The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4) (16 page)

“I need to go make sure
no one is hurt,” Larissa said to Cid as he appeared at her shoulder.

“Fine.”

“You’re not hurt, are
you?”

“No.”

“Cid…”

He looked down at her,
his face scrunched up in confusion, gear oil smudged across his cheeks and all
up his arms, bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, deep wrinkles in his brow.

Larissa softly wrapped
her arms around his chest and held him close. She wanted to say so much, to
thank him for all he’d done, for the things he’d sacrificed, and to tell him
how much she loved him.

“Thanks,” she said
simply.

He kissed the top of
her head, then wriggled free from her grip. “I had better get to driving,” he
said as he turned to the controls.

The monotonous clacking of the train riding
over the tracks faded into static after a while, though Kerrigan struggled to
rest. His shoulder ached like hell, and the rest of his body didn’t feel much
better. Though they had escaped the immediate danger of the pursuing mob at
Sallarium City, he couldn’t help but wonder if a swift bullet to the head might
prove to have been the better option with what lay ahead.

Their journey across
country had taken the best part of a day and a night. What little rest he’d
been afforded hadn’t helped much.

No smoke rose up from
the train’s chimney stack—an issue which would draw attention to them from
anyone who looked hard enough—and if word of the attack at Sallarium had
reached the Capital, the whole city would be on high alert for anything out of
sorts.

Kerrigan shifted
position on the seat; the numbness in his left butt cheek threatened to spread
to the right with an unpleasant tingling. He grunted as he moved, pain shooting
out from all directions, every bump in the track adding a new layer to the dark
bruises covering his body.

The door at the
opposite end of the carriage opened, the loud noises from the outside of the
train echoing inside until the door closed again.

“Here.” Sandy appeared a
moment later and sat in the seat beside him. She had a tin in one hand and a
bundle of rags tucked under her arm.

“What’s that for?” he
asked.

“I’ve been assigned as
your personal nurse, and it is wound-tending time. I would have come sooner,
only I’ve been working on building something for the Friar.”

“Who assigned you to
tend to me?” He didn’t bother to hide the indignation in his voice. He would
not stand for Lieutenant Saunders ordering his cousin to care for a Colonel. That
was not how the chain of command worked.

“Larissa,” Sandy said
as she popped open the tin.

“Oh.” He felt his
shoulders droop. There wasn’t an easy way to argue against Larissa giving
orders. Indeed, he’d allowed her to do so on more occasions than he cared to
count, and he couldn’t start refusing now—not without sounding like a petulant
child.

“She is worried for
your health, and since you won’t let her do her magical healing trick, I will
have to apply some more mundane methodology. Now take your shirt off.”

“I thought you were the
one with the magic,” he said as he worked the buttons on his shirt. Even the
act of picking them apart hurt.

“They’re called skills,
Colonel, and for all my efforts in the art of illusion, I sadly lack the
ability to heal someone simply by touching them.”

“That is a shame,” he
said as his shirt fell away from his shoulders. He hadn’t intended it to sound
like he wished her to touch him, but as soon as the words came out, she raised
her eyebrows at him, and the innuendo hung awkwardly in the air.

She dipped her hand
into the tin, coating her fingers in a pale sticky goo, then reached across his
chest to scrape the goo onto the wound on his shoulder. He thought of arguing
against her doing it—he was perfectly capable of rubbing goo on himself—but she’d
begun before he had a chance to tell her not to. Her touch stung against the
raw, scabby flesh, and he had to bite down on his teeth to keep from crying
out.

“Where did you get the
medical kit?” he managed to ask.

“Narry.”

“Along with the food?”

“Mmm,” Sandy murmured
as she layered more goo on his chest surrounding the wound. The Friar had
slipped out of the train as the others went to retrieve the engine from the
airship and gained a donation of food from the priests in the citadel, along
with a fresh robe. Though it had been dangerous for him to take such a risk, no
one complained when they had all eaten their first fresh and hearty meal in
months.

Kerrigan’s head fell
back against the windowpane as Sandy worked the healing salve into his wound,
the pain abating somewhat.

“Larissa wants to have
a meeting soon,” Sandy said.

“Does she have a plan?”

“I’m not sure. You’ll
have to ask her. Will you go along with her plan if she does?”

“That depends on what
it is. How about you? No one knows your name or your association with us. You
can leave at any time,” Kerrigan said.

“The Admiral knows my
name. Whatever happens, I think we’re all in this until the end. Together.”

Their eyes met. A
different sort of tingling sensation troubled the back of his neck—one he
promptly promised himself to ignore.

