Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (26 page)

Shame engulfed me.

I had been dreaming about this guy. Wanting him. Why? Why would I desire a man who did that to my friend? I bet Kara’d been dreaming about him these last few months too, but her dreams would be different. I thought of her sitting on my paisley couch the night before, distraught and furious because … because …

I ducked my head and dug my fingers into my thighs, struggling to understand, and with a sudden rush, the world snapped into agonizing clarity.

… because she knew he’d meddled with my mind, and there was nothing she could do about it.

My stomach lurched as my recent past rewrote itself, inserting me as I truly was into every scene as a silent watcher. I saw myself in Cordus’s office having my critical faculty magically replaced with the absurd idea that everything would be okay because he believed in me. I saw myself merrily packing for a jaunt in the S-Em, never sparing a thought for what I valued most in the world — my family and friends. I saw myself in my room, surrounded by my friends, perplexed and frustrated by their inexplicable grief. With wiser eyes, I watched them struggle to accept that their friend’s mind was no longer her own, and that the person they knew was gone, perhaps forever. I watched my interaction with Koji and saw it pass over my face — the thought that Cordus’s treatment of his staff was okay.

I slid down onto the floor, shuddering.

I’m not that person he made me into. One person’s belief in me will never solve all my problems. I don’t walk thoughtlessly away from my friends. I don’t leave my family for months without a phone call. I don’t justify evil as regrettable but necessary.

I’m not that person.

The tears came.

I’d thought Cordus wouldn’t touch my mind. He’d never taken advantage of me, physically. Somehow, I’d thought that meant I was special, immune. Or at least being saved for later. But I was no different from the others. He’d gotten in there and changed what I thought, who I was, just like he did with everyone else.

I struggled not to throw up.

I should’ve loathed him all along. The rape, the murder, the way he took our freedom away and then played us against each other … how had I let a pretty face balance against all that?

God, I must’ve been crazy.

Or maybe he’d been fiddling with me all along — planting the attraction in my mind, making me not think of everything else he was. Just because I hadn’t noticed it didn’t mean he hadn’t done it.

That’s right — give yourself an out. Way to go.

I sat there, slumped against the side of the bed, furious, revolted, and filled with regret. Not that I was here — if Cordus wanted me here, I’d be here, one way or another. No, my regret was for the way I’d left my family. And my friends.

Thank god Andy came to say goodbye.

I squeezed my eyes shut and remembered him, standing in the driveway, waving.

The image faded.

Thirteen years. I would probably never see him again. Or any of the others. Nolanders didn’t live that long — not the ones who did the dangerous work my friends did. If I were there to share power, I could help. But I wouldn’t be.

Some minutes passed.

Then, shakily, I crawled up onto the bed and lay down. I was exhausted. The room was sweltering, but I fell asleep almost immediately.

I woke in the late afternoon.

There was no slow emerging from sleep to awareness. As soon as my eyes opened, it was all right there, clear in my mind.

The solatium thing was true.

Cordus hadn’t hesitated to replace the person I really was with someone more confident and tractable, so why would the thought of giving me away bother him? It wouldn’t. I was disposable.

So I was being sent to the arctic, where I would spend the rest of my youth as payment for a crime in which I’d played only an unintentional and incidental role.

Maybe Cordus was being held responsible, and he’d decided to make me the scapegoat. Not Graham, who put out the order. Not Williams, who did the actual killing. Me — because Williams was useful, and Graham was unavailable.

That sounded about right.

I lay there, looking at the sliver of gray sky I could see through the window.

A year ago, I’d been living a certain kind of life. It was all about finding some happiness and satisfaction in the midst of limitations, disappointment, and failure. I was the small town girl who wanted to do bigger things but couldn’t because my panic attacks made it impossible to live a normal life, much less be a high-achiever.

Then I’d taken a couple weird photos, and my life had turned upside down. When the dust settled, a new story emerged: the seemingly lost girl who, against the odds, had found some strengths and made a decent, meaningful life for herself in a radically different world.

I liked that second story. Yeah, parts of it had scared me. Mainly I’d been afraid of what I might become and what Cordus might make me do when my abilities finally emerged. And I’d been afraid for my nieces. And I was afraid of dying young. And I missed the things I’d lost.

Okay, there were quite a few downsides.

But there was no denying that my day-to-day life on Cordus’s estate had been a lot more interesting and less lonely than the one I’d led in Dorf. When it came right down to it, I was willing to trade a frustrating, lonely, long life for a shorter one that was higher quality.

Maybe I only felt that way because I was still young — I don’t know.

At any rate, all of those calculations had gone out the window. Cordus had pressed the “reset” button on my life for the second time. I really didn’t know what I was looking at, now, but I had a feeling it might be the worst of all previous worlds: lonely, dangerous, and boring.

And I wouldn’t be around to protect my friends and family the next time a monster showed up. In my mind’s eye, I saw Andy lying dead on some street somewhere. I saw Gwen, the recognition of her own death in her eyes, as some terrible danger finally overwhelmed caution, smarts, and preparation. I saw almost-thirteen-year-old Tiffany being ushered into Cordus’s office, and the door closing behind her.

I stared out the window, watching the movement of the clouds and feeling like a cliché: older and wiser.

No, not
wiser
. Just more aware of my lack of wisdom.

