Chapter 17 #2
The poison that she usually kept tightly contained under the layer of her skin unfurled, wafting into the air to be carried by her soul’s breath into every corner of Belladonna’s stronghold.
“I’m bored with this. Someone show her what happens to trespassers,” the leader ordered, flicking his hand impatiently.
The man and woman who approached to carry out his directions stopped short when the sound of choking came from the direction of the blast door. The guard who’d let Gus in toppled over.
“Spencer?” the woman called uncertainly.
Choking came from another direction. A second pirate fell.
Chairs were shoved back from the table as the pirates scrambled to put distance between themselves and the afflicted.
One by one pirates began to drop. All except their leader—Gus saved him for last—who watched with increasingly fearful eyes as his people expired.
“Afraid?” Gus waited until he looked at her before smiling. “Good.”
She was sure Anandra had felt a similar terror while watching his enclave fall. It was fitting this man experience that level of despair before his end.
“What are you?” The man’s voice was reedy. His chest showing the effort it was taking to simply draw breath as Gus finally let the poison infect him.
“I told you. I’m Death.”
The man gasped. His chair tipped over, dumping him to the ground. In a last bid for survival, he flipped onto his stomach, attempted to crawl away.
When he finally had no more strength and could only roll onto his back to await his end, Gus squatted beside him. “When you attacked that enclave and murdered all those people, did you ever think this would be your end?”
“Please—I…have…infor...ma…tion.”
This should be good.
He pointed a shaking finger at the table. Gus rose, walking over to find a scroll sitting in plain view.
She lifted it for him to see. “Is this what you were talking about?”
“Pass…word...for…anti…dote.”
Gus reached into her cloak. “Nice try—but I’m afraid that won’t be necessary.”
The pirate made an agonized sound as she withdrew a coin sized device most black hat hackers and pirate groups referred to as a Jimmy.
Highly illegal and very expensive, a Jimmy could clone just about any system it came in contact with.
The tradeoff being that it pretty much destroyed the original system.
Stealthy, they were not.
However, they were handy when you were under a time crunch and had to get in and out and didn’t care if anyone found out about your presence.
There was a buzz, signaling the Jimmy was done.
“Worth every credit,” Gus murmured, slipping the Jimmy into her cloak.
“Mon. Ster.”
Gus’s mouth quirked as she walked back over to the pirate and crouched next to him. “Takes one to know one.”
He should remember that for the next life. There was always someone bigger and badder waiting to knock you down a peg. Or ten. Karma was a wicked mistress, with a habit of kicking you in the balls when you least expected it.
Maybe if the would-be leader of Belladonna had taken that lesson to heart earlier in life, he wouldn’t now be breathing his last.
“What the hell?” someone exclaimed from the direction of the blast doors.
Gus looked up. Oh dear. More guests.
Their timing was atrocious. A few minutes earlier and she wouldn’t have needed to lift a finger. The poison would have taken care of them the same way it had these others. By now, most of the poison had dissipated, leaving the air inside the hideout relatively safe.
With her ki running low, she was going to have come up with some other way to kill off these newcomers.
While considering her options, her gaze landed on a boy standing at the back of the pack. Younger than the rest by several decades, there was an openness and curiosity to his expression that didn’t suit his young features or the current circumstances.
“This is a bit awkward,” Gus admitted, feeling a little put out as she eyed the boy. After everything she’d done to avoid this encounter, fate seemed to have other plans.
“What did you do?” a pirate demanded.
Gus tried not to frown. Wasn’t that obvious?
She’d killed them.
Shooting another quick glance at the boy, Gus let out a heartfelt sigh. “I’d say this isn’t what it looks like, but I doubt you’d believe me.”
“You’re damn right about that,” someone muttered.
“I told the cadre that trusting wizards was a mistake,” another pirate spat.
Gus nodded. “Yes, I agree. That was definitely a mistake.”
Tuann were notoriously tricky even when dealing with their own kind. Throw in humans, whom they looked down on, and you were practically asking to die.
“What do we do?” one of the pirates asked their leader.
Gus knew what she would have done in their place. She would have run. Fast and far. No looking back. Then she would have hidden. Somewhere deep and dark where no one would ever think to look.
Of course, that was providing the boy at the back of the pack was willing to let her go.
“Kill her,” the leader ordered.
“That’s hardly wise, don’t you think?” the boy asked, finally making his presence felt. “I mean—she just took out over twenty people without lifting a finger.”
