Category Archives: Cleansed by Fire novel

Cleansed by Fire, Part 47

For the previous installment of this story, click here

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 8, Framed in Pain

“So, Demus, what is your assessment of the scene?” Ather asked.

“A right hackety mangle that yar,” Demus replied.

“Once more, with less of the colorful local patois.”

“Pah-TWAW?” Demus mocked. “Yeh’ll clamber that meh lipping is hard to pigeon and yeh squeak out a banger like ‘patois’ in this clime?”

Ather pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Demus, it’s been years, I know, and I’m sure you want nothing better than to twist me off a bit just for laughs after so long, but I simply don’t have the…”

“Right smart hindbrain twaddlin’ yeh cervical and it cain’t handle meh patois?” Demus was grinning now, something midway between a rictus and a smirk.

“Yes, Demus, my hindbrain is functioning perfectly well. I would simply prefer not to have it load up a lexicon of backhome-twit jargon to conduct our conversation,” Ather responded with his own grin, which managed to mix annoyance with a trace of amusement. “Carrying on a conversation with you is tiring enough, as I recall. Doing so and listening to the hindbrain whisper translations to me at the same time seems like a circle of Hell to add to Dante’s Inferno.”

“Yeh ain’t gazed nothin’ Dante scribed since we ‘tended secondary school a’gether, yeh tonne-assed effeme,” Demus sniped. “Couldn’t tell me how many circles of Hell heh scribed on if yeh life hinged on it.”

Ather started to speak again and Demus waved him off. “I’ll tone down meh canto if’it please yeh then, Ather. Make meh speech all boring like yeh urbs enjoy s’much. I was telling yeh, if’n I might return to yeh first question, that I think the scene is a godawful frigful mess.”

“If you want a consulting fee for this little visit, you’ll need to be a tad more specific, Demus.”

“This femme yeh’re trackin’ took down this ugly hulk and worked on his ear canal with the handle of a spoon like sh’wuz rooting fer truffles,” Demus noted. “Then sheh turned it the fuck ‘round and started cracking off bits a’skull inside. An’ when sheh finally finished with him, sheh slit ‘im throat something slow and methodical. Either heh wronged her bad or she was workin’ ‘im over for some kinda information, I ken.”

“Or both,” Ather suggested.

“Or both,” Demus agreed. “Pretty sure she was fishing at least though. Smells like a torture-with-purpose t’me. Fishing for a lead of some sort, I ‘spect.”

“Lovely bait she uses, eh?” Ather said, picking up the tagged and plasz-wrapped spoon and examining the bits of flesh and blood still clinging to it. “Wonder what she caught with it.”

“Well, the hulk here idn’t like to tell us, seeing his soul hopped on,” Demus notes. “Hain’t got a meme-loop implanted in’im, so we cain’t play back his final minutes neither. Hired a ghouler to scrape his cortex a bit but nothin’ coherent from it ‘scept a vague sensation of a name at the end. Could be a place or could be a person. Could be the femme told ‘im a name or could be heh told her. Too muddled to know f’sure.”

“On the sunnyside, at least the note that was stickin’ out’a his business sure tell us who she hoped to be gettin’ the corpse instead’a us,” Demus continued. “Near’s we can tell, she shoved it in post-mortem. Guess she has a merciful streak in’er.”

That note, previously wrapped around a thin stylus, had long since been removed from the corpse’s orifice and encased in plasz like the spoon. Ather didn’t need to look at it again; the note was short and committed to memory: Stavin, I’ll be pushing a great deal deeper when I catch up with you. And I’ll be filling all of your holes. Might make a few new ones, too.

“Word to the wise, Demus,” Ather commented absently. “If you run across Maree Deschaine, I would strongly suggest a double-think before doing anything that might cause her to bear any lasting animosity.”

***

From a very safe distance, with an ocular to her eyes, Maree observed the milling local constables and handful of templars that had followed in Ather’s wake.

He was here only because she wanted him to be. She fondled the small disc in her pocket. The shielded container that held her actual IDentipod rather than one she had pilfered from a corpse and put into her wrist days before. The container that she had flipped open for just a moment as she passed an active security pylon elsewhere in the city. So that for just a moment, Maree Deschaine registered as being here—then gone again.

The kind of thing that might happen from time to time if one was carrying a device to block out the signals from one’s IDentipod, and it had a little hiccup in its system routines.

Soon, Ather would be having his pets scouring the records for anyone in town who was carrying a passport because they would be assuming that Maree was masquerading as someone from outside the Union, and still had her own IDentipod, and that her defenses had slipped for a moment at just the wrong time and wrong place.

They wouldn’t be assuming that she had someone else’s ‘pod, so they wouldn’t be trying to cross-reference the ‘pods of women who had been both here and in Houston recently. As Debrah-Ayn Baylor’s IDentipod had been, Maree thought as she absently rubbed the small scar where she had opened her wrist.

But doing a flay-dance with Ather’s mind wasn’t the point. She wanted him to get together with local law enforcement and see that little note, hence her two anonymous calls earlier today about a ruckus in the cargo center. So that he would know whom she was hunting.

After all, finding Stavin would be very difficult indeed, and Ogre had been helpful, but not precise. Getting Ather to help as he tried to track her down through her own quarry—and following behind him for a while—could make the task so much easier.

A shame that Stavin would never see the note though. I do so want the wyvern-fucker to be squirming before I find him.

(To read the next installment of this story, click here.)

Cleansed by Fire, Part 46

For the previous installment of this story, click here

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Much of the late afternoon and evening had been spent in war council with Amaranth. His brain was still reeling from discussions about whether to hire mercenaries to round out the UFC’s own security forces and very modest militia. The notorious and sadistic sanguinom teams that hired out from the Black Reaches—displaced near-messianic warlords and their zealot followers. Ronin parties, kanji militia, khmeri warhires or sunset squads from the Asian Republics. Ishmaeli hirebrands. Isaacian tactical coteries. The Europa Freelance Legion. All of those and more were now considered viable options, even though some of them posed the possibility of unnecessary collateral damage, potential double-dealing and war atrocities.

But the Universal Faith Catholic, unlike the Vatican, was oriented overwhelmingly toward religion and social work—it did not have at its disposal an entire nation with a standing military—and the UFC maintained what martial forces it had only as a defense against the Vatican’s aggressions. But those aggressions hadn’t been on any scale approaching this for more than a century-and-a-half. Clearly, more guns would be needed from outside the UFC and outside Mars.

