Tempest’s Legacy (34 page)

Hopefully,
I reminded myself, still cautious.

“So when are the others coming?” Iris whispered, jerking my train of thought up short.

“Pardon?”

“You said we’re getting out. When are the others coming?”

I pursed my lips, trying to figure out what to do. I desperately wanted to tell Iris that this was all a clever ruse cooked up by Team Halfling—that Operation Debut du Shenanigans was in full effect. But I also knew I couldn’t… I couldn’t risk alerting any listening ears to our plans or to their own imminent demise.

So instead of bolstering my friend’s crushed confidence, I made an embarrassed face, hating myself the whole time.

“Well, um, I don’t really know when they’re coming. I’m sure they will come… but we have to bust out as soon as possible.”

Iris looked at me, and my heart nearly broke when I saw her face fall.

“You mean the others aren’t, like, right outside? Just waiting for you to signal?”

“Um… no. Not really. I sort of… ran away. And was captured,” I lied.

Huge tears once again rolled down Iris’s face. “Jane! No! They’re going to kill you! First they’re going to torture you, then they’re going to kill you. We’re never going to escape…”

At that moment I really, really wanted to spill the beans—to tell her that wasn’t going to happen. That I still had my power, that I was chipped, and that we had, maybe, an ally on the inside that was going to help us. But I didn’t trust our environment and, if I was honest,
I still didn’t even trust Iris… I’d been reminding myself that she thought I was some sort of plant put there just to torture her.

But the same goes for her.

So instead of comforting her with the truth, I comforted her with the sort of nonsense our captors would want to hear, just in case they were listening, or Iris wasn’t really Iris, or she was so broken she would spy for them. I told her Anyan would find me, that Anyan would come for us… At that she looked up sharply.

“Not Ryu?”

“Well, yeah. He’ll come, too. Ryu will be with Anyan.”

“But you said
Anyan
would rescue you. Not Ryu. What happened between you two?”

I paused, unable to believe that now, despite everything, she really
did
want to gossip like we were sitting at the Pig Sty.

Okay
, I acknowledged.
She really is Iris.

“Um…” I responded. “It’s… complicated?”

Iris smiled then, and my heart nearly broke. It was a tiny, fractured, hesitant smile, and it lasted maybe a millisecond. But it was a smile. And it was truly Iris’s.

Despite everything, she smiled
, I thought, marveling at the resilience of these abused women, even as tears welled up in my eyes. But I blinked them back fiercely. Iris didn’t need more grief; she needed to get out of here.

“Yeah, well, you know me… it’s
always
complicated…”

Iris was about to reply when we had a visitor. As Avery rushed in, she scuttled backward into a corner of her cell and huddled there. He ignored her.

“Your friends have been spotted. They’re close; really
close. No one saw them coming, I don’t know how they got here so quickly. This is our chance.”

I nodded, standing. “I have an idea,” I told him as he opened my cell and walked briskly back to the main door.

“Good. So do I. Let’s go…”

I stopped at the door to my cell, realizing that he intended to free only me.

“I’m not leaving without Iris.”

The doctor’s yellow eyes flicked at my friend, huddled in the corner of her cell.

“Not an option. She’s a liability.”

That’s when I just about snapped. I still kept a cap on my magic,
just
in case, but my voice was so barbed I’m surprised it didn’t cut the good doctor.

“She is
not
a liability. She is my friend. And a person. And you might be able to treat people like the sadistic fuck you are, but I am not leaving Iris behind!”

The goblin looked at me, then looked at Iris. Finally, he visibly gritted his teeth and headed toward her cell.

“Fine. She comes with. But do not judge me; you have no idea what I’ve been through. I never wanted any of this.” I stared at him mutinously, not believing he was making excuses for his actions.

“You are a part of this. Nothing you do now will ever wipe that stain away.” Realistically, I probably shouldn’t have been condemning the only thing standing between us and freedom, but I was not about to hear how
he
was a victim.

He stared down at me, his eyes blinking furiously. “You know nothing, halfling. Nothing about my family, about me, or about our politics. I prepare the serum. That is all. I’ve never touched these women otherwise. I
made myself too valuable to kill by learning the one thing nobody else knew, and then I disobeyed every direct order except administering those shots.”

“The shots that made your captives vulnerable to everything else that happened to them.”

He flinched. I’d struck home.

“You are right, halfling. And I will have to live with myself. But I also have saved whom I could. Like your friend here… It was my idea to keep her alive, in case you were captured. I came up with putting a fake file on her in all of our remaining labs, just in case. I argued that would hurt you, but nothing would break you like torturing her in front of you.”

I blinked, unable to process. “So I’m supposed to thank you for coming up with a plot that involved torturing my friend in front of me.”

He nodded vehemently. “I thought you’d never be captured! Between that investigator and Anyan Barghest, you were so well protected. I saved her life, dammit.”

I looked between the “doctor” and my friend, her battered, abused figure huddled in the corner of her cell.

“Sorry, but I wouldn’t wait around for a thank-you note. Look what they’ve
done
to her!”

He frowned. “But she’s alive.”