“Turn around,” Sandy
said.

“What?”

“Oh…um, turn around,
Colonel, please…sir?” Her eyes twinkled as she wrinkled her nose. Kerrigan was glad
women weren’t allowed in the military if that was to be the standard response to
a superior.

“I didn’t mean you had
to speak with protocol. I mean, what do you want me to turn around for?”

“Oh. To do the wound on
your back, of course.” She wriggled the tin at him.

He sighed, more at his
own stupidity for not figuring that out, then mentally excused his stupidity due
to the lack of sleep as he turned in the seat, allowing her access to his back.

“What did you think I
wanted you to turn around for?” she asked. Her soft touch with goo-covered
fingers met his flesh, mixing the pain with another pleasurable tingling on his
neck.

“No idea,” he said.

“To admire the view?”
she said with a hint of laughter in her voice. “I’ll admit it’s a very nice
view.”

“Even with all the
scars?”

“Absolutely. They make
you look distinguished.”

He laughed and shook
his head. Of all the words seemingly appropriate to describe how he looked
after months of travel and fighting,
distinguished
was not among them.

“Listen, Colonel…”

“Call me Kerrigan.”

“All right… Not by your
first name?”

“No.”

“Will you tell me what
it is, at least?”

“It’s Gabriel… Call me
Kerrigan.” He hissed through his teeth as her fingertip prodded a particularly
painful spot.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He
frowned, feeling foolish for showing weakness. “What did you want to say?”

“It’s…embarrassing.”

“Oh? More embarrassing
than someone who should be regarded as a pillar of strength and authority
having to sit at the back of a train with his shirt off while a civilian woman
rubs goo over his sensitive spots?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you have my attention,
Miss Saunders. I can promise that whatever you need to speak of will not be
passed to anyone else.”

“Especially not Tobin.”

Kerrigan felt a frown
tug on his face. Thankfully, with his back to her, she couldn’t see it. He
didn’t like to make a promise to not discuss things with the one person he
trusted above all others in this group, especially if whatever information
Sandy wanted to share was pertinent to their mission.

“If the discussion is
mission-critical…”

“It is not. Trust me.”
Her hand moved across the top of his back, the delicate touch causing a shiver
all the way down his spine. She drew circles with her fingertip on a point he
was sure didn’t have any injury—perhaps a bruise or two, but nothing that required
tending to.

“Very well. I shall
keep silent. You have my word.”

“We’ve survived through
a lot, and…I think we’d be lucky to survive through much more of what is to
come…” Sandy cleared her throat and paused, her hand disappearing from his
back.

He would have liked her
to keep touching, but it would be entirely inappropriate to say so. He pushed
the selfish thoughts aside and focused on what she was saying, though he
couldn’t guess at what she was working towards. Did she want him to make some
promise to pass her ashes to a boyfriend if she died in the events to come? If
that was the case, perhaps such a discussion would be better had face to face.
He began to turn.

“No, don’t look at me. It’s
easier if you’re facing that way.”

Kerrigan paused and
turned his gaze back to the window. If he hadn’t felt awkward before, it
certainly felt that way now.

“I was just thinking,”
she said, speaking slowly, “that it might be nice to have enjoyed
certain…activities…before being hanged for treason.”

“Activities…”

“Of a sexual nature.”

The conversation
stilted, their voices replaced by the endless thudding of wheels over tracks.
He focussed his attention out the window; a copse of evergreens clung to a
hillside in the distance, a few farm houses dotted across the landscape, people
going about their lives as though nothing were amiss in the world. Who would
ever guess that the odd group of people aboard a steam train which required no
steam traveled to overthrow the government? Who would ever guess an army
Colonel—a technically dead Colonel—had just been propositioned by a woman on
that same train?

“Should I take your
silence as a no?” Sandy asked, her voice quiet and unsure.

He took a deep breath,
trying to listen to the numerous versions of his own voice which were having an
argument inside his head. It was not a suitable course of action for a Colonel
to engage in sexual activity whilst on a mission—he was technically no longer a
Colonel, and this was certainly not a mission sanctioned by the military. He
was a decent man at least, and it would be against his nature to take advantage
of a woman in such a situation. Technically, though, it wasn’t taking advantage
if the woman was the one who made the proposition…

His eyes finally met
hers after her turned to face her. He suddenly felt self-conscious, sans shirt,
and as he noticed her gaze flick ever so briefly down the front of his chest, a
stirring occurred over which he had no control.

