Ibenus (Valducan series)

by Seth Skorkowsky

  "Okay." Sam fiddled with the slide bar. "This is where it gets interesting. Camera two flips on as TommyD comes into view. Shortly after that, Gerhard and Allan set off four. They're headed toward each other. Allan and Gerhard made it to three first. TommyD sets off two again, a minute before Allan and Gerhard arrive."

  "He was right in front of them," Malcolm said. "He must have seen their lights ahead and just stayed out of their range."

  "Yeah," Sam said. "He was back in the staging area less than two minutes before them. I'm guessing he was hiding just behind that wall when they were in there and turned off his jammer while Allan was fiddling with the repeater. After Allan left, he just waited, then turned it back on."

  On the screen, TommyD stepped back into the room. In the night vision, the laser appeared as an unbroken tether joining Gerhard to the pistol.

  Anger mounted into disgusted rage as Victoria watched tragedy unfold, its conclusion already known. She looked away just as the back of Gerhard's helmet exploded in an arc of blood and brains.

  "How the hell did he find us?" Chaya asked, as TommyD rifled through Gerhard's body. "There's no way he just happened along."

  Victoria's mind flashed to her phone, her computer. Was TommyD tracking her somehow? No. Her mobile they'd left at the chateau. Standard procedure to keep off GPS tracking since her name was linked to it. The computer maybe, but the Order had some serious scans in place for such things.

  "He had to have seen the vans," Malcolm said.

  Chaya shook her head. "We replaced the van he'd seen."

  Victoria nodded. On the screen TommyD stood as Allan crawled into the room. "He might have been watching entrances. Noting which ones we'd likely use." Same trick she'd used in Amiens. Watch for the hunters and they'll lead you there. Bloody stupid to have left the vehicles there. She should have known better.

  She shied away as TommyD opened fire on Allan. She saw the first shot strike Allan's ankle the instant before he blinked, then the stumble, the loss of Ibenus, and the final, silent shootout. Finally, the screamers appeared, chasing TommyD off down the west passage from where he'd originally come. Allan's terrible fight with the screamers played out on the screen. The audio came back on, capturing their shouts and Allan's shots, his pleas for help. Then the mantismere came. Ibenus only a yard from his grasp. Allan hadn't stood a chance.

  A screamer exploded out from the low entrance and Victoria scrambled out. She watched the scene play out, though more in her mind than the captured footage. The demon fire filled the screen, washing it out, as she dispatched the monster not fully realizing the implication at the time. She squeezed Ibenus' grip. He had known Allan's life as a hunter was finished the moment he'd allowed Victoria to blink? That was the deciding moment, the passing of the torch.

  Malcolm traced his finger along the map on the table. "There's a manhole a hundred yards down here. He must have escaped there."

  "How do you know TommyD escaped?" Victoria asked.

  "The mantismere wasn't bloodied when it returned. If he saw the vehicles at the tunnel, that'd been the closest place he could have accessed the mine."

  "We should still check it," Chaya said. "Maybe he didn't make it out. If not, Umatri might still be down there."

  "Agreed." Malcolm glanced at his watch. "Doctor Laroux will be back in forty-five minutes to check Allan. We can go once she leaves." He looked to Victoria. "You okay if we leave you for a while?"

  "As long as I can stay with Allan. But go. If Umatri is there, bring him back." Victoria stood and started toward Allan's room. She stopped, seeing him there, hoses running in his arms, the elevated stump, short tubes protruding from the rounded end where his foot should have been. She squeezed Ibenus, calming the despair. "If you find TommyD, even if he's dead, shoot him for me."

  #

  Allan awoke to clouds, soft and pale floating overhead a hundred miles away. Where am I? An odd sensation tinged his side as he shifted. Grunting, he blinked and the world slid into focus.

  It was a ceiling. Splotchy blobs of water damage stained the white paint. What is this?

  "Allan?"

  Then Victoria was there above him, her golden hair tussled and sticking out like she'd just woken up. Were they in bed together?

  "Hey," he said, grinning. "You look like an angel." His words came out more slurred than he'd expected. They must have been drinking. He'd had the craziest dream about her and Ibenus.

