Deadly Games (31 page)

Yes, that would be good. Maybe they would be
kind enough to release Basilard as well.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Taloncrest said.

“You are right,” Litya told Sicarius. “It
would be foolish of me to release you. Unless there is a price at
which your assistance—and your word that you will offer it
faithfully—can be purchased.”

Sicarius neither offered his usual blunt “no”
nor proposed a deal. He ought to promise the woman to help if she
would simply unlock him first....

Instead he remained silent.
Almost...thoughtful. What could this woman have that he might want?
But then, what did
Amaranthe
have that Sicarius wanted?
Basilard reluctantly admitted that he knew the man very little,
despite the six months they had worked together. If it was only
some whim that kept him with the group, might not another come
along that interested him more?

“There
is
a price,” Litya guessed from
Sicarius’s silence.

Sicarius’s expression never changed, but his
eyes shifted to focus on one of the tanks.

What? Did he want a child? One born in some
crazy scientist’s laboratory? If so,
why
? Though Sicarius
had the personality of a particularly bland, pointy stick, it
seemed he could find a woman to bear a child for him if he wished
it. Though maybe he did not want some random woman’s blood for a
child. Not if he could get some specially selected female
“specimen” to help breed a babe who could be his equal—or perhaps
more—one day. Basilard grimaced at the idea of Sicarius as a
father, training some child with the same heartless techniques that
had been employed on him.

It was hard to imagine Sicarius even
wanting
a child, but he met the woman’s eyes and jerked his
chin for her to approach.

Litya hesitated but leaned closer, her chest
brushing his. She tilted her head so he could whisper in her
ear.

The guards had stood mute through the
exchange, but they tensed at this closeness.

Basilard signed,
Bite her!

Nobody was watching.

Sicarius said something Basilard could not
hear, and the woman leaned back.

“Interesting,” she said. “I’ll consider
it.”

She snapped her fingers and the guards
clicked their heels, coming to attention.

“Fully secure the other man,” Litya said. “We
don’t need him talking with his fingers any more, and I want to get
samples.”

The guards tromped toward Basilard. He let
his hand drop, as if in defeat, but his fingers touched the edge of
the knife pressed behind him.

While Litya gazed speculatively at Sicarius,
Metya eased past the guards and brushed her fingers across an orb
next to the head of Basilard’s table. It had been dark and dormant,
but it flared to life under her touch. She considered him for a
moment, judging his weight for a dosage probably. Nothing about her
gaze suggested
he
would get a chest caress or any deal
offers.

She was close and this might be his last
chance.

A guard reached for his wrist. Basilard
balled his hand into a fist and jabbed it into the man’s nose.

With half of his body secured, he did not get
much power behind it, but his hand speed gave the blow force
enough. The guard stumbled back, grasping at his nose.

The other man raised his pistol. Knife in
hand now, Basilard leaned out and slashed the blade at the guard’s
wrist. Though swift, the blatant attack sent the man leaping back
in time to avoid it. That was all Basilard needed.

Before Metya could likewise scurry away, he
grabbed her arm. He spun her as he pulled her against his chest to
use her body as a shield, and he pressed the knife against her
throat.

The guards froze, one on either side of
Basilard’s station. They raised their pistols, aiming for his head.
The one with the blood streaming from his nose gritted his teeth,
finger tense on the pistol. He wanted to fire. Badly.

Basilard should have been terrified, but he
had been in life-or-death situations too many times to fall apart
when faced by one. Anyway, he did not think they would fire with
Metya so close. Unfortunately, he could not bargain with his hands
busy holding the woman. Nor could he imagine one of the guards
offering him a clipboard to scrawl a note while he held a knife to
their employer’s throat.

Sicarius watched but did nothing. Strapped
down, he could not help physically, but Basilard would have
appreciated verbal assistance. He could speak and handle the
bartering. But Sicarius said nothing. Basilard lifted his eyebrows
expectantly. Sicarius gazed back.

“What do you want, Scarred and Mute?” Litya
asked, her voice calm despite the blade at her sister’s throat.

