Palatine First (The Aurelian Archives) (21 page)

“Shut him in,” Reece snarled at Mordecai and Gideon. “He’ll cave, when the thirst gets too much for him. Everyone out.”

Hayden had never seen him in such a temper. He knew it was bad by the quietness of it. He didn’t shout, just glowered and burned and twisted his fingers into fists as he marched out into the hall.

“I told you to be careful,” he muttered in Hayden’s direction.

Surprised, Hayden turned his back to the cobwebbed hallway wall and observed Reece over the tops of his bifocals. “You’re mad at
me
for this?”

“No...no. I just wish you’d been more careful. I know when you go doctor on us, you get tunnel vision, but that’s a Vee in there. He could’ve snapped your neck, did you think of that?”

Hayden had, actually, in passing. But the Vee would never have
really
hurt him with Gideon and Reece in the room—not unless he’d had a death wish. He told Reece so and tried to push back into the Vee’s room, but Gideon stopped him with a one-handed shove to the chest while Nivy caught him by the sleeve.

“Hayden,” Reece was trying not to smile, “he
does
have a death wish. He
wants
to die. He was trying to make us help him.”

The hallway got very hot then, and Hayden had to excuse himself to get a drink of water, and also a tall glass of burnthroat.

XIV

A Deal, a Caper, and…Oops

Personally, Gideon kinda just wanted to shoot the Vee. He wouldn’t, not without Reece’s say-so, but that didn’t stop him from wantin’.

It was about midnight, and the house was hushed in its creaky old buildin’ way, meanin’ there were unaccounted-for squeaks and groans regularly breakin’ the quiet, makin’ him edgy. Everyone was sleepin’, except for the Vee, who he could hear whimperin’ through the cell door. His brain felt heavy, stuffed full’a thoughts without an end. Reece had a heckuva mystery on his hands. Gideon felt the weight’a it for him, once he sat down alone and listened to the Vee’s shrieks.

Speakin’a which.

Gideon leaned up outta his slump and listened. The Vee was quiet. Then,
tap tap tap
, knuckles on the door. He looked to the door like he could actually see the sound when it came again,
tap tap tap
.

“We know you can hear us,” the Vee’s voice rasped.

Gideon grumpily knocked the door with the heel’a his boot. “Remember what I said about talkin’ creepy?”

The Vee’s broken laughter sounded like weepin’. “Oh, we remember everything. The serum lets us. We never forget a face, a voice, never forget a past. We know you, Gideon Cephas Creed. Pray tell us…was the war terribly hard?”

Gideon braced himself. It’d been like this all night, the Vee pushin’ everyone’s buttons, tryin’ to get outta livin’ without his precious serum. Reece got a whole earful about his mother likin’ Liem more than him, and Mordecai had had to sit through reminiscin’s about Esther…his wife, who’d died durin’ the war.

“Did Reece Sheppard tell you?” the Vee purred softly. “There’s a war coming here. A grander war than little Panteda ever saw. Reece Sheppard and Hayden Rice will both go to fight…and both will die…and it will be like Panteda all over again, won’t it? Losing everyone, unable to do anything but watch.”

The Vee paused, and Gideon tried to focus in the quiet, shuttin’ his eyes, pullin’ in slow breaths. His hands were crampin’ from holdin’ them in tight fists.

“No one who understands, do they, Gideon Creed? How you saw your mother die. Out your ship window, as she suffocated trying to reach you. You did not see your father die, but you were given a ribbon for his valiant war efforts…a little green ribbon…”

Gideon had risen to his feet and was methodically unlockin’ the door, not knowin’ what he was plannin’ to do, but knowin’ what the end result would be. He was gettin’ ready to pull the door open when an arm shot out and barred his way.

“Don’t give him what he wants,” Reece said, and despite Gideon’s growl’a protest, started slidin’ the locks back into place to the sound’a the Vee’s fresh bout’a mournful wails. “If he dies before he breaks, he won’t have failed the other Veritas. We can’t give him that.”

