Renegade Read online

  When the beatings had become unbearable six months later, Billos had arranged an accident that had put Blaken on crutches. Permanently.

  “How did you suddenly become my slave?” he demanded, flummoxed by her strained connections. “I’m trying to save us here, for the sake of Elyon!”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think you’re trying to save your own neck for the sake of Billos, That’s the way you’ve always been. It’s always about Billos, isn’t it?”

  “I think my sister is right,” Karas said.

  Billos looked at the young converted Horde and suppressed the flashing impulse to level his gun at her. Why was he so bothered by these three intruders?

  “And I think you’re both going to get us all killed, ” he snapped. “This is complete nonsense! If you can’t do what needs to be done, then leave.”

  Darsal stared at him for a moment longer, then set her jaw and averted her eyes. “Where are the books?”

  Something clicked deep inside of Billos’s mind with those words. Something that sounded as much like Marsuvees Black as him. The books, Billos, she’s here for the books.

  At first he didn’t fully understand the significance of this suggestion, because it seemed a bit obvious. Then another thought whispered through his head. She’ll take the books and leave you powerless. And he knew she would, to protect him, she would say.

  You know what that makes her, don’t you Billy-babe? His mind remained blank. A traitor who will end up cutting you off at the knees and shoving her heel in your face.

  Darsal shoved her gun under her tunic and strode for the door. She grabbed the handle and pulled it open.

  “What are you doing?” Billos demanded. “You’ll give us away!”

  She stood in the open doorway and drilled him with a glare. “Will I? They don’t know me as a threat. Unlike you, I haven’t killed here.”

  “You’re dressed like a complete stranger.”

  “Then they’ll find me a curiosity, not a threat. Now, tell me where you saw the books.”

  “Get back inside!” he snapped, waving his gun in her direction.

  Instead she took a step outside. “An eating establishment, you said?” She looked up and down the street, then settled on a building to her right. “On the shelf above the counter. Shouldn’t be hard.” Back to him: “I suggest you toss the black Shataiki getup and follow me.”

  “She makes sense,” Papa said, crossing to the front door.

  “Are you mad? If Darsal looks like a complete stranger to them, you look like a monster with your diseased skin!”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Papa shot back gruffly. “You’re assuming this place has no Horde. The Horde probably rule here!”

  “I didn’t see any.”

  “Because this is a diseased village that—”

  “Shut up!” Karas was following as well.

  Billos waved his gun again. “Get inside, all of you.”

  “Or?” Darsal challenged.

  “Or you’ll shoot my sister, whom you supposedly love?” Karas demanded.

  “I might choose you instead. Or the monster.”

  “No, you won’t,” Papa said, spitting to one side.

  “Don’t presume to know the way things work in this new place. All bets are off. I’d pray for the chance to kill you in the desert. Maybe Elyon would answer that prayer here, in Paradise.”

  “Then Paradise would be your fall,” Darsal said. “You said that the suhupow makes a loud boom when it kills. This enemy of yours would come running like rats to the hole. Has this DELL-god robbed your mind as well as your heart?”

  Then she walked into the street, followed promptly by Papa and Karas.

  Billos stood in the All Right Convenience store dressed in black, holding his gun and at a complete loss as to what he should do.

  So he began to swear bitterly under his breath.

  arsal may have never walked out into the village had she not been so perturbed with Billos. But these past few days, spent slogging through the desert on a desperate mission to save his skinny neck after he’d abandoned her, had robbed her of the grace she’d offered him for years. His dismissal of her raked on her nerves like a saw.

  She marched along the sidewalk toward the building called Smither’s Barbeque. Two men in strange blue costumes were entering, holding their guns up near their heads. She briefly wondered if the weapons also doubled as listening devices.

  “You’re just going to walk in?” Papa asked.

  “Now you’re afraid of being Horde?” She glanced back at the large man with flaking white skin. His leather armor, which wasn’t so different from her own, might prevent their blending as much as his skin.

  “I told you, you should have bathed,” Karas said.

  Papa grunted.

  Ahead of them, the outer screened door to the eatery banged shut on its own. Two coils of wire seemed to be responsible for the closing. Darsal scanned the rest of the village. The buildings themselves were square and not so unusual looking, but the buggies were made of many colors of metal. No horses that she could see.

  Tall metal poles with glass hoods perched atop; smooth black rock laid down as the main road; glass windows everywhere; strange costumes such as those worn by the two warriors who’d entered the eatery—these were the stuff of suhupow that had swept Billos off his feet and made him so power hungry.

  “Keep your weapons covered,” Darsal said, mounting the steps.

  “How do I hide the sword?”

  “Toss it. Karas, give your gun to Papa. But hide it. We want no fight.”

  She pushed the door open and stepped in, intending to show no concern. But the scene inside stopped her cold. One of the blue costumed warriors lay unmoving on her left, and three other bodies had been arranged side by side just beyond. Billos’s little war in the eatery had left its mark.

  “Hold up!”

  She looked up at a warrior who was pointing a gun at her. One of the two who’d just entered. He spoke quickly into a small black box in his left hand.

