Spark Rising (8 page)

The Councilor managed to raise his voice over Reyes without increasing his volume. “Yes, Alejandro, I know. And your quick thinking saved us from his irresponsible actions. But were you never a junior agent with more enthusiasm than sense?”

“No, sir.” Reyes’s denial came quickly, flat and final.

“I value enthusiasm, Agent Reyes. I’ve already said I think an enthusiastic agent should be allowed a moment of redemption.” He turned back to Lucas. “Tell me, Agent Brayer, would you like a further opportunity to salvage this situation?”

Reyes was still. Disbelief flared in his eyes.

“I would, very much, sir.”

The Councilor nodded firmly. “You’ll have it, then. Do what you must to get what we want. You have full authority.”

Hernandez nodded his agreement. The Councilor clapped his hands once. Reyes made a suspicious survey of the other three men, lightning fast, before dropping his gaze back to her. He seemed confused and angry. Had he fallen from favor? Good.

The Councilor’s gaze raked over Lena once more before he left them, his satisfaction evident in the angle of his chin and the gleam in his eye.

Reyes managed to catch her eye. He held her, staring down as if trying to impart something to her without words. She wasn’t interested. She returned his gaze, feeding him all of the rage and betrayal that she felt in one hateful look. His lips parted. He took a step back, then turned and walked away to a corner of the room, outside her field of vision.

Lucas, smug, tracked him. “What are you doing?”

Reyes’s low voice rasped out. “You want to salvage. So salvage. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re not leaving?”

His brief laugh slashed across the room at the younger man. “No. I’m not leaving, Lucas. I’m witnessing. And I’m waiting for the inevitable fuck-up.”

If not for the current creating burning static through her body and her mind, Lena might have laughed.

Lucas curled his lip. He turned his back to Reyes and breathed in through his nostrils. After a moment, he reached into his pocket and removed a small folded packet of papers. After tearing off a square, he carefully refolded and pocketed the packet. He crossed to one of the agents guarding the door and passed him the slip of paper. “Go to this address. Ask the woman there to accompany you back.”

Reyes snapped, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought you were going to salvage the situation, not compound it.”

Hernandez spoke up, too. “Agent Brayer? What are you doing? We have everything we need here.”

Lucas turned his head back and spoke to the Councilor’s Director of Security coolly. “The Councilor gave me his authority. I’ll be doing it my way. Do you understand?”

Hernandez blinked his displeasure, but shrugged and crossed his arms. He said nothing. Lena held tight to the threads of her concentration. Why was Lucas allowed to speak to a superior like that? Why had he been given another chance? She didn’t think Reyes knew, either.

After the agent who’d been sent to retrieve the mystery woman had gone, Lena tried to work through the puzzle of who could be coming to assist Lucas, but her mind began to fuzz out again.

Lucas put his hands into his pockets and wandered back to his place beside Lena. He looked down at her with a broad smile. “Look at her,” he said to Hernandez. “She’s already recovered. They have incredible recovery from pain, even more than the average Spark. It would be amazing if they weren’t such monstrosities.” He shook his head and glanced over at the larger man. “Your current may be keeping her from zapping us. But it won’t work again to hurt her. She’ll adapt. She’s trying to figure out how right now, if she hasn’t already. She’ll make herself immune to the pain.”

Hernandez’s eyes narrowed. His hand moved on the slender handle before him.

Current sliced through her again. She was ready. She couldn’t focus enough to talk to their Dust, no. But she could get her own to act, even if only sluggishly through the interference in her head. She’d already moved thin insulating layers of Dust between her skin and the eight pads. Electricity still arced through her, heated pain pouring through her flesh and blood and bones and then out into the surface behind her. She could bear it. It wasn’t even a grounding.

The current abruptly stopped. Hernandez ground his teeth together loudly in the silence that followed.

“And how is it,” Reyes’s voice grated from the corner, “that you know so much about this,
Junior
Agent Brayer?”

