Kill by Numbers: In the Wake of the Templars Book Two

by Loren Rhoads

  “How long have you been up?”

  “I dozed off for a moment, but other than that, since just before we originally docked at Capital City. I’ve lost track of how many hours that’s been.”

  “Too long.” Mykah stretched. “I caught a nap while we were in station custody, but I’m headed to bed before too much longer, too. I just wanted you to know that we haven’t found any sort of trackers yet.”

  “Good. No harm in being paranoid, though.”

  “Mellix agrees. He thanks you for thinking of it. He says I ought to double your share of his network’s reward to us. He thinks you’ve more than earned it.”

  Raena shook her head. “I’m glad for the work. Buy me more apples and I’ll be fine.”

  Mykah laughed at her. “I’ll make us a victory feast, after we all get some sleep.”

  “Perfect.” Raena would have said her voice positively chirped. “Sweet dreams,” she added belatedly.

  “Not a problem.” Mykah waved and headed off down the corridor.

  Raena locked the door behind him. She found a cup in the locker by the sink and poured herself a drink of water. She had a sip, just to fortify herself, then twisted open the flask. Beneath its cap, the bottle was designed to dispense the drug a single drop at a time. You’d have to break the top off if you wanted to get a really good gulp of it.

  She dripped a scant amount into her water, raised the cup to her lips, and tested the first mouthful. It tasted like shipboard water, slightly metallic, with a comforting tang of disinfectant. If she were honest with herself, she felt so greedy for a solid uninterrupted sleep that she was fully and completely willing to risk anything that might happen to her after taking an unknown drug. It couldn’t be worse than being slowly driven mad by insomnia and hallucinations. She knocked the water back in one long swallow, rinsed the cup, and hung it on a hook to dry.

  She dimmed the lights and undressed. She debated a shower, but decided she didn’t want to sleep—try to sleep, anyway—with wet hair. She slid under her coverlet, curled around the pillow, and closed her eyes.

  It took a little while for the drops to take effect. She supposed it was no surprise it didn’t hit her as hard or fast as it had taken Mellix and the kiisas, but she was still disappointed. Raena tamped down on the desire to get up and have another dose. She forced herself to lie there, to concentrate on her breathing. She counted the regular deep breaths flowing in and out as a way to lull her mind.

  While she fretted, sleep crept gently over her and dragged her down.

  Raena sought Vezali out, just to have some company. She found the girl in the lounge, sitting on the floor in front of the screen. She had something disassembled in front of her, pieces spread out on the floor, like with like, emanating out from her in lines like rays.

  “What are you watching?” Raena asked.

  “Just the news. You want it off?”

  “No, that’s okay.” Raena sank onto the banquette behind her, trying to puzzle out what the news was about.

  Two Templars were standing in the Council of Worlds, addressing the assembly. Raena read the transcript below the screen, trying to make sense of it, since she’d come in the middle. Why was this twenty-year-old footage being shown now?

  The Templars were droning on about some trade initiative. The cameras, apparently also bored, roamed through the audience, looking for reactions. Once again, Raena marveled at the variety of life forms in the galaxy. In her little shipboard cocoon, it was easy to forget that the ratio on the Veracity—two humans to three others—was rare in the galaxy.

  The camera didn’t come across a single human face in all the Council of Worlds. Raena was about to ask about that—she’d thought that humanity always had some delegates—when the date of the recording flashed across the screen. The vote had been taken earlier today.

  Raena felt the world twist suddenly and was grateful she was already sitting down. How had she not known some Templars survived the plague? She had believed that the devastation was total and therefore totally unforgivable.

  The video cut to a Templar shipyard. The insectile creatures crawled all over one of their massive stone ships, performing their inexplicable tasks. Two Templars met, embraced each other with their forelegs, caressing each other’s faces with their antennae.

  Raena closed her eyes. Was this a dream? All the other hallucinations had been moments in her own life. This was different altogether.