So it was that Gregory fell into bed and drifted into deep sleep but uneasy dreams of cautiously navigating tunnels under Mars with blood-soaked floors and gore-covered walls, filled with ravaged bodies that bore too much resemblance to people he loved or for whom he was responsible. And he was uncomfortably aware of sticky blood on his own hands and shirt.

At one point, he looked down a side passage and saw his eldest son, Gavin—wearing the cardinal vestments of the Vatican’s Red Orders—casually slitting his own mother’s throat while she calmly waggled an admonishing finger at him. Then without transition Gregory was sitting at a small table while Daniel Coxe dealt them both some cards. Gregory tried to tell him he didn’t play deceiver very well, but it was so hard to speak with the blade jutting from his throat…

In the midst of whimpering slumber and sweaty sheets, Gregory felt a body wrap itself around him, and he woke suddenly, turning and pressing himself into the familiar contours. His face pressed into the tight curls of Amaranth’s hair, smelling the tang of tobbaq smoke. She must have been up far later than he had, he sensed; whereas he took his stimulants in liquid form—caff or strongtea—she preferred hers from a nicstick.

There was something far hungrier than normal, even frantic, in her probing and touches. Amaranth seemed to be searching for something, and in a primal part of his brain, Gregory quickly sensed what it was. How many hours had she been up past him, with her responsibilities so much more heavily geared toward defense and security? How many bloody scenarios had she had to consider with her staff after Gregory’s part in the discussions had ceased? What concessions to her conscience had she needed to make to protect the people she was charged to defend?

She was hunting for life. She was probing for love. She was seeking his heart with a hunter’s obsessiveness and a lover’s devotion. She was starving for something uncorrupted and sustaining in the midst of chaos and fear. His own blood responded and his mind and body began to hunt for the very same things from her.

Their hands sought each other as if they were trying to commit every centimeter of the other’s body to memory. Tongues and lips delved and darted and lingered as if to burn the taste and texture of themselves into the deepest recesses of their minds. They explored and pressed like they hadn’t in years, with the raw energy of two youths in the throes of early love but also the focus and intensity of wiser elders.

Much later, when Gregory finally pressed between Amaranth’s legs, he found a blazing and molten place. He seemed to melt into his wife. He felt swallowed and consumed as much as he felt he was entering and possessing her. His face found her hair again and he filled his lungs with her scents—perfumed oils, sweat, soap and smoke—and as her teeth bit down hard on his neck, he didn’t care what marks people might snicker about tomorrow behind his back.

There was no simultaneous release—nothing so hackneyed as that—but rather a languid swelling and then fierce, rolling passion where both lost track of who reached the peak first or where each ended. And in the end, when the torrent had run its course, they collapsed as one, twined together tighter than any skein of yarn and slept, finally, in peace.

***

“Tana sup-Juris, thank you for coming at such a late hour,” Lyseena said, extending her hand palm-down to grip the other woman’s forearm in greeting. Tana’s own grip was firm and steady.

As they released each other, the ivory-haired woman smiled, almost imperceptibly. “I wasn’t aware that we templars were allowed to sleep, commander. Now that I know, perhaps I will try it sometime.”

“Please do, Tana. I need my admin officers sharp in these turbulent times.”

The younger templar’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You have already cleared me for the position? I had assumed this was to be an interview.”

“You come recommended by too many people whom I trust, Tana,” Lyseena responded. “Besides which, I have two admin officers with vast field experience on Earth. An important consideration with Secular Genesis giving us the twist these days. What I didn’t have until now was someone who might have the experience I need to deal with our newest key threat, the UFC.”

Tana frowned. “I accept the post, of course, but it’s been 10 years since I last set foot in Mars; I don’t see how much of an edge I can possibly give you.”

“You were born on Mars, Tana. You spent more of your life there than you have on Earth. That counts for more than you know. You still bear the marks of it.”

Tana’s hand reflexively moved to the simple black tattoo above her left eye.

“From your days as a Trav?” Lyseena continued.

“It’s a reminder of the folly of my youth—the only trappings of those days that I retain. I shed the other tattoos, scalpsticks and wirebraids long ago.”

“Is it also a reminder to you of the success of whatever challenge earned that mark for you?”

“I’m not so prideful as that. Becoming a Trav was an act of desperation, commander, of a girl who hated living in Mars and thought that throwing in with the craziest of the population might give me reason to live, or at least make my life shorter and more exciting. It wasn’t until I took vows with the Order Juris that I found purpose and family.”

“You need not defend your loyalty to the templars. What earned you that tattoo?”

“I scaled Olympus Mons alone.”

“The tallest mountain in the solar system and the Travs gave you such a simple marking?”

“I had full gear. There were no dust storms to speak of. I picked a well-marked climbway with oxygen rechargers along the way. And I got back to the base via a powerlsed pickup. By Travailer standards, it was no more than a simple initiation. It was the only sane thing I did in my short time with them; everything else I did should have killed me. I keep the marking to remind myself of the limits of how foolhardy a person should allow herself to get.”

Lyseena nodded. “You disliked living on Mars, certainly a trait shared by some others who have come to us over the years, like the oldest son of the Peteris and Paulis of the UFC. Do you maintain enough objectivity to carry out investigations of Mars or the UFC with a level head?”

“I hated living in Mars. The people and institutions there are no different than any other. Some corrupt and morally bankrupt. Some honest. Most in the middle,” Tana answered. “If I might ask, commander, am I being chosen to fill your admin vacancy truly because of my skills and recommendations, or simply because I was once Martian?”

“Let me ask you a question of my own, Tana. Do you prefer your sidearm or your stunrod in a combat situation?”

Without hesitation, she answered: “That depends on the environment, the situation and the opponent.”

“That is why I picked you, Tana,” Lyseena said firmly. “I need many weapons in my arsenal to fight the Lord’s fight. There are times I will need the Martian you once were. There are time I will need the Terran you are now. There are times I may need you to be something else entirely.”

Tana nodded and made a slight bow of acquiescence.

“Dismissed, Tana. Get some of that precious commodity called sleep now. I don’t know how much of it you or any of us will be getting for a while.”

(This marks the end of Chapter 7. To read the nesxt installment, which is the first part of chapter 8, click here.)

