Vicious Circle Page 5

  But the killer had been found. The assassin. The Guild member. The perfect choice to carry out their master’s orders. A bit damaged but still useful. And dependent on Kila, on them.

  Dependency built companionship. Companionship built trust. Trust built compliance.

  And it never hurt to have an additional weapon on hand.

  Kila stared at the body. The gun dropped from her fingers. Our first break of good fortune kept it from misfiring. In the dim light, I watched the blood drain from her complexion. She trembled from head to foot, and I feared she might pass out. “Come here!” I ordered, using the voice I reserved for unruly apprentices.

  Her muscles jerked in response.

  “Now!”

  When she crouched beside me again, I issued orders in rapid-fire succession, giving her no time for further contemplation. “Get me on my feet. Get us out of here. My apartment is—” A wave of dizziness assaulted me, and I sagged against her. Physical contact with any relative stranger set off screaming sirens in my head and made my skin crawl. But I hadn’t the strength to pull away.

  In the distance, alarms sounded and came closer with each passing second—local authorities responding to the bar brawl at last. Kila threw one of my arms across her shoulders and hauled me upright. She possessed more strength than I would have expected from her delicate frame.

  If I stared at my boots and willed them to take steps, I could manage it, but every third one resulted in a stumble. We weaved down the alley, and I nudged her toward home.

  “Thanks for saving me,” she said just loudly enough to be heard over the storm. When I looked into her eyes, I saw a mixture of hero worship and something else I couldn’t quite place.

  My shrugging off her gratitude caused us to careen into a wall. “You saved me as much as I saved you,” I admitted, pushing off the brick surface to lean on her again. But it felt good to be helping someone. I’d missed that aspect of Guild membership the most.

  All the way home, the dark things followed us. They crept from shadows and peered around corners. They hid behind the sheets of rain. A bolder one touched my shoe, and I kicked at it, almost sending both of us tumbling to the street. Kila followed the motion and frowned up at me, her face glistening with rain and tears. “There’s nothing there,” she whispered.

  The hallucinations had worsened. Soon I’d need to switch to some other drug. I tried to shake my head to clear it, but it ended up more like a loll. “Yeah, I know.”

  By now the wet chill seeped through all our clothing to the skin, and we shivered together. She held me as tightly as she could against her side, and I didn’t argue. Our minimal shared body warmth kept me going. The quiet of the late night calmed me. Nocturnal and solitary by nature, I thrived in the dark, though I preferred to explore it alone. At this hour, with the city almost silent around us, I came to life. At least I used to.

  We reached the front steps of the building I lived in. Run-down and made of crumbling stone shored up with more modern materials, it wouldn’t win any city beautification awards. I’d never been so glad to see a place in my life.

  Kila hesitated. She shifted my weight, preparing to attempt the stairs, but I held my position. “Around the corner,” I directed her. My words slurred, and I could barely get my lips and tongue to form them.

  Maybe she thought I was having a different hallucination. She checked my eyes for confirmation before helping me into another alleyway that ran between my building and the warehouse next door. A stairway led down to my basement apartment. The entrance to my studio beckoned, but there, I froze.

  Whether I was an assassin any longer or not, old habits died hard. I’d taken different routes home from the Flagon’s Flood each time I’d gone there, and I had two other bars I frequented randomly to mix up my routine. Now, for the first time in my life, I’d escorted a stranger to my door. Well, she’d escorted me. We stumbled more than walked down the short flight of stairs.

  “Keycard. Right side.”

  Kila propped me against the metal railing, which sapped the last of the warmth from my body. Her fingers slipped inside my jacket pocket and hesitated. She’d found my retractable blade.

  “Don’t touch the slider on the handle.” If she did, she’d cut herself, or worse, stab me. I had enough problems.

  The reddish-blond head nodded. She retrieved the card and slipped it into the door slot. Three audible clicks sounded as electronic and mechanical locks disengaged. The landlord provided one. I installed the other two and linked all three to the card. I liked to think of it as home improvement.

