Cantrelle returned to the makeshift holding cell a few minutes later.
The Death’s Head medic disengaged the tarry-black bio-tech lock from outside the door; Elpida watched carefully, trying to figure out how the lock was operated — but the mechanism was beyond her understanding. Perhaps it was released by a near-field electronic signal. The door opened with a meaty ripping sound. Cantrelle stepped inside; she was carrying an additional pair of the heavy, bulky metal cuffs, ready to secure Elpida’s ankles.
Cantrelle stopped when she saw that Elpida was up on her feet.
The door slapped shut. Cantrelle’s flat, blank, disc-shaped eyes flickered rapidly from Elpida to Amina — to confirm that their wrists were still in their cuffs, their chains were still staked to the floor, and Amina’s metal muzzle was still secured to her face.
Cantrelle frowned, hard and craggy beneath her perfectly bald head. Her quartet of segmented metal tentacles went still.
Elpida couldn’t help herself — she smiled.
Cantrelle spat in her buzzing half-mechanical voice: “And how many of my stitches have you popped with this little stunt? I swear, if I have to re-do that all over again … ”
Elpida croaked, slowly: “You’re alone. Confident?”
Cantrelle gestured at the tilted metal surgical table with one of her pincer-tipped tentacles. “Lie the fuck back down. Right now.”
Elpida had done her best to tug her grey thermal t-shirt down over her bandaged gut, to better display the crescent-and-line symbol she’d daubed on her chest, but the stomach of the t-shirt was ragged where Pira’s bullets had torn through the fabric, and soaked through with sticky, half-dried, red-brown blood. She still had her armoured coat — the ‘tomb-grown coat’, as Yola had called it — but one flank of the lower torso was stiff and scored, damaged from deflecting the impact of the rest of Pira’s magazine.
No shoes. No weapon. Wrists cuffed, chained to the ground. Elpida’s long white hair was in her face — it was too difficult to sweep it all back over her head while her wrists were manacled. Amina sat in a teary-eyed heap on the floor, her hands still covered in Elpida’s blood, her muzzle against her mouth.
Elpida realised she didn’t want to kill Cantrelle; the medic had done an honest job tending to Elpida’s gut wound. She had administered anaesthetics, glued her intestines back together, and sewn her up with professional skill. She hadn’t hurt Elpida on purpose, or rushed the task, or cut corners.
But she was a committed Death’s Head. She was no different than the Covenanters.
Elpida briefly wished that Cantrelle had delegated this task to some other Death’s Head, some brutish enforcer Elpida had never met; she almost said it out loud — I don’t want to kill you, turn around, go away — but she kept her mouth shut. Cantrelle was her enemy, both ideologically and materially. She had to escape. Any hesitation would put her comrades at risk. She refused to be the cause of another murdered cadre.
Elpida said: “Nah.”
Cantrelle’s face scrunched with anger. “Lie. The. Fuck. Down.”
“You’re gonna— have to— make me.”
Cantrelle reached over her shoulder and drew her shotgun.
Short and stubby, shiny and black like a beetle’s shell, with a pistol grip for the trigger mechanism and second pistol grip up front, for easy handling and improved accuracy. A short-range urban fighting weapon, for room-to-room combat — or the last-ditch personal defence weapon of a medic who didn’t like to get her hands dirty? Elpida gambled on the latter.
Cantrelle aimed the shotgun at Elpida, one-handed. “You’re gut-shot, dip-shit. You can’t even speak a full sentence without stopping to wheeze. Lie down.”
“You won’t shoot me.”
Cantrelle clenched her jaw.
Elpida pressed: “You won’t shoot me. Yola thinks— I’m important. Yola practically wants to— sleep with me. And Yola’s— in charge. You won’t shoot.” Then, too quickly for Cantrelle to think about the previous statement: “Why’d you decide— to do this alone? Don’t want to delegate? Feeling jealous?”
Cantrelle’s face twisted with rage: bullseye. But then Cantrelle shifted her aim — she pointed her shotgun at Amina instead.
Amina flinched, whimpering behind her muzzle, raising her hands to ward off the attack.
Cantrelle said: “I’ll shoot her, then. How about that, huh? Actually, forget that. Either you lie back down, or I’ll go fetch two of my best friends and tell them there’s a free meal up for grabs. You can watch your little fuck-toy here get eaten alive. Did you know that one of us revenants can survive, conscious and screaming, with as little as thirty percent of her brain mass? You wanna see that happen up close? Then, when they’re done eating, I’ll cuff your ankles anyway.”