 

Cleansed by Fire Update: What, More Info?

Not much of a post for Thursday, and going online very late in the day, but I had to do a bunch of cleaning today around the house as well as work, and had guests over.

Anyway, I’ve added three more pages, two of them quite beefy, to the Cleansed By Fire portal page, as follows:

Understanding artificial intelligences (AIs) and demi-intelligences (DIs)

A glossary of other miscellaneous terms, part 1 (tech-related)

A glossary of other miscellaneous terms, part 2 (NOT tech-related)

As with the other glossaries that have come before, there will be additions as the novel progresses, most likely, and new terms and technologies and such crop up.

Now, only three more links on the portal page to make active pages for. Not to say that I won’t think of other things to add to the list, but I’ll start by completing what’s already there.

Cleansed by Fire, Part 45

For the previous installment of this story, click here

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Daniel virtually glided into the Burning Ares casino; he slid through the front doors and through the crowd fluidly like a fish that’s been caught and mercifully released. He was already breathing easier. He could forget that he was fuck knows how many kilometers under the surface of Mars breathing air recriculated through hydroponic ventilation tubes. He could pretend his old life was still waiting for him when he left.

Casinos. The only place other than a courtroom that I ever felt truly was home for my soul, he thought. As good as I am at programming work, as much as I love visiting a well-run brothel or taproom, nothing beats a head-to-head competition. Whether with another lawyer or with Lady Chance herself.

Once he was away from the lobby, minishops, boutiques and minor taprooms and onto the gaming floor itself, his mind was as sharp as it had been before uncovering the Godhead’s dirty little secret.

The outer rings of the gaming floor held the less popular games. People gambling on professional sports events like flipdisk, kickrunner and tennis. Lottery games. People playing high-stakes deceiver or overthrow. Even one table, he saw, for scatter chess, and people betting on the outcome of an ongoing game there.

But as he drew toward the center, and to the games with more energy, people and action, Daniel was smiling. Flashjack tables, callibra wheels, a dozen variations of hedron and more.

He happily scythed through several hundred debits worth of losses in the first ten minutes, then settled into a more comfortable up-and-down, back-and-forth set of wins and losses. It was the interplay of risk and reward, gain and loss, that drove him. He could leave here with more or less than he came with and it would make him just as happy either way.

Well, I guess that’s the key difference between a legal arena and a casino for me. I hate losing when there’s a justicar, magistrate or judge behind a bench.

After a couple hours at the Burning Ares, Daniel was ready for a change of scenery, and he had been told the Seven Veils was a definite step up in all ways. But that meant an 80 kilometer maglev ride, the kind of event that should be preceded by a trip to the refresher before he grabbed his nightcloak from the checkroom and hopped on the next train.

In hindsight, he would berate himself repeatedly for not having noticed sooner a man with all the trappings of  a Trav—piercings, tattoos, ribbons, wirebraidings, scalpsticks—but wearing grounders on his feet. Too much alcohol dulling his brain.

In fact, the thought did strike him as he entered the refresher, as he remembered his lessons from Manguang: Martians don’t favor grounders on their feet. And Travailers favor physical challenges, not assistive devices. By then, though, it was too late. Someone was through the door and on him—slamming into him, in fact—and he felt something pierce his underarm. And then his consciousness began to fade.

But he stayed just alert enough, and just long enough, to feel something else slam into him before oblivion took him.

***

No longer did Paulo sup-Juris have a reason to be at his aunt’s house in the outer city, with her away overseas and Gina now dead and Grace in the core city in a hospital berth.

How ironic that for once, Lyseena would probably like me as far away from the inner city as possible, he reflected, and I’m mere blocks away from the Templar’s Tower.

Instead, he sat by the bed of his daughter. Not that he could admit publicly that she was just that, but with Gina dead, his legal status as Grace’s demi-uncle gave him the right to be here. His templar rank didn’t hurt, either.

He held the little girl’s hand. Her eyes were dancing behind her eyelids, but this was nothing like any REM sleep patterns he had ever seen. It was like some flay-dance those eyes were engaged in. Even with her sedated, he could tell that something frantic was occurring in her mind. But he held her hand, because the physicians had told him that her brain patterns calmed significantly when he did so. In a way that no one else’s touch had so far.

If I could be here every minute, Grace. If I would. But if I did that, I’d be in a cell and no use to you. I’d be a pitiful enough demi-uncle under these circumstances. I’m all the more detestable for the fact I’m your father.

In the morning, he would have to return to Templar’s Tower. For now though, he would hold his girl until he passed out from exhaustion, and he prayed he wouldn’t let his grip falter even in sleep.

(For the next installment of this story, click here.)

Cleansed By Fire Update: What the Hell Is That?

I’m really not feeling very inspired today for posting; just don’t have any topics striking me at the moment, though I’m sure there is plenty to say about something and I’m just not motivated enough to do it. 😉

However, let me say to readers of my Cleansed By Fire novel that I have once again updated the portal page and added a couple new items:

A glossary of apparel, armor and personal high-tech accoutrements

A glossary of weapons and weapon-related technologies

A couple other glossaries/reference pages will be up soon, and they will be even more substantial, covering a lot of miscellaneous things and lingo used in the novel that might be confusing. Or, even if they aren’t confusing, the least I can do is explain them a bit more for added color, right? But anyway, these two new ones should keep any curious minds satisfied until then.

As always, I invite input on the novel as I release new installments here on the blog. Yes, even critical comments that tell me I’m doing something stupid. This really is a first draft of a novel that I will polish up later and try to get published; you can be a part of making it better. Besides, I like feedback, if for no other reason than to confirm that folks are actually reading it and want me to continue writing it.

Cleansed by Fire, Part 44

For the previous installment of this story, click here

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Sauntering over to the rack in the hostel-like quarters he was occupying temporarily, Daniel Coxe reached out toward a cloak and caught the eye of his babysitter, Manguang—though he was sure the man would prefer Daniel think of him as a liaison to the Peteris and Paulis. The taller man smiled slightly and nodded.

“Yes, Daniel, that is a nightcloak. You are planning to go out this evening?”

“I’m not confined to quarters, am I?”