A gloating smile ghosted across the younger agent’s face. “Because there’s a lot you don’t know, Reyes. Now you’re the junior, and I’m the master. You see that much, right?” Lucas said. He walked toward her head, searching her face as she gasped in recovery. “She adapted, just like I said. But there’s pain. And then there’s pain. It’s time to do things the Brayer way.” He grinned suddenly, the tight skin of his face pulling down with his leer. He purred the next words like a promise. “Because there are some things for which there’s no immunity.”

Chapter 8

What was Lucas waiting for?

He perched next to Lena on the bed, one leg dangling, in obscene parody of a concerned friend visiting a patient. He didn’t ask her any questions. He didn’t speak at all. He waited.

Hernandez leaned against the wall to her left, hands clasped across his broad front. She assumed Reyes still stood in the corner.

She tried to figure out what Lucas had meant with his pain comment and who he’d called in as back-up. Someone better at causing her pain? What kind of pain? Her current-addled brain couldn’t hold onto the start of a circular thought long enough for her to come back around and begin to analyze it. She had to let it go.

Pain is pain is pain
,
and I have the advantage.
She had managed to regain even more control over her own Dust, both that which lived inside of her and that living on her skin. Lucas could do little to hurt her now. She only wished she could hurt him.

She couldn’t send commands out beyond her body. She’d tried. Oh, how she’d tried, staring at Lucas sitting smugly beside her, to force her thoughts and will to pulse out at him in the gaps of focus between waves of static. It simply hadn’t been enough. It hadn’t been enough to work on the generator or Hernandez the Ox’s charge-producing machine, either.

If she could gather enough Dust both above and beneath her skin at each electrode point and ask the Dust to send out a quick pulse of energy at each point, she might be able to short them out. The trick would be to do it not once, but eight times. Once she’d done that and regained the ability to focus….

She turned her eyes to look at Lucas. He stared at the wall behind her, face relaxed, hands loose in his lap as he meditated. Focused on how best to hurt her? Why?

She pursed her lips to ask him. The static made her lips buzz, and the word came out heavy with a buzzing
wwhhhh
that overpowered the long “I” sound of the end.

Nonetheless, Lucas’s gaze moved from the wall to focus down on her face. A restless shuffling from the corner of the room was the only sound in the long pause as he examined her.

“Why?” Lucas repeated her question in a voice so soft she had to strain to hear.

It would be impossible for the others to hear his soft words.

He made a small sound of amusement, but his lips were twisted. “Good question. I’ve asked it myself. Every time I ground, I ask why. Every time I think about how I am the only one in my family to be cursed with the Spark, I ask why. Every time I think about being less human than my brothers, I ask why. I grew up asking why—why did I have to be the spawn of the men who caused our destruction, a living reminder of those who ruined us all?”

The first Sparks? The soldiers? She blinked, trying to find her way through the static. The people had been dying. The Sparks brought them out of the dark. Hadn’t they? She tried to follow through, but could only remember that Lucas blamed Sparks. But he was an agent?

Lena swallowed. A feral light bloomed across his face. No, more than feral. Rabid. She tried again to make sense of his words, but her mind turned and fuzzed out. It made no sense. If Lucas hated being a Spark, why become an agent?

Lucas pitched his voice for her ears only. “I learned long ago that asking why is pointless. We must follow where the Council leads and do what the Council compels without question and without complaint. That’s how we earn the right to l—” He stopped to swallow spasmodically. He looked at her, expression icy. “We earn the right to live and contribute as citizens.” His lip curled in disgust. “Even you. I begged him to let me kill the aberrations. The world would be a safer place with none of you bitches in it. It would be cleaner. Would you like to know what he told me?”

She stared back at him, silent, stunned as much by the rictus of hatred that contorted his face as the electricity that buzzed through her.
He? He, who?

“He told me that even things like you have a purpose. For now, you can be used for testing, for twisting, for helping us learn to protect human citizens against your kind. And someday, soon, you get to be the catalyst that ignites the world and cleanses it of the powered filth who would make us servants.” His eyes widened, and his fingers, hidden in his lap from the other men, made an exploding motion.

