Lady of Blades Read online

  "So we're doing the same thing?” Huang asked, eyes widening.

  Chaz snorted. “Don't worry about that. Our technology base isn't as advanced as the immortals’ home world, but we have a few tricks to play they didn't have. If the Centians were going to ‘nuke’ us, they've already done it."

  "That makes me feel so much better,” Huang replied caustically, shaking his head. “So you're saying a stationary ‘gate doesn't attract mana?"

  "It seems that way. We've had our stationary ‘gate up for the past two years without any problem. Now why it would be different for a moveable ‘gate, I don't know. Yet. I will—we can't afford to ignore the problem, and we need to get these things operational before they're ready to hit us with all they've got."

  Huang nodded. “So the next step—"

  "—is figuring out what went wrong and how to counter it. I'll beam over some calculations I worked out on my PCD on the way back down. In the meantime I've got to take a leap to Hilltop and help Jaz out with something."

  "Jaz?” Huang grinned at him. “Damn, she's a hot one."

  "I doubt she'd appreciate the sentiment,” Chaz told him. “But, well, yeah.” On his way up the staircase he stopped and looked back at the tech. “By the time I get back, I'd appreciate it you had everything set up."'

  "I'll do my best."

  "You always do,” Chaz replied. “See you in a few."

  The wards around the lab section kept anyone from transiting in or out, so he was forced to ascend a couple of floors to the maintenance area before he could call a mana strand and form a tube. Less than ten seconds later he was standing outside the address she'd given him. He pulled up the calculations he'd made earlier and beamed them to Huang before he forgot, then strolled casually across the street.

  Jaz met him at the front door. “Charlie!” She threw her arms around him and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “You've got to see my new apartment. I'm so glad you came!"

  He found himself at a loss for words as he followed her down the short hallway and through the door into the apartment.

  Not a bad place, he thought to himself, looking around the bare room. Smooth hardwood the color of walnut ran across the living room floor to the huge bay window. One that, unfortunately, looked out on a stretch of slat fencing and the neighbor's outer wall.

  "Nice apartment ... too bad the view sucks."

  Jaz shrugged. “Better than that rat's nest I was renting."

  Since she'd been given a suite just below Deryk Shea's at the Shea Building Chaz found himself smothering a grin. He doubted anyone could call that a ‘rat's nest.’ “It's nice. So you going to give me the dollar tour?"

  She beamed at him, an expression so out of character he nearly flinched. Usually when she grinned that wide it meant she was about to cause someone severe pain. She led him through a doorway to the right, revealing a large, open kitchen with quite a lot of counter space, a dishwasher, and a double sink. A fetching malachite pattern graced both the floor and the countertops. Chaz let out a low whistle as she leaned over and flicked the light on. “Damn, that's nice."

  "I thought so myself,” she replied, replaying that unsettling smile.

  As she watched he dug a device out of his inner pocket that looked a lot like civilian PCD. He tapped a couple times with his stylus and activated the Search function. In half a minute he had the location of every surveillance device in the place locked down. “What about bugs?” he asked with a lop-sided grin.

  She frowned. “What—like cockroaches? Absolutely not."

  "Well—you never know. Gotta be some reason it's vacant, after all."

  "Just good timing, I guess."

  "Well, you were right about this place. It's ... at least a hundred different kinds of amazing."

  "Only a hundred?"

  "What—you were expecting more?"

  "No,” she said, laughing, but he noted the tightness around her eyes. He'd verified her suspicions, but she wasn't happy about it. “So it's okay?"

  "Sure. Why not?” He smiled and fiddled with his PCD a little longer, bringing up the command line for the bug jammer function. He activated it with a quick code and handed it over to her. In fifteen minutes it would start broadcasting a blanket signal, stomping over a wide range of frequencies within a hundred foot radius. “Give yourself fifteen minutes and you'll be feeling right at home."

  She nodded and slipped the PCD into the pocket of her leather jacket. She leaned forward and gave him another hug.