  “Come back, Pete; how’d you say the perp was dressed?”

  The box spoke back. “Black trench coat,” it said,

  Karas spoke the wonder on all their minds. “Is that suhupow?”

  Darsal knew it had to be. Surely no man was small enough, no matter what world, to fit into such a small box. The two warriors seemed as stunned by them as they were by the talking box. They fixed their eyes on Papa.

  “No quick moves,” the one said.

  Darsal lifted her hands to set him at ease. “We mean no harm.”

  “What’s with him?” the warrior asked, nodding at Papa. “Are you contagious, buddy?”

  “Papa,” the Scab said. “My name is Papa, not Buddy.”

  “Yes,” Karas said. “Papa is contagious.”

  The man immediately lifted a hand to shield his mouth and nose. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “Nonsense!” Papa boomed. “She’s only making trouble. Depending on how you look at it, one of us has a skin condition, and for the sake of argument I’ll accept the role. But it can’t spread!”

  “Then how did you get it?” Karas pushed.

  Darsal glanced at the young girl. “Karas, please.”

  “I’ve always had it,” Papa said.

  “You turned into a Scab when evil was released from the Forbidden Circle. If you bathed in one of the lakes, you might know that.”

  It occurred to Darsal that crafty prodding by Karas might play to their advantage. She scanned the shelf above the counter.

  On it sat four Books of History, exactly as Billos said he’d seen the three. Clearly the books ended up here when one entered them. And if he was right, only they could see them. Their way back to the forests waited for them.

  Then again, these four books could also take anyone to Earth, the Earth that Alucard had traded his book for, wherever that was.

  It was strange to think that at this very moment they were neithe
r in the desert reality nor in this reality called Earth, but trapped somewhere between. In the cover. “In the skin of the worlds,” as Alucard had said.

  Darsal shivered. You’ve made a mistake, girl. A very bad mistake that will haunt more than you.

  “Forgive them,” she said to the first warrior who—evidently concluding that he was faced with imbeciles rather than killers— lowered his gun. “Karas is right. Papa is diseased, as you can clearly see. It affects his mind as well as his flesh. The physician sent us here for four books, one of which contains the cure to his disease. He said they’d be on the shelf behind the counter.”

  The warrior followed her glance to what he perceived was an empty shelf, then regarded her evenly. “Books, eh? Even so, this isn’t exactly a clinic. What would medical books be doing here?”

  “Not medical books. Books of History that mention this uncommon disease.”

  “Disease called what?”

  “Called Teeleh,” Karas said.

  Darsal nodded. “Teeleh.”

  “And what’s with the armor?” the second warrior asked, speaking for the first time.

  “It protects us,” Karas offered.

  “Then why aren’t you wearing any?”

  “Teeleh is more effective in grown-ups.”

  The warrior seemed to be judging her words carefully. “What’s the name of this physician?”

  “Why do you ask so many questions?” Karas wanted to know.

  “Because I think you’re hiding something. Give me the name of the physician, and we’ll check out your story.”

  “His name is Thomas of Hunter,” Karas said, as if she had no doubt in the matter.

  He lifted the black box and spoke into it again. “Pete, track down a doctor named Thomas Hunter and get back to me as soon as you’ve located him.”

  Darsal knew that they’d bought some time, but none of this would help them when they found no physician named Hunter.

  “Without the armor, you’re likely to be infected by now,” Karas said.

  “You really expect me to believe any of this?”

  The girl shrugged. “Then you, too, can look like Papa. And smell like him. Like rotten eggs.”

  The man swallowed, eyes on Papa.

  “At least let us look at the books,” Darsal said.

  “What books?”

  Darsal stepped forward. “I’ll show you.”

  “Easy now!”

  “You want to see the books, I’ll show you. If I go for anything but the books, feel free to level fire at me. Fair?”

  He didn’t answer, which she took as encouragement enough to slip past the counter and reach for the four books. In her hands they appeared perfectly natural; it struck her as odd that the warrior couldn’t see them.

  She faced him, four books tight between her two palms.

  He looked from her hands to her eyes, lost momentarily in that gaze that clearly expressed pity for one’s foolishness. She had to get one book to each of the others without interference from the warriors. Better now, quickly, before he grew difficult.

  “You don’t see them?” she demanded, stepping forward.

  “Stop.”

  She stopped.

  He pressed the lever on the side of the box and issued an order. “Never mind that last order, Pete. Bring the car around. I have three suspects I want you to put in custody.”

  “Copy that. No listing of a Hunter here anyway.”

  The warrior nodded and lifted his gun again. “Any of you happen to be carrying a nine-millimeter pistol?”

  Darsal nonchalantly slid the books under the counter in full view of the officer. He undoubtedly saw only her setting nothing on the shelf. And when the time was right, he would see all three of them picking nothing up off the shelf before vanishing.

  But first this annoyance at explaining that they had nothing to do with the slain warriors on the floor.

  “Hands up where I can see them!” the man snapped. Darsal lifted both arms.

  illos stood in the storeroom alone, fighting a terrible volley of conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he knew that Darsal was right to level her glares at him. He was the one who’d gotten them into this fix in the first place.

