allies and enemies 02 - rogues (13 page)

And there was a scalpel in her hand.

Well shit.

24

I am losing control.

Erelah gaped at the slim metal knife in her hand.

Before her was the same dark-skinned woman, back braced against the door. Her eyes widened with surprise, hands outstretched as if she were confronting a dangerous animal. Northway, the man had called her.

“Oh. Whoa. Just relax.” She looked over her shoulder, as if she were considering calling back the guard.

Erelah stepped closer. “Who are you? What are you doing?”

“Just take a deep breath.” It was a strange command to make of someone essentially threatening you with a weapon.

The scalpel trembled in her hand. Erelah side-stepped to the door. Northway moved away. There was no window or vids to see what lay outside.

“I wouldn’t do that.” The woman made a pleading gesture. “They’ll be on you like white on rice.”

The warning was plain, regardless of the nonsense words. “Explain.”

Northway shifted her weight, lowering her hands to her sides slowly. “Ix sent you to me. You had a seizure. He wanted me to—”

“Seizure.” Erelah tested out the strange word.

“A convulsion…like a fit.”

“That woman…the Binait. She did this.”

“Neesa? I honestly don’t know.”

Erelah took in the room. Judging from the gilded scrollwork along the ceilings and threadbare carpets underfoot, it might have once been a salon or an opulent parlor. The room was orderly, clean, but had not the same antiseptic austerity that Erelah usually assigned to the other places like it. All of the devices were of mismatched designs. Some she recognized: medical equipment.

She noticed a tidy square of gauze taped to her arm. “You’re a meditech.”

“Sure. Close enough.” The woman nodded ardently. She tapped the chest of her dingy blue shipsuit. “I’m a doctor. My name is Rachel Northway.”

“You work for Ix?”

“Not much choice there.” She gave a half-shrug. “My ship…the
Agamemnon
…was attacked by these big reptile things. Sceeloid, you call them. Ix bought me off them.”

“I
know
what Sceeloid are.” Erelah nodded, distracted. Her head buzzed. Her tongue swollen and dry.

“Can we just put the scalpel down?” Northway pleaded. She stepped closer. “I swear I’m not going to hurt you. Why would I have bothered to help you, right?”

Erelah lowered the scalpel. Her palm felt slick against the metal.

Northway heaved a relieved breath. “Thank you. I—”

A bleating shattered the air. Erelah jerked the scalpel up. The sound came from one of the devices lining the wall.

Northway lunged at a machine, prodding at the interface until the noise silenced. “It’s okay. It’s just a diagnostic. I was testing your blood—”

Erelah instantly filled with fright. “Why?”

“I needed to know if you were sick with anything that could spread. And, I admit, I was curious about your genetic makeup. That’s why my people sent me out here…I’m a geneticist.”

“A splicer?” Heavy dread surged in her. The meditechs in Tristic’s lab had been splicers, genetics engineers. They seemed so proud of the torturous things they did. Was this Northway a creature like they?

“That sounds like a bad thing. I don’t know what...” Northway trailed off.

“Tristic used them.” Her voiced sounded small.

“Tristic? Is that the guy they brought you in with? Big guy with the shaved head and the tats?”

“
No.
” Erelah’s response was far more vehement than intended. Then, “Korbyn…where is he?”

“I don’t know. Locked up, I guess. Ix really had a hard-on for him, sounds like.”

Erelah’s anxiety shot up another notch. Perhaps they’d made good on their promise to kill him.

She
pushed out
just the slightest in Northway’s direction.

Quiet hum of strength beneath a head heavy with knowledge and tempered by incredible compassion. Undeniable curiosity being directed to her. And beneath it all, such a forlorn sense of loss, isolation. Someone that cared too much and often ended up in wars of the conscience.

Northway did not flinch, did not seem to notice. Erelah drew a vague comfort from that. Being
seen
by that creature, Neesa, was devastating. It was feeling yourself unravel, your insides turned to goo. She hated the idea of what it might do to someone that meant to help her.

“You sent the guard away. Why?”