Elpida frowned; it did not take much effort to maintain her exhausted, sullen, dead-eyed expression.
Cantrelle said, “Think I won’t do it?”
“Yola said—”
Cantrelle laughed. “Yola’s not the only one in charge here. Maybe she’s right about you, or maybe not. But she’s not the only fucking voice in the Sisters. Now lie down. Don’t make me do this. Don’t make this difficult, for fuck’s sake.”
Elpida glanced down; Amina was panting through her muzzle, eyes wide with terror, skin covered in panic-sweat.
She needed Amina to hold on; tipping their hand early would ruin the plan.
“Amina,” Elpida said. “Amina. Look at me. Look up. Look.”
Amina managed to look away from the muzzle of Cantrelle’s shotgun.
Elpida said: “We’re going— to be alright. Just— do what she says.”
Amina stared right through Elpida. Did she remember what to do next? A successful escape relied on them working together. Elpida could not do this alone, not with a gut wound that might leave her incapacitated. But Amina was just a child, no matter how bloodthirsty or dangerous she had shown she could be, to a foe with their back turned. Maybe she couldn’t pull this off, maybe it was too much, she was too scared. Elpida needed options.
“Lie down,” Cantrelle grunted. “Last chance.”
“Alright,” Elpida sighed.
She put all her trust in Amina, and lay back down.
Returning to the tilted surgical table was only marginally less difficult than standing up had been; Elpida sat, dragging her chain after her, then slowly lifted her feet onto the metal shelf, right first, then left, then eased her torso backward. Her gut wound screamed inside her belly like a demon trapped beneath her skin, shafts of flame roaring up her nerves and wracking her spine with fire and acid. She let out a strangled grunt, streaming with sweat. Her vision swirled dark for several heartbeats. The last of the anaesthetic must have been wearing off.
She prepared herself for much more pain.
Cantrelle muttered as she crossed the room: “Serves you fucking right you great big idiot. You’re like a giant goldie but a lot more stupid. Bet you’re not even housebroken.”
Elpida’s pain ebbed down to merely soul-destroying rather than all-consuming, strangled by Telokopolan pain-blockers pounding into her bloodstream. Her vision cleared. She blinked away a veil of tears.
Cantrelle paused several feet from the surgical table. She was frowning at Amina, still covering her with the shotgun.
Elpida’s heart lurched; if Cantrelle noticed what they’d done, she really would retreat and return with reinforcements.
“Hey,” Elpida panted. “Leave her alone. Hurt her, and then you’ll— have to kill me. ‘Cos I’ll hunt— you, for as long as it— takes.”
Cantrelle sighed and shook her head; her disc-eyes could not roll in their sockets, but the tiny muscles of her face revealed her contempt. She gestured at Amina with her shotgun. “Get into the corner. Away from me. Go on, right into the corner.” Amina crawled away from Cantrelle and Elpida, dragging her chain along the marble floor, wedging herself into the corner of the filthy public toilet, like a small animal trying to escape a predator. Cantrelle said: “Good. Now stay there.”
She approached the foot of the surgical bed. She kept her shotgun covering Amina. The four mechanical tendrils which sprouted from her shoulders all pointed toward Elpida — the pair of pincers were open, as if waiting to intercept an attack, while the saw and the needle just hung, ready for surprises. She lifted the heavy metal manacles in her free hand and opened them with a flick of her wrist. They went clack.
Then Cantrelle paused again. She frowned at Elpida.
“You’re planning something,” she said.
Elpida smiled back, still streaming with sweat. “‘Course I am.”
Cantrelle eyed her up and down, frowning harder.
Elpida needed to keep her here, keep her riled up, keep her angry. Elpida said: “Wanna go— fetch some help? Somebody to hold me down? Maybe bring Yola back— so she can— she can compliment my ankles— or something? Why does she call you ‘Ella’, anyway? You two close?”
Cantrelle said, “Reach out with your hands.”
Elpida said, “What?”
“Reach out with your hands. All the way. To the limit of your chain. Go on, so I can see.” Cantrelle waggled her shotgun at Amina.
