The Outer Dark (Central Series Book 4)

by Zachary Rawlins

  Karim laughed again.

  “You have me there, Miss Muir.”

  “This is not a laughing matter, either of you,” Michael ordered, raising his eyes to study her coldly. “Why are you here, Emily?”

  “You are here to prevent the duplication of the lexicon, the archive John Parson made of his discoveries in weaponized linguistics. Alistair is here with the opposite intent, I’m afraid.” Emily adjusted her bathrobe carefully. “That means we have a common enemy.”

  Michael shook his head.

  “You are both Anathema.”

  “It’s bad form to try and apply a blanket generalization to an individual, Michael.” Emily sighed. “We Anathema are no more united than you are.”

  “Assuming for a moment that I believed in anything you just said, why would you betray your own kind?” Michael repeated the question with more emphasis. “Is this about what he did to Alex?”

  Emily’s expression was briefly complicated.

  “That didn’t help,” she admitted. “My motives are primarily political, however. That is all you need to know.”

  “I think not, Miss Muir,” Karim said, stepping away from the curtains. “I think we need to know everything. Please do not resist. I have no desire to injure you.”

  Emily glanced at a point just over his head and smiled obscurely. The whole room held its collective breath while Karim focused his attention on Emily. There was no visible evidence of the psychic battle except the sweat beading on Karim’s brow and the twitching of a tiny muscle beside his right eye.

  Emily’s mouth curled, and then resolved into a modest smile.

  Mr. Sabir – you have a regret.

  Karim shook his head violently, putting trembling hands to his temples.

  It was…let’s see. When you were a child, yes? That’s always the worst.

  “This is unnecessary.” Chike drew a boxy Glock semiautomatic from the inside pocket of his denim jacket. “I suggest that you stop now, Miss Muir.”

  Emily took a short step in Karim’s direction. He stumbled back as she advanced, clutching his head with his eyes shut tight and his face locked in a grimace.

  You were a child, Mr. Sabir. You were…let me think. This is so much easier with women. Men are so weirdly reticent! What to do? Ah…yes. I think we have it. Your father, correct?

  Karim fell to his knees and groaned.

  “Last warning, Miss Muir,” Chike said, the muzzle telegraphing the tremor in his hands. “Cease your telepathy and stand down.”

  “Empathy, actually,” Emily said modestly. “I’ve picked up a few new tricks since I left the Academy. Do you approve, Mr. Lacroix?”

  Chike fired twice. Michael dove behind the couch to avoid being hit.

  The shape of Emily’s head deformed with the impact. The bullet was hardly slowed by the transparent internal matter expelled from Emily Muir’s skull.

  She smirked at Chike as the back of her head exploded, ripples running through her body, and waggled her finger at him.

  You have forgotten what it is like to be afraid, Mr. Okoro. Shall I remind you?

  Chike looked at Emily with wide, pleading eyes, and then at the gun in his hand. His hold on it turned slack, and his hands shook. He cowered on the ground and wailed pitifully.

  Emily strode across the room and seized the dazed Karim by his head, her palms on his temples.

  You are worthless in your father’s eyes, Mr. Sabir.

  The Kurd moaned and pressed his hands to his eyes.

  “Emily Muir,” Michael said sternly, crossing his arms. “Stop this instant.”

  “Yes, Mr. Lacroix.” Emily smiled politely, as Karim and Chike’s distress transformed into confusion and embarrassment. “I’m completely willing to be reasonable.”

  “That’s debatable,” Michael said, with a sigh. “I don’t have the time for an argument right now, though. Why are you here, Emily?”

  “You are here for the same thing Alistair came here to retrieve.” Emily spoke with confidence, echoing Alice Gallow like she had been privy to the preoperative briefing. “Your attempt will fail, and the failure is likely to be costly. As things currently stand, Alistair is more than capable of defeating you.”

  Karim and Chike resumed their positions uneasily, Chike holstering his gun with a grimace, Karim muttering and pulling at his lip.

  “Is that so? And how would you know?”

  “It’s my job to know that sort of thing, just lately,” Emily explained pleasantly. “I’ve kept busy since we saw each other last, Mr. Lacroix.”