I wished like heck someone besides Williams had been assigned to take me to the ice men, someone I could talk to. I wanted to vent, to be told there was a bright side, to admit to someone that I’d thought Cordus would treat me better.

That last thing was weighing on me especially — the realization of how much of an idiot I’d been. I felt the urge to confess it to someone, but there was no one.

I rolled out of bed, stripped off my sweaty clothes, and used the large bowl of water sitting on the wash-basin to clean up. Once I had on clean, dry clothes, I sat down to figure out what to do.

I didn’t come up with much.

If I ran away from Williams, Kevin or some other tracker would find me. If I somehow eluded them or managed to kill them, I’d still be trapped in the S-Em, penniless and alone, with no skills I could use to earn a living.

Having allies might help. Just the right person — powerful, well placed — might be able to get me out of the solatium thing.

But even that was problematic. If I went back to the F-Em, Cordus would find me, and I’d be back in the same situation. The best I could probably do was service to a power who wasn’t as awful as Cordus and was strong enough not to be afraid of him. But that would mean never seeing my family or friends again, since they were all in Cordus’s territory.

I’d met some of the other powers who held territory in the F-Em. None of them struck me as a clear trade-up from Cordus. Sort of the reverse, actually.

I picked up one of the hiking boots I’d worn earlier. It was thoroughly damp.

Just because I can’t see a way out now doesn’t mean something won’t come along.

I’d just have to keep my eyes open and look for opportunities. Carefully.

And not despair. Not despairing was key. If I gave up, I’d isolate myself. I wouldn’t create opportunities and wouldn’t recognize the ones that came along.

I took a deep breath and pulled on my boots.

Time to start making friends.

What else was there to do?

I went to the door and pulled the bell cord. Faintly, somewhere downstairs, a chime sounded.

There were big piles of stuff scattered around the room where we’d sat with the Garden Gate’s staff just a few hours earlier. Everyone had been busy while I slept.

Jimena sat down at the table. She looked to be in the middle of packing dried meat. “Let me just finish this up. Then I can get you some lunch.”

“Looks like there’s lots to do,” I said. “How can I help?”

She weighed me with a skeptical look. “What can you do?”

“Lots of stuff. Wash clothes. Pack things. Get horses ready. Clean guns. Polish shoes. Whatever you need.”

Fifteen minutes later I was sitting on the kitchen floor, cleaning tack. Jimena had fired up the wood-burning stove before she left. The fire transformed the room from steam bath to sauna. It was miserable, but probably necessary — leather molded fast in humid climates. It’d need to be pretty dry before I oiled it.

By the time I started on the third saddle, I was thanking the stars I’d put on shorts.

“Mind if I use the table?”

I looked up. It was the scruffy undershirt-and-camo guy, Terry.

“Are you going to be playing with grenades?”

He grinned. “Nope. Just these.” He patted the long guns he had slung over his shoulder — a military-grade rifle and a couple shotguns.

“Okay, then. Feel free.”

He came in, stepping over my piles of tack.

“Nice of you to help with that,” he said. “Cleaning tack sucks.”

“Well, it’s nice of you all to help us get where we’re going.”

He shrugged. “No prob.”

“I’m Hera,” I said.

He snorted. “Please. You’re Elizabeth Ryder. We’ve been hearing about you for months. Mr. Gates is a gossip.”

I forced a laugh. “So much for secrecy. I go by ‘Beth.’”

No wonder Chasca had seemed so interested in “Hera Hanson.”

I went back to scrubbing the saddle, trying to hide my dismay at being thought gossip-worthy.

Terry seemed perfectly happy to work in silence. He cleaned the guns with impressive efficiency. Then he started loading magazines.

I watched him surreptitiously. He was in his late twenties, tall and lean, with bold, slightly uneven features. And really nice hands. He wasn’t traditionally handsome, but I thought he was attractive.

He glanced up, caught me looking, and grinned. Then he went back to work. I could tell he wasn’t interested, but he managed to give me that vibe without embarrassing me.

“So, do all you guys work for Mr. Gates?”

“Sure. This is his place.”

“Do you just work for him, or do you belong to him?”

Terry looked up from the clip he was loading, his face serious.

It occurred to me that I’d just asked a black man if someone owned him.

And he was very generously giving me a chance to explain myself.

“I don’t mean belong to him, like, legally. I mean, are you free to leave if you want to? ’Cause, you know … I’m not. I belong to Cordus. I’m … he owns me. For all intensive purposes. Intents and purposes, I mean.”

I stumbled to a stop, mortified.

Terry studied me for another few moments. Then I guess he decided I was okay despite my idiocy, because he shrugged and went back to work.

“Mr. Gates isn’t like Lord Cordus. We’re free to leave.”

“But you have to do what he says so long as you’re with him?”

“Not really. He expects us to be straight with him, but we can make our own choices.”

“I don’t get it, then. Why are you guys helping us?”

Terry broke the seal on a new box of ammo. “You know about ’56, right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

That was when the Seconds had finally admitted humanity might pose a threat. Apparently, a bunch of the great powers had gathered to watch one of the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll. It must’ve scared them shitless, because a year later, they agreed to a single universal law — the existence of the S-Em must be disguised at all costs. They divvied the F-Em up into territories. Each one would be overseen by a power, who’d act to enforce the law. By the early ’60s, it was all set up.