The Witch must have sensed an opportunity. She jackknifed, a chunk of her hair tearing out as he struggled to maintain his grip. Her back arched with surprising strength, and Alex toppled over, falling to his side with the Witch following him, his vision just clear enough to see her thumbs approach his eyes. There was no time to bring his hands up between them.
There was a sound, impossibly loud, and a brief rush of light and heat. The air stank of cordite and burnt hair. The Witch’s head deflated like a punctured balloon.
“Well done, Alex,” Miss Gallow said, striding past him and ejecting a plastic casing from her shotgun. “You’re safe.”
Alex dropped the clump of hair in disgust and wiped the blood from his hands on his pants, then tried to clean the burning crystals and mucus from his eyes. Seconds ticked by while his vision slowly returned.
Mitsuru was standing two meters short of the Witch in red, the ground corroding around her. The Witch clutched a piece of carved wood between her hands as if she were praying, and a shimmering field of energy separated her from the unnatural living calamity bleeding smoking holes in the pavement.
“Okay Mitzi,” Alice Gallow said, striding forward to stand behind her, the barrel of her shotgun leveled at the kneeling Witch. “Rein it in.”
“Mitsuru,” Miss Aoki growled.
“Mitzi is a bit lacking in self-control,” Alice explained, walking slowly around the perimeter of the Witch’s defensive working. “And, to be honest, I’m not really feeling motivated to stop her from killing you. So I will give you one chance, right now, take it or leave it. You wanna surrender, or you wanna dissolve?”
The wooden carving clattered to the ground, and the energy field dissolved like water. The Witch looked as if she were fighting back tears.
“Curious.” Alice shrugged. “Analytics wasn’t sure if you things would surrender to preserve your lives or not, once the Anathema took over. Live and learn, I suppose.”
Alice looked her over disapprovingly. The Witch shivered, the gesture immediately relatable and sympathetic. Alex had never met another human being who created such fear simply by smiling her dreadful smile.
Chike? Deploy.
Alex heard the affirmative over the shared telepathic channel a moment before the apport technician crackled into being behind Miss Gallow, along with Michael, Xia, and a man with tattoos on his neck and face that Alex didn’t recognize.
“Well done, everyone,” Alice said cheerfully. “This went well.”
Karim, secure the prisoner.
Alex had hardly met the new addition to Audits, a friendly Kurd who was apparently both a sniper and a telepath, who had established the telepathic link they shared before deployment simply by touching Alex’s forehead with his delicate index finger.
Done.
Still rubbing the gunk out of his sore eyes, Alex glanced up at the rooftop, half-expecting to see the sniper looking down on them, but of course he wasn’t there. The Witch went rigid and then was consumed with what appeared to be a seizure that reduced her to a drooling, twitching mess on the pavement. At a nod from Alice, the guy with the face tattoos walked over and gently lifted the prostrate Witch’s head, placing what looked like a metal collar laced with electronics around her neck.
“Hope Vladimir was right about that thing. If anyone is an expert, I suppose it’s him, though. You reading any telepathic activity off her, Mitzi?”
Miss Aoki shook her head.
“Initiate stage two. I don’t want to risk moving the bitch until we are sure her sisters can’t track her.” Alice’s words had an almost-echo that was indicative of speech being relayed telepathically – not enough to distort the words, but it did give them a rather disquieting resonance. “Xia, you are with me, close protection while Mark handles the interrogation. Karim, I want overwatch. Haley, have your dogs set up a perimeter, three blocks out, and give us a heads-up if company is inbound. Chike, I want you to transport Michael, Mitsuru, and Alex back to the forward base. Katya should have things running by now. Michael, get Alex and Mitsuru patched up, then debrief. Feed the kids, then have them rest in shifts. We will be moving as early as tonight. Clear?”
“Absolutely, Chief,” Michael said, with a nod. Alex noticed that he went out of his way not to pay any attention to the incapacitated Witch.
“Alice, I don’t need first aid...”
Miss Gallow shot Miss Aoki a withering glare.
“Auditor Aoki, you will report to medical, then to Auditor Lacroix for debrief. And, in the future, you will follow orders without question, or you won’t be in a position to receive any. You understand me, Mitzi?”
Miss Aoki hesitated for a brief moment, and Alex wondered what the hell was going on – but then she backed down and nodded.
“Alright, Chike, get ’em out of here. Grab yourself something to eat, then head back here in case we need to reposition Karim. Mark, whenever you are ready, you can get to work, you magnificent bastard.”
Alex looked away before the interrogation could start, and kept his eyes on the ground until Chike was ready to apport. It was nothing he needed to see. He had enough fuel for nightmares already.
Fifteen.
Lóa Thule arrived in the office of her father, David Thule, out of breath and with tears making a terrible mess of her carefully applied makeup. The words were so bitter that she felt a brief and irrational fear that she might choke upon them. He was in his high-backed leather chair, rotated to face the window, though his office was on the fifth story and situated so that all he could see was the snow falling onto the steel-grey sea.
“Father,” Lóa gasped, resting her palms on the edge of his desk. “Brennan is dead.”
