allies and enemies 02 - rogues (8 page)

“Where’s what?” she asked innocently.

“The money I had stashed there.”

Chewing her lip, she jerked her chin at the far corner of the room, where many of the discarded objects had landed.

Grumbling, he retrieved a pouch of chits beneath an overturned chair. He kicked away the debris on the floor and pried up the exposed deck plate. From the space below he pulled an ancient-looking pulse gun. Checking the charge light, he tucked it into the waistband under his jacket.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he released a contemplative sigh. Those maroon eyes sized her up with a fresh wariness. He dropped the duffle and crouched down in front of her.

“Here’s the thing. We have to go. You’re going to pilot us off the
Mercy
in that stryker of yours.”

She bit at the words. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the door, listening for something. Then turned back to her. “Any minute now, Spivey’s going to call me up to the bridge. It’s a trap. They’re planning a mutiny and those generally don’t go well for the
jin-ji
. I know this because that’s how
I
got to be
jin-ji
.”

“Why would I care?” She was astonished to hear her own voice. It was the sort of thing Tyron would have said, a bark of affected nonchalance in the face of an inevitably ugly end.

“You care because we both know the first thing Spivey’s going to do with you.” He paused, letting his meaning sink in. “Then he’ll let the rest take a turn.
That’s
what I’ve been keeping from you.”

Her stomach folded. “Wh-where do you want to go?”

“Got a destination in mind. Depends on how well you can pilot that bird and if it can do what I think it can.”

Erelah regarded him, studying his face; the insolence was missing. Desperation clung to his edges. Was it real? Could it be she’d already become so reliant on the Sight that she doubted her own natural ability to judge others? It was impossible that he had cracked the
Jocosta’s
compsys and gleaned enough from examining it to realize its ability.

“This is a trick.” She kept her voice neutral.

He blew out another plosive sigh and spoke very slowly, his patience under obvious strain. “You want to see your kin again, right? You have a brother. A captain or some sort, went renegade. He mentioned a place out here. Hadelia. I know people. Can help you find him.”

“Hadelia. How…” She swallowed. Korbyn could have known about Jonvenlish’s fugitive status by consulting a wanted beacon, if there were such things out here. Only Jon had mentioned Hadelia to her, and just once, when she was recovering under the priest’s care on Tasemar.

“It got downloaded,” he tapped his skull. “Somehow. From when you did…whatever that was. It’s a jumble. But I know you meant to die for him…so they could escape. Am I right?”

She felt her eyes widen, but cautioned herself not to reveal much more. “Are you like me?”

“I don’t know. Now’s not the time to figure that out. We have to get gone.”

She shook her head. Escaping with the stryker would be a complicated matter. There was no telling what things the Zenti may have done to the
Jocosta
. Her last flight in the vessel had been just that, a last-ditch effort. Calibrations could have been affected in the navsys.

And there was the chrono-slip, no longer a random anomaly. “There might have been damage to the systems. There are dozens of calculations. The plotting—”

“Good. That’s thinking in the right direction.” He nodded, his moves exaggerated, tone mocking. “But you’re going to have to do that on your feet. Like now.”

“Okay. If I help you, what happens to me?”

His pause was long enough to make her realize either he was not being honest or he had not thought that far ahead. “I give you my word I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“The word of a criminal. Miri, Granter of Mercies.” She rolled her eyes.

Incredibly, Korbyn managed to look insulted. “No. I give you the word of a
Guildsman
.” He spoke gruffly in High Eugenes, with that quirk-some accent. “I’m a Guild-sworn of Ironvale. Infiltrator division.”

He watched her in expectant silence. His expression was grave, as if his words bore some weight or importance.

She lifted a shoulder. “Am I meant to be impressed?”

“You tell anyone in Poisoncry what I just said, they’d earn a happy payday,” he snapped, deflated.

Even if what he had just told her had given her some bloodthirsty leverage, it did not mean she owed him unwavering trust. Erelah flattened her shoulders. “This is still a trap, no matter what.”

