by R S Penney
Mercy snapped her fingers.
Just like that, Desa and Midnight were in the middle of a street lined with tall flat-roofed buildings. The lamps illuminated gray cobblestones and steps leading up to every front door.
She could sense Field Binding nearby. Quite a bit of it. The Ether was practically quivering with activity. Well, at least she didn’t have to guess where to go.
Clutching the reins, Desa set her jaw and nodded. “All right,” she said softly. “Let’s do this.”
Midnight took off at a gallop, charging up the street. Buildings flew by on either side of her. Sometimes, she heard a shout from someone who was wondering what had caused all the commotion.
In less than five minutes, she saw that this road ended in an intersection with a crossing street. A high, stone wall blocked her path. Whoever was Field Binding was behind it.
Leaning low over Midnight’s neck, Desa clenched her teeth as she whispered in his ear. “Keep going,” she urged. “Don’t hold back.”
The stallion did as he was told.
Clearing her mind, she triggered her Gravity-Sink, extending the field into a bubble that encompassed her horse. The larger the field, the faster the Sink would fill itself. But it was necessary.
Midnight leaped, easily cresting the wall, and then she killed the Sink so that he could land on the other side. His hooves churned up dirt as he ran toward a mansion with lights in its windows.
A coach had been parked in front, but it had tipped over when the brown horse that pulled it spooked and tried to bolt. The poor animal was lying in the grass, whinnying in terror. Under other circumstances, she would have stopped to soothe him.
“Whoa!” Desa shouted.
Midnight drew up short, rearing and kicking his legs. He let out a whinny to echo those of the downed horse, then settled.
Dropping out of the saddle, Desa landed in a crouch. She stood up slowly, patting Midnight’s neck. “Take care of him,” she said. “I’ll see what’s going on inside.”
She pulled her right-hand pistol from its holster, twirled it around her index finger and caught the grip. She cocked the hammer with a distinctive click and then proceeded to the front door.
Getting it open required some effort. The damn thing was locked. Working quickly, she took a pin from her pocket and slipped it into the keyhole. She spun around, pressing her back to the wall.
And then she triggered the Force-Source.
The lock exploded, metal flying off into the yard. Midnight gave her a look, and she could guess what he was thinking. Dear, Desa. Your propensity for smashing things isn’t making my job any easier.
She kicked the door open and stepped into a large foyer where two curved staircases led up to a balcony. Hallways branched off on her left and right, leading into north and south wings.
Her eye was drawn to the set of arch-shaped double doors under the balcony. They opened into a ballroom. She could feel the Ether stirring on the other side, but that wasn’t what worried her.
A man stood just inside, frozen in place with his arms outstretched and one foot lifted off the floor. A Force-Sink arrow near his shoe drained all of his kinetic energy. If she got near it, she would be frozen as well.
She found the Ether with no effort, the world transforming before her eyes. Directing her thoughts into the arrowhead, she examined the Infusion that Tommy had created. Any doubt that this was one of his vanished when traced the shape of the lattice. As she suspected, the Sink was almost filled to capacity. The Ether fled when she released it.
She retrieved her pin from the broken lock. It still had a little energy left. Enough to get the job done. Desa tossed it into the ballroom. Of course, the pin stopped short, floating in the air.
She ordered it to release its final store of energy, and the old man lurched into motion, stumbling into the foyer. “What?” he stammered. “Who?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He just pushed past Desa and ran into the night.
Desa strode through the door.
The scene that played out before her was nothing short of stupefying. The window in the back wall had been shattered, as had the skylight. Miri and Kalia were crouching in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by dead aristocrats. The two women struggled to get back on their feet.
A dazed Tommy went crashing into the wall, kicked by a woman in red who scrambled to pull her hood back up. Desa didn’t get a good look at her, but something was wrong there.
And then Adele came through the shattered window, brushing shards of glass off her dress. “That,” she said. “Was not nice.”