  Excited relief shone in her red-rimmed eyes. "He's awake!"

  "Yeah, I'm awake." Allan turned his head to see the bags hanging above him, their clear tubes running down to his hand. Thick bandages bound his shoulder and bicep. Had there been an accident?

  He scrunched his eyes trying to recall what had happened. He was in a room. Small. No decoration but a green plastic sheet draped along one wall.

  Malcolm and Chaya came inside. He could see Sam back there behind them.

  "Hey, brother," Malcolm said.

  "Hey."

  Malcolm extended his left hand, palm open. "Look at this."

  Puzzled, Allan looked at the half-lidded eye tattooed on Malcolm's palm. "Why?"

  "He's good." Malcolm lowered his hand.

  "Did you just…" Why would he give him the test? Allan turned to Victoria. "Where are we?"

  Victoria set Ibenus on his chest and placed his right hand onto it. "You were hurt, baby."

  Baby? She knew better than to say that if front of the others. The Masters would have his ass if they found out.

  "Allan," she said, her hand squeezing over his. "You were attacked."

  "Attacked?" He looked down at the bandages over his arm and around his chest. "When?" The words were no sooner out his mouth than he remembered dragging himself across the floor, screamers closing in and Gerhard's dead eye, the other a bloody hole, staring up at the ceiling. "Gerhard?"

  "He was killed." Malcolm said. "Shot."

  Allan's mouth felt dry. Images flashed through his mind, lacking context or order like some half-remembered dream. A man in black goggles, doll-faces bugs swarming, a red laser beam slicing the darkness toward him, a pale mantismere diving, its mouth wide. "TommyD."

  Victoria nodded.

  "He shot me. I remember shooting, then…" He thought of his bandaged arm. How had he hurt that? "I was bitten?"

  She squeezed his hand. "Yes. Yes, but you're okay now. The demon is dead. It's gone."

  Allan nodded, recalling the fire now, its blue light flickering through half-closed eyelids. "You saved me."

  Tears welled in her eyes. "Yes."

  "You killed it." He remembered now. Blood pouring from his ankle, the tourniquet, the cold hopeless weight as the demon marked him. Victoria killed it with Ibenus. He felt the blood drain from his face. His head swam and a leaden weight settled in his stomach, threatening to drag him down.

  "Yes," she said, the tears coming now. "I had to."

  Allan tried to sit up, but Malcolm was there, his hand urging him back down. Allan pushed it away. If Victoria had killed the demon with Ibenus then that meant…

  He froze, eyes locked on the white, rounded cast extending down his leg, ending a hand's length above his ankle. Gone. His foot was gone.

  Allan stared, his mouth open. He heard voices but they sounded like they were underwater. His gaze lowered to Ibenus. Victoria was still holding his hand against her, but Allan could sense the absence of that love he'd always known. Not gone, not entirely, but diminished somehow. Ibenus had chosen another. He was no longer worthy.

  Hands guided him down, returning him to his back.

  "Ibenus," he muttered.

  "He still loves you," Victoria sobbed. "We both do."

  He. Allan closed his eyes, his heart sinking. That single word sealed it.

  "I'm sorry, Allan," Malcolm said. "This is my fault. I shouldn't have let you two go alone."

  Allan nodded, not really listening. It was Mal's nature to assume responsibility.
Allan squeezed Ibenus. His feeling toward it hadn't changed, but it wasn't the same. He felt as though he should cry but he couldn't.

  Victoria's eyes were swollen, pleading for some affirmation. He needed to say something, something worthy of a knight.

  "Ibenus is yours now. Take care of him."

  Tears ran down the wet paths along her cheeks and she closed her eyes. "I will. I'll take care of you both."

  A heavy silence fell, uncomfortable eyes averting.

  "I know this is a lot to handle." Malcolm squeezed Allan's shoulder. "We'll head back home in the morning once the doctor checks you out. We have morphine if you need it."

  Allan shook his head. He wasn't hurting. Then again, he was probably already on morphine. That'd explain why he was so itchy. "Where are we?"

  "Paris. One of Master Turgen's clients set us up."

  "I see. Did everyone else make it out?"