“We don’t have time for this.” He leaned over her, reaching for her shackles.

She drew her knees up, prepared to lash out with her feet. “Don’t touch me—”

His vox chimed. Both of them startled.

Korbyn triggered the antique vox-link attached to the shoulder of his coat:
“Jin-ji, there’s been a break with the stryker. Best you come to the bridge.”

Erelah and Asher stared at each other. She sensed his desperation now. The cool swagger and bravado he had affected during their first meeting had evaporated.
This
was not an act.

“No tricks?” She allowed her body to uncoil slightly.

He shook his head. “No tricks.”

“Still don’t trust you.” She leaned forward.

He unlocked the shackles. “Good. Trust is overrated.”

14

Instinct screamed through Asher’s head as they stole through the oddly deserted corridors of the
Mercy
. In the midst of this, the girl’s memories bubbled up. It was distracting. Given his Binait heritage, he may have learned a fierce control of his emotions, but she never had.

The maze of corridors twisted underfoot. Brain a throbbing misery. That black thing digging, scratching in the darkness behind her eyes. Spine-shattering panic rising, threatening to strangle. They would find Maynard soon, know she is missing. Take her back to the den of the beast…

Asher shook his head, trying to dispel it. The slimy aura of
her
helplessness clung to him. It was definitely not helping.

He kept his hand firmly wrapped around her upper arm, although he doubted she would try to run off. The ship was a hulking dark unknown to her, now filled with crewies he could no longer control.

He glanced at her in the dull light. She maintained that same almost regal posture, moving as if she owned the boat. The subtle narrowing in her eyes suggested her brain was hard at work. He doubted there was ever a moment when she
wasn’t
thinking.

Tilley was
not
her name.

Her real name drifted at the edge of his grasp, carried in the uncertain current of her memories. Emotions seemed easier to conjure. Specific things like facts and names proved elusive.

Like the code on the stryker compsys.

Sensing his attention, she turned a distrustful frown at him, thrusting her shoulders back. She was not what she had seemed at first: weak, coddled. There was spine there, brickiness.

He smirked.

Perhaps, under different circumstances…

“Binait.” She announced it with sudden affirmation as if concluding an internal conversation. “You’re part Binait. That may be why the sight-jack didn’t work. You’re a half-breed.”

Perhaps not.
He felt that familiar ugly twang against his pride at the word. “Why what?”

“When I touched you—”

“
Now?
Now you decide to talk?” he growled, incredulous. Asher hastened their pace. “Some things ain’t your business.”

“This isn’t the same way back to the stryker.” She slowed, wary.

“No. Not directly.” He tugged her along. “Don’t care to walk right into a trap.”

There was not a crewie in sight as they reached the passage to the aux bay. The skin along the back of his neck tightened.

Tilley muttered a snippet of prayer in Eugenes, her gaze fixed on a section of corridor ahead.

The three figures unfolded from the shadows ahead. They leaned or crouched, bodies tensed, tattooed faces flat with hate. Their keen yellow eyes regarded him and the girl in hungry silence as they stepped into their path.

“More behind us.” She tugged at his collar. Heavy footfalls and a slight jar of the deck confirmed her announcement.

Splendid.

“Something amiss, brothers?” Asher demanded, pulling the girl to stand behind him. She wedged her body against his back. Her fingers were desperate hooks in the fabric of his duster.

He kept his hands out at his sides. None of them appeared armed. But they were never without a hidden blade. Even Zenti weren’t crazy enough to walk around armed with weapons that could blast a hole through the aging hull of the
Mercy
. He was. The weight of the pulse gun pressed into his waistband was a comfort.

None of them answered him. Instead they spoke to each other:

“Spivey gets the piece first.”

“Ix wants him breathin’.”

There was no longer a chance at manipulating them. They were set.

I really don’t need this right now.

He watched them block the passage. Their eyes flicking off and to the right. A sudden rushing sensation from behind him on that side. He ducked instinctively, shoving the girl clear. The swing missed him by inches. He countered while the Zenti was still off balance, driving his fist into his open torso.