  There was surprise on Michael’s face, along with grudging satisfaction.

  “I see.” He paused briefly. “Of that much, then, I can approve.”

  Emily lifted the folds of her bathrobe slightly, in imitation of curtsey.

  “Thank you.”

  “How can we do this? How can I ever trust you again?”

  “You can’t trust me, silly man.” Emily smirked. “As for the rest, contact your precognitive pool and I’ll give them the parameters. Run the analytics and confirm it all for yourself.”

  “There’s no time for that.”

  “Okay. Then do the obvious,” Emily suggested. “Go ask Alice.”

  ***

  “Don’t try to hurt her!” Eerie tugged at Katya’s jacket, and holding tight to Derrida’s collar with her other hand. “Samnang has become far too…”

  Katya and the dog moved at the same time. The needles in Katya’s left hand disappeared, while her right dug more from the hem of her jacket. The dog charged the Yaojing, nails scraping against the fractured glass, his muscles bunched for a lunge. The characters etched beneath Samnang’s eyes erupted with light.

  Derrida leapt, jaws agape, and was struck down, to whimper and roll on the ground. Samnang coughed into her hand, and then dropped a handful of needles on the writhing dog as she stepped over it.

  “…dangerous…Samnang, please stop! Why don’t we…?”

  Katya disappeared another dozen needles, and then switched tactics, tugging a squat combat knife from her belt sheath and charging at Samnang. The Yaojing repeated her trick with the second set of needles, expelling them with polite cough and then tossing them aside. As Katya drew close, Samnang exhaled a virid mist, which quickly enveloped Katya. The assassin gasped and then took another unsteady step forward.

  “Poison?”

  Katya choked and reeled.

  “Oh, yes,” Samnang acknowledged, stepping back. “This, as well.” The Yaojing snapped her fingers, and the third character beneath her left eye blinked on.

  Katya screamed as her skin combusted, turning her into a Roman candle, the oxygen in her scorched lungs quickly consumed, her flesh turning the color of coal.

  Samnang strode past, ignoring the burning girl on the ground, the flames so hot the glass surface softened and warped beneath her.

  “Are we finished?” Samnang asked, eyes fixed on her sister. “Are you ready to return?”

  Eerie shook her head.

  “Stop hurting my friends!”

  “Friends? Really?”

  “Club members, then.”

  “If I say no, what then, sister? Will you resist me?”

  Derrida whimpered and tried to crawl to Eerie on broken legs. Katya burned and suffocated. Eerie nodded and balled her fists.

  “Yes,” Eerie said miserably. “But remember that you started it.”

  ***

  Alice stepped from Michael’s shadow into the hotel room, pulling Xia and Hayley with her, making the already crowed space claustrophobic.

  “Ms. Gallow! How nice…”

  Before Emily could finish, Alice strode over, knocking Karim aside, and seized Emily Muir by the shoulders, lifting the smaller woman off her feet with a demented grin. Emily’s expression froze in place, and she raised a finger as if she intended to make a point. Alice slammed Emily bodily into the hotel wall, with force and enthusiasm.

  Emily splashed at the point of contact, and the ripple
s carried through her whole body. She gave Alice a look of patient disappointment.

  “Ms. Gallow, please, do try and…”

  Alice slammed her against the wall again, to similar ends. Emily sighed and then lost cohesion, splashing through Alice’s grip and down into the floor in a puddle. She quickly cohered just out of Alice’s grasp, the bathrobe flowing along the floor with the puddle and concealing her reformation, in the name of modesty.

  “Ms. Gallow, please! I didn’t have to come here and talk to you, you know.”

  Alice Gallow turned to Hayley Weathers and squinted.

  “Hayley – does Muir have these guys under her control?”

  Hayley glanced around with muted surprise, the room charged with covert telepathic activity.

  “Not unless you count being damp in a bathrobe. She’s not doing much of anything on empathic level, other than trying to calm you down, so you can stop trying to put her through the wall.” Hayley paused and looked thoughtful. “Not that I have a problem with that, Ms. Gallow, but I don’t think it’s getting us much of anywhere.”

