allies and enemies 02 - rogues (14 page)

Asher was too clever to react. But his shoulders twitched; the hesitation was there.

“Lucien was right,” she said. “You have the gall to name him a monster for selling slaves when you seek to do the same in selling her to your Guild. You want her to believe you’re a big hero.” She leaned against the bars. “That’s something you can never be.”

He snatched her wrist. The device clattered to the deck. She would not give him the satisfaction of crying out.

“They’ll kill you,” she said, “but first my husband will want to know all your Guild secrets. And then, perhaps they should turn their attentions to the girl. She’s certainly a spy. And I’m sure they’ll be interested in that little toy.”

“Leave her out of this.” He pulled. She collided with the bars. He grabbed her neck, squeezing. There was no room for panic, just hatred.

“Such bravery,” Neesa mocked. “You don’t even know her real name.”

The skin around his eyes tightened.

“Let go. I’ll call for the guard.”

“Do it. I’ll snap your neck.” He was all animal now.

“And the girl surely dies.”

He was not what he pretended. Not the cold-blooded killer that kept the company of marauders and thieves. Guildsmen held honor. Had rules. Obligations. Vows he had broken to have her right under Ix’s nose.

Yet
now
he kept them?

His hand fell away. She danced back, barked a taunting laugh. “Such a disappointment, Asher. To think of the regard I held for you.”

Neesa bent over to retrieve the device from the floor, knowing the image she presented in her seductive sway of gossamer. Then she strolled away at a slow amble, humming tunelessly under her breath, icy fury under her skin.

26

“I’m gonna call bullshit.” Rachel folded her arms against her chest.

The young woman seated across from her frowned, more out of confusion than consternation. Rachel had just cursed in English, not Commonspeak.

There was something innocent, inexperienced about the girl. It did not help that she looked more like a runaway teenager and not the twenty-something she claimed to be. Wide green eyes under a mop of barely tamed dark hair, in a flightsuit that was two sizes too big.

Tilley—correction: Erelah—had this sheltered quality like a homeschooled kid, but ravenously intelligent. The book smarts were there but not the street smarts. Consequently, it made her a rotten liar.

She was holding back information. Considering the circumstances, Rachel did not blame her.

Rachel glanced at the doorway. Liet had returned and was lounging somewhere in the hallway, still fearful to come near the “disease-laden” prisoner. It was very likely he was asleep.

She could manufacture an illness to rattle off to the gullible henchman. It would buy more time, but ultimately it would run out.

“So, you’re like what…
royalty
or something?” Rachel felt mildly absurd even asking the question.

“I’m just a Last Daughter.” She used the term like a terminal disease.

“So this guy you’re with, that make him Prince of the Reaches?”

“Korbyn?” Erelah’s scowl suggested she knew when she was being mocked. “Hardly.”

“Quite the catch then,” Rachel muttered, shrugging.

“And I am not
with
him,” she said forcefully. “He just
found
me.”

“Fine.” Rachel held her palms, surrendering. “Sensitive subject.”

“But he had a plan.” Erelah regarded the dingy walls of the small room as though written on them were an answer.

“The guy you’re
not
with?” Rachel asked, arching an eyebrow.

She ignored it. “He told me he had a way out.”

“Ix is apeshit about his revenge against this guy. They say he was a spy or something. What’d he do anyway?”

The girl bit her lip. “He did not say.”

“Well, by all means, let’s throw our bets in with 007.”

This earned another frown.

“Okay.” Rachel nodded. “I got an idea. Give me a word, a name. Something this guy Korbyn would know.”

Wide-eyed, but understanding slowly seeping in, Erelah nodded. “
Jocosta
.”

She turned to the door and bellowed at the top of her lungs: “Yo, Liet!”

Erelah panicked, hopping up from the cot. Rachel guided her back into place.

“Calm down!” It was a rushed whisper, her eyes glued on the doorway. “Just follow my lead.”

The girl perched on the edge of the cot.

“Keep quiet. Trust me. And look sick,” Rachel commanded. She straightened as an approaching shadow played along the wall of the corridor beyond. Her face fell into a stern mask.