“Not at all, but I thought you might avoid the public eye on the day the Vatican declared open warfare on the UFC, being a refugee.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “First, I’m not UFC. Second, there is no reason the Vatican would be looking very hard for me on Mars nor any reason for the few Vatican lackeys who work here to have a clue who I am; I doubt very many people are assigned to find me anywhere on Earth, frankly. Third, I’m hardly a security risk for the Vatican. Security in the Godhead’s complex would have been updated the moment I went missing. Sure, I have an explosive secret, but it’s a secret that the popes don’t even know exists, so they have no reason to fear me.”

“Still…”

“I’m not finished,” Daniel said, waggling a finger. “Fourth, I’m a flipping gambler. I have to live life a little dangerously. By the way, Manguang, are you going to explain to me why the nightcloaks are just a little thicker and way heavier than the daycloaks, since the temperature out in the passages retains the same brisk late autumn bite all day long? Or are you having too much fun running the outworlder through the ignorance obstacle course?”

“Guilty as charged, Daniel. One finds amusement where one can, and Earthers are such fun sport, particularly when we find someone who so clearly hasn’t perused a single Martian guidepack.”

“I didn’t know I was coming to Mars until I started heading here,” Daniel growled. “So? Nightcloaks. Why so heavy?”

“You haven’t been out in the common areas during nightcycle, yet, so you haven’t had the pleasure. Unless it’s a tourist-heavy zone, a-grav systems are turned down for power conservation. Instead of 89% Earth gravity, you have 65% E-grav. A 24 percentage point shift downward is a bit much for even a native. Tourists don’t usually bother with the cloaks. It’s a Martian thing. Tourists will just wear Earth-style coats and put a pair of grounders on their feet if they want to see the real Mars at night.”

“So it’s not a cultural faux pas like you said to wear a daycloak at night or the other way around?”

“Oh, it is. If you’re native or live here long enough, you can spot a daycloak vs. a nightcloak on sight. Subtle differences. If a person is wearing the wrong kind, it’s either an offworlder or a braggart, depending.”

“Braggart?”

“A Martian who wears a daycloak at night is saying ‘I don’t need the help; I’m better than all of you.’ Young dips do it sometimes. Travs sometimes, too, but usually only for the purposes of one of those insane physical challenges they love.”

“What about wearing a nightcloak during the day if you’re Martian?”

Manguang chuckled. “Would you want to announce to the world that you’re too incompetent to walk properly in almost 90% Earth grav without being weighted down? Enjoy your night out, Daniel. Do be careful at the casinos, which I’m sure are your destination. You aren’t as rich as you once were.”

“The Vatican only shot down the account I had in the Union. I can afford to lose a bit still. And shite, I could even win.”

***

Charlyes was amazed at how quickly even Hauruld Taguire had located the man he was looking for. Now all that stood between him and his quarry was a locked door. But some skills, Charlyes believed, should never be left to rot, so that wasn’t truly a problem at all.

However, he was far too old to be doing any of the rough stuff, which is why after calling on Hauruld earlier he had cashed in yet another favor to borrow some muscle from a smuggler acquaintance for the next few weeks. Just one man, but a very tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, agile and powerful one—someone he might have tried to seduce during in his more impetuous youth.

It was that man who entered the room first and, after a struggle so brief it could hardly be called one, there was silence. Charlyes strode into the room, put his finger to his lips and said, “I am going to close this door now, Tobin. Be a good lad and don’t make any noises that will require the permanent dislocation or removal of your cervical spine. Raul, did Mr. Deschaine give you any trouble?”

“Nosir,” the big man responded. “I expect you could’ve taken ‘im down yourself.”

“No need to emasculate the man, Raul. Even though hand-to-hand was never his strong-suit, even when he was keeping himself in shape, he can take a fossil like me. I do imagine he’s still very good with the guns. Maree excelled at both, thank heavens.”

“If he’s so good with guns, he should’ve kept one under the pillow ‘case someone like me came callin’ I think.”

“Raul, a man who truly appreciates the deadly nature of a gun and loves life will not go sleeping with one right next to his skull every night.”

“Charlyes,” Tobin said, more to end the banter between his intruders than anything else. “How the hell did you find me?”

“I was a contract investigator when your father was still in diapers, Tobin. I was a bond hunter when he was entering secondary education. I think that more to the point, you should be concerned as to why I found you.”

“So answer your own question already.”

“Tobin, I wanted to see how you were feeling about…things…since January first.”

“Replay that, please,” Tobin said.

“I was wondering if, after the events in Nova York, you are feeling the requisite level of concern for Secular Genesis—which took you to its bosom so long ago and nurtured you—now that it stands on the precipice and faces down the Vatican.”

“That depends, Charlyes. For whose benefit are you seeking an answer to that?”

“I ask questions, Tobin. I don’t give clues. You want clues, get invited to a quiz-vid show.”

“I’m very concerned that the people currently in charge of Secular Genesis aren’t already rounded up or dead so someone saner can take charge of the movement,” Tobin said, measuring his words carefully and speaking slowly, almost as if they tasted odd on his tongue. “Maree was right, damn her, and I hope she kills the lot of you.”

“Well, you won’t want me on that purge list,” Charlyes said with a wink. “And the only answer out of your mouth that I’d have liked better would have been one in which you expressed a bit more concern for Maree’s safety than for her ability to get herself into more trouble. Get dressed and pack light. I’m going to see if I can turn you into a goddamned father again, or something resembling one.”

***

It had been bitterly disappointing not to find Stavin here, Maree had to admit to herself, but the man she no longer considered her father hadn’t promised her he would be. It was merely another step on the path.

And if there was any consolation—and it was an awfully nice consolation prize—the man she did surprise in the cargo distribution bay was one of the two thugs who had restrained her while Stavin had gone to work on her with the spoon and the stunrod. Never having gotten their names from them or from Stavin, she simply had thought of them as Ogre and Troll since that night. This was Ogre, with his pug nose and dark little eyes set under a thick, fuzzy unibrow.

He had let out a high-pitched, girly yelp when Maree “emerged” from the side of the cargo crate, a vision of banded-steel in the shape of a woman until the wraithskein gave up the camouflage and shifted to an opaque gray. Minutes later Ogre was bound tightly with carbonwire and gagged with an oily rag and trying very hard to look defiant, even though Maree figured it was 50-50 that he would let loose his bowels in a heartbeat if she said “boo.”