  Something had changed. If the plague hadn’t succeeded, had it even been spread? Or manufactured? Maybe it had never been conceived of? Maybe Thallian hadn’t been cloned or the Emperor had been assassinated or the galaxy had become aware of humanity’s ambitions before they posed any threat …

  If there had never been Thallian to take her away from Ariel, had she followed her mistress into working for the Coalition? If she’d never been imprisoned, she’d never been on the run, she’d never done any of the things that troubled her dreams …

  Who was she?

  Raena felt darkness closing in around her as her mind struggled to comprehend this strange new world. Was this a place where she would want to live? What was her role here? Had this timeline always existed or had it just come into being when she noticed it? How had she crossed from the other world into this one?

  “You look rough,” Ariel said cheerfully, planting a kiss atop Raena’s head.

  Raena stared at her. Nearly thirty years after they’d met, Ariel remained stunning: graying blond hair still pulled back in a long braid to emphasize her cheekbones, blouse unbuttoned far enough to showcase the upper curve of her breasts. She’d always liked her clothes tight enough not to get in her way if she got into a fight. With Ariel’s short fuse, a fight had rarely been far out of reach.

  Raena felt herself starting to slip away, drowned by the novelty of everything. Her panicked gaze caught back on the screen.

  There stood someone else she remembered. Take away the crumpled rust-colored suit and clean him up, but that was Outrider, the Messiah dealer she’d met through Gavin on Nizarrh. He hadn’t aged a day. “Who is that?” Raena gasped.

  “He’s the prime minister,” Vezali said, like it should have been obvious.

  The shock pitched Raena out of the dream. She woke in her cabin, face down across her bunk. She sat up, gasping, and raked her fingers through her hair.

  Where had Gavin been this time? Raena wondered what he had done to make her life—the galaxy’s life—so radically different.

  She bent forward, elbows on her knees. Why was she blaming Gavin suddenly? Maybe, if she’d waited longer, he would have followed Ariel into the lounge, given them both a squeeze, and Raena would still have found cause to shoot his head off.

  She laughed, but the sound scared her.

  She flung herself off the bunk and paced the small room. Whatever was going wrong with her was getting more elaborate.

  Tears prickled her eyes, but she scrubbed them away. No sense in getting attached to any of these hallucinations. It wasn’t like she could choose to remain there, as if some imaginary world could become a new real life for her. Once she started to think that any make-believe place could provide a haven, she was in deep, dark trouble.

  She stepped through her door and moved through the silent ship. It must be night, she decided. Everyone was in their cabins asleep. For confirmation, she heard the whistle of Haoun’s snoring through the bulkhead outside his room.

  Once again Raena felt like she was the only person awake and alive in the universe.

  She craved the feeling of Ariel’s arms around her. Maybe it was time to break down and actually contact her sister.

  Ariel picked up immediately, as if she’d been awaiting Raena’s call. Raena wondered what time it was on Callixtos. Ariel was already braiding her hair for the day.

  “You look rough,” Ariel said by way of hello.

  A shiver crawled up Raena’s spine, but she laughed. “Can’t sleep. Bad dreams.”

  “You, too?” Arie
l sighed. “You’re not dreaming about …” Her voice faltered at the name.

  “Thallian? No.” Raena realized she hadn’t even thought about the fact that her former boss had been mostly absent from her nightmares. That was kind of surprising, really. If anyone’s ghost could be expected to disturb her sleep, it should have been Jonan Thallian.

  Before her mind wandered too far, Raena said, “I dreamed about you just now.”

  “A nightmare?”

  “Only after I woke up.” Raena smiled and told part of the truth. “It made me miss you.”

  Ariel smiled back. In her face, Raena saw the girl she’d fallen in love with all those many years ago. “I miss you, too,” Ariel said. “You wanna come home?”

  Raena shook her head. “Not yet.” She paused for a breath, then plunged onward before she lost her nerve. “In my dream, the Templar plague never happened. They were still running trade in the galaxy.”

  Ariel’s blond brows drew together. “I had a dream like that, too,” she said slowly, trying to piece it together. “Only it wasn’t a nightmare. It was kind of nice.” She laughed a little. “I wouldn’t have needed to adopt all my kids if the galaxy hadn’t orphaned so many humans.”

