Smoke and Summons (Numina Book 1)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  And that . . . that was Sandis?

  He bolted back behind the building, pressing his back to the bricks. Huffing for air like he’d swum from the bottom of the ocean. Sweat ran down the sides of his face and traced his stomach. The papers and cash under his jacket weighed like anvils.

  He ran.

  He’d do well to remember what Sandis was. A monster, a numen, a weapon. Kazen was a slug, but he could control her. Rone had done the right thing.

  Yet no matter how fast he ran, the sound of her screams lashed back and forth within his skull, and that ball of guilt, growing heavier by the moment, churned relentlessly against his gut.

  Full night was upon him when the first bullet glanced off his upper arm. Rone heard the sound of it first as it tore through fabric and skin. The sting came second.

  Cursing, he ducked into the alcove of an apartment building; he was on the outskirts of the grungy neighborhood. Above his head, he heard shutters slam shut and momentarily wondered if the people here were used to grafters.

  Breathing hard, Rone checked the door behind him. Locked. Of course it was locked.

  He poked his head out of the alcove, then ducked down again as another gun fired. The brick behind him exploded, spraying dust in his eye. He rubbed away debris and tears.

  He’d had a bad feeling something like this would happen. That Kazen and his lackeys would decide to kill him for the amarinth he carried in his pocket. Why take only Sandis when they could have both?

  Nausea spiked through him. Sandis. No, he couldn’t think about her. Think about your mother, you sack of sludge.

  Tomorrow, they’d be reunited. They’d have passage to Ysben, Godobia, wherever she wanted to go. Money to start anew. They’d forget about Dresberg, the Angelic, the grafters.

  He’d forget about Sandis.

  Wouldn’t he?

  Pulling the amarinth from his pocket, Rone crouched and listened. He didn’t know how many pursuers were tailing him, but he needed them to get closer. He only had a minute.

  The night was still and stale. He heard voices within the building at his back.

  Chewing on his lip, Rone calculated which appendage he’d need the least, should his quickly forming plan go awry. His left hand lost the bet.

  He stuck it out, fingers splayed, hoping the shadow looked more like a head than a hand.

  A shot fired. It blessedly missed both him and the brick, though he felt the wind from the bullet. As soon as he did, he pulled his hand back and cried out, “Ah!” followed by as many pathetic noises as he could muster. He clenched his teeth and breathed hard through them, groaning and whimpering theatrically.

  The footsteps came closer. Three, maybe four men. If there was a sniper, Rone would have to be especially fast and outrun him before he could get down from his perch.

  They were almost upon him.

  Rone spun the amarinth and let it float to the top of the alcove.

  He leapt out, surprising the closest grafter with a punch to his face. The man fell back, and the two behind him raised their guns and fired. Rone felt the pressure of two bullets travel through him—one through his shoulder, another through his heart. At least it wasn’t the eye. Rone had never been shot in the eye, but he imagined it would be mightily uncomfortable, amarinth or not.

  He launched at them, all his years of study with Kurtz flowing through his veins, powering his muscles. He ducked under a gun, roundhouse kicked it out of the grafter’s hands even as two consecutive bullets passed through his neck and torso. He rammed the palm of his hand into the grafter’s nose, crunching it before turning his attention to the third man.

  The repeating rifle fired once—neck. Twice—heart. Three times—gut. Each bullet passed through him painlessly.

  The clicking trigger of a gun free of ammunition was sweet music to his ears.

  Rone slammed his fist into the grafter’s face, and as the man dropped, Rone jerked up his knees and hit him square in the nose. Another roundhouse knocked the man over.

  The length of a gun barrel pressed against his neck; Rone wasn’t sure if it was from the first man or an unseen fourth. His air choked clean off, but Rone didn’t feel the desperate need for oxygen. As long as that trinket spun, he wouldn’t.

  But his minute was almost up.

  Rone slammed his head back. He didn’t have a lot of leverage, so the blow was feeble, but it distracted his opponent enough for Rone to find the grafter’s foot and stomp his heel into the guy’s instep. The grafter’s grip loosened. Dropping out of his hold, Rone swung his foot around and knocked his opponent’s legs out from under him, grabbed the rifle, and smashed it against his head.