She paused, noticing Desa for the first time, blinking as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “Looks like the fun’s over,” she grumbled. “I have no time for you.”
Without hesitation, Desa pointed her pistol at the treacherous woman. “Oh, please,” Adele muttered, flinging her hand out in a dismissive gesture. The gun flew out of Desa’s grip before she could squeeze the trigger, landing between two tables.
“Get down here!” Adele barked. “Do your job!”
The hooded woman descended with the aid of a Gravity-Sink, alighting on the tiled floor. “With pleasure,” she purred. “How I have ached for the chance to settle this score.”
Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Desa shook her head. “Do we know each other?” she asked. “You’ll have to forgive me; I’ve been a little busy.”
“Keep her off me,” Adele ordered, turning away and heading for the backyard. She halted as she passed through the window, laughing maliciously. “It’s time to do what I came here for.”
The Woman in Red drew her knife, creeping forward with deadly intent. Even with her face hidden, Desa could tell that she was smiling. “You have no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Suddenly, Kalia jumped onto the woman’s back, trying to tackle her. “Go!” she screamed at Desa. “Stop Adele! We’ll take care of her!”
The woman bent forward, tossing Kalia over her shoulder. Kalia landed with a grunt, sprawled out on the tiles.
Rage flared up, and Desa reacted, extending her hand and projecting a wave of kinetic energy from her ring. The hooded woman went flying backwards like a rock kicked up by a tornado. She sailed right through the window, landing in the backyard. Kalia slid a few feet along the floor, but she had only caught the edge of the blast.
With a groan, she stood up and knuckled her sore back. She winced as she tried to ignore the pain. “Thanks,” she muttered. “Now, go get Adele.”
“No.”
“No?”
An exhausted Tommy came stumbling up to stand beside her, wiping the sweat off his brow. “What do you mean?” he panted. “I thought bringing down Adele was the point of this mission.”
“How did you get here?” Miri asked.
Desa answered that with a cheeky grin and a shrug of her shoulders. “Turns out we have friends in high places,” she said. “I found Mercy in the desert, and she wants to help us put an end to this nightmare.”
“Grand,” Kalia said. “So, let’s go.”
“No,” Desa protested. “Mercy has the power to defeat Adele, but she needs us to lure her out of the city. If they fight here, innocent people will get hurt. All three of you have inflicted damage on her. If you confront her together, I’m sure she’ll run. And then Mercy will find her.”
“What about you?”
“That hooded fiend wants my blood for some reason. I will keep her distracted while the rest of you do what must be done.”
Planting herself in front of Desa, Kalia squinted as she tried to figure out what was going on. The poor woman was so confused. “So, you won’t be going after Adele,” she said. “Are you sure you’re the same woman I fell in love with?”
Unable to suppress a fit of laughter, Desa kissed her lover’s forehead. “Let’s just say I had a change of perspective,” she replied. “This is a team effort. I’ll do my part; you do yours. With any luck, this will all be over by morning.”
; They all nodded.
And just in time too!
No sooner did they finish their little meeting than the hooded woman came stalking back through the window, brandishing her knife. She was breathing hard, seething with fury. “You’re going to regret that.”
“You want me?” Desa sneered. “Come and get me.”
She turned and ran back into the foyer, listening for the sound of footsteps behind her. She wasn’t disappointed. Whoever this stranger was, she had a singular focus, a need to sate her bloodlust.
Such a weakness could be exploited.
Ten seconds after the Woman in Red followed Desa out the door, Tommy turned to the others. “Well,” he said. “We know what we have to do. Let’s get to it.”
He adjusted his quiver, hoisted up his bow and began a sombre march to the window. Miri fell in on his left and Kalia on his right, both women drawing pistols and thumbing the hammers. He could see it in their eyes.
Resolve.
One way or another, this would all be over soon. It was almost a relief. Even if he didn’t make it, there would be no more running, no more delays. If they survived, he and Dalen and Miri could ride off into the sunset and…do anything! He hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Maybe they could get the revolution going again. Somehow, he thought that his performance tonight had been overshadowed by the mayhem that followed.