Liet appeared, slightly out of breath. Irritation dominated his doughy tattooed face. “Well? What now, Northway? I’m a busy—”

“Sure,” Rachel shot back. “You fell asleep at your post, didn’t you?”

His upper lip curled. He jerked his chin at Erelah. “She’s awake, then. Lucien’s waiting to hear what you found.”

“Now, hold on a second.” Rachel propped her hands on her hips.

“She seems well enough,” he ventured, peering over her shoulder.

“She’s still my patient. I haven’t said she’s well enough.” She winked at Erelah. From the raised eyebrow, she could tell the expression meant nothing to her patient. “That is…unless you want to see if Zenti can catch it too?”

Liet took a large stride back. His voice hovered between suspicion and fear. “Catch?”

“It’s quite serious.” Her tone was grave. She leaned closer to Liet as though imparting a dread secret. “Nasty stuff.”

“That so?” His gaze danced nervously between Rachel and Erelah. He took another conspicuous step back to the doorway. “You don’t seem scared none.”

“I’m Human. I’m immune.” Rachel moved to the workbench and began to pull out trays of instruments. “I need that Ash-guy. What’s his face? The one that came in with this one. Gotta test him too. See if he caught it.”

“Korbyn?!” Liet laughed nervously. He stepped closer, cutting a wide arc away from the bed where Erelah sat. “You’re insane! Lucien’ll have my head too. Besides, what’d it matter if he’s sick? He’ll be dead soon enough.”

“Then you’d better go get him now.” Rachel shooed Liet out of her way to busy herself with more important-looking rummaging. “I need to know how many others he’s come in contact with. We’re dealing with a serious contagion here.”

“Contact?” Liet squeaked. “Now—”

“Say…weren’t you the one that brought her in?” She spun on him. “Were you on their vessel? Maybe I should start by taking samples from you. It shouldn’t take too much tissue.”

“I barely touched her.” He quickly folded his arms, performing a shuffling side step.

Erelah coughed. Feigned or not, it was enough to make Liet dance back, sending a metal cart into the wall with a hollow clatter.

He stared. “Why
here
? Can’t you go see him in the cell?”

“You see that uniform my patient is wearing? That’s Fleet. They’d been experimenting with bioweapons.” Rachel gave an exaggerated sigh of frustration. “She’s been exposed to it. They both have. I need the full use of my medical lab. And we need to act fast.
Jocosta syndrome
is fatal.”

Liet ran a nervous hand over his shaven head. A thin layer of perspiration glazed his upper lip.

“Oh. Alright. But you do this quick,” he said finally.

“I swear, Liet, me dicking around is the least of your worries.” Rachel clapped a hand on his shoulder. He startled.

With eager strides, he made his way to the doorway. He hovered there for a moment, swallowing.

“Jocosta syndrome,” he muttered before he disappeared down the corridor.

Rachel drew a conspirator’s grin at Erelah. “You know, that was actually kinda fun.”

27

Fighting a stab of pain in his ribs, Asher rolled onto his side. He thought about climbing back onto the bench, but staying on the floor for now seemed the right play. The throbbing ache of his skull confirmed it.

How long? Maybe five, six hours?

There was a distinct possibility he had passed out at some point. No telling how much time he’d lost then. The lockup wasn’t exactly equipped with a chrono. The lights stayed on in their glaring ferocity no matter what the ship cycle.

Most of this new damage was from Ott. The men he’d double-crossed on the
Noble
weren’t done seeking payback, regardless if Ix was still thinking on how to dispose of him.

They hadn’t even started to question him yet.

I’m screwed.

Irrevocably.

It was likely Ix would try to sell Asher off to the highest bidder after that. A Guild-sworn captive was worth a lot to the right bidder. Any information he possessed was old and virtually worthless by now, but it mattered little. Ix would hold out, make the most of the status of having such a high-profile prisoner.

Even if I got free, where would I go?

Asher was burned with Ironvale Guild. They would have disavowed him the moment he stepped on the
Nyxa’s Mercy
with its crew, or, more correctly, the moment he got involved with Neesa. No one knew about that part. As a Guild operative, he was expected to deny the influence of others. There could be no leverage against you, nothing to make you vulnerable or compromise you. Now, on this side of it, he understood the full depth of that.

