Palatine First (The Aurelian Archives) (26 page)

With a chuckle, Mordecai twirled one of his mustaches around a finger and said, “Well, I suppose that’s true for
somebody
out there, but heck, someone’s gotta win. Might as well be us.”

The discussion was far from over for Reece, but his chance to pursue it came to a dead halt when the Vee began to writhe in his chair in the corner, flexing against his bonds. As one, Gideon and Mordecai took up stations on either side of the chair and brought out their revolvers.

“Easy now, stranger,” Mordecai warned. “My grandson and me, we’re not too impressed with your shenanigans. Gideon here was trigger happy
before
you tossed around our friends, so just imagine how heavy his finger is on that trigger right about now.”

“It’s real heavy,” Gideon clarified helpfully.

The Vee was silent for a moment, listening, perhaps, to the sound of Reece crossing the room, holding his half-braced wrist at an odd angle away from his body.

“So this is how it will be,” the Vee quietly speculated. “You will try to press us, but your endeavors will get you nowhere. You are eager for failure, Reece Sheppard.”

As Reece circled the chair, he caught Gideon’s eye and nodded just slightly. He would have been lying if he had said his stomach didn’t clench when Gideon sheathed his revolver in favor of his long belt knife. This had always been the plan, hadn’t it? To put the questioner to the question?

There wasn’t a trace of hesitation in Gideon’s movements as he bent over with his knife angled to carve.

“Wait!” Hayden suddenly barked. “Gideon, wait!”

“If this is gonna make you squeamish, Aitch—”

Hayden broke through the circle that Reece, Mordecai, and Gideon made around the Vee, holding a small stopped tube that looked empty. “There’s another way. Please. Put away the knife.” When Gideon did no such thing, Hayden turned and appealed to Reece, his face drawn of color. “Reece, I saved a sample of the chemical we concocted earlier. The one that works like a compulsor. It’s at least worth a try, isn’t it?”

The Vee laughed. “Indeed, proceed with the compulsor, if you wish to waste your time. But you will find that this body is immune to such primitive devices.”

It came as a surprise to Reece when Hayden mustered the courage to look the Vee right in the eye and say evenly, “I said
like
a compulsor. But the standard sentry’s compulsor is liquid-based. This chemical is gaseous in form, unique in every way. It’s probably the first of its kind. I doubt your body, perfect though it may be, will have the defense capabilities to fight it yet.”

As soon as Reece saw that flicker of almost-emotion in the Vee’s black eyes…almost-uneasiness…he said heatedly, “Do it.” And if his relief was written all over his face as he stepped back from the Vee and slumped against the wall beside Nivy, oh well. “The rest of you should all clear out. He’s not going anywhere, and the chemical’s affects are a little, uh—”

Blushing a bright tomato red, Hayden put in, “Mortifying.”

“One’a us oughta stay behind with you,” Mordecai said. “‘Cause obviously, accidents happen.”

“I’ll stay. Can’t be that bad. Besides,” Gideon twirled his knife around his fingers and grinned toothily down at the Vee, “he might still need persuadin’.”

“Alright, me and Gid, then.”

After snapping her fingers to get their attention, Nivy pointed to herself. Reece didn’t have a problem with her staying. It didn’t get much safer than sitting in a room with Nivy and an armed Gideon—provided they were on your side.

Ten minutes later, Reece, sitting between Gideon and Nivy, faced the Vee on what felt for the first time like even ground. They were all under the influence of the airborne compulsor that Reece had unstopped from its bottle after Hayden and Mordecai had gone, but the Vee was clearly feeling its effects most keenly. He didn’t know the trick was in not thinking about everything you had to hide. His black eyes kept twitching like they were reading a datascope’s memory archive.

“Let’s start out simple. Do you have a name?”

The Vee’s adam’s apple bobbed as he tried to swallow his answer. “Yes,” he hissed contemptuously, against his will.

“What is it?”

“One Thousand Two Hundred and One.”

“Your name is One Thousand Two Hundred and One?”

“There are only numbers to distinguish the one from the many.”

