Chapter 19 Disagreeable Duty
Disagreeable Duty
She meant to slip into a light doze, using the time to reach out for Bern and Apoc again.
Instead, Cass fell into a cold black flood of unconsciousness the moment her head touched the paper-thin pillow.
A patchy, confused dream of faraway shouting and live fire didn’t manage to wake her, but quiet voices and the sound of cloth moving as her kidnappers stirred was another matter.
The dream’s remnants—Bern cussing at top volume, Apoc glaring out a window, lips skinned back and teeth bared while he fired at something she couldn’t see—were fresh enough she clung to the bedding, sitting straight up and staring at yet another strange, dark room.
The television was on, its screen fuzzed by a soft burst of static before clearing to show an ad for some new pharmaceutical wonder along with a list of possibly horrifying side effects.
Her head still rang with distant voices, and it was hard to parse what Nigel had said. Inhaling deeply, nailing herself to her physical body with the dual effort of lungs and mental focus, was an old trick by now.
“Sure,” she heard herself say, the edges of the word blurred with I just woke up, what do you want? “Yeah. Uh-huh.”
The guys looked unforgivably alert. Damn near peppy, their rags traded for dark T-shirts, jeans, and hip-length jackets, though their boots were heavy-duty combat numbers which had stood up to the punishment so far.
It looked disturbingly like they’d waved magic wands or used that funny invisible cleaning on each other, repairing cloth at the same time since the outfits were simply updated versions of what had to be a uniform.
At least they let her stagger to the bathroom first—and Ed even produced a brand-new toothbrush as well as a tube of Crest gel. “I didn’t know what brand you preferred,” he said, almost shyly, and Cass did not want to be thinking kindly about these guys.
But he looked a little like Apoc, especially when he ducked his head slightly, shoulders curving in, and that made her heart hurt. She should have held on and made contact last night, even if actual sleep had done her some good.
It had been so long since she’d been able to rest without chemical enhancement, she wasn’t quite sure how she should feel.
Scrubbing up in a hurry because others were waiting for the facilities was, however, a blessedly familiar process, and when she wrenched the bathroom door open both guys seemed a bit startled.
Nigel shepherded her to the chair he’d settled in last night, indicated she should sit with a brief graceful motion, and handed her—of all things—a flip phone.
It looked like a burner. Cass’s addled, caffeine-hungry brain struggled for a moment. Who in Christ’s name was she supposed to call, the Ghostbusters?
“Let’s see if you can get through.” Nigel’s ring gave a brief twinkle as he clasped his hands, standing at what she recognized as a variety of parade rest. His attitude betrayed no hint of impatience or practical joke, both extremely common when dealing with male animals; he seemed utterly serious. “I’ll give you the number.”
“Who am I calling?” She hoped her own honest confusion was acceptable, or at least evident.
“The Sons—our fellow soldiers.” What was it like, to be so calm all the time? The grey streak at Nigel’s temple gleamed, brighter than his ring. “We can’t get through, because of him.”
“The god.” Cass peered upward, searching his face in the dimness. “The mad god.”
“Exactly.” A spare, brief nod, a faint shading of approval to his tone. He was so low-key any hint of emotion was almost shocking. “If we can alert our people to your existence, they will spare no effort bringing you to safety.”
Cass weighed the small plastic rectangle.
Was this why these guys were so intent on kidnapping her?
She was unwilling to empathize, but strictly speaking they hadn’t hurt her yet.
It could even be said that they’d been respectful, albeit differently than the usual rough courtesy of bogey-hunters. “Because of what I can do.”
“Because you are lirai. Yes.” Nigel loomed over her, but oddly it wasn’t frightening.
Bern often stood like that, shoulders not hunched but softened, when he was attempting to dissuade her from slamming a bump to keep conscious or a nod to run yet another scenario.
“Hold it for a moment, and concentrate. Try to… to want to get through.”
Did she believe these guys and their shadowy ‘Sons’ were on the level?
People like Cass vanished all up and down the West Coast, no few showing up mangled and indisputably dead; the monsters clearly considered her type high-value prey.
The gossip and whispers about the ‘organization’ to the east were also full of similar disappearances, although the bodies never showed up again.
How likely was it that they were just held instead of murdered? Nigel and Ed did seem committed to keeping her alive.
At least, for now.
Nigel’s irises were thin rings, his pupils swollen in a dim room.
