Intimidator

by Cari Silverwood

  “Did you retrieve Stom? Or anyone?” That inferno looked survivable, if he’d been wearing his coat. If not… He clamped down on his emotional response.

  “The humans have him. I’m tracking the ambulance. Seven minutes to arrival at the hospital. From drone images, he’s dying.” A picture flashed up: a black man-shaped thing on a stretcher being covered by a silvery cloth. “No one else was brought out. We had no units, no men except the core defense manning the ship, sir. Permission to use those to retrieve Stom?”

  Even the operator sounded stressed. Stom’s chances of surviving were tiny, but they had to retrieve him. Brask pressed his knuckles into his forehead. Risk exposure by mounting an operation on a moving ambulance? Risk depriving the ship of its core personnel?

  One of the other strike teams was closer than his.

  “Accor? How fast can he get there compared to a team from the ship?”

  “They can make it. Estimated one-minute difference. His team is returning here already.”

  “Good.” He drew in a long breath and committed. “I authorize a non-lethal strike on the ambulance by Accor’s team. I also authorize the use of a ship’s shuttle to return him to the ship. Make sure everything is standing by. Alert medical personnel.”

  “Sir.”

  He snapped off the holo and swiveled on one heel. “Jadd. You’re in charge.”

  At a jog, he headed for the nearest transport. With no god, their ability to manipulate all the many human means of recording and exchanging information was small. This was out in the open, on a street, in daylight. All it would take when the team hit the ambulance was one man they didn’t spot recording a video and uploading it to YouTube.

  His career might be heading down the toilet but for once he didn’t care. He’d thrown away enough potential friends over the years. Stom was a man he’d grown to like.

  When he reached the ship, Stom was already assessed, hooked up to resuscitators and regenerators, and from the tubes and humming gadgets, the docs had plugged him into everything the ship possessed. Possibly including even the games machine from level three.

  Brask stopped and stared at the organized chaos. Medical personnel were rattling about, extracting fluids, doing a kakload of stuff to Stom, who was entirely hidden under a half-cylindrical white machine. He sneaked in to question the least busy one, who was playing with data on a screen.

  He jerked his chin toward Stom. “How’s he going? I can see you’ve got a lot to do –”

  The man glanced up and grimaced. “Sir, honestly, he’s going to die. Most of him is cooked so deep I don’t know how he’s still alive. He’s in no pain. We have him anesthetized, but he is going to die. You can’t regen charcoal.”

  Stunned was the best word. He couldn’t move, couldn’t mouth a single syllable for several seconds.

  Do your job. The man looked white. They hadn’t had a death here for months.

  He reached out and patted the man’s shoulder. “You did good, Terek. Thank you.”

  His reply sounded as if it came from a tunnel a thousand yards long and Brask barely processed the meaning.

  A message beep. He answered it.

  “Sir. From cobbled together, retrieved human footage, we’ve found at least one vehicle leaving the area of the house with Willow inside. She doesn’t appear injured though she was naked. AI analysis says at least one of her captors is Bak-lal. The other woman, Ally, has gone missing also. She’s probably been captured by whoever has Willow.”

  “Good.” He nodded. Getting somewhere. “Where is this vehicle? Where are the women?”

  “We don’t know, Sir. They were headed north but that’s no guarantee as to destination.”

  “Fuck.” She wasn’t injured. In that blaze? Stom would not have sat still to be burned. It had to be a surprise attack and that meant she would have been there too, surely. Not injured? What was going on here? Another woman of power? That conclusion was a stretch of logic.

  He wished Dassenze was here.

  “Put every priority on finding those women.” The Bak-lal queen, wherever she was, had come out of hiding for them. She’d thrown away resources, revealed her hand. What had seemed a curious ability must have far more significance. If Stom had to die, at least let him get revenge for this. They would find this queen. They would kill it.

  Chapter 21

  Though she’d figured her situation could get no worse, when they dragged Ally past her door, Willow felt something crumble inside, and she wept.