  The man lay still. That might have been a killing blow, but Rone couldn’t hang around to find out.

  He heard the soft clank of the amarinth hitting the ground just as he got to the alcove. Grabbing the spent artifact, Rone shoved it into his pocket and ran deeper into the city, thinking only of his mother.

  Thinking only of his mother.

  Only of his mother . . .

  Chapter 22

  Sandis’s eyes shot open, and she gasped. She stared ahead, her memories slow to return to her. Her shoulder ached fiercely from being pressed against the concrete floor for . . . she didn’t know how long. Her mouth tasted like bile, and her throat burned. Even as she thought it, her stomach clenched, forcing her to dry heave. The smell of vomit burned her sinuses before she saw the puddles strewn over the floor.

  A fire-laced memory surfaced. She remembered looking at Kazen, from above. From Ireth’s eyes. Remembered stepping over the burned body of a teenager, walking back to—

  The rest cascaded onto her like an avalanche. The grafters. The alley. Rone.

  Rone.

  Rone.

  Tears clouded her vision. They burned her dry eyes and provoked her thirst. She remembered shadows and hands pressing her into the grimy earth. Her blood flowing out of her. Ireth had come in his full glory, erasing Sandis and doing Kazen’s bidding.

  Rone.

  Rolling onto her back, Sandis pressed both hands to her mouth and sobbed, squeezing her eyes shut as if she could hold back all that sorrow. As if she could cage this awful, twisting feeling inside her, so much worse than a summoning.

  Betrayal.

  She choked and rolled back onto her side, pushing off the concrete with one hand. Her head swam, and her arm shook with the effort. Kazen must have given her something to make her retch—making her too weak to summon Ireth and break out of this cage. He needn’t have bothered. She would have passed out moments after breaking down the door.

  Even though she was parched from both summoning and vomiting, tears ran down her face. Her sinuses swelled shut. Her body shook and ached.

  He’d been there for her, almost from the beginning. He’d helped her. He’d held her.

  He’d traded her for money.

  Was that it? Had he kept her around in the hopes Kazen would offer the right price? A pathetic, blunt sound ripped from her throat at the thought. Dizziness took her, and she leaned forward until her forehead met a cold concrete wall. She wept against it for several minutes before pulling back and staring at it in the cool gray light. Light that filtered in from a narrow window in a heavy door three feet from her.

  Solitary confinement. She hadn’t been in this room for a long, long time.

  She was back, then. Ireth’s memories told the story. Kazen had summoned the numen and controlled him with Sandis’s blood—then he’d simply walked them back to their prison.

  While Rone had walked away.

  She bent over and cried, her breaths fragmented, her ribs sore. Had it all been a ruse? A farce? Had the man she’d begun to love really betrayed her for paper?

  Her heart twisted, bent, ripped. It hurt. It hurt so much.

  It had all been a fantasy. All of it. Her belief that she could escape. That she’d find Talbur Gwenwig and he’d take her in . . . Was he even real? Could her mind have played a trick on her, shown her
what she wanted to see? Even if Talbur was her great-uncle, why would he care about her? If he had cared, she would know who he was. He would have been there while she grew up. He would have helped her and her brother after her parents died.

  Talbur Gwenwig was nothing more than a dream, just like Rone.

  Sandis huddled in the corner of the small space, away from her own mess, the cool walls spreading a chill across her skin. She was naked, her dress turned to ash from the summoning. Of course Kazen wouldn’t grant her any decency. No food or water. This room was meant to break her. It had before.

  She wept dry tears. Pressed her hands into her swollen eyes. She wished she’d never met him. Wished she’d never left. Wished she’d never spoken to Heath the night Kolosos ripped him apart. Wished she didn’t care about any of it.

  She wished Anon were here.

  A hard sob shook her. Lifted her from the floor and turned her inside out. The concrete pressed against the heavy scar tissue that spilled down her back. She tried to think of something—anything—to pull her back to herself. Her heavy thoughts conjured an image of stars dotting the heavens above the Lily Tower . . . but no. Rone’s silhouette was there on the edge, tainting it.

