Fade to Black (29 page)

“I did it all for you, Roji,” he said and I winced at the pet name, which I only remembered Ma calling me. “I did it because now you don’t need to hide any more. You can get out of that shitty little place of Dendal’s, doing shitty work for no money. You can be here with me, like you were always meant to. Perak being shot – that was a mistake, but it didn’t matter. It’s you I needed, you who were always so much like me. I knew you’d have the magic. I always knew it would be you.”

He moved forward and I had to work at not flinching back, no matter my watery muscles. He was pleading now, needing me to see, but all I could see was the sickness in his head.

“I made the Glow for you, for your mother, so no one else would die of the synth. I did it for you, Roji. And it is your free will, your choice. To help us, or not. Only if you don’t…” his gaze slid towards the poor wretched figure of Pasha, whimpering with every crack of his joints, “you might find it not so enjoyable. I’ll leave you to decide, but I know my boy. I know that you’re a part of me, that you’re strong enough in the head to know what needs to be done, what’s necessary.”

I wanted to leap up and strangle him, throttle the life out of the smug bastard, but I could barely stand up on my own. So Azama – my father, for fuck’s sake – left without me killing him, Pasha trailing behind like a slack-jawed ghost.

Lise scurried to follow, but she stopped for a bare moment to say, “He made me, he made us all. I’m sorry. I keep trying to tell him about—” Her – my,
our –
father’s abrupt call cut her off and she ran after him. I couldn’t help but notice the brands on her wrists, the fresh bruises on her face. Even his own daughter wasn’t safe.

No one was safe.

They left me on my own for a while, stirring it all in my head. Alone except for Whelar, who prodded at me every so often and jabbed me with the syringe when he thought his whatever-it-was had begun to wear off. I was starting to develop a serious dislike for Whelar, but was too numb to do anything about it. In fact I was pretty sure that if I tried to stand up I’d land flat on my face, the only consolation being that it wouldn’t hurt. So I thought, because that was all I had left.

None of it made much sense. My father had brought me here to help him. All those goons looking for me hadn’t been trying to kill me, but to
find
me. Lise had apologised, but I wasn’t sure for what. I’d caught her with the pistol, and then Amarie had been kidnapped, by my father, to bring me here. I couldn’t see how that was connected, except maybe Lise was
scoping me out, maybe told him how I’d caught her and how much magic the pulse pistol shoved out. And what was Dwarf doing here, and Dench? My father, Namrat’s balls, my father. And just where the fuck was
Jake
?

That last question was answered by a commotion outside the door. A man screamed, briefly, before the sound cut off into a gurgle, making Whelar leap to his feet in alarm. A loud bang followed and something, a bullet perhaps, smashed into the door and ripped part of the flimsy wood away. Then a sound I knew: the buzzing throb of my pulse pistol. A body hit the door and slid down.

When the door opened, Dench was holding the pulse pistol at Jake’s head, but he didn’t need it. She was spark-out, flopped on the floor like a raggedy doll. With a word to the guards outside – “I’ll take it from here, off you go” – Dench shoved the pistol in his pocket, grabbed her swords, threw them back into the Glow room, and pulled Jake into the office, quickly cuffing her hands behind her back. Wise man – she was going to be pissed as hell when she woke up.

“Nice weapon,” Dench said when he straightened up. He dabbed at the cut along his thumb with a grubby cloth. “Bit flashy, but does the job. Dwarf’s a sodding genius.”

“You’re a pain-mage too?” I’d never even had so much as a hint of it from him.

He shrugged, offhand and casual. Not the usual Dench.

“Little bit. Not like you. Just a little something that helps me through my day. Like all the Specials.”

All this time I’d known him – damn, been friends with him, gone drinking and womanising with him – and I’d never known. Not even a sniff. I wasn’t sure what was worse – that he was a mage too and I’d not noticed, or that he was a Special. It was a hard thing to believe, especially of someone like him, who’d always seemed so dedicated to helping the victims of the crimes he investigated, who always seemed to care. One of the good guys in a world full of arseholes. Now he was just another bastard.

It was getting to the point that if the Goddess turned up in a blaze of light and glory, I wouldn’t have been too surprised.

