Spade

by S A McClure

  Wonderful, Amber thought as their weapons clanked off of one another. Just what I always dreamed about. A melee fight with a crazy murderer.

  They remained locked together. Amber’s muscles strained as she tried to gain the advantage. Her arms quivered, but couldn’t force the woman down. Ways to escape zipped through her mind, but nothing seemed plausible. Her hands ached from holding the baton so tightly. Soon enough, the woman would be able to disarm—and, if so inclined—kill her.

  “Who sent you?” she asked.

  The woman’s face didn’t change. It was if she hadn’t even heard Amber’s question, which she knew couldn’t be the case.

  “Please, don’t do this,” she said. “We can work something out. Whatever they’ve offered you, I can double it.”

  What she meant was that Morta could double it. Not even the bribe seemed to register with the woman.

  “Okay then. Fine. I can tell that we’re at an impasse. You want it that way, you’ve got it.”

  Amber shuddered as she breathed in deeply. Using what strength she had left, she shoved her baton against the woman. Her feet slid across the floor as she continued to push. Just as her arms gave out, she ducked low and knocked the baton into the woman’s knees. She stumbled and fell. Amber scrambled away. She turned left and then right, not knowing if she were going in the correct direction at all. For all she knew, she could be heading straight for another trap.

  But it didn’t matter. She just knew she needed to put as much space between her and the crazy, killer woman as possible.

  She slammed her hand into keypads as she went, hoping one of them would be unlocked. Each time, they flashed red and released a shrill “beep.” Sweat dripped from her brow. She kept glancing behind her, expecting to see the woman there at any moment.

  Her smashed her palm into another reader. It scanned her slowly, the faint white light moving from the top to the bottom of the screen as she waited. She hopped from one foot to the other anxiously. To her relief, the pad flashed green and the door began to slide backwards.

  She took the time to depress the button on her baton and wait for the charge to build at its end. It sizzled and popped when she finally plunged it into the scanner.

  “Suck it,” she growled as she glanced behind her one last time. She ducked into the room and slammed the door shut behind her. To her surprise, there was a deadbolt screwed into the door, which she shoved into place.

  The woman pounded on the door. It rattled, but the lock held. The room was dimly lit, and Amber had to squint to see anything. She searched for additional weapons, but all she found were musty, decaying clothes, a few papers covering the lone table in the room, and a dead tablet. She checked her bracelet, but the screen had been shattered during one of the blasts from the pulser pistol. She couldn’t call Morta back.

  Frustrated, she leaned her head back against the door and sank to the ground. If Morta couldn’t find her, she’d die in this hell hole. She was sure of it. She had no food. No water. No additional weapons. Her shield was basically useless. She examined her baton. Its battery indicator was less than fifty percent, which meant it would die sometime over the next three hours, depending on how much of a charge she let it build before using it.

  If she even survived that long.

  Shaking her hands out, she focused on finding the core of her abilities. Her brow furrowed as she concentrated. She expected her stabilizers to hum beneath her skin. Nothing happened. Throwing her hands up, she dropped her head back into the wall and slid to the ground.

  She was trapped.

  She didn’t know if anyone was coming.

  She would most likely die.

  Alone.

  In a musty, old room in the middle of Thoth’s underground tunnels.

  Laughter bubbled in her stomach and she couldn’t contain herself as she released it.

  So much for being the luckiest woman alive.

  An explosion on the other side of the door shook Amber to her bones. Covering her head with her hands, she ducked as shrapnel from the door exploded inwards. Steam clouded the room, making it difficult for her to see past the molten metal flowing to the floor from a hole in the door.

  Metal shards sliced her palms open as she crawled across the floor. She scrambled behind a table.

  This was it. This was the end.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Crouching behind a table, Amber clenched her baton in her hand. Blood flowed freely from the cuts on her palms, making her grip slick. She snarled. Lucky or not, she didn’t want to die cowering behind a table. She wanted to die fighting.

  She leapt to her feet and approached the door slowly. She held the baton at her side, its tip crackled as she waited for the charge to build up.

  The sound of punches and breaking flesh filtered through the dull ringing in her ears. She blinked several times, trying to clear her mind.

  “Hello?” she called. Her voice sounded feeble, even to her own ears.

  Something gurgled beyond the door. Amber stumbled backwards a step. She breathed in slowly, trying to calm the pounding of her heart in her ears.

  “Are you alright?” a masculine voice called through the hole in the door.

  Amber froze as recognition hit her.

  “Frost?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “What are you doing down here?”

  She was so relieved to hear someone she knew that she didn’t pause to ask why he was down there. All she wanted was out.

  “Meeting with a friend,” she called. He chuckled at her, and she wondered if he knew more than he was letting on. Her hand trembled as she slid the deadbolt back and cracked the door open.

  “Let’s get you out of there, then,” he said. He smiled down at her.

  “Where’s the woman?” she asked, flicking her eyes from side to side, trying to determine where she had gone.

