Through the Grey, page 30
“For the love of everything, don’t move,” Redmayne said. “Open your suit and give me one of your blades.”
“Over your dead body.”
Redmayne snorted. “Later, mate. Look, I know these are the worst of circumstances, but you have got to trust me. Fiore’s a right bastard and he doesn’t mean either of us any good—you don’t imagine he’s dragging me back to play tiddlywinks, do you?”
“No.”
“Then listen. Back in the day, I didn’t just work with Fiore, I was his boss. The ambitious little prick didn’t like that and had plans to put me under his boot same as you are. We needed a necromancer and I couldn’t get rid of him, so I damned m'self to Hell and took a hard way down so he couldn’t drag me back by blood and fire. With my funny talent, you can imagine how that would have gone. Fiore wants to make this homecoming hurt and I’ve a mind to deny him that pleasure, but Limbo’s the only place my plan can work. Straight truth—I need you or we’re neither one of us coming up for air. So, what’s it gonna be? Time’s almost up.”
She grinned and Redmayne shivered at the sight. “Oh, I’m in.”
The carmine light whirled away and she tumbled through the nothing. They were torn apart, tossed, and spat out.
Peacock lurched into a smoking cavern and sprawled on the floor. Both her knives, the map, and the pack’s contents were scattered around her, but Redmayne was gone. She yanked up her suit zipper and gathered the junk Redmayne had collected. She didn’t even consider running—there was nowhere to go that Fiore couldn’t follow except Hell itself and she wasn’t ready to return to that venue just yet. She had other things to do.
She hiked out and found a retrieval team waiting for her in the fuming bowl of a West Virginia hillside—another unending coal mine fire. And there was Redmayne, held by two goons, bound in silver, and still wounded. Pallor turned his dark skin gray where it wasn’t abraded or lacerated scarlet, and he was so gaunt he looked ready to shatter, but he snarled and fought every attempt to stanch his wounds until his captors gave up and left him to bleed.
“Hurt much?” she muttered, keeping clear of him.
“Like hell.”
First a helicopter, then a plane, another heli, and they were delivered to Fiore’s office. Their escort had already patted her down and confiscated her knives as well as the pack—at least he didn’t make me undress, the creep. He marched them to the desk where Fiore stood, handed over the pack, and left. The sound-proofed door shushed closed behind him.
The necromancer smiled. “Nice job, Em—bit slow, but no harm done.” He turned his attention to Redmayne. “Welcome back, Lennie.”
“Fiore, you black-hearted, murdering sod.” He didn’t even sound angry.
“Oh come on, Redmayne. You were never really Director material, talent or not. And it was so good of you to—”
Peacock stepped between them. “You shot me, you son of a bitch.” She whipped one hand out for his throat.
Fiore grabbed her wrist and wrenched her hand aside. “I always knew you’d get wise.” He glanced at Redmayne. “Did you tell her?”
Redmayne scoffed weakly. The wound on his chest was still oozing blood. “After my time, mate. Think she couldn’t figure it out herself, you silly, fat bastard?”
Peacock jerked her arm against Fiore’s hold and he yanked her farther sideways with a snarl. She propelled herself into the motion, jumping and sliding onto the desktop to ram her near foot into the necromancer’s gut. He dropped his grip and she rolled off with a gratuitous kick toward his face as she passed. Fiore reeled back and shook his head clear.
The pack fell and spilled rocks and bits of black armor across the rug. Peacock dove and grabbed the sharp bit of scale she’d used on Redmayne.
Fiore took a step and kicked her in the side, rolling her hard against the wall.
Peacock flipped and used her legs to thrust herself upright against the vertical surface. Fiore closed the distance and she slashed at him, back to the wall.
He snatched for her hand and caught her forearm, crushing his weight against her. He rammed her into the plaster. “Temper, temper, Emily,” Fiore murmured. “I figured I’d have to scrub you soon, but with Lennie back…I won’t miss you that much.”
He started muttering under his breath. She felt her existence unravelling around the edges, but he’d have to cut her throat to finish it, and right now his hands were busy. She rammed a knee upward. It was feeble but enough to cut off his breath for a moment. C’mon, Redmayne…
“You set this up from the beginning, you rat bastard,” she snapped. “Hired me, killed me, drew me back up so you could run me. You sent me to Hell for your own amusement—”
From his knees, Redmayne heaved his bound weight upward against the desk and it rocked into the necromancer’s back.
Fiore twisted a furious glare over his shoulder as Redmayne staggered. Peacock seized the opening and slashed at Fiore with the sharp bit of armor. It grazed off his ear. Fiore whipped around, snapping Peacock’s wrist with the motion. The blade dragged down her cheek as he flung her toward Redmayne.
Peacock tucked into a ball and her cut cheek slapped hard into the bleeding wound on Redmayne’s chest.
Redmayne vanished and Peacock collapsed to the floor in his place.
Fiore strode over and dragged Peacock to her feet. He held her by the throat and shook her as she hung stiffly from his hands.
“Lennie!” Fiore shouted. He glared around the room. “Come out! You know how I’ll kill her and you don’t want to watch that.”
There was a rough hiss near Fiore’s back and Peacock choked in his grasp. She muttered, “You can fucking try, mate, but it’ll be a bloody good trick when she’s behind you.”