  She had nothing. She had—

  Taking a shaky breath, Sandis reached quivering fingers below her neck and traced Ireth’s name.

  “I-reth?” she whispered, choking between syllables. “I-I-reth?”

  Please, she prayed. You’re all I have left.

  A warm pressure built behind her forehead and trickled down like blood, raising goose bumps in its wake. It settled warmly above her stomach.

  Sandis hugged herself, trying to hold the sensation in. She balled her body around it, protecting that last semblance of love. Ireth would never leave her. Ireth was not a fancy.

  Holding herself against the darkness, Sandis cried until the dregs of her energy were spent, and then she fell into a cold and fitful slumber.

  Rone waited outside the front doors of Gerech Prison. He leaned against the innermost wall that separated the massive structure from the rest of Dresberg. He could tell his presence rankled the guards nearby, but they didn’t make him move. The front of his shirt was stretched out and wrinkled from being wrung and knotted between his hands. His skin was cold and clammy despite the warm day. Though he had bribed the warden handsomely and had both emigration documents and travel plans inside his jacket, that ball in his gut still rolled back and forth, back and forth. An even pattern. It was smaller now, but so was his stomach. Food hadn’t been particularly appetizing the last couple of days.

  His whole body jerked at the sound of the left door opening, its hinges groaning against its massive weight. He stood erect, clamping his shirt in both fists. He stopped breathing, waited.

  Guards came out first, and then—

  Rone felt the marrow drain right out of his bones. He barely recognized her, even as his feet moved him forward of their own volition. His mother was gaunt and pale, too thin. Her dress was filthy and ragged at every seam; her hair hung in greasy strings from her scalp. She looked older, like she’d become his grandmother over the course of nine days. Her skinny arms trembled, and she winced at the sunlight.

  Mom.

  She startled when Rone threw his arms around her.

  “Rone?” she asked. Her voice was tiny, frail.

  She smelled awful, worse than the sewers. “I’m here, Mom.” Her matted hair absorbed his tears. “It’s all right now. You’re going to be all right.”

  Her skeletal fingers dug into his back as she embraced him, and she wept into his shoulder, soaking through all three layers covering it. One of the guards tried to usher them along, but Rone held his ground, letting his mother mourn all Gerech had taken from her. Letting himself hold her like he was twelve years old again. Ten. Six.

  Soon it wouldn’t matter. They’d take their things and leave this place.

  The ball in his gut rolled back and forth, back and forth.

  Sandis stirred from her uncomfortable doze to the creaking of metal against concrete—the blessed sound of the door opening. Her joints groaned as she tried to push herself up. Her bones felt like overworked metal rusted over and pressed too thin. Her eyes crusted with old tears. Her stomach pressed against her spine. She wasn’t sure how long Kazen had kept her in that room this time. At least three days, since the only time the slat at the base of the door had opened was to give her a glass of water so she could last her full punishment. Stale, warm water, but it had been so sweet to her. She’d licked the spilled drops off the floor.

  The space smelled horrible. Sandis had been given no food, but her body had still eliminated what was left in it, and there was nowhere to go but the corner. Brushing greasy hair from her face, Sandis summoned the last dregs of her energy to sit up. Light blinded her, and a draft spread gooseflesh across her naked skin.

  She tried to stand but didn’t even get close before her knees buckled and she fell onto her face. A dry sob escaped her lips.

  “Put those away. We won’t need them,” Kazen’s voice crooned from the doorway as he waved away an offered set of handcuffs. “She is sufficiently broken.”

  The water was so hot it hurt. If Zelna wanted to drown her, she could have done so without a fight.

  The old woman’s hands were merciless as they scrubbed Sandis’s hair and skin. Only around her script did Zelna show any care. Soapsuds burned Sandis’s eyes. Every time Zelna shoved her head underwater, Sandis gulped mouthfuls of tinny water to quench her relentless thirst. Kazen stood nearby, supervising everything. His gaze felt like oil against Sandis’s skin. Even if Sandis had the energy to fight back, she wouldn’t. If she could just fall back into her role as the perfect slave, maybe Kazen wouldn’t hurt all the others to punish her. Maybe he’d be lenient. She could protect them, even when no one had protected her.