“That she is. And I intend to keep her that way. So get her out of there. I’m thinking, between the two of us, we can open one of the exits they’ve bricked up down here. It’s on you to take us to one that’s in a relatively unguarded part of the house.”

He blinked at me. I was being very no-nonsense, and even I was impressed by Sergeant Jane.

“Let her out, and let’s go,” I concluded. He nodded and
opened Iris’s cell. It took me a bit to coax her out, but she was finally standing next to me, avoiding looking at our captor-turned-liberator.

“We’ll act like I’m taking you upstairs. For treatment,” he amended, his voice guilty. I nodded at his plan. I’d been about to suggest it myself.

“Yes. Oh, and I’d like to add that if you betray us, or try to hurt Iris, I will make sure that my very last act on this earth is to castrate you. Come hell or high water, I will separate you from your man-business. I don’t care how, or if you kill me. If it means me, dead, holding your junk, I’ll take your junk. Got that?”

He nodded, and I could swear I saw his Adam’s apple bob under his scaley green skin.

I just made a man gulp with fear
, I realized proudly, not stopping to analyze the fact that I was completely serious about the castration thing.

Knowing Iris depended on me meant just one thing…

Jane True means business.

I
’m taking them upstairs,” the goblin said to the guard posted a few feet away from the white room where we’d been held. I made myself look as small and scared as possible, which wasn’t difficult. Despite all my bravado, I
was
small and scared. Iris, meanwhile, was equally convincing, clinging to me as she was.

After a few seconds, the guard responded with a nod and let us through. We walked to near the end of the block of stinking cells I’d come through on my way in, but instead of leaving through the stairs up to the kitchen, the goblin turned us left and we walked down a narrow walkway between two cells. At the end of the walkway sat another guard, who appeared to be dozing on the stool he’d set near a wall he could lean against. He waved us through the doorway he was ostensibly protecting, barely bothering to open his eyes.

We walked and walked after that, going on a confusing path through random small rooms, some stocked
with scrubs, some with disused medical equipment, some empty but for plumbing and water heaters and the like. The goblin led the way, muttering to himself. I wanted to reiterate my castration threat, but I figured that continually repeating your intention to chop off someone’s goolies was a bit like crying wolf.

We passed only two other guards, and both times the goblin put a hand on our napes as if he were leading us, and said something about taking us up “the back way.” Which led to an absolutely laugh-a-minute series of anal-rape jokes from one particularly clever guard.

Can we castrate him, too?
my libido whined, offended to its very core at the idea of using sex as a threat.

Yes
, I soothed.
Once Iris is free, I will bring back the troops and there can be castration for all.

My libido purred happily, while a small part of me did go ahead and wonder when I’d become so bloodthirsty.

You do realize you’re completely serious
, that small part of my brain reminded me. I was too busy enjoying my libido’s rundown of possible emasculation techniques to care. In fact, I was so distracted that I nearly ran into the goblin when he suddenly stopped.

We were in a room that was empty except for gardening equipment. To my relief, I saw that the room had windows and a door that had obviously been bricked in.

“This door used to lead out to the far side of the garage, near the kitchen gardens. It’s the farthest possible exit from the main part of the house and our best chance of escape. But we’re going to have to blow it.”

“No problem.”

“Are you sure?”

I cocked my head at the door, then at him. “Yeah, it’s
no problem. We can just use our shields like a battering ram… Back it up with our mojo. No sweat.”

“Yes, well, you are going to have to do that,” Avery said.

“Sorry?”

“You are going to have to do that. Such things are… beyond my skill.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. That’s not a normal skill, halfling. It takes a lot of power to solidify shields.”

“Umm… everybody that I know…”

“Everyone you know is a warrior of some sort. Investigators, soldiers, spies… the majority of us can’t do these things. I was useless until I discovered science and the Healer discovered me.”

I thought about what the goblin was saying. It had always seemed to me that
everyone
was so powerful, compared to me. But then I really examined my memories. Yes, it was true that Ryu, his deputies, Nell, and the like were all very strong. And when the nagas had attacked at the Compound all those many months ago, there
had
been a lot of fighting and a lot of beings
had
joined in the fray with gusto. But a lot had run around looking scared, and quite a few had also died that night.

And that would explain why people keep saying you’re strong.
That thought hit me like a hammer. I’d heard various beings, including Anyan, mention the fact I had a lot of power. But I’d never believed them, partly because I was always comparing myself to supes like the barghest and Ryu.

I’d always thought those creatures like Iris, who I knew was relatively weak, were the exception. The idea that she, and her abilities, were the norm floored me.

I am wicked hard-core
, I thought.
Or something.

“Um, all right,” I said. “If you can just step back… And I’ll be throwing around a lot of force. Can you shield yourself? And Iris?”

The goblin nodded. “That much I’m capable of,” he said drily. He moved Iris away from me, causing her to whimper and reach out. I smiled at my friend, trying to look as reassuring as possible.

“It’s okay, Iris. I’m going to blast through this door so we can escape. The goblin will shield you. It’ll just take a second.”

I waited till they were out of the way, and defended, before reaching. For a second nothing happened, and I thought I was, indeed, gonna do some castratin’ before the day was through. But then it was like a dam burst and my power flooded through me, sharp and eager from being contained for so long.