Needle Rain (6 page)

This new sense of smell, this heightening of his senses and thought processes, it was proving useful.

She was in there, somewhere.

The extra men, he had expected them. Still, it made him pause. Kengshee might follow through on their deal, but he didn’t think so. This was an ambush. Training said, you never walked into an ambush – not unless you could ambush them back.

Well, he was going to try.

****

The first moon was out by the time he knocked on the door. He still felt the fire inside, the burning of the needles where they connected in some ethereal network inside him, but now he had red-rimmed eyes as well. He pulled the hood in closer.

“Your sword,” said a swarthy man at the door. A little muscle twitched next to his thick moustache.

Samos smiled thinly. Nerves – he could hear the man’s heart going at a hundred beats to the minute.

“I have none.” He let the man pat him down. He hadn’t come armed with anything like that. Besides, he could always borrow someone else’s.

****

“Someone’s gone in,” announced Finn.

“Who?” Heloise hunched over, peering round Finn but unable discern anything in the darkness. The street below was illuminated by two lanterns and by a brighter trink light but the clinic itself was poorly lit.

“A man with a burnoose. The hood’s over his head. Wait. Hold on. Now there’s no one at the front door and the upstairs sentry has gone too.”

****

There were two men just inside the door. One right, one left. Samos felt his eyes move in miniscule jerks as he scanned them – noting weapons, armor, height, and strength. Like Kengshee, they had a trace of Sungese. The giveaway signs: Dark-hued skin or a tilt to their eyes or a fineness of nose or mouth.

He nodded to them then passed on through the beaded curtain and down the corridor, where there were more men, and then on down the spiral stairs. All the while he listened, looked, and noted, the facts filing away into neat columns in his head. Those he passed fell in behind him, trailing in a long, nervous queue.

He swung round the last turn of the stairs, planted his feet on the floor. Three men down here. Five behind him. Three surrounded Pela – his Pela, with those clear blue eyes and that intoxicating scent.

He remembered wading ankle-deep in the warm waters of the inlet with her holding his hand. She had laughed when he tripped her into the water.

These men held knives and swords to her heart and throat. One, Mr. Kengshee, had his hand round her waist, crushing her sea-green dress.

He spared a long, aching gaze into her eyes, though he yearned to speak. He glared. Damn them all. And he mouthed words anyway,
I love you
. She nodded, carefully, her chin above the point of a blade. Her eyes held fear yet also faith and he thought that she trusted him yet.

Nine. He couldn’t take nine at once. Could he? He couldn’t take anybody while tied to a table. It was a problem he hoped he could solve. It was why he had reinforced his arms and legs with steel.

Drager was here, as far away as possible, in a corner opposite the stairs. He looked fatter somehow and wore a black suit stitched with little gold swirls. When he moved he chinked and a steel gorget showed at the neck. Beneath the suit was armor.

“Hello, Mr. Samos. I trust you are well.” He spoke quietly but there was a fevered gleam to his eyes.

“Spare me, Drager. I have your information on how to make Immolators.”

“Then please lie down.”

Samos barely hesitated; it had to be. He could move fast but Pela would still die. The cool of the table sank into his back. If they stepped away from her for a moment, that was all he needed. He stared at the ceiling as they fastened the manacles at wrist and ankle. A leather strap went over his forehead. Subtly he tugged at the manacles, feeling the bounce of the metal and more resistance than there should be. Something was wrong.

“You test them?” Kengshee sang out, his face poking round from behind Pela. A thin red line scored her throat above his sword. “I took the precaution of adding some fine steel to the restraints. Just in case.”

Drager came closer. Two yards away, Samos estimated.

“I’m an honest man, Mr. Samos. As soon as we have the memory worm I will release you and Miss Pela. This I swear. As long as you have dealt fair, I will be able to deal fairly with you. Agreed?”

Samos stared back. Truth rang in those words, but Drager wasn’t really in charge. It was Kengshee and he feared what Kengshee might do. Where was the help of the goddess? He measured his new strength against the metal and wasn’t sure he could tear loose.