  He bit his lip to distract himself from the feel of her breasts pressing against him through the fabric of her sweater. Thank God she can't read minds, he thought, as he pulled away. I'd be on the ground screaming like a little girl if she could. She smelled nice, he thought. Not like perfume or even floral soap, but like herself.

  Oh, yeah, he carried a bit of a torch for her. Not that it mattered to her. Near as he could tell she had no sexual inclinations at all. A pity. “Well, I'd better get back to the ... office."

  She cocked her head and regarded him curiously. “Well, thanks for coming by, Chaz.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

  He walked out the front door holding that cheek, not sure whether to be embarrassed or genuinely disturbed. Sure, she was playing a role, but he'd never seen her display the slightest amount of affection for any man but Deryk Shea herself. And he was like her adopted father.

  He sighed as he stepped into the alley and snatched up a mana thread and transited back to the lab complex.

  * * * *

  Jaz set the PCD on the kitchen counter and puttered around the apartment for a few minutes. She'd noticed Chaz's discomfort but wasn't certain of its source. He's a strange man, she thought absently, and dismissed the subject from her mind.

  She snatched the keys off the kitchen counter and headed out the door. A mile down Martin Luther King Way, she dodged into an alley and took a transit tube back to the apartment. I sure hope that damn jammer is working. Otherwise I've just given myself away to that rat.

  In for a penny ... She glanced around the apartment and spoke. “Quickfingers."

  Less than ten seconds a small blue figure materialized, grin first, like some kind of reverse Cheshire Cat. “Hiya, boss."

  She raised a finger to her lips. “Shhhh. Try to keep it down, will you? I'm undercover."

  "Undercover? Wow. And you called me in? I'm so flattered—"

  "Don't be,” she interjected. “Assuming you don't get out of hand, you can be a lot of help with this case."

  "Get out of hand?” he said, giving her a big-eyed innocent look. “Me?"

  The innocent seeming was simply ridiculous coming from the pint-sized azure trickster. It wasn't as though he planned to make trouble, but sowing chaos and confusion was part and parcel of what he was. He could no more help it than Jaz could help being beautiful—though that wasn't a comparison that would have occurred to her. “Okay. I want you to follow the asshole who owns this place. You'll find him in apartment one. Stay ethereal and watch him until he goes somewhere—then follow and see where he goes. If he does anything that looks odd, come get me."

  "Where will you be?"

  "Either here or at PAC headquarters,” she told him. “Don't waste any time—especially if he walks through anyone's wall—just come grab me and take me to where he is."

  "Okay, boss.” He vanished with a loud pop.

  * * * *

  She stepped out into the hallway, whistling, when something caused her to spin. Too late. A man dressed in darkness fired a pistol at her and she felt a sharp pain in the side of her neck. Snarling silently, she started to take a step toward him when her knees buckled. She clawed at the wall to keep herself upright but found, to her surprise, she couldn't even do that much.

  She collapsed, fully aware, but completely unable to move. She lay there on the floor, nose pressed against the dirty blue carpet runner, breathing through the sides of her mouth. She felt herself lifted bodily from the floor and caught a glimpse
of her captor as she was thrown over a broad, gorilla-like shoulder.

  A howling sound came as a black fog filled the hallway. Then she felt a momentary disorientation before being thrown back to the floor with a thud. This time she found herself nose first on a white marble floor, finding it oddly warm against her cheek.

  "Here's the one, mistress. I told you I'd find her,” a deep, gravelly voice pronounced.

  "Turn her over. Let me have a look at her.” The voice was soft, high, and almost sickeningly sweet. Before she knew it someone grasped her arm and pulled her over onto her back. She found herself staring up at a thickset, heavy browed man with huge, sloping shoulders. He stepped out of range and another figure, this one obviously female, though thin to the point of obscenity, wrapped in a form-fitting black dress, stepped into view.

  * * * *

  Her hair was likewise concealed behind a skullcap of some sort, framing a white pale oval of a face. Unlined by age, and pretty in a severe way with cyan eyes that burned with an icy fire. “You did good, Tarq. She is quite beautiful. Are you sure she's a ... parahuman?"

