Fade to Black (27 page)

“Jake, this Azama, what does he look like?”

Her cheek twitched and she swallowed, hard. Her words come out in clumps. “Big, like you. Dark hair, er, and eyes. He has a way of twisting his mouth when he talks, like you’re something bad he ate. His hands… he has big, bony hands, but it’s his voice, his voice is the worst. He… he…” She trailed off with a pinched mouth and troubled eyes.

“Is that his real name?”

She looked bewildered. “No, of course not. No one down here uses their real name. You saw him?”

Shit. Because the first of the two men was someone I knew from Upside, a dead ringer for her description. Someone who’d hired me to find his runaway-alchemy-genius daughter, Lise. A blustering, pompous idiot I’d thought him, and when Lise had shown me the bruises I’d added bully to the list. A Ministry man. One who’d looked creepily familiar, though I was sure I hadn’t known him before. Seeing him made it all start to come into focus. Why Amarie, why
her
instead of some other girl. It was me they were after, and I shuddered to think why – because they wanted me like they’d wanted Pasha, perhaps. Maybe Azama wanted me down here with him, making pain, and brought me the best way, tracking someone, knowing I wouldn’t refuse the job because she was family. We’d assumed that all those Ministry men looking
for me were looking to kill me too, or I had. But that Special hadn’t shot me when he’d had the chance, had said he was going to bring me to Azama, in one piece. No, maybe they weren’t looking to kill me, but just looking
for
me. A possible new recruit who’d disappeared from the hotel they’d put him in.

Maybe. The only problem with that scenario was how he’d known Perak was my brother, how he’d known I was a mage in the first place, because only Perak and I knew the first, and only Dendal and I knew the second. Maybe Azama just wanted to shoot me personally, or maybe he’d had Amarie taken for other reasons I couldn’t guess at.

That wasn’t the worst, though. No, not the worst, and I wasn’t sure I could tell her. I had to. I stared at the guttering candle instead of her face, coward that I am.

“Pasha was with him. They seemed friendly. Very friendly indeed.”

When I chanced a look, her lips had thinned and she took a step back, her hands twisting the scabbard harder. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s not only possible, it’s true.”

She turned away and stared out of the window. The creak of her scabbard as she twisted was the only sound. I let her be. Let the enormity of it sink in. Pasha knew what we were about, and now Azama would have all the details. He’d know how we’d got in, how we planned to find Amarie. We were screwed and so was Amarie, so I didn’t let Jake have long.

I managed to pull myself to my feet using a handy chair. “We have to get going. I think they’re moving Amarie, and the longer we leave it, the further away she might be. The better protected she’s going to be.”

Jake nodded and turned around. I took a step her way, a hand outstretched. I caught myself when her gaze found mine, and instead I coughed awkwardly. “We have to go. Now.”

“I hope the Goddess sends you straight to Namrat so you can get eaten alive on a daily basis.” Her voice had no emotion in it, no hatred. She seemed completely calm, drained of everything. “I hope you fall into the black, and it consumes you. I hope you know the hell you’ve forced Pasha into. I hope you get it too, but not till we’re done.”

Guilt made me snap my reply. “I wasn’t the one who sent him away because he wanted to save you.”

“No, you were the one who overstepped the bounds and kissed me.” Her free hand shot out and smacked me in the cheek. It was like being hit with a bag of rivets. “Why, why did you do that?”

Every pretence at composure cracked then, and she came at me with both fists. She got three good punches in before anger got the better of her and she swung wilder. I managed to grab one wrist and her eyes flew wide as she tried to yank out of my grasp. I got hold of the other wrist, clumsy with my swollen hand, as she panicked. Touch again. She hated it. Her foot lashed out and caught me on the knee. She pulled away from
my momentarily weakened grip and stood back, shaking with rage and fear.

“Don’t you ever touch me again. Not ever. Understand? Or I’ll fucking leave you to Azama. Now let’s go, before I change my mind and break your knees. I swear I will, by the Goddess, if you touch me one more time.”

She made for the door, her steps unsteady. She was coming apart at the seams, and I couldn’t quite understand why.

