Codename: Night Witch (43 page)

Sigrid lay there frozen, paralyzed. Fear gripped her, making it impossible to breathe.

Not since Bellatrix had she seen something move like that, or strike terror into her like this thing did. Only her sisters could move with such blinding speed and power. Her sisters—or the machine girls Harry Jones had constructed on Bellatrix. Girls like Victoria.

But this creature was neither. And she wasn't a girl, she was a woman—a woman Sigrid knew well. Her name was Emily Gillings-Jones, and she was Sigrid's one true master.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Master & Servant

"Do you know who I am?" her mistress asked.

Breathing was still difficult. Speaking was out of the question. Sigrid did the only thing she could and she nodded.

"Do you know why you are here?"

Again, she nodded.

"Did he hurt you?" she said, with a glance to Lars's unconscious form.

He was alive, if barely. His life signs registered faintly in her scans. Finally, as if permitted to speak at last, she managed a few words. "No, mistress. He didn't hurt me. He was kind to me."

Mistress.
The word sounded strange, though she knew it to be true. For this woman
was
her master, and she would obey her without fail.

"Sympathy?" her mistress inquired. "Really? You
know
what he is."

"Yes, mistress."

"I'm starting to wonder if you do."

The woman stood before her, with both her hands on her hips. Her mistress was a tall, handsome woman, powerful in her appearance. Her shoulder-length brown hair was streaked with a shock of silver so bright it caught the light, shining nearly as bright as her emerald eyes. Sigrid felt weak in her presence. She felt small.

"Are you able to stand?" her mistress asked.

The question wasn't born of concern. This was evaluation. Sigrid did her best to sit upright. She was glad for the bucket Lars had left for her, and she used it now. Her mistress waited until she was done. Under her watchful eye, Sigrid struggled to stand, only to sit back down again.

"It is difficult, mistress."

"Only because you resist. You know how you get when you resist."

Sigrid watched as the woman came to sit at her side. She moved soundlessly and with a simple grace. She placed a hand on her forehead and then on her flushed cheek, a familiar gesture, like that of a mother to a daughter, checking on a fever.

"You're not well. You've missed too many of your treatments. It's your own fault, of course. It was wrong of you to run away like that. You should never have left the facility. You had us all very worried."

"I'm sorry, mistress. But the treatments—"

"Are necessary. They keep you well. They allow you to function. We've had this conversation before. Must we have it again and again? You're a grown woman, not some adolescent girl to run from needles. Oh, now I've upset you. Never you mind. We'll have you fixed up shortly."

Raising her arm, her mistress brought the comm-link pinned to her sleeve to her lips. "We're here, and we're waiting. And…bring Dr. Farrington. It looks like we'll need his services one last time."

Farrington.

The name hit her hard, smashing away so much of the fog clouding her mind. Farrington wasn't a name she was going to forget anytime soon. Dr. Joseph Farrington had tortured and killed her friends on Scorpii. And now her mistress had called him here to "treat" her. One last time, she'd said. She couldn't let that happen. But to refuse her mistress…

She found herself trembling. Her mistress did not tolerate defiance.

It took all her will, whatever she had left, but Sigrid forced herself to meet the woman's eyes.

"Your-your name is Emily."

Slowly, Emily turned to her. "I am. Though I am curious, Sigrid, you've never called me that before."

"Your name is Emily Gillings-Jones."

"Yes."

"Then…you're the one who's been doing this to me—making me do those things. All this time."

"And what
exactly
is it you think I've made you do?"

"Assassinating the Council—murdering my friends!"

"Friends?" Her mistress practically spat out the word. "You mean Kimura? The same
friends
who tried to kill you not two days ago? I believe you'll find they are no friends of yours. Not any longer. And not for a long while."

"You
made
me forget—"

"Because
you
asked me to! You begged me to make you forget!"

Emily rose abruptly, only to pace back and forth in front of the settee. She wrung her hands together with such force Sigrid was sure she'd rub them raw.