They stepped into the backyard, onto the small, stone patio.
Delarac’s guests were on their knees in the grass, surrounded by liveried servants who held them at gunpoint. Some of them were crying; others begged for mercy. “You can’t do this!” one man wailed. “It’s murder!”
Tommy felt nothing but disgust for the lot of them. None of these idiots had any compunctions about sending strangers off to die in pointless wars. But when the guns were pointed at them, suddenly human life was sacred.
The servants were all stone-faced, guarding their captives without a flicker of emotion. He suspected that was Adele’s doing. Some enchantment that she had placed on them. Those dead stares reminded him of the gray people he had seen in Aladar and Thrasa.
Adele glided through the grass on bare feet, her long, black dress trailing behind her. She looked up with a deep breath and smiled when she saw Tommy. “So, you want to watch? I suppose I do perform better with an audience.”
He reached for an arrow.
“Uh uh!” Adele said, waggling her finger. “No need for that! After all, I heard your little speech earlier. You hate these maggots as much as I do. Can’t we have a moment together for old time’s sake before we go back to trying to kill each other?”
“Hmm,” Miri said. “No.”
She and Kalia aimed their guns.
A wave of Adele’s hand produced a surge of kinetic energy that hit each woman like a punch to the gut. Miri and Kalia fell on their backsides, grunting.
Before he even realized it, Tommy had an arrow out of the quiver. He nocked it, drew back the string and then stumbled when something invisible struck him across the cheek. His head rang as dizziness washed over him.
Dazed, he sank to one knee and raised a hand to touch his smarting face. He hissed as the pain flared bright and hot.
“Really, I don’t want to kill you,” Adele said. “Not yet anyway. We’ve made such wonderful memories together!”
Tommy looked up to find her standing over the cowering aristocrats. Her grin was positively demonic. “I’d like to give you one last fond memory,” Adele went on. “Don’t you want to see these pigs get what they deserve?”
“Not from you.”
Adele planted her fists on her hips, tossing her head back and smiling up at the heavens. “Well, you can’t say I wasn’t diplomatic,” she huffed. “Enjoy the show. It’s the last one you’ll ever see.”
Abruptly, she turned and reached for the nearest man, a portly fellow with his gray hair tied back in a short tail. He trembled, moaning when he realized that he was to be the first victim.
Black ooze engulfed Adele’s hand, thick oil that flowed up her arm to the elbow. Then her hand melted. A tentacle of liquid onyx stretched forth and stabbed the old man’s chest. It spread over his body – his shoulders, his arms, his legs and his head – consuming him. His screams cut off as he disintegrated.
The tentacle retracted, transforming back into Adele’s hand. Black veins ran up her arm, her shoulder, her neck and her face. They dipped into her eyes, changing them into pits of darkness. When she spoke, it was with a chorus of voices. “Yum, yum, yum!”
She spun to face Tommy with a beatific smile, giggling softly. Her eyes! They weren’t just dark; they were empty. It was like looking into the Abyss itself. “Kalia,” the chorus intoned. “I do hate it when people take what is mine.”
The tentacle lashed out, streaking toward the sheriff.
Tommy reached for the Ether and surrendered himself to its comforting embrace. The world changed – particles spinning all around him – and Adele became…something he couldn’t even begin to describe. An emptiness so profound it made him want to weep. In that stretched-out instant, with death lurking only a few inches away, Tommy filled the emptiness, forcing the Ether into it.
And then he let go.
Adele stumbled, the tentacle snapping back into her. She hunched over, touching fingertips to her forehead. “I should have known you wouldn’t make this easy,” she said. “Kill them!”
As she fled into the foyer, Desa spun around to find the Woman in Red in hot pursuit. The stranger leaped over fallen chairs and sprinted through the ballroom with grace that only someone with a Gravity-Sink could manage.
