like an abomination to have him here.
“I keep trying to kill you.” Willem Frain’s voice was bitter. “Why won’t you just die?”
Mercy laughed. “Maybe I am dead. This feels a lot like I imagine death.”