Landfall (The Reach, Book 2) (15 page)

The boy gave a little whimper.

“Wake up, Ciro.  Wake up and look at me.”

Rojas had taken possession of over a dozen children from Hoyer Honeybul in the last year.  They had all been around fifteen years of age, the age that Ciro would be in his reincarnated form, and this one was no different.  He was a handsome boy with a certain innocence about his features, but that did not necessarily mean he did not have the demon within him.  Ciro was devious, a deceiver.  He would take whatever form allowed him to carry out his evil deeds most effectively.

Rojas always found judging the children by the photographs alone a difficult task.  There was only so much one could tell from pixels on a screen.  To effectively discern the true nature of the child, Rojas had to see them in person.  He had to take his time, look upon them when they were vulnerable.  That way Ciro, the demon, could not so easily mask his presence.

The boy lifted his heavy eyelids, bleary-eyed and confused.

“Where am I?” he said, his voice thick.

“Look at me, Ciro,” Rojas said, his anticipation growing.  “You can’t hide forever.”

“What happened to me?” the boy said.  “Where’s Mr. Honeybul?”

Rojas gripped the boy’s jaw and firmly turned his head so that he could look at him directly.

“Let me see you, Ciro.”

“That’s not my name,” the boy said, finally opening his eyes fully and staring at Rojas.  “I’m Roman.”

“Is that so?” Rojas said doubtfully.  “Has that always been so?”

“What are you talking about?” Roman said, dazed.

“Do you remember me, boy?  Have you seen me before?”

“No.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No.  Stop, that hurts.”

Rojas realised he was squeezing the boy’s jaw hard enough to make his cheeks red.  He released his grip, leaving ghostly white finger marks on the boy’s face.

“You’re weak,” Rojas said distastefully.  “Pathetic.”

“I don’t understand…”

Perhaps too weak.

Rojas felt his excitement begin to wane.  There was no spark, no menace in this one’s eyes.  The real Ciro would not have lain there like a limp turd.  Even through the drug haze
,
Rojas could see that he had been wrong to think that this could be the one.  The demon was not lurking inside.

It was another dead end.

He sighed and turned away, deflated.  All of his hopes had come to nothing once again.  He picked up his holophone from the table and pressed a button.

“Yefim, it’s not him.  It’s not the one.  We’ll need to perform another disposal.  Make the arrangements.”  He waited for a response, but there was nothing.  “Yefim?”

Rojas cursed and put the phone back in his pocket, then opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.

If that bastard is watching naked women again–

Someone bashed loudly on the front door and Rojas stopped suddenly in the living room, frowning.  What was going on?  Yefim had been explicitly told that there were to be no interruptions.

Something was wrong.

Rojas turned and hastened back toward the boy’s room.  As he reached the door
, something blurred toward him and he felt a tremendous blow across his jaw, rocking him backward and
making him stumble.  There was another blow to his cheekbone that made the world spin, and then he was on the floor.

The boy.  It’s the boy.

As he hit the carpet, Roman’s weight was upon him.  Rojas looked up to see the boy hunkering over him, all traces of the drug stupor gone from his eyes.  Those blue eyes were now clear and full of intent.

“You move and this goes through your eyeball,” Roman snarled, holding the syringe just above Rojas’ face.

“Yes,” Rojas said, nodding obediently.  “I understand.”

“Now listen carefully, asshole.  You’re going to roll over. 
Slowly.
  Then I’m going to tie you up, just like you did to me.”

“Very well.”

“And if you don’t do everything I ask, and I mean
everything
, I’m going to severely fuck you up.”

“Yes.  I’ll do as you say.”

Roman gripped him by the shoulder and turned him over.  He took a rope that he’d stuffed under his arm and began to tie Rojas’ wrists behind his back, making no attempt to be gentle.

“How did you slip your bonds?” Rojas said, wincing as Roman pulled sharply on the rope.

“I’m good with knots,” Roman said.  “I can tie a hundred of them.  Untie them, too.”

“And you pretended to be asleep.”

Roman moved down to Rojas’ ankles.  “Yeah.  You’re catching up.”

“Very clever.  You deceived me, no doubt.”

“Does Honeybul know about this?” Roman said.  “Is he in on it?”

Rojas only smiled over his shoulder at him, saying nothing.

Just then the front door slammed open, and Roman hastily finished the knot before getting to his feet.  A man appeared in the living room, but it was not Yefim.  He was slim with dark hair and a bloodied face, dressed in maintenance gear.

His eyes fell upon the boy and a look of intense joy and relief came across his face.

“Roman!” he exclaimed.  “Thank god.”

Roman seemed utterly dumbfounded to see the newcomer.  He stood there disbelieving.

“Knile?” Roman said.  “What are you doing here?  And what happened to your face?”

“I had a disagreement with the guy outside the door.”  Knile glanced over at Rojas.  “The rest I’ll explain later.”  He reached the boy and gave him a tremendous hug, lifting him off the ground in his enthusiasm.  The boy awkwardly returned the gesture, seemingly embarrassed by the show of affection.

“What about him?” Roman said as Knile released him.  He turned to look at Rojas.

“Looks like you’ve already taken care of that,” Knile said.  “Let’s get out of here.  The Enforcers won’t be far away.”

The two of them headed for the door without further delay, leaving Rojas lying there on the floor, immobilised, battered and bruised.

But Rojas was still smiling.

He had found the demon after all.

