Steadfast: Prison Breaker Book 4, page 21
I knew we were outnumbered. Outgunned, but I'd always preferred talking my way out of trouble anyway. Fight was a last resort, flight was a favored one, but the gift of gab? It came useful in a pinch.
Admiral snorted. “Shut up,” he said. I sensed the murder in his eyes. He squeezed the trigger.
Preacher shoved me suddenly, hard. But Admiral could see the future and all its branching paths. He moved his hand the same time as Preacher. But I wasn't unprepared either. The moment I sensed the violence, I slammed my consciousness into his.
Fear is the killer of mental defense. And all of them, every last person stank of it. We were all scared. All except Annie. But even Admiral, despite his carefree pretense was quaking. And so I used the fear as an entry point, shoving past his motor motion and briefly jolting the muscles in his hand.
He corrected for Preacher's shove. I re-corrected.
And so his shot missed, high, sparking off the wall behind me. I stumbled towards the ratmen, treading on one of the oozing corpses. Preacher howled and surged towards the cart, but Admiral's weapon whirled around, pointing at him as well.
“I think I recognize you, too, don't I?” he snarled. “Stay back, like a good hound. Now Leon, that wasn't a nice trick. Stay out of my head.” He turned his weapon back towards me.
Talking to Admiral was futile. But the others? The graysuits, the Gentle Hand? They had staged a coup, but the leader of the graysuits was in custody or dead. The submarine they'd wanted to commandeer was out of their reach. The trick to proper negotiations isn't to lie. It is to offer something the other side wants. Something that would benefit them. Truly. But benefit in the same direction that you want to go.
And so I didn't address Admiral but instead called out to the others. “Your little coup failed!” I shouted. I spoke quickly, but assuredly. Not so quick as to communicate fear. But not so slow as to allow Admiral a moment of boredom where he just might plug my skull. “Admiral's coup failed,” I altered, making no qualms about where I placed the blame. “He wants to kill me. But he's always been too quick on the trigger. I'm the only way for any of you to leave here alive. You don't even know what is hunting your members, do you?”
“It won't work, Leonidas,” Admiral said with a chuckle. “We know your kind.”
“You wanted Augustus out of the picture,” I called. “I did that. Not Admiral. I did! I'm a Wit. We don't lie. I succeeded where your little pug-faced leader here failed.”
A few of the gunmen in the window seemed more attentive now on my words than their reticles. But they didn't twitch, didn't lower their arms. Their weapons remained fixed on me.
I continued, hurriedly, feeling the fuse slowly running out. Admiral's thoughts were murderous still and verging on action once again. He was breathing slowly, calming himself, forcing back his fear to prevent any further interference from my gift.
“Shoot him!” Admiral called, doubling down.
“Wait!” I cried. “I saved your corporal, too! See—there she is. We healed her foot. We rescued her. I saved her where Admiral failed too!”
The play was simple enough. Preacher was quiet now, tensed next to me, prepared to lunge at Admiral if I gave the greenlight. But that wasn't the move here. We'd come in outarmed, outnumbered. We needed to defeat whatever these monsters were. I'd told Gildquail we'd enter the nursery.
And so that meant I needed an army of my own.
Two birds with one stone.
I felt something like vindictive pleasure rise in me. I projected the words in Admiral's head like a hiss of steam. I'm going to take your army from you, Manthe. And I'm going to watch them kill you instead.
Stoking the flames of fear. But also... I'd be lying if I said the look on his face didn't give me some amount of vindictive pleasure. Mine was not a gift of brute or brawn. Mine was a gift of words. With lesser tools, empires have fallen. And others have risen.
Now, I saw the opportunity. The obvious one. I didn't know the play would work, but it was all I had left. In fact, if I considered the likelihood, this play had a higher chance of success than a shootout.
“It's true,” the corporal called, waving weakly behind us.
A few of the gunmen glanced towards her. A break in focus. None of them fired yet. A silver lining. A glimmer of hope.
Admiral, though, wasn't about to let me finish without interrupting. “Don't listen to his drivel,” Manthe shouted. “He killed Tommy Dawes. He killed Ferro. He killed the others. Where are they now if Leonidas is so magnanimous to our cause?”
