The Outer Dark (Central Series Book 4)

by Zachary Rawlins

  Her vocabulary was insufficient to describe the sensation of decoherence, abandoning her human form to become liquid, seeping through the cracks and filtering the ruins, but it was something like relief, comingled with regret for abandoning the dress she had just bought at Neiman Marcus a few weeks before as she flowed down into the collapsing base of the Inverted Spire.

  ***

  The silver beast was a huge, vile thing, teeth protruding from a blunt snout, ears shredded to nubs, its coat matted and patchy. The Weir reeked of musk and dried blood, pale yellow eyes locked to his throat. It was old and fast, moving in the halfway form that some Weir could assume, a bipedal wolf-thing, knuckles dragging like an ape, fingers tipped with cruel talons. It burst from the stinking water of the nearby lake, charging for him across the muddy park.

  Alex flinched and whimpered as the beast drew near, just enough to keep the first lunge from tearing him in half. The Weir struck, raking the boy down his back with its claws, digging furrows on either side of his spine. Alex whimpered when he wanted to scream, and collapsed when he meant to run. The Weir followed him down, clutching and tearing.

  He watched the teeth, unable to move as the Weir bit down on his forearm. Even as he felt blood spill and tendons snap, Alex still could not find it within himself to scream.

  ***

  The passage was narrow, and grew more so, the deeper she went. Emily slowly became adapt at finding tiny ways through the chaos, packed increasingly tight by the pressure below. The temperature dropped dramatically as she descended, her liquid form freezing to crystal ice. The sensation of flowing as a semi-solid was unique and indescribable.

  She dragged what she would need with her. Though it was hardly more than a few strands of cotton soaked in saliva, the burden of its solidity slowed her progress immensely. Fortunately, Emily was patient.

  As she worked her way carefully down, Emily wondered what would happen to her, if she remained in her incoherent state, if her consciousness would gradually dissolve along with her body. The prospect was intriguing, but not worrisome.

  ***

  Mr. Blue-Tie came back from wherever he had gone, and kicked Alex savagely in the midsection, leaving Alex wheezing and cursing. The other Weir must have come up behind him while he was still blind with pain, because they had a canvas bag over Alex’s head before he even realized what was going on. The burlap wrapped around his head stunk of fear and old vomit. He tried to struggle free, to pull the bag from his head, but this also turned out to be futile. Without much trouble, they wrenched his arms behind his back, and then handcuffed his wrists together.

  “I’m sure you remember me, right? You know what I’m capable of. I’m going to ask once more, nicely,” Mr. Blue-Tie said, delivering another devastating kick to Alex’s stomach. It was only through an act of tremendous self-control that he avoided throwing up inside of the bag over his head. Instead, he retched involuntarily and tried to curl up tighter, half-crazy with claustrophobia and panic. “Then things are going to get ugly real fast. Where is the girl?”

  Alex was glad that he didn’t know. He had no confidence in himself, not in this terrible situation. He was very afraid; terrified on a fundamental level about what he knew was going to happen to him.

  “I have no idea,” Alex said honestly, pressing his knees as tight to his chin as he could manage. Even thinking the word ‘torture’ had started him shivering uncontrollably. “I thought she was with me.”

  “Okay then,” Mr. Blue-Tie said with obvious relish. “Don’t say that I didn’t warn you, shithead.”

  Two of the Weir grabbed Alex and carried him forcibly into the bathroom, banging his head into what seemed like every available surface on the way. In the suffocating confines of the bag, Alex could not anticipate the impacts, which made the whole experience that much worse. Eventually, they got him wrapped around one side of the bathtub, one Weir standing on either side of him, with their feet on the backs of his knees, his thighs pressed up against the cold of the tub wall.

  “To refresh your memory,” said Mr. Blue-Tie, his voice made resonant by the small bathroom’s acoustics. “The question of the moment is: where is that little bitch we saw you with, earlier? No need to answer right away. I’ll give you a minute to think about it.”