Peacock’s appearance melted away and revealed Redmayne snarling in Fiore’s grip.
Less than a foot from Fiore’s spine, Peacock herself, her leathers unzipped to the waist, yanked a needle carved from the hell lord’s claw out of a slit in the skin below her breast. She jabbed it an inch into her boss’s neck.
Fiore twitched and dropped Redmayne. A black cloud erupted from the floor beneath Fiore and engulfed him. The dark smoke swirled and writhed to his screams, binding him within its coil, then flowed away again like ink down a drain and dragged the necromancer with it. Only an echo and the stink of hot iron lingered to mark their passage.
The air was thick and still with anticipation. Then the desk groaned and toppled. Peacock jumped back from it with a startled hiss.
She laughed in relief and flopped down next to Redmayne in the sound-proofed silence. Fiore’s guys knew better than to interrupt while he was working, so she could afford a moment to catch her breath. She picked up a hell-baked stone and crushed it in her grip to rub the dust into her broken wrist and scatter the rest onto Redmayne’s chest. Blood ran down her cheek from the cut she’d put there, but she ignored it. “Well. I wasn’t sure about that hell lord’s claw, but it seemed to work. Where do you suppose it sent Fiore?”
“You can’t guess from the reek? I’d lay odds he’s having a natter with the original owner about now.”
“Aww…and I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
Her wrist straightened with a sound like popcorn exploding. “Ow,” she yelped. She shook out her hand and wiggled her fingers, then zipped her suit closed, and helped Redmayne into a sitting position. “I have never been so glad for stupid men—the guy who frisked me was too busy copping a feel to notice that damned needle.”
“To be fair it was rather small and you’ve got some nasty scars to hide it under,” Redmayne replied and squirmed. “Could you get these shackles off me? Right irritating they are.”
Peacock drew a couple of picks from the seams of her leathers and started on the lock.
Redmayne watched her work. “I’d not count him out entirely yet. Necromancers don’t just walk back out of Hell, but he’s still alive down there until something kills him, and he’ll be looking for a way out.”
“Like you did?” she said, opening up the restraints.
“Ta,” he said, rubbing at his arms and wrists. “Nah. I started by looking for a way in, but I’d never been to Hell and I had to guess a lot and go on theory. Then I had to find the right liminal point and make sure I had someone I could trust to get rid of my remains, had to figure out exactly how black and which shade of damnation my soul had to wear to land in exactly the right place, had to leave bits of intrigue behind that only I could solve for him… I knew he’d have to send someone for me eventually. Bit of luck it was you.”
“Luck?”
Redmayne nodded self-consciously. “Yeah. I didn’t have much of a plan for when I got out. It was chatting you up made it come together, but Fiore laid the ground himself. If he hadn’t bent you over, you’d have had no cause to throw in with me.”
Peacock gave him a cynical look. “You had no plan at all? You didn’t know I was coming, didn’t trick me into attracting that lord’s attention so you could get its claw?”
“Maybe the claw I did. The rest was mostly the happenstance of you being you and saving my arse. I’m not so bleeding clever or I’d have come up with some way to avoid the whole thing. At the time, we couldn’t run the Directory without a necromancer and T-in-Chief didn’t have the kind of power that Fiore’s built up since then. And I’m not good at killing people—all that—”
“All that blood,” Peacock finished. “You’re a twisty bit of work, Redmayne. I’m still wondering what happens to me now that Fiore’s gone. I’m surprised I haven’t dropped dead already. And how much better off are you? I mean, technically you’re what—some kind of hellspawn, now?”
Redmayne shrugged and grimaced. “Well, hellborn, yeah—bit of an affinity after walking out. This body looks the same as what Fiore murdered—or it will when I’m not portal-sick—but I’m not sure yet on the functional details of living in this world in flesh created in Hell.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
“I guess.” Redmayne gave her a crooked smile. “Think I can get me old job back?”
Peacock started scavenging in the wreckage for weapons. “I’m willing to help you try.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
These stories came from many places, published and unpublished, and I couldn't have got them here without the help of original editors Jon and Ruth Jordan, Monica Valentinelli and Jaym Gates, Jim Thompson, Shawn Speakman, Stephen Antczak and James Bassett, Kerry L. Huges and Jim Butcher, and Anne Sowards; ditto the amazing work of Falstaff Books' Publisher and Editor in Chief John Hartness, and Melissa McArthur; the unending patience and support of my spouse Mr. Kat; and the miracle work of tech boffins at iDope Poulsbo who resurrected my [expletive deleted] laptop. Thanks to Vladimir Verano for setting the chapbook version of Chemotherapy from which the version here is adapted, and to Ken George, for whom I wrote the original draft of Shattered a very long time ago. Much love and thanks to Charlaine Harris, who has been a great friend since the beginning.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kat Richardson is currently wandering loose through the mountains of Western Washington in a trailer with two dogs and a husband. It's even her own husband. Along the way she has been an actor, singer, costumer, Renaissance Faire performer, dancer, writing instructor, seller of beanie babies, and a freelance editor. She is the author of nine bestselling novels in the Greywalker series, one award-winning SF novel, and a few unspeakable things that live in an electronic trunk. Trust me, it's better that way....
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Collection Copyright ©2021 by Kat Richardson
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Kat Richardson, Through the Grey