  “Hayley Weathers?” Emily looked genuinely surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  “Joined the Auditors a little while ago,” Hayley said, with a slightly guilty frown. “What are you doing here?”

  “Became Anathema of necessity a year or so ago,” Emily said, pinching her lip. “Now I’m trying to help some friends with a crazy idea. I thought you meant to join the Hegemony?”

  “Hayley, please stop sharing information with the enemy.” Alice stepped close to Emily again. “You wanted to talk to me, Anathema?”

  “Not really, Auditor, but we all have jobs to do.” Emily smiled back at Alice pleasantly. “Do you intend to hear me out?”

  “Sure,” Alice said. “Let’s head back to Central, where we can have a nice, long, undisturbed chat…”

  “No, thank you,” Emily said hurriedly. “I have no interest in seeing the inside of your interrogation facilities, Ms. Gallow.”

  “Who said I was asking?” Alice said, grinning mercilessly. “There are seven of us, and you are all by yourself…”

  Emily rubbed her forehead and sighed.

  “You’re going to insist on doing this the hard way, aren’t you?” Emily’s expression was tired and frustrated. “Is a conversation so much to ask? Oh, fine, if you must. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

  “My sentiments exactly.” Alice pointed at Emily. “Auditors, neutralize and control the Anathema.”

  ***

  Katya burned, but there was no more breathable oxygen to allow her to scream. Derrida moaned and whined, but the ongoing calamity around them drowned out the broken dog’s misery. The black star shone overhead with the inverse of radiance. Samnang held Eerie by the throat with both hands, patiently squeezing the life from her.

  “What will you do, sister?” Samnang asked, eyes wet and oddly serene. “This close to the Church of Sleep, there is little distinction between reality and dreams. How can you fight me, youngest?”

  Eerie grabbed Samnang’s fingers and twisted, trying to free herself.

  “I can feel you your poison, sister,” Samnang said, with a vague of air approval. “It won’t work, but I applaud the attempt, Ériu.”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  Eerie bent Samnang’s index finger backward until she broke the Yaojing’s grip. The Changeling fell to the ground, coughing and weeping.

  “The Church would have you back. Even now the moorings come loose. Can you feel it, sister? The Church has burnt the sky to char,” Samnang said contemplatively, gesturing toward the black star. “I understand now why you have become enamored with the boy, Alexander…”

  “Alex,” Eerie gasped. “He likes to be called…”

  “His abilities as a catalyst are revelatory,” Samnang continued. “Tell me, youngest sister – did your connection to the Church of Sleep disappear the first time you touched him?”

  Eerie clutched her bruised throat and stared at Samnang in shocked disbelief.

  “His catalyst protocol interferes and overwhelms the compulsions and implants, the goads by which we are controlled,” Samnang said, wearing a wain smile like a poorly-fitted coat. “For myself, the chorus – the commands – are barely more than a whisper, and I have known him for a matter of weeks. What is it like for you, Ériu?”

  Eerie expression was reluctant and guarded.

  “I can’t hear the chorus at all, most of the time,” Eerie admitted. “Not since last year.”

  “Remarkable!” Samnang rubbed her hands together. “You have found something truly unique, Ériu – or did you create him?”

  Eerie shook her head, slowly rising to her feet.

  “Found him,” Eerie said. “I went digging for worms and struck gold. That sort of thing happens to me.”

  “Serendipitous.”

  “If you are free of their influence, Samnang – even a little – then why are we fighting? Do you want to go back to the Church of Sleep?”

  Samnang appeared behind her and caught Eerie by the arm, twisting it behind her back, so that Eerie cried out.

  “I do not, little sister,” Samnang hissed. “But I understand inevitability.”

  “Ow! You are…hurting….”

  “You will return to the Church, because if they are forced to bring you back, it will go so much worse for you,” Samnang insisted, wrenching her arm. “I will destroy your friends, the Academy, Central, and the boy – so that the Church will have nothing with which to harm you. Consider it a gift, Ériu. Hope is the very worst thing to nurture in the Outer Dark, and I will not see you suffer it. There was never a chance for either of us…”

  Eerie laughed, causing Samnang to crank on her arm until she screamed.