On the floor, Jake blinked her groggy way back to consciousness. Her first action was to wriggle on to her back and aim a sodding great kick at Dench’s arse, sending him sprawling to the floor. I’d anticipated that – well, anticipated she’d be pissed off and likely to hit the closest target anyway – and used it. Whelar watched open-mouthed as Dench hit the floor and I staggered to my feet and knocked the doctor down. I’d like to say it was with a fantastic punch, but I still couldn’t feel anything, and when I stood up I fell into him. The effect was much the same – I was a fair bit bigger than him and I squashed him nicely, getting particular pleasure from the squeak he made as my elbow landed in his groin with all my weight behind it.

When I looked up, Jake had managed to get her handcuffed hands in front of her and was intent on hitting Dench
with a double-fisted punch, right to the face. Dench wasn’t out yet though – he blocked the blow with one arm. The other hand scrabbled in his pocket where he’d stowed the pulse pistol.

I managed to scramble to my knees, left Dr Whelar wheezing and dry-heaving behind me, and crawled towards them. Dench threw an elbow into Jake’s face that sent her reeling on to her back, and in a heartbeat he was on her, pinning her with ease, no matter her frantic struggles. He dragged the pulse pistol out of his pocket and aimed.

My stumble unbalanced him, just for a moment but it was enough to knock him off Jake. The pulse pistol skittered across the floor, out of my reach, but Jake saw what it was and leapt after it. Not quite fast enough – Dench almost flattened her, but she got her hand round it and slid it across the floor to me. My fingers were clumsy on the handle. I almost dropped it twice, as Dench forgot about Jake and came for me, hands outstretched for the pistol.

He needn’t have worried. I pulled the trigger and all I got was a dry click. No pain, no magic, no pulse. Fuck. Then Dench was on me, his fist pounding into my face with a precise finesse I would never have believed. Of course, he’d forgotten what I had forgotten. I never felt a damn thing, but I did manage to pull off one rough, wildly inaccurate punch that got me my only bit of luck that day. He pulled away from me, avoiding the blow, straight into the path of the chair Jake was bringing down over his back.

The silence was beautiful. All that broke it was breathing – my panting, Jake’s harsh breath, Dench’s battered snore, Whelar’s almost inaudible squeak.

“The pistol,” I said when I got my breath back. “Put it in Dench’s hand.”

Jake’s frown showed a deep distrust of what I was saying, but she did it.

“Now point it at Whelar’s head.”

She grinned at that, a wild, heartbreakingly free smile that lit her up like a Glow tube. The buzz of the pistol was loud in the quiet, and Whelar slumped unconscious.

Jake rifled through Dench’s pockets and came up with the key to her cuffs. I dropped the damned thing three times trying to get them unlocked but finally we had it. So had Dench and Whelar, because we handcuffed them to the heating pipe in the corner, locking one man on each side.

Jake sat back on her haunches and gave me a thoughtful stare. “So, now what? What happened to you? You were there one minute and not the next.”

“Now what is, we’re pretty screwed. And I’m not sure. I just knew how to be somewhere else? I was going to grab Amarie and bring her back, if I could. It was worth a try. Probably would have worked too, but I think I may have gone the teensiest bit mad in the process.”

Her mouth hooked into a smile. “Then you can get us where we need to be, and no need to worry about being seen on the way.”

“There’s a slight hitch to that. Would you, um, mind helping me up?”

She only made a slight moue of disgust when she pulled on my arm, and finally I was back on my feet. A bit wobbly, because I couldn’t feel my toes for balance, but the wall helped.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.

“Long story. Short version: no magic. We need to get out of here, quick as we can before my father gets back. I may need you to help me walk.”

She took a shaky step back, her hand groping for a sword, a reassurance that wasn’t there any more. “Your father?”

I swore under my breath – why had I let that out? Because the very fact that it was him was still stunning my brain, I don’t doubt, but it had been a stupid thing to do. “I had no idea, I swe—”

“You bastard. I believed you, I
trusted
you.” Jake kept stepping back towards the door, her hands grasping uselessly at air. “You were working with him the whole time – I should have known. Not the first Upsider to try to get us, oh no, but Pasha said, he said you really believed that your niece had been kidnapped.”

“She was, I swear it.” I stumbled forward, and fell to one knee. Fuck Whelar’s experiment and my numb legs, I needed to get up, needed to stop her before she did anything stupid. “I didn’t know who by.”

