Blaedergil's Host by C.M. Simpson (reading well .TXT) 📕

aboard Mack’s ship—although I had been unconscious for a lot of the time I’d been back there, and hadn’t ventured far, when I had been conscious.

“There are no other Odyssey staff on board my ship,” Mack said. “Now, focus. We’re almost there.”

I’d run three flights? Already? Man, I was fitter than I thought... or more distracted.

“Take your pick,” Mack told me, slowing the pace, so we could take the last few stairs more quietly.

When we got to the door leading out into the corridor proper, I realized I hadn’t even thought to hack the security feed to see what lay ahead.

“Already done,” said Tens, and the feeds were there for me to access.

I have to admit, this was a lot better than when I had been down in Ghoul’s complex. Down there, I’d had to do it all myself—and I hadn’t even had Mack to rely on for security.

“Lucky you,” Mack muttered, “cos I would have smacked you upside the head several times over for not getting that shit out of the way fast enough,” and I realized Tens was having trouble with the door.

“What’s gone wrong?”

“Skymander,” Tens replied. “He’s there, and he’s locking the place down, so he can go find his bride.”

“Well, at least we know she’s here.”

“And he wants the kid, too, so you really need to shift your asses.”

“Right.”

I stepped up to the door, and Mack turned so he could cover both directions of the staircase with the Blazer. To my surprise, the door was all new tech under cover of the brass casings and fittings of a much older age. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said Blaedergil had a problem trusting his servants.

Oh, wait, I did know better. Blaedergil did have a problem trusting his servants, because Blaedergil had been a sick, sadistic bastard. I was guessing that not even the servants had been immune from his predilections, figured there had to be nights when killing just his bride wasn’t enough, and felt very sorry for a servant class trapped into service to just one house.

Magnus 19 wasn’t big on looking after its people, what with being a world specializing in the dead, and all.

I pushed the class politics to one side, and pulled the tool kit I’d learned to carry while down in the Ghoul’s complex. Once I could talk to the security system, I was able to get it to open no problems at all. From below us came the sound of a door slamming open, and a multitude of booted steps coming into the stairwell.

“Make it fast,” Mack said, and Tens gave us a snap visual of a half dozen armored soldiers starting up the stairs.

I patched Tens into the security system, and wondered if he could jam all the doors and lock the team behind us in the stairwell. He was chuckling evilly, as Mack and I eased the door closed in an effort to keep our presence in the stairwell a secret.

I wondered what access the Skymander lord had to the security feeds, and figured Tens would have that sorted if he was able to sort it all.

“Done,” Tens assured me, “but I don’t know how long for, so get going.”

Mack and I obliged.

“Which direction were the screams coming from?” he asked, and his words took me straight back to the night I had left my room to find Melari.

For a moment, I was almost overwhelmed by remembered terror. I shook my head to clear it, and reminded myself that Mack was here with me, that Mack would make sure I got out of here alive, that Blaedergil was no longer around to see to my death every night... or to engineer anyone else’s.

I sneered at myself.

Yeah? And what about the Skymander? He authorized Blaedergil’s activities, so he can’t be any better.

“Which way?” and Mack’s voice broke through the nightmare and the fear.

I lifted my head and looked up and down the corridor, momentarily lost until I recognized one of the plants flowering in a niche beside a doorway.

“That way,” I said. “I came into the corridor over there, and the screams came from there.”

“Then that’s where we need to look.”

Behind us the door shook, and voices were raised in consternation. I shot Mack a glance that must have said it all, because he started running in the direction I said I’d heard the screaming. It made me wonder if they’d keep a nursery on the same level, or if the babies weren’t disturbed by the noise.

Mack’s footsteps faltered, and he came to an abrupt halt.

“Tens. Numbnuts has had another brilliant idea.”

“Roger that. Caught it and am checking now.”

Numbnuts? But I didn’t have any—

“Fine. Nonuts, then.”

Well, and a fine fuck you to you, too, Mack.

“Go two more floors up, and hang right, then get to the end of the corridor and hang a left. Looks like a nursery-style layout.”

“You’re not sure?”

“Nah. I’m sure. Security feeds confirm it.”

Behind us, the door shook, again. Mack and I exchanged glances, and headed for the same stairs I’d taken the last time I’d been here. Have to admit, while I didn’t want to think about that, I was also glad I was familiar with this part of the layout.

I decided the chances that Skymander’s men had gotten ahead of us were slim. Judging from the racket in the stairwell, and the fact they were behind us, I gathered they were doing the same thing Mack and I were, and searching for Treivani—except they didn’t have the advantage of having been here... oh, shit.

“Tens. Are there records of any Skymander visiting previously?”

Both Tens and Mack made an interesting chorus of swears, as Tens momentarily vanished from our heads, and Mack and I ran for the stairs. I’d decided to take the risk that Skymander hadn’t gone on ahead of us, that he hadn’t set a hunting pack on our heels on purpose, and that he might not have taken the elevators we’d shunned to the very floor he needed.

“Yeah,” Mack panted, “and