“I do not know. I think perhaps he was worried that his messages might be detected by the heroes of other nations. I do know that his powers only work on those who can understand his commands. Anyone who has no grasp of English is safe from his direct control.”
“Well, that rules out about half of America,” Delta whispered to Punching Judy, who snickered, then slapped her hand over her mouth before she replied.
“Funny but it ent the time. This is serious!”
“It works through every medium?” Miss Maskelyne asked.
“Yes. That is how he acquired Sloth. And once he had the most powerful clairvoyant in the world under his thumb, he vanished deep, deep into London, killing or mindwiping loose ends and manipulating the entire city to his liking. London itself is his lair; everything within it serves him in some capacity. Even the heroes.” She looked gravely around at Queensguard. “I have stolen his name, but he may still have some triggers within you. You are not safe. You never were safe.”
“WHICH IS WHY WE NEED TO MAKE HIM THE FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS. THEN IT’S ON TO SAVING DOTTIE.”
“Yes. We cannot reach the realm that my mother is within from here. This is the wrong... court, as it were. The old treaties forbid it. Which means we must travel to the human realm first, regardless.”
“DO YOU HAVE ONE OF THOSE STONE HEAD THINGS ON THIS SIDE, OR ARE WE TAKING THE SHIP?”
“Stone head...” she gave me a blank look, then chuckled. “Ah, so naive. I had one, but it was in my palace. Heroes punched my palace. I am uncertain it survived.”
“The head or the palace?” Beta asked.
“Either. Both. No, they are probably dust now.”
“Thanks a lot,” Epsilon spoke for the first time in a while, trying to give Queensguard a sour look. It failed, due to a severe lack of face.
“Well, you did try to enchant us again,” Miss Maskelyne folded her arms. “At the time it was the thing to do. So I suppose it’s back via the Gallowglass then.”
Rumjack brightened up. “Right-o! I’ll just get up to the wheel and—”
“Not yet!” Harrier, Punching Judy, and Maskelyne chorused as the Green Knight waved a cautioning finger.
“Sorry. Right then. Staying put for now.” He cleared his throat. “Just go see to the tea, then.”
“SENSIBLE TO STAY PUT. THE SECOND WE GET BACK, NO MATTER WHERE WE GO, SLOTH WILL SEE US. THEN MAESTRO WILL HIT US WITH BRITAIN.”
“We’re an us, now?” Miss Maskelyne considered me through narrowed eyes. “I mean, what I’m hearing has convinced me you’re on the level as far as your motives go, but it’s your methods I find rather worrisome.”
I rolled my eyes. Heroes gotta hero. “HE’S CRACKED THE CODE,” I told her. “YOU DON’T HAVE THE LUXURY OF BEING PICKY ABOUT YOUR ALLIES.”
“Cracked the code?”
“HE CAN MAKE METAHUMANS.”
Oh, didn’t that set them abuzz. After a few shouted questions, Maskelyne waved her hands. “Alright, alright, assuming this is even true, how?”
I looked to Acertijo and Vector. They stepped up, and summed matters up while I waited, cross-legged on the deck. Midway through Rumjack showed up with a teapot, and when I glanced over at the Janissary, he nodded and accepted a cup first. He’d warned me about eating fae food, but I didn’t know about ghost tea. Still, he suffered no ill effects, so I lifted my mask a little and took a sip. And instantly caught the Human Harrier trying to sneak a peek at me.
“SEE SOMETHING YOU LIKE?”
I saw his teeth clench under the visor, then he looked away, and seemed to force himself to relax. “Pardon. Just curious to see who’s under that armor. If you’re worth a damn without it.”
“DIDN’T USE THE ARMOR TO BEAT YOU LAST TIME,” I pointed out. “TOO MANY ADVANTAGES ON YOUR SIDE TO MAKE IT A GOOD TACTIC.”
“Really?” That cheered him up. “Don’t think you could have taken me, then?”
“NOT WITHOUT SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE.” I gestured around. “NO REPAIR FACILITIES OUT HERE, AND DIRE KNEW SHE’D BE GOING BACK INTO A FIRESTORM, LITERAL OR FIGURATIVE DEPENDING ON HOW MUCH EXPLOSIVES MAESTRO SET UP AT THE ENTRY POINT. NO, SUBTLETY WAS BETTER. YOU’RE NOT VERY GOOD AT SUBTLETY, YOU DEPEND ON YOUR TEAM TO COVER YOU THERE. AND IN A ONE-ON-ONE SITUATION, THAT’S COMPLETELY GONE.”
