Needle Rain (25 page)

It was nice that he pretended to consider her words, as if she’d not said the daftest thing ever. Her heart’s rhythm pounded slow and steady but she had to fight to keep her breathing from getting out of hand. Men. Bad influences on her, always.

“Thank you,” he said, in that deep voice that played havoc with her senses. Around his eyes crinkled in a smile. “I’ve decided to take that as a compliment. One I hope to deserve.”

She cleared her throat. That was a start. “The message that was sent to me... It said you hoped to remove the needles. Can you?”

“No.” He picked a beetle off his bare arm and then another and another, putting them away in a lidded basket. “Not yet. Omi has mountains of manuscripts and books regarding Vassbinder in his library, but none show exactly how to remove them. It’s hard to convey that information with words and diagrams. Possible, but difficult.”

“Not yet,” she muttered, struggling to conceal her disappointment. “But Vassbinder? I don’t get it? What has he to do with this? What has Omi to do with it?”

“Ah. He’s not told you?” Thom closed the basket, laced his hands together. “Vassbinder placed needles into Omi, many years ago. Same pattern. And so the same problem as you. Ghosts possess him, except for here, where the Bloodmen’s ghosts protect him.”

“That’s... What? You expect me to believe that? He’s what? A hundred and more years old?” She covered her face with her hands and peeked out through her fingers, stared some more. “My Gods, You do believe it. It’s the truth?”

“As far as I can tell. Why else would he say it? He’s lived with the consequences. Vassbinder was looking for immortality, so he could make his Immolators even greater.”

A beetle crawled ponderously up the length of his braid. She lifted a finger, pointed. “You missed one.” Then she reached for it, only to find its fork-toed legs tangled in his hair. “Oops. Sorry.” By using both hands she freed the beetle, intensely aware of Thom’s closeness. “Here.”

Wordlessly, he took the beetle from her, placed it in the basket. “Mara. Would you take these back to Momma Abeywa? Be very gentle with them.”

“Sure.” She ran up and carefully took the basket, flashing a wide smile at Heloise.

“Thank you,” said Thom.

She jogged away.

“That’s one devoted little follower.”

“Yes, she saved my life and, I suppose, I saved hers too.”

“Really?
Hmph.
So.” Heloise sat back down. “Are you going to tell me there’s another way, or not? I’ll help you if I can.”

“There may be another way. Omi is convinced the answer lies somewhere in Vassbinder’s old sea-mansion, on the cliffs a bit further north. I’m planning to go there tomorrow. Let me show you.” He rose and offered to help her to her feet.

After the briefest hesitation, she took his hand. The warmth as her hand was swallowed up in his raced through her body. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He led her along the brink past a ragged copse of willows spilling over the face of the cliff. “There.”

Heloise unclipped her trink telescope, remembering the time she’d used it to scope out the soldiers in their exercise yard, a million, million years ago. She trained it on the distant point. It was as if a hungry god had bitten into the ochre rock. Much of the sea-mansion looked to have sheered away and fallen into the sea. The darker, honeycombed gaps must be where rooms exposed their secrets. At the base of the cliff, a few chunks of the gray rock poked up from the crystalline blue-green water, rotten teeth set in molten glass.

“Then I’ll join you.”

“Why would you?” He shook his head. “No. Too dangerous. Omi has felt a ghost there. Vassbinder’s, he thinks. That’s why he’s never ventured in. He fears what might happen to him, and if you think I’d let you in there? No. I have enough on my conscience.”

“I’m coming. I’m not Omi. This is something that affects my
life.
” She balanced evenly on the balls of her feet. “Ghosts have no hold over me since what you helped me do that night.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I just know.” She clenched her fist, exulting. “
I
can control
them
. Besides, I’m old enough to make my own decisions. Sir.”

Now that surprised him, his mouth was part open and he wore a little crease in the middle of his forehead.

Heloise grinned back, spun the telescope on its strap and popped it back into its case. Done and dusted. “I’m going.”

****

Thom found himself admiring her for her inconvenient boldness while at the same time exasperation made him want to wring her neck. And spank her, preferably with those leggings off. Definitely, with them off.

If he said no, again, he was sure she’d come anyway. Indomitable, was the word that sprang to mind.

She did that little bounce on her feet, like a bitch-hound ready to take off from the racing box.

He had to try. “
How
can you be so sure? Have you done this? Apart from that once? No, of course you’ve not. What if you’re wrong?”