From the floor above came faint timber creaks and tapping noises. Weren’t all Kengshee’s men down here?

He swallowed before he spoke. “I have nothing for you. I’m sorry. The worm was not turned on, but I beg you to release Pela, unharmed. Please.”

“What?” Drager stepped nearer the table.

Samos gauged distance and timing. The swords and knives wavered and moved away from Pela, just enough.

This is it. The moment.

He lunged upward, straining at his bonds. The leather strap about his head snapped. The manacles sliced in, crushing skin flat, then cutting deep until the steel of the manacles hit the metal inserts...and stopped.

Drager leaped back.

The others strode nearer, swords high.

He grunted, yelled, and with his back arching he pushed harder at his bonds. Blood swelled his face, every muscle in his body was taut and fighting but nothing shifted.
Nothing.
Gasping, he collapsed and lay there with his chest heaving and pain pulsing through his limbs. He closed his eyes. He’d failed.

“Enough!” Kengshee commanded. “Drager, check the memory worm. See if he speaks the truth. Someone bandage those wounds before he bleeds everywhere. If the worm’s empty we’ll get him back to the ship. Drager – can’t you stick a needle in him to keep him quiet?”

“No. It would set up interference with the rest of the needles.”

Samos opened his eyes. He licked his lips. “Let her go and I’ll walk to the ship.”

“I’m not stupid, Samos. Without her we’ve no guarantee you’ll behave. Have we? You’ll find we have enough chains to keep even a green Immolator quiet.”

What could he do? He didn’t look at Pela. The shame of his failure was too much.

He owed it to her. Her eyes shone with unshed tears then one tear tracked, shiny, down her cheek. He tried to speak with his eyes, praying the meaning showed.

We’ll get out of this. I promise.

Then he did look away. There were enough tears already.

They strapped his forehead down again and wrapped bandages round his wrists and ankles. Drager leaned close. His fingers touched Samos’s ear and the needle and worm pulled smoothly free. A buzz in his ear, a faint tingle, and that was it.

“I’m sorry,” Drager whispered. “But there was no other way.” He rested a hand on Samos’s shoulder for a moment and his other hand dropped to the side where Samos couldn’t see. The forehead strap loosened.

He turned his head and glared. “You’re sorry?” He struggled to put his anger into words and found nothing that would do. “Why? Why?”

Though his mouth opened, Drager said nothing and he only shook his head.

“Well?” snapped Kengshee. “Is it there?”

The lie was about to unravel. Once Drager swallowed the worm segment he would know. Did he realize that the knowledge would change him? Make him a supremely valuable commodity? Fear shuddered through him. It made him and Pela far less valuable. Perhaps, to Kengshee, that made them worth killing.

Carrying the memory worm and needle cupped in his palms, Drager walked slowly to the chest containing the other needles. He knelt, swaying as if off balance a moment, then he extracted the needle from the worm. He snapped a segment from the worm, raised to his lips, and swallowed.

The room was quiet.

Drager raised his head. “It’s there. The information. He was lying.”

“Release me then, Kengshee, you have what you wanted.” Probability of success, he calculated, less than ten percent.

Kengshee laughed.

It was as he dreaded – too dangerous alive. Maybe they’d just leave them both here, restrained, while they escaped. A kind man would do that. A kind and stupid man. Why would Kengshee leave anything to chance?

As he watched with dulled vision, Kengshee shoved Pela to her knees, took a handful of her hair, pulled upward. Her hands were bound behind her, her neck exposed to the sword he raised above his head.

“No!” It was Drager, standing, hands by his side. Muscles twitched in his neck. He was swaying again, as if drugged. “No. Don’t do this. They can...”

Amused, Kengshee lowered the sword. “Drager, be quiet. Unless you’d like to go without somm?” He glanced sideways. “Ahh, though in a way you’re right. This way there’s too much blood and I haven’t time for bathing.” He sheathed his sword and placed his hands around Pela’s neck. The muscles in his hands and arms tightened. Pela gasped.

