Without warning, she leaned down to lift first Prue’s left eyelid with her thumb, then the right. “Aargh!” Prue’s instinctive flinch was brought up short by the back of the chair. Her spine crawled.
“Hmm,” murmured the other woman, peering from a distance of inches. There was gray in the part of her soft brown hair. Producing a small oval shape from her pocket, she passed it over Prue’s forehead, pausing at her temples. “No activity.” She straightened, her lips curving in a small smile. “Excellent. The dampers in the restraints are working as they should. You’re safe enough, for the short term at least.”
Prue’s jaw sagged, but the woman continued without pause, as if she were talking to herself. “I should give you a shot of something,” she said, her brow creasing, “but I’m not sure what that idiot woman used.” She tapped a fretful finger against her lower lip. “I can’t have rogue variables affecting my data. We’ll have to wait.”
So many questions jostled in Prue’s brain they got tangled on her tongue. “W-who are you?” she managed. “What woman? What are you talking about?”
Through the ache in her head, she fumbled for the memories. Two men with a—a
laundry basket
? Gods, it must have been for her. No wait, they’d asked for Erik. It was for him, his
body
. And they’d taken her instead. Shit, she was going to vomit! Desperately, she sucked in one breath after the other, until the urge subsided. That hesitant contralto, the feel of the body behind her, its solid curves, full of flesh, nothing like a man’s.
“It was her, wasn’t it? The assassin?”
As if she hadn’t spoken, the other woman hitched up her white trousers and sank back into her chair, her legs decorously crossed at the ankle. “I,” she said, with the air of someone making an announcement, “am the Technomage Primus of Sybaris.”
Prue shook her head to clear it, but that only increased the woolly sensations so she gave up. “
Who?
”
The woman stiffened. “The Technomage Primus of Sybaris,” she said, articulating every word as if to the mentally deficient.
“Primus?” Prue forced herself to concentrate. “That means first, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, and it is also the correct form of address. Well done.” The Technomage smiled, smoothing a fingertip over the numeral one embroidered on the collar of her shirt.
Prue stared. “What are you doing here? Let me go!” She writhed against the straps, which shifted not at all.
“Stop that, you’ll damage yourself.” The other woman stood beside her, cool fingers on Prue’s wrist. “Tell me, how much do you remember?”
“Two men from the laundry. Except they weren’t.” She wrinkled her forehead. “A knife. They had a funny little dog. A cloth over my face, couldn’t breathe . . .” Her throat closed.
“Ah, so that’s how she administered it.” The Technomage bent over her desk to scribble a note on a sheet of gray filmy stuff with a stylus.
Transplas
. Prue had seen it when she’d paid The Garden’s plumbing bills at the Technomage Tower. “Hmm, primitive, but effective nonetheless. I’m afraid I don’t know the woman’s name or anything about her.” An elegant shrug. “We have many subordinates.”
“We?”
The Technomage frowned down at the transplas on the desk, fiddling with her stylus. “I have a . . . partner,” she said finally. “Nasake is taking him a message.” She sighed, moving behind Prue’s chair. A series of clicks ensued, followed by a barely audible humming noise. “There. It shouldn’t take long to warm up.”
Prue strove to turn her head, but the back of the chair was too high, her bonds too tight. “What won’t?”
The other woman crossed the floor to a long bench, her heels tapping on the flagged floor. The room looked like a basement, the walls supported by brick arches, the ceiling beamed. “Hmm?” She spoke over her shoulder, meanwhile donning a pair of white gloves made of some thin, flexible fabric. “The reservoir machine.”
Prue forced the panic down, clamping a lid over the bubbling screams. Godsdammit, what was going on? “I don’t know what that is.”
“Of course, you don’t.” Turning, the Scientist leaned back against the bench, gloved hands folded over her stomach. “Let me explain.” Her eyes shone, her expression animated.
“Strictly speaking,” she said, “it’s a conduit attached to a reservoir. There’s also a three-tier filtration system.” She shook her head with a rueful twinkle. “I had the most extraordinary trouble with the design for the metabolic mesh until it occurred to me that . . .”
Prue heard about one word in ten, enough to retain the general gist. The Technomage Primus had a penchant for convoluted paragraphs and long words, but she did like to repeat herself.