“Does he have’ta talk like that? It spooks me out,” Gideon complained beneath his breath before clearing his throat. “I mean, it’s annoyin’, is all.”

Reece heard a grunt and assumed Nivy had elbowed him. “That’s a mouthful. You’ll have to make due with a nickname. Oh-one. Owon, if you will.”

There was a long pause as the Vee dropped his eyes to his lap and closed them as if in meditation. Reece leaned back, and folding his arms over his chest, waited. He tried to breathe shallowly, but he could still taste the compulsor on his tongue, like an aftertaste of sugar water.

“Kill us now, Reece Sheppard,” the Vee designated Owon finally whispered. “If you have an ounce of pity, you will. There is no life after betrayal for The Veritas.”

Again the words
life
and
Veritas
mingled strangely in Reece’s mind. Maybe somewhere behind those depthless eyes, there was a humanness the serum hadn’t touched. Or maybe the Vee was just playing him.

“I’m going to start asking questions now. You can try to fight the compulsor, or you can—”

“We hope we are among the brothers who bring you to the brink, Reece Sheppard. A broken bone is but a small sampling of
that
pain. We regret that we could not do you more harm with the chance we had.”

“Alright then, your choice. Who controls The Veritas?”

The Vee’s forehead crinkled as all of his concentration went into deflecting the question. His jaw went taut; his long, spidery fingers curled around the edge of his chair and clutched it angrily.

“Owon,” Reece persisted, “who controls The Veritas?”

“Headmaster…Charles…Eldritch.”

Reece hadn’t realized, but his heart had been thudding unevenly, anxious. Now it did a merry skip out of pure relief. It wasn’t as if this news was actually good at all—but bogrosh, did it
ever
feel nice to get a straight answer, no strings attached.

“Since when?”

“Our conception,” Owon gave haltingly as a bead of sweat slipped down his sharply-boned face. “Thirty-five years past.”

“He created you?”

“Yes.”

“To help him get a foot in the door of Parliament…or to keep the people suppressed…” The Vee said nothing, so Reece appended, “Is that why he created you?”

His teeth clenched together, Owon raised his head, found Reece’s brown eyes, and stared into them fiercely. “He created us to uphold peace and truth, to seek out those—”

“Well, that ain’t what you do,” Gideon snapped, leaning into Reece’s peripheral vision. “What you do is tromp around and abuse folk and leave them with nightmares’a you comin’ to—”

“That is part of our purpose.” The Vee was losing the cool grip he had on his voice, and sounded all the more frightening for it. “Fear is the motivator we use, a tool of power. A man who has nightmares of being punished will avoid being caught in the wrong at all costs. The easiest way for him to do so is to
not do wrong to begin with
.”

“Do you really believe that?” Reece asked before Gideon could get in another angry word. “You think that’s your purpose? You think that’s why Eldritch created you?”

“Yes. Justice is our highest priority.”

It seemed that unless Owon had broken through the compulsor’s spell, he really believed that. Reece’s dilemma took on a horrible new light.

“Don’t you think it’s hypocritical to claim justice as your highest priority when Eldritch has done so much wrong to get to his place of power…and you’ve helped him?”

The Vee hesitated. “We…do not understand the question.”

“Eldritch has killed. He’s stolen. I have reason to think he’s kidnapped. Everything The Veritas do helps him get a firmer footing over the Honorans. How can you call that justice?”

There was an air about Owon as he gathered his answer that Reece didn’t like at all. He wanted Reece to hear this, wanted him to feel its sting deep between his lungs.

“When Charles Eldritch rules Honora, he and The Veritas will rewrite the law. Democracy leaves opportunity for corruption and private agendas…we will cleanse Parliament of these things. We will establish a kingship and a king, and The Veritas will be handed the power to properly flush out the disease that erodes Honora’s foundations, the criminals, the lies, those dark places where the Pantedans hide and live off the work of society…”

Reece’s chest, his stomach, his head, they all felt empty, like his feelings had just dropped dead at his feet. Distantly, someone touched his arm, and he knew it was Nivy, but that meant nothing to him, because Owon’s words were turning spirals in his head, and he felt dizzy. Charles Eldritch ruling Honora. Not a duke—a king.