“Liet? He’s a pain in my ass. And really, he’s a crap guard.” Northway edged over to a stool and sat. “I’d love to play twenty questions like this, but not with the scalpel. So, can we…”

There was a similar chair near her cot a few feet away. Erelah sidled over and sat. It was a relief. Her knees still shook. Her muscles were frayed and weak.

She placed the blade on the bench beside her, grateful to be rid of it.

Erelah regarded Northway in measuring silence. Her broad nose and sculpted cheekbones created an elegant symmetry. Warm brown eyes regarded her. Her finely curled black hair was clipped very closely to her scalp. She exuded a keen intelligence, regardless of her awkward use of Common.

“You got a name?”

Erelah hesitated. This stranger may have helped. But she remembered Korbyn’s warning. “Tilley.”

Northway’s eyebrow arched. Her tone seemed unconvinced. “Uh. Huh.”

The woman folded her arms across the chest of the blue shipsuit. Its cut and shape were similar to Erelah’s simple gray one, but Northway’s held colorful indicia on the shoulders and sleeves. It made her think of her brother’s command tunic, yet the woman did not move or act with the efficiency of someone with even modest training as a soldier.

She stared at a colorful design on the woman’s bicep. It teased at her memory.

“This?” Northway noticed her stare. She tugged the rectangle of fabric from her sleeve. It came away with a purring sound, but the fabric was not torn. She held it out to her.

Erelah hesitated.

“It’s okay,” Northway prodded. “It’s just a patch. Part of the uniform.”

She took it. Her fingers traced the lines of the design. Red stripe. White stripe. A blue field with angry white jutting shapes.

“It’s a symbol, from my home country on Earth. A flag.” Northway studied her.

Moves cautious, the doctor claimed a small glass bottle from a nearby shelf. She stepped around the cot to sit beside her. Without pausing to seek permission, she gripped her wrist.

Erelah clamped down hard on the Sight. It was awake, but sluggish, burdened by the layer of drugs. Her breath caught.

“Easy.” Northway coaxed her hand open, ignorant of the battle that raged in Erelah’s skull. The healer hissed in sympathy as she studied the red gouges on Erelah’s palms. She dabbed some of the bottle’s contents onto a soft cloth and pressed it to the wound.

Erelah jolted at the sting of the astringent. She pulled away. “You shouldn’t touch me.”

“Oh?” Northway sat back. “Why not?”

Erelah opened her mouth to reply, reconsidered and pressed her lips closed.

“Is it your deep dark secret?” Rachel spread her hands, fingers wiggling. Her tone seemed chiding. “Like the part where you’re Human like me?”

The air snagged in Erelah’s throat.
How…

Her gaze darted over the rows of machines, the glinting piles of equipment. Of course.

Northway regarded her with a half-smirk. “Tah-dah.”

What did
that
mean?
Erelah stiffened, ready to stand. Uncertain of her next move.

“I thought I’d never see another Human.” The healer’s voice was thick with emotion. “You are too young to be from the
Namaste
or the
Sterling.
And the way you are clothed. You talk and act like one of them, like a Eugenes. How? Why?”

This was important to Northway.

After so long hiding her true nature, it was strange for Erelah to encounter someone that welcomed the news.
Was it possible the Fates may have shown me favor by placing another Human in my Path?

It was a serious risk.

“Help me.” Erelah swallowed. “And I’ll tell you…all of it. Everything.”

“Help you do what?” Northway scoffed.

“Leave here.”

She rose. “There’s no
out
of here. Don’t you think I tried?”

“You lied to the guard. You sent him away.”

“I did.” The energy around her was clamping down, withdrawing. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done this. Get your hopes up like this.”

Erelah was tempted to use the Sight and simply command her. Something told her it would be so easy to sight-jack her. Northway was a Human; in them…
us
…it was an inherent vulnerability.

I
could slip right behind those eyes and wear her like a glove.

That would be wrong.
It’s the kind of thing Tristic would do, had done.

“I can get us both out of here.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo.”

Erelah
pushed out
once again. Time was short. If not to use the Sight to command her, then to glimpse something within the healer to make her listen, want to help.