Elpida obeyed. She lifted her cuffed hands to full extension, dragging the chain off the floor link by link. She allowed it to scrape against the side of the bed, just to irritate Cantrelle. At full extension she was several feet short of being able to touch the medic, even if Cantrelle had to get right on top of her to put the cuffs on her ankles.
Cantrelle smirked. “Whatever you have planned, it’s not going to work. Here. Let’s get this over with.” She lowered the cuffs toward Elpida’s waiting ankles.
And Elpida spread her legs apart — too wide for the cuffs.
Cantrelle stopped and gave Elpida a sour look.
“Now what?” Elpida asked. “Gotta make me— close my legs. Can’t get those cuffs on— like this.”
Cantrelle glanced at Amina. The younger revenant was still crammed into the corner of the room, cowering and shaking. Cantrelle finally moved her shotgun away from Amina; she jammed the muzzle against Elpida’s left knee instead, point-blank, jabbing into the underside of her kneecap.
“I’ll make it so you can’t fucking walk for the next six months; then we won’t need the cuffs. Stop fucking with me.”
Cantrelle waited. Elpida allowed her smile to die; that didn’t take much acting. The moment of truth was approaching fast. If Amina could not carry out her part of the plan, they were both doomed. Elpida was already trying to calculate new possibilities, but it all came back to the need for an opening, a single moment of distraction. She couldn’t force that kind of opening herself, not alone, not against somebody as vigilant as the Death’s Head medic.
Elpida sighed as if defeated, and closed her legs.
“Better,” Cantrelle spat.
She reached down, set the open manacles over Elpida’s ankles, and slammed them shut. They locked with a heavy click.
Cantrelle quickly straightened up. She lowered the shotgun and started to take a step back. “Right, now that’s do—”
Amina came out of the corner like a rabid dog.
Her muzzle went flying — thrown at Cantrelle with her cuffed hands, already removed by Elpida earlier, and held in place until that moment by Amina’s own teeth. Her chain rasped against the floor tiles as she shot to her feet and hurled herself toward Cantrelle. The muzzle hit Cantrelle in the face — no damage, but surprise enough to make her flinch.
Cantrelle’s stubby shotgun came up in her hands, ready to blow off Amina’s head. Amina hit the limit of her own chain; she yelped, almost yanked off her feet by the pull on her wrists, crying and panting and grasping for Cantrelle’s front. But the Death’s Head was out of reach.
Cantrelle laughed.
Elpida lifted her cuffed feet.
Her body weight slid her down the tilted incline of the surgical bed, until her backside hit the foot-shelf; the impact sent a lance of blinding pain up through her gut wound. She howled through her teeth, eyes streaming with tears of pain, hands yanked backward by the anchor of her own chain.
But she didn’t need hands to hit Cantrelle.
Elpida swung her cuffed feet out wide — stomach wound screaming, stitches popping free — and then slammed the heavy metal cuffs into Cantrelle’s spine.
Ribs went snap like damp twigs.
The medic went flying. Her shotgun tumbled out of her grip and clattered to the floor on the far side of the room. She sprawled on her hands and knees, heaving for breath, spitting bile — and well within Amina’s range.
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Amina jumped on her. Fingernails clawed at the tomb-coat, scratching for throat and eyes; teeth snapped shut on a mouthful of fabric, then a piece of hand, then a wet crunch of cheekbone and flesh. Cantrelle screamed and reared up.
Cantrelle fought back with her metal tendrils; the pair of pincers went for Amina’s neck and eyes. The saw slashed for her throat.
And the massive needle reared back, ready to punch through skin and deliver neurotoxin or knock-out cocktail or worse.
Elpida rolled to the side and fell off the surgical bed, right on top of Cantrelle.
The agony in her gut exploded beyond anything she had previously considered possible; Elpida was certain that she had popped every stitch, opened every flap of flesh, torn asunder every muscle fibre, and voided the very tubes of her intestines. She was certain that her bowels were spilling out like a nest of bloody snakes. Unconsciousness throbbed at the edge of her tear-blurred vision; the world was going dark. But she couldn’t pass out yet; if she did, Amina would die.
She hooked her chain around Cantrelle’s bionic throat. She put her knees into the small of Cantrelle’s back and her elbows into Cantrelle’s shoulder blades. She pulled.
Nanomachine zombies did not need to breathe — but zombie brains needed circulation, in imitation of biological life.