This was a record.
Well done, Rojan. Didn’t even get further than a first kiss this time, and you’ve fucked it up
. Only this time was different. Maybe because this time I actually wanted to do something other than get in her knickers. As new experiences went, it sucked.

The flash of understanding came from nowhere, making me wonder how I could have missed it. Why she and Pasha had the affinity they did, how he understood her, why she hated to be touched. Why she wore those leather strips around her wrists – not as extra armour, as I’d thought, or support for the joints when she fought. Why she hated Azama so much.

“Are your brands the same as Pasha’s?”

Her hand stopped on the door handle. “Fuck you, Rojan.” A whisper, barely heard, then she whirled to face me, pale and furious and ashamed. “What do you want to know? Yes, they’re the same. Azama owned us both, and he killed me, the life I should have had, the person I would have been. He killed me but didn’t have the decency to make sure I was dead. All he left me was two brands, and shame and anger – and Pasha.

Now I don’t even have him. I’m not like Erlat, not as sensible perhaps, not as forgiven by the Goddess. I can’t just accept it. I have to fight it, him, all of them.”

“How can you fight him? How can I?”

“I don’t know, I don’t care. All I know is a life lived in fear is less than nothing, and I refuse to live that way. Everyone is cruel; men were made for it, each in their own way. No one is without it. Him and his brands, Pasha and his betrayal, the priests with all their talk, with the hope, a cruel hope for me because I’ll never see it. You and, and – everyone’s cruel, life’s cruel, and so is death and so am I, and I intend to find out just how cruel I can be. So fuck you, Rojan, fuck you. Now show me which way it is, so I can do to Azama what he did to me.”

“Are you sure it’s this way?” Jake spoke for the first time since we’d left the room. There was something about the way she held herself that was like hearing steel scraped down stone. Something that shivered my insides, made me want to shove my hands over my ears and at the same time hold her, pull her back from the brink she was clearly on.

I restrained myself and double-checked. The tingle was back, stronger than ever, not so much a tingle as a pulse, an aching throb. I was sure it was because we were getting nearer the source, but it was getting difficult to think. The call was getting stronger. Just sink in, it said, just lie back, twist a finger and all will be well.
Fuck that
, I said back. My hand was screwed enough as it was, and if I did that Amarie would end her days down here. It didn’t matter why Azama had taken her, only that he had. Now this thing had gone beyond responding because I thought I should, because of guilt,
because of what I’d promised Ma about looking after Perak. This was about a little girl who might become like all those girls in the hole, like Erlat, like Jake, if I didn’t hurry up.

“Yes, I’m sure.” I’d never been more sure of anything in my life. The tingle was a thrum, a buzz in my head. I barely even needed to ask: it was a red-hot brand in my mind. “Left at the next turning.”

I knew why Jake was asking though. The path led us away from the front of the main keep, from the fancy parts where the Ministry would be holed up. We’d caught glimpses of velvet and marble and whiffs of the rich, slightly bloody hint of cooking steak. But our path led us along narrow stairways meant for servants, through cobwebs, dust and piles of dirt, past skittering rats and the debris of decades, centuries even. Away from opulence and decadence into must and disrepair. Our path led to the rear of the keep.

The throb got worse; it ran through me like Lise’s electric booby trap. I held out a hand to the wall, and received a jolt of power strong enough to send me to my knees. Strong enough to make me crave the black, make it the loudest voice in my head. Sweat popped out on my forehead and ran down my face in streams, in rivers. I wasn’t strong enough to resist the call.

An open-handed slap across the jaw rocked my head to one side and brought me back to the blurry now.

“Don’t you dare.”

I blinked up at Jake and was shocked by the hate that radiated from her.

“Don’t you
dare
. Not now, not when we’re this close. I need your help, and I’m getting it if I have to kick you the whole fucking way.”

I staggered to my feet and tried to will it back, to concentrate on Amarie. She was close, so close. She was depending on me. I could sink as far as I liked, just as soon as I got her back to her father. I managed a nod to Jake and we went on.

