Dust (Hellsong: Infidels: Cris Book 3) Page 9

She sneers again, but this time sardonically. “You’d stop a person from bringing death down on others, wouldn’t you? If Methadonis started acting in that way, I’d indeed be forced to imprison him. You’d do no less, you just don’t know what kills people, and what doesn’t.”

  An infidel probably wouldn’t lose this argument, but I can’t come up with a snappy single point . . . or wait, maybe I can.

  “Every job requires different tools, Igraine. Someday you’re going to need a hammer, and when you reach for it, all you’re going to find are a bunch of wet noodles.”

  Her blue eyes flash and she gives me an amused smile. “Methadonis is my favorite because he’s never a wet noodle.”

  I laugh a bit because it was kind of funny, but mostly because I need to be on good terms with her.

  The speed with which her emotions just changed is a little disarming.

  “Your information?” she says. “You had something to tell me. If not, this is probably not the right way to wheedle your way into my boudoir.”

  I nod, and take a bite of bread to buy myself some time.

  “Keith and his boys will affirm that they chased me and my team to Soulfall. I’m sure you’ll have them interrogated shortly, and you’ll hear they thought they were chasing me and my son there. They probably think I was trying to save him, even though my boy was on edge.”

  Her manicured fingers tap gently on the table. She swirls her wine in a delicate gesture I don’t dare try to copy and then sips it.

  “So you have them fooled,” she says, smiling into her glass as she takes another sip.

  “I do.”

  “And you’re going to tell me the truth?” She puts the glass down and then lets her hand rest on the gun.

  “I am.”

  “I’m not a patient woman,” Igraine tells me.

  You’re not really a woman at all. “Why’d you deal with Xyn?” I ask quickly.

  She pulls her head back, a motion which would give any normal human woman a double chin, but somehow this bitch has been graced with the most aesthetically calibrated set of genetics I’ve ever seen.

  “He tricked his way in,” she admits. “I don’t like dealing with demons, but he’d already seen the inside of our complex. He knew our entrances, our exits. And his offers . . .”

  I’d struck a nerve here. She really regrets whatever concessions she made to him.

  I give her a rueful grin. “He took the woman I love away from me, and my child. Believe me, I know how tricky that son of a bitch could be.”

  Her blue eyes focus on me, and I can practically feel the whir of her mind. “You killed him?”

  “I did.”

  She takes a sinfruit slice and chews it, leaving her pointer finger on her lips for a moment. “Why did you go to Soulfall?”

  That’s an excellent question, and there’s no avoiding it, so I lay out my lie. “A weapon. The ancients forged it. You know how Archdevils are immune to most substances?”

  Her eyes widen in a tiny moment of exasperation. “Of course.”

  “This weapon is supposed to be able to hurt them all.”

  She almost chews her lip, but somehow her sense of propriety is enough to save her from performing such an unladylike gesture. “Maybe they forged it to fight Saint Wretch?”

  I don’t know what the fuck Saint Wretch is, but hey, if it makes sense to her. “Quite possibly. At any rate, the reason we used my son was because we thought he could get by the evil force down there. As a wight, it might not be aligned against him.”

  She looks at me. “And it didn’t work?”

  I frown. “It did. But the weapon wasn’t there. El Cid thought it’d been taken to the City of Blood and Stone.”

  I avoid studying her too closely because, although I’d really like to see if she’s gotten a whiff of all the bullshit I’m slinging, I’d rather not give her the opportunity to read me.

  “So why are you here?” she asks.

  “Keith thinks my team is following him, but he’s wrong,” I say. “Please don’t tell him, but the truth is that my team’s dead. I lost my son. It’s down to me now. I thought about tricking Keith and his boys into taking me to the City, and then getting them killed there, but Durgan is hard to fool, and Keith’s men didn’t handle Soulfall well.”

  Half-truths are best.

  She spins the gun and stops it with its barrel pointed right back at me. “But you did handle Soulfall.”

  “No. No I didn’t, but I did better than most.”