  "Master Schmidt got banged up pretty bad coming after you. Controlled falls. Pretty much flew the entire way."

  "Is he all right?"

  "He says he is but…" Malcolm shook his head. "You know Schmidt."

  "Yeah."

  Malcolm scooted aside, allowing Chaya and Sam access to hug him and tell him how happy there were he was alive. But he didn't feel alive. He didn't feel much of anything. His gaze kept returning to Victoria who was still beside him, holding Ibenus in his hand. Something lingered beneath the grief and relief in her eyes and the corner of her mouth.

  "I suppose I can't get on to you for carrying that PPK of yours," Chaya was saying.

  Allan exhaled a weak laugh. "First time I ever shot it on a job." My last job, he thought, the grin falling away.

  If Chaya sensed it, she didn't react. "Well, I have it. I'll get it cleaned up for you. Maybe give it a trigger job while I'm at it."

  Allan nodded. If only he'd shot that bastard when he had the chance. He mentally replayed the fight, wondering how it might have gone had Allan only hit him.

  "Let's give him some space," Malcolm said, patting Chaya's shoulder. He looked at Victoria. "You two probably want to be alone."

  "Yeah," she said, her words barely audible. "Thank you."

  Allan was still remembering the confrontation as the others wished him well and made their way toward the door. His eyes widened as his memory came back. "Wait."

  Malcolm was already outside the door. He turned back. "Yes?"

  "My name. TommyD knew my name."

  The others just stared at him.

  "Are you sure?"

  "He called me Allan. He said he'd never met a knight before." Even if TommyD had overheard Gerhard use his name, when would they have said they were knights? A horrible realization unfolded in his mind. It wasn't chance that TommyD had gleaned Luc's name, not if he knew they were knights. Allan sat up. "He knows who we are!"

  "How the hell would he know that?" Sam asked.

  Victoria sucked a breath, her face pained. "I'm sorry, Allan. I'm so sorry."

  "What?"

  "I wanted to tell you. I should have told you before but I was afraid."

  "Of what?" Allan asked. "What happened?"

  "TommyD," she said. "I told him. I told him everything."

  Allan blinked.

  "What are you talking about?" Sam asked, an edge to her voice. "What do you mean you told him everything?"

  "I knew you were a spy." Chaya drew a pistol and leveled at Victoria chest.

  Victoria didn't even react to the gun. She squeezed Allan's hand. "I love you, Allan. I'm so sorry."

  Chapter Eighteen

  The pain wormed its way around the medication around 2 a.m. Subtle at first, probing through the wall of opiates so slowly that Allan hadn't immediately recognized it. As with any surprise attack, the full assault began the moment Allan realized it was coming. Then at once he felt it all: the broken rib, the stitched bite in his arm where a cherry-sized chunk of muscle has been ripped out, and the leg.

  The leg was the worst, a steady throb extending from the cast and up to his spine as if some winch were pulling on the nerve, winding it tighter, sending sharp flares along its length. He'd half-expected cold or itching or any of the phantom limb symptoms he'd heard of, but it was evidently too early for that. It felt like a vise was crushing his ghost foot, squeezing it impossibly hard past any point that flesh or bone could endure.

  Doctor Laroux, who had visited Allan shortly after he'd first awoke, had explained the bulk of the pain wasn't real, that it was his brain panicking because the map of his body was wrong. She'd warned of the painkiller addiction that many amputees developed trying to win an impossible war.

  Gritting his teeth, Allan had calmly explained that the arm, the rib, and the horror show of mutilation beneath that bloody cast were not imaginary, and while he'd keep her advice in mind for the future, he definitely needed something more than the aspirin she'd originally offered. The fat-cheeked woman only frowned, an expression made easier by the deep scowl lines that looked to have been cut into her face with a chainsaw, and gave him a bottle of painkillers. She then entrusted Malcolm with two more bottles, with orders that he was in charge of doling them out. The mere fact that she'd come armed with three bottles but didn't initially disclose that, told Allan all he needed to know about the gangland surgeon.

  Laroux had made one passing comment about the blonde that hadn't left Allan's side, but didn't ask where she was. Allan wondered how the sadist doctor would react if she knew that Victoria was locked in another room, wrists bound, and Chaya beside her with a bad attitude and sword. She'd probably shrug and pretend she didn't see it.