Just saying it made her start crying again, tears spattering the polished wood of the desktop.
In some other families in the Hegemony, her relationship with her cousin would have been bitter. She was her father’s eldest child, after all, and the rightful heir to leadership of their namesake cartel, but Brennan had been selected instead. In the case of the Thule Cartel, however, this decision had been made with her full consent and approval. Brennan had been brilliant since childhood, and had grand visions for the future of the cartel, which they both assumed would prosper under his leadership. Lóa, on the other hand, enjoyed the wealth and power that came with her family name, but had no desire to take on the responsibilities of leadership. Her cousin’s ambitions were a source of relief for her, and she took comfort in the idea that her responsibility to uphold the family name was limited to the laboratory or the battlefield – places where she felt able and confident.
She was not simply suffering the loss of a trusted confidant and friend, a playmate and ally since childhood. Lóa was watching her very future alter in ominous and upsetting ways.
“It is certain?” Her father’s voice was tired but not without warmth. She could make out the ghost of his reflection in the window, staring out at the flecks of snow with an expression of intermingled grief and resolve. “You have seen it yourself, Lóa?”
“I have, father. He is...the Martynova girl, she must have...”
He turned the chair sideways, though his eyes were still glued to the choppy waters of the ocean. David Thule’s bald head was fringed with stringy white hair, and his face was sunken and creased.
“How is that possible? Has the Black Sun cartel attacked us here, in our home?”
Lóa Thule took a deep breath.
“No, father. Brennan took Anastasia Martynova prisoner.” The admission was painful. They had never meant for David Thule to know. “Our attempt on her life was a failure, as all other attempts have failed. Brennan resolved to turn her, and put her to the ordeal.”
David Thule shook his head regretfully, one hand resting against his temple as if he had a headache.
“What a foolish child,” he said sadly. “It is unfortunate that he kept his designs from me. Not only because it cost him his life, but also because it undermines our family’s authority. Learn from
this, daughter – question the actions of the cartel head in private, surely, but never go against orders, for it creates division upon which our enemies can seize. In any case, our family’s secrets should never have been shared with an outsider.”
“There is more, father,” Lóa said slowly, wishing that she did not have to explain the truth of the matter. “I wished to kill her, but I have recently discovered that Brennan had different intentions. It seems that he had become fixated on the idea of taking Anastasia Martynova as his bride, and unifying the cartels through marriage. He meant for her to become part of our family.”
This gave her father pause. For the first time, his eyes turned to her, and his expression softened. He reached out his arms, and Lóa hurried around the desk, burying her face in his shoulder and then crying harder than she could ever remember, even at her own mother’s funeral. Of course, she had only been a child, then, and had lacked full comprehension of what was truly happening. Now she could comprehend that the weight settling on her chest would never fully lift. Her father held her until she regained her composure.
“How? How did it happen?”
“I am not sure,” Lóa responded, sniffling. “I found him in the chamber of the ordeal. He had not been dead long – perhaps a few hours. There were members of his bodyguard and servants all along the stair down to the chamber, and more hidden in corners of the main courtyard – all dead, by knife or subsonic bullet – as well as a secretary, a clerk, and two kitchen staff in the main house. I have started a search, and I expect more to be found.”
“His guard turned on him? Or was it infiltrated?”
“The latter, I believe. Anastasia Martynova would have been in extremely poor shape, having spent seven days undergoing the ordeal. She would have required aid to kill Brennan, and then more help to flee. And...the manner of death...”
The tears came again, hot and shameful. Her father waited patiently.
“There was significant damage to his torso, and a large amount of tissue was...removed. The majority of his heart, I believe, though I cannot be certain until the autopsy has been completed. There was no obvious entry wound, only a great deal of damage in what appeared to be the exit.”
“Puzzling. Still, the Martynova girl is a well-known Deviant. Perhaps the wound speaks to the nature of her protocol?”
“I doubt it, father. She would have been in no shape to fight, and Brennan was careful...”
“Not careful enough,” he said, shaking his head again. The lines on his face seemed to be growing deeper as the sun receded and his grief settled in. “Or he would still be with us. What else?”
“He must have conversed with her first, or intended to do so.” Lóa Thule racked her brain for details, for any small piece of information that might help her father resolve the situation – even though she knew in her heart that it was long past any satisfactory resolution. “There was a chair, a table, water, tea...they must have been waited upon. Brennan was served wine, and the Martynova girl was given an herbal restorative. There must have been a struggle, as much of what I found was broken or in disarray.”
“What of their escape?”
“A full investigation is underway, but the forensic telepaths discovered impressions of a second person aiding Martynova up the stairs, in the mask and livery of our family. Cartel security was alerted by the detection of an incoming apport into the main courtyard, despite the cryptographic baffling we have in place to prevent such things. The guards responded immediately, but an outgoing apport occurred before they achieved visual confirmation. The destination of the apport was mainland Europe, the location of the Black Sun Cartel’s European headquarters in London, so they made no attempt toward concealment. It is possible that they had assistance from the inside in making the rescue.”