  Wherever this place was, it was near a town. The distant roar of traffic reached her now and then. They’d tied her up with steel handcuffs, left her on the bed, and used the collar Stom had given her to attach her to the headboard. That corruption of something he’d gifted to her had hurt. Yet another fresh, heart-deep wound to add to the general mutilation.

  He was gone. Nothing could survive that fire. Except her, it seemed. The stench of the smoke permeated her hair and soot covered her skin, coated the insides of her mouth. She’d breathed fire, walked in it, and she lived, unscathed.

  The ache within was enough to keep her head going round and round, reliving the agony of seeing him burn. But she’d held herself together. She’d held in the tears, she had, until Ally appeared.

  Now sweet, innocent Ally was here too. She expected herself to be raped and killed at any moment. That she could stand. People who could do what she’d seen and not flinch, who had laughed in the car as they drove away, those people might do anything.

  But Ally was here. Fuck.

  She cried despairing tears for the girl in another room who knew so little of what horrors the world could visit upon her. She’d always stopped harm from reaching her. Was she going to fail at that too?

  This terrible fact stirred a need in her. It drove past the sorrow and the horror, kicked away the crutch of self-destruction. It made her start to think again.

  I have to get out, somehow. Have to take her with me.

  She sat up, wiped away the tears with her handcuffed wrist, and she thought. Forget the men in the next room, the dead place in her chest.

  The fire.

  Forget.

  Methodical, she should be methodical. She went through a list. What was in the room? Could she use anything to escape? Who had she seen? How many? What could she hear them say? Her list went on forever.

  Things happened around her. Strange thuds and clanks. Voices.

  The screams from some anonymous woman in a nearby room were chilling, especially when men laughed again, not Ally though, thank god, but this time the sounds didn’t shut her down or stop her thinking. She wouldn’t give in anymore. Now she had a goal.

  She listened to the screams grow quieter as perhaps the woman weakened then she fell silent.

  In what sort of neighborhood would a woman’s screams go unnoticed?

  A very bad one, said her logical self.

  The half-open cupboard across the room held shoes, both men’s and women’s and there were dresses and shirts. A couple had lived here. Were they dead? Was that her in the next room? This house might have been hers.

  Why had her house failed after all those years? Had Stom being there somehow interfered? Had he annoyed the ghost or whatever did the guarding? Or had something else changed?

  They fed her that day and two men took her out to a toilet. Though one of them sneered, neither sexually assaulted her. When all was quiet that night, she listened closely and recognized the name Kasper in the conversations. Again with the chills. The fear. The shaking. She watched her hands shaking and they no longer seemed her hands. There was a dark terrible fear that made it impossible to sleep until she was so exhausted that her eyes refused to stay open.

  In the morning, she asked herself the logical question. What could he do to me that is worse than watching Stom die?

  Answer: nothing.

  That worked.

  She had a wall, a concept to use. Except she had to stay alive long enough to get Ally out.

&nbs
p; At around noon, they dragged her into a new room where she saw Ally, tied down on a table, but at least they’d let her keep her dress. It was as if most of these men no longer cared about sex. Their eyes were blank. A dead woman occupied another table, her arms and legs taped into a spread-eagled position. Trails of clotted blood led from wounds in her wrists and ankles.

  Her steadfast, cast-iron, I-will-not-fear rule shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Kasper sat in a single lounge chair watching it all like a king. Only his eyes were wrong. Even for a cold blooded, ice-in-his-veins criminal, his eyes were so wrong. He blinked too slowly and reminded her of a great lizard sunning itself in the heat of the day. Deep inside there, she knew, this was no longer Kasper. Something else moved behind the façade.

  “What are you?” He sat forward, his gaze piercing, as if he could question her mind to mind.

  “I’m nothing. No one,” she whispered, while trying to check out Ally.

  Had they dosed her up with something? She drooled from slack lips and focused on the bare wall. An intravenous infusion tube ran from her arm to a bag of fluids.

  Swear words rambled through her head. What could she do? Her fingernails dug into her palms.