  Raena let the silence spread, hoping Ariel would remember more.

  “I had a ship,” Ariel said slowly, trying to pull the dream images together in her memory. “All my crew were nonhumans.”

  “I dreamed about your ship, too,” Raena said. “You had a girl in your crew. Her skin was kind of pinkish green and she had a bunch of tentacles.”

  “That’s weird,” Ariel said, gaze suddenly focused on Raena. “I dreamed about Vezali, too.”

  Oh, that was right. Raena remembered now. Ariel met the Veracity’s crew when they delivered Eilif to her. Although Raena was frustrated by the memory lapse, she didn’t allow herself to get distracted from the dream.

  “Vezali was sitting in the lounge,” Raena said. “She’d taken apart some kind of machine. In the dream, I thought it was some kind of clock.”

  Ariel watched her closely now, hazel eyes wide in shock and recognition.

  “You came into the lounge and kissed me on the top of the head and said …”

  “You look rough,” Ariel said. “That’s fucked up, Raena. How did you know that? You scare me when you do this bullshit.”

  “It’s not me,” Raena promised. She hoped Ariel could hear the truth and despair in her voice. “I’ve been having these dreams a lot. They’re completely freaking me out.”

  She waited for Ariel to echo her, but she didn’t. Maybe she wasn’t having a lot of weird dreams—only this one.

  Ariel asked, “Are you dreaming about me very often?”

  “Just a couple of times. I dreamed we were on Kai, shopping in the souk, and there were two …”

  Ariel cut her off. “Two Gavins. One of them shot you with a little silver dart.”

  “And I dreamed about when we escaped from the Arbiter. Only …”

  “Only there was a man who said he was a Coalition spy. That was Gavin, too.” Ariel rummaged around on her desk and came up with a spice stick, which she lit. “In the dream, after you went to find the shower, I rolled the corpse over with my boot. I recognized Gavin.”

  “I’ve dreamed about him two or three times a night for the last week,” Raena said. “He doesn’t stand a chance.” She sobered suddenly. “That’s what’s so horrible about it. I don’t recognize him in the dreams and—”

  “And you kill him?”

  “Over and over and over.”

  “Can’t think of anyone still alive who deserves it more.”

  “Like I said,” Raena repeated, “it’s freaking me out. I don’t have anything against Gavin, really. I just don’t want to be with him. I still sort of feel like, on some level, I owe him for my freedom.” She nodded toward the spice stick in Ariel’s hand. “Wish I had one of those.”

  “I should quit,” Ariel said. She took another drag. “I should quit again,” she corrected.

  “You need old friends not to call you up in the middle of the night,” Raena said, meaning it as an apology.

  “No, I’m glad you called. Now I know not to worry about you.”

  Raena didn’t disagree aloud, but she also didn’t admit how worried she was. She took the liberty to change the subject. “You don’t hear from Gavin, do you?”

  “I’d say he wouldn’t dare, but this is Gavin we’re talking about. He’d dare just about any damn thing he wanted.” Ariel sighed. “He hit me, after you lit out after Thallian. Luckily, Tarik had loaned me his gun, or I would’ve been in for a hell of a beating. As it was, I had to stun Gavin. On my own ship. After that, Tarik and I put Gavin out on the first populated rock we passed. Gavin went back to Kai and attacked the men Thallian’s son left behind there. Kai Planetary Security called me, wanting me to pay his bail.”

  “And you refused politely,” Raena guessed.

  “Yeah, something like that. I’m pretty sure he got out anyway, though. A couple of weeks ago, someone was sneaking around here. I don’t have any evidence one way or another, but I thought it was probably Gavin, coming here looking for you. That’s been a while, though.”

  “I’m not sure I want to speak to him, anyway,” Raena said. “I just want him out of my dreams.”

  “This is crazy, but … Do you get the sense that he’s trying to contact you?”

  Raena thought about it, then shook her head. “I don’t get the feeling it’s about me at all. You know how I was when I was on the run. That’s what I’ve been dreaming about, mostly. Gavin just shows up in my dreams, and it’s bang, bolt in the head. It’s like some crazy kids’ cartoon.”

