And each of the four guards also held a pistol, and they were all pointing at Billie.
She raised her arms and glanced around, calculating the odds, plotting her escape. It would be difficult, but not impossible. The slaves and miners ignored the world around them, and the protective clothing the guards were wearing looked heavy and cumbersome. Already she could see two of them adjusting their grips on the pistols, their thick, elbow-length gloves making the task of aiming difficult. If she could take them out, she would have eight runes for herself. More than enough to return to Alba, once she had figured out how they worked.
The guard in front waved his pistol at her. “This is a restricted area,” he said, his voice distant and echoing behind the metal mask. “Why aren’t you wearing your protective clothing?”
Billie lowered her hands until they rested on the top of her head, and she slowly paced toward the guards.
“Stop right there!” the first guard yelled. Beside him, two of the other masks turned to each other as the first guard held out his other hand. “You’re not assigned to Refueling. Show me your pass.”
Billie pursed her lips, and glanced down, slowly reaching with both hands toward one of the pouches on her belt.
Then she launched forward, knocking the guard’s gun hand away, sending the weapon flying across the chamber, where it clattered against the rock wall and fell into one of the slave’s full baskets. The slave didn’t notice.
Before the others could react, Billie drove her fist into the guard’s middle—with the big metal masks, their heads were well protected and, for the moment, off-target. The thick rubberized apron absorbed a lot of the blow, but Billie put her bodyweight behind it. The guard doubled over with a surprised “Oof,” then fell backward.
The other three guards were also surprised, which Billie used to her advantage, their reaction time significantly slowed. One fired his pistol, but too late; Billie had already ducked into a roll, unraveling herself right in front of the man. Again, she knocked the gun arm, easily disarming him, while kicking out sideways, aiming for the knee of the guard beside him. Although the power of her blow was dampened by the apron, Billie heard a satisfying crack, and the man fell down onto his other knee, crying out in pain. Even as he fell, she returned her attention to the original target, slamming her fists into his middle. He went down like the first guard had.
Billie spun around, her instincts telling her to be ready for a counter-attack from the first guard she had taken out, but—
He wasn’t there. He ought to be recovering, picking himself up off the ground between Billie and the mindlessly working miners.
The ground was empty. The first guard had vanished.
Billie spun on her heel, crouched into a fighting posture, ready to take on the three remaining guards.
One remaining guard. The one in the middle—the one whose knee Billie had shattered—rolled on his side on the ground, his gloved hands clutching at his leg. Billie could hear his moans of pain from behind the mask.
She ran to him, dropping to the ground before grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him flat onto his back. He cried out in pain again, louder this time, but Billie ignored him. Instead, she placed one knee on the man’s breastbone and pushed down hard, as she leaned over the glass portion in the mask. It might have been her imagination, but she could hear the bone charm fizzing in its fixture.
“Where did they go?” she asked. “Back to the city?”
The mask moved, like the man was shaking his head, but Billie couldn’t see his face through the smoked glass. She grabbed the bottom edge of it and yanked it upwards, succeeding in pulling it half off his face, the straps caught over his ears, before realizing that it was hinged at the top.
The man’s face was pale and damp with perspiration. He was breathing heavily, spittle coalescing at the corners of his mouth in a bubbly white foam.
“You… you won’t get out of here,” he said, spluttering, teeth grinding as he struggled with the agony of his destroyed knee. “Whoever you are… you won’t get out of here.”
Billie relaxed the pressure on the man’s chest, and looked down at him. She could take off his protective clothing. Maybe a fresh disguise could get her out.
No. Not good enough. The other three guards had vanished, literally—that power again, some kind of transversal, not granted by the Outsider’s Mark, but by the co-opted magic unlocked somehow by Severin’s experimentation.
With the man writhing beneath her, Billie tugged at the side of his apron, enough to get her hand around his middle, feeling for the two pouches containing the runes. She found them, her fingers working blindly at the straps.
If she could just get the runes out, maybe she could figure out how to use them, right here, right now. She could get out of the mine—get out of this whole arcane nightmare world.
That was when she was grabbed from behind. But it wasn’t by a guard. The arms that encircled her, squeezed her, lifted her off the ground—they were not flesh and blood. They were stone, cold and hard and metallic. Billie gasped at the pressure and looked down, seeing the blade-sharp triangular claws interlock with each other as one of the miners picked her up. Her legs swung uselessly, and despite her struggles, she was held firm, her arms pinned to her sides.
For a moment she flexed the fingers of the black-shard arm, feeling the familiar tug as she began to summon the Twin-bladed Knife into being. But then her magical hand froze, bolts of pain shooting up her arm. The Knife was not willing to be called.
The guard on the floor scrambled backward, but not before reaching up and flipping the front of his mask down. He made it back a couple of yards, and then he wasn’t alone.
They didn’t walk in, they just… appeared. Six guards, all armed, all wearing the protective gear, their forms swirling with glowing red and blue and yellow smoke that Billie knew only she could see. As they raised their weapons, the invisible trails of Void magic evaporated.