  He’d broken ranks and abandoned her, knowing deep inside that she would follow because she was as loyal as a puppy dog— had been ever since he rescued her. And he had been as loyal to her.

  But he couldn’t deny the fact that he hated the way she was acting now. From the moment she’d stuck her head into his business here, liking her had been a challenge. Something was wrong with her.

  Or with you, Billos.

  Nonsense.

  Still, he knew that he’d changed a little since becoming aware of the power at his fingertips. Marsuvees Black was both intoxicating and disturbing, as was all true power. Darsal stood in the way of that power. The question was whether her doing so was a good thing or a bad thing.

  A low voice spoke on his left. “They’re going to string you up like a straw doll.”

  Billos whipped his gun around and faced Marsuvees Black, who leaned against the rear wall. The black-clad man was grinning, picking his teeth with a tiny spike of wood. His big hands looked as if they could crush a face like a tomato.

  Billos found his voice. “What?”

  “You started out well, my man. Put four of them on their backs and returned to finish it all—not bad for a scrapper from the past.”

  “Six,” Billos said. “The two with the sticks and balls …”

  “That’s a pool table.”

  “One behind the counter.”

  “And the counter is a bar.”

  “One warrior at the door.”

  “A cop,” Black said.

  “And the two singers.”

  Black hesitated. “That’s a jukebox. It runs on electricity, not blood. Doesn’t count.”

  “All with suhupow,” Billos said.

  “Bullets, my man. The gun shoots bullets.” Black straightened. “The point is you got a handful, and that’s just fine. But there are a couple hundred more, and I want you to kill every single one of them. Like Joshua in the battle of Jericho. Don’t leave a single one of them breathing. You hearing me?”

  Now it was Billos’s turn to hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Well, you don’t sound or look Yes to me. You look a bit like a ghost in a black costume.”

  Black was insulting him. Anger flared up Billos’s neck. What was to say he couldn’t tilt up the suhupow gun and put this thug on his back right now?

  The man’s hand blurred. He transformed in the blink of an eye from casual observer to warrior, clutching a gun he’d snatched off his hip. His lips twisted with each word.

  “I don’t think you understand who you’re dealing with, sugar lips.”

  Another insult, no doubt. But Billos had to admit, Black would prove to be a monstrous adversary. Best to deal with his kind in kind.

  “Did I threaten you, you black slug?”

  A smile pulled at the edges of Black’s mouth. He spun the weapon in his hand as if it were a toy, then slammed it home in the scabbard on his hip. He withdrew his hand and cracked his knuckles.

  “Can I have one of those?” Billos asked.

  “Slap your hip, baby. The holster will be there.”

  The suhupow Black brought with him was enough to make Billos’s head spin. He impulsively spun his gun, poorly mimicking the man’s move, and shoved it down against his hip. The gun slapped into a holster.

  Billos withdrew his hand and cracked his knuckles.

  “Just a tad juvenile, don’t you think? I know how good it feels. Trust me, the feelings that come with true power will make your knees tremble. I can make your wildest fantasy real.”

  It occurred to Billos that the slight tremble now in his fingers was the result of desire. He’d never felt it so strongly.

  “Or I can cut you to ribbons and feed you to the crows. Which, to be perfectly honest, happens to be my wildest fant
asy.”

  “Assuming you could,” Billos said, only slightly alarmed.

  “And that’s why I chose you.”

  “What is?”

  “The fact that you’re so full of yourself that you actually believe I won’t ruin you for life. Takes a strong fool to knowingly play with me. A king. The chosen one. You, baby.”

  Billos wasn’t sure how to take these backhanded compliments. But he did know that his fingers were still trembling.

  “Are you ready to hunt?” Black asked.

  The village outside had gone strangely quiet. “I was born ready.”

  “Then get me the books. And kill them all.”

  “Stop talking my ear off and I will.”

  “And to make up for your stupidity, I want you to bring me the imposters, Dorksel included. Share the spoils.”

  “How do you know they’re imposters?”

  He ignored the question. “Kill the big creep; bring me the two pop tarts.”

  Billos stared at the door. He could feel, maybe hear, a bead of sweat breaking past his temple.

  “It’s all about the books, baby,” Black said softly. “You know she’s an imposter, because she’ll come between you and the books. So you choose between the power of the books and this one imposter who may mean something now but will mean nothing when you’re on top. Think of it as your sacrifice, the only one I’m asking you to make for me.”

  The tremble in Billos’s fingers was now motivated by something more than desire. Destiny and fear, all mixed into one heady, powerful emotion.

  “You choose between yourself and her. Give me one or the other. The crows are waiting.”

  What choice did he have? Even the Roush had commanded him to retrieve the books. Well, he’d found them, hadn’t he? And now Darsal was standing in his way. On the other hand, even though he didn’t feel it now, he cared for Darsal. More than he’d ever admitted to her.

  “Fine,” Billos said. But when he turned back to face the man with his decision, Black was gone.