Although she still felt very cross toward him for being part of her recent assault, she started by asking him nicely how she could find Stavin without having to muck around with official channels or potentially deadly snares.

When the polite approach failed, she returned the gag to his mouth and decided to pay homage to her treatment at Stavin’s hand, and went to the break room in the bay to find a spoon. They were fresh out of large slotted mixing spoons like the one she had owned before her cottage burned down, and the largest they had was a modest soup spoon, but there was no reason to be quite so literal. After all, she was already going to break with the culinary tradition Stavin had created by picking different anatomical paths than he had.

She began by shoving the handle of the spoon into Ogre’s left ear until she ruptured his eardrum, and then she shoved a bit farther and twisted a few times. She explained to him in calm, measured tones that as much as she shared Stavin’s love of symmetry (as when he hammered both her shoulders with the stunrod), she would absolutely not be ruining his other ear, because she wanted to make sure he could still hear her questions—and his own muffled screams about anything else she might do to him. He didn’t void his bowels at that, but his bladder did experience a momentary failure.

Still, though, he showed reluctance to answer Maree’s questions honestly when she removed the gag, so she pushed the rag back into his mouth and used the large end of the spoon to demonstrate just how far she could shove it into his wounded ear. The damage to bone and cartilage did finally loosen his bowels a bit but it also caused him to pass out. She broke a stimpod under his nose and when he awoke with a shudder, she shoved the capsule up one of his nostrils to make sure he stayed awake.

When Maree promised to stop abusing his head so badly if he would only be more forthcoming, his tongue loosened, but not as much as his bladder and bowels had before. So, she offered to let him watch her shove the wide end of the spoon all the way up the smallest hole and narrowest passage available to her on his body. She wriggled her fingers above his pantzip to punctuate her point.

After that threat, Ogre proved to be very accommodating, and Maree heard real honesty in his words. Men are such babies when you get around to that part of their anatomy, she mused.

He even sounded sincere when he apologized for burning the two little girls along with her three adult cousins—a wholly unsolicited piece of information that apparently whatever was left of his conscience felt inspired to reveal as a bonus.

This got the five charred corpses in her head to stand up and take notice; a shame, really, since she had finally gotten them to sit the shit down and not draw her attention to them. But now she felt their eyes looking through her and into him. Really, though, they were looking at her too, and they were quite clear about what they wanted. What Maree wanted, really. It was justice, after all, that she was after. She knew the corpses in her head were just convenient mental constructs—her conscience gone wild. She had gone around some kind of bend since learning that Stavin had carried out his threats against her family, of that she was certain—but she was confident she hadn’t descended into outright madness.

Maree almost felt sorry for Ogre; she hadn’t even considered that he might have been one of the arsonist-murderers that had carried out Stavin’s orders. Prior to that revelation, she had simply been planning on slaying him quickly, but no longer. For a moment, she was tempted to carry out her threat about the spoon before she killed him, but that seemed too cruel given that he had actually told her what she wanted to know. Instead, she simply made a very leisurely process out of the slitting of his throat.

Ogre made the most appalling noises, even through the rag in his mouth.

If only you knew what I just decided to spare you, because you would have made even worse noises then.

(For the next installment of this story, click here.)

Cleansed by Fire, Part 43

For the previous installment of this story, click here

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

It was Captain Bartelle D’Onofrio’s next-to-last day as the commander of Scion’s Dream, and the day of his final dramatic scene in this portion of the Nazarene’s machinations. In a few days, he would be Bartelle xec-Administrum, governor of Pacifica, and almost certainly he’d discover new intrigues foisted on him by way of repaying the debt to his benefactor, for better or worse.

Ideally, though, the next one won’t involve the surprise that a hellpod is involved.

If Bartelle was the protagonist in this scene, and he certainly felt that way, his opposite number was the poor, confused and ultimately sacrificial new crewman named Dimitri Martin, now standing before him adorned in wristlocks and anklelocks and flanked by two security officers. Fear surrounded him. And he clearly had no idea what was going on.

The Catholic Union needs villains, and that’s what I’m going to provide. Now that I realize the subterfuge to implicate Mars and the UFC in something serious included the deaths of tens of thousands in one fiery stroke, I’m infinitely less inspired than ever to stick my neck out for the noose.

The captain almost felt sorry for Crewman Martin, but there was also the matter of the “missing” Drewtine Atkins, and someone other Bartelle needed to be tied to the ship’s councilor, currently cycling through the organics processors in the bowels of Scion’s Dream, since said councilor was also going to be turned into a scapegoat.

“Dimitri Martin, you have been arrested for conspiracy to aid in the hellpod attack against Nova York, in concert with your presumed co-conspirator Drewtine Atkins,” Bartelle intoned. “You are charged with complicity in the illegal use of a weapon of devastation, for gross disloyalty to the Vatican Orbital Navy, for treason against the Catholic Union, for the transmittal of contraband materials and messages on behalf of the UFC, and other crimes too numerous to mention. Which is amazing considering how short a time you’ve been on this crew. Your friends on Mars are proud of you, I’m certain.”

When Martin opened his mouth to respond, Bartelle waved him off dissmisively. “Utter one word and you’ll be gagged as well. I would say ‘May God have mercy on your soul’ but I’d be pleased enough if He simply sent you to Hell now. Officers, package him up and deliver him to the Black Orders.”

As they left, Bartelle realized that in his entire military career as an officer before, he’d never before been responsible for so many deaths as he had in the past week, both directly and indirectly. It was a shame, of course, that the security officers and shuttle crew would be added to the list, but allowing an innocent man to be interrogated by the inquisitors was too much of a risk.

We’ll never know, of course, how Martin got the explosives on board the shuttle or whether there are still other operatives to be found onboard Scion’s Dream who did so, Bartelle mused. A pity really, to leave that investigation unfinished as I change careers.

***

Although she had expected Paulis Amaranth Dyson to come calling, Domina was surprised that she entered the apartment alone.

“You make your husband keep at least one of his guard dogs close by at all times, but you abstain? My, but we’re foolhardy,” she taunted the Paulis.

“I have nothing to fear from the likes of you.”

“Pope Tommis recruited me when I was 16, Paulis Dyson. Hand-picked my tutors and trainers. I can do more with my body than fornicate.”