The medic wheezed and spluttered, then crackled and buzzed; apparently her metal-encrusted throat and cybernetic jaw did not fully protect her from strangulation, from having her blood flow cut off with a length of chain. Her hands scrabbled at the metal links, breaking her nails and bloodying her knuckles. Her segmented tendrils turned on Elpida instead; Elpida squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head left and right to throw off the pincers’ aim; snapping metal jaws took chunks out of her scalp, ripped out clumps of hair, and left bleeding welts on her cheeks and neck. She heard a crunch and snap — was that Amina dealing with the other two tendrils, the saw and the needle? Elpida could only hope.
Choking an opponent unconscious should only have taken a few seconds. Elpida’s internal clock was so scrambled by pain that it felt like hours. Cantrelle gurgled and hissed, flailing and bucking, weaker and weaker. Her bionics allowed her to hold out longer than an unaltered human, but eventually her tentacles ceased their battering. She went limp in Elpida’s grip.
Elpida kept the pressure on. Hours passed, or perhaps only seconds.
Then she let go. She collapsed face-down on Cantrelle’s back.
Unconscious oblivion coaxed her deeper. Elpida’s body was a sea of pain, flooding outward from the ruined muscle and torn tissues of her gut wound. Telokopolan pain-blockers may as well have been prayer and hope. Her vision went dark; her extremities went numb. Nearby, somebody was sobbing softly. If she didn’t get up and move soon, then this would all be for nothing. Cantrelle would be missed. Another revenant would come to check on them. But the pain was—
Get up said Howl, inside Elpida’s head. Get up, Elps. I fucking love you. Get up!
Elpida rolled off Cantrelle’s back. She hit the floor — more pain, ringing upward through her body like a cracked bell. She coughed blood, spluttering and wheezing. She lay still for several seconds, eyelids fluttering. Couldn’t force them open. If she could only rest for—
Get up, bitch tits!
Elpida sat up. Her guts felt like they were flowing out into her lap. Sitting was difficult with cuffed ankles. She stayed very still for what felt like another hour — two — three.
A tiny voice murmured: “Elpida?”
Elpida blinked to clear her vision.
Amina was crouched on the opposite side of Cantrelle’s corpse. She was staring at Elpida with horror and hope in equal measure. Blood was smeared around her mouth, a crimson mess on her soft brown skin. She had fragments of flesh in her teeth. She was still gripping Cantrelle’s hands. Her sandy hair was wild and tangled. She was crying slowly.
“Ami— na,” Elpida forced out. “Good. Job. Good— girl.”
“I’m— I’m— I’m not—”
Elpida looked down at her own gut; to her surprise, she was not a pile of loose intestines. Cantrelle had done an incredible job with those stitches. Several were broken and burst, no doubt about that, but the wound was still closed, despite the dark red blood seeping into the bandages.
“—not a good—” hic “—girl. I-I-I should have—”
“Shhhhh,” Elpida mumbled. “Shhhh. Amina. Shhh. Good girl. Well done.”
Elpida rolled Cantrelle over and went through her pockets; the corpse was red in the face from strangulation, but her flat disc-eyes were emotionless and blank, grey-dark screens gone out. The tendrils were limp, just cables lying on the floor. Amina had somehow snapped both the saw and the needle, probably by stamping on them. There were chunks taken out of her hands where Amina had bitten and gouged to keep Cantrelle from fighting back.
Another moment of truth presented itself, but Elpida and Amina got lucky — Cantrelle did possess a keyring. She also had a small snub-nosed pistol with a couple of extra magazines. Elpida offered those to Amina, but Amina shook her head and murmured something about her knife; Elpida pocketed the gun. All Cantrelle’s other possessions were either medical equipment, or personal effects which meant nothing to Elpida. She found a lock of blonde hair inside a little box, a fragment of a photograph of a building, several folded paper documents covered in hand-written notes; a pen-knife, a tin mug, a lighter, a scrap of pale leather — human skin?
Elpida tried the keys in her own manacles first. She found the correct one, then freed her ankles, then Amina’s wrists. Amina was sobbing quietly, her breath coming in little sips and judders as she rubbed her wrists. Amina needed praise, but Elpida had to finish the kill.
Elpida stood up, slowly and carefully. She had to pause several times, screwing her eyes shut, panting for breath as she fought down the pain. She wanted to vomit, but she had to resist; the stomach contractions might knock her unconscious.