  “You don’t have to shoot me now,” Ariel supplied.

  “Wait’ll you get home,” Raena finished. “Yeah, that’s it exactly. I just want to switch the channel off. No more shooting people I know while I sleep.”

  “I like this plan.” Ariel crushed out the last of her spice. “Can I call and check up on you?” she asked cautiously. “Tell me if that’s too much.”

  “No, I’d like that.” Raena felt sure Ariel wouldn’t abuse the privilege. “I’m just not ready to come see you yet.”

  “Okay. Let me know.” Ariel’s expression changed and she squinted at the screen. “You had your scar removed!”

  “Yeah. It tied me down to my former life,” Raena said. She’d forgotten it was gone. She reached up, touched her unmarred forehead. “What do you think?”

  “Should’ve been done a long time ago,” Ariel said honestly. “Did you have them all removed?”

  Raena laughed. “My scars are my armor.”

  “So I’ve heard you say.”

  Raena picked up the photo beside her screen. “One last thing before I let you go. Is Eilif still with you?”

  Thallian’s wife had reminded Raena a lot of herself, of how her life might have been if she hadn’t escaped him. She felt tangentially responsible for the way the woman’s life had turned out, since she—all of them, really, even Eilif herself—understood that Thallian chose Eilif as a poor substitute for Raena.

  “She is,” Ariel said, brightening. “She’s helping with my foundation, finding families for orphaned humans. She is amazing with the kids.”

  Surprised and pleased, Raena interrupted. “Really?”

  “Really. Apparently, that connection is something she’s always craved, but was never allowed to express before.”

  “Go figure.” Raena thought of the cloned boys who had considered Eilif their mother and had an inkling of how lonely her life must have been. “Thank you again for taking her in for me.”

  “It’s been a pleasure,” Ariel assured. “Do you have a message for her?”

  “I found a photo of her here on the Veracity. It was in the breast pocket of Revan Thallian’s coat. I wondered if Eilif would want it, knowing he’d treasured it.”

  Ariel shuddered, but said, “I’ll ask her.”

  The conversation
seemed to have run down. “It’s still the middle of the night here,” Raena said. “I’m going to take some more medicine and try to go back to sleep.”

  “Sweet dreams,” Ariel wished. “It’s mid-morning here. Time to get to work.”

  “Love you,” Raena said.

  “You, too.”

  Raena let Ariel get the last word and powered her screen down. Then she shook two drops out of the flask onto her tongue and swallowed them dry. They tasted vaguely of saltwater.

  CHAPTER 11

  The dream pounced on her. One moment she was lying in her bunk, thinking about getting up for a drink of water; the next, she was jammed inside a small black box, tumbling over and over as she fell. The fall halted sharply, as the escape pod she was riding in plowed into something that was slightly more yielding than rock. Raena was grateful for the helmet Vezali had forced on her.

  The escape pod popped back to the surface of the ocean, where it oscillated ever so gently on the waves. Hidden inside the communications console, Raena checked in on herself: nothing too banged up in the ejection from the Veracity or the landing on the Thallian homeworld. She couldn’t straighten her legs, but she could shift her arms enough to make certain the walls were not pressing inward on her. Not even slightly.

  She heard Jain Thallian moving around in the pod outside the gutted communications console. She was glad that she hadn’t hit his head too hard when she’d knocked him out. It wouldn’t have done for him to watch the Veracity eject them, then leave them behind amidst a field of broken equipment. Everyone on Jain’s home planet was meant to think that the Veracity struck a mine and exploded, all hands lost except Jain in his escape pod.

  Time dragged very slowly. Raena let herself doze.

  When she roused, she wondered what was taking Jonan so long to come and get them. Surely he monitored his own system. Why hadn’t he sent some minions to retrieve his favorite son? She had assumed that Jain wouldn’t need to communicate with his family, that they would be eager to have him back.

  Her tongue had grown dry in her mouth. She worked hard to swallow. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask Mykah to stock the console with provisions for her return to Thallian.