He barked laughter. “Suppose I brought that on myself. Well that’s fair. Once this is all over, I won’t make that mistake again.”
“About that,” Judy interrupted, and I realized belatedly that other discussion had ceased at some point during my banter. “Won’t be a next time. We’ll work with yer for now, but after that yer goin’ to depart Britain. Posthaste.”
“THAT MAY NOT BE DOABLE,” I said, glancing at Lust, who was curled up by the mast and slowly turning green. Seasick? Probably. Pregnancy likely didn’t help with that. “DIRE NEEDS TO GO SAVE DOROTHY HAMPSTON. THAT’S A DEBT THAT’S BEEN OWED FOR DECADES, AND NEEDS SETTING STRAIGHT.”
Judy frowned. She was squatted next to me, close enough to remind me that she could reach me from here, but back far enough to avoid it being a direct threat. Amazingly, she was pretty much balanced on the toes of her pointy cloth shoes. If I tried something like that, my feet would have probably exploded in blood and bone shards. Or I would have fallen on my masked face. Or both. “She’s not ’ere, though, right? Some kind of dark fae prisoner, wot? That’s... right, I’m confused.”
“WELL, LUST CAN FILL YOU IN THERE.”
The sorceress struggled to an upright seated position, back to the mast. “I shall be succinct.”
“Thank god,” Judy muttered.
“Nine children she promised to the court of the Mountain King, to pay the debt for her companions’ passage. Eight children she delivered healthy and whole, and I was the seventh. But the ninth was born dead. Mother’s womb was poisoned by the death, such that she could not give birth again. Thus the debt could not be paid.”
“HANG ON. DIRE WAS THERE WHEN THE BARGAIN WAS STRUCK. SHE DOESN’T RECALL THE CONDITION OF THE CHILDREN BEING A NEGOTIATING FACTOR.”
“It matters not. They claimed it was a corpse, not a child, and so the bargain was unfulfilled.”
“WORDPLAY. SHE COULD HAVE TWISTED THAT, RIGHT? DOTTIE SPECIALIZED IN FAE, SHE WOULDN’T HAVE MADE A BAD BARGAIN.”
Lust shook her head, and Khalid cleared his throat. “While the fae do delight in wordplay and finding clever ways to adhere to the letter of agreements, they do not extend the same courtesy to mortals within their power. Without leverage, they would be within their rights to declare the bargain unfulfilled.”
“THAT’S STILL CHEATING.” I felt absurdly offended.
Lust shook her head. “Even had she held true to the bargain, they would not have let her depart. I and my sisters were traded among the Arcadian domains, and her they keep to prevent us from rebellion or conspiracy.” She closed her eyes, and tears leaked out, silvery to match the unnatural sky. “We love our mother. But she grows older, even though time is slower in the Mountain King’s Court. And she does not wish to die there, so far from her home. From her England.”
I drew a breath, let it go. “AND THAT’S THE SUM OF IT. DOTTIE WILL BE FREE. DIRE SHALL SEE TO IT.”
Miss Maskelyne paced, and her team looked to her as she moved across the deck, hands clasping each other behind her back, brow furrowed. She paused, looked between Lust and me, and shook her head. “Fine. Bloody fine. I know I’ll regret this later, but yes, you can wrap up your business with this woman after the Maestro’s done. After that though, we want you to shove off at the earliest opportunity.”
“GLADLY. THERE’S NOTHING LEFT FOR DIRE HERE ONCE THAT’S TAKEN CARE OF.” I happened to be looking at Acertijo while I spoke, and he studied me, clearly trying to figure out if I’d meant it in a deeper way. I hadn’t, but I let him stew anyway; he’d made his bed, he could lie in it.
“Well then, on to the planning...”
That went on far into the night. The sun didn’t set so m
uch as the silvery sky faded in luster, and strange stars rose in the deep black well of the alien heavens. Finally we wrapped up, after making a meal of ghostly hardtack and some kind of fish stew that I didn’t want to think too hard about. Supernatural stuff was weird, and the sooner I was done with it the better.