He’s crazy.
She licked her lips, but it did nothing to relieve the taste of ashes in her mouth. “How can you…?” The question drifted away. She managed to pull it back in. “You’re like me?”

Lucas leaned in. His voice rose as he spat each word at her. “I am nothing like you.”

She held his crazed stare, refusing to back down. She would not give him the satisfaction. If she could help it, she wouldn’t give any of them any satisfaction at all.

Lucas’s hand curled into a fist in his lap. She could see the hint of the movement.

The door opened. Lucas looked up, his hand uncurling, and smiled. “Thank you, Agent.” Delight colored his voice. His gaze shifted and moved up and down, taking the measure of someone hesitating in the entry. “Welcome.”

Did he intend for his voice to be a sinister purr?

“Please.” Lucas gestured to the area beside him as he stood. “Come in.”

Three hesitant steps lightly tapped the floor as the person came closer. They stopped on the sound of a quickly indrawn breath. Lena’s heart twisted when the woman spoke.

“Magdalena?” Her mother’s voice, filled with despair.

He’d brought her mother to help them break her. Her mind refused to acknowledge how.

“Come.” Lucas gestured her over with a beckoning motion from his fingers. “You can come closer.”

Those light tapping footsteps brought her mother near.

Lena turned away from Lucas’s gloating face and stared up at the ceiling. If she didn’t look, if she didn’t see her mother standing at her bedside, then maybe Mama wouldn’t be there.

She swallowed.
There is pain, and then there is pain
. He’d promised her pain from which she wasn’t immune. She had to look.

Her mother’s face was drawn, her smaller bloom a bright halo around her, as if she hadn’t grounded in far too long. Her skin seemed yellow and thin. Most Sparks wouldn’t ground if they were sick or over-tired. It was too hard on their bodies. It made the Spark hangover much worse, even dangerous. Most also wouldn’t charge when they were ill, making sure not to build up a dangerous amount of feedback energy.

Lena had never known her mother to go more than a week—her job at the Council plant required regular discharges. She had never seen her mother glow this bright before. Had she been sick? And still working every day?

She felt a pulse of guilt at how long it had been since she’d made her way into Relo-Azcon to see her mother. She always told herself she stayed away due to the danger to them. She just couldn’t stand the guilt. She’d broken her family. Everything that had happened was Lena’s fault.

As was this.

“I’m sorry, Mama.” Her voice shook.

Her mother reached out a hand. As soon as her fingers touched Lena, a spark leaped between them, and her mother yanked her hand back with a cry. When she spoke, her voice still shook. “No, Magdalena. I’m sorry.” Her throat moved spasmodically as she swallowed back tears. “We always knew it would end like this. The three of us tried to protect you.” Her mother shook her head. “From the moment we realized what you were, we tried to spare you this.”

Three of them? Spare me this
? Her heart stuttered. “Mama…?”

Her mother continued. “We hoped when they came for us, it would be after you had made your own way. We wanted you to be safe, Magdalena. I thought you were safe now. We always wanted you to be safe.”

Her mother’s shoulders hunched as if she were resigned to fate. It didn’t matter what she expected. Lena wouldn’t allow them to hurt her. She’d give them what they wanted and end this now.

She moved her focus to Lucas. His face was bright again. He’d moved closer to her mother, standing beside her elbow. His nostrils flared as if he inhaled the scent of her mother’s fear. Reason wouldn’t reach him.

She raised her voice so she could be heard in the corner of the room. “Reyes?” He had lied to her. He had broken her trust every step of the way. But he wasn’t a sadist. “Reyes, I will tell you whatever you want, just get this freak away from my mother.”

Her mother didn’t stir, her face rapt as she surveyed her daughter’s face with love and tears and regret written on it. Except for the long sound of a breath drawn in and exhaled heavily, neither did Reyes.

“Reyes!”

His husky voice came from the corner. “Lena, Councilor Three allowed this. I can’t stop it. But I promise I won’t let it go further than it needs to.”