For a minute, Gideon stood chest to chest with Reece, feelin’ his anger crawlin’ over his skin. Then he remembered who he was angry at—not Reece, but the Vee behind the door—and the steam went outta him. His shoulders dropped as he turned away and let Reece finish boltin’ the door. The Vee’s words were sittin’ in the bottom’a his stomach like a hard, cold rock.

“He said there’s a war comin’ here, and that’s why you and Hayden were drafted.”

Reece hesitated. “That’s what Scarlet overheard in The Guild House, yeah. Parliament is buffing up our military for some sort of attack, reforging alliances with the outer planets—”

“Attack from who?”

“No one seems to know.”

Gideon sat down, his back against the wall, and hung his arms limply over his knees. The Vee’s despairin’ noises had faded into the night, maybe because he’d given up, maybe because he was eavesdroppin’. Let him. Not like there wasn’t anythin’ he didn’t know anyways.

“I uh...” Reece gestured mutely, fumblin’ for words. “I
do
know about your parents, Gid. Mordecai told me and Hayden pretty early on how it happened. We figured you’d say something when you were…ready, I guess. But eight years went by kind of fast.”

“Well.” It was Gideon’s turn to fumble as he pulled a trigger outta his pocket and twiddled it between his fingers. Somethin’ to look at besides Reece. “I still ain’t ready.”

Reece made a noise that Gideon couldn’t quite read. He looked up to see him smirkin’ and shakin’ his head.

“What?” Gideon snapped, and for good measure, flung the trigger at him. It bounced off the wall by Reece’s head with a metallic
ping
and chattered to the ground. “Ain’t nothin’ to be smilin’ about.”

“It’s not that. Listen.”

Gideon did, squintin’ his eyes as if that might make him hear better.

There was a whisper, faint like the scufflin’a mice’s feet, comin’ from under the Vee’s door. “Please, we will tell you…we will speak …please…”

Reece and Gideon locked eyes and stood up with purpose, grim though the purpose was. Reece muttered to himself, “We’ve got him,” as he started undoin’ the locks he’d set in place moments ago. Pullin’ out his revolver, Gideon took a ready stance and waited till Reece had his hand on the door handle to nod his go ahead.

When Reece turned the handle, the door burst open, and the Vee tumbled into the hallway, scramblin’ to get past them. Gideon caught him by the back’a his jacket, propped the revolver’s barrel against the small’a his back, and steered him back into the storage room.

“Take a load off.” He thrust the Vee onto the cot.

“Please…please…the serum…”

Standin’ beside Gideon with his arms crossed and his face set, Reece informed him, “We don’t have any serum for you. But tell us what you know, and we might see if something can be arranged.”

The Vee hissed, spit dribblin’ from his chin, as his black eyes burned up at Reece. Gideon added a decisive click to the conversation by loadin’ a bullet into his revolver’s chamber. Those unnatural eyes flinched at the sound, as if it had been all that loud.

“No no no,” the beak-nosed Vee panted and waggled an admonitory finger back and forth. “We will not let you let us die. For you will. We will give you everything, and you will not repay us. We think not.”

Frownin’, Reece looked at the Vee like he was actually considerin’ its crazy talk. “What do you suggest?”

Gideon glanced at him sideways, keepin’ his finger a smooth twitch away from his trigger. “We bargainin’ with it now?”

“I’m hearing my options.”

Mightn’t have been the smartest thing, but Gideon was feelin’ a might tense, and he didn’t like bein’ talked down to, not even by Reece. He split his glare between the Vee, who was smilin’ craftily at him, and Reece as he snapped, “Burn it, Reece! We’ve only got one option!
It’s
the bleedin’ prisoner here, let’s just get what we need outta it and be done!”

The look Reece shot him was so packed full’a heat, it was a wonder Gideon’s eyebrows didn’t singe. “If you don’t like how I’m handling things, you can leave me the gun and get out.”

Simmerin’, Gideon grunted and swallowed down a couple’a choice words that Reece wouldn’t’a understood anyways, because they were in Pantedan. Would’a made Mordecai’s eyebrows go up, though.

“Good Pan,” the Vee tittered. “Knows when to stop barking.”

The finger slipped into place almost on its own, and Gideon let it pull the trigger. The
boom
sounded loud in the confined space, more like an explosion than a gunshot. Plaster rained down the ceilin’, a white dustin’.