15

Talia thumped on the door for the third time, her fist stinging from the force with which she had struck it.  She cast a fearful glance over her shoulder, expecting to see the men behind her again, but out on the street she could see nothing but anonymous faces in the crowd as people meandered past.

“Bagley, open up!” she shouted.  “It’s Talia.”

She thumped once more, then let out a sigh
of exasperation.  She wasn’t getting anywhere.  Either Bagley wasn’t here, or he had no intention of letting her in.  Either way there was no point waiting around.

She half turned, and then there was a shuffling sound on the other side of the door, and finally the slot in the entrance slid open.  Bagley’s eyes appeared through the narrow opening, flitting left and right to check the surroundings before settling on Talia’s face.  His brows were knitted crossly as he regarded her.

“What the fuck do you want?” he spat.

“You’re angry, I can see that, but just listen.”  She took a deep breath.  “I need help.  There are people after me.”

“And why the hell would I care?”

“Look, I know I missed the deadline–”

“You’re damn right you missed the fuckin’ deadline.”

“–but I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

Bagley made an irritated huffing sound.  “I needed those ballonets delivered this morning.”  He glared at her.  “You do know that we can’t complete the dirigible without them, right?”

“Are you listening to me, Bagley?  There are lowlifes after me.  I was kidnapped, for fuck’s sake.  How was I supposed to get the ballonets to you when I was strapped to a damn–
?”

“Is that my problem?  You’ve got a job to do.  You didn’t do it.  End of story.”

“A job that I’ve never failed to complete until now,” she said.  She glanced over her shoulder again.  “Have I?  Tell me the last time I didn’t make a shipment on time.”

“You cost me a lot of money, Talia.  The deal fell through because of you.”

“I’ll make it up to you–”

“No,” Bagley said, his eyes narrowing further.  “You won’t.  We’re done, Talia.”

She stared at him, astonished.  “What?”

“You heard me.  Our arrangement ends here.”

“Look, if you’d let me in, we can talk about this.  I’m sure we can–”

“I don’t know what you think this is, whether I’m running some sort of charity here.  We aren’t friends, you and me.  We’re in business together.  When you screw up, that costs me money, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t personally have a lot of spare creds to throw away.”

“I know that, but just because I–”

The slot slammed home and Talia was left with her mouth gaping open, alone on the doorstep once again.  She drew her lips back against her teeth and clenched her fist.

“Asshole!” she shouted, giving the door one last thump.  She was fuming now, stunned that Bagley could dismiss her so easily after she’d known him for so long.  When she thought about it, however, it shouldn’t have been such a great surprise.  The man had been lowering his payments for some time, obviously feeling the squeeze financially, and Talia had wondered how long it would take before he found someone else to build the ballonets, someone who was cheaper and probably far less skilled than Talia.

It didn’t matter now.  The decision had been made and there was nothing she could do about it.

She turned away from the door, and as she looked out across the street she saw the man in the cowl coming through the crowd again.  The man who, underneath that mediocre disguise, looked a lot like Crumb.

And now there were three other men following on his heels.

“Shit.”

Talia hastened away from Bagley’s door, stepping in amongst the crowd in an attempt to hide her passage.

She’d been trying to shake these guys for hours, ever since she’d escaped the factory, but so far she’d been unsuccessful.  Crumb and his men were street smart – they’d lived here just as long as she had, and they knew their way around.  They weren’t going away anytime soon.

And now with Bagley’s door receding behind her, she had one less option for finding somewhere safe to stay.

“Ungrateful bastard,” she muttered, still seething that Bagley had turned her away.  “Go and find someone else to build you cheap ballonets, see how long the floaters stay in the air.”

Forget about Bagley.  Find another option.

She took another deep breath and weighed up her situation.  She’d considered returning home and locking herself inside her house, but she knew that wouldn’t do.  Crumb knew where she lived.  He and his buddies would kick her door in without a second thought, and then she’d be back at square one.

The Enforcers?

She smiled sardonically to herself at the thought.  The men in black would be the least likely to offer her help in a situation like this.  Perhaps if she could scrape together enough creds for a bribe they would give her temporary safe harbour, but for how long?  A few days?  A week?  When she inevitably hit the streets again, Crumb and the others would be waiting.

She’d considered returning to Grove but dismissed the idea almost immediately.  It was only through luck that she had gotten inside last time, and she suspected Crumb and Capper might have more men stationed there to intercept her should she try to return.

With me being Giroux’s whore and all,
she thought sarcastically.

She became all too aware of how isolated she’d become in her own city in recent times.  The friends she had once hung out with had all moved on, and she’d been left to her own devices day after day, slaving away in her basement, working toward some imaginary and unreachable future.  Now she had no one to call upon in her time of need.

You’re alone, and you deserve it.

With a chill she realised that she’d completely forgotten about Roman during her flight from Crumb and the others.  She’d been so preoccupied with keeping one step ahead of them that she’d allowed her mission to slip her mind.  A part of her, a hateful and selfish part of her mind
asked whether she should simply concentrate on her own welfare for now, but she quickly pushed it away.

No.  I’m not leaving Roman in the lurch.  Not for a second time.

So that settled it.  She would have to return to Grove, despite the risks.  She had to get a warning through to Roman–

Her holophone rang, startling her with its suddenness.  She snatched it from her pocket and looked at the display.  There was an
incoming audio call from the number that Knile had last called her from before he’d left a couple of days ago.

Who the hell is this?  Knile’s off-world by now.  Did someone steal his phone and hit the redial button?