  When Alex felt the hand on the back of his head, he stiffened his neck against the pressure, but it was hopeless. The water was ice-cold, and the shock of hitting it almost made Alex gasp involuntarily as his head went under. The fabric of the bag soaked through immediately, and the rough burlap clung to his face, increasing the feeling of suffocation. Alex could see nothing at all, even when he opened his eyes, and he could feel nothing except the water around his head, the unyielding force of the hand on the back of his head, and the dull sound of his own legs pounding desperately against the side of the bathtub. He wondered how long they would hold him under, and the question repeated itself in his mind, became obsessive, and made him acutely aware of the agonizing passage of time.

  Alex’s existence was defined by a consuming panic, an increasingly urgent need to breathe, and his eroding self-control. As Alex tried to count the seconds ticking by in his head, the dull pain in his chest grew sharper, his lungs seeming to contract, to collapse in on themselves. More than he could remember wanting anything, ever, more even than he wanted to breathe, Alex wanted the bag off his head. Drowning did not seem as bad, outside the stifling confines of the sack.

  The seconds crept along imperceptibly. His chest was on fire, and his throat had started to make convulsive motions. Then they pulled his head back out of the water, and his chest convulsed, trying to force air through the waterlogged fabric that had worked into his mouth and clung to his eyes and nostrils. The pain in his chest was matched by the agony radiating out from somewhere behind his eyes. Through the bag, the lights of the bathroom were dim and strange. He spat, coughed, and squirmed helplessly on the hotel tile, frantic to pull the wet, suffocating fabric from his face.

  “Was that a minute? I don’t even think it was that long. We aren’t too good at counting, Alex,” snarled Mr. Blue-Tie, his breath tickling Alex’s ear with the intimacy of a lover. “We almost lost you there. You feel like telling us anything, or do you want to test our math again?”

  Alex finally drew in a long, shuddering breath, gagging as the bag worked its way more deeply into his mouth.

  “Nothing, huh? Well, that’s great, as far as I’m concerned. You see,” Mr. Blue-Tie confided, pulling Alex up by his shoulders, and leaning him against the side of the bathtub, “we don’t need you to tell us anything. We’ve got this area locked down, and your girlfriend isn’t going anywhere, not without running into us. And when we find her,” he hissed, grinding his crotch against Alex obscenely, “well, maybe we’ll start with you, so you don’t have wonder what we are going to do.”

  Alex felt the stiffness pressing against him and was horrified, a further level of panic and dread somehow opening beneath him, impossibly worse than the prospect of being drowned in an anonymous hotel bathtub. He wanted to say something, anything; Alex knew with cold certainty, if he had anyone to sell out, he would have done so in a heartbeat. He would not have been able to help himself, and that hurt to know. In the moment, however, he had nothing to say, and no breath with which to say it.

  ***

  The void was smaller than Emily anticipated, and she nearly missed it, the gravity of the breach to Ether was so great. Emily was briefly trapped in flux, pulled by the breach as she struggled toward the void, but eventually her will won out. She filtered up through the last few meters of debris, emerging as a puddle on the floor of the interrogation chamber, the strands of cotton permeated with the Changeling’s saliva carried safely within her.

  The space was no more than two meters across, and less than that in height. There was just enough room to accommodate the forced evolution chamber, like a contoured metal egg, the back portion blossoming out into a rat’s nest of braided cord and spliced wire. The c
arbon fiber exterior was cracked and bowed beneath the weight of the collapsed levels above, but the interior shape was still intact, the clear lid separated from the chamber housing, leaving a gap of several centimeters.

  The Yaojing sat beside the evolution chamber on a miraculously intact chair, debris bending around her like rain off an umbrella. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and regular, the tattoos on her cheeks flashing like LEDs embedded beneath her skin. Samnang Banh’s left hand was slipped through the gap between the evolution chamber and the cover, pressed to the forehead of the blurry figure inside of the chamber, in a gesture that was almost tender.