I flinched, but tried not to show it. He had me there, and he knew it. Eyes behind sights narrowed beneath scowls.
“Yes, yes,” Admiral insisted. “He killed them!”
He pulled the trigger again. But again, I managed to break through, redirecting the shot once more. Again, it hit the wall behind me, this time shattering a window.
“Bloody hells,” Admiral sneered. “Get out of my head, Wit! Kill him! Kill him, now!”
“If you do, you'll rot down here!” I screamed. The shrill sound, I hoped, would cause hesitation. Briefly, it did. No gunfire. But then I sensed imminent violence coming from the window above me.
“I know where the monsters are hiding!” I shouted. “I know how to get us out of here. I know how to flee this place.”
The gunmen paused, hesitating once more.
“He killed our comrades,” Admiral howled, shaking his head ferociously. “Stop listening—” another shot. Another redirect. Another miss. “—to this liar!”
Now, Admiral and I were both glaring at each other. Him sitting in a cart full of gemstones, his face beading with sweat, his brow wrinkled in concentration. Me standing with my feet in the oozing corpse of a half-gnawed verman, my breath coming in pants, my head throbbing with each foray forth, the echoing din of screaming piercing the air around me.
Our eyes met, glaring. Admiral's fear was mounting. Twice he'd called for my execution. Twice they hadn't responded. This wasn't the same as conceding the point. But Admiral's fear was getting the best of him.
You failed your coup. I whispered in his mind. You failed to kill Augustus. You failed to take the submarine. You failed to protect your soldiers. I did kill them. I did it. And you couldn't stop me.
Admiral's nostrils flared. His hooped nose ring lifted and fell, shifting with the motion. His jaw like a slab of granite pressed into a thin line. He tried to shoot me again. Blessed are so accustomed to dodging, anticipating, outmaneuvering by looking into the futures. But you can't dodge a Wit.
I pressed on him, gripping his hand. Using a gift Hades had accidentally given me. The same thought he'd planted in my brain.
You can't move your hand.
Hades' words, not mine. But I ripped them from my skull and planted them in the fearful soil of Admiral's mind.
His hand froze on his trigger. He stared at me, bug-eyed, sweating. In a war of words, I had him matched. And he knew it. He could track the futures. He could even tell what someone was thinking by questioning them a hundred different ways in his mind. But it was a concentration-fueled endeavor. As a Wit, I didn't need to spend so much time. I could read the surface thoughts of ten, twenty if I had to. Rapidly picking up the emotions as quickly as a comedian reads a crowd.
They were still hostile. Still scared. But I wasn't done yet.
“Gildquail Lockwood is allegiant to us. He's given his word to help us escape this place. There are treasure groves just beyond those silver gates. Have you ventured in yet? Have you seen what lies beyond?”
“No,” a voice called from a window. “Admiral was too scared!”
“Shut up!” Manthe screamed. He rotated sharply, gun aiming towards one of his own soldiers.
The woman blinked, stunned. Her own weapon twitched, hovering, moving an inch to the left, away from where it currently aimed at my chest.
Of course, she hadn't said a word. It's all in your head, Admiral, I whispered. I felt a rising sense of vindictive pleasure.
I stood in the alley, the long shadows from the tall buildings swarming around us, smothering the light from the city center. The fear on the air wafted and flared. Admiral was now pointing a gun at one of his own soldiers. The others noticed this. Shifting now, glaring.
“I bring the best sniper you've ever met with me,” I said, patting Preacher on his massive shoulder. “Plus look at the size of him. I bring three genies. A Wit,” I tapped my chest. “A trained bodyguard, and a saboteur,” I said, lingering on this word. I felt a jolt of... something I didn't like, but I suppressed the emotion at the thought of Annie.
“Would we not make better allies than this pig-headed man? He's failed you at every turn. He's only a Blessed, and yet he's the least lucky of any I've encountered. Look at him. He can't even pull his own trigger.”
Now, I returned Admiral's smirk from earlier. I adjusted my sleeves, smoothing my shirt with a haughty, and well-practiced sniff. The pink color of my sweater didn't exactly help my cause, but I knew an opportunity when I saw one.