“Ami— Amina. Amina. Shotgun. I can’t— probably can’t bend over.”
“A-ah?”
“Her shotgun. Get me her— shotgun.” Elpida gestured at the stubby weapon.
Amina scurried over to the gun, scooped it up, and then presented it to Elpida as if it were a holy relic and Elpida an idol.
“Thanks,” Elpida croaked.
She checked the chamber to make sure the weapon had a shell loaded. She flicked the safety on, then off again. Then she held both pistol grips and pointed the barrel at Cantrelle’s skull.
Nanomachine zombies did not die easily; Elpida herself was proof of that. She’d seen severed heads still moving, twitching the muscles and trying to roll their plucked-out eyes. Cantrelle was ‘dead’ — but for how long?
Destroy the brain, and the zombie goes back to the resurrection buffer. See you in sixty years.
Elpida put her finger on the trigger — and hesitated.
Amina whispered: “Did- didn’t we … k-kill her?”
“Yes and no,” Elpida croaked. She stared into Cantrelle’s empty disc-eyes. “These revenants— they’re more advanced than us. Much more. Probably loaded with nanomachines far beyond us. I already reanimated once, back in the bunker. She might … spring back up … any second.”
Elpida clenched her teeth. She did not want to kill Cantrelle; she wanted to kill the Death’s Heads. She wanted to pull the trigger — but if she did that, the gunshot might bring reinforcements running, and ruin the escape. Was one defeated Death’s Head — one Covenanter — worth failure? She was in too much pain to tell where misguided mercy ended and sensible tactics began.
“Fuck,” she hissed — and lowered the shotgun.
Amina was staring at her, wide-eyed with incomprehension and horror, crying softly. She didn’t have the context to understand any of this.
Elpida reached out and put one hand on Amina’s head. “You did really well, Amina,” she croaked. “Well done. You’re a good— girl. You’re a very good girl. We’re going to— get out of here now.”
Amina’s face scrunched up. She cried harder, but she didn’t sob, careful to stay quiet. She panted through her nose. “Okay. Okay. Okay. I— I— can— can—”
“Stay close to me. Do everything I say.”
Amina nodded. “I promise! Here!”
Amina held out her bloody hands — Elpida’s blood, from earlier, rapidly drying on Amina’s palms and fingers, smeared by the struggle with Cantrelle.
“For the nanomachine content, right,” Elpida said. “Amina— it’s not much. We don’t have time to—”
“It’s yours! It’s yours!” Amina hissed, her voice filled with panic. “And you’re more hurt! Take it back! Take it back, I don’t deserve—”
Elpida took one of Amina’s hands and pressed it back toward her. “Yours now. I got the raw blue— right? Lick your fingers clean. That’s an order, Amina. Follow your— orders.”
Amina stared — then nodded and obeyed without further hesitation. She shuddered in rapture as she licked Elpida’s blood off her own hands.
Elpida led Amina over to the door. Elpida’s boots were waiting there, untouched by the fight. She had Amina pick them up first and shake them out, just to make sure the Death’s Heads hadn’t left any nasty surprises inside. She stepped into the boots, then stepped back to examine the bio-tech lock on the door.
She hadn’t seen anything in Cantrelle’s pockets which looked like a near-field transmitter to operate the lock. She attempted a quick experiment: she picked up a piece of shattered glass from the row of once-grand mirrors, and poked the blob of tarry black goo.
The blob ate the glass, dissolved the material into more of itself, leaving behind a thin trickle of greasy smoke.
She said: “Okay. Amina, don’t touch that.”
“Mm!”
Perhaps the lock operated on the nanomachines themselves, keyed for the Death’s Heads, or for particular individuals. Elpida glanced back at the corpse; Amina wouldn’t be able to lift it and carry it over here, and the muscular effort might rip open Elpida’s belly for real. They could try cutting off a hand, but the only cutting tool they had was Cantrelle’s saw — and Amina had snapped that in half. How about severing a finger?
They were burning time; if a finger didn’t work then they would have to cut through a hand, then an arm, then what? That could take ten or fifteen minutes. They might be discovered. Or it might not work at all.
Elpida pointed the shotgun at the door frame below the lock
A bad option, but at least they would be out and moving in a few seconds, running for an exit.