Amaranth looked bored. “I’m sure you were quite deadly in your 20s and early 30s, Domina xec-Academie. I’m sure you still do your exercises. But you haven’t been in the field for the Red Orders for at least six years. You have, however, been very good at sending people after me whenever I leave Mars, which makes me very justifiably confident that my skills are more than adequately honed to kill you with my bare hands.”

“And here I thought your hands were only good for punching up orders to launch hellpods at Earth.”

“I know you’re not stupid enough to believe Gregory is capable or that, nor capable of letting me do so and get away with it,” Amaranth responded, to which Domina merely smiled and inclined her head slightly.

“You are here, then, to replace Gregory in my daily interrogations? Fearful that he may be growing…attached to me?”

“Steward Domina, I wouldn’t dream of upsetting the rapport that you and the Peteris are developing,” Amaranth answered. “Nor do I wish to expose you to unnecessary risk that I might be moved to harm you for any number of assaults that you have orchestrated over the years to make my husband a widower.”

“Doesn’t it bother you, Paulis, that Gregory isn’t more dedicated to making my daily life uncomfortable by way of avenging you for all those attempts?”

“Oh, it’s very easy for the Peteris to forgive you those attempts.”

“Really? Because of his gracious Christian spirit or because of his burning libido I stoke so well?”

“Because you’ve been so woefully incompetent in your attempts to harm me for so very, very long,” Amaranth responded sweetly. “This will be, if all goes well, the last time I deal with you directly. I’ve only come to make sure you understand that I’m a bit more Old Testament than my husband.”

Domina merely cocked an eyebrow.

“Eye for an eye, Domina. Tooth for a tooth. If any part of your body touches his, I will come back here to damage it beyond recognition.”

***

Under normal circumstances, Gregory didn’t bother to activate any of the transmit panels in his office unless he wanted to do a vid-comm with someone, watch a media program or have his walls display replicas of famous paintings to fit one of his moods. He preferred his walls to simply be walls; he certainly didn’t want the illusion of windows while he worked.

But today, all five transmit panels were on external mode, showing images of the Martian surface, as if the office were on the one of the lower levels of Candlestand 33 on the surface above, and as if a dust storm was raging “outside.” He knew how much Ambassador Samuel Landers hated his posting here on Mars and how much the man was going to enjoy today’s encounter.

So you need to be reminded of where you are. My home, ambassador, not yours. My arena.

Samuel entered the office wearing a formal diplomatic gown, flanked by two UFC guards. In one hand, the ambassador held a square of wispsilk that bore the ichthys and cruciform symbol of the UFC church, silver on white. In the other hand, a stub-bladed knife that would make a feces-poor weapon against anyone bigger than a child.

But the knife isn’t meant to wound the body, Gregory reminded himself.

“Peteris Gregory Dyson of the Universal Faith Catholic,” Samuel bellowed, letting a sour note enter his voice on the word Catholic. “The Vatican and the Catholic Union do hereby declare a state of open war between the UFC and themselves, effective immediately. Said state to persist unless and until you and Paulis Amaranth Dyson have complied with all of the articles of surrender that were delivered to you this morning.”

With that, he thrust the blade through the center of the wispsilk and slit the flag.

“It is done,” he finished. “Woe to you and to all of your allies.”

Gregory bowed. “So be it. Our articles of accord and statements of defense are likewise entered with you. We declare no war against you but we will defend ourselves against any aggression.”

Samuel bowed as well, but now that the formalities were concluded, he let the civilities drop as well. “You declared war when you helped burn Nova York with a hellpod.”

“We have done no such thing, nor were we complicit in any such act,” Gregory said. “And if you truly believe we would find any value in doing so, you are either delusional or idiotic. You are to remove your offices, and all your personnel, to a candlestand that houses no UFC offices, before the next dayrise.”

“You will regret your actions against the Union, Peteris Dyson.”

“I have taken no actions that invite regret or reprisal, ambassador. But tell me, since we were already in a state of war with the Vatican, and have been for quite some decades now, exactly what is going to be different than before? Will the popes declare me and my wife damned to a deeper level of Hell now?”

“This is a declaration of war in extremis. What mercy has been accorded is now gone, Peteris. We will take, or kill, your people wherever we find them. Inside the Union, or outside it. The Vatican security details for the embassy offices and for the flightports will be taking long walks during their mealbreaks for some time to come.”

With that cryptic statement, the ambassador turned on his heel, dropping both blade and torn flag on the floor, and left the office.

It was five minutes later when Gregory received news of a priest and a novice suddenly missing from a flightport chapel. By the time UFC security details had been dispatched to defend every likely next victim, there were two other UFC personnel gone from public chapels and one who had been the victim of an apparently brutal, and lethal, mugging while taking a stroll.

After that, Gregory devoted three of the transmit panels in his office to displaying the papal towers, so that he wouldn’t forget who the real enemies were.

(To read the next installment in this story, click here.)

Cleansed By Fire Update: Coming Up “Short”

So, Big Man was wondering in a recent comment for one of the more recent Cleansed By Fire episodes how the Vatican and the Catholic Church could have risen to such a position of power worldwide. I answered as best I could, combining information found on some of my portal area pages and some “new” information, but as I pondered his question, it sparked a thought.

And that thought is: What if I told the story of the nearly 2,000-year period between our modern times and the year 4001, in which the novel takes place?

No, not all 2,000 years and not all at once; I’m not insane. I’m already trying to manage a huge world and a complex set of events and try to tell the story of my novel in two or three novels worth of writing. So writing prequels now (or maybe ever) for an entire 2,000 year period is not on my agenda.

However, I was thinking that from time to time, as the mood (and ideas) strike me, I could write short stories, which I would post in the portal area, that could tell the story of various notable people and events prior to the time of the novel, to give you some windows into the fictional past of my fictional future.

The first will likely be “A Tale of Two Templars” so that you can see what the early Order Templar was designed to do, before it became the quasi-militant uber-police force in my novel. I have the general plotline; just need to find the time to write it. Ironically, writing a short story right now is more daunting than writing the novel. Because the blog version of my novel is the very rough first draft of a novel, and I’m writing it in short episodes, I have more room to maneuver and even make mistakes and even write a scene when I’m not sure how to tie it together with the overall plot, because those ideas can come later (or the scene can be killed in the final draft of the novel). A short story would have to be cohesive from the get-go and be a polished, finished, final version by the time I post it here.