She stepped into view behind one of the
guards. Remembering the mental blast her sister had hurled at
Taloncrest, Basilard tightened his grip on Metya.

“Put your weapons down,” he tried to say, but
no sound came from his scarred vocal cords. Maybe the brainy
science woman could read lips.

Litya lifted her hand, palm out. Basilard
would have howled in frustration if he could. He knew what was
coming. He cut into the woman’s throat, determined to take out at
least one of them before they dropped him.

Warm blood gushed down his forearm. A wave of
energy crashed into his head from the left, and agony ricocheted
through his body like a lightning bolt.

The woman dropped from his hands. Dead?
Alive? He didn’t know. Pain assaulted him from all directions, and
he hunched over. If not for the bindings on his lower body, he
would have fallen to the ground and curled into a ball.

With the last of his wherewithal, he threw a
betrayed look at the man who
should
have been his ally in
this.

Sicarius’s eyebrow twitched. He knew. Even if
he didn’t know for certain, he had to know Basilard was a threat.
While Basilard had been thinking of betraying him—of letting
him
die—Sicarius must have been considering the same thing.
Basilard might never wake up, and the rest of the group—his
friends
—would never know that Sicarius could have helped him
and chose not to.

Darkness ended Basilard’s whirling
thoughts.

* * * * *

Books returned from his research trip in time
for dinner and sat down with Amaranthe and Maldynado around the
fire pit of their camp. Snores wafted from the rail car where
Akstyr rested. Yawns tugged at Amaranthe’s mouth, but she focused
on Books.

“I found two possible sources for diving
suits,” he said. “A privately owned fresh-water treasure-hunting
tugboat called the
Tuggle
has been moored in Stumps for the
last two weeks. It seems likely they’d have diving gear. Also, the
Imperial Saberfist
is coming into port tomorrow. It’s a
military vessel in charge of maritime rescue and salvage
operations.”

Amaranthe shook her head. Leave it to the
empire to give even its rescue ships war-like names.

“During times of war,” Books continued, “the
Saberfist
plies the Gulf, but it’s currently stationed in
the Chain Lakes and has been working the Goldar River alongside an
archaeology team.”

“Is there a reason I should do anything
except dismiss the
Saberfist
?” she asked, surprised Books
had bothered with all the details. Though Sicarius might find
thieving from a heavily manned and well-guarded military vessel a
good training exercise, she could not think of a reason to risk it
when another option existed.

Maldynado scratched his jaw. “That ship
sounds familiar.”

“The commander of the marine vessel,” Books
said, “is one Captain Talmuk Mancrest, elder brother of Deret.”

Maldynado snapped his fingers. “That’s right.
We got a tour of it when we were children. Not much firepower—only
a couple of dozen cannons—but lots of other brilliant equipment. We
got to swing on this crane that’s used for—”

Amaranthe cleared her throat. “Let’s save
story hour for later. This isn’t the same brother who tried to
arrange my capture at the newspaper office, right?”

“No,” Maldynado said. “Talmuk’s nearly twenty
years older than Deret. Acts like he’s forty years older. Stuffy
old coot. Walks around like he’s got a ramrod permanently lodged in
his—”

“
Thank
you, I get the picture.”

“I thought you might wish to try talking to
your Mancrest again,” Books said, “to see if he could get us on
board to requisition supplies. Perhaps, since you spared his life
in the pyramid, he’ll be more inclined to listen.”

“Depends on how long it took him to retrieve
that key,” Amaranthe said.

Maldynado snorted.

“I don’t want to wait until tomorrow. Let’s
visit the treasure-hunting ship. If it’s a civilian vessel, maybe
there won’t be more than a guard or two on board.”

Or maybe there would be no one on board, and
they could easily borrow the suits. For once, it’d be nice if
something was easy and went according to plan. Somehow, she doubted
she would be that lucky.