“Amina,” she panted. “When the door opens, stay close. We have to— run. Don’t lag. I can’t— probably can’t carry you— like this. Not leaving you behind. Understand?”
A small hand closed around a corner of Elpida’s coat. “Yes.”
“Okay. Cover your eyes, there might be—”
A shimmer passed over the tarry-black bio-tech lock — like an optical illusion — and then the lock parted in the middle, as if sliced by a blade from top to bottom.
The lock went inert and fell to the floor, shattering into tiny fragments with a tinkling like glass beads.
The door swung open.
Elpida jerked the shotgun upward and shoved Amina behind her, out of the line of fire, falling back, ready for—
Nothing.
Nothing stood in the doorway. Pale marble corridor yawned beyond, dusty and dirty, completely empty.
No — a shimmering passed through the air; like a sculpture made of translucent glass, heat haze in a cloudless sky, a sheet of falling water in perfect laminar flow.
Something invisible stepped into the room.
Eight feet, nine feet — or ten feet tall? Elpida could not be certain; the optical chameleon effect confused her estimate of height. The intruder straightened up from ducking through the doorway. A giant, no doubt about that. Multiple limbs shimmered and blurred against the background of the door frame. Armour plates — or clothing? — refracted the light at strange angles. When it stopped moving the figure became truly invisible — all except a head, a blurred shape of helmet tacking back and forth.
Elpida retreated, shoving Amina behind her. The stubby shotgun in her hands seemed an inadequate weapon for this target.
But she raised it anyway, aiming at the just-visible shimmer of the head.
A voice hissed: “Still your blade, warrior.”
Another semi-visible shape stepped around the door frame; this second figure was not truly invisible, but merely blurred like a smear of oil on canvas, cloaked in shadow, obscured by a long coat, with the hood pulled up.
Elpida lowered her shotgun and burst into a smile. “Atyle?!”
The blurring effect switched off; Atyle stood revealed before Elpida, dressed in the armoured coat taken from the tomb. Tall and proud, dark skin made darker by the shade of her hood, Atyle looked completely untouched by the battle. Her biological left eye twinkled with mischief; her peat green augmetic right eye spiralled and flickered with a hundred hidden lenses. She cradled the cyclic sliver-gun in her arms.
“You did not think we had forgotten you, warrior?” she whispered.
Elpida could have laughed. She could have hugged Atyle. She panted through the pain. “How do you keep— doing this, returning exactly— when we need you?”
Atyle grinned. “Perhaps I am a Necromancer.” She raised her chin, indicating the rest of the room behind Elpida and Amina. “We attempted to join you before your hasty duel, but stealth is harder won than it appears. Well done, warrior.” She glanced downward, at Amina peeking out around Elpida’s side. “And well done, little rabbit. Your claws grow ever sharper.”
Amina let out a strangled whimper.
Elpida eyed the now-unmoving ten-foot waterfall-shimmer at Atyle’s side. She hissed: “We?”
Atyle glanced at her almost-invisible companion. “A friend. She serves the small titan who joined us in the battle. Her name is Hafina.”
Elpida struggled to keep up; the pain was fogging her intellect. “Small titan? You mean the crawler? The— tank?”
Atyle nodded. “She cannot speak to us, but she comprehends. The small titan translates our speech for her. He waits at range, ready for the charge, ready to accept us into his belly.” Atyle glanced left and right, then up and down, then over her shoulder, rapidly covering all angles with her augmetic eye. “We must be quick now, warrior, and little rabbit. We must be quick and quiet and not be seen. These beasts are bigger than we. They see through walls, too.”
“Wait,” Elpida hissed. “Is anybody coming— right now?”
“Not yet, warrior.” Atyle grinned again. “You have other plans?”
“Where are the others?” Elpida whispered. “Us, the rest of us?”
Atyle dipped her head. “Kagami and Victoria entered your god of war—”
“The combat frame! But there was a Necromancer, it stopped me—”
“They felled the shape-shifter and cast it down. They are safe in the belly of your god, for now.” Atyle reached up and tipped back one side of her armoured hood; she was wearing an earpiece and headset. “The scribe lends us the eyes of your god, and tells me where not to tread. She sees not with my clarity and depth, but she sees further and wider. She speaks with the small titan, also. She is our watcher from the other side.”
Elpida ached to ask questions, but they didn’t have time. She had to stick to the bare essentials. “Kagami’s running mission control— for us? Got another headset, for me?”