It was odd. We hadn’t met anyone on the way here, caught only brief, far-off glimpses of people scurrying about in the main halls. They knew we were coming, they must do. Azama would know I could track, from Pasha. We were close enough that I could almost touch Amarie, and yet there was no one here, no one stopping us. Even the black tide of magic that had stopped me tracking her before had vanished, dissolved like smoke. My brain was too mangled to think on it before, but now it was obvious. Azama wanted me here.

“Jake,” I whispered. “Don’t you think—”

She ignored me and took the left turn. A short corridor ended in a door with a shut grille in it.

“Jake, will you listen?” I grabbed at her arm as she went to open the door. I instantly regretted it when her elbow smacked my cheek into the wall. Namrat’s balls, she was stubborn.

“I told you not to touch me.”

“Fine, all right, just walk in there with who-knows-what waiting for us. They know we’re coming. They’re waiting for us, sure as I’m a bastard. And if they’ve got pain-mages, then
just hurting them won’t work. You’ll only end up fuelling them. We have to think this through.”

I got closer to her, blocking her path and making her back up against the wall as she tried to avoid touching me. Her eyes were wild; the last part of her shell had dissolved and under it I could see nothing more than shrinking, abject fear. Maybe that was what it was about her – the fear we shared. I’ve always been afraid, every day, since I was ten and my father left me to watch Ma die.

She shoved at me, but I dug in my heels and stayed where I was. We needed to get in and get Amarie. It wouldn’t help her if we died two seconds later because Jake had lost any semblance of self-control.

“I’m done thinking,” Jake whispered. “I’ve been thinking about this too long. It’s all I
ever
think about. I don’t care what happens after, I don’t care if I fuel his mages. I don’t care if he blows this whole place up and me with it. Just so long as he’ll never do this again, not him and not any of his cronies. It stops. Today.” The edge of her sword appeared by my throat. “Now get the fuck out of my way.”

I didn’t move. Not an inch, not a muscle. I am not a brave man, I think we’ve established that. But this I could not allow. “No, I won’t; because I
do
care. I won’t let you kill yourself, and me with you, and Amarie and who knows how many girls. And Pasha, don’t you care what happens to him?”

Her eyes filled with sudden tears that she struggled not to shed. The sword slid along my skin and the first trickle of
blood ran into my collar. “No. Not any more. He – no. He can rot with Namrat and I hope he does. For him I’d make an exception. Him I’d kill.”

She made to kick at my knee, but I was ready for that and swivelled out of the way, getting my neck away from the sword at the same time. It was all I could do not to draw on the magic that was pulsing through me, do something desperate. And stupid. She tried to push past me again, using her swords as a barrier to keep me away, but I wasn’t having it. Not now.

I shoved her back against the wall and leaned in, making good use of my extra height and weight. I hated myself for doing it, thinking I knew what it would do to her, but I needed her help. Above all I needed someone with a clear head because mine was full of clouds, black and tempting. Her mind might be full of remembered pain and newer anger, but she was all I had. She cringed back from me, and now the fear was because of me, and that cut me to the quick. It didn’t matter. I had to do what was necessary, no matter the cost, and at that moment I really was the bastard I always pretended to be.

“Jake, you have to listen. I need you to help me. I need you to be sensible. To be – well, the Jake you were, when I met you. In control. The last thing I need is you going off half cocked and getting us all killed. They’re waiting for us, don’t you see that? They know we’re coming, they know what we’re after, and maybe they
want
us to come even, and that gives
them every kind of advantage. They don’t have to come looking for us any more because they know we’re coming and they want us to, so we need to be devious or we’re dead. I don’t care if you want to be dead or not, but I don’t. Pasha didn’t want that prisoner to kill you, because he loves you. So he did the only thing he could other than watch you die, and you sent him away. And I—”

I clamped my mouth shut out of instinct. These were words I hadn’t uttered to a living soul since Ma died. Part of me sneered at myself for even wanting to say them. “And I love you. I love you, fuck only knows why, and I know that you want your revenge on Azama, and I know why, and I understand. I want you to get that revenge, for it to make you happy. But I won’t let that blind me to the fact that if you go in there like this, Amarie is dead. All those girls, the ones you say you’ll do anything to help, they’ll be dead too. You may want to be dead, but they don’t, so you will pull yourself together, and you
will
help me.”