Cleansed by Fire, Part 42

For the previous installment of this story, click here

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Once she had finished with Paulo, Lyseena focused herself, prayed briefly, and made a point of seeking out Ather sup-Juris. No sense putting off the inevitable. He was at the far edge of the Pit, discussing something with a tech, and she motioned him over. He finished up, and approached her, his large frame moving with a grace that belied his weight.

“Walk with me Ather. I would like to lunch below. I would like company.”

“Certainly, commander; did you wish to discuss your candidate to replace Maree? She is an excep…”

As they left the immediate vicinity of the Pit, Lyseena cut him off with a quiet, steely, “No.”

Her tone was clear to Ather, and he said nothing, simply nodding slowly in her direction and waiting for her cue as they strolled slowly to the hoverlifts. It came when she continued with, “You might not actually wish to lunch with me when we are done Ather.”

“Do tell,” he answered, with what sounded like genuine, if seemingly modest, concern.

“The survival of the Black Pope was a true miracle to discover this afternoon,” she said. Her affect was flat on the surface, but Ather sensed something darker underneath it.

“Miracles are indeed alive and well, Lyseena. I had been notified shortly before the newsfeeds started releasing the news.”

“How ‘shortly’ before, Ather? Or are you perhaps a miracle worker yourself?”

They had reached the lifts by this point, and the person in the one that opened promptly left it when he saw them. As they replaced him in the lift, Ather noticed that the person had intended to leave on another floor much farther down; his presence often had that effect on people.

As the doors to the lift closed, Ather said, “Lift: Hold position; no alarm.” He turned to Lyseena, and she could see the telltale, if microscopically brief, shift in his facial features that preceded him accessing his hindbrain. “I found out precisely 10.7 minutes before the first newsbriefers transmitted the story. Are you angry that I didn’t tell you? I assumed you had already been told and, if not, that a few-minutes head-start would scarcely aid your investigations.”

“You had no fortuitous knowledge about his survival, then? Or foreknowledge?”

“Lyseena, I serve the Black; you serve the Red. At times, our positions are at odds. Clearly, you are privy this time to something that I am not—a truly rare state of affairs that makes me feel as though I am remiss in my cloak-and-blade skills. I presume that you feel, or know, that no true miracle was involved, which is something I assumed from the start. But if there were machinations behind the Black Pope’s survival, or his ‘predicament,’ I was not made known of them and still have not been.”

Lyseena searched his eyes for a long time, then said, “Lift: Resume descent. Ather. Trinity help me, I believe you. And I don’t know if that gives me comfort or more unease.”

“Lyseena, I am part of the Black Orders and precious little that happens within them gives me ease of mind,” Ather remarked. “By the by, I still wish to lunch with you.”

***

It might be days yet before he knew whether Bechan had escaped Israel, or even if he was still alive, Rabbi Brifel Mann reminded himself. But it would take days for the remaining preparations to come together as well, and it was time to bring Kotel into the picture fully.

Israel’s flagship AI was very sophisticated, but at his core, he was a dressed-up secondary AI, and that was a shame, as it might be the one factor that could prevent him from carrying out his part in the Synod’s plans.

The original Kotel, now there was a masterpiece of AI design. A custom-built primary AI with a template that combined tactical, religious, legal, economic and espionage elements beautifully. A template  so complex that it likely would have made siring offspring with any other AI impossible. He had cost a fortune, and was worth every debit.

Then rendered worthless by the twin missile barrages shortly after the Final Crusade that wiped out Kotel’s main complex and his remote backup databases. The Vatican had tracked the attacks back to some Arab militia and brought them to justice, but most of the Synod had been certain, from the start, that the Vatican had really done the deed. The Vatican that was “protecting” them and helping them rebuild by sealing them off from the rest of the world. Whether they wanted to be or not.

So helpful they had been in providing a new primary AI, though, and so quickly. Kotel II.

And it took us less than a week to find the deeply hidden subroutines that made Kotel II appear loyal to us, but actually linked to the Godhead and furnishing data without ever realizing it.

Instead of confronting the popes and the Godhead directly, the Synod set a plethora of explosives around the core processors of the AI, and turned his databases into so much rubble. And, after informing the Vatican of the disturbing terrorist attack that caught them off-guard and relieved them of their new AI, the members of the Synod asked, very politely, if they could spare the Vatican the expense of another primary AI and simply design their own this time.

Now that everyone on both sides knew privately what they wouldn’t publicly ackowledge, the Vatican struck a compromise: Israel could order up its own AI, but would have to make do with a secondary AI. A primary AI might, they suggested, suffer a similar fate as Kotel I.

Kotel III had served well, until reaching the end of her life five years ago.

And now this Kotel, eager but young—powerful but largely untested—was going to have to try to interface with several sympathetic AIs in the outside world and give them information the Vatican didn’t want released. All while a dozen Vatican Orbital Navy vessels had Jerusalem under constant surveillance, while troops and wingscouts watched Israel’s physical borders, and while guardian AIs kept watch on the nation’s virtual borders.

Brifel sighed.

I strongly suspect we are going to need a new AI very soon, right after the Vatican punishes this one to death. And probably a whole new Synod as well.

(To read the next installment of this story, click here.)

Cleansed by Fire, Part 41

For the previous installment of this story, click here

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Hauruld Taguire liked his tobacco real—he had never used a nicstick or any other method of smoking tobbaq in his life and considered it a point of pride to keep it that way until his dying day. The proprietor of the inhalatory down the street from his multi-suite was of like mind and happy for a customer like Hauruld who could appreciate and afford quality cigars or cigarillos.

Hauruld also liked his wine and scotch very, very old. And he liked his femmes very young—preferably prepubescent and more than slightly frightened.

His first two vices posed no problems for the Vatican. Why should they when the government of the Catholic Union derived so much of its income—both from taxes and from equity stakes in major corporations—from things like casinos, liquor, tobacco, tobbaq and rec-pharms.

As for the third vice, Hauruld was both discreet and, for those very rare times when his discretion slipped, incredibly well-connected, so he’d never so much as been investigated for violation of any of the Catholic Union’s sexual laws. Some said he kept files of improper dealings among the members of the upper Vatican echelons to make sure he never would be.