Neither of them seemed ready to turn a light on, and Ed had flicked the bathroom switch she’d carefully left burning as a courtesy, returning them to night inside as well as out despite the television’s screen and the faint edge of grey to the curtains.
Maybe staying dark was their SOP, and she should be paying attention.
“Your friends, these ‘Sons’. You promise they don’t want to hurt me?” It slipped out wistfully, and she felt ridiculous. What, like they’d tell her if they had something horrible planned the moment they were on home ground?
“We watch each other.” Ed made a restless movement, instantly controlled. “To make sure.”
That didn’t sound good. But really, what were Cass’s options here? “Fine.”
“I promise,” Nigel said, at almost the same time. A moment’s worth of silence, tinged with something she couldn’t quite name—was it embarrassment? She didn’t feel the warning tingle of someone’s lying to you, girl. “I won’t let anything harm you, Cass.”
That was encouraging; she tried a smile, but her face felt Botox-stiff. “You swiped this yesterday, right? How do you activate them?” That would be worth knowing.
“Electronics are kind of easy. But that means he can affect them too, under the right conditions. Landline payphones were a bit better.” Nigel shrugged.
“When you’re ready, power it on. I’ll tell you what to dial, and if you get through you’ll just be repeating numbers and a few other words after me.
That will give them all the information needed to begin extraction. ”
I guess I have to do it, then. Easy enough to turn the damn thing on, even before coffee. She dialed carefully as he recited, and was about to put it to her ear when Nigel shook his head, warningly.
“Just keep the volume—” he began.
It didn’t even ring. Instead, a tinny squeal erupted from its speaker, shattering the hush. A scream escalated into a wail of shearing metal, then melded into a hideous screeching laugh.
Cass couldn’t even flinch. Frozen in place, she stared at the flip phone, its LED screen and the light behind its buttons strobing as the noise melded into words. A horrible, cackling voice vibrated through, her hand prickling as if the sound itself was poking every nerve.
“THERE YOU ARE! YOU LITTLE BITCH, STEALING MY SONS, I’LL TAKE YOUR LITTLE SOLDIERS, HOWYA LIKE THAT? HOWYA LIKE THAT, LITTLE BITCH? I’M GONNA KILL EVERY ONE OF—”
Nigel’s hand blurred as he snatched the phone with bogey-like speed.
His fist closed, a crunch of breakage, and a puff of heavy yellowish smoke burst between his fingers along with the reek of burning plastic.
Cass’s head hurt, a swift spike of pain right through her temples as she huddled in the chair, staring blankly up at him.
“Great,” Ed said, tightly. “She okay?”
“Look at me.” Nigel tossed the phone, achieving a pretty righteous three-point shot into the wastebasket tucked against the side of the dresser.
The sound was heavier than it ought to be, and the basket rocked.
“Cass? Look at me.” He leaned down; before she knew it he had cupped her face, hard warm palms against her cheeks.
His nose was a few inches from hers, his blue eyes were thankfully a far different shade than the pale noseless bogeys’, and the grey stripe at his temple glowed with television backwash.
“It’s all right,” he continued. How did a man so dry and self-contained sound so… so reassuring? “Just a bit of auditory illusion. We’ll move now, and try again later.”
The chill down her back fought with the warmth of his skin. Between the two, she might shatter. No. Oh, no. Fuck. Fuuuuuck me.
It wasn’t so much the sudden nasty scream. It was that she knew that voice.
How could she not? It was what she and Bern had christened the big kahuna, showing up sometimes in the very worst scenarios or when she slipped into places she shouldn’t, tiptoeing around outside her body.
Its appearance was always a pull-the-plug event, but this time she was awake, hearing the gibbering, horribly gleeful nastiness with physical ears.
Each time she thought she found a limit to the horrors, something exponentially worse came along.
“Cass.” Nigel’s thumb moved slowly, gently over her cheekbone. “Look at me, love. It’s not real, it’s just an illusion to scare you so you’ll do something silly. I—we’re here, nothing will get to you, but we have to move now. Look at me.”
She blinked. The pain in her head vanished. “That… is that…”
“The Mad God,” he answered gravely, and it should have been laughable.
But his flat certainty made her shiver. “One of his more attractive voices, at that. Up on your feet, m’dear.
That’s it. In a few minutes we’ll have coffee and daylight, and you won’t need to think about it.
That’s right. Just come with us now, there’s a good lass. ”