“But you led him straight to us just the same. I believed
you, and now you’ve killed us both, Pasha and me, and all the girls we could have got out. And Pasha, what you did to him… I – no, we – we
believed
you. We thought you’d help, not kill us.”

It was that last that cut me the hardest, the cruellest words I’d ever heard said to me, in a hush of a whisper, barely heard. I tried to say it wasn’t true, tried to say I wanted him dead as much as she did, but my numb lips couldn’t form the words. For once I couldn’t lie. Because, meaning to or not, I
had
led my father to her and Pasha, the same as if I’d pointed a big arrow over the top of them and shouted, “Hey, over here,” and he’d maybe known I’d do it. All I could say, pathetic as it was, was this. “I’m sorry. I believed me too, and I should know better.”

She staggered back into the door and fumbled it open. The look she gave me will stay with me for ever. I’d taken what little life she had left, the smallest things that meant everything to her, taken them and smashed them at her feet. Smashed her whole world, and left her reeling.
Nice job, Rojan, very nice. Kiss of Death, my arse, more like Angel of Death, Namrat’s bastard love-child
.

Then she was gone, out of the door and lost in the brightness of the Glow, leaving me alone. Alone and ashamed, and scared out of my wits at what was waiting for me when Azama got back.

Not half as alone as she was, not half as dead as she’d be once Azama or his goons got hold of her, and she hadn’t a
hope of escaping them, not on her own. Especially as she wasn’t thinking clearly, I’d seen that.

I stumbled to the door, squinted out into light brighter than any sun, and followed her.

She got further than she had any right to. The brightness of the Glow, growing with every passing heartbeat, with every whimper, scream and prayer that bounced around the chamber, burned my eyes and made tears stream down my cheeks.

Whelar’s injection had begun to wear off and I could feel my feet, which helped. Sensation came gradually back to my hands and face, and with it the tingle. Goddess help me, I almost didn’t care where it came from, almost gave in to it there and then, I was so relieved to have it back. It also meant I didn’t need to see, because Jake was a blast of force when I asked it, a yanking tug on my innards telling me which way she’d gone.

It also told me she was headed in exactly the wrong direction, straight towards a knot of goons, and Azama. Or maybe that was the right direction, for her. I staggered after her, out of the Glow chamber into a corridor that was black as
Namrat’s heart in comparison. I couldn’t see, but I didn’t have to – she was right there in front of me.

I grabbed for her, missed her and tried again. This time I got her arm and yanked her back. She came, but not quietly, with nails and teeth and knees. I got my hand over her mouth and was rewarded with a palmful of teeth. In the end I had to use brute strength, what little I had left, but at least she wasn’t biting me any more.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t, I swear.” I kept saying it, quiet as I could, over and over, but I don’t think she believed me. “Stop it, stop, or you’ll get us all killed.”

As soon as she quietened I let her go, ready for her to come at me again. I couldn’t really blame her – we had precious few choices left anyway. I still couldn’t see properly, but shapes were just becoming visible in the blotchy gloom.

“So what are you going to do then, Rojan?” Her voice was wet with tears, but steady enough. Maybe going for me had taken some of the recklessness out of her. “Turn me over to your father, like you did with Pasha? Or are you going to let me go, and let me do what I came to do?”

The voice came out of the dark, silencing us both. A voice of sanity in an insane world, a voice of order and calm and normality. “Now that’s a very good question. So, Roji, what are you going to do? Who are you going to save, the worthless few or the worthy many?”

At Azama’s word, Glow globes snapped on and I could see. I wished I couldn’t. The face of the Goddess loomed above me,
twisted beyond anything I’d seen before. There was no benignity here, no soft features, not even the staunch look of the mural in the Downside temple I’d seen. Here she was fury, she was loathing, she was contempt, she was hope, pain, suffering, an avenging goddess with a whip in her one hand and a bloody sneer on her lips. And a tiger at her feet. Not a mural, or a painting. A real tiger, and an explanation for the growling. Namrat, pacing up and down, eyes bright and fierce.

Jake moaned beside me and fell to her knees with her head in her hands. Her whispered prayers, more like pleadings, rattled along my spine and chilled my soul. So did the altar beneath the mural, a flat stone soaked with dark, ground-in stains. Jake’s swords lay atop it, crossed and bloody. And he stood next to it with a smug, quizzical look about him, as though he’d enquired after my health, not asked me who to condemn. Azama.