Her grin faded and her lips set in a firm line. “Listen, Thom Drager, I didn’t come all the way up here to be ordered around by the very person who caused this in the first place. I want these needles out and I don’t intend letting a mere Needle Master, who doesn’t know one end of a sword from the other, go off on his own down some abandoned haunted hole in the ground. Get it? I’m coming.”

“Swords don’t work on ghosts.”

“Neither do needles.”

“
Arhh!
What is it with you?” He folded his arms. The truth was he didn’t really want to go in there by himself but neither did he want Heloise or her mammoth friend to be his protectors.

“Look, it’s the bare facts. We’re trained to tackle dangerous situations. You’re not. We can fight, climb, think our way through bad stuff you can’t even imagine. You can’t throw our help away. This is my future we’re deciding here. Mine.” She paused. “Is it because I’m a woman?”

There were some questions, he decided, you just shouldn’t go anywhere near answering. “Wait on. Climb? You said climb. I thought you were debt collectors? You made that one up, didn’t you?”

Heloise shrugged. “Bruno always made sure we trained for the worst. Difficult building access was one possibility.”

“The worst. Huh.” He rubbed his chin. “If you come with me, it’s just to the entrance. I’m not planning on doing much more than that tomorrow, anyway. And you listen to me if I ask you not to go any further. Sufficient?”

She cocked her head, thought a while. “Mmm, maybe. Question.”

“What?” He headed down the slope back toward the orphanage and she fell in beside him.

“Why, if Omi has known about this for decades, hasn’t he employed someone to do this already? Why now?”

He halted. “Because before, I wasn’t around. Apparently I’m the key element.”

“Who says?” She hooked her hands in her belt but kept on walking, dodging irregular ground with ease.

“Amora says.”

The resilience of youth. After everything that’s happened to her, all my terrible mistakes, of which she still bears the scars, all of that, and still she looks vivacious. And if she thrusts her chest out like that again, either her shirt ties will pop or my pants will.
He sighed. Young, beautiful, and not for him.

Having been married and a father made him feel ancient compared to her. Was six years that big a difference? Maybe it was seven?

He’d have to speak to Bull, see if the man could stop her, providing, of course, Bull didn’t thump him first.

“The Goddess of Love and Hate? She’s involved?”

“Yes.” He smiled lopsidedly. “I just hope she’s on our side. Rogi Vassbinder must have a lot of hate stored up.”

Grint and fennig
– units of money in the Burgla’le Empire.

*****

It was early morning, the dead hour when most were snug in dreamland. The scene was set as carefully as any play on stage with an aromatic candle at each corner of Tatiana’s bed. The mild weather had made such extravagant fire hazards safe for the once. Fresh red satin sheets, if a little salt-stained from the poor laundry methods, a chair in the corner of the room, and a small table covered with plates of delicacies. Last of all, to Samos’s distaste, Kengshee strolled in. From the briskness in his step, the early hour of this assignation was as welcome a time as any other.

He greeted Tatiana with a kiss on the back of her hand then, at her direction, seated himself in the chair. If ever eyes could be said to smolder, his did. Samos wanted to douse him with the bucket of ice water their wine was perched in.

She planned to let him watch. It was a perversion Samos didn’t care for.

She’d ordered him dressed in plain black pants and shirt, while she had somehow found a long, watery blue silk dress, with tiny cloth buttons down the side. It was sheer enough to see through to skin and nipples and show a tantalizing glimpse of the triangle of black at the juncture of her thighs. As always on the ship, she had opted for her natural bob of hair. Her red wig was apparently only for official appearances.

Someone knocked at the door.

“Enter!” she barked, striding out to the map table, apparently unfazed by her revealing attire.

Captain Hujja Sadorey didn’t bat an eyelid and Samos wondered at the effect Tatiana had on the crew of the
Freespear
. Though devoted, they seemed unmanned. Every sultry inch of Tatiana begged to be bedded.

“Yes, captain? Your report?”

“The first scout has found the orphanage, milady. The man, Thom Drager, is staying there and it appears the woman who led the strike against your men at the clinic is there also.”

“Any soldiers? Defenses?”

“None that they could see. Children and a priest. The woman and her companion would seem to be the worst threats that might be encountered. The debt collectors have some semi-military training. Your command, milady?”