Atyle shook her head. “No spares.” A pause, then a smile. “The scribe calls you a fool for damaging your stitches. She calls you many things.”
Elpida sighed. “We really need proper short-range communications. And the rest, the rest of us?”
Atyle shrugged. “Ilyusha is nowhere. Pira … ” Atyle turned her head down and to the right, staring through brick and steel. “Sits in a cell of her own, though less well chained than you. With a friend. She is unwell inside.”
“She betrayed us,” Elpida hissed. “But then she—”
“I saw, warrior.” The depths of Atyle’s peat-green bionic eye flickered and rotated. “I was watching. Now, do we rescue Pira, or not?”
Elpida said: “You’re asking me? I’m not in command— right now. You and Kagami—”
“It is you she betrayed, and you she saved. Would you have won your duel if she had not delivered to you the magic potion?” Atyle took one hand off her cyclic coilgun and gestured at Elpida’s belly. “To the wronged, the choice of justice.” She grinned. “And I wish to see what you choose, warrior.”
For a split-second Elpida considered the possibility that Atyle really was a Necromancer.
Didn’t matter; she was breaking Elpida out.
But the choice was impossible. Elpida still could not fully process what betrayal meant; she had wrestled Pira to the ground in a fistfight that felt just as intimate as any cadre sparring match. She had fed her with blood, she had trusted her, she had listened to Pira’s reasons and respected her choices. And Pira had shot her through the stomach in a moment of confusion and panic.
Telokopolis rejects nobody, Howl whispered inside Elpida’s memories. Bitch.
Did that mean welcoming a traitor back into the cadre?
But a member of the cadre could never betray.
Elpida’s head went around and around; she was in too much pain to make this decision. Pira had chosen the Death’s Heads — no, Pira had chosen her old friend. And then chosen to betray them in secret to help Elpida; without the raw blue, Elpida would be unconscious, or maybe dead.
Betrayal, then salvation. Which was the truth?
There was no time for this.
Elpida said: “Where’s our coilgun? Did they take that off me, too?”
Atyle raised her eyebrows in surprise, then glanced downward, through the floor. “Not too far from the betrayer. Inside their war council. Our exit is just beyond. Our path takes us past both.” She paused, then chuckled. “The scribe is not happy about this change of plans. She suggests we jump out of a window instead, to save ourselves the effort of getting killed.”
War council? Yola had said ‘command post’ earlier. Elpida hissed in frustration.
Atyle whispered: “Your other weapons are there too, warrior. Perhaps they hoped to return them to you, once you joined their war party.”
Elpida snorted. “Maybe. What does Hafina think?” Elpida glanced up at the almost-invisible shimmer.
The shimmer — Hafina — nodded once.
Atyle whispered: “She will help. The beasts here are looking outward, stirred up by more than us alone. We are not the only distraction.”
Amina whispered in a tiny voice: “Is m-my knife there, too?”
Atyle tilted her head. “We will see, little rabbit. If not … ” Atyle reached inside her coat and pulled out a sheathed combat knife, one of the blades they had taken from the tomb armoury. She flipped it around and handed it to Amina. Amina’s eyes lit up with trembling gratitude. She slid the blade away inside her coat. She tried to whisper a thank you, but her voice was shivering too hard.
Elpida made a decision: “We retrieve the coilgun — if we can do so without being seen, on our way out. If that takes us past Pira, then she gets one chance — her friend, or us. If she says no, or hesitates … ”
Atyle raised her eyebrows, quietly amused.
Crack!
A single high-powered gunshot rang out — from beyond the walls of the skyscraper, splitting the nocturnal quiet. Every head looked up — ‘Hafina’ included, a whirl of mirror-shimmer translucence.
Elpida hissed: “That rifle. That’s Serin.” Then—
Boom-boom-boom, even more muffled, somewhere down in the guts of rubble and ruin.
Atyle grinned. “Our own little beast returns, hm? The perfect distraction.”
“Illy!” Amina squeaked. “That’s her gun! That’s her gun!”
Elpida panted: “Coilgun, Pira, exit. If Illy needs help— the first two— priorities— can be discarded. We go, now.”
Atyle grinned and turned into an oil-streak blur against the marbled hallway. She raised a hand and tapped the side of her hood. “Lead on, Hafina. Guide us true, scribe.”