  "She is paralyzed,” the ape-like man replied, “not dead."

  Whatever drug they'd used was potent indeed, she realized. Proven by the fact that it could not only affect parahumans, who, by their very nature, were nearly immune to most drugs, but that it would kill anyone that wasn't a para.

  But how they knew about parahumans, or how they had developed a drug that could affect them, she couldn't begin to guess. Who are these people? she asked herself, mind desperately grasping for a way to get herself out of this situation.

  She couldn't speak. Her tongue was as numb as the rest of her. The woman bent down and pinched her face. She felt a mild pressure but no pain. “So beautiful. I'll bet she's strong, too.” A thin hand slid down her face and over her shoulders, squeezing her upper arm. “Good stock."

  Good stock? I sound like fucking cow.

  "Take her to the cell."

  "As you wish, Mistress Hecate."

  Hecate? She felt herself being lifted, tossed over the gorilla guy's shoulder again. Now she was starting to feel a little queasy. Her head swam as she bounced along some corridor hanging half down his back.

  A smell like the inside of a vat smeared with rancid grease rose off his skin, even through his clothes. That didn't help the state of her stomach any. God, I hope I don't puke. I'm not sure I can open my mouth.

  She gagged and a groan escaped.

  A door opened with a loud whoosh of escaping air. She found herself tossed onto a cot in what looked to her to be a bare white room. “Make yourself at home, beautiful. I'm sure I'll be seeing you again, real soon."

  The door fell closed with a clang of finality.

  It took fifteen minutes for her to roll over. She fell onto the floor with a grunt, then struggled to her hands and knees, panting harshly. She pulled herself onto the cot and levered herself into the corner, pulling her knees up to her chin and staring at the bare, white, featureless walls. Well, what now? she asked herself.

  She received no answer.

  Two

  "Boss?” Quickfingers trotted through the apartment, his wide mouth turned into a deep frown. Silence. He sent out an inner sense he usually used to locate his creator and found nothing. Panic filled him and he began to teleport through the apartment, calling out her name. “Jaz!"

  Nothing. He skipped over to the Shea Building, to her apartment there, but found it empty as well. He made another leap, this time to Athena's office. The whoosh of air from his arrival brought Athena's head up from her desk, a thin trail of drool running from her lower lip. She snarled something he didn't catch and wiped the spittle away with the back of her hand. “What the fuck do you want?"

  "The boss is gone! She's missing! I can't find her!"

  Athena, having just awoken from an unexpected nap, wasn't in any mood to deal with the imp's shit. She glared across her desk at the spirit, as he stood on her guest chair waving his spindly little arms around and tugging on his long, thin ears in obvious frustration. “Oh, put a sock in it,” she grunted. “What are you raving about?"

  "How can I put a sock in it and answer your question?” The imp was genuinely puzzled by the contradiction. He blinked at the Amazonian head of the PAC, a woman who massed somewhere near ten times what he did, and flashed a broad grin. “Oh—it's an expression."

  "Yeah,” Athena said tiredly, “it's an expression."

  "Good. Because I don't wear socks, and I doubt you wanted me to take one of your socks. Or did you?"

  She ignored the question. “Why do you think Jaz is missing?"

  "She gave me a job and I was doing it, and then I went back to get her like she told me but when I got there she was gone and as near as I can tell she isn't anywhere—at least not anywhere I can find her—and I can usually sense her wherever she is, so I'm really worried about her and so I came here to tell you because maybe you'd know where she was or know where I could start looking for her. I call her boss, but you're her boss."

  She pinched her eyes shut and shook her head. Quickfingers didn't need to breathe, and when he got going he kept going. Sometimes she wondered if he'd ever shut up. He did, eventually. For a few seconds, anyway.

  She had to admit this didn't sound good. The imp's connection to his creator was the stuff of legend. If he couldn't find her, it signaled trouble. What kind of trouble was the question of the moment. Athena had the feeling it was big and bad. And she had no answers.