She stared up. Her heart thumped hard. He had to stop it now. They didn’t have to do this. “You promise?” Her disgust echoed off the ceiling above her. She vibrated on the bed with rage. “We know how much your promises are worth, don’t we?” She spat the words then turned back to Lucas. “What do you want me to tell you?”

He cocked his head, and his mouth twisted at the corner. “Tell me?” His voice still had the purring, pleased burr beneath it.

She gritted her teeth. “What do you want to know?”

“Oh.” He frowned as if puzzled. “I thought it was obvious.” He leaned in, careful not to touch her. “I want to know your limits.” His nostrils flared again. He pulled back, sinuous as a cobra. Then he struck.

His right hand shot down across her, ripping off the electrodes at her temples. His left hand gripped her mother’s hair. He pulled her head back and stuck the electrodes to the skin of her temples.

Her mother didn’t even try to fight him. She stood almost serenely beside Lena.

“Mama, please. Do something. Fight back.” The buzz in her head quieted with the electrodes gone from her temples, but the current still burned into her from the others.

Lucas grinned. “Fight back? Against the three men in the room? How should she do that?” He flexed his hand in her mother’s hair, moving her head with the tightening of his fingers. “She’s not like you. She’s not strong, is she?”

“Strong enough to keep me hidden from you assholes.” She swallowed. She looked back up at the ceiling above her. Perhaps if he couldn’t see her into her eyes, he couldn’t see her fear. He couldn’t enjoy it.

He laughed softly. “It’s up to you, Lena. If you want to help her, you’re going to have to show us what you can do.”

A soft curse came from the corner. “You’re a fool, Lucas,” Reyes said. “What do you think is going to happen if you piss her off enough to break free? What if your little set-up there can’t hold her?”

Lucas rolled his eyes at the interference. He didn’t bother to turn to Reyes. “It’ll hold. It always holds. And we always get what we need out of them.”

“We? Them?” Reyes demanded. “What the Dust are you talking about?”

The Ox straightened his shoulders. “Enough, Alex. You’re not cleared for that. Not yet.”

“I’m not, but this asshole is? Bullshit! He’s my
junior,
and he should be in an interrogation room himself
,
” Reyes flared. “I bring her down for this idiot and save everyone’s ass, and yet I’m the one standing here without clearance to know what’s really going on? Everything I’ve done for Councilor Three? Are you shitting me?”

“This clearance doesn’t come from the Councilor.” Hernandez stopped and shook his head. “Enough.” His soft voice held a thread of menace. “Get on with it.”

Lucas’s face reflected his calm anticipation. “Lena, I’m going to hurt your mother now. You should pay attention.” He reached his free hand out and unstrapped her head, working the buckle with a sawing motion that pressed the metal and leather into her skin. He flipped the straps apart, and the metal buckle swung out and rang against the edge of the bed. “There you go. You’ll be able to see everything now. That’s much better.”

She refused to give him the satisfaction of lifting her head. She urged the Dust along her body. It didn’t swarm to do her bidding like it usually did, but it wasn’t the sluggish mirror of moments ago, either.

Lucas nodded to Hernandez, released her mother’s hair, and stepped back from them both. Her mother lunged forward to put one hand on Lena’s chest, over her heart. Her other hand gripped Lena’s hand right below the strap holding her to the bed. Lena had enough time to note both of her mother’s hands were shaking, little tremors from deep within before the current running through her roared from a trickle to a torrent. Her mother’s hands tightened, spasming, as the loop of energy between them began. The electricity burned across her nerves and into her mother through their skin contact. It burned through her mother and into Lena.

Lena’s head twisted against the bed as her neck arched. She set her teeth, and her body tightened, straining against the restraints. But the Dust had collected at the electrode points. It offered some meager protection, even without her focus.

Her mother had no protection.

It stopped. The pressure of her mother’s hands disappeared. She slid bonelessly away. A grunt of air escaped as she hit the floor, followed by the hard thunk of her skull on the tile. Lena gasped in a breath, then another. She tried to call out to her mother. A croaking sound came from her throat. She pulled a breath in through her nose and swallowed to try again.