“I…”

His answer cut off
before he could even settle on a response, as the door to the carriage opened
once more, and Larissa, Holt, Narry, and Saunders entered. Sandy looked
mortified as she scooted away and dropped down into the seat opposite. Kerrigan
pulled his shirt on, subtly folding one leg over the other as he dressed.

“Cid says we’ll be in
the Capital by nightfall,” Larissa began as she reached them. She sat beside
Sandy, utterly oblivious to what she’d just interrupted. “So we need a plan.”

“I take it you have one,
Miss Markus.”

“That depends entirely
on what we find when we get there.”

A screeching sound
peeled through the air. They all jostled in their seats as the train lurched.

“Are we stopping?”
Kerrigan asked. No one else seemed concerned.

“Temporarily. We need a
disguise, and Sandy is about to show us all her wonderful talents.”

Larissa looked at
Sandy, her face alight with hopeful innocence. Kerrigan couldn’t quite manage
to get his mind out of the gutter at the thought of seeing Sandy’s talents.

Cid, Larissa, Holt, Narry, Saunders, and
Kerrigan stood side by side, blades of long grass reaching up to their knees. The
train stopped in the middle of the tracks, long fields stretching in either
direction to the horizon, far enough away so they would see if another train
came their way, though no one had seen a single train on their journey which
had passed through several empty stations. The eeriness of that fact had gone
unspoken between them. Solicitude was a benefit for now.

Sandy’s face popped up
over the side of the empty coal car. She waved towards them and Larissa raised
her arm. Sandy popped out of sight.

A moment later, a pile
of coals appeared in the car and a wisp of smoke rose up from the chimney
stack. It wasn’t wholly convincing as illusions went, and in comparison to the
things Larissa had seen the Cleric do, it seemed utterly tame, but it would be
enough to discourage people from paying too much attention to their arrival,
and that was all they needed for now.

“Good work,” Kerrigan
said stiffly as Sandy jogged over to join them to admire her own efforts.

“It will have to do on
such short notice. Aren’t you glad I made you lug my orb around now?” She
shoved her elbow into Saunders’ stomach and raised her eyebrows at Kerrigan.

“The plan, Miss
Markus?” Kerrigan asked, his tone turning even stiffer.

“When we enter the
city, Cid will head to the train yard instead of the station.”

“Why?”

“Because we haven’t
seen any other trains during our journey, and I suspect there is a reason,
though I don’t know what it is. Everything seems off. If we show up where we’re
not expected, we will draw attention to ourselves, and that’s the last thing we
want right now. We need to get into the city to assess what Covelle has done or
what he has not done…or what he is planning…or what the President is planning.”
Larissa sighed; the task ahead seemed far too monumental for a group of seven
people who were tired and battered. The fact that their names would be on the
most-wanted lists in every police enforcer station didn’t help, either.

“Let’s just start with
the train yard and work up from there,” she said. She half-expected some
argument from the others, but no one disagreed. She wondered if she would ever
get used to having people follow her lead. It didn’t feel natural no matter how
many times she seemed to make up a plan that scraped them through the
situation. She did have more of a plan in her mind, but if people were going to
argue with her over anything, it was the dubious idea floating about inside her
head.

The others filed back
into the train in a solemn line, apart from Narry, who cheerfully announced his
plan to make one more delicious meal for them all before they ran headfirst
into the bear pit. Cid headed toward the engine, his favourite place, and
Larissa had no intention of asking anyone else to guide the train to the last
stop, though she did want to be right up front with him when they arrived. Only
Holt remained by her side, waiting patiently until everyone else was out of
hearing range.

“Something you want to
discuss?” she asked without turning to look at him.

“You are holding
something back.”

“What makes you say
that?”

He answered her with a sideways
glance, one that said
because I know you too well already
. It was as
much romantic as it was frustrating; keeping secrets had never been her strong
point.

“I want us to split
up,” she began, then cringed at her poor choice of words. “I don’t mean
us
us…I mean…” She waved at the train and cringed once more. Waving her arm around
didn’t make the meaning any clearer.

“The team?” Holt said.

“Yes… It depends on
what the situation is when we get there, of course, but I have a feeling they
will know we’re coming.”

“A feeling?”

“I may,” she cleared
her throat, as a familiar and unpleasant burning touched her cheeks, “have told
Miss Cosby my name.”

“You told her your
name,” Holt said, his tone turning noticeably cool.

“I wasn’t expecting her
to know it,” she rushed to explain. “I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear that
my name is at the top of some
most-wanted
list issued by the President
himself. A list that probably has your name on it as well.”