“And the Grand Duke?” he asked hoarsely.

Owon gave a wicked smile, and there was no “almost” about the emotion in it. It was spite, pure and simple. “He will be…removed.”

Reece’s chair teetered on its back legs as he jumped up and began pacing, breathing hard. Here it was, then, the pinnacle of Eldritch’s plan. An assassination. For a second, Reece was able to look past everything the duke had and hadn’t done to him, was able to push aside the terrible night of their last fight, and imagine a world without the man who had taught him all about airships and flying.

“So naïve,” the Vee suddenly cackled.

“What’s that?” Reece said, turning.

The Vee shook his bald pate, clearly savoring the moment. “Reece Sheppard, these things must happen. Can you not sense it? These times are truly bigger than the life of one forgettable duke. Things are happening, things that—”

Reece took two steps forward, wound back his good fist, and punched the Vee squarely in the mouth. The Vee’s head snapped back and smacked the wall behind him. Very satisfying.

“Hey, are we gonna—” Gideon began, sounding excited, and then cut off with a grunt that suggested Nivy had elbowed him again.

Refusing to massage his raw knuckles, Reece stood before Owon and glared down at him. “What do you know about The Kreft?”

The Vee froze, contemplating Reece through eyes that were little more than dark slits. “You know of them?” His eyes flickered to Nivy; he seemed surprised.

“Answer my question,” Reece demanded, stepping to the left to bar Nivy from the Vee’s stare. “Why are they trying to take over Honora?”

“They are not.”

Pausing, Reece studied the Vee, not entirely convinced he wasn’t somehow fighting the compulsor. “But Eldritch…”

“Naïve,” Owon repeated, very nearly snorting. He shook his head disdainfully. “Reece Sheppard, you think through the lens of your lifetime. These things that happen, they feel important to you, but they are not. Thaddeus Sheppard will not be the first leader to die for the advancement of mankind. There have been a hundred deaths spread over a dozen planets. All according to The Kreft’s design.”

Deciding to be more direct, Reece asked, “Who
are
The Kreft?” He sat down between Gideon and Nivy, glancing sideways at the latter. She seemed engrossed in the Vee’s words, as if trying to glean some information from them for herself.

“The Kreft are an ancient collection of beings who ha
ve been the political power in the Epimetheus Galaxy for nearly a thousand years,” the Vee calmly answered. His lips curled as Reece fell back in his seat as though slapped.

“That’s—”

“It is very possible,” Owon cut him off. “They are artists at manipulation, thriving in the shadows of ambiguity. A duke who came to know too much of them might indeed find himself tangled in a web of conspiracy. He might perhaps find himself with a target over his heart.”

It was more than Reece could comprehend, much more than he should believe. He felt like he should be shouting, or laughing, or running, afraid. This eerie calm was much worse, because it meant that he
did
believe.

“Tell me more.”

The Vee smiled mirthlessly as he stared defiantly into Reece’s colorless face.

Gideon stepped in, his voice gruff. “So why is this all happenin’ now? All the plottin’ and—”

“It is not happening now, Pan. It has been happening for a thousand years. For every planet, for every prime minister or duke or king, there is a strategically-placed Kreft. Every political move…every civil war…” The Vee’s eyes took on a decidedly wicked glint, and he chuckled throatily. Reece heard Gideon draw a sharp breath. “…all pioneered for their purposes. They are marauders, conquerors, as ancient as The Voice of Space itself. This is not the first galaxy they have conquered, and it will not be their last.”

It was Reece’s turn to cover for Gideon as his friend stared, poleaxed, at the Vee, clearly gathering up the steam for an explosion. If the Vee wasn’t somehow lying, then the massacre of Panteda likely hadn’t been a violent, unstoppable accident—it had been a ploy, manufactured. All those hundreds of thousands of Pans, dead because of a strategic move in someone’s idea of a game.