His bid at getting back in was the girl and the device he had nicked from the stryker. Now Neesa had the device. The girl might as well be back in Origin. What troubled him more was that he was still more worried about what would happen to her.

“Get up.” Liet approached the cell with a waddling gait. “The healer needs you in the med bay. Some sort of sickness brought with the girl.”

“The what?” He sat up, stifling a grunt.

“You heard me. It’s contagious,” Liet huffed, put out. It took him three tries to unlock the door. “Northway says she wants to examine you for something called Jocosta syndrome.”

Asher stood. He had a head and a half on Liet.

Northway.
Ix had finally found a new healer, it sounded like. He tended to burn through them with his neurotic fits.

Jocosta syndrome.
Asher almost grinned. That was the girl’s work, her finesse.

“Not surprised.” He couldn’t resist the urge to embellish. “Considering what happened to those poor bastards.”

Liet’s eyes widened.

“Well. Come on then.” He clapped the cuffs around his wrists, then stepped aside, letting Asher out into the corridor. It would be easy to take him out. He considered it for a moment.

Liet also had a twitchy trigger finger. He’d be more likely to kill him by accident. And the back-birth hadn’t thought about getting the help of a second guard. He was going to take him to the girl. It was a good thing, wasn’t it? He could gauge his moves from there. So he elected to play along.

28

The moment he stepped across the hatchway into the med bay, Asher knew it was a setup. The refreshing part: it wasn’t for him.

Behind him came the sound of Liet as he crumpled to the floor in a boneless heap. A dark-skinned woman dressed in a grungy blue shipsuit was instantly upon the fallen guard.

“Jesus, you’re huge!” She grunted with the effort it took for her to flip the unconscious man onto his stomach. She was talking to Liet. “Do Zenti get heart disease?”

She maneuvered his head to the side and Liet’s breathing took on the healthy rattle of a snore. Although her actions in the last few seconds were far from healing, he could only assume that this was Northway.

“He should be okay. I don’t think the tranq was enough to suppress his respiratory system.” The woman might as well have been talking to herself. Apparently satisfied with her inspection of the unconscious body, Northway sat back on her haunches and tucked the jector away.

She caught Asher’s perplexed look. “Liet could have been a real dick to me, but he wasn’t. He was just too stupid for his own good.”

Although most of her comments seemed like nonsense to him, the last observation he could agree with. Asher nodded guardedly.

She extended a hand to him as she stepped over the prone body. “Rachel Northway. Doctor.”

Asher gestured with his shackled wrists. He shrugged. “Asher Korbyn. Confused.”

“You knew!” Tilley launched at him with a great shove that barely resulted in a jostle.

“Nice to see you too.” Amazed at the sound of relief in his tone and glad no one seemed to notice. The girl looked infinitely better.

“No. Thanks. To
you
.” She shoved again to punctuate each word, the moves succeeding in little more than offsetting her own balance.

“I didn’t know,” he protested. “It was just a hunch.”

“A hunch? You meant for that to happen. You meant for that Binait vulta to touch me. For that to happen. I could have died!”

“I knew
something
would happen. Just not
what
.” He grabbed her wrists on reflex. Her green eyes blazed and her cheeks flushed with anger. Dark hair smoothed back into a neat braid. No more looking like a Vladic blood wraith. Impressive. “It bought you time.”

“You have no idea what that’s like!” She wrenched her hands away.

“Got some idea,” he snapped, jaw compressed.

Her shoulders heaved with angry breaths. Her response was more subdued, defensive. “It’s not the same.”

“Seriously, dude. She could have died.” The woman steered Tilley away.

“
Who
are you?” He glared. It didn’t seem to have the intimidating effect he’d hoped.

Northway frowned. “I told you—”

“You told me you had an idea of a place we could go. Some place safe, where they can help me find my brother.” Tilley was back in his face. His amusement was starting to dissolve. After seeing her in a variety of terrified states, witnessing the girl like this was a little annoying.

“
You,
sure.” He raised his cuffed hands and pointed at Northway. “
Her
, I
don’t
know.”