I said as much to Khalid in our cabins below decks. “This all started so simple, really. Go and beat the Maestro to a pulp, deal with his minions, and break his power forever.”
“Hm.” He finished setting up his hammock. Since it had been a full day and planning literally took hours, we’d decided to bunk and get a fresh start in the wee hours of the morning. Lust offered to stretch the time rate for us, so we’d each get a full eight hours, and we’d taken her up on that.
“It does come as a shock to most,” Khalid mused, “that Britain is so tightly bound to the supernatural. The fae in particular were strong here once, after the Atlanteans turned their backs on the land and departed.”
“Many await the coming of the new age, when humanity finally turns upon itself and this isle is vacant again,” Lust added. “They are content with small mischiefs and minor intrigues until then.”
Khalid looked at her sideways. “Those small mischiefs kill the innocent, break families, and do nothing beyond exalt cruelty.”
She sniffed. “Please. It’s not like humanity’s hands are clean. The atrocities done in man’s name in the past and forgotten to history are no less spiteful.”
“The difference being that mankind has moved on, and the fae have not.” Khalid sighed. “In fact they cannot. It is not within them to forgive or forget. And so they sow the seeds of their own doom, and people like me become necessary.”
I remembered our discussion earlier, about how she’d tempted Khalid, driven him to sin. Judging by his tone and the look in his eye, he hadn’t forgotten it either. Nor should he.
Best to wrap this up quickly and kick her out, back to her own cabin. “We’re putting a lot of faith in your motives,” I said, folding my arms and holding her eye.
“They’re as pure as my maidenhood.”
“So we can’t trust you worth a shit.”
“Trust my spite, if you won’t trust me. The Maestro found me when I was weak, and used me. He took me in body and mind, if not soul. I will have his heart for that.” Her face set into a stony look I’d seen in the mirror a time or two.
“How did you break free? And why did you choose now to rebel?”
“Much the same as my love.” She stroked her belly. “For years I was caught in his web, but the small inconsistencies added up. Through willpower, and long effort, I broke free. Not completely, though. Some hooks remain. Speak his name and I must tell you to go to hell, but unlike those unaware of it I can control myself. I am not driven to attack or silence the speaker. In here I can bend time to my will, more or less. And so I stretched every visit, as I trained myself to resist his power.”
“Five minutes and Dire’s mind control machine and I could probably fix that,” Vector offered.
She shook her head. “When Pride is dead it shall not matter.”
“You’ve managed to change Acertijo’s mind about killing him?” I lifted an eyebrow.
“No, but he will forgive me.” She smiled, smugly. “For his daughter’s sake if nothing else.”
“Your daughter, who you just let get possessed by the spirit of a dead witch. That daughter.”
A flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, before her smile broadened. “I can make him see reason.”
“For your sake, Dire hopes so. But you haven’t answered the second part of her question; why rebel now?”
She stared at me. “Because of you.”
“That’s it?” I was oddly disappointed. “No other reason?”
“You broke my army. Single-handedly. You would have slain me if you hadn’t been holding back against Acertijo. My enchantment that day would have failed against you... you would have broken it as surely as you did my spell this afternoon. You are a walking doom, and I thought that you would kill Pride. I resolved to be out of the mortal realm while you did so. I hoped it would be enough to escape your vengeance. At first I planned to keep your champion as a hostage, bargain with you for his life in exchange for mine if you came for me. Then...” she rubbed her belly. “Things changed.”
“Things did.” I looked away for a minute, chewed over the matter, and ignored the grumbling part of me that wanted to throw a tantrum. I looked back to her, and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Treat him well, hm? He’s had a hard life.”
“I shall give him a better one. He shall be a king in realms undreamed of by mortals, once I rise to my true power.”
“Or maybe you just cook for him now and again. He likes that.” I gave her shoulder a squeeze, and bade farewell to my first real relationship. Wouldn’t have worked out anyway. “Now off you go. Big day tomorrow and you’ve got a significant role to play.”
She left without a word. I looked over at Khalid, who was resting in his hammock, and Vector, who was still fumbling with his. Without a word I went to help him, stringing it on the hooks between the mast and the wall.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. You’ve been quiet these last few hours.”
