Angel Of Solace (25 page)

“So what, then? You just sit here and waste away?”

“I don’t know.”

Damien took a deep breath and braced himself. “That’s selfish.”

She tossed him a cold glare. “What?”

“I get that you don’t want to have to deal with people’s deaths on your conscience, and you know people will die, especially if we go after Marivean. But how many more people are going to suffer if we do nothing?”

Sariel started to reply but stopped herself and just turned away. Her fists clenched at her sides.

“You’re the only one who can expose the Covenant for what it is,” Damien went on. “And you can’t do that if you’re dead. If we do nothing, that’s exactly what happens.”

“Kronn will tell ESI what he knows eventually,” she replied weakly. “They’ll investigate. They’ll find evidence and turn it against the Covenant.”

“Maybe. But how long do you think that will take? What if they can’t get their hands on an Angel? What if they’re shut down before they ever get the chance?” He shook his head. “You’re not the only one whose wasting away, you know. Solace is the last place on Argoa where the Covenant doesn’t run the show, and that won’t last forever, not at this rate. The longer they exist without anyone confronting their lies, the more powerful they become.”

For a moment the only sound in the room was their breathing, but eventually she lowered her arms and turned to face him. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Of course it matters. It’s
all
that matters right now!”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I can’t stop him, Damien. No one here can.”

He started to respond but stopped himself. It definitely wasn’t the response he had been expecting. She wasn’t wallowing in self pity or tired and weary; she was just afraid. Very afraid.

“You won’t be alone,” he told her. “I guarantee if you explain this to the others, they’ll jump at the chance to help. You said there were hundreds or even thousands of Asurans here, right? They had to send the scraps of some mercenary army at us—we can definitely take out whatever they have left.”

She sighed and reached out her hands. On impulse, he extended his own to meet them. The spark between them was just as potent as ever, and the moment they touched he felt his knees buckle. Her terror was so powerful he was amazed she could even stand there and look at him…

“You don’t understand,” she repeated softly. “He’s not a man, Damien. He’s a force. You have no idea what I’m really capable of if I tried, and I guarantee I’m like a child compared to him. If we find him and attack, they will die. All of them.”

He tried to send his assurances through the spark, but it was like swimming against the tide. He did his best to steel himself against it and found himself squeezing her so hard it nearly hurt.

“I know he warped and twisted Avrick’s mind just to get to you,” Damien said softly, “but do you know what? He failed. One man—one normal man—managed to break free. He’s the only reason we escaped, and he did it despite this omnipotent Angel trying to control him.”

The tide of fear wavered, replaced by a deep sadness. It wasn’t much of an improvement, but he wasn’t done just yet.

“Avrick survived because of you,” he said. “He was willing to do anything for you, even if it meant dying to save you.”

Sariel pressed her eyes shut and turned. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she clenched him so tightly his hands became as pale as hers. Eventually she brought her lips to his, and he could almost taste the spark between them. He took it all in—the fear, the sorrow, and then ultimately the hope that washed them all away.

She pulled her lips away and glanced up to him. “Marivean has a lot to answer for.”

“Yes, he does,” Damien agreed softly.

“Vaelen was a good man. If I told him what I knew…he would have come around,” she said. “And Avrick…”

“It’s what they do. The Covenant ruins lives, and they’ll keep on doing it as long as they can. It’s a war, and they’re winning.”

“Then it’s time to change that,” she said, pulling away from him.

“So we tell the others?”

“We tell them, and then we find a way to help Kronn and Shyrah.”

He nodded. “Who knows, maybe they’ll pick up something we can use.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said coldly, turning to face the window. “One way or another we’re going to find Marivean. And then I’m going to kill him.”

***

Shyrah clenched and unclenched her fists, sometimes squeezing them so hard her fingernails bit into her palms and drew trickles of blood. She was accustomed to rage. She had long ago learned that it was far more useful than despair when dealing with a crisis. It had allowed her to survive many times when she had no business doing so, and even offered comfort on cold nights when nothing else could.

But right now, it wasn’t doing a damn thing. It was an unfocused, impotent fury even though she had plenty of targets. Sariel had gotten them all involved with this in the first place, and her charity-case Chosen had probably brought the Covenant down on them. And naturally, Kronn was an even bigger target for his betrayal.

But no, as easy as it should have been to hate them all, the only person she could direct it at was herself. She had abandoned the one all-important lesson life in the Syndicate had taught her.

Never trust anyone.

Shyrah stood up from the plain white cot, her cell’s sole decoration outside of the toilet tucked in the corner. She wanted to scream, and given how thick the stone walls were, she probably could have without anyone hearing—if they didn’t have any listening devices in here, which they almost certainly did. No, she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing her completely lose control even though that was all she wanted to do. Instead she was going to focus on the only thing that mattered: getting out.

How she was going to pull that off, unfortunately, was a mystery. The door, while locked, didn’t appear particularly special. Given time, she could probably smash her way through it. Her body was a pretty powerful weapon when it needed to be, but ramming repeatedly into a door wouldn’t get her anything besides a bruised shoulder and a squad of ESI guards standing outside. She needed something a bit more subtle, and she spent the next ten minutes scouring her cell for inspiration.