The girl yelped in warning. Asher turned in time to take a fist to the jaw. A staggering explosion of white pain licked his spine. Something solid and unmistakably metal struck him across both hamstrings. He went down on his knees, hard. Reaching behind his back into his waistband, he encountered the empty space where the pulse gun once resided.

What the—

The next crewie rushed him headlong, only to have his chest seared in a flash of wicked yellow light. He collapsed to the deck and did not stir. Asher swiveled around.

The girl stood in a braced stance, both hands wrapped around a pulse gun.
His
pulse gun. Tilley had lifted it off him and now wielded it like an experienced soldier.

Her gaze flitted over him, hardened, calculating, as if he had been taken into account and dismissed. She drew her aim up and over his head. He flinched, feeling the flash of the pulse as it struck another target. The body of another Zenti buffeted his back and rolled to the deck.

Slack-jawed, he watched her step into the center of the corridor and release another round of shots. The remaining two Zenti did not have a chance; both strikes were center mass.

Mere seconds had ticked by.

The girl’s back was to him as she lowered the weapon to her side. A trembling shook her frame. Asher climbed to his feet, wincing at the pain in his legs.

“Tilley?”

Her shoulders tensed.

He took a cautious step forward, very aware of the white-knuckled fist that gripped the pulse gun.

The only response was her sudden exhalation, like an empty scream. She took in the bodies, then released the weapon with a startled gasp. Asher snatched it up before it could hit the deck.

Her wide green eyes brimmed with tears. “I had to. Tyron…” She quaked, swallowing. “I did the math, you see? Bad odds. This isn’t me. It was T-Tyron.”

He nodded, numb. Five to one was bad odds. They would not have gotten free unscathed.

It begged the question: If she were capable of doing this all along, why like this? Why now?

He could not shake the notion that someone else was wearing her like a Tilley suit, some other intellect. If she had affected her earlier cringing fearful countenance, she was a far better actor than he had imagined.

He sensed the answer in her strange lost expression: she could no more control this than he could the alien riot of her memories now taking root in his skull. This was the side effect of a cruelty played on her; a by-product of the strange gift that allowed her to peer into thoughts and impose her will. As much as she could control another, there was a price. It could control her in return.

He had glimpsed it and put a label on it in the first moments of meeting her.

She was lost.

Now he owed her his life.

15

Erelah folded her arms against her waist and crumpled to a ball. It was easier to stare down at the deck and not see the five bodies. Looking would make it real. Distantly, she was aware of Korbyn’s movements. He was stepping over them, rummaging through pockets, searching.

It happened so quickly. The urge to act had been overwhelming and complete.

Foolish. I’ve been so stupid to think I could control this. I’m like a child walking around with a weapon, thinking it a toy.

Even Korbyn regarded her with fear now, like some…
thing
.

I’ve become Tristic’s monster after all.

“You hurt?” His voice was thick with caution as he stood over her. She did not look up.

Why would it matter what he thought? He is a thug, a common criminal and I should not care what he thinks.

The deeper truth: a man who would not hesitate to kill is fearful, of her.

The absurd laugh built in her throat.

Korbyn rested on one knee, facing her. The pulse gun was in his hand. The baleful red eye became a dull amber: charge depleted.

Five shots. It was old indeed, to be so easily spent.

She shuddered. Erelah Veradin never learned that. Tyron had.

He reached for her.

“Don’t.” She shrank away.

The hand withdrew, back to rest on the top of his thigh.

Was that pity in his eyes? Somehow that was worse. Pity from a criminal. It stung and burrowed under her skin.

“Are you hurt?” He repeated. His eyes narrowed. “Can you walk?”

Erelah did a quick inventory. No pain. Nothing was bleeding. Just the drained sensation that was becoming all too familiar. Used. Unmade, then reshaped.

She shook her head, eyes shutting. “I didn’t mean to—”