  Being naked in a room of men daunted her. Disturbed her. But not as much as seeing most of them look past her with cold, emotionless eyes. Stom had been human in his way. These people were more alien than a man from a thousand suns away.

  “You’re not nothing.” Even his voice was distorted, as if his throat had been damaged. “We know. We can tell. My queen can tell and has taught us to see. She –” He pointed at the corpse. “Was one of you. A different human. As is this one who kept your house safe. We know.” He leaned back. “And when we learn how to change you, we will have your powers.”

  “Powers? Me?” She laughed, mocking him even as her mind was telling her to shut up.

  “You are the one who lives in fire. She was one who controlled insects. This one here, the alive one, is the protector, the one who gives us headaches.”

  Ally? He meant her? She looked from her frail cousin to the men. They had drugged her because of headaches? Or they thought she gave them headaches. But, why?

  Everything fell into place. Of course. Ally had been the one who had kept her safe all those years.

  That morning, she had sent her away. She’d sent away the person who made the house safe. Willow bowed her head. She had therefore killed Stom. Vomit threatened to spill into her mouth. She swallowed it down as she felt the terrible blow. The room shuddered.

  She hadn’t known, couldn’t have. Couldn’t have. But she’d killed him.

  What have I done?

  This was helping neither of them. She took a ragged breath.

  “What do you want from me?” Slowly she straightened, uncurled her fingers.

  “Tell us how you do this. Perhaps we will be kind to you or to her. Tell us.”

  “Us?” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “The data thinks you know. How can you not know? Tell. Your books speak of rituals, of magic words and objects. You are witches. You have books. Rule books. How do you do it?”

  “Books? I… Witches? Us? No. No, you have it wrong. I’m no witch.”

  He tapped his fingers together then turned to the men. “I think we need to show her. The girl won’t die from a finger or two missing. Show her.” As the men moved in on Ally, he turned back to Willow and smiled. “We have to wait for our soldier to return with the altered nerve chewers. We hope those will succeed. The last ones failed and killed this woman. In the time we wait, you will talk to us. Proceed.” He nodded to his men.

  What were they doing? Sweat beaded cold on her skin. They meant to take her finger?

  “No! No! You can’t.” Though fear scrabbled at her, she thrust out her hands, fingers spread, imploring. “Take me. Take one of mine.” Oh god. Her imagination was vivid and she heard the crunch, saw the jaws closing and severing her finger.

  “Gag her.” He waved the men forward.

  “No!” She tried to back away as they seized her. “Please! Mine! Take my finger! Please, don’t touch Ally. Please.” She choked out a sob.

  Two them held her while a third stuffed cloth in her mouth then placed a strip of tape across her lips.

  He’d waited, pitiless. “She is right. Take a toe. Witches are known to use their hands. We don’t want to hinder her.”

  She screamed through the gag when the bolt cutters were applied to Ally’s little toe, at the snick and Ally wrenching herself upright, flailing and screeching. Tears ran down Willow’s face. Snot came from her nose and she coughed as she struggled to breathe. At the blood dribbling from Ally’s foot, she collapsed to her knees. White flooded a cold silence through her mind. The room blurred, spun.

  When they ungagged her and neither she nor Ally said anything Kasper seemed to find worthwhile, despite her babbling any rubbish she could think of, he lost interest and ordered them both returned to their rooms.

  For hours she sat, hugging her knees, listening to Ally whimpering. When she called out to comfort her, a man came in and slapped her until she stopped.

  She licked the blood from her mouth.

  These men, all of them deserved to die.

  As night fell and shadows thickened, she noticed the red spiral on her arm, touched it with her fingertip. Still the same. Swallowing got difficult. Her mark hadn’t changed since the day he died.

  Hope kindled. Her thoughts grew, and circled the possibility that had just arrived – a bright pinpoint hope smack in the middle of the blackness. Did that mean anything? Stom’s mark on his arm had become a denser, darker red after they had mated. The marks seemed to reflect the state of their relationship.