  ***

  Alex searched for openings where there were none. He did his best to ignore the searing pain from his chest, from what felt like a broken bone when he attempted to move or breathe. He could force himself into action, but all the strength had left his movements. Alistair’s stance was casual, but his defense was impeccable. Every attack that Alex tried was effortlessly dodged or deflected, with a bit more damage dealt out as a reward. An attempt at a right-left combination earned Alex a knee to the midsection that knocked him to the ground. A low kick was met with a shin check that numbed the entirety of his leg. A jab to buy Alex space ended with the hilt of the knife driven painfully into his elbow, sending pins and needles down his arm. And his protocol...

  “Too slow, Alex!” Alistair crowed, laughing as Alex stumbled, reeling from a blow to the side of his head that left his ears ringing. “Your protocol won’t work on me. I don’t even need to use telepathy to see it coming.”

  Alex bought time, circling with his guard high. He only needed a few seconds, but Alistair knew exactly what he needed, and kept it frustratingly out of reach. Alex avoided a wild slash from the machete near his head, and gave up another step, and used the momentary respite to glance around. There were four bodies nearby, but only one was close enough to reach. The soldier was sprawled across the elevated perimeter of the room, one arm dangling over the lip above the sunken floor air, carbine nearby.

  Alex made his play, feinting as if he were planning to dive for a double-leg takedown, and then diving for the carbine instead. He felt his fingers close on the barrel.

  Then, impossibly, the front half of his index and middle fingers, along with the whole of his pinkie, separated from his hand and tumbled to the ground.

  The blade pulled back, streaks of red across the middle. Alex watched the fragments of his fingers leak and roll on the floor, mute until the pain hit. Alex flinched, far too late, clutching his maimed right hand to his chest and crying out. He glanced at the stumps of his fingers, neatly severed and bleeding profusely, and thought briefly that he would simply pass out. Alistair’s mocking laughter brought him back to reality.

  “Too bad. You really need that gun,” Alistair said, chuckling and wiping the machete clean on his pants. “Care to try again?”

  Alex screamed and lunged for Alistair, meaning to hit him with a shoulder block, but collided with nothing but air. Alistair sidestepped the attack gracefully, passing so close that Alex could see the knife aimed for his head. Alex twisted desperately, the side of his face going suddenly numb. His vision blurred, and he momentarily had trouble making out the small thing lying on the ground beside him.

  Then his vision cleared, and he wished it had not.

  Alex scrambled to his feet and ran halfway across the room, his uninjured hand clamped to the side of his head, where his right ear had been.

  Alistair was going to take him apart, piece by piece, Alex realized, in a fit of slowly dawning horror. And no one was coming to rescue him.

  He leapt back up, aware that he had only made it back to standing because Alistair allowed it. His opponent laughed and spun the knife as if he were in a martial arts movie. Alex braced himself as best he could and reached for the Black Door, determined to withstand or ignore whatever Alistair threw at him.

  “I think not,” Alistair said gleefully, lunging forward with the point of the blade.

  Alex flinched at the proximity of the knife, shattering the routine before he could complete it.

  Not that it mattered.

  The point of the machete pierced Alex’s right eye.

  ***

  It took a long time to remember her human form in great enough detail to regain it.

  Only after she stood naked on the stone, excess moisture flash-freezing to her skin, did Emily find that troubling. Grimacing, Emily rooted around in her mouth with her finger, finally extracting a wet glob of cotton.

  Emily considered the Yaojing, and the hand resting on Alex, for some time, considering whether to risk breaking their connection. Eventually, she decided against it, at least for now.

  She pried at the lid of the evolution chamber, but it wouldn’t budge. Emily closed her eyes, and her arms extended like a noodle being stretched, the damp wad of cotton on the end of one very long finger. It took a few tries, but eventually she managed to place the cotton on Alex’s bloody and bitten tongue.

  Emily stood back to wait.

  It took a while, but patience was one of Emily’s strengths.

  Thirteen

  “This will be a very long day. There will surely be dancing until very late, so do not expect me before midnight.”