“Or Martynova secreted someone within our ranks beforehand, someone responsible for the killings of our servants. If they were clever enough, and had access to the appropriate telepathic protocols, then overcoming our anti-apport baffling is feasible. No matter. What of the Black Sun? Have we heard anything through diplomatic channels? Have they lodged grievances or protests with the Committee or the Board?”
Lóa shook her head.
“Nothing, father. Total silence.”
He paused and looked out the window again.
“Then they do not plan to pursue this. Either they achieved their objective, in some manner that we still do not understand, or they wish to send a message by their silence. The Black Sun is the worst kind of enemy, Lóa. You must guard yourself against retribution for the remainder of your life. They have long memories, and take satisfaction at having their revenge when you have the most to lose.”
Lóa Thule recalled certain bitter moments in the family history, and nodded her agreement.
“They have chosen their course, then, and further speculation is useless. We will know what they intend when we reap the consequences of my nephew’s rashness. All that remains is determining our own course of action. And that...that we have known for some time.”
David Thule watched the ocean batter the cliff face below his ancestral home outside of Reykjavik, and his daughter could not guess at his thoughts.
“Father, is there not another way?” Lóa asked the question without hope, only a desperate need to avoid more loss and pain. “Our cartel has found itself in dire straits before, and we have survived...”
“Only just, and not in a manner befitting a noble house. My brother turned his back on us previously. This time will be no different, unless we force his hand. He is prepared to let us be destroyed while he stands by. Therefore, we cannot allow him that luxury.”
“But, father...”
“There is no other course available,” David Thule said, patting her hand kindly. “We have sought any other solution, and none has been forthcoming. We cannot throw ourselves on his mercy, or appeal to his sentimentality, because he has neither. Obligation, though, he understands. My brother could never walk away from an obligation, no matter how much he resented it.”
Lóa Thule choked back the remainder of her objections. To pursue them would have been fruitless – and worse, would have made her father’s already difficult position even more so.
“Lóa, I have asked much of you already.” David Thule smiled at her, and again she collapsed into his arms. “You are the best of our family, and the last memory I have of your mother. You are already my finest accomplishment, and I know that you are destined to play a great role in the coming tribulations.”
She wept into his jacket, knowing that if her father said it, then it was the truth. His empathic abilities had held the cartel together through their long exile, after all, but it was his precognitive abilities that had made him so formidable.
“Still, I must ask more of you, because there is no one else worthy. Will you serve your father as a messenger and diplomat one last time?”
Lóa stood and wiped the tears from her face. She did not turn to her father until she could produce a smile. Then she nodded, pushing away the sorrow at knowing what would come next.
“Thank you, Lóa. Know that my actions are dictated as much by my love for you as for the honor of the cartel.”
David Thule stood up on arthritic knees and walked slowly across the room, while Lóa Thule hovered nearby in case he required her assistance. Her father had the body of an old man since before she was born. The capriciousness of the nanites was to blame – the same phenomenon that granted Anastasia Martynova her apparently eternal youthfulness had cursed her father to an extended life trapped in the body of an aged man. He reached above the vacant fireplaces with swollen red hands, and removed the ring that rested on the mantle in a grey felt box. It was made of rose gold worn smooth by years of handling, inset with a rough-cut amber stone that held an unnatural luster within its depth. It was a larger twin to the ring that Lóa wore. David Thule appeared to weigh the ring thoughtfully for a moment, a faraway look in his eyes; then he smiled at Lóa and held it
out toward her.
“Your mother was the last to wear it as anything other than a decoration for the Committee. I was never worthy of it, so it rested here for a generation. Take it, my beloved daughter, and present it to your uncle. Make him remember that he is a Thule. Remind him of his responsibilities and the obligations he has borne since birth. Bring him back to us.”
Lóa took the ring reverently, trying to keep her tears in check. She had cried enough already this day, and there were still more tears to come, but this was not the time. That was not how she should remember this moment. She looked deeply into her father’s eyes, clouded with age and cataracts.
“I love you, father. I will...”
Her voice failed her, but he took her by the shoulders and embraced her one last time. Then he walked her to the door of his office, his hand resting on her back.
“I have never loved anyone as much as I love you, Lóa, my child,” he said fondly, gently urging her out the door. “Make me as proud as you always have.”
She hurried down the stairs, unable to trust herself to look back or say anything else. One flight down, the tears came again, choking sobs that welled up from deep within her.
Despite her attempts to hurry, she still heard the shot before she made it to the door.
***
“Wow. You look like you got your ass kicked.”
“That seems about right.” Alex practically fell into the chair. The medical techs had flushed his eyes, but they were still swollen and oozing. The wound in the back of his neck required five stitches to close, while his forehead got away with three. There were bandages on his elbows, a knot was forming on the back of his head, and a cold pack was strapped to his side below the wrap that immobilized his bruised ribs. It was hard to breathe and everything was sore, but the tech had made him swallow two Vicodin before he came down to dinner, so it was bearable.
The Far Shores (The Central Series) Page 41