Vicious Circle Page 3

  I traveled several kilometers, my training and fitness prior to this fiasco paying off, but eventually collapsed. The chill in my body stemmed from more than the nighttime desert temperatures. If I didn’t get to a hospital soon, I’d bleed to death. If I didn’t get the antidote for Alek’s poison, and by now I was certain I had been poisoned, it would kill me. If the sun came up, I’d dehydrate. If the Sardonen sand lizards found me—I could hear them croaking to one another behind the dunes—they’d pick my bones clean before I needed to worry about the sun.

  A hysterical laugh escaped me. I tried to swallow it down, but it burst from my throat and multiplied until I couldn’t breathe, and tears again bathed my cheeks. My crutch lay beside me, discarded, and I wrapped my good arm around myself, unable to stifle my insane mirth.

  The laughter released some tension. I crawled forward on two functional limbs, my right arm more like a lifeless stick and my wounded leg dragging a line in the sand, and hoped I continued in the right direction.

  I’d gone beyond delirium by the time I entered the tent circle of the Fatal Force mercenaries’ survivalist training camp. The weapons they pointed at me aroused no fear or concern. Pain, sorrow, and self-pity wound together in a tight ball in my gut. At that moment, I would have welcomed death.

  The mercenaries’ demands for my identity went unanswered. I’d lost the capacity for speech. One pulled at my sleeve, revealing my Guild tattoo, respected and feared throughout the settled worlds. The five or six men and women surged back from me, then laughed at themselves for their foolishness. I was clearly harmless. I hadn’t been harmless in a long time.

  They muttered to one another. One man suggested they return me to the Guild. Another, a woman, said only a master assassin could succeed in doing this kind of damage to another master. They’d sign my death warrant by returning me. A spark of self-preservation kindled, and I jerked and twisted, making a faltering attempt to crawl a few more pitiful meters away and failing with a belly flop in the sand. More muttering. Something about exacting payment for my rescue. A second male voice said there might be a contract on my head, a bounty they could collect.

  “We aren’t bounty hunters. We’re mercs.” The woman again, clearly their leader. “We don’t sell injured people to their attackers. We don’t kill defenseless women, either, even if they are assassins.”

  My opinion of mercenaries in general rose several notches.

  They carried me into one of their tents. An hour later, their shuttle carried me off-world.

  In the mansion bedroom adjacent to the one they’d previously entered, movement was easier, the currents of life force a little thinner, though admittedly not much so.

  The bed’s occupant, a female this time, lay uncovered upon the mattress. Her white satin nightgown shimmered in the moonlight where it had ridden up around her thighs. Her breasts rose and fell with each slow, deep breath of her dreams. Red-and-gold hair fell across the pillow in gentle waves.

  Beneath the gown, she wore nothing.

  If wisps of vapor could leer, these would have. They seeped into the crevice between her legs, sifted through the soft covering of pubic hair, tickled and teased the delicate skin.

  The girl exhaled on a moan. Her tongue moistened her lips. Her heart rate increased.

  Urged on by her response, the ephemeral beings doubled their efforts, increasing speed, flickering over her most sensitive areas in feathery touches only an ephem could produce. They drew from the chill of the night air pouring through the open shutters, blowing it over her skin, raising the tiny hairs and hardening her nipples to points beneath the gown. They flowed through the moisture they created, spreading it to greater effect.

  “Mmm.” The vibration of pleasure rippled through her lithe frame.

  The ephems used her slickness as a conduit. She opened to their gentle but persistent pressure, and they slid up and in as her wetness poured down. Her hips rocked, increasing the flow and threatening to expel them, but curling into themselves, they held on and waited.

  Without their stimulation, her body calmed, breathing and heartbeat returning to normal, skin flushed and lips swollen with unsatisfied need. Distracted by the pleasure, the light of her aura never flared. Her invaders settled in, establishing a firm hold.