She tapped her nails on the table. “Be prepared tomorrow morning. I want no mistakes. Skeleton crew on the
Freespear
. Every man is to be armed and armored as best as we can provide from our stores. Supplies the same as for an assault on a minor fortification. Grapples, ropes, the little trinketton battering ram, naphtha oil. The two boats in the water for transport. The rest: Surround the orphanage and capture Thom Drager. The woman and her companion? If you have to, kill them. No children are to be harmed, if at all possible. Clear?”

“Yes, milady.” He bowed and left. When the door clicked shut, an aching silence filled the room.

Samos wanted what would follow, yet an undercurrent of fear tugged at him.

“Shall we commence the entertainment, Mr. Kengshee?” Tatiana swept into the bedroom and leaned back against the door, closing it.

“Of course, milady.” His insolent expression showed how little he respected her. Samos yearned to pick him up by the scruff and throw him out a porthole.

“Come, Samos.” She patted the bed.

His legs obeyed before his thoughts. He sat gingerly on the very edge.

“Ignore, Mr. Kengshee, dear.” She leaned into his body, a hand on his thigh.

On that command, ignoring came easy. He cupped her chin and kissed her softly at first then with more urgency. As she succumbed to his caresses, he opened his thighs and trapped her body between them, holding her there to let his hands roam down her back and around her buttocks then drag her to him.

“Wait.” She whispered the word in his ear, then pulled back and turned, still between his thighs, to face Kengshee. While she spoke, Samos ran a trail of kisses down the line of her spine.

“In case you have any uncontrollable urges to join in, Mr. Kengshee, I will have to restrain you. For your own safety.”

“Safety?” Samos felt her ass press back against him and ached to do something about it.

“Really? Very well. I’m sure it will add to the experience,” he drawled.

Samos could almost hear the drool in his words. To his surprise, Tatiana stepped away, picked up the bindings herself, from a neat coil on the floor, then tied Kengshee’s hands and feet to the chair he sat in. All the while, he leaned toward her, kissing her soft flesh. By the time he was roped securely, his face was flushed.

Samos eyed the obvious bulge in Kengshee’s pants with distaste. “Come to me,” he said. “Leave that piece of filth.” At that Kengshee only grinned and thrust forward his groin.

“Jealous, are we?” The buttons on Tatiana’s dress were only for show. She shrugged and the dress drifted slowly down her body, revealing her breasts, sliding past her hips, and pooling on the floor.

Naked, she riveted Samos’s gaze to her. Kengshee was nothing.
He
would be the one to possess her. “Come here.”

Once she was within his embrace again, they kissed until every surface of his body throbbed to take her. He groaned as she tugged undone the laces on his trousers.

The button of her trinketton heart was before his lips and he tongued around it. Myriad colors flared from it, reflecting in a swirling coruscation off the skin of Tatiana’s arms, the inner swells of her breasts, and across his pupils, sending him half-blind.

“Ah,” she gasped. “There it is. Stay, Samos! Do not move.” There was a strain in her voice he’d not heard before. “Wait! Wait!”

The button on her chest split into a squirming mass of tiny tubes like the myrrin of millefiori glass.

“One.” She nipped at his lips, placed a hand on his phallus. “Last.” Her lips pressed down on his, then pulled back. “Kiss.” The lust, the warm miasma of her sexuality, smothered him. He was going to come even before he got inside her. Almost. The lip of it, the edge, the penultimate last liquid pulse of desire.

He needed her. Needed to fuck her.

But she broke away and staggered over to Kengshee. His face split in a triumphant smile as she fumbled at his groin then wriggled into his lap, legs astride him. She pressed against him and slid down, impaling herself. Gasping, his head strained back and back even more. Then he screamed.

A rope of writhing glass flashed from her chest to him, connecting them.  Samos watched in horror as the rainbow colors within the glass rope turned to blood red. The trinketton was consuming his heart.

This dreadful act held Tatiana in its thrall as much as it did Kengshee. She too strained in every muscle – her mouth in an awful rictus, lips stretched, with her eyes bulging.

Samos crawled away along the bed. His heart caught in its beat, like the misstep of an invalid relearning the act of walking.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
The regular beat kicked in.

“Wait!” called Tatiana, as if she sensed the lessening of her hold over him. “Do not
think
, Samos.” She panted. “You are mine still. Saved. From this. Still mine.”