No gas lamps burned near the narrow, rickety
docks at the end of the shipyard. Far south of the broad, modern
piers used for military ships and merchant vessels, these berths
were some of the oldest in the city. Moorage was relatively cheap
and apparently not enough to cover the expense of public lighting.
A quarter moon hanging over the lake illuminated the silhouettes of
smaller ships, a mix of old steamers, sailboats, and combinations
of the two. Amaranthe questioned whether the vessels being tied to
the creaking docks kept them from floating away or if it might be
the other way around.

She led the men along the street, pausing at
each sign to read the numbers. One might assume Pier 173 would
follow Pier 172, but some docks had sunk over the years while
others had expanded and branched out. They passed 169, 169B, and
169C, followed by a skip to 171.

Clothing rustled ahead of them, near a
warehouse on the far side of the street. Five or six people
loitered in the shadows, slouching degenerately against the
wall.

“Friends of yours?” Amaranthe murmured to
Akstyr, knowing this was the Black Arrows territory.

“Ain’t got no friends left in the gang,”
Akstyr said.

“Your rosy personality didn’t endear you to
them?” Books asked.

“Ssh,” Amaranthe whispered.

Though she could not see the eyes of those
who lurked ahead, she felt the intensity of their attention. No
doubt, they were calculating odds, deciding if she and her men
looked like easy targets. She doubted it—Maldynado, Books, and
Akstyr wore their swords openly—but, then, superior numbers and
desperation could make a group brave.

A few muttered words reached her ears.

“...take them.”

“That one’s got an expensive...”

“...brandy for months.”

Amaranthe shook her head at Maldynado,
knowing he was the only one with something “expensive” that would
tempt thugs.

“Looks like another fight,” Books murmured, a
resigned slump to his shoulders.

“Not necessarily,” she whispered, a
mischievous thought sauntering through her mind. “It’s not
contagious, is it?” she asked loudly.

“Huh?” Maldynado blurted.

“I touched you. We all did,” Amaranthe said.
“I just want to know how contagious it is. You should have known
better than to sleep with that girl. Fresh out of the tropics with
emperor knows what disease plaguing her.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Maldynado
played along, but he glared at her. “She looked all right to
me.”

“Thank my ancestors I’m not male,” Amaranthe
went on. “Did you hear what one of the customers said? Rumor is
someone’s peeper rotted up and fell right off after seeing
her.”

Murmurs and the sound of shuffling feet came
from the posse across the street.

“I bet it’s terribly contagious,” Amaranthe
said.

“Yes,” Books said. “A new strain of pizzle
rot out of the Gesh Islands. Coitus isn’t required for
transmission. I expect we’re all doomed just from walking beside
this lout.”

The dark figures in the shadows pushed past
each other in an effort to be the first to sprint away. One tripped
and fell in his haste to round a corner. Nobody stopped to help him
up. Cursing, he scrambled to his feet and ran after his
comrades.

“That’s one way to deter bandits,” Books
said, a grin in his voice.

“You
would
approve,” Maldynado said.
“Boss, it’s not right to joke around about a man’s... Did you call
it a
peeper
?”

“Too sanitized?” She pointed down a rickety
dock with missing and broken boards. A sign magnanimously called it
Pier 173.

“Not if your next job will be teaching small
children.”

“Will they be less vexatious than you?”
Amaranthe led the way down the dock.

“Doubtful,” Books said.

Three ships lined the dock, none with lights
burning on the decks. She started to check the first one, but
paused. The skeletal frame of a crane rose from the deck of the
last ship, a steamer. It possessed a metal hull instead of wood and
had the sturdy look of a tug. Other equipment bristled from the
deck like quills on a porcupine, creating a strange silhouette
against the moonlit sky. Gear for pulling treasures off the lake or
sea floor, Amaranthe guessed.

She turned off her lantern, and darkness
engulfed the dock. She padded toward the salvage vessel, stepping
lightly on the warped, creaking wood. In the still night, she grew
aware of the sound of her own breathing and a breeze flapping a
loose sail a few docks away. The air stirred the omnipresent fishy
scent of the waterfront, and for a moment Amaranthe thought she
smelled something else. Something rotten. The breeze shifted, and
the scent disappeared. Maybe it was nothing—a dead fish washed up
to a nearby beach.