  Again, the half-truths hopefully sound convincing. I meet her eyes and focus on how beautiful they are. How beautiful she is.

  If there was just some way to snag a good soul and give it this body.

  She spins the gun again, stopping it so the barrel is pointed a little to my left. “I presume you want me to help you get this weapon.”

  “Yes.”

  She giggles. “I have no interest in making the infidels stronger.”

  She used this tactic with Keith, and he answered by offering her things she did want. I guess, in a way, she runs her place as a sort of Switzerland. Keep your head low, and hope the infidels and the demons all kill each other.

  “I imagine not,” I say. “And I assume a leader like yourself wouldn’t want to overtly piss off the City either.”

  She uncrosses her legs and sits up straight. “Make your offer.” Though I’m taller, her posture seats her higher than me.

  “I need a little time to heal my ankle,” I say. “Give me a week. Give me a small team. I’ll show you Blood Pass in exchange for their help in getting to the City. They’ll offer me a modicum of protection.”

  “You’re trying to shortchange me,” she playfully accuses. “If you get a weapon like that, it’s worth a lot more than Blood Pass. Why don’t I kill you and take it myself?”

  I shrug. “Might work, but I’m betting you don’t have a good way to break into the City. Blood Pass pays for my freedom, and nothing more. If I get the weapon, the infidels will be very thankful. We’ll kill an Archdevil of your choice.”

  If she could have sat up any straighter, she would have. I see a shiver run through her body.

  “You’re offering to clear Londinium,” she says, her voice husky, her cheeks flushed as if she’s close to climax.

  “I am indeed.”

  “Would the infidels do that just because you asked them to?” She seems concerned, but I can tell she wants to believe me.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I say in what I hope sounds like a nonchalant tone. “I’m making you that offer. I killed Xyn, remember?”

  She looks at the ceiling for a long moment. “I believe you, Cris.”

  I feel butterflies in my stomach, and my heart leaps with the sudden feel of freedom. I’ll heal. I’ll get a Carrion team. I’ll ditch them and then see if I can find Cid. Sure, finding her would be a ridiculous longshot bordering on a miracle, but . . .

  Igraine’s asking me something. I listen, all the while doing my best to hide my elation.

  “ . . . was just a ruse. You had Aiden on edge to get him into Soulfall.”

  “Correct.”

  “Your deal is a good one. How can I trust you’ll follow through?” I can tell she’s already agreed to this, she’s just trying to cover all her bases.

  “I’m an infidel,” I tell her. “I won’t promise you something I don’t intend to deliver.”

  She seems to accept this. “You appear unarmed. I can get you some weapons. A Heckler and Kotch, perhaps? That’s what you infidels prefer in the Carrion.” She smiles, looking like she’s about to add in some sarcasm. “And maybe I can get you a suit of purple dyitzu armor, like you saw La’Ferve wearing.”

  I laugh at that. “Some weapons will be fine. No need to spare your rare dyitzu skins.”

  She flashes me a knowing grin. “You wouldn’t feel more comfortable being shot in purple?”

  “Well, at least I’d die pretty,” I joke.

  She stands up and puts her hands on
the table, leaning forward. I can see the hint of her cleavage and, even as starved as I am, as close to shitting myself as I am, as wounded as I am, I can’t help but feel a little aroused by her.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” she asks.

  “Of course.”

  Her perfect, white teeth shine in the blue light. “You’re not an infidel,” she whispers.

  She points her gun at me in a motion so smooth, there’s no real cue for me to react to.

  Two men emerge, one from either side of the flowing lava glass wall. They must have been there the whole time, hidden in cubbies behind the illumination.

  What had tipped her off? I run through the conversation.

  I might still be able to salvage this.

  Aiden. She’d said his name. She’d known him. Had I accidently said we’d used wight dust on him? Infidels wouldn’t do that. Fuck.