“You told her your
name, discovered this information, and still left her alive?”

“We don’t know that
she’ll send a message to the Capital.”

“If your name is on
that list, there is a bounty on your head. You just stole money from a brothel Madame.
You don’t think she might want to recoup her losses somehow?”

Larissa scrunched her
eyes shut; so much for becoming more competent in the seedy criminal world.

Cid stuck his head out
of the cab and waved at them, a motion to get on board if they didn’t want to
be left behind. Larissa swallowed an apology. It would do them no good to be
sorry for her mistake. Holt didn’t say another word as they headed toward the
train.

After chewing through
what might have been her last meal, Larissa excused herself from the dining car.
Holt watched her warily, and she felt his glare boring into the back of her
head as she closed the door behind her. The wind whipped her hair around in all
directions as she carefully navigated the climb across the coal car, a dull red
glow emanating from the orb hidden within, giving the only clue that the
illusion was still working.

When she finally
reached the engine, she found Cid fiddling with a piece of leather around his
waist.

“Everything all right,
Cid?”

“Yes…I’m just making
something.”

Larissa kept her mouth
shut and flicked between watching the horizon and watching Cid. He seemed to be
fashioning some form of belt with hooks and holders.

“A weapons belt?” she
asked when it finally became apparent.

“Tool belt,” he replied,
not looking at her as he fiddled it into place on his waist, then set to
hooking spanners and wrenches into it.

“Is that really
sensible, considering what we’re heading into?”

“No, and yes. We seem
to keep running into situations calling for adjustments to machinery, and I
intend to be prepared for when it happens next.”

“You wouldn’t prefer a
gun?”

“I have a gun,” he said
as he jerked his chin towards a pistol laying balanced on a shelf above a
wheel.

“You wouldn’t prefer a
whole belt full of guns?”

“You got a whole belt
full of guns to give me?”

“No. We might have if
we find an armoury. We have money for weapons.”

“I’d rather have my
tools,” he said soberly.

“Are they the tools
Elena gave you?”

Cid finally looked up
at her, a strange mix of sadness and annoyance on his features. She wasn’t sure
why she’d bought it up, but it was out in the open now, hanging awkwardly
between them.

“Yes,” he said, then resumed
hooking things to himself.

“Have you eaten?”

“Saunders brought me a
plate.” He jabbed an empty plate sitting on a shelf with a pair of pliers,
which were then stuffed into a pocket on the belt.

“Good. When we get to
the city, we will most likely have to split up.”

Cid stopped what he was
doing, staring down at the belt in silence for a moment before looking up at
her with a twisted expression on his face. “Are you going to send me off with
that Colonel and the others?”

“No, I’m going to send
you off with Friar Narry and Sandy. I have a different task for the Colonel and
the Lieutenant.”

“You trust them to do
as you ask?”

“As far as I can. They
had a chance to screw everything up when we were on the Admiral’s airship and
they did not.”

“What do you expect of
me and the Friar and Sandy?”

“Provided we’re not all
arrested the minute we arrive, I’d like you to head to the citadel at the center
of the city.”

“The Dolonite citadel
beside the palace?”

“That’s the one.”

“The one that’s so
heavily guarded nobody can actually get in it unless they’re one of the very
rich elite people?” Cid asked as he hooked the last tool to his belt.

“The very same.”

“The purpose?”

“There’s a good reason
it’s heavily guarded. Friar Narry said there’s a chance it has direct access to
the palace somewhere. From the way he mentioned it, I suspect he knows more
than he’s letting on, but he wouldn’t give me a straight answer when I pressed
him on it. Besides, Kerrigan told me the fort has all these underground tunnels
that connect it to buildings people wouldn’t know about unless they’d been
shown. I’m guessing the citadel has the same.”

“What’s the point of me
going with them?”

“They probably hide
their hidden tunnels behind some illusion device. Narry might need a man with a
belt full of tools to help him make another set of goggles to detect the
illusion, or perhaps Sandy will want to construct some illusory device of her
own to cover our tracks. I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll figure it out when you
get there. We just need to get into the palace undetected, and I figured it was
a good place to start.”

“And what will you and
Holt be doing while I try to break into the most heavily guarded structure in
the whole country, with nothing more than a priest, a priestess, and a tool
belt to aid me?”

“Shopping.”

Before Cid had a chance
to construct an expletive-ridden response, the train curved on the tracks and
the endless fields and farmlands finally ended. On the horizon, the Capital
city of Daltonia came into view.