There was terror in her eyes.
Forgive me, Pela
, Samos thought, for he could never forgive himself.

One of Kengshee’s men came for him, sour-faced, with a steel chain dangling from his fist. Samos swallowed. It would take a long time for an Immolator to die from strangulation. Distantly he realized Drager was shouting and struggling with someone. The man had a conscience. It made no difference. Kengshee’s hands stayed on Pela’s neck; her face darkened and her gasping becoming a desperate rasp.

The floor above boomed.

With an explosive crack, a section caved in, spraying splinters, timber, dust and a multitude of men. Swords, arms, knives went swinging. Others poured down the stairs. The air, already fogged with dust, filled with screams and curses. Kengshee had released Pela and wrenched out his sword. She lay in a sprawled heap. Men and women danced, fighting with blade clanging against blade. Drager went past, stopped a second with one hand stretched toward Samos, then he was gone. A girl waving a sword, with horror stamped on her face, arrived and pulled repeatedly at one of his manacles.

With a dull clunk and a click, he was free. No time for finesse. He undid the rest and ran for Pela, ramming and brushing past obstacles. Cradling her, he breathed life into her mouth.

Another boom rent the air. A gheist gun hurled sizzling streaks of blue, spinning men around and slamming them into walls. Blue threads gouted from their every pore, their limbs convulsed, and a rictus of terror contorted their faces.

“Okay.” Heloise stood, assimilating the information from the lookout. The sentries had gone from the front door. They could take Drager’s house. There was risk but it was small.

Rule something-or-other:
Command means commanding
. She sniffed, and somewhere inside herself she felt a subtle shift, a difference. Uncertainty gripped her. Hells, she didn’t want to do this any longer. It made her sad and weary.

“Sonja? Bull? What do you think?” She couldn’t see their faces but she felt the surprise. The hesitation before Sonja spoke said it all.

“Love, that sounds like opportunity.”

“Sure does,” said Bull. “Fighting in the streets, in the dark...”

Tinman continued, “Street-fighting’s good for when you want to kill everybody. But us...” You could hear him grinning. “We just want to talk the man out of doing something stupid. And I seriously hate having to use this damned thing.” He hefted Toad.

She checked the determination on their faces. And so it was settled. “Okay. We go.”

They climbed down to street level, double-checked the entry, and slithered in like lowdown snakes – or that was Sonja’s assessment. The entire ground floor and upper story were empty. The door leading to a downward-spiraling staircase was open and sound echoed up the stairs.

“That’s my dada,” Leonie whispered in Heloise’s ear.

“Oh. Shh.”

Before long it was clear that Drager wasn’t downstairs packing up his treasures. Heloise dragged Sonja aside.

“That’s an Immolator down there. What do you make of it?”

Sonja shrugged. “Sounds like they’ve gotten him working for the wrong side. Impressive. The woman down there – I’d say she was the lever.”

“That’s what I thought too. When are the enforcers getting here?”

Sonja shrugged. “No idea. If we wait much longer they’ll be dead from the way things are going. Heloise, we can take them.” She polished the pommel of one sword with her palm.

“An Immolator? Sonja...”

“You been listening, love? They’ve chained him down. They’re scared of him. He’s on our side. First thing I’d do? I’d let him go. Then see them run.” She grinned. “You know what – the Imperator himself will come and shake our hands for doing this.”

The Soldiers of Money, thought Heloise. Could they do it?

She ran through a last assessment, cataloguing their assets.

Nonchalant Sonja, leaning on the wall, with her hands on her swords.

Bull. An army in one burly package of man.

Finn wearing his spectacles of dark glass to protect his eyes.

Tinman with his gheist weapon, Toad.

Rabbit, buck-toothed and scrawny, who was reputed to be better than Sonja with a sword, on his good days.

And Marty, the oldest, and armed with enough knives and batons to equip a kitchen battalion.