  “You’re in error,” I tell her in what I hope sounds like a calm voice. “I’m in some rather serious pain, and I might have misheard one of your questions—”

  Her beautiful head shakes. “Oh no, Cris with no ‘h.’ No infidel would poison a child with wightdust just to get a weapon, no matter how powerful it was. No infidel would confuse Icanitzu skin armor with dyitzu skin. I know Myla, and you’re no Infidel Friend. And, of course, there’s the fact that we stripped searched you and found you had no mark. Now what I will believe is that you were on your way to becoming an infidel. You may have even had something to do with scouting in Maylay Beighlay. My people tell me that Q was the one who probably killed Xyn. Q’s an unusual choice, so I doubted the report, but you . . . you’re far less likely.”

  She smiles as one of her men grabs me by the armpits and hoists me up.

  She walks around the table, her gun held loosely at her side. “Myla did speak of you. She said you were more style than substance. More words than man. That’s why she left you, you know. In the end, you’re just a trickster. Lies fail when the bullets fly, little man.”

  Dear God, why did you make women gossip so much? Seriously.

  And how is Myla still fucking me over? I’m starting to not regret having her murdered by corpses.

  As her guards take a firm grip of my arms, she dares to come close to me. I consider kicking her with my good foot, or hell, even my bad one, but unless I could kill her with a single strike, it wouldn’t be worth it.

  She reaches forward and puts a condescending hand on my cheek. “Let me tell you your future, little liar. Myla did her best to show me Blood Pass, and failed, but she felt you might have a better shot. I’m going to have some of my people take you there, and you’re going to help them find it, to the best of your ability. Then you’re going to come back, and assuming you survive all that, I’m going to give you the most terrific and horrifying surprise of your life.”

  Her hand pats my face a couple of times, and I bite back my anger. “I’ll still need to heal.”

  “No you don’t, not really.” She looks to one guard. “Take him to a table. Be careful in your kruk selection, though. Not Jeremy. He’s apt to kill people. How about Melvin? He should do a lot of damage and still leave Cris alive.”

  My body is shaking, with fear or anger, or hate, I don’t know.

  I don’t even know what a kruk is, or who these people are, or what they’re going to do to me.

  “I might drop by to watch,” she tells one guard, then she turns to me. “Oh, baby,” she pouts. “You thought you could fool me because I’m a woman. You men just can’t get it through your heads that we’re smarter than you.”

  Damn. She’s right, I shouldn’t have . . . wait a fucking minute. I didn’t underestimate her. I thought this was a shot in the dark at best. For a moment, my anger leaves and I feel a surge of pity.

  “I didn’t underestimate you. I’m not playing a game. I did the only thing I could think of to save my life. To save the life of my . . .”

  I was going to say son, but I realize now I can’t think that way. The biggest change I faced in becoming a parent was that my highest priority wasn’t me anymore. In a real way, I was living for someone else, and their needs came first. It had been freeing, somehow easier. That kind of living seemed cleaner, less selfish and more fulfilling.

  Beyond the heartbreak, the grieving, the unbearable loss of that thing which means the most to a person’s heart, I guess it’s the return to selfishness which is the true hallmark of a father who’s lost his only son.

  “I think I will find time to watch you break,” Igraine says. “Maybe I’ll even have them switch out kruks on you.”

  “I don’t even know what a kruk is,” I tell her, “so you can save your breath.”

  She turns away and walks back to the table. “Don’t worry. It’s worse than you’re imagining, Cris. I’m sorry, but Maab has proven this is the best way. You’re a danger to yourself, to others. Your ego makes you lie and take up airs. But this will humble you.”

  They drag me away.

  Maybe, if I were healed, I could have fought these guards and beaten them before help had time to come. Maybe.

  But now . . .

  Now I’m just helpless.

  Tintagel, it turns out, does indeed go deeper. Much deeper.

  As we pass through guarded gates and descend down spiral stairways, I see a much different kind of slave here. These are definitely miners, and almost none of them could ever be confused with a sexual slave. They are horribly malnourished, closer to Auschwitz victims than to the men above, and are dressed in a lighter grey cloth which is both cut poorly and clumsily seamed. It is a caste system of slavery, I realize. Different flavors of horror, getting worse and worse as we go deeper, an awkward mimicry of the Hell outside this place.