  “No chance?” Eerie made a sound in between a giggle and a moan of pain. “I make my own chances.”

  “Oh?” Samnang threw her to the ground. “What have you done, then, little sister? How will you stop me?”

  Eerie laughed – or cried, or cried out, or all the above – and pointed at something behind Samnang in the near distance. Samnang turned about slowly, a smirk building on her face as the unlight of the black star revealed nothing.

  “Your abilities fail you sister. Do you not see the Church of Sleep in the sky above us, watching and gloating?” Samnang reached for the prostrate Changeling. “Let us make an end to all this.”

  The fire was sudden, and burned so hot that it scorched all the tiny hairs on her arms and neck, bursting like fireworks all around her, the heat snatching the breath from the Yaojing’s lungs.

  ***

  Chike put his palms to his eyes, and then they were all in the microsecond brief grey of the Ether, damp cold seeping into their bones and making them ache, before the apport completed, and they stood on one of the empty concrete pads that served the Far Shores as apport stations.

  “Haven’t been here in a while,” Emily said, glancing about in amusement. “Now, how about we talk this…?”

  Xia extended both hands and a wall of flame whipped toward her, Michael and Karim diving aside to avoid the instant conflagration. The fire moved like there was jet fuel spread on the concrete, and Emily had no time to dodge or even cry out. Flames enveloped her with a dramatic hiss, and then the area filled rapidly with a dense, slightly acrid cloud of steam. Hayley and Karim scrambled away while the rest of the Auditors closed the distance.

  Gotta assume she’s still up, Alice thought at them. Michael, Min-jun, I want containment! Chike, I need you to move Karim and Hayley out of reach, somewhere with a view.

  The cloud of steam rippled. There was a strange distortion of the light around Chike’s head, and he stumbled and flailed wildly. It took Alice a moment to realize that his head was surrounded by a globe of water the shape of an astronaut’s helmet, and that her apport technician was drowning inside of it.

  Fucking hell! She’s inside our communications, isn’t she? Alice unslung her shotgun and moved
cautiously into the weirdly persistent steam. Central, I need the Director on this now! I need an encrypted channel. Karim, secure our damn head-space! Hayley, back him up if needed.

  Michael grimaced, and then hit the cloud with a wave of concussive force that shredded the steam into feeble streamers and ribbons, exposing an empty concrete pad dripping with residual water.

  She’s shifted forms! Hayley, watch out!

  Hayley was midstride, sprinting for a nearby building when she hit the puddle, losing her balance on the ridiculously slick surface. Hayley’s feet slid out from beneath her, falling backwards and landing on the point of her hip. Hayley cried out and rolled as Emily reformed above her. Emily touched Hayley lightly on both temples, winked at the Auditors, and then melted back into liquid when Karim opened fire, snapping off a pair of carefully aimed shots that burst harmlessly through Emily’s head.

  Hayley rubbed her eyes, and then glared furiously at Karim. Alice ejected the magazine from her shotgun, hurriedly digging through the bag on her hip that contained her spares.

  She’s turned Hayley! Karim, you need to…

  Hayley squinted. Karim shuddered, the rifle nearly tumbling from his grasp. Michael put his palms down on the concrete pad and concentrated. As Alice sprinted toward Hayley, she felt the concrete warming rapidly beneath her feet, steam hissing and puddles dissipating. Min-jun moved uncertainly toward Karim.

  Alice located the magazine she wanted and slammed it into the mag well, moving quickly for the shadows.

  Karim? Why did you just…? Shit, she’s compromised him!

  Karim fired twice, putting both rounds squarely in Michael’s back, the sound like a butcher dropping a side of beef. Michael groaned and leaned forward, head hanging slack, his blood steaming where it dripped to the heated concrete.

  Alice slammed her fire selector forward to auto, and then pulled the trigger, the sound of the gun muted and weak, like a loud sneeze, thanks to the adulterated shell’s reduced load. She had been warned by the technicians at the Far Shores to be close when she used it, but they had been frustratingly uncertain exactly what sort of proximity was required.