"You—you were having difficulty, Sigrid. You kept questioning me. Resisting! You were always resisting. But
I
understood. The things we asked of you—the burden was too great. Removing your memories removed that burden. It gave you strength."

"Strength?" Sigrid asked. "You call this strength?"

"Of course! We gave you the strength to do what needed to be done." She came to sit by her again. "My dear girl, I know you don't remember, you never do, but you will! I promise you. And when you do, you will come to understand."

But Sigrid did understand. She understood perfectly. This woman, her mistress, she was mad.

And she
was
remembering. It was barely discernible, just blurred fragments of noise and light, but the more agitated her mistress became, the more the pain that blocked her ebbed, retreating away. It was like a window opening—if only for a second—but it was just long enough for Sigrid to catch a glimpse of everything that was.

The memory was of years ago. It was just after Bellatrix. The Independents had her. They'd taken her and brought her here to Earth.

She was back in that white room and strapped to her gurney, just as she had been only days ago. But this time, she wasn't alone.

Harry Jones was there and very much alive. He stood off to the side, watching anxiously as clusters of white-coated physicians and technicians descended on her. They cut into her with their knives, their probes and their needles. Fluids were drawn; entire organs removed, only to be replaced again. All the while Sigrid watched, very much awake and very aware of what they were doing to her, feeling every cut, every hand, every instrument thrust into her, unable to move or scream.

There was a woman lying next to her on a matching gurney, though to call her a woman was a stretch. Like her, she was pulled apart and torn open. It was only the machines that were keeping her alive. They fed vital oxygen to her brain and kept her heart pumping, her muscles from wasting away. She was a living husk. A woman in name only. A woman who would one day become Sigrid's one true mistress. And she was the same woman seated next to her now.

"You were sick," Sigrid said at last.

"Sick?" Emily laughed and Sigrid tasted her bitterness. "If I was sick, it was only because they made me that way. They broke me, Sigrid. Your Lady Kimura broke me. She broke me and then she discarded me. I should be dead. I would be. But you, Sigrid, you saved me. Your blood saved me."

"My…blood?"

Even as she voiced the question, she understood. The answer was so glaringly obvious, the only question that remained was why she hadn't realized it before.

Emily nodded. "You were not the first of our kind, Sigrid."

Our kind?

"You were not the first, Sigrid. You weren't even the one hundredth. Many women came before you. Many men, as well. They came, and they died. But you, Sigrid,
you
were the first success. My husband knew the key to the genetic recombinant was hidden within your blood. Blood which you gave to me."

"I never gave it. It was taken. You stole it from me."

"Perhaps. But your blood still saved my life. We are forever bonded, you and I."

"You
lied
to me!"

"No, Sigrid. I have only ever told you what you needed to hear. I have only ever given you the truth."

"And now you're going to tell me that those people down there must die—that I should kill them?"

With her arm around her, Emily smoothed Sigrid's hair back. "I would never tell you that which you already know. This is the end, Sigrid. This is what we've been working for all these years."

"You used me. You stole my life! I should kill you."

"Yes," Emily Gillings-Jones said. "You should. But you won't. You can't. We are…
sisters
."

Sigrid shook her head, though doing so made if feel like it would twist itself off. "You are
not
my sister."

"Perhaps," Emily conceded. "But I am still your master, am I not?"

Sigrid swallowed hard. Pain gripped her mind and her body. But like a fist raised high over her head, threatening to strike, this was only a warning, a taste of her mistress's fury should Sigrid refuse her.

"You
will
obey me, Sigrid."

"Yes. Yes, my mistress. I will obey you."

Behind them, the door opened. Harry Jones entered silently.

Dr. Joseph Farrington followed behind him, though when he saw Sigrid, the color drained from his face. He stood trembling, frozen in fear.

"Why is she awake? You told me you had her prepared!" His shaking nearly caused him to drop the small black box in his hand. Sigrid saw it. Her eyes flashed from the box to the man who held it. Farrington caught her glance; he raised his arm, pointing at her. "She knows! She knows who I am! Damn you, Jones. I warned you this would happen. She'll kill us all!"