  After we come down one tight stairwell, the men become so emaciated I doubt they could have even survived on Earth. Their work is slower, and many we pass are simply panting by the rock, struggling to summon enough energy to lift their meager picks.

  One man looks up at me, and I’m too stupid to look away. His eyes bug out from his wan, pale face. Dirt, not color, is what gives definition to the hollow of his cheeks. His fingernails are either bruised, battered and broken, or missing altogether. His open robe reveals a distended stomach, filled with gas in the perverse likeness of a full belly. His thin lips, pulled back by the tautness of his skin, reveal long teeth set weakly into receded gums.

  They’ve castrated him.

  “Wait,” I tell the guards who drag me, but they do not listen.

  How? How could people, people who assumedly had known the wonders of the 20th century, stand to see men in such a state?

  “How can you do this to them?” I ask the guards.

  “They do it to themselves,” one answers.

  And I remember, on Earth, how Myla had tried to explain why people who didn’t love God, or believed in a different God than she, were choosing to go to Hell.

  “If it’s my choice,” I had said, “then I choose not to go there.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” she had answered.

  And it doesn’t.

  Look at me.

  Damned.

  Myla, though, how had she ended up in Hell? Was it really her suicide that caused God to turn his back on her? But the longer I’ve been damned, the more skeptical of this I’ve become. It seems like all people go to Hell. Of course, I must be wrong. There must be a Heaven. Where else had that Angel come from? And maybe, just maybe, I should regret not loving Jesus. Or Vishnu. Or whichever God was the right one.

  The universe couldn’t be so cruel as to make sentient animals just to torture them.

  But it can be that cruel.

  And it just might be crueler than that.

  We come to a pair of darkly dressed soldiers who strip search me again. It seems ridiculous, but then I remember that trick I’d performed to free myself from my bonds. They might think I have something on me.

  My two guards stand watch as the new pair do their invasive search. When they�
�re done, they don’t put my clothes back on.

  The room they lead me into is shaped like the inside of a well, and its cylindrical space seems to have been carved into whetstone.

  A mirror—I’m presuming it’s one way—rings around the top wall, flush with the ceiling. One small section of that mirror is a clear window, and I see up through it at an awkward angle. There is purple light beyond, but I can see little else.

  At the bottom of the well, on the ground level where they take me, is a table.

  There are shackles.

  I’m only moments away from torture. I console myself with the fact that Durgan won’t be doing this. These guys might be able to inflict more damage, and cause more pain, but at least I won’t have to suffer humiliation in front of the wight’s black eyes.

  Though the Carrion cold has been largely missing in Igraine’s compound, it completely saturates this room. I cannot say, however, if the goosebumps that rise on my arms come from cold or fear.

  What can they do to me? I’d seen that they’ve castrated men. They might amputate my foot. That would be nice. Tooth pain, that’s a bitch. They might drill into my mouth. They could put needles through my eye. Or remove fingernails.

  And they could wait for me to regrow these things and do it again. But I probably won’t face all that now. They need me to show them Blood Pass. Needles to one eye, the tooth drilling, fingernail removal, these things can all still happen, but they probably won’t cut off my limbs or blind me.

  Igraine had said they would leave me alive.

  The guards chain me face down against the table. The ankle shackle closes with such force that the pain makes me lightheaded. My wrists are also shackled to the forward edges of the table. They’re adjustable, which is nice, just in case I get taller or shorter from their ministrations. I’m able to look left and right, but at the moment there is nothing to see.

  The cold of the stone and metal seeps into me while I wait. My balls hurt, but I can’t do much to keep them warm. The temperature will probably be good for my ankle, though.

  Then the guards leave, and the door slams, and I’m all alone.

  Waiting.

  Dreading.

  Hair standing on end.