“I thought you didn’t speak human standard,” someone whispered.
The smile the boy gave that person was too cruel, too hard, to be something a child would make. It made the hair on the back of Gus’s neck stand up. Idly, she wondered how these humans could be so calm. Did they not see the same thing she did?
“You assumed and I went along with it,” the boy drawled.
One of the humans frowned. “How do you know she didn’t lift a finger?”
“Look at them. Do you see any wounds? No. They were taken out by a fast-acting poison. They dropped where they stood.” The boy looked at Gus suddenly, flashing her an impish smile that made her want to flinch. “How’d I do? Did I get it right?”
“Correct on every point, Jin.”
If anything, he was a little too on the nose. His accuracy making it seem like he had a crystal ball or a previously hidden security feed.
Gus twitched at that thought. It was possible. This was Jin. Master of the digital world.
Jin’s lips parted as something genuine crossed his face. “You recognize me?”
Of course, she did. He was impossible to miss.
“Your soul is quite loud, little brother.”
It was a little jarring, actually.
Jin scratched his cheek, suddenly acting a little shy. “You say the sweetest things.”
That hadn’t been Gus’s intention. She’d simply been stating a fact.
“What is going on?” a pirate demanded, sounding freaked out.
Jin no longer seemed quite so childlike as he cut an irritated look at the human. “What’s going on is that you’re not very bright. I mean—what kind of idiot doesn’t question the presence of a child wandering freely in a place like this?”
Privately, Gus was in agreement. If nothing else, that should have tipped them off to the fact that something was wrong.
“Never mind. Don’t answer that.” Jin waved his hand, losing patience. “I don’t care. I already got what I needed. I’m done with you.”
Gus jolted as dozens of shapes streamed out from under Jin’s clothes. The ravenous hoard of miniature drones fell on the pirates. It was all over in seconds, leaving Gus with her heart in her throat and the uncomfortable knowledge of how easily Jin could end her existence if he wanted to.
Even then, Jin wasn’t done giving her a near heart attack as he raised his voice to address someone Gus couldn’t see. “You can come out now.”
Brooks stepped from behind a cabinet with a careful expression. “I didn’t think I’d run into you again so soon.”
Jin glanced at Gus. “I take it he’s with you.”
“I guess you could say that,” Gus agreed, somewhat reluctantly.
If she thought anyone would believe her, she would have already denied all association with Brooks. Unfortunately, that ship had sailed.
“Alexander tells me you prefer to go by Gus,” Jin offered.
Gus tilted her head, her forehead wrinkling slightly.
“Is he wrong?” Jin asked.
“No, that’s correct. I do prefer Gus. I just hadn’t realized he possessed enough awareness of my existence to know anything about my preferences.”
It felt like Gus had just been tossed into an alternate universe. One where up was down and her siblings knew things about her. She liked being inconspicuous and the thought that her siblings were compiling a dossier on her made her want to crawl into the nearest hole.
“I didn’t do this, you know. I just want to make that clear,” Gus announced abruptly.
Jin looked around him with some disbelief. “Are you sure about that?”
Ah, right. She could see the disconnect.
“Okay, yes, I did kill these humans.” That would be a little hard to deny with her caught red handed standing over their bodies. “But I had nothing to do with their actions.”
“So, you’re not the head of Belladonna?” Jin probed.
Ugh—why did he have to be so observant?
“Okay, yes, I’m the head of Belladonna. But not this Belladonna,” Gus hurried to explain. “Someone is using me as their scapegoat.”
“I know.”
Gus faltered, taken aback by that answer. “You know?”
How did he know? Even Ryan hadn’t believed her.
“I suspected.”
Gus blinked rapidly. “I have proof?”
No, wait. Why did that sound like a question?
Jin shrugged. “Okay.”
“O-kay?”
Again, with the questioning tone.
Jin nodded. “Okay.”
That was it? That was all he had to say? Okay?
Gus shot Brooks a baffled expression, wondering if he understood what was going on any better than she did.
“I met Mars and Cleo already. I know they’re the ones behind this,” Jin continued.
“Does that mean they’re already dead?” Gus asked hopefully.
Please, say yes. She wasn’t looking forward to having to hunt those two down.
“Not quite,” Jin said.
Darn.
She’d really hoped that was one problem taken care of.
Gus thought a moment before frowning. “They didn’t recognize you?”