“
Gideon
!” Reece shouted, livid, as he grabbed the front’a Gideon’s waistcoat in two angry fists.

“It was just a warnin’ shot!” Gideon yelled back, gesturin’ at the cowerin’ Vee and the dinner plate-sized hole in the wall a foot above his head. “Elsewise I wouldn’t’a missed!” He knew it wasn’t really necessary to add that last, but he didn’t want anyone misunderstandin’.

Reece shoved off his jacket, leavin’ his hands up in surrendered disbelief. Like he didn’t know what to do with him.

“What the heckles is goin’ on down here?” Mordecai bellowed, comin’ into the room at a jog with a hob in either hand. He was wearin’ a striped dressin’ gown and a long nightcap.

Hayden and Nivy slid in behind him, Hayden totin’ his medical bag. “Is anyone hurt?” he added, blinkin’ heavily because he wasn’t wearin’ his bifocals.

Reece looked liable to combust at any second, though his voice was deceivingly calm. “Out. Everyone out.” He swung a finger up and pointed at Gideon’s face. “You too, you bleeding trigger happy pirate. Give me the gun.”

When Reece had shut the lot’a them out in the corridor, Gideon sat his back down against the door and tried to listen in on the negotiations, but they were too quiet to hear. The others hung around too. They played jacks and laughed (Nivy just smiled) when Hayden blindly bounced the rubber ball at nonexistent jacks. Gideon didn’t ask to play. He could shoot an egg off a pole from a hundred and fifty yards, but bouncin’ a stupid rubber ball at a jack was somethin’ else altogether.

Could’a only been fifteen minutes before Reece rejoined them, face hidin’ all hints’a what’d gone on in the storage room. He tossed Gideon a look’a lingerin’ disapproval along with his revolver.

“Well?” Mordecai asked, catchin’ two jacks in his hand without lookin’ at them. “Did you strike yourself a deal?”

“Yup.”

“What kind of deal?” Hayden asked.

“The only one there really ever was to make. Our answers for his serum.”

Mordecai’s bushy mustaches twitched. “In what order, pray tell?”

Reece crouched down to be at a level with the rest’a them, his elbows on his knees, and let his face answer for him. Mordecai grunted unhappily while Hayden sighed and Gideon glared. Seemed wrong to him, givin’ the Vee what it wanted. Wasn’t like they could let it go free after it met its end’a the bargain.

Runnin’ his fingers tiredly through his yellow hair, Hayden wondered, “How are we supposed to get him the serum? It’s not exactly stocked at the local apothecary.”

Reece answered matter-of-factly, “A heist,” and Gideon sat up straighter, finally hearin’ somethin’ he liked. Reece saw the movement and nodded at him. “Gid and I will do it.”

Hayden was a step behind the rest’a them. “What are you heisting?”

“The Veritas’ base of operations. Our friend in the storage room gave me the coordinates.”

“
The Veritas’ base
? Are you out of your mind?”

“I hear I wouldn’t know if I was.”

“Reece, they’re not going to let you just walk in and take some of their serum so you can make a traitor out of one of their own!”

“Which is why,” Reece said dryly, “they call it a heist. It’s also why you’re staying here with Mordecai and Nivy.”

Nivy clicked her fingers to get their attention, then pointed insistently at herself. Reece started shakin’ his head before he even looked at her.

“Sorry, Nivy, this trust thing is still a work in progress, and I can’t be watching my front
and
my back.”

Wearin’ her unreadable pokerface, Nivy stood, stepped over the scattered jacks, and sauntered off down the hallway. Sulkin’, likely as not.

“Hayden,” Reece said, starin’ after her. “Go with her. Make sure she stays put.”

After openin’ and closin’ his mouth in mute protest for a minute, Hayden obeyed, feelin’ his way down the hall with a hand on the wall. He paused before he sank too deep into the shadows to call back over his shoulder, “If you can, try to get the components for the serum, not just the finished product.”

“Why?” Reece asked.

Aitch’s voice was quiet. “Because some good might come from figuring out how the serum really works. Who knows. Maybe it can be used to help people, someday.”