  Sensing their victory, one drew away from the other, keeping an end of its wispy self in place while it extended throughout the girl’s body, moving upward toward the brain. The other remained near the center of her pleasure, compressed and waiting.

  The first mingled with the energy of her thoughts, abstract and indistinct in dream-state, now tinged with desire and frustration. It tweaked the electrical impulses of her synapses, sent signals to her mind and body, woke her.

  Unlike her brother, now recovered and returned to sleep in the adjacent bedroom, she neither choked nor sputtered, but her eyes darted about, searching for what disturbed her sleep. She sat bolt upright, and the shift in position drew attention to the dampness of the sheets.

  A tentative hand slipped between her thighs. Confusion faded as her lips turned up in a half smile.

  The specter sensed the tumult of her thoughts, the need for completion while her fingers moved. With one painful redirect of energy, it put a stop to that, and the girl removed her hand to press fingertips to her forehead.

  She stood on shaky limbs, headed for the bathroom and the painkillers she kept on a shelf above the sink, but her steps took her elsewhere. Before she realized it, she navigated the stairs to the lower floor, crossed the hall, and entered the expansive kitchen. Her hand opened the cutlery drawer, drawing forth a cutting knife of the finest quality her family’s credits could buy. Its sharpened edge glinted in the moonlight from the kitchen windows, but her eyes saw nothing.

  Padding soundlessly in her bare feet, she returned to the second floor. At her brother’s door, she hesitated. Her gaze darted to the blade, blinking in wonderment at its presence. She shook her head to clear it. The evil in her brain sent a signal along its own length, down through her body to its counterpart. The second ephem swirled over her pleasure center, rubbing and stroking, sending her staggering against the wood-paneled wall.

  A tendril stifled the cry that rose in her throat. By the time her orgasm subsided, the dual entities had diverted her attention enough to reestablish their control.

  She opened the unlocked door. She crossed to stand over the sleeping figure in the beige-blanketed double bed. She raised the knife high over his chest.

  It helped that her own will wasn’t totally opposed to the coming result. It facilitated muscular direction.

  What she opposed was the act itself. The hand holding the blade froze. The tip of the weapon trembled. A rigid belief system fought the urge to bring the weapon down. No matter how the entities coerced and encouraged, they could not control this action. She would not kill him herself. They would need to use her to find another, more willing puppet.

  Still in her somnambulant state, she returned to her own room where the knife slipped out the open window for confused gardeners to find it in the morning. When asked, she had no idea how it had come to be there.

  She pulled a suitcase from beneath her bed and set about packing. She had a sudden desire to travel.

  Poets might find sunsets worthy of verse. I found them annoying—an aftereffect of the poison.

  I’d recovered a great deal since my frantic escape from Sardonen three months prior. The mercenaries had well-stocked medical supplies and a trained doctor in their camp. On their shuttle, and later at a secure asteroid base, he treated me for shock, blood loss, and burns. He saved my right arm and my left leg. He administered the antidote for Alek’s poison.

  A little too late.

  The chemicals affected my nervous system, targeting muscle control and eyesight. Even after two surgeries, I still limped. And the quality of light at dusk made it difficult for me to see in the accursed shadows. At least full daylight and dark weren’t issues yet.

  I was born pa
ranoid. Guild training exacerbated it. Now the sense of constant pursuit haunted my every waking thought and many of my worst nightmares.

  I hobbled down the alleyway between the bar and the brothel, careful to avoid garbage from an overflowing dumpster, and numerous puddles. Deluge was a wet world, one of the central settled planets, as different from the deserts of outer rim Sardonen as I could find, and I couldn’t afford to ruin my good pair of boots. The Guild froze all my professional accounts, but I had private ones under a variety of false names. And I’d converted a great deal to hard currency. However, I’d spent much of my savings repaying the mercenaries for the medical treatment and passage off-world. Owing people favors wasn’t my style.

  My few attempts to find work had gone less than well. I had no résumé, no references. Legitimate businesses couldn’t hire me as security without them. My residual injuries and handicapped vision made me unsuitable for the one profession I knew. Local clubs wouldn’t even consider me for a bouncer.