Raising her fists into a fighting stance, Desa backed up to the front door. “Before we do this,” she began. “Would you mind sating my curiosity?”
Cruel laughter echoed through the room as the other woman stepped out from underneath the balcony. She seemed to be considering Desa’s request. “I suppose that’s only fair. What do you want to know?”
“Who are you?”
“I should think you would have figured it out.”
Reaching up with two gloved hands, the stranger pulled back the hood to expose an inhuman face. Her skin was pale, her features properly proportioned, but her eyes were yellow with vertical slits. And she was bald.
Her ears had changed as well. No longer round, they now slanted backward with pointed tips. When she smiled, she displayed two pointed fangs. “Don’t you recognize me, Desa?”
“Azra…”
“Indeed.”
Desa blinked and then gave her head a shake. “No,” she said, stepping forward. “No, you died when I threw you off the train.”
“Oh, I should have died,” Azra agreed. “Tossed off a train at forty miles an hour, bouncing off trees: it’s the sort of thing that breaks a human body. I was bleeding out when Adele found me.”
“And healed you…”
Azra came forward with a grin that displayed those sharp fangs. “She warned me that the healing came with a price. I was more than willing to pay. It’s funny. I never feared death until I felt the life draining out of me.”
Grimacing at the thought, Desa turned her face away from the other woman. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to hurt you. But you left me-”
“Please, spare me your inane justifications. I’m uninterested in the lies you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night. We’re here now. Slicing you into little pieces will more than make up for what I’ve lost.”
With a pulse from her Gravity-Sink, Azra jumped and back-flipped as she climbed toward the ceiling. She landed on the balcony railing, cackling gleefully. “If I only get to kill you once, I’d like to have some fun with it.”
She turned her back on Desa, hopping down onto the balcony and grabbing a pair of sabres that were mounted on the wall. Long swords with thin blades. She tested each for weight and balance.
Desa tested them as well.
Making herself one with the Ether, she probed the swords with
her mind and found no Infusions within them. Never touch another Field Binder’s weapon. Or anything that a Field Binder gave you, for that matter. It was unlikely that Azra would have set up a trap in advance, but you could never be too careful.
A human-shaped collection of particles leaped from the balcony and snapped back into the form of Azra as she descended. She landed with a grunt and then giggled as she stood up straight. “Here,” she said, offering one sword to Desa.
Desa took it, backing off and lifting the blade up in front of her face. “Are you sure that you want to do this?” she asked. “I’ve had formal training with a wide variety of weapons. I can’t imagine that you can say the same.”
Azra’s response was to come at her with an overhead swing.
Spreading her feet apart, Desa turned her body and raised the blade in a high parry. Steel met steel with a loud clang. She kicked her opponent, driving the other woman back toward the ballroom.
Bad idea.
She wanted to keep Azra away from the others.
Spinning on her heel, Desa bolted for the front door. She charged into the cold night, Midnight perking up when he saw her. This might have been an even worse idea. She didn’t want Azra getting anywhere near her horse.
The other woman was hot on her heels, huffing and puffing as she surged out of the house. By the sound of her footsteps, she was gaining ground on Desa. Time to change the game.
With a deft hand, Desa pulled a coin from her pocket and dropped it on the ground. She triggered the Gravity-Sink in her belt buckle and then ordered the coin to release a burst of kinetic energy that had her streaking into the starry night.
The ring on her pinky finger pulled the coin into her hand, and then she tossed it out behind herself, triggering it again. This blast of energy sent her hurtling toward the wall that surrounded the mansion. Once again, she recalled the coin.
Azra screamed, unable to keep up.
Desa didn’t have to look to know that she was still giving chase. She sensed it when the other woman activated her Gravity-Sink. Azra leaped, trying to fly, but human legs were no match for the raw power of a Force-Source.
Allowing gravity to briefly reassert itself halted Desa’s upward motion and put her on a straight, horizontal path that carried her over the wall. She sailed across the road that bordered Delarac’s home and over the buildings on the other side.