Like the Vatican, Charlyes Kemusian couldn’t care less about the first two vices, not that he particularly cared for tobacco or tobbaq himself. Of course, Charlyes had never much cared for dalliances with females either, but child-rape certainly wasn’t something he supported. So, while he was fine with the tumbler of scotch Hauruld had given him, he wasn’t enjoying the cloud of smoke hovering in the air nor the even-more-noxious presence of a sexual predator.

But ever since reconnecting with Maree, comatose though she was at the time, Charlyes was feeling that old sense of responsibility and duty edging back. Without any faith remaining in the cause of today’s Secular Genesis, he had decided to choose duty to family and friends instead. Edward Deschaine had been a dear friend, even more so when Matthew was sick and then dying, and Maree was Edward’s family. A pity that Edward’s honor had skipped over Tobin rather more than a bit, but at least it landed squarely in the subsequent generation with Maree.

And so he sat in the presence of very rich man with stunningly few morals, and slid a piece of memorysheet with a vid-capture toward Hauruld.

Between one puff on his cigar and another, Hauruld smiled warily and glanced at the memorysheet.

“That is all you wish me to do in order to settle my outstanding debt with you, Charlyes?” he said, flicking gray ash into a catchbasin nearby. “Much as I hate to admit it, you saved my life, and I don’t want you coming back saying I only paid you partially.”

“Hauruld, I think your life is very near worthless,” Charlyes responded, with a steady, polar-cold voice that an old man who knew two young, strong bodyguards were nearby had no right using. “So it’s an almost even trade. Find him, tell me where he is, and I will forget you ever existed.”

Hauruld laughed without much humor. “Given how old you are, I could just wait a bit longer and let age take that knowledge from you itself. But you want this man’s location, you will have it. Anyone who wants to stay off the Vatican’s sensors is almost always obvious to mine.”

***

“Please sit, Paulo,” Lyseena said. She was meeting him privately in a small side-room off the admin suite. Very intimate. And the location of many a dressing-down when confrontations needed to be had away from curious eyes and ears.

Paulo sat, and picked up a cup of hot caff when Lyseena waved toward the tray on the table between them. For all the casual appearance of this room and the civility thus far, Paulo was no idiot. He was in an arena, and Lyseena was his opponent.

“I want to speak with you about your…adventure, Paulo. When the abort alarm went off on your linkpad, you should have gone straight to the nearest slipgate. Yet you went to fetch your cousin and demi-niece. Why is that?”

“I was near enough. The risk to me was minimal. They were family,” Paulo said. His voice was absolutely level and neutral. He came from a family of merchanters and one of his brothers had taught him the tricks of speaking without revealing. Just as he had taught to Paulo to listen. Which is why he could sense the subtle timbre of Lyseena’s voice, so much like the voice of a business associate when she’s about to turn a deal sour.

“That’s wyvern shit, Paulo,” Lyseena said. Her words were quiet and without obvious malice, but given how rarely she used profanity, the words were more intense than they might have been from other lips. “I don’t believe you were anywhere near them. Tell me, how is Grace doing?”

Another shift in timbre; worse this time. “When we came out of slipspace, her face looked like she was screaming, but there were no words. Her eyes were everywhere, like they were seeing things I couldn’t. The physicians and medtechs say she is calmer now, even without meds. But she hasn’t spoken. There is no sign that her mind is returning, but also no signs of the outright madness that most show when they go through slipspace unprotected. She’s well enough physically, but Gina would have been horrified.”

“You are horrifed in Gina’s place, though, aren’t you?”

“The little girl is blood, commander,” Paulo responded, then fluidly added the lie: “As was Gina.”

“The Order Juris is your family, Paulo, and has been since you took your vows. Blood relations are a distraction. A potentially lethal one, as we’ve just witnessed with you.”

“I’m a product of my culture and my upbringing, Lyseena. We don’t cut the lines to our family loose so blithely. I’ve already given up a normal life to be a templar admin officer. I won’t forget blood.”

Lyseena took a sip of caff, sighed and set the cup down.

“Paulo, what would I discover if I ordered Grace’s regular physician to produce some genetic samples?”

There it was. He had sensed it coming from the start, but had expected a far more direct assault.

“What are you expecting to find, Lyseena? Gina was her mother. She handled her medical affairs, not I.”

“I’m expecting to find her father.”

“A man dead some years now. Why do you want to find him?”

“Is that what I will really find if her physician provides me samples?”

“Of course.”

“And what if I issue a warrant to get samples directly from Grace herself? And not from a man whom I am sure has some loyalty or debt to your family so long ago and so deeply buried that I have no hope of guessing why he would keep doctored genetic samples.”

Paulo said nothing. He held Lyseena’s eyes serenely, and sipped at his caff. The only difference between you and a businessperson, Lyseena, is the gun you carry. And sometimes the gun makes you less dangerous. I won’t be cowed.

“What would I find then?” Lyseena prodded.

“You will find, I expect, exactly what you’re looking for, commander. Your intuition will bear fruit,” he answered, leaning forward ever so slightly. “What do you expect from me?”

“That you would keep your vows, Paulo.”

“Don’t confuse me with Maree, commander. I’ve kept the vows that matter. I’ve been loyal to the templars. Will giving my balls to Lukas do anyone any good? Have them if you think so. I’ll gladly give them. Put them in a jar and show them to your new admin officer as a warning. I certainly don’t need them anymore.”

“For better or worse, your testicles will remain where they are, Paulo. Gina is dead, and I’ll take that as the hand of God removing temptation from your path. I am displeased, Paulo. And this will tinge our relationship. I don’t know how much longer I can keep you near me or if I will find forgiveness for you in the end and rebuild.

“But Paulo, the only reason I am not shipping you to Lukas to pay for your crime is because with Maree’s betrayal and the botch-up of the millennial, I can’t afford another scandal in my inner circle. But rest assured that if Ather’s nose should sniff out what my intuition did, I will hand you over to him in a heartbeat. He’s too consumed with Maree, though, I think, to notice. But if he so much as suggests he has some suspicion about Grace’s parentage and your actions, I will give him leave to reveal everything he can discover about you. I will be surprised and outraged.”

Paulo picked up his cup, sipped at the caff again.

“I live to serve, Lyseena,” he said. She waved him off curtly, and he left to go check on Grace.

Blood to attend to for now. Soon, I hope, blood to spill when we find the creatures who burned Nova York and took my daughter’s mind from her.

(To read the next installment of this story, click here.)