“Don't listen to his lies,” Admiral spat. “He killed—”
“Oh shut up, Admiral,” I cut in, before he hit me with that sledgehammer again. “You failed to protect your own crew. And you'll fail again. The monsters are coming. I know where they're hiding. Gildquail is the only hope of defeating them. We can enter the treasure gardens, together, armed with weapons and knowledge.” I emphasized this last word with a scornful and obvious glance at Admiral. “We will feast on djinn treasure. We will emerge as rich as warlords, kings and queens. And we will escape this place with genie magic. Or,” I said, dismissively, grinding my foot in the mush at my feet with a faint splattering sound. “More of this,” I said, waving a dismissive hand towards Admiral's bulging eyes.
I went silent now, waiting, not even daring to breathe too deeply lest I tip the scales again. No fear. I couldn't project fear. I'd long been trained how to communicate command and confidence. To the fearful, courage was like a lifeline. It didn't matter if the courage was feigned.
I kept my head held high, even going so far as to reach in my psychosomatic reactions and convince my mind I was cold. This in turn closed my sweat glands. The red flush would fade from my cheeks.
Unlike Admiral, who stood, eyes bulging like a toad; he clutched a gun in a frozen hand while sweat dripped from his forehead, down the bridge of his slab-like nose and past his horrible little nose ring.
At least I'd had the chance to don a clean set of clothes. Less knitted flowers might have been nice. And I was suspicious these pants had once belonged to a female djinn.
Still, my eyes flashed imperiously.
It was the corporal who broke the silence. She cleared her throat, and stepped forward, still testing that healed foot of hers. She called, “They treated me well enough. I am the ranking officer here.”
A few of the soldiers surrounding us shot her irritated looks, but she didn't seem to mind. Her face was still flushed, and I could feel the terror emanating from her in waves. She refused to look in the direction of the corpse pile behind the treasure wagon.
“Perhaps we ought to do this the old-fashioned way,” she said. “We joined up for a return to how things were once done, didn't we?”
“The proper way,” a voice echoed from a window. A couple of the soldiers in the windows pounded the stocks of their weapons in agreement, causing windows to rattle.
“Give 'em a chance, then,” said the soldier Admiral had pointed his pistol at. “Same chance we all get.”
Another one of the soldiers, a graysuit, scoffed, “Better than some of us got, no doubt.”
“A chance,” the corporal called, nodding. “A fighting chance.”
She met my eyes now, her eyebrows rising with a faint flick. I let out a shaky breath. She was helping me. Not in the way I might have liked, but it was help.
A fighting chance. One of my father's favorite pastimes he'd handed down the ranks.
A gentleman's duel. My grandfather, it was said, had blooded a hundred men. I let out a shaking sigh.
“A fighting chance!” voices echoed. Others nodded. A few looked on with scowls but didn't interject. They were all cold, hungry, tired and scared. Admiral wasn't a friend, he was an opportunity. One that had failed them.
Admiral's eyes still bugged and briefly, I felt his desire to interject, to plead his case, but then his gaze fell on me. Hatred pulsed from him in waves.
“I relish the opportunity,” he said simply with a mean-eyed smirk. “But a fighting chance in the old way, yes? You all want tradition, that's the way of it.”
The corporal shrugged. “So be it. The old way.”
I felt a flicker of icy fear down my spine. Guns slowly lifted, or dropped, aiming towards the sky or ground, hefted on shoulders or holstered.
The rattle of weaponry covered Preacher's fierce whisper. “What's the old way?”
“No talents,” I murmured back. “No Wit. No Blessed.”
“And... and how do they stop that?”
I glanced at Preacher and emitted a heavy sigh. “They get us drunk. Very drunk. And then...” I loosed the breath I held in a resigned sigh. “We fight bare-knuckle to the death.”
Even as I said it, I heard faint chuckles or mutters from the soldiers around us. Some, it sounded like, were betting treasure they hadn't even acquired yet. Others were voicing their concern for the return of whatever had destroyed the vermen.
“Ah, they've survived—them three. We're fine,” whispered another voice. “Just a few minutes anyhow. The prince has fancy words, but he's a wee fellow. Look at him.”