Then a seventh appeared, dead center. She was wearing the same gear as the others, but she wasn’t armed. She stepped forward, hands clasped behind her back, oblivious to the swirls of energy that Billie could see still clinging to her body, and looked up at Billie, who was held at least three feet off the floor by the towering form of the miner. Then the woman half-turned back to the guards and nodded. At once, two of the guards stepped forward, and as the miner lowered Billie to the floor, they grabbed her arms.
The leader of the group moved closer to her, so close Billie could see her reflection in the smoked porthole of the woman’s mask. The bone charm, sitting underneath, seemed to move, the scrimshaw carvings on its exposed ivory surface crawling as Billie tried to focus on them.
“Interesting,” said the woman. Billie glanced up, but saw only her own face mirrored back at her.
“Ma’am,” said the guard holding Billie’s left arm. He shoved that arm forward, holding it up, pulling the sleeve of her jacket back with his free hand. Billie’s Void-touched arm was exposed, the shards twisting and turning in the air.
The leader looked down at the arm, staring at it for a good few seconds. “ Very interesting,” she said.
Now Billie recognized the voice, and the woman’s physique, even under the protective apron.
Uvanov. Severin’s second-in-command.
“Take her to Control,” Uvanov said. “Severin will want to deal with her. Personally.”
And then the world went red and blue and yellow, and Billie was carried on an infinite cold wind to somewhere else.
17
CONTROL COMPLEX, LEVIATHAN CAUSEWAY, ALBA
Date unknown, Month of Darkness, 1853
Billie drew in a sharp breath of very cold air. She coughed, and watched as her breath steamed around her face. Her head pounded. The Sliver felt like a burning coal in her face. Her black-shard arm ached to the very bone—bone that wasn’t there.
She looked up, her human eye beginning to run with tears, which she tried to blink away as best she cou
ld. She was hanging by her arms from the ceiling, her wrists encased in heavy iron manacles that were connected by chains to metal loops in the ceiling. She looked down, swinging her legs, angling her feet to try to touch the ground, but she was hanging just a few inches short.
She swung again, harder. The chains rattled, but held firm, and her actions only made her shoulders ache more.
Billie looked around. The dimly lit room was an irregular shape, but the walls were flat gray, like polished stone. The floor and the ceiling were the same—uniform, featureless save for the electric lighting embedded above. On Billie’s left, in a section of wall that angled out like a polyhedron, was a door of black painted metal. There was no handle on this side, nor was there any kind of window or opening.
She tried to relax, letting the weight of her body pull her down a little, but the floor was still out of reach. She realized now that it was the pain in her shoulders that had woken her. The way she was chained, the loops in the ceiling wide enough to pull her into a Y-shape, was designed to cause discomfort—not pain, exactly, but to stress and fatigue her muscles and joints. She knew that after just a few hours in this position, she would be in total agony. A person held long enough in such a position wouldn’t last long under interrogation.
But all she could do was wait. There were no sounds from beyond the door at all. Wherever she was, it was well away from the noisy workings of the Leviathan camp, and there was a damp mustiness in the air that made Billie think she was underground again. The way the walls angled around, yet were perfectly flat, suggested the cell had been built within a natural cavern, the artificial walls following the contours of the rock behind.
She waited.
And as she waited, she ran through the last series of events she could remember.
She had been in the mine, held by the creature. And then there was a sensation of falling, and of a sudden rush of cold air. No, not cold—freezing, like plunging into icy water. That had knocked her out, but her stomach lurched again as she recalled the sensation. The last words she remembered Uvanov saying were to take her back to Control.
Her captors had taken her back to Alba, using the runes, although the experience had been different to earlier, when she had accidentally crossed into the Void hollow using the runes taken from the late Mr. Blanco. Perhaps it had been different because she wasn’t wearing runes of her own, but had been carried across by the guards.
Whatever the case, it was immaterial. What had happened, had happened.
Her thoughts drifted back to the mine again. She remembered the protective clothing the guards had been wearing to enter the mine face area, and the way each mask had a bone charm slotted into it, the way the guard had asked her why she wasn’t wearing her own gear, a fast, breathless hint of fear in his voice—clearly they understood the malign influence of the Void. That was why they were using slaves to mine the rock—the protective gear was unwieldy and would slow the work, and besides, why waste bone charms kitting out the laborers when they could “disappear” them from the causeway construction site in Alba? They had a limitless supply there.
Did that mean the Leviathan Causeway was just… what, a smokescreen for mining Void stone? It couldn’t be, Billie reasoned. It was too big an operation. It had to have a purpose—a true purpose—although what, she didn’t know.
Yet.
She hoped she would get some answers soon. In the meantime, she shifted her position, levering herself up using her arm muscles, feeling her biceps and triceps burn as, elbows locked, chains held taut, she rose up six inches or so. She held herself there, counting the seconds, feeling the pain, glad to have kept herself in top physical condition all these years, despite her intake of Green Lady. Still, there could have been worse habits. Addermire Solution, for instance.
Then she gently lowered herself, until she could let the chains carry her weight. Her shoulders sang in protest, but the sudden relief from her arm muscles more than made up for the discomfort.
And then she went back to her patient wait.