“Your father gave you that necklace the day you completed your studies as a healer. You found it in a little blue box with a white ribbon in the pocket of your jacket,” Erelah blurted.

Northway’s jaw sagged as her fingers reflexively sought the tiny silver amulet strung on a chain about her neck. The symbol meant nothing to Erelah and seemed vaguely threatening: two serpents entwined with a spear.

“I’ve never told anyone that.”

“Please. Help me. And I’ll help you.”

Northway studied her. Her lips compressed into a thin line. “This some con?”

Erelah shook her head vehemently. “No. I swear.”

Another pause: “Convince me.”

25

Neesa knew it from the start. Asher Korbyn was a liar. Even his name was false.

There was nothing new about that. All men had liars’ hearts and pretended at things they were not.

Still, he was fascinating.

He was not like Lucien, moody and paranoid. Asher’s thoughts constantly evolved, reflexive to the changing environment. It made him a survivor.

The Asher that sulked in the holding cell was different. He now kept the company of demons.

“Such sulking, Asher. Honestly, pet, it does not become you.”

He snapped from the tiresome whir of his trapped animal thoughts, but quickly hid any suggestion of surprise. His handsome liar’s smile greeted her through the bars of his cell.

They regarded each other for a moment, strangers that had once known each other’s skin.

“I was wondering when I’d see you.” He stepped toward the lattice of the door. Casually, he leaned against the gate, as though he were used to prison bars.

“No you weren’t,” Neesa snapped, eyes narrowing. The girl had been the object of his worry. Her colors were all over him, spreading like an infection. It was sickening.

“If you say so.” He avoided her gaze. Regardless of his casual tone, she could sense him recoil, trying to tuck his feelings away. He’d been raised by Eugenes. They likely never encouraged his natural gifts, even if he was just half-Binait, and only a male.

“The girl lives. For now.” Neesa paced the short length of the door.

“Good.” He feigned only a vague interest, but she saw the relief flood through him. It brought her a sour jolt of jealousy.

Why would that scrawny little girl offer anything of interest to him?

“She’s a bit…inexperienced…for you.” Neesa willed him to meet her gaze.

“You can’t be jealous.” He offered another handsome grin.

“You lie and you don’t even know it.” She reached between the bars and brushed the part of his chest where the girls’ hand still shone like a ghostly beacon. Such artifacts were things only Neesa could see. “She’s wedged so deeply there that there’ll be no pulling free. Not without some major damage.”

“She’s a mark. That’s all.” His voice was strangely thick. He stepped away from her touch.

Her rage flared. “We had a deal. We had a plan. We would get rid of Lucien and take over. Together.”

“Things just…happened.” He canted his head in casual arrogance.

“
Things
?” She growled. “Let me tell you about
things
happening. You have no idea the
things
I had to do. The damage control I had to…
perform
once you disappeared. It took ages to regain Luc’s trust. And now, you return like this, reminding him of the whole bloody mess! Have you any idea of how this would affect
me
?”

“You’re right. It was insensitive of me to get captured without considering how it’d affect you.”

“That’s right. Make your jokes,” she seethed. “I don’t care. I know what you’re expecting. You think that somehow I’ll help you to slip free. Not anymore.”

The knuckles of his fists whitened against the bars. “I’ll tell Ix your part in it.”

“Tell him,” she scoffed. “I’ll kill your little bitch.”

There was a rush of satisfaction at trapping him like that. Luc had forbidden her to even approach the area of the medical bay, but she could bide her time. Northway could not watch the girl day and night.

“She was your way back into the grace of your Guild masters. Her abilities sweeten the deal. I saw enough when I touched her. That pretty little head wedged full of ideas. Lots of tech and such.
Useful
things.
Valuable
things.”

The muscle worked in his jaw. “Nothing you or any of Luc’s skews could ever make sense of.”

“Perhaps.” She held out the device. It might have been a puzzle toy: a dull metallic sphere suspended in a wire cage. Ott had taken it from Asher. The poor lad was too terrified of her to say no when she asked. He did not understand what it was, the oaf. “I wonder how important this little trinket is, however. You were certainly keeping it for a reason. And I know you’re not the sentimental type.”