  I’d have to settle for something else, and soon. The Eternal Rest biodisintegrator down the street was looking for an assistant to help with the bodies. How ironic would that be?

  Coming out of the alley, I turned right and entered the bar—Flagon’s Flood. The last place I needed to be was here, spending credits on booze, but here I was. The bartender knew me by now and nodded a greeting. I had no desire to exchange pleasantries, but I returned the nod to be civil. There was no use in antagonizing one of the few humans who didn’t want me dead.

  Though they hadn’t found me yet, the entire Guild had orders to kill me on sight—standard punishment for murdering the Guild Leader. Micah committed suicide. Of course, no one knew but me. Hunter to prey. What an insane reversal I’d undergone.

  A trio of merchants, identifiable by their coveralls and company logos, occupied my regular booth. I stood over them, glaring and silent, drawing aside my jacket to reveal the straps of my back holster. They shifted to another table. The assassin still rose to the surface when I wanted her to.

  I took some comfort in that and slid into the wooden booth in the back corner of the establishment. From there I could watch both the front door and the kitchen exit to the alley. If I couldn’t run, I’d damn well better be vigilant.

  The barmaid arrived to take my order. Barmaid tasted like acid on my tongue, but looking at the girl, I knew nothing else could adequately describe her. I glanced at her nameplate—Kila. Never could keep that straight, even though she waited on me every time I came here. A few months ago, I could have recited the names of several dozen people after a quick glance at their IDs. The Guild trained us to remember monikers and faces. I couldn’t keep much straight these days.

  Young, pert, pretty, and nauseatingly cheerful, Kila never ceased in her efforts to evoke a smile from me. She hadn’t succeeded yet. I growled out my usual request, and she tucked the touch pad order screen into the front pocket of her tight-fitting black skirt. Her blouse, no doubt designed by management, strained across her breasts. From the way she always crossed her arms over her chest, I suspected it made her uncomfortable. She hurried away.

  This evening, when she returned with the mug of ale brewed in a small distillery right up the street, she took extra care wiping the table, the seat backs, even the bench beside me. “Raining again. Don’t need weather reports on Deluge, just a recording of wet, wet, and more wet.” Kila laughed at her own flippancy. I took a long, calming sip of my ale. “We’re having a special on some of their other varieties,” she said, indicating my drink. “Two for one. Interested?”

  I growled something noncommittal.

  “Well, just let me know, okay? Say, have you seen that new vid, Poured Passion? I think Tess is going to run away with Terry.”

  I thumped my mug on the spotless wood surface, letting the ale slosh onto the table. When she went to clean it again, I grabbed her wrist and held it immobile.

  The girl squeaked. Assassins moved fast. Nice to know I retained a few skills. She turned wide green eyes to meet my gaze.

  “Go away.”

  “But—” She indicated the spill with her free hand.

  “It’s clean enough. Customer’s always right. Go away.” I reserved that tone for my targets, on the rare occasions I faced them head-on. It didn’t faze her. The moment I let her go, she swiped the surface one last time, soaking the ale into the towel she carried. Then she actually winked at me.

  Kila smiled, and it was the brightest thing in the room. She tossed her auburn-blond hair over her shoulders and turned away. “Nobody likes a mess!” I heard her say, though she faced the opposite direction. Then she giggled—the girl had a death wish.

  She began humming an unfamiliar tune, her steps in time with its melody as she made her way to another table and then to the bar. My mood lightened in spite of myself.

  A pang of regret clenched my chest. No matter how I treated her, Kila made overtures of friendship. I neither needed nor wanted friends. Friends were liabilities, innocent pawns for enemies to use against me in a struggle.

  At least I tipped well.

  I took another sip, letting the beer roll down my throat and warm the pit of my stomach.