***
The clanking of keys woke her. Billie’s head jerked up, the sudden movement causing her to swing on the chains. Immediately, her head cleared, the searing pain shooting from her shoulders and down her back, bringing her to full alertness. That she had fallen asleep, despite the discomfort, was not so remarkable—in her days with the Whalers she had had to occupy positions on watch or surveillance for hours on end that were almost, if not quite, as uncomfortable. But she had no idea how long she had been out, or even how long it had been since they had captured her in the mine.
The door to the cell opened, and two black-uniformed Leviathan guards marched in. The first guard was a woman, pistol in hand, razor-sharp garrison cap at a sharp angle on her head, her blonde hair swept back and fastened in a tight bun. She was followed by another, older woman.
Uvanov.
The guard moved around Billie until she was positioned behind her, out of Billie’s eyeline. Billie glanced over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of the pistol trained on her, before the sound of another set of footsteps brought her attention back to the front.
Uvanov stood with her hands behind her back, lips pursed as she peered at Billie, as the third party walked into the cell with slow, deliberate steps. The man looked at Uvanov, then turned a sharp ninety degrees and moved closer to Billie. He looked at her—at the Sliver, Billie realized, suddenly unable to feel whether the eyepatch was in place or not—then removed his thick, square-lensed glasses before he nodded, perhaps to himself, and took a step back toward the others. He put his glasses on slowly, then smoothed down his thin red hair that was drawn flat across his scalp.
“Report,” said Severin, his voice flat and emotionless.
Uvanov snapped her heels together, her posture suddenly rigid.
“The prisoner was found at the mine face, wearing this stolen uniform.” Uvanov’s arm appeared from behind her. Billie saw she was holding a short swagger stick, which she pointed at the bundle of black clothing in the corner. “No artifacts were present.”
Severin didn’t move. He held his entire body perfectly still, as if he was carved out of the Void rock his creatures were busy mining in the Hollow. His eyes didn’t leave Billie’s—or rather, his gaze didn’t leave the Sliver.
“No runes?”
Behind him, Uvanov shook her head, although Severin couldn’t see. “None were found on her. No identification, either. But she must have used them to come through to the Hollow.”
Severin cocked his head. “Perhaps. Or perhaps… not.” He was still staring at the Sliver. “There were no reports of intruders at the Causeway zone,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
Uvanov’s throat bobbed as she gulped, and Billie could see the fear creep over her features.
“We are checking, sir, but—”
“There were no reports of intruders at the Causeway zone,” said Severin again. His voice was devoid of any emotion, any feeling whatsoever, and his expression was set.
Uvanov paused, her mouth working for a moment, but she fell silent. She glanced at the floor for just a second before lifting her chin again, and clasping her hands behind her back.
Severin stared at Billie. Seconds passed. Nobody spoke. Billie looked from Severin to Uvanov, then back. Severin was completely motionless, virtually the only movement Billie could see was the pulse in his neck, the blink of his eyes behind the large lenses, and the gentle, almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
Billie’s shoulders ached, but she ignored it—if nothing else, the ever-increasing discomfort was keeping her alert.
Keeping her angry.
Finally, she could bear it no longer. She lifted her chin at Severin. Still he didn’t move, or speak. He was a strange one, of that there was no doubt.
“Aren’t you going to ask me any questions?”
Severin just blinked. Uvanov, at least, was showing some signs of life, even if it was just to shift
the weight on her feet as she stood behind her leader’s shoulder.
Billie looked back at Severin—looked down at him. He was a short man anyway, and hanging from the chains as she was put Billie a good few inches or so above him. She took the time to study his face properly this time. He was clean-shaven, maybe fifty years old. His face was sharp, with a fine, delicate bone structure. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.
Billie thought his face would break rather easily. She promised herself to test that theory the first chance she got.
“This is some strange interrogation technique you have, Severin,” said Billie.
Severin’s lips parted with a faint but audible pop. Finally, some kind of reaction.
“So, you know my name,” he said.
Billie nodded. “I know who you are.”
Severin’s lips twitched, like they were threatening to smile on their own, like he had to fight to quell the urge. “I said you know my name, not who I am,” he said.
Billie lifted her chin again. “Don’t you want to know who I am, and how I got here?”
“Perhaps we are at a misunderstanding,” said Severin. Every word was clipped, perfectly enunciated. To Billie he sounded like one of the old aristocrats from Dunwall. “You are now back in Alba. That you were found in the Void hollow means you came into it using runes, taken from one of my men. There is no other way you could have entered, therefore I do not need to ask you that question. The fact that you do not have the runes on your person is meaningless. You had them, you discarded them.”
Billie allowed herself a smile. “Why would I discard them?” It wasn’t a real question. She was just pushing at Severin, seeing what his reaction was. His responses—as odd as they were—were both interesting and useful.
As a practiced interrogator herself, Billie knew that the subject of the interrogation could learn a lot from their captor.
Severin’s lips twitched again. He glanced at the pile of clothes in the corner. “You discarded part of the uniform already. Perhaps you didn’t know what the runes were. Whatever the case, it is another irrelevance. You are my prisoner.”
Dishonored--The Veiled Terror Page 14