It was true – he could feel the tenuous link connecting them, less than before, but more than when he first came aboard. He almost wept at the frustration of knowing this weakness, understanding it, yet being lost in the grasp of desire for her.

The pendant. He slipped off the bed, keeping the two locked-together bodies clearly in his sight. He sidled to the bedroom door and opened it and stepped out.

“Wait,” she repeated.

Her word stopped him, then he pushed the order away, gently. Don’t rush, he told himself as he knelt and felt along and beneath a cupboard. Nothing. Damn it! He pressed his head to the floor. It must be here, somewhere.

“What are you doing, Samos?” Her voice was hoarse. “Stay. I need you. More than anyone could ever need someone. Stay!”

Her words turned his muscles to clay, cold and stiff. He gulped, turned on his side and massaged his legs, creating little explosions of pinprick pain wherever he touched. Then, slowly at first, he crawled slug-like to the next cupboard and reached under it. There his hand fell upon a jade heart – a cool stone that heated like fire as he held it. He drew it to him and clamped it to his forehead, rocking in place on the floor.

“Thank the gods. Thank you.”

“Stay,” she croaked again. “Stay. You must stay with me. I need you. I spared you this fate.”

He stood and swiftly tied the pendant round his hand then headed straight to her.

The sight of her connected to Kengshee by that vile imitation of an umbilicus almost made him vomit. He couldn’t leave her conscious. She would call her men. Jaw clenched, he punched her once then couldn’t stop himself staring down at them. Kengshee looked near death. He barely breathed, his skin was pale, and he flopped across the chair like a cloth doll.

Tatiana moaned. Even like this she was tantalizing. Samos squeezed shut his eyes, then he spun and ran for the door.

He threw open the outer door.

Moonlight silvered on metal. Black sea. Stars speckling the heavens. A sailor at the rail turned with startled wide eyes. Samos felled him and then a second one who came around the corner. As he lowered the man, Samos saw the mid-deck. A snoring mass of men covered it. Those were the Sungese and Kengshee’s men.

The penalty for waiting too long here would be a lifetime as her slave. Yet Joss was aboard, somewhere. He had to find him quickly, before the crew could overwhelm him. Teo was the worst danger. Where would the boy be?

“Samos!” A figure hurtled from a hiding place. Joss grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the rail. “Jump. Now. Before they catch you. Land is that way.” The boy pointed.

As if, he, an Immolator could miss the signs of land, the sounds of goats bleating, and the subtle glow that meant the lights of a town somewhere a few miles away. He could even smell garbage.

They climbed over, hung from the rail, and slipped into the water, sank down and came to the surface. Both of them were grinning. Joss swam like a fish. The water was warmer than the air. It was deep but the waves were no higher than a few feet. Together they struck out toward the land.

“Joss,” Samos said, between strokes. “How did you save the pendant?”

“Threw my own. The fish one. ’Member it? Was in my pocket.”

The one he’d said his dad gave him.

Samos made a note to himself.
Treat the boy like my own son. Forever.

****

The goats followed Heloise, Omi, Thom, and Bull almost to the entrance of the sea-mansion, bleating and trotting alongside. One, a brown-and-white, floppy-eared variety, butted gently at Thom’s hand.

“Esme! Patience, girl!” He waved them back.

“They sure want you to feed them,” said Heloise. The sheer dogged hopefulness of the goats made her feel stupidly happy.

“I generally feed them when I go off to chop wood each morning. Sorry, girls, nothing today. I’m all out.” He held up his hands. The goats stood still, forelegs quivering in eagerness, while they eyed his hands, until the floppy-eared one came forward and butted again, making Thom stumble.

Heloise giggled.

As if surprised by her amusement, Thom looked sideways at her.

“We’re almost there.” Bull’s monotone words sliced through the cheerfulness.

He was right. Over the tops of the coastal shrubs they’d been weaving through for half an hour could be seen the remains of the sea-mansion – ragged ramparts and walls of gray mottled stone stained by weather and black mold. Olive-green creepers twined up the stone and around each other, smothering the walls in places or rearing up with breeze-blown tendrils flailing gently at the sky.

Omi stopped. “This is as far as I go.” He hitched up his robe, baring skinny legs, and sat. “I’ve come this far many times over the years. I can feel him down there. You can also?” He stared at Heloise.

Rogi Vassbinder... The mad needle master had resided here, a century ago. This was a place of horrors. Children must have died here, yet she was nonchalantly preparing to venture into the decayed depths.