  “She won’t be a problem anymore. I promise. Just come out.”

  She peeked her head out the door and glanced up and down the hallway. The woman was slumped on the floor, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. She looked away quickly. She had seen too much death over the past twenty-four hours. She didn’t want or need to see more.

  “You’re alright, now,” Frost soothingly. “Just come out.”

  Numbness crept through her. She couldn’t process what he was saying or what she was seeing.

  Warm hands clamped around her wrists, tugging her through the door. He enveloped her in a tight embrace. He smelled of sweat and oil and blood.

  He cradled her head in his hands and whispered in her ear, “It’s going to be alright. Shh.”

  Even as he held her, discomfort writhed within her. She didn’t like being touched, especially by people she didn’t trust. And she didn’t trust him. He’d given her no reason to.

  Her hands dropped to her sides and she stepped backwards. His grip tightened for a moment, as if he were going to refuse letting her go. But then he relaxed his hold on her.

  “I need to go home,” she whispered, refusing to look at the dead woman.

  “Ok,” he said. He reached over and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear.

  She flinched away from him. His jaw muscles twitched, but he didn’t say anything as he motioned for her to follow him.

  “What about the woman?” she asked.

  “What about her?”

  Amber faltered. His tone was cold and harsh, the way it had been in the negotiations.

  “How did you know I was down here?” she inquired, changing the subject.

  “Honestly, I didn’t know it was you. We have motion sensors down here, so we knew someone was here.” He turned to face her. “Why were you down here?”

  She shrugged. She couldn’t tell if he were lying or not, but if he were, then she didn’t want to reveal to him that she couldn’t use her abilities right now. She wasn’t sure why she still couldn’t sense whether he was a danger to her or not. But then, he had saved her, hadn’t he?
/>   Sighing, she decided to tell him the truth. At least, a partial truth. “I really was supposed to be meeting someone. One of the waiters in the café told me to come down here.”

  He jerked his head towards her at that admission. “What waiter?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “A boy. Couldn’t have been older than maybe twelve.”

  He turned on her, blocking her path down the hall. “You mean to tell me that you actually decided to follow a boy into the tunnels? How arrogant are you?” He rubbed his chin as he spoke. Shadows shrouded his face so she couldn’t see his eyes.

  “I thought—”

  “Stars!” he cursed, cutting her off. “You do realize you almost died down here, right? Do you have any idea what she was?”

  Amber shook her head. The movement made her dizzy, and she wished she could sit down and sleep. She didn’t understand why her body was refusing to cooperate.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t know why he cared so much. They were enemies, after all.

  He ran his hand through this hair, tousling it. “Fortuna, you are one of the most interesting women I’ve ever met, but you are also so infuriating. Do you always run headlong into danger without considering the consequences?”

  She smirked at him. “Hazard of always having things work out for me,” she said.

  He stared at her for several seconds, continuing to block her path. She sensed that he wanted to say something more, but didn’t want to ask what it was. Eventually, he sighed and turned his back on her without saying anything at all.

  They continued in silence, with only the sound of their footfalls interrupting her thoughts.

  Beams of light illuminated the hallway in front of them as a dozen men, all bearing the Underworld’s insignia formed a barrier in front of them. Frost glanced back at her, a questioning look on his face.

  “I called Morta,” she answered.

  He gave her a lopsided smile before pressing his back against the wall and waving them towards her. “She’s all yours, gents.”

  “I have never, in all my years of working with you, been this disappointed, Amber,” Morta said as she sipped from her glass of wine. They were alone in her office. “What were you thinking!”

  Amber shrank away from Morta in her seat. She didn’t want to be scolded. She was an adult, not a child, and she didn’t appreciate Morta constantly making her feel like she wasn’t capable of handling herself.

  “I thought J was the one who messaged me,” she said. She didn’t know for certain that he hadn’t been the one to message her. She didn’t know how to contact him, so she didn’t even have a way to ask.

  “And you just thought, what, that it would be a good idea to go investigate on your own? Without letting anymore know where you were going? You could have died down there!”

  “I know,” she whispered. She recoiled further into the chair’s cushions. “I’m sorry, Morta. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Morta snarled and looked away from her. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

  Her words were like a lash against Amber’s heart. Even now, after everything she’d found out about Morta, she didn’t want her to be disappointed in her. What was wrong with her? She didn’t want to constantly seek her approval. She didn’t want to feel as small as she did right now.

  Her anxiety morphed into anger. “You’re one to talk!” she yelled.

  Morta raised an eyebrow at her and opened her mouth to respond. The unsettled argument from the night before bubbled within Amber, feeding her anger.

  She leapt to her feet. “You wanna know why I didn’t tell you where I was going or why I thought it was J? Because I don’t trust you. How can I? You knowingly chose to acquire Spade, even though they engage in illegal experiments. What were you planning on doing? Continuing them as you grow your empire? I don’t want any part of that!”

  She panted, her heart beating erratically in her chest as her anger died as quickly as it had sprung to life. Her shoulders shook as she glared at Morta, daring her to refute what she already knew.