Prue began to wonder . . . Seizing her chance, she inserted her question when the other woman paused for breath. “Where are your staff, the other Technomages?”
Two beats of silence and the Primus said stiffly, “This project is utterly secret.”
“I see.” Prue arranged her face in an expression of sympathy. “So you haven’t seen much of the Caracole? What a pity. It’s a beautiful city.”
The Technomage turned away, blinking rapidly. “I’ve been working.”
“Hardly seems fair,” murmured Prue. “When does your, ah, partner return?”
The other woman began assembling objects on a tray, her motions clipped and angry. “Soon.” She carried it over to the desk. “I need something to show him.” Her voice trembled, then firmed. “Your Magick, in the first instance.”
Prue was so surprised she laughed. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ve got about as much Magick as you have.”
The Technomage Primus sent her a thin smile. “As much as I
will
have in a few moments. In my reservoir.”
Prue blinked. “You’re serious.”
“Absolutely.” Carefully, she lifted a gray wire from the tray. Attached to the end of it was a small, circular pad. “I let the fire witch slip through my fingers. I won’t make the same mistake with you.”
“
Witch?
” The word emerged as a croak. “I’m not a witch.”
“Yes, you are.” The Technomage pressed the pad to the side of Prue’s neck, where it stuck. It felt cold, and a little greasy. “An air witch. The metabolic comparisons between air and fire should be fascinating.” A second patch went in the hollow of her throat.
“Will it hurt?” Prue cursed herself for the quaver in her voice, for asking in the first place, but she had to know.
Gloved fingers brushed her hair aside, almost gently, and attached a pad to her temple. “Not much,” said the other woman, frowning in concentration.
And Prue knew she’d lied. “Please,” she whispered, despising herself. “I’m not a witch. I don’t even believe in—”
A latch clicked and the Scientist’s head jerked up, her eyes going wide. The air grew chill, and a huge dark shadow slid over the ceiling, the wall.
“Nasake was excited but a trifle confused,” said a sibilant, sexless voice. “What do we have here?”
The sound of it slithered down Prue’s spine like a fistful of slime. She trembled.
The Technomage gripped her gloved hands together. “Your assassin fumbled the kill, but she’s redeemed herself. Look what she brought us. This is the air witch herself.” A pause. “Are you pleased?”
“Ah. I’ll tell you in a moment.” A cloaked figure glided into view, its outline strangely distorted, both filmy and impenetrable. Prue had the sense that its boundaries shrank and expanded at will.
Oh gods, if it touched her, she’d throw up. What could have been a sleeve reached toward her and Prue pressed herself back into the chair, every joint locked with terror.
“Shaitan!” With a hiss, the figure jerked away, the hood of the cloak turning toward the Technomage. Did it even have eyes? “There’s a barrier I can feel from here.” A short pause. “Her shields are naïve, but quite excellent.”
Shields?
Prue wet her lips. “W-who are you?
What
are you?”
Like a portal opening to the depths of hell, the dark stain swelled and grew against the wall. The toneless voice boomed off the walls of the chamber. “I am the Necromancer.” It lowered to a hiss. “I am Death!”
Somewhere in the back of Prue’s mind, a small voice snorted, “Overdoing it.” But the Technomage Primus was cowering in a corner and she couldn’t hang on to the thought.
“Hold still, my dear.” The Necromancer chuckled. He flowed toward her. “All I need is a chink.
Aargh!
”
The dark shape recoiled, and for a second, Prue thought she glimpsed the swish of an embroidered sleeve, deep in the shadows.
“Bitch! By Shaitan, you’ll pay for that!” The Necromancer’s featureless head turned toward the Technomage. “Turn up the dampers, you fool!”
Obediently, the other woman flipped a lever, fiddled with a dial.
The Necromancer hissed his satisfaction.
Prue followed his gaze to where the wires wrapped around her leather cuffs sparkled with pretty lights. She didn’t feel any different, but the Necromancer no longer hesitated, swooping over her like a foul cloud.
“Now where was I? Ah, there . . . slowly now.”
Prue slammed her eyes shut, but it was no use. A sliver of ice slid down her spine, wrapped itself around her heart and invaded her lungs. “Ah,” said that whispery voice.
“Hurts.”