  Zelna dragged Sandis out of the tub and dried her with a coarse towel, then barked at her when Sandis was sluggish to get her arms into her shirt, which was open in the back to reveal her ranking as vessel. Zelna stuffed her into pants as if she were dressing a doll. Her punishing grip left its share of bruises, but never once did her long fingernails scratch Sandis’s skin, not with Kazen so close.

  Sandis could barely think, let alone walk, and Zelna complained of having to half carry her to the small dining room where the vessels ate. It was empty. Sandis blearily wondered what time it was.

  A bowl of porridge dropped on the table in front of her. With trembling hands, Sandis gripped a spoon and began to eat. The first few bites stuck to her throat and fell leaden into her shrunken stomach. Her whole middle ached with the weight of the food and the water she received shortly thereafter. But the ache soon subsided as hunger took over. So did the fog that had encompassed her brain these last days.

  Her thoughts pulled themselves into order as she assessed her situation. Remembered.

  Sandis forced the last bite of porridge past the sore lump forming in her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut, but tears managed to leak from the corners of her eyelids.

  She was back where she’d started. Underground. With the grafters. With Kazen.

  He’d really left her.

  The bowl was pulled away from her and dropped into a nearby bin for later washing. The sound of fine fabric sliding against the bench across from her encouraged Sandis to open her eyes. Kazen sat facing her, his bony hands folded underneath his pointed chin. The back of one of them was burned, and a distant thought wondered if she’d done that in the alley where she’d first half summoned Ireth. She hoped so. Galt stood in the corner, meaty forearms folded across his chest, his face twisted and sour.

  “What a menace you’ve been, Sandis.” Kazen looked her over. “You’ve cost me a great deal of resources.”

  Sandis wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.

  “We’ll sort out the best way you and the others can repay me later.”

  The words the others struck her like an open hand.

>   It took her a moment to gather her courage and croak, “How much?” She hadn’t heard her own voice in days. It alarmed her how weak and hoarse it sounded. How hard it was to hold up her head.

  “Do speak up, Sandis.”

  She straightened the best she could, though her spine was little more than an overcooked noodle. “How much did you pay him?”

  Kazen’s left eyebrow rose. “You mean your dear partner in crime? He took a measly thousand for you.”

  One thousand. In another time and place, that would have seemed like a lot of money to her. Barely a dent in Kazen’s wallet. One thousand. Was she worth so little?

  Her heart shriveled into the semblance of a raisin.

  He’d held her hand. He’d called her wonderful.

  She wiped away a tear.

  “I don’t appreciate the weepiness.”

  She knew Kazen hated tears. She used to be so good at holding them back. Yet even her eyes betrayed her, refusing her silent pleas to stay dry. Do it for them. Alys, Rist, Dar, Kaili. Don’t give him more reasons to hurt them.

  Take all the punishment yourself.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Penitent. Obedient. Quiet. That was how one thrived in Kazen’s clutches. So little time had passed, yet she’d nearly forgotten all the rules. His and hers.

  An array of horrors awaited her, punishments her imagination was too small to conjure. Kazen would surprise her. He liked surprising her when she disappointed him.

  Penitent. Obedient. Quiet. He wouldn’t trust her for a long time, if ever. She would have to survive as best she could.

  Why did he let me search the mortgage broker if he was already planning to take me back to them?

  Talbur Gwenwig’s name wrote itself on the back of her eyelids, then faded away.

  “You may be,” Kazen said, and it took Sandis a moment to realize he meant she may be sorry. “And you will be. Very sorry, my dear. It takes a lot of effort to hire decent, trustworthy men. They’re expensive. You’ve riled the police as well, and now we’ll have to kill all the scarlets that sneak too close to our little lair. That’s a lot of deaths you’ve caused, pet.”