They lined the edges of the hall, where the timbers would shift the least, waiting. Waiting for her decision. This could go so wrong, but it needed doing.

A wayward cockroach – attracted by the light perhaps, droned about the ceiling lantern, bumping against the glass. A few mosquitoes had found a way in and one by one they sizzled in the flame.

The Immolator below screamed.

Leonie squeezed her hand and murmured, “Heloise?”

The girl’s father was in this up to his neck. A traitor if what she heard was true. She squeezed back. “Bull, will the thumper get through this floor?”

He grimaced then nodded.

“Then set it up there. Finn, Marty, Sonja – the stairs. We go as one. And you, Honey.” She went down on her knee. “Stay here out of the way.”

“You said you wouldn’t hurt my dada?”

Heloise opened her mouth but the words stuck. No. She couldn’t lie. Not this time. “We’ll try not to, but he’s done something very bad.” Leonie’s face screwed up and her eyes glistened. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry.” She stood. “Stay here. You must not move. Please. Please, promise me.”

Leonie nodded slowly.

No, she wasn’t doing this anymore. Uncle could have her resignation tomorrow.

Sonja mouthed words at her, quietly. “I think they’re killing them.”

The moment. Now. It had to be. She drew Dogrose, the dartzinger, with her right and slipped the knife free with her left. Bull looked at her and she said it: “Go.”

The eight legs of the thumper hit, the air
whoomphed
, and a square of the floor vanished.

They jumped down, screaming, loud enough to wake the undead and all the minions of hell. Or near enough. It was a textbook entry. Rule Thirteen:
Make the Customers Fear You
.

These men hadn’t read the book.

She hit the floor and stumbled to her knees from the impact. Lucky, because a sword swished overhead. She raised the dartzinger as the sword returned on the backswing. A man, teeth bared. She shot him in the face. The dart waggled there on his lip. Sound rushed back, expanding in her ears. Screaming, bellowing. Finn stabbed the man through the chest.

A wasted dart.
A wasted dart, all she could think. The Immolator lay, splayed out like a sacrificial slaughter, limbs to four corners, his eyes tracking her, mouth agape. Sonja – true to her word, rushed for him, swords flourishing. Two men collapsed, headless, armless, in her wake, she reached out with a hand for a manacle and a knife sprouted from her forehead. Sonja wobbled, held the edge of the table, and went down in an untidy mess of legs and arms. Her eyes closed.

Sonja!

There were more than four men down here. Too many. Heloise frantically surveyed the room. Marty was down, clutching his stomach. Bull fought in the corner, methodically flailing. Men tumbled. A Sungese man came for her. She snatched up a sword, parried, shot him with the dartzinger, where she didn’t know, stabbed him when he blinked. He fell back, clutching an arm.

The Immolator yelled at her.

“What? What?”

“Release me!” he screamed.

She scrabbled for the release point, slipped and slid on liquid. Blood? Something on the manacle snapped under her fingers and, and Drager was running up the stairs. While the Immolator fumbled to release his other limbs she guarded him, trading blows of the sword with the man she’d wounded. The dartzinger, blast it, slowed him not at all.

Finn and Rabbit, back to back, fighting two others. The Immolator sprang loose, rising like a gargantuan monster from beneath a sea. In one sweep he felled the man she fought, but where was he going? Finn was down, writhing, on the floor. Another man fled up the stairs, following Drager. Roaring, Bull fought on, staggering, blood streaming down his face and neck. The Immolator ignored them all and knelt above a figure on the floor. Was he kissing her? No. That must be wrong. She screamed at him to get up and help and he ignored her.

And Tinman, cornered, bloody, brought to his last alternative, swung up his weapon and pulled the trigger on Toad.

Blue projectiles spun and buzzed across the room, finding targets. A Sungese, howling, sliced at Tinman and Tinman crashed sideways, his gun continuing to fire, stitching blue across the air.

It wasn’t until sometime afterward that Heloise deduced what had happened in that moment...that Leonie had been killed.