  And Quickfingers saw it in her eyes. He met the PAC Chair's gaze and gave two of his five jesters-cap ears a hard yank. “You can't help me, can you?"

  "I can't help you."

  "Then I'll find someone who can.” The imp's departure was like a small thunderclap. It seemed louder than usual but Athena passed it off as her being overly sensitive. It wasn't as though the creature could change his mass to displace more air because he was upset.

  She sat there in silence for a moment then cleared her desk with one sweep of her long, muscular arm. “Fuck!” Her voice reverberated through the empty office suite. She stood and headed out the door, grabbing her jacket from the coat rack as she passed. Where she didn't have answers, Loki or Chaz might.

  * * * *

  The nightmares were getting worse. For the third night in a row Jaz woke up in a cold sweat, biting back a scream. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was and pulled herself into the corner again, wrapping herself up into a shivering bundle.

  She glanced over at the floor in front of the door, dimly lit by the omni-directional light that suffused the room, dimmed during sleeping hours. An empty tray still sat there where she'd thrown it after her last meal.

  At first she'd refused to eat, realizing almost instantly that the food was drugged, but it didn't take long for them to show her how they dealt with her reluctance. They flooded the cell with gas that left her weak and nauseated then entered the room while she was woozy to deliver a thorough beating. Her body still ached despite her parahuman healing factor.

  She had eaten the next meal they brought. It also left her feeling weak, but far less sick to her stomach than the gas.

  Thus passed the first three days of her captivity.

  Some couple hours later the light began to gradually increase, as if the room were filling with daylight. The door opened and she tensed, not sure whether to expect another meal tray or something else. This time it was something else.

  The woman, the one the gorilla guy had called Hecate, stepped over the threshold and regarded her coolly. “I see you're learning to adapt,” she said, in her saccharin voice.

  Jaz said nothing, trying with all her will to incinerate the woman with the power of her glare. Of course it didn't happen. She couldn't concentrate enough to even access her magesight, so even the spells in her web were out of reach, much less any mana effects. She'd been effectively crippled and she still didn't know what this was all about.

  The woman's small mouth tig
htened but she said nothing. She continued to watch Jaz for a few minutes in perfect silence. “Stubborn bitch, aren't you? Well, we've had stubborn bitches here before,” she murmured. “We know how to deal with your kind."

  My kind? What the fuck is your problem, lady? But Jaz didn't say it aloud. As much as she didn't want to admit it, part of that was fear. She was afraid of what this woman might do, or have done to her at her command.

  "What is your name?"

  She hesitated, then sighed. “Jasmine."

  "Good. You're still learning. Jasmine is a beautiful name. It suits you. I am Hecate, but you are to call me ‘Mistress.’ If any other appellation passes your lips, you will suffer the same punishment you underwent when you refused to eat.

  "I will not tolerate rebellion or disobedience. If I—or one of my men—gives you an order, you are expected to obey it instantly. The repercussions if you do not will be ... most unpleasant. Do you understand me?"

  Jaz nodded numbly. “Why am I here?"

  Hecate lifted a hand and pain shot through her body like she'd grabbed a live wire. She fell back against the wall, her head slamming the white marble with enough force to send a wave of blackness crashing over her. “You will address me as ‘Mistress,’ or you will not address me at all."

  Oh, Christ. That hurt. “Yes, Mistress."

  "Good. Maybe you won't be as big a problem as I anticipated. That would be a good thing. I do not like punishing my slaves. It makes for sullen creatures that do not serve me with the vigor I expect. Now, to answer your question—you are here because you are special. A ‘parahuman,’ I believe your kind is called on Earth. I have need of your genes.

  You will service those of my warriors I send to you until you become pregnant. I will accelerate the gestation and you will give birth, in approximately forty five days, to anywhere between two and six infants. They will be taken from you and put through an accelerated growth process that will bring them to adolescence within the span of one year. The males will be put into a warrior training program. The females will be kept as brood mares."