  “Of course,” Mai offered smoothly, with the gracefully suppressed good humor of a lifelong servant. “Shall I have a bath drawn for your return, Mistress?”

  “Yes,” Anastasia said, eyes closed so an artist – imported from Shibuya for this specific purpose – could perfect the complex arrangement of liner and shadow. “I am certain that the shoes selected for the event will have crippled me by then.”

  Mai gave the hand-stitched Italian pumps a quick evaluation, pausing to rub out a minor imperfection in the black leather.

  “It seems likely. Shall we plan for company?”

  Anastasia frowned, and was immediately chastised by the soft-spoken makeup artist. Mai shared a small smile with one of the maids, darting into the enormous bathroom with a fresh vase of hothouse roses.

  “Not at all!” Anastasia snapped, to the amusement of the servants around her. “This may be my debut, but I have no intention of rushing into any sort of affair.”

  The makeup artist hushed Anastasia as she turned her brushes and paints on the Mistress of the Black Sun’s lips. Mai seized the moment, much to the delight of the assembled maids.

  “Certainly, Mistress.” Mai offered a deep bow Anastasia would never see, as a sort of apology for the smile on her face. “All the same…perhaps tonight we will prepare the larger baths, in the event that one of the young men turns out to be particularly eligible.”

  Anastasia squirmed helplessly in the grips of her makeup artist, who scolded her in Japanese, surrounded by the excited giggles of her servants.

  ***

  The Great Hall of the Black Sun was the largest enclosed space in Harbin, built as a monument to the union of the Moscow-based Cartel and the Hong Kong-based Triad, symbolically placed on the disputed border between the various Chinese and Russian factions, in the heart of then-prosperous Manchuria.

  Thanks to a variety of shielding and concealment protocols, the Great Hall had survived the artillery of the Red Army, the Japanese occupation, and the Cultural Revolution – but the red neon of the fried-chicken chain restaurant opened directly across the street warned that international capitalism meant to succeed where the forces of history had failed. Only a vast amount of money distributed to the right officials and invested in the right firms had prevented the ongoing development of the Dailo district from obscuring the view of the cupolas of the Saint Sophia Cathedral from the estate’s walled gardens.

  Versailles was an obvious point of inspiration for the Great Hall, Renton thought, hurrying down the mirrored and gilded expanse of the massive hall, his eyes passing disinterestedly over framed paintings from Chagall and Vrubal, lush alcoves stocked with Fabergé hardstone cameos and calligraphy from Wen Zhengming. He typically w
ould have shown interest in the array of young women about, clustered in small groups of Black Sun youths – of necessity, the daughters of the cartel rank and file, with few responsibilities – but his priority was Ana today. Perhaps even more so than usual.

  He never would have admitted it – in fact, he buried the knowledge telepathically – but Renton had not slept a wink in two nights, wandering about in a haze of sullen depression and pointless anxiety. Ana had spared him the announcement of her debut until the last moment, and that courtesy enraged and humiliated him, even as he was cravenly grateful for it.

  Renton’s progress was briefly impeded by a crew maneuvering an unwieldly ice sculpture, complete with polished marble base, into one of the smaller halls, where the family planned to dine after the ball. The laborers were taciturn and clumsy, and the installation was progressing poorly, to the obvious consternation of the lone maid assigned to watch over them. The Black Sun security staff must have been stretched to the breaking point, Renton reasoned, performing security checks on the thousand or so guests expected this evening.

  He made a note to give Timor shit over staffing, and then promptly resumed fretting.

  Ana was always going to marry someone else, Renton chided himself. There was no reason to be upset over it.

  Sir?

  Startled from his ruminations, Renton hurriedly organized his thoughts and packed away sentiment, before allowing his assistant and analyst, Riesa Martz, entry into his consciousness.

  Yes, Riesa. What is it?

  I have another message from the party in Reykjavik. A set of coordinates, and a meeting time.

  When and where?

  This afternoon in Scotland. My, they are in a hurry.

  Apparently. What’s in Scotland, Riesa?