  Morta released a long, slow breath and tapped her nails on her desk. “Is that what you honestly think about me?” she asked. She didn’t sound angry. Or frustrated. Just sad.

  That wasn’t the reaction Amber had been anticipating. “Yes,” she responded defiantly. Even if a shred of doubt was creeping into the recesses of her mind.

  “I see.”

  Amber gaped at her. Where was the righteous fury? Or, at the very least, the adamant denial? She didn’t know how to process this response.

  “I need time to process,” she said. “I need space.”

  “Okay.”

  Again, Amber didn’t know how to respond to Morta. She’d never known the woman to be at a loss for words. She met her gaze, but found only stoic hardness reflecting back at her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Morta cleared her throat. “The paperwork came through,” she said. “The acquisition is complete. All you have to do is meet with their delegation one last time to pick up the hard copies. I already have the soft ones.”

  She stood there for several seconds processing the fact that Morta still wanted her to facilitate the closing of the deal.

  “You can’t be serious,” she said.

  Morta shrugged. “They already know and trust you. It makes sense for you to finish this.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then you refuse, and I will not force you.”

  She considered. Her stabilizers still weren’t working properly, so she wasn’t sure if this was a trap or not. In all honesty, she didn’t know what to think. She didn’t want to believe that Morta condoned the testing or the death. But then, she hadn’t denied it either.

  “Do you know who’s trying to kill me?” she asked.

  “No,” Morta responded. “Honestly, Amber. If I did, I wouldn’t rest until they had been squashed from this world like the cockroach they are.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know you don’t believe anything I’m saying right now, but I need you to know that I am only doing the best that I can.”

  Amber cocked an eyebrow. Was that a hint of vulnerability in Morta’s voice or was she hallucinating? She breathed in deeply to give herself time to process. She didn’t want to tell her about her lack of power. Not until she had figured out what had happened to her, anyway.

  “When do you want me to meet with them?” she asked as she sank back into the chair. She didn’t trust herself to stand right now.

  A smile tugged at the corners of Morta’s lips. “The plan was to send you this afternoon. I want this finalized as soon as possible.”

  “So that you can turn into the monster killing innocent kids?” She couldn’t stop herself, but she regretted the words as soon as they were out.

  Morta’s face remained impassive as she said, “I am shocked this is what you think of me. But, I suppose I should have been more honest with you from the start.”

  “Yeah, you think?”

  Morta tapped her fingers on the desk again, her eyes drilling into Amber’s. “I recognize that there is much for us to discuss, Amber. But we don’t have time to hash out all the gritty little details right now.”

  “That’s what you always say,” she responded petulantly.

  “I know. And I’m sorry.”

  Amber crossed her arms over her chest and waited for Morta to continue. When she didn’t, she said, “Your secrets are going to be your destruction.”

  Morta chuckled at that. “Yes, they probably will be.” She paused, her eyes searching Amber’s face. “I need you to do this for me. I know you’re struggling to trust me right now, and that’s on me. I should have been more forthcoming about the reasons why I want to acquire Spade. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you more sooner. And I’m sorry we don’t have time for me to tell you now. But I need you to trust me.”

  Amber sat on the chair as still as
a statue as she contemplated Morta’s words. Her body ached, and her mind was fuzzy. She still couldn’t engage her stabilizers, no matter how much she tried.

  Balling her hands into fists, she said, “Fine. But I have a few conditions.”

  Morta motioned for her to proceed, and she did.

  “First, I want an additional person to join us for the final meeting. All we need is the signed paperwork. I mean it’s already official, right, so this is more of a symbolic meeting anyway. Second, I need a few hours to rest. I almost died—again—today, and I can’t go back out there until I’ve had some time to decompress. Capeesh?”

  “I think I can arrange both of your requests.”

  “Good,” Amber said as she rose from the chair. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a nap.”

  The door was just sliding open when Morta called after her, “I’m glad you’re safe, Fortuna. We need you here. More than you know.”

  She hesitated at the door. Morta rarely said things like that to her or anyone else. For a moment, the bands tightening around her heart loosened as she envisioned turning back to her and telling her that she knew she couldn’t possibly want to be involved with the shady enterprise of experimenting on NAs. But then she remembered the girl’s unseeing eyes and the stench of the room. She remembered how focused Morta had been on procuring Spade for herself.

  Gritting her teeth, she shook her head and strode from the room. She didn’t know if she imagined it or not, but she thought she heard Morta sigh as the doors slid shut.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Amber twiddled her thumbs as she lounged on the chaise. A fire roared in the hearth. The sack of incense she’d placed in it cast a warm, vanilla and citrus scent around the room. She glanced at her bracelet for the fourth time in under ten minutes.

  The Spade delegation was already over an hour late to the meeting.

  She shared a glance with Jasper. He didn’t need to speak or say a word for her to know what he was thinking. The deal had gone sour; it just hadn’t been confirmed yet.