  That morning, after the doctor's final stamp of approval, they'd left and begun the four hour trip back to the mansion. The arm and rib only made getting in and out of the wheelchair infinitely harder. Sam and Malcolm had to help him with that and push him. Two days ago he was a Lead Knight, an angel at his hip. Now he couldn't even move his own wheelchair. He still possessed Ibenus. Being a current prisoner it didn't make much sense to let Victoria carry it. Allan sat sideways in the van's bench seat, his leg extended before him, and the bronze sword in his hand. It wasn't right. It didn't feel the same. He was no longer Protector and he knew it. But Victoria…

  He turned his head to where she sat in the back, hands bound and Chaya beside her with a gun hidden beneath a bundled shirt in her lap. Victoria smiled weakly, the same smile a child might give a parent after accidently burning their house down, desperately fearful they've lost any chance for forgiveness. Not returning the smile, Allan swallowed and returned his attention to the window, absently watching the trees whisk past.

  She had betrayed him. She had shared the secrets he had fought to give her. He had vouched for her and, in return, she had spat on his trust and lied to him. She'd revealed their names to a man intent to use that information against them. And while she claimed ignorance of TommyD's appearance, the betrayal was no less real. The messages telling him to back off while she procured him a holy weapon were the most damning. Chaya had wanted to put her down right then and there. Mal and Sam had reasoned that Victoria would be the most likely means of tracking TommyD down and rescuing Umatri. Allan agreed, though his true motivation for mercy was less tangible. He ran his fingers along the wood grip panels. Like it or not, Ibenus was Victoria's now. Ibenus had chosen her they day they'd met. Had it known this would happen? Was that why it had made him accept her? How could Ibenus have known?

  Allan closed his eyes, shaking the new feeling of betrayal before it could take root. His vow to protect the khopesh was no less binding than it had been the day of their bonding. Protecting Ibenus' new guardian was part of that. That vow superseded everything.

  The others wouldn't understand. He wouldn't have.

  "Here we are," Malcolm said as Sam turned into the drive.

  Allan drew a breath and held it. Here we go. His first true day of retirement. He hadn't considered what exactly his role would be now that hu
nting was off the table. Librarian for certain, though the library was downstairs. Surely they could work around that. But what else would he do? Tom became their chef after he'd lost his leg and a few fingers, but Tom could always cook. Maybe Allan would have to learn. Maybe he'd become the gardener, nurturing flowers and herbs to ward away monsters. Whatever it was, his new full time job was to serve as a living example. A reminder for other knights as to what their own future might hold.

  The gate opened and the van continued onto the drive. Allan released his breath. Now he had to deal with Master Turgen and look the old man in the eye. Turgen would never say, "I warned you," not in a million years. He'd be nothing but sympathetic, supportive, and kind. But Allan still had to face him with failure. Somehow that made it worse.

  As they rounded the bend to the side of the manor, Allan noticed a small crowd gathering near the door. Turgen and Schmidt stood at the front. Directly behind them. I don't believe it.

  The van stopped and Luiza Hollis was the first to open the door. Her black hair was pulled back into a thick ponytail. She wore a loose-fitting blouse of red silk tucked into tight jeans the color of walnut. Akumanokira, an olive green army katana with a polished copper handle, hung at her left hip. "Hey, stranger."

  Allan's voice cracked with the surprise. "Hi."

  "Hey, man." Matt said, stepping around beside her. Gabi was in his arms, intently staring into the vehicle.

  "I can't believe you're here," Allan said. "Hi, Gabi."

  Gabi's mouth opened into a wide grin, exposing her two teeth along the bottom front. Then she turned her head, following Sam's path out from her seat and toward the back of the van.

  "We came right away when we heard," Matt said. "Flew in last night."

  "You flew?" Allan smiled for the first time in days. "I'm honored."

  "Yeah, so don't ever say I don't love you."

  Sam squeezed past rolling an empty wheelchair. "Here we go."

  Malcolm crawled from the front seat and squeezed up beside Allan. "Matt, can you give us a hand?"