And found nothing. Nothing she could use as a tool or a weapon, no loose bits of rock she might be able to chip away at, nothing. It was expected; she hadn’t really thought ESI would be so sloppy. But that didn’t make it easier to accept that she was still trapped.

She spent probably another half an hour pacing before a male voice sounded over a speaker so small she hadn’t noticed it.

“Hello, Miss Mulare,” it said calmly. “I apologize for the accommodations, but with some cooperation from your friend we’ll be able to release you soon.”

She grunted. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

“I understand your frustration, but really, you shouldn’t blame yourself.”

Something about the voice was familiar…yes, it was definitely the same man Kronn had met with the previous night. Portis was his name, for whatever that was worth. Still, it was at least good to know who she was talking to. He must have been more important than she had given him credit for.

“Oh, I don’t,” she said. “Now that you’re here, I’m pretty content to blame you.”

He chuckled softly, and it carried all the smug certainty one would expect from a man on the other side of these bars. “That’s not how you think and we both know it. After your experiences in the Syndicate, it’s quite amazing you were willing to trust Sam the way you did.”

A chill crawled down her spine as a thought suddenly occurred to her. Did the ESI have their own Demons at their beck and call? Probably—she couldn’t imagine any government agency with their resources being very constrained by ethics. They probably had their own team of scrubbers just waiting to go.

But no one had touched her yet. Did they have a telepath outside so powerful that he or she could read her mind without contact?

“He was worried about you from the beginning,” the voice went on. “The others he knew would fall in line, but with you he wasn’t so sure. When he told me about you, I had to agree.”

She bit her lip and took a deep breath. No mind readers—Kronn had just been blabbing to them for a long time. She fought back a flash of annoyance at herself for jumping to the wrong conclusion so quickly. She needed to be calm and clear-minded if she was going to work her way out of this.

“Too bad you didn’t just kill me,” she said.

He chuckled again. “I’m rather glad, myself. You’ve proven quite the asset over the years. He wasn’t so certain, especially when he thought about your incident with…what was his name? Hayden?”

She kept her face flat in case there was a camera inside the cell. “Is there a point to all this or do you just like hearing yourself talk?”

“Sam told me you refused to tell him about it,” the voice continued, ignoring her, “but your friend Corin was always more…generous with his words, especially after some whiskey. He said this Hayden almost helped you escape once. How did that work, exactly?”

“Look, I’m not going to play along. Keep blabbing if you want and let me know when you want to ask something I care about.”

“I know you care, Shyrah,” he said coolly. “You loved him. He was the first man in your life that actually seemed to care about you. He helped you get over your rather powerful and embarrassing Stockholm’s Syndrome with Garaldi, after all. He convinced you to leave with him, as I recall.”

She closed her eyes and tried to keep her breathing steady. She wasn’t going to give this asshole the satisfaction of watching her breakdown or even drive her into some rage-induced screaming match. No, she was just going to sit here and try not to think about it…

“And just before you had almost made it to freedom, he told you it was all a lie. A test, of sorts, to see just how loyal you were to the Syndicate. You didn’t believe it at first, of course, but when Garaldi showed himself…well, you weren’t happy, to say the least. The story goes that you killed Hayden with your powers, and Garaldi didn’t even stop you.”

The memory burned into her mind despite her best efforts: Garaldi and his thugs stepping out from behind a corner near their shuttle’s escape pad, Hayden telling her he was sorry he had been forced to deceive her…and then a rage in her veins like nothing she had ever experienced before. If she had just had a gun with her, she would have shot him dead. Instead she had thrown herself on him in a screaming fit of rage…

Shyrah closed her eyes. She had never managed anything like it before or since. It wasn’t like focusing physical pain into his mind—she had done that many times to others, and it was a fairly common ability for Demons. No, this time it had felt like she dumped an entire lifetime of abuse into one hate-filled attack. He barely even got off a scream when she touched him before blood starting seeping out of him—eyes, mouth, ears, even just bubbling blisters that appeared on his skin. He probably hadn’t survived for more than a few seconds, and it had to have been agonizing.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t get you much. Garaldi still dragged you back to the base and had his men rape and torture you. How many of them had you, do you think? Corin said it went on for nearly two days—”

“What the fuck do you want?” she screamed. It echoed across the cell so loudly she almost had to cover her ears. She felt the warm tickle of a tear dribble down across her lips, and it only made the rage burn hotter.

“I want very little,” Portis said. “Just answers to a few questions. First, I wonder if you’re feeling any different since Sariel revealed the nature of your condition to you.”

“I’m feeling ill, actually,” she replied between clenched teeth. “Maybe you should send someone inside to check on me.”

She could hear his muffled grunt through the wall and from the speaker. “I was curious because I’m not sure you realize how important this revelation is.”

“You mean that a bunch of alien parasites are taking control of the entire planet? No, I can’t see how that would be important at all.”

“You misunderstand,” Portis told her. “I mean to say how important this revelation is for you. You and others like you have gone from interesting but largely irrelevant miscreants to serious risks to Elassian security.”

“Is that supposed to be some type of veiled threat?” she asked. “If so, I’m not impressed. We spend our lives on the run from the Covenant, and you people don’t have anything on them.”