I shifted uncomfortably. This was true. I wasn't the tallest, nor brawniest. Normally, I did my best putting hind to heel. Admiral was a stocky man, with corded muscle and a temper like a geyser. Plus, he hated my guts. I had no doubt he'd fight dirty.
“Drunk?” Preacher was whispering. “Leon, no—you can't. You can't fight!” Quickly, he added, “er, drunk.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I muttered.
He wasn't wrong. My advantage often came in gears, gadgets, gimmicks and tricks. Usually purchased from Kay Kelly, black marketer extraordinaire. Now, though, I wouldn't have access to my usual arsenal. No tiger's eye. No dousing knife. No Lancelot shield. No imagems. Not even my Wit.
Just my fists against his. I was no slouch, not even in hand-to-hand. But I wasn't a boxer like Preacher. Against an average man, I'd handle myself well enough, but against a trained soldier like Manthe? Victory wasn't assured.
Preacher leaned next to me, shielding his mouth with his shoulder, whispering low and quiet so only I could hear. “Try not to punch. Let him punch first. Hands break quickly in bare-knuckle. Twenty-seven tiny little bones. Catch his blows on your forearms. Got me? Don't punch. Break his hands.”
I blinked. “Don't punch... Are you sure?”
But now soldiers emerged from the buildings and began pulling us apart. I heard the faintest clink of a bottle and laughter. Hands shoved at my face, forcing something against my lips.
“Drink! Drink! The old way!” Laughter followed. More hands gripped at me. A graysuit smirked, his bald, doughy face waving in front of me, back and forth. He jammed a green bottle to my lips. “The whole thing,” he admonished. “That's the way.”
I hissed, but didn't resist. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted others approaching Admiral on his treasure cart, moving somewhat sheepishly. They extended a bottle to him. One man tried to pull half-heartedly at Admiral's wrist but received a kick to the chest for his efforts.
Admiral snatched the bottle, tipping it. Perhaps it was just my bias, but it seemed more of the brown liquid poured down his neck and his shirt than ever went down his gullet. He winked as I watched.
I tried to protest, to point it out. “He's not even drink—”
But now my mouth was filled with whiskey. Or moonshine. Or some other horrible draft. I didn't know my liquors. I avoided them. For this very reason. Drunkenness suppressed the Wit. It would also hamper the Blessed.
The old way. A duel to the death between two drunks.
And people wonder why there is no respect for tradition.
Hands pressed at my cheeks, forcing my mouth open, but I snarled and shoved the offending graysuit. “Allow me!” I snapped as he stumbled back and snarled.
I ripped the bottle up, tipped it and poured it down my throat, swallowing the stinging, acerbic concoction despite every instinct in me pleading for me not to.
Finished, I tipped the bottle to allow the faintest drop to fall. “See!” I snapped, my throat burning, my mouth tingling. “Empty!” I tossed the bottle off against a wall. It shattered, glass going everywhere.
Admiral's shirt collar was stained with half the liquid he'd been meant to drink. Both of us glared at each other a moment longer.
And briefly, standing there, waiting for the alcohol to take its effect, my eyes wandered towards the treasure cart.
Piles of rubies and sapphires and diamonds had been pressed to the side. I spotted more than one bulging pocket among the Gentle Hand. But there, sitting on top of the lot, I spotted something else.
A small, wooden chest, with a large N burned into the wood above a silver latch.
I stared at the item where it nestled between pearls and moonore. Hades' mark on my chest prickled, and shivers trembled down my spine.
I raised a shaking hand, pointing towards the chest. “What is—”
But my question was drowned by a sudden cheer. “The circle is here!” the corporal's voice called. Hands grabbed at me, pulled. Admiral hopped from the cart on his own accord. Preacher whispered. “His hands, Leon. Trust me!”
I only had enough time to take a darting step forward, snatching the small, wooden chest. Preacher noticed my motion, his eyes bugging. He blocked my movement with his large frame. I slipped the small wooden chest into my pocket. I wanted to examine it closer. What did Hades want with something so innocuous?
But before I could examine it, hands began to grab, pull, yank and shove. Admiral and I were both prodded towards the cobblestone road between the tall buildings, in front of the silver gate. As I stumbled, I blinked, frowning. Was that a faint buzzing sound? Were my hands shaking? I forgot about the small chest now.