“I’m not sure how much the heroes are listening in.”
“Dire’s been running a white noise generator and full ECM suite out of her armor for the last half-hour.” I gestured to my armor, sitting in the corner in a lotus position like some gray and black Buddha statue. “Restricted range, of course, don’t want to interfere with Maskelyne’s stuff. Of course she’s got her own ECM suite going up in the Captain’s cabin, so Dire figures she understands.” I smiled.
“Heh. Well, that’s something.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “The heroes worry me, Lust might be in love now but she’s no less a horrible bitch, and we’re about to stick our collective cocks into a blender the second we head back in. Every hero, villain, and vigilante in Great Britain who isn’t on this boat right now likely has Maestro’s triggers in their heads.”
“But not all of them are in London. Besides, we went over that. The heroes lock down the teleporters so they can’t pull more enthralled costumes in.”
“Right, which just leaves us with the minions I made him, his own criminal syndicate, whatever mercenaries he’s got lying around, and the villains that Queensguard doesn’t know about.”
“Won’t pretend it’s easy. It never is. But we’ve got pretty much the most powerful metahumans in Britain on this boat here, right now. We’ll have to move fast, but it’s a better shot than staying here and hiding for a few years.”
“Yeah.” He offered me a hand. “I’m glad you’re on my side for this. It’s comforting to have a veteran along.”
“Well, you’ve got two.” I shook his hand, and gestured at Khalid. “You doing okay?”
“These things you drag me into, they are never simple, are they?” Khalid rocked serenely in his hammock, stripped of his outer costume, reclining in basically the undertunic and a pair of very modern boxers. A part of me noted how muscled and lean his legs were, but I squelched it. Mixing work and pleasure hadn’t exactly worked out well so far.
“No. Nothing’s ever simple in this business.” I leaned against the mast. “Then again, your normal line of work is relatively incomprehensible to Dire.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“The supernatural societies and cultures of the world worked very hard to remain silent and hidden from the ruck and run of humanity for millennia. Ever since the Romans decided that anything magical that gave them trouble needed to be removed from this world. Then Tesla came along, and everything became harder to hide. So I am glad that you don’t understand much of it; you have no reason to do so beyond the little experience with vampires that you’ve had.”
“And werewolves. And a Norse deity back in World War Two.”
“You know, I heard something about Loki g
aining his freedom back in those days... that was you?”
“No, his name was Loge.”
“Did he tell you that?”
Realization hit me, six decades too late. “Son of a bitch.”
“He is. From what I know of him, at any rate. Never had the pleasure to encounter him personally, and I do not seek it.”
“You’re not missing much. Though he did keep his deal with us.”
“Good.” He closed his eyes. “Vector, we will survive this. Just follow the plan.”
The Professor nodded, and clambered into his own hammock. I thumped the mast, and headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Vector asked.
“A bit restless. Going to check in on our allies and then get some rest.” It wasn’t the whole reason. This was the night before a big battle, and a good friend had once taught me the importance of making the rounds, checking in on your people. Another good friend had taught me the value of a good screw before a big fight, but I didn’t figure that was on the table tonight.
I stepped out of the door, drawing my mask out from my overall’s pocket, and slid it over my face as I turned the voice modulator off. We were well into night time now and I wasn’t sure who was still awake, so it was best not to disturb their sleep.
Up first, hearing the soft clanking of metal on wood above me. Up the little inclined ladder, and I came face to face with Alpha, squatting on his haunches, and offering me a hand up. I took it, and clambered out onto the deck. “All quiet?”
“They’re still talking in the main cabin.” He hooked a thumb across the way, where light spilled out from two small, round windows and around the seams of a heavy wooden door. “And over on the back deck. Poop deck? Aft deck? Man, I don’t know. Feels weird being locked into hardware, and not having gridnet to check up my nautical terms.”
I patted his shoulder. “It’s temporary. How is the rest of the Chorus holding up?”
“Epsilon’s out there taking soil samples and plant samples for analysis once we get back into the real world. He had to argue with the ghost guy to get off the boat, apparently you can’t depart unless he lets you off. Stupid magic stuff, but hey, what can you do.”
DIRE:SINS (The Dire Saga Book 5) Page 23