  With a mind of its own, my hand slipped into the pocket of my black pants and removed the holocube I’d saved from my locker in the Guildhall. I placed it on the table before me, staring at it for a long minute before swiping my thumb over the print reader on its side.

  A three-dimensional hologram of a much younger Micah appeared atop the cube. He stood, one fist on his left hip, the other clutching an ancient handbook of Guild law, in full lecture mode, prepared to deliver a lesson on honorable deaths and the avoidance of unnecessary suffering to a team of intermediates, including me.

  Oh, the irony.

  It was before our brief relationship, but I’d loved him even then, both of us full of righteous conviction everything the Guild did was for the greater good. Micah’s faith in Guild law let all the apprentices sleep at night. I’d admired his strict adherence to the code. He wasn’t Guild Leader yet, but his mere presence painted the vibrant colors of leadership upon him in broad strokes, making him the perfect instructor. His guidance provided safety and security. The Guild gave us purpose.

  Now I saw his conviction for what it was—a blind following of things black and white with no room for the gray, no room for mistakes or deviations from his path.

  No room for his own failure.

  No room for me.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. Telling myself I didn’t care about all I’d lost was one thing. Believing it while living in this hole was another.

  Micah never knew I’d captured the holo with a portable cam. When he taught, he focused all his attention on the instruction. We weren’t even supposed to own the cubes, but like the slow-acting poisons some members used, we all had our little quirks and secrets. Our tattoos marked what we were, but who we were was another story. Our physical appearances we played down. We didn’t draw unnecessary attention to ourselves. We didn’t pose for holos. But during those long missions, on cold, isolated nights, I’d wanted a piece of Micah with me. And I’d always felt a sense of pride in getting away with something he didn’t know about.

  Once he became Leader, he earned access privileges to all the storage compartments. Common practice didn’t include invading each other’s privacy, but still, I wondered if he knew and let me keep it anyway. I wanted to believe he had.

  The one rule he’d allowed me to break without consequences.

  I rubbed the smooth surface again with my thumb, and the image disappeared. I returned the cube to the safety of my pocket. The surface of the table looked darker and dingier, and it wasn’t due to the absence of the holocube’s projector light.

  My left leg ached. I propped it on the opposite bench, hiding it beneath the table where no one could note the occasional tremors in the knee joint and detect my weakness. One major drawback of living on a wet world—the humidity affected my injuries. A du
ll, throbbing pain took up residence in the limb and my right shoulder whenever it rained, and it always rained on Deluge.

  As if on cue, a rhythmic pattering sounded on the pub’s corrugated metal roof. I sighed, downed my ale in a few gulps, and ordered another with a wave of one hand in the general direction of the bar. At least this time Kila kept her mouth shut when she delivered it. I didn’t look at her, fixing my eyes on the new mug with the condensation beading on its sides. The droplets ran like tears.

  Patrons came and went—merchants, local work crews, smugglers, slavers. I could always tell the legals from the lawbreakers. Legals sat in the center at the separate round tables that dotted the floor of the pub. They chatted noisily so their conversations carried to other, less-interested listeners. Smugglers and slavers kept to the walls, watched the doors, and spoke in whispers. The slavers paid particular attention to the young men and women who passed. Their lascivious glances raised the hackles at the back of my neck.

  I sat in a corner booth, alone, and wondered if the other professionals could tell my occupation as easily by my habits as I identified theirs. Maybe I should start alternating corner booths.

  My fingers twitched at the sight of a group of slavers getting drinks at the bar. One cupped Kila’s breast as she placed their mugs on the counter. Another grabbed her ass when she turned to go back on the floor. I silently counted to ten and washed down my disgust with ale. As a profession, slavers ranked well below assassins. Among what we called “shadow occupations,” assassins topped the hierarchy. On many worlds governments sanctioned the practice of necessary assassinations. They hired us. Most civilized beings found slavery in general a foul, inhumane, and outdated practice. Uncivilized individuals labeled it lucrative in the extreme. On a personal level, I despised them with every cell in my body.