  She buried her face in her hands, massaging her scalp with her clawed-in fingers. Maybe when he died hers would take a while to fade? But she wasn’t sick. Maybe when your mate died you lost that link to them. She didn’t know!

  Was it worth hoping? Could he be alive? Or did it mean nothing?

  Without hope, she was nothing. She hadn’t offered her fingers up for Kasper to chop off for nothing. You couldn’t run with toes missing. She’d hoped she could stop him mutilating Ally. She’d wanted to spare her pain but also she’d hoped the girl could get away somehow, sometime, and run.

  That was hope: the last thread of flesh caught on the nail of life that stopped you falling into the abyss.

  She wiped her nose. Yeah, she was going to hope Stom was alive.

  In the meantime no one was rescuing them. What could she do? She had no weapon, no hacksaw. All she had was herself. She was the woman who walked through fire. What good would that do her without matches or anything? Besides, if she set fire to this place, Ally would likely burn before she got to her.

  A last reflected ray of sunlight flashed on a shoe buckle in the cupboard.

  Fire. What if she could make it as well as survive it?

  It might be bullshit but it was also another piece of hope. So she lay on the bed most of that night striving to set alight a piece of paper she found on the floor beside of the bed. Sometimes she even imagined it felt hot.

  By morning, by dawn’s light, she could see the scrap of paper again. Her eyes were dry and gritty. She rotated the scrap with her finger and thumb. White. It was whiter than white.

  Fuckitty fuck. Did I really expect that to work?

  That particular hope was looking tatty.

  Maybe she should, instead, be trying to undo the handcuffs or get the chain loose?

  *****

  Brask stared into the regen tank that the black thing floated in. Stom. Flecks of burned flesh peeled away while he watched and were sucked up by the filters. Underneath, some of him was pink.

  He made sure his words would come out steady.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” The medic nodded. “His brain is intact because we prioritized saving that but we don’t have more than thirty-five percent of him alive. E
ven with major prosthetics, major off-world hospital care, organ regen, we’d end up with a brain on a stick, basically, and we’re struggling. We don’t have the equipment here to get him stable.”

  Brask swallowed, blinked rapidly. “He’s still dying?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, sir. Two hours at most.”

  “Kak.” This was not fair.

  The door behind him whisked open. His last hope walked in. Jadd and Brittany.

  He held up a finger to indicate they should wait.

  The medic stepped back “I’ll leave you to make your last tribute to the man. I’m sorry we can’t save him. I truly am.”

  “Thank you.” The medic had the wrong assumption there, but he said nothing and watched him leave before he turned to Jadd and Brittany.

  They were such a pretty couple, young, full of life. For a moment she rested her head on Jadd’s arm. Locks of her auburn hair trickled across the sleeve of his shirt and he leaned her way as if to reassure her. What would it be like to have that sort of bond with a woman?

  Brask smiled sadly. These females of Earth seemed to suit his men. There was a uniqueness about them.

  “Thank you for coming. I have a strange request for you both. Though perhaps you already know.”

  “I think perhaps we do, sir.” Jadd took his mate’s hand, cleared his throat. “What do you need of us?”

  “Stom is dying. Nothing we have here can save him.” He sucked in a breath and prayed this wouldn’t sound too crazy to them. “Can Brittany heal? I’ve seen evidence that suggests that.”

  “Uhh.” Jadd looked at her then when she whispered yes he met Brask’s eyes. “Yes, she can. But this. This is far beyond anything –”

  “Wait. No, it’s not.” Her grip on Jadd’s hand looked tight enough to strangle all the blood from it but the man merely nodded, encouraging her. “I’ve healed a man who almost died once before. An enemy. A Bak-lal. The one who I killed at my apartment. Jadd and I figured it out afterward but we’ve been afraid to say.”

  “Okay.” That she was brave enough to tell him raised her up in his estimation. “I’m glad you’re both being honest. Dassenze already suspects this so don’t think we’re about to persecute you.” He looked at them from under his brow. “The evidence suggests there was a widespread burst of life that day, around your apartment. We have nothing to lose. I want you to do whatever it is you do, and try to save him.”