“Of course. Let me see . . .”
Sly, ghostly fingers probed her most private emotions, tweaking with malicious glee, stroking over her soul with a leisurely intimacy that was tantamount to rape.
“Gods, no,” she gasped. “
No!
” She heaved in the chair, fighting the straps, fighting the invader.
After an age, the Necromancer withdrew and Prue sagged, whimpering. He regarded the Technomage. “You have failed,” he said, completely without inflection. “This is no witch.”
“T-told you,” said Prue, shuddering all the way to her bones.
“Sorry.” The Technomage lifted a shaking hand to her lips. “N-not my fault. The assassin—”
The Necromancer rode over her. “This one is something else. Find out what it is.” His attention swung back to Prue. “Where is the air witch?”
“Listen to me.” Prue tried to hold the burning gaze lurking within the hood and failed. “I don’t know anything about Magick or witches. Nothing, I swear it.”
“Nonsense!” The Necromancer loomed over her. “The stink of air Magick is all over you, you and the—” He broke off, his substance condensing.
“The singer,” whispered the Technomage. “It’s him, has to be.”
The silence was so profound, Prue thought she could hear the lapping of the water in the canal, the creak of the enormous Leaf beneath the foundations of the building.
Erik?
“
Yess!
” The Necromancer’s boundaries blurred, expanding as if he’d gorged himself on something ripe and swollen. She caught a gut-churning whiff of old blood, thick and clotted. “By Shaitan, it’s perfect!”
“What is?” whispered Prue, struggling to comprehend. If the situation had been different, she would have been helpless with laughter. Erik and Magick?
The Necromancer continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You, my dear,” he said, his focus all on her, “you are the honeyed bait that will bring me everything, not only the power, but the flesh to house it. You are the fated instrument of my destiny. Who’d have thought?” A soundless chuckle. “A plain little thing like you.”
In a parody of affection, his touch ghosted over her hair, brushed across her lips. Suddenly, urgently, Prue needed to spit. She could have sworn her mouth filled with something foul and sweet.
A final lingering pat and the featureless head swiveled toward to the Technomage Primus. “Pace yourself,” he ordered. “Complete the tests. I want to know where that shield comes from. But remember, I need her alive and reasonably whole for”—he calculated—“another two days.”
The Technomage’s mouth tightened. “No vivisection. Very well, I understand.” She stared into the darkness under the hood, her gaze both intent and wary. “What are your plans now?” Unobtrusively, she braced herself against the desk. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
Vivisection?
Prue’s vision hazed and a scream bubbled in her throat. Ruthlessly, she clamped her lips shut, forcing herself to listen.
“I have a trap to set and a message to send.” The satisfaction streaming off him made the air glutinous. “Ah, death is full of simple pleasures.” He drifted away from Prue’s vision. Distantly, a latch clicked and she thought she heard teeth snapping, a low feral growl abruptly chopped off.
The Technomage let out a long breath. “We’d better get on, I suppose.” She picked up her tray and approached the chair. “The most likely hypothesis is that you broadcast some kind of nullifying field.”
Prue met her eye. “You’re as much a prisoner here as I am, aren’t you?”
“We’re partners. An alliance between Science and Magick. Building bridges.”
Prue snorted. “So you’re free to leave this room any time you want?”
Silence. “There’s a . . . guardian on the door.” The Technomage pulled a high stool close to Prue’s chair and perched on it. “Besides, this is important work. Exciting.” Her eyes glowed and her white-jacketed chest expanded. “I’m a pioneer in the field.” A shadow crossed her face. “In fact, I’m the only one.”
“Is scientific curiosity worth sacrificing your freedom? Your life?” Prue stared straight into the blue gray eyes. “He’s going to kill you.”
“I have my resources. He can try.” The other woman shrugged, though her gaze slid away from Prue’s. “Every endeavor has its risks.
“Caracole of the Leaves is a beautiful city,” said Prue. “Let me tell you what you’re missing.”
The Technomage’s heels hit the floor with a sharp clack. “It’s been months since I spoke with anyone . . . normal. Or anyone at all.” She took a pace away, then spun around. “Clever of you.” Her smile looked pared to the bone. “What a pity you weren’t born a Technomage. I could have done something with a mind like yours.”