"Really, Doctor." Calmly, Harry Jones extracted the module from his trembling fingers. "You must learn to govern yourself."

"She hasn't had a treatment in a week," Emily said to her husband. "Hurry. We must restart the cycle."

Dr. Farrington took two steps back, inching toward the door. "You can't
just
restart
the cycle. It's not that simple. You'll kill her."

"Courage, Doctor. We only need her alive a few hours longer."

Armed with the module, Harry Jones pressed the button in its center; Sigrid heard the metallic
snick
as the six-centimeter data-probe snapped out.

He moved toward her fast, the data-module held firmly in his hand, the metal probe shining bright. Sigrid pushed herself back against the settee. She couldn't let him get near her with that thing. If he did—if he slipped that probe into her—it would all be over. Whatever was left of her would be erased. She would remember nothing and the cycle would start again. She had to stop him. She had to kill him. But all she could manage was a small whimper.

"No."

"Hold her," Harry Jones said.

Emily tilted Sigrid's head to the side. She pulled her hair back to reveal the two-millimeter-wide port that would allow the data-uplink to access her internal systems.

Powerless to resist, Sigrid felt the tip of the probe graze the skin of her neck. And then Harry Jones froze.

"I think we have a problem."

For a moment, nobody moved. It was Farrington who broke first as he tripped and fell over backwards in his haste to get away.

But they all saw it: the access port to her PCM—the port was fused solidly shut. It had been ever since Victoria had tried to remove the memory blocks, and Victoria's probe was still lodged firmly inside her head.

They couldn't access her. They couldn't treat her! Sigrid's heart raced as she fought to process what was happening. They couldn't control her anymore. They couldn't stop her.

"You bloody fools!" Farrington blurted. "You didn't think to check—"

"Quiet!" Harry Jones said. "I need time to think."

Time was something Harry Jones didn't have. Leaping up, Sigrid lunged for him. Jones was less than a meter from her. He was within easy reach of her fingers. She was already envisioning her hands around his thin throat and choking the life out of him.

She never made it.

The pain hit her like a thunder strike, cutting her legs out from under her and cutting her down. Sigrid fell hard, dropping to the floor like a stone. The sting of her mistress's lash left her gasping and ruined, weeping and quivering where she lay on the floor.

Emily stood over her. The useless data-module was still in her hand. She crushed it in her fist and cast it aside. Treatments or no, her mistress still held dominion over her.

"P-please, mistress…"

"Please? You would ask for mercy now? You attacked my husband—tried to kill him, and not for the first time."

"Mistress, I beg you."

As if to demonstrate her dominance, Emily released her grip on her, standing over her, straddling her. Soaked in sweat and still reeling from the pain, Sigrid lay beneath her, unable to move. The attack had left her muscles in twisted ruins, and she'd been sick again; a small puddle of bile pooled against her cheek.

"I have no desire to hurt you, Sigrid."

"Yes, my mistress."

"You brought this on yourself."

"Yes, my mistress."

"You will stop fighting me."

"Yes, my mistress. I-I won't fight you." Somehow, Sigrid found the strength to roll over, if only enough to look up and meet her mistress's eyes. "I won't fight you. Though, perhaps I won't have to. Not anymore."

The air of confidence slowly vanished from Emily's face.

"Sigrid? What have you done?"

"I have done nothing, mistress. My friends, on the other hand…" Sigrid checked her internal chronometer.
Twenty minutes.
Her time was up. All of their time was up.

It arrived like a violent crack of thunder. Overhead and all around them, first one explosion, then the next—charges laid around the grand palace's perimeter by the colonel and Victoria. They were going off in quick succession. The walls of the marquis's chambers shook with a violence that threatened to tear the entire palace apart. Books and trinkets fell from the shelves. Paintings dropped from the walls, smashing their frames.

Dr. Farrington clung to the great oaken desk, doing his best not to topple over as the walls and floor shook around him. "What in the blasted hell is that?"