  “Lights!” I called, my voice hoarse. The interior illuminated in harsh white light from two tacky, cracked overhead fixtures. The glare hurt my eyes, but I could do nothing to shield them. Kila hauled me into the space and eased me onto my double bed against the right-hand wall. It folded up into a recess in that same wall, but I never bothered. I didn’t get visitors.

  Why I cared, I didn’t know, but a part of me felt relief that I kept the place clean. The paint peeled from all surfaces and the furniture was secondhand, but I’d dusted the solitary table and chair, emptied trash bins, and cleared my minimal wardrobe from the couch with the stuffing sticking out between the seams. I’d stacked the dishes and cookware in the washer this morning. The Guild had expected neatness.

  Kila stood in the center of the single room, watching me.

  I blinked. “Is that blood?”

  She glanced down at her white shirt, where a red stain marked the fabric. Kila took a quick and comical look into her blouse, which almost earned that smile she’d been after. “Not mine,” she confirmed, then came to sit beside me. “Your arm.”

  Indeed, blood soaked through the black material of my jacket. Between the rain and the dark color, I hadn’t noticed, and the palotrin dulled the pain. A jagged tear in my left sleeve indicated the point of entry, and when Kila rolled it up, she revealed an equally ragged slice in my forearm. She winced at the awful sight.

  Some of the Guild members used large concentrated doses of palotrin on their weapons. The drug numbed the skin on contact. By the time a target noticed the wound, he’d already lost a fatal amount of blood. Judging from the width of the stains, I wasn’t quite that far gone yet, but there was more on my shirt and hers than I would have preferred.

  “Must’ve gotten the gash when I hit the recycler,” I slurred, then repeated it when she cocked her head in confusion. My tongue felt swollen—probably was. I let myself fall against the pillows. “Med-kit’s in the bathroom.” My eyes closed of their own volition. I hoped she didn’t fear blood as much as she did violence.

  Her footsteps crossed the room. A door slid open and shut. I dozed, and the dark things came for me. They swarmed behind my eyelids, crawled across my chest. They slithered over my arm, peeling my wet jacket and shirt off my shivering form. I jerked and twisted but could not escape.

  A weight settled on my chest. Weakness prevented further struggle. Gentle fingers brushed damp hair from my forehead. “It’s just me. Take it easy.”

  Kila. I exhaled and cracked open an eye. She had her arm across my rib cage, holding me down. Once she saw I recognized her, she lifted herself and set to work on the cut.

  The med-kit rested on the blanket beside me. She’d hung my jacket, shirt, and back holster over the single chair. With the exception of my athletic bra, I was naked to the waist.

  Apprentices to the Guild discarded modesty shortly after their arrival in the hall. Once in a while, a master would catch a first-year sneaking into the tunnels for privacy to change into training robes. Second-years would drag the unfortunate young person out in his or her state of undress to finish the operation standing upon the altar.

  Nudity, at least mine, bothered Kila, though. The poor girl flushed a deep shade of pink. She fixed her eyes on the injury and the kit while humming that little tune of hers. My muscles relaxed. One by one, with meticulous care, she removed the items she’d need: sterile gauze, antiseptic, and sealant
gel. I had to tell her nothing. She knew. Again, I felt that nagging sense of wrongness in her actions, but since my life depended on her aid, I said nothing.

  Kila wiped away the excess blood, then cleaned the wound with antibiotic spray. That should have stung like a thousand insects, but the palotrin continued to deaden all pain. She picked up the gel to close the gash and lifted my arm by the wrist, turning it for a better angle.

  Kila froze.

  Her eyes darted to my face, then back to my wrist. She’d discovered my Guild tattoo.

  Chapter 4

  THE ROOM spun. I couldn’t fight unconsciousness much longer. Kila disliked violence—that much I knew from her encounter with the slaver. Did that abhorrence extend to me now? Would she commit an aggressive act to eliminate someone more violent than herself? This line of thought was overly paranoid. I knew but couldn’t stop it. The palotrin stole my rationality. Maybe she’d leave me here, helpless, blood soaking into my sheets until my body was drained dry. When I joined the Guild, I vowed never to allow myself to be this vulnerable. Never again.

  So much for youthful vows.

  I watched, bleary-eyed, as she traced the indelible mark with one finger. I felt nothing, but she followed the entire pattern, from the crossed blades to the binding tie to the encompassing circle.

  A tremor rocked me. The areas of skin I could still detect prickled from the room’s chill. My landlord did not believe in the luxury of heat.

  My movement shook Kila from her contemplation. She grabbed the sealant gel and squirted it into the wound, which closed in its wake. The chemicals in the gooey clear substance matched my skin composition, forming a layer over the injury. She unfolded the comforter lying at the foot of the bed and wrapped me in its soft warmth.

  Cocooned and exhausted, I fell into a narcotic-induced sleep filled with nightmares of childhood memories.

  Sleep always improved control. The mind at rest made manipulation simpler. No active thoughts to interfere with the ephemerals’ goals.

  While Kila dozed in a chair, the pair of ephems separated, one remaining wrapped around her brain tissue, the other seeping out through her open mouth on a soft snore.

  The aura around the assassin woman hung dark and heavy, a black cloak with scattered shafts of silver piercing its thickness, holding her conscience and moral sanity together by threads thinner than she likely realized. The former Guild member walked a fine line between good and evil, skirting an edge into an inescapable abyss, sometimes dangling a toe over and dipping it in to test the brackish waters.

  Entering the assassin’s body caused the ephem no trouble or resistance. Injury and exhaustion, combined with the mind-numbing drugs, had taken their toll. It slipped in through an ear, unrepelled by the woman’s weakened life force.

  The entity tapped her consciousness to reveal her thoughts. She considered herself “even” with Kila. They saved each other and owed each other nothing. While the assassin had developed a faint liking for the girl and even a grudging respect, she saw no need for the complications of friendships in her life. The ephem sensed her intention to cut Kila loose at the soonest opportunity that wouldn’t endanger the girl. Not acceptable.

  Dark magic and the realm of nightmares coexisted in close proximity. Casting a tendril deep into the assassin’s brain, the ephem sought the perfect memory to accentuate, to bring to the forefront of the dream state and remind her what life had been like once before on her own, and how much she needed the company of others.

  I was dreaming. I knew it. And nothing I could do would stop the old nightmare’s progress.

  The storeroom smelled of urine, feces, and rotten food. If the slavers came in now, they’d find me for certain. I tried to tally the number of days I’d been in hiding, anything to distract me from rising panic, but I’d lost count.

  Cor, you’ve initiated the stupidest escape plan ever.

  Not that my previous attempts had been works of genius. Since taking me from a group home three months prior, the slavers foiled two other tries—the first a failed play on a young slaver’s sympathy, and the second swapping places with another girl who’d rather be held than sold. She’d thought fondling from an eighty-year-old was a fate worse than death. I figured at that age he couldn’t do much more than fondle, and it would be easier to get away from him. I didn’t know he’d insisted on a blond.

  Despite my previous belief, teenagers didn’t know everything.

  This time I tried hiding.

  The captives worked the storage areas, all six of them, on a regular basis. We stacked boxes and crates, fed livestock kept in interior pens, cleaned tanks of fresh seafood, and moved goods to the central kitchen—any menial tasks the slavers wouldn’t lower themselves to do.

  I prepared my bolt-hole with meticulous care. I found a cache of twelve large containers of porridge mix collecting dust at the rear of storeroom six. To the best of my knowledge, none of the slavers ate the foul-tasting crap, nor fed the fattening breakfast food to the girls. I assumed it had been ordered by mistake. No one ever went near it.

  Shifting them into a different configuration, I managed to circle the boxes around an empty space, then used four to make a sort of bridge over the top. If I stayed in the center, it would hide me from view on all sides, or so I hoped.

  A substantial portion of the large storage space contained pens of soon-to-be-slaughtered animals including hoofers from Chalice, furrials from Deluge, and a coop of flyziers whose squawks sounded like nails scraping slate, drowning out any noise I might make. They would fool heat sensors if the slavers looked for me here, and their smell might mask my own. I empathized with the animals’ captivity and wished I could do something to free them.

  I couldn’t even free myself.

  I stocked my hiding place with packaged self-heating meals I’d filched and an empty plastic container for relieving myself. Then one evening, I “disappeared.” Pulse racing, I pulled the last box into place to conceal my entry and effectively vanished.

  They searched. At one point, Reva, the slaver leader, came prowling through storeroom six, calling my name in a singsong sarcastic tone. “Corianne… if you come out I might not kill you…. Corianne….”

  I didn’t fear death. Besides, he couldn’t sell a corpse. But what he might do to me as punishment scared me shitless. I stayed put and kept quiet. Eventually I figured they’d all give up, let their guard down.

  Days passed. Other slave girls came and went. I suspected some figured out I was there, and I spent sleepless nights staring through the cracks, waiting to be hauled out, but no one sounded the alarm. They owed nothing to the slavers. They held pointed conversations about my supposed whereabouts just outside my self-made prison. They discussed the girls who’d been questioned. The search continued outside but remained confined to the grounds. The slavers didn’t think I’d escaped the compound.

  At one point I became so desperately lonely I almost revealed myself to them, but I bit my lip until it bled. For now they could honestly say they knew nothing. If I involved them, I gave the slavers something to dig out during interrogation. At night, to ease the depression, I’d crawl out and play with some of the animals. I became rather close to the hoofers and furrials. The flyziers had sharp beaks and a tendency to bite, so I avoided them.

  After almost two standard weeks, I could bear it no longer. I vowed to surrender myself the next time someone entered the room.

  I didn’t count on it being Reva.

  He stepped into the storage area. I watched him through the cracks between containers, heart in my throat and threatening to choke me. After some shuffling by the entrance, he found the shaker of spice he wanted. Then he paused.

  “Corianne!” His false cheer fooled no one. He eased a knife from his belt. “You’ve been a bad girl, Corianne, far more trouble than a skinny thing like you is worth. Offer’s changed, Corianne. I will kill you when I find you. The longer it takes, the slower I’ll be.”

  He was fishing for a response
, didn’t really know I was there, but that knowledge didn’t ease my nerves. Cringing, I pressed myself into the farthest corner of my makeshift refuge, but it wouldn’t help if he found me. Sweat beaded on my forehead and dripped into my eyes, stinging painfully, but I didn’t dare move to wipe it away.

  I heard his approach, boots crunching on spilled animal feed. When he reached my crates, he stopped and sniffed, then sniffed again. I’d been dumping my urine and excrement with the animals’ each night, but I’d still accumulated some that day, and my body odor was unmistakable. A moment later, he kicked aside the boxes I’d so carefully stacked. They tumbled around and on top of me, bruising my arms and legs with their corners. He upended my waste, spilling the contents in a puddle that soaked into my shapeless tunic and pants. The stench suffused the entire room. I tried to scramble away but was blocked at every angle.

  When Reva grabbed my hair, I screamed, then screamed louder as his head exploded, spattering my soiled clothing with blood and brain matter. The hand gripping me tightened in a death spasm, then released, and we fell together to the concrete floor. Animals screeched, hooted, and growled in panic, throwing themselves against fencing to escape the newcomers.

  A set of polished black boots stood before my eyes, where my face pressed the cold surface. Knees replaced them when the owner crouched, his gun in a gloved hand. I looked into the man’s eyes, gentle in a face hardened by harsh experience. “I won’t hurt you. You’re free to go,” he said—Micah’s first words to me, perhaps the most beautiful words I’d ever heard.

  The sounds of laser and ripper fire echoed throughout the slaver compound. I raised myself to sit without aid and turned to the entrance. Two teenagers, maybe three or four years older than I, skidded into the room and froze, sniffing and gagging.

  “Whew! Did he void his bowels after you shot him? I hate that. It’s worse than all the beasts.” The male covered his mouth and nose with a free hand. His other held a pistol, barrel glowing from recent firing.