Halfblood Heritage

by Rheaume, Laura

  “Like this. Grant, get something to write on. Sorry, but you guys need to wait outside for this. Feel free to share what information you have with Grant after we are done with Derril here.”

  When the two Kin stood and went out onto the balcony where they were joined by Ben, Ungol followed them and closed the door, standing just outside.

  “Faith, you might want to go out for this.”

  “What are you going to do,” she asked, “torture him?”

  “No...”

  “Then what are you worried about?”

  Scythe’s hand curled in a fist, and then relaxed. “Look, Faith, this guy isn’t walking out of here today...”

  “Hey now...” Derril objected.

  She looked at the door, and then back at Scythe. “We’ll stay here with you, Scythe,” she said, sitting down abruptly.

  “Okay.” Scythe nodded, rubbing his face with one hand, while pulling a knife and pointing it at Derril’s face. He turned to look at the Kin. Nice looking sheath, a low voice chuckled.

  The Kin, frozen in his attempt to catch Scythe unaware, stared up at the blade. When his eyes met Scythe’s, he jerked, frightened at the look he found there. He pleaded, letting his desperation show, “You know I can’t tell you anything...”

  Scythe didn’t answer, shaking his head to clear out an encroaching weariness.

  “You need to rest, Scythe, before doing this again,” said Smoke, closing the shades over the glass windows that opened to the warehouse.

  “We don’t have time. I want to find them right away.” They both knew it would be a race to find the rest of the Youngs before Derril's mysterious organization took measures against them.

  “Well, don’t push it. Only one fetal position per day.”

  “I’ll do my best. Ready, Grant?” At the man’s nod, Scythe did what he had been itching to do for what seemed like a long while. He moved in one smooth motion to punch Derril hard on the face. Behind him, Faith’s gasp added to the pleasure the release gave him. The man’s head snapped back and then lolled to the side, his eyes whirling. Despite his urge to follow up with more, Scythe waited until the man pulled his wits together.

  “What? That it?” taunted the Kin, his speech slurred.

  “You wish,” murmured Scythe, leaning in and grabbing the man’s will with his mind. He roughly peeled back the man’s protective curtain, asking, “What hospital is Ian at? What name is he under?”

  Scythe jumped in, finding the sphere easily as it floated forward. He said, “Newfield Heights Hospital, room 342, name Harold Urn. Show me your people there.” Scythe’s blood rushed with the man’s first evidence of real fear: a distinct, sharp scent and the quickening of heart and breath.

  Grant wrote it down, murmuring to Faith, “We can take a team over when we are done here...”

  “His doctor is theirs, Harmon York, as well as two floor nurses, Kirstin Weaver and Jason Arms. There may be two guards stationed at the door, or on the floor.”

  Derril sat with his mouth open, unable to move. Scythe continued, “Where are Lena and Mercy?”

  Quickly locating what information Derril had, he cursed, this time reciting the details for Smoke in Kin, “They’ve been sent out of the city, like we feared; first they are headed to a camp outside Turig...and then somewhere else, but he doesn’t know where.”

  “Turig...we covered that area looking for you...I remember that we found a camp, but it was abandoned.”

  “It is just a way station. They probably aren’t even there now. We need to know the destination.” Scythe gave Derril another command, “Show me your bosses, all of them.” As the memories appeared, he sifted through them, pulling out what they needed for Grant to record.

  After fifteen minutes, Scythe pulled himself away from the Kin, stepped back and fell against the couch behind him. He slouched and stared at Derril, who was half hunched over against the couch across from him, staring back at him in a mixture of disgust and disbelief.

  His chest heaving, Scythe wiped his wet face with his arm and pinched his eyes closed against the salty sweat. “That’s all I can do tonight. Anymore and I might...I can’t.”

  “Don’t sweat it. This is more than enough,” said Smoke, shaking his head over the information in Grant’s hands. “There are important, well guarded people here, Scythe. Most of them are Kin. I’m not sure you want to follow through with this. You’ll be a murderer, an outlaw.”

  “Well, Talto isn’t on the list, at least. Maybe he can authorize some of it.”

  “No way. These are his councilors, his peers in other cities, some are his relatives. It’s impossible.” He frowned again, considering what they had learned, “What does this have to do with the abductions?”

  “Almost nothing.”

  “What?” he shouted and then adjusted his tone. “What do you mean ‘nothing’?”

  “It...you were right, when you told Lena to back off the investigation into the Kin. She uncovered another group, this group...the Scere...and it didn’t want to be found.”

  “So they didn’t have anything to do with the experiments?”

  “Apparently not. They are just after the Youngs for their powers...and me.” Scythe’s vision wavered, and he rubbed his hand over his eyebrows, pressing hard. “You know, I’m beat. Can we worry about it tomorrow?”

  “Sure, let’s get out of here and find a place to crash. Tomorrow is soon enough to change the world.” He looked down at Derril, “You need this guy anymore?”

  “Please, don’t do it. There is more I know...”

  “Like what?” asked Grant.

  Scythe cut Derril short, “Nope, I got all I want from you. I don’t want to tramp through the sludge in your head anymore.” It was worse than sludge. Sludge was something that you could wash off. The seedy, depraved thoughts that Scythe had waded through clung to his mind in thick putrid globs of fat. He kept trying to shake them off, but he couldn’t get free of them.

  Reading Derril had been totally different from his experiences with his brothers, Grant and Harmony. All the minds he had ever touched felt foreign and unwelcoming, but Derril’s memories were steeped in greed and filled with experiences that Scythe wished he had never glimpsed. No, not just glimpsed, but lived through.

  He was a small man in the Scere, but he had done his fair share of violence, mostly against Humans who were in no position to resist him. It was because he was so insignificant that he reveled in completing his assignments in a way that generated the greatest amount of fear possible. Crushing them made him feel big. Killing made him feel big, too, which was odd because he didn’t think their lives were worth even the breath it took him to extinguish them.

  No, he definitely wasn’t going back there. When Scythe had stood in his memories, feeling everything that Derril had, he was the one who believed in the insignificance of others. He had casually ordered the brutal murders and laughed at their struggles. He had loved it when they resisted him, because he knew that everyone caved in eventually. He was the one to feel a rush of power when they had been taught their lesson. He had lived for the moments when they bent their heads down, groveled and did whatever he wanted. While Scythe was there, it all seemed reasonable to him. Only after Scythe had wrenched himself out and away, only then did he flinch from what had nested in his head, trying to find a home there for itself.

  Sitting there across from the man whose thoughts swarmed inside him like cockroaches, Scythe fought to remember that he wasn’t the one who believed that it was nothing to take a life. At the moment, he was finding it very difficult, because he had already decided what he was going to do with the one in front of him. He was going to kill, and he didn’t have a single problem with it.

  But, was it his choice, or was it Derril’s?

  He shook his head. It didn’t matter. Derril’s memories had given Scythe the urge to crush something. Too bad for Derril.

  “No. There’s nothing more you have that I want. Besides, you are the first to go, rem
ember?”

  Yes! whispered a voice that had shuffled its way forward when he wasn’t paying attention. He stood up and pulled out a blade.

  Derril started to beg, “Please!” His voice reached a high-pitched screech right before it was cut short abruptly.

  Scythe grit his teeth and gripped the knife that now quivered in his hand. He gave Smoke a dark look, but his friend ignored him and stepped away from Derril’s body, leaving it to fall sideways on the couch and turned to the door. Grant followed him, guiding a shaken Faith who clasped her son to her.

  After taking a few seconds to press down on the furious voice that insisted that he had been cheated and wanted immediate and violent satisfaction, Scythe followed Smoke to the exit. He made an effort to straighten up his exhausted body before he stepped outside and looked over the three people that were camped out on the balcony.

  Ben asked, “You get what you wanted?”

  “We got thirty-eight names, but only a handful are on the top of the list. We’ll check each one out and, if we have to, get more names until we find them.”

  The Kin woman asked, her astounded expression closely matching that of the Watcher next to her, “You made him give you that many names in so short a time? How?”

  Smoke spoke up when Scythe stayed silent, “He has a way with people. Didn’t you see that?”

  “I did. That’s why I’m sitting here.” She stood and was joined by the Kin next to her. “I am Anora.”

  “You are professional military,” guessed Scythe based on what he had observed about her. She was obviously several classes above the bodyguards.

  “I was Red Guard in Jueldea, before I was recruited by the Scere Nightcrawlers.”

  “Nightcrawlers?” asked Smoke.

  “Yes, this is the name chosen by Scythe for his prey; I think it is a good one.”

  Scythe smiled, “As good a name as any.”

  Smoke and Scythe both turned to the quiet Kin next to her expectantly. He surprised them by bowing, “I am Wright. I used to serve in a group similar to your Blades in my home city, Linah.”

  “And now?”

  “And now I don’t. I honestly wish I could assist you, but I can’t.” He waited, gauging.

  “Why is that?” Smoke asked testily.

  When he didn’t answer, Scythe moved between them, recognizing the subtle signs of the end of the Blade's patience. “I said he was free to go, Smoke,” he said firmly to his friend before turning and asking, “Why are you here, then?”

  Wright, his body both relaxed and ready, kept his eyes on Smoke, “I could have left earlier, but I chose to stay and see.”

  “See what?”

  His gaze shifted. “You, Scythe, son of Scythe: a halfblood with power, who was flagged at age seven after an intelligence test, trained by Blades at eight, abducted by Humans at ten, escaped from them and became the youngest Blade apprentice ever at thirteen, who sings to unwanted babes at night, who fights his own body for control, who can command the attention of a room by stepping into it. I stayed to see you.”

  Scythe, like everyone else, was stunned by the man’s emotionless recounting of his life.

  Finally, Smoke said, narrowing his eyes, “You risked a lot for just a look.”

  The man shrugged. “I am a Watcher.”

  “So what now?” asked Scythe.

  “Now, I’ll take my leave from you. I am not permitted to assist you, but neither is it permissible for me to abstain from interfering, should I be made aware of your plans. Thus, it is imperative that I leave now, before I am put in a very difficult situation. I am sure we will meet again, and I hope that on that day, we will stand together.” He stepped back, bowed again and then left, quickly going down the stairs and out of the warehouse.

  “What was that?” asked Ungol.

  “I have no idea, but there goes a man who knows a lot,” Smoke commented. “We could have gotten what we needed from him, Scythe.”

  “No,” Scythe said, feeling somehow better for knowing that, despite what he had said to Harmony, there were limits to what he would do.

  “Because you said they were free to go?”

  “Because of that.”

  “What about Lena?” Smoke asked, saying her name for the first time in a long while.

  “We will find them, I swear it,” Scythe promised.

  “Even when you are letting people walk away?”

  Scythe took a deep breath, gathering his strength for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, and waited for his friend to do the same. Smoke, finally, closed his eyes briefly and then shrugged his shoulders. “Alright, lets get on with it, then.” With a poor imitation of his casual self, he crossed his arms and waited.

  “What about you, Ben?” Scythe asked, turning to the man.

  “I’m with you, if you can use me. The few of us who were pulled out of the hospital by the Scere were imprisoned in a military compound, interrogated, and then given a rougher version of your offer. We were not allowed to leave the service of the organization, even though we had never heard of it before. One day I’m working security in a top secret hospital, and the next day, I’m working for Sheila.

  “It was a very closed operation. We were never allowed to exit the compound or communicate outside of it; we were being monitored all the time.” I don’t know how much help I can be, but for now, I’m your man.”

  They looked at Anora for an explanation.

  Anora furrowed her brows, “I admit it is barbaric, but that is typical of the way the Eler treats Humans.”

  “The Eler?”

  “I cannot tell you much, because what Derril said about secrecy was very true. If you do not chose to work for the Scere, then you should consider limiting your knowledge of them. The more you know, the harder it will be for them to let you slip by, if that is even possible at this point. What is common knowledge is that the Scere is the council that governs the Humans in the place of the King, who otherwise does not recognize them. One of its main functions is the control of information.

  “The Scere unit arrived at the hospital shortly after your group left, and cleaned out the facility, presumably to keep any information about the facility from spreading any further beyond their control. Similar controls were put in place after your return to Poinsea, although it is unlikely that you would be aware of them. A very few of the survivors like Ben were offered positions. The problematic ones were disposed of. This is the Scere’s policy where Humans are concerned. Soon, a similar team will arrive here, so I recommend you quickly remove any Humans you would like to spare that predicament.”

  “How did you become involved?”

  “For the Kin, it is very different. Kin with strength in some area may be offered a position, but for us it is like a job, a well-paid career. Others may work for the Scere for short term assignments. I have worked for them for six months, but I have found it to be distasteful. I have never had any fondness for Humans, but this is excessive. I have been thinking for a while that my particular talents might be better spent in other pursuits.”

  Glancing nervously at the many border patrol soldiers he was responsible for, Grant spoke up, “Let’s move out, then. The first thing we are doing is assembling a group for the hospital.”

  “Is there a chance of finding Harmony?” asked Scythe, thinking about Ian.

  “She’s around here someplace,” said Smoke, walking to the balcony. At the surprised looks, he nodded his head. He looked over the floor below them before heading for the stairs; the rest followed him. “I know, it shocked me, too. She took off with her daughter, but returned fifteen minutes later and gave us the updated information on the warehouse. She was helping with the injured last time I saw her. I think they are all outside by now.”

  “Why do you ask?” wondered Grant, walking with Scythe behind Smoke.

  “I’d like her to be available when we go to the hospital,” said Scythe.

  When he didn’t elaborate, Grant said, “Well, I’ll ask her.
I’m surprised she returned.”

  Scythe thought about the guilt that permeated her mind and the way he felt when he was joined with her. It was nothing like the clinging, stifling sensation of Derril’s mind. Then, he remembered the warm hands on his head and the spread of gentle heat across his frayed nerves and spent body, soothing the pain and boosting his energy. All of it was tinted with the essence of her will, which urged, Be well. Harmony’s secret power hummed in the place in his head that knew that Lena’s fire was blue.

  “Can we...are we going to get Ian now?” asked Faith, stepping up to Scythe.

  Scythe nodded his head, “That’s the plan, Faith.”

  “And...Mercy? And Lena?” she stuttered.

  Scythe took his eyes off the stairs, where he had been concentrating on not tripping on his leaden legs, to get a glimpse of Smoke’s back. The Kin didn’t react at all to the mention of Lena’s name. Smoke was as blank as when he had stuck his blade in Derril’s eye, but Scythe could hear evidence of his concern, and smell the effect of fear on the man; it was the same smell that rolled off him. “I honestly don’t know, Faith, but we’re gonna try. As soon as we can, we’ll go for them.”

  “Go where?”

  Scythe had given what little they knew only to Smoke, and he had made sure to speak in Kin. That information was the reason for their fear.

  “Not here.”

  Her voice pitched higher, echoing in the warehouse, “Not here? Then, where?”

  “We can’t talk about it right now, Faith